Only Have to be Lucky Once in Trichotomy

At Home

Last weekend, we went to an open house in a really nice town. Its asking price was 0.5% above our revised price range (but 20% above our original), but it was really nice - it has the same configuration as our current house, but stretched out, and well-kept. It’s on the border to a less-nice town, which may explain the slightly lower price when compared to other houses in the same town (on the same day, we went to another house in the heart of Expensive Town, with the same asking price, and it has the vibe of a poorly-run elder care center.)

We put in a bid thinking we would be out-bid because the asking price was somewhat lower than comparables and there would be offers over. But to our surprise, the owner accepted our bid. They tried to get us to raise it, and even though we really can’t afford to, they accepted our original bid anyway, since ours were all cash and we are okay with them having a 5-day post-closing possession and a higher-than-usual down payment. We did the inspection Tuesday, and the house got a clean bill of health from the inspector, so we signed the contract yesterday - which happened to be our 11th year anniversary.

We met the owner during the inspection, and he was very nice… he actually volunteered some information that was not necessary, so we’d get a heads-up about potential issues that may crop up. It was not very clever of them to do so as that information could scare buyers away, but it was a decent thing to do. They are actually a family that wants to stay in the neighbourhood and needs a bigger space, so they are just moving 4 blocks away, which means we’d be neighbours, which means they have an incentive not to cross us. So we have a good feeling about this deal.

I’m not as thrilled about this neighbourhood as I am of the town in North Shore, even though we’d seriously considered putting offers in this neighbourhood before. It has more of a country club vibe than a seaside town vibe, but it is very convenient for both of us - it’ll cut off 10 minutes from La Professeure’s commute and 15 from mine. And it is walking distance to an express train station too, so I’ll be able to stay in the city more often.

La Professeure is worried about the safety of the walk - the house itself is in a safe neighbourhood but the walk to the station goes through the less-nice town. I walked through it after work on Monday, and it felt fine to me; it reminded me a little of Union Square in San Francisco, except with no homeless people. So I figured it would be safer.

We’re hoping the transaction will be a smooth one.

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As the locals do

La Professeure’s post-doc friend from Ontario was visiting this week with her husband and two girls, so we spent half a week with them. It was a fun time. Their girls are 10 and 12, but both are avid readers. So they had requested we go to the Grand Central Terminal, Statue of Liberty, the Public library (where the older one apparently requested to take out a book and read for the whole day in the main reading room, but that didn’t turn out since the room is closed to visitors - and also because the adults wanted to do other stuff), and Central Park. On the third day they went to the 9/11 memorial (the adults requested this, not the kids) but we couldn’t go because we were meeting with our lawyer about the contract. We later joined them in the afternoon, and we visited Washington Square Park, and then spent a lot of time at the Strand bookstore and the Harry Potter store. It was a packed few days.

The younger girl had two bladder accidents - once on the train and once at home. La Professeure and I think she hasn’t figured out how to interpret bladder signals yet, we hope it will come in time; 10 is quite a late age.

The biggest hit, however, was the rabbit. He gets locked up in our office the whole time, except in the mornings when La Professeure lets him out to interact with the girls. They described him as the highlight of the trip - over the statue of liberty, central park, and the public library.

Before they left, the girls wanted desperately for him to chew on some piece of paper, which they would then take home so they would have his bite mark as a souvenir.

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The Melting Pot

We actually received our contract while we were visiting the public library, so we read it on our phone in one of its reading rooms. We signed it the next day, which was our 11th wedding anniversary. Because of our house guests, we didn’t get to celebrate it until today, when we only went out to Melting Pot. This time we figured out that the cast iron grill is the least filling cooking style because we don’t consume as much salt from the broth, and thus need less water.

We’ve been to the Melting Pot many times now and still discover new knowledge about it to make it enjoyable.

A bit like a marriage.

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