random thoughts – Day 1,915 – (Saturday) – house and home

There was an appointment on my calendar today to see a house and the day was built around it. My new habit before leaving the house is to straighten up as if there was a showing scheduled at my house, just in case. It could happen, right? Today, I drank coffee, dressed, and made the bed. The bed now gets the two extra pillows in shams, which is more fancy and attentive than before the house was listed. The newly instituted scan of rooms was conducted to look for wayward items.

After I had left the house and before I was due to meet my realtor, she sent me a message. Someone wanted to see my house at 3:00 today. The wishful thinking post-departure check seemed less crazy and the answer was, “of course!”.

The house I was scheduled to see was, to put it kindly, interesting. Among the first words in the property listing are “meticulously maintained.” The carport had some junk, but the outside of the house has new siding and the back yard is a nice, wooded lot. The inside of the house was miles away from “meticulous” or “maintained.” It was cloudy outside and inside the house it was dark, depressing, gloomy, and cluttered. Were the lights even on? I don't remember. We had to carefully step our way through the place. The realtor cooed at how she thought the owners had “done a wonderful job in getting things ready in less than a week,” and if this was “ready” for people to see, it must have been an extra-special flavor of a nightmare a week ago. Maybe they should have taken another week before they even listed it. We understood immediately why there were no interior photos with the listing.

To its credit, there were lots of closets and new laminate flooring which unfortunately failed to extend all the way to the walls in a few spots. A massive hutch was filled with an abundance of Hummel figurines that someone most certainly felt would be worth money some day. The kitchen was old and not in a cool retro way, but in the worst of 80s heavy wood. The house needed a fair amount of work inside which was not reflected in either the description or the listing price which suddenly seemed grossly inflated.

The realtor mentioned that the house next door was also open for viewing. She told us she had just picked up that listing this morning and her colleague was over there. The price hadn’t even been set yet, but “will be more” than the one had just seen. We trotted next door to check it out.

The second house was better than the first. The yard had some beautiful perennials and the carport was huge. The kitchen had been updated and planned by someone who actually cooks, which makes a huge difference over the contractor versions of kitchens. Unfortunately, the house didn’t seem like it was ready to be shown and was overly full of furnishings and stuff which made it hard to see the place itself. I really couldn't get a feel for the space and I now understand my realtor's focus on being able to see walls and floors when she was coaching me on the presentation of my house. 

While we admired the kitchen with spice cubbies and a skylight, a woman holding a small dog popped in. It turned out she was the owner. She stuck with us like velcro, yammering away the rest of the time we were there, which was awkward, annoying, and eliminated the opportunity for my realtor and I to discuss anything as we were seeing it. It was a brilliant illustration of why realtors ask the owners to not be present during showings.

As we were ready to leave, a man popped in through the door we were about to exit. He lodged himself in the narrow hallway in front of the door and announced, “I’m the husband.” He was wearing what appeared to be pajama bottoms. Nice. And we were stuck there while the selling couple extolled the virtues of the lot and the house and chit chatted and blocked our egress. It got more awkward by the second until we finally extricated ourselves. Oy. I remember the awkwardness of the situation, but not much about the actual house.

I brushed the tentative plans for the rest of the day off my radar and headed home to grab a slice of pizza for lunch and make my house more ready for the newly scheduled showing. The laundry basket with stuff needing washing was pulled from the laundry closet. The cat bed and carrier were removed from under the buffet and set in the laundry basket, along with my work bag of files and notepads, and the whole thing was set in the car. The sinks and mirrors were wiped. The lights were turned on and curtains opened. The recent Amazon delivery of the big bag of cat food that will last six months was set in the bathroom closet. And I was off.

Grapes, not cherries.

The first stop was Family Dollar, because I haven’t been going there much lately. I got some cards and a couple canned food items. Then it was Hannaford because I needed to kill more time and had coupons that included free chips. I usually buy green grapes, but bought red grapes that were on sale, plus Greek yogurt, frozen berries, frozen burritos, and a few other things. I wasn’t really in the mood for grocery shopping.

At home, I keep grabbing red grapes and thinking they are cherries. Then I’m surprised when they taste and feel like the grapes that they are. Weird how that works. 

Definitely chocolate.

I switched to chocolate. My niece had given me a Trader Joe's passport collection of little chocolate bars at Christmas which I tucked in the back corner of the refrigerator. Each bar is from a different country and is marked with the percent of cacao. I finally cracked it open tonight and visited the bar labeled "Peru - 60% cacao dark chocolate" described as "rounded with subtle jasmine notes" and it was good. The wrappers even suggest wine pairings, but I was drinking ice water and didn't read the wine pairing part until the chocolate bar was already gone. 

There hasn’t been any feedback yet from today’s showing at my house, but that’s okay. Maybe tomorrow we'll hear something.