Crawling to the finish line

It’s in site.

Friday at noon. Walk through Friday morning, then sign with these a-holes and call it a day.

It’s funny…we were patient with these people, waited months while rates went up, we had to move out of our apartment and in with her parents, and then they got upset b/c we postponed 4 days. Our lawyer told theirs that they ‘had a lot of nerve’ to get upset or up in arms about this. You can here that angry Jewish man yelling!

Best part is, well we hear that the seller’s are what some people call ‘excitable.’ Our lawyer said their lawyer can’t stand them and just wants to ‘get rid of them.’

A-holes.

Anyhow…celebration time begins!

Of course, then so do renovations.

Shaving off a few days

In solidarity to no one but myself, I’ve decided to stop shaving until we close this friggin apartment. Granted, this will probably happen on Thursday or Friday so it’s not that as big of a gesture as maybe going on a hunger strike or giving up meat for 40 days, but it’s something I can tell myself to keep my sanity while we wait for the final pieces to fall.
Ok, perhaps it’s also the fact that I’m being incredibly lazy and don’t feel like shaving.

(I made this pact to myself this morning…so I really only have about three days of growth).

F-in A, dude

So the drama of our mortgage is yet to subside.

We were all planned for a closing on Monday but due to some unforeseen changes in market rates, we had to adjust and move some things around.

This has caused some last minute, round the clock work on our end to try and bring the closing to an end still on time.

Unfortunately, it looks like we might have to postpone our closing by about 24 or 48 hours. Or at least that’s what we wanted.

Instead, the seller’s attorney wanted to do on the 7th, and frankly, that leaves the seller’s ‘livid.’ I got a call from our real estate broker who kindly vented to me the seller’s frustration at the last minute change in the situation. I tried to reinforce back that we have been more than patient with the sellers in the fact that we delayed the closing by months so they can finish their renovations. Hell, we moved in with Amanda’s parents! I subjected myself to her grandmother in her bathrobe and endless 3 hour conversations.

I can see it from the seller’s point of view. They have two kids and its hard to move things around, but this is just the nature of the beast. We didn’t say anything how that when we put the bid down market rates were down and as we couldn’t lock in a rate since we couldn’t settle on a date the rates went up, which is part of the reason this whole rigmarole began in the first place. Part of me just wants to say “Eat it” because we’ve had to upend our own lives as well. We bid in October, and were accommodating enough to make it work. Hell, we’re being accommodating by pushing the walkthrough to the day of the closing…b/c they needed extra time to pack. Imagine if we found the place was messed up on that day? What a nightmare that would be!

If they don’t want to wait until the 7th, then perhaps they should have their lawyer find a partner to cover for them on the 30th. And they technically don’t even have to be there, since it’s really just about giving them their checks. I guess it’s just frustrating because our broker relayed to us that there is now some “hostility” b/w them and us, as if this was something we planned. It’s an usual situation, but due to the outrageous unpredictability of the market and banks, we needed to change the structure of things.

If they want to be upset, that is fine. Truth be told, this will be done soon and we’ll have our apartment.

But now I feel better at having vented. Shheeeat.

To make myself feel better, I've included a clip that make me laugh.

Stressed!

So we are approaching the end of the closing process and I am approaching the end of my ropes.

I know it’s the little final details that bring this all together so I’m trying to keep my head as I wait for the storm to pass.

It’s just the frustration of all the little things that need to get done!

Monday can’t come soon enough.

I put this little ditty online that makes me laugh. It’s from the place where our wedding was, but not from our wedding.

I don't know if we're going to have enough time...

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything and so I will do my best to encapsulate everything that has been going on.

When we last left off we were still living on a prayer, I mean living in an office, with our stuff scattered everywhere. This was due of course to Amanda’s grandparents coming to stay with us. It was nice to have them there, but we weren’t exactly devastated when it was time for things to get back to ‘normal.’ It’s funny in retrospect now what my concept of normal is…right now ‘normal’ is just living in the same apartment with your in-laws vs. real normal which is having your own place.

I will say that this experience has taught me a lot, and I think it will make me value and appreciate our new apartment when and if we finally get there.

I say “IF” of course, because a lot has happened in the past week.

On Saturday we went with our contractor to look at the apartment and scope out the renovations we would like to do. It’s a lot. New bathroom (including an expansion into the second bedroom), painting the whole place, new lighting fixtures, building closets in the “+” room, and a whole lot more. I could list it out, but it’s too much right now. We are now waiting to see his bid, and hoping that he comes in for our “number.” Ideally, we want to use this guy as he has done work for Amanda before, and since he is a tenant of my father-in-law’s building, we know where to find him and don’t have to worry about him running off. But…if the numbers come in too high and we aren’t happy, then we’re going to have one or two more contractors come in and bid as well. On the same note, we are in the process of figuring out the minatue of what our co-op does and doesn’t allow for renovations. One of their stipulations is that they expect a homeowner to be present during renovations, which is of course unrealistic. Well at least if they want us to be able to afford our mortgage.

At the same time we are putting the final touches on our mortgage and getting everything ready for the closing on the 28th. This has involved my taking up a lot of time talking to lawyers, brokers, and basically taking care of all the little details including getting home owners insurance, life insurance, securing our final 10% down payment and god knows what else.

This weekend Amanda and I are going tile shopping, thus officially turning me into Frank the tank from Old school. “It should be a nice day, some tiling, some lunch, maybe look at paints, but I’m not sure if we’re going to have enough tiiime.”

Pain in the neck.

