Catching Up (Again)

So, lessee:

A week ago tonight, niece Felicia and I rendezvous'd for a movie ("Angels & Demons" inspiring us both to want to spend time in Rome) then crossed the square for dessert at a fairly new-ish French-ish restaurant, the Rendez Vous, haha, that was actually open at 10:00 p.m. on a Tuesday, a rarity in my town. It was lovely to see her and I'm trying to come up with other activities that may appeal to a young person. It was so fun to be out so late on a "school night"! I never do that.

Last Thursday I went to a gym acquaintance's art show opening, proud that I went to a social event by myself, fully aware that I probably wouldn't know anyone but the artist. Which turned out to be the case. I actually did stay long enough to chat with her and a couple of other people I didn't know. And really liked her art, which I believe is termed "assemblage"--sculptures of found objects, mostly of the household variety rummaging around at thrift stores.

Friday I scooted out of work a little early to get ready for what I was considering M's coming out party: the local Bar Association's "summer soiree" at a tony local restaurant. It was déjà vu all over again, very much like the alumni association shindigs I used to staff when I worked at NYU years ago--lots of schmoozing amongst professionals who had known each other for years, sprinkled with the newbies. There was one young lady who seemed to resolutely stand out alone in the crowd, and I pointed her out to M--I felt like I was seeing myself in a different incarnation. He tried to engage her in conversation, but was rebuffed, ah well. We were both disappointed in the food, but the wine was good (Chateau Saint Jean, pouring their pinot blanc and merlot). I managed to impress M with my mad professional chatting up skillz. The best part of the night? As I asked for a last "scoche" of wine, the pourer informed me that it was a word of Japanese origin, meaning small of course, and pronounced in two syllables, sko-she. And here I had been thinking it was a word of some sort of Northern European provenance.

M dropped me at home and went in for his sleep study that same night. He returned home early the next morning, haggard and hearkening of Frankenstein what with the metal nubs glued strategically onto his form and hair. Not only had he tried to sleep all hooked up to various machines, but the bed apparently had a bar that crossed his back, so he was only able to get a couple of hours of sleep, poor guy. But it looks like one of those breathing machines is in our future.

Saturday was a mile"stone" in our home improvement tasks--after M was recovered enough from his "sleeping" experience, we put a deposit down on the granite countertops! It felt great. Extra bonus--it was substantially less than we thought it would be! Of course, nothing has happened yet, meaning nothing has had the chance to go horribly awry, and we haven't been washing our dishes in the shower for months, so it was easy to be excited. We also decided to do due appliance diligence on Saturday and visited a couple of local appliance dealers before pulling the final purchase trigger at the Home Depot sale this week…and of course fell in love with a Bosch gas convection range that was a "skoshe" out of our price range. We've been talking ourselves into spending the extra money for it ever since, and today M went back and dickered a bit and…well, we'll hopefully be finalizing the deal tomorrow after work.

Sunday was a wonderful day, marking the beginning of our nesting activities in earnest. Our handyman neighbor was over bright and early and he and M replaced our front door! It is beautiful! It's white and has a big window, so now that corner of the living room is so much brighter. And he charged us a very reasonable price. And it was basically done in a day, so minimal impact on our existence. Particularly mine--I helped with a little trim painting and clean up, and that was it. Mostly out of guilt, I did perform a few household chores while the door was being installed.














This evening was all despair on the home front, however. M and I have been trying to refinance our home loan to take advantage of the recent low rates and thought we had locked in at a smokin' 4.625% deal. Which we hoped would set us up for all kinds of possibilities in the future, including being able to eventually get another loan and therefore another home where we could actually have a dinner party that comfortably seats more that one other person. We learned tonight that something went awry between our agent and lender, and in fact we did not lock in as we had thought. While I know I'm going to be happier here when we've finished our various improvements, it remains that I'm not living in the house I want to yet, and this setback in trying to find a new home has made me really sad. I cursed loudly and almost burst into tears at work when M broke the news to me this afternoon. OK, OK--I also know that overall I'm extremely lucky to even have a home to call my own. I know that. But it's hard to realize that one of the most forward thinking plans we had made for the long term has just fallen through, for no apparent good reason.

Well, I'm sure the buying the new range tomorrow will make me feel much better.