Note to self:

To fully express what the past week has been like for Amanda and I requires a camera, and quite frankly I keep forgetting to take a picture of our current domicile. This partially could be due to not having had a good night sleep since Sunday.

I admit that Monday night I was able to get the bed part of the day bed on, but when I awoke on Tuesday to find Amanda gone (having slept on the couch in the living room) the Jewish guilt was enough to make me sleep on the cot since then. Of course, my reward for being so chivalrous is to wake up every night half naked with no covers. Ah, such is love.

Of course there are the mornings, the crink in the neck, and the dog jumping on your bed and licking your face. Grandma and Grandpa coming out of their side of the apartment in various states of undress and adding to the the overall social experiment of 3 generations living under the roof. (‘find out what happens when people stop being polite’).

Of course there's also the daily ego bruising of Amanda's grandmother looking at my daily wardrobe and saying, "this is what a gentleman wears to the office?"

I guess it’s a good thing that I’m working so much these days as there basically is no place for Amanda and I to hang out. We haven’t had access to our TV which houses all our shows and my poor PS3 is suffering from wanton neglect and begging for me to come play with it. It’s the type of situation where I long for the days of simply dreading the thought of living with my in-laws.

Of course, as a writer, my goal is to make EVERYTHING sound more dramatic than it really is. It’s not really that bad, and it’s wonderful to have everyone together. This week has brought forth great news, with the birth of our nephew, ‘untitled.’ Amanda and I are bummed that we won’t be able to go to ‘untitled’s bris, but we will be there in spirit.

That’s all for now…I need rest. Saturday we are going with contractor to look at apartment and then get our estimate.

Woot woot !

Test Trials

Today marks the beginning of an interesting, scary and difficult test for Amanda and I in what I am now calling our “Journey towards freedom.”

For the past 6 weeks we have been adjusting and becoming used to living with her parents, which I will admit is not nearly as bad as I thought it could’ve been. They are very generous, easy people to get along with, and so long as we follow their rules, things are great.

There’s also that little thing where we are separated by a lot of square footage that makes it especially tolerable.

This is of course bound to change today as Amanda’s grandparents come to visit for the week, thus kicking us out of our bedroom and into the spare bedroom that is also known as Roberta’s office, located directly NEXT to Amanda’s parents room.

Needless to say we are psyched. First we had to clean out the room of any semblance of our existence in there, thus adding to that wonderful feeling of displacement. We were able to keep some things in the closet, but this means that we have to come in the night before and take out our clothing and have the foresight to know what you might want to wear the next day. This also means getting home early enough for the grandparents to still be awake so you even have access to the room.

Not that I’m complaining, or meaning to sound ungrateful. Amanda has tried to posit this to me as “an opportunity to spend time with my grandparents in an environment that is unique and intimate.” That’s a euphemism for: “Look it’s not ideal, but let’s make the best of if.” And it’s just for a week.

Besides the obvious awkwardness of sleeping so close to her parents, there’s the other issue that the bed we will now inhabit for the next week is what is referred to as a “day bed.” It’s not quite a bed, in the sense that it’s an odd size, but it does have the semblance of something that you can lie on. It also has a second bed that you can pull out from underneath it, but the bed below is more of a cot. Raised up and placed together, they do not form a double mattress.

Seeing how I am the larger and bigger of the two of us, it will only undoubtedly make sense that I will be sleeping on the Cot. Or…Amanda will find a way to take up both the bed and the cot, and I will be sleeping on the floor.

On a second note, we are not exactly 3 weeks away from closing on our apartment. It almost seems like it’s never going to happen, but the wheels are in motion. We are currently in the process of finding out from our board what the rules are for renovations, and what things we need to provide ahead of time.

This does bring up an interesting thing to take note of which is to find out as soon as possible what the rules for renovations are within your building or co-op. Some buildings have tight restrictions for what you can and can’t do and also have rules for times you can do construction, noise, etc. It’s a slippery slope since it’s not something you want to bring up during the interview but you want to know how it all works as soon as possible. The only concern we currently have is that we might need to get any ‘structural changes’ approved by the board, and we are not 100% sure what structural actually means.

We will see after we go with our contractor on Saturday and get our estimate and proposal.

Long entry…stay tuned.

Headache.

So last night around 4 am, I woke up for whatever reason. Perhaps I needed to go to the bathroom or perhaps was contemplating the theory of relativity or Archimedes treatise on global expansion, but for whatever reason, I raised my head up, and then decided to put it back down, except that where my body was in relation to my pillow was not where it normally should have been. For some reason, my head was directly over my night table, allowing me the pleasure of slamming my head into it at full speed. I heard a loud bang and then me saying, ‘Ow!” in a way that was almost as if I hadn’t even said it.

Perhaps I can chock this up to my disorientation of not being in my own apartment, or perhaps I woke up, sat up, and didn’t realize I was sitting up with my feet on the ground, putting in me prime position to think my stand was a pillow. Who knows.

Because it was 4 A.M., I didn’t feel compelled to get up and go to the bathroom or check to see if I was bleeding profusely or if I had a concussion (something Amanda said that naturally I would assume the worst, which of course meant that if I did have a concussion I was screwed because I did end up going back to sleep), but instead corrected my body and laid myself down on the bed.

I woke up this morning, with a vague pounding in my head and a quiet recollection of something happening the night before.

I connected the dots when Amanda told me she dreamed of hearing a loud noise, thinking nothing of it and then going back to sleep.

Perhaps this is a sign that we need to move. And soon.

Oh, that and her grandparents are coming next week to stay at the apartment which means we are now being relegated to her mom’s apartment office, which coincidentally is right next to her parent’s bedroom.