Home-Buying

One of my cousins is buying a home for the first time. She's so excited. It's lovely to see. Buying a home is still one of the major rites of passage in life. It makes you feel like a grown-up. Not to mention the tax write-offs.

As I said, it's her first home. And that's actually the easy one, although it's scary to do it the first time. To sign your name a million times. To take on that level of debt.

But when you buy another home, when you have a home to sell, it gets more challenging. Because when there are two houses involved, there are many more logistics. It could actually be three houses - the house you are buying, the house you are selling, and the house that your buyer is selling. That's a lot of dominoes to fall in line.

It used to be that you could make an offer on a house and then wait to close until your house sold. So that you could roll the money from one house to the other. But in today's economy, that's no longer an option. From all reports, each person/household has to find the financing to buy that next house WITHOUT selling the previous house.

Of course, you pay yourself back. But it's tough. Because it's hard to get a loan in this economy.

So that's my challenge. I'll let you know how it goes...

On Being 47

I'm the youngest of my brothers and sisters. So maybe that's why I feel like I'm still young. I'm healthy. I'm in pretty good shape. I feel young.

But when I'm out and about. When I'm at animal rescue events. I notice that I am older. I see it in the eyes of the kids who come out to help. I see it in the potential adopters who look to me as a voice of authority, even though I have almost none. They see me as an adult.

And I realized this even more this past weekend. When I got older. When I had a birthday.

When I first let my gray hair come in, when I was 43, it was premature. I have premature gray hair, if not now then because I started getting gray at 17. For 22 years, I colored my hair. At 35, I let the gray hair come in. Then, it just made me look older. So I went back to coloring it. At 43, I let the gray hair show through again. I love not having to color my hair. I get lots of compliments on my hair color - though, granted, they are mostly from women. And I'll admit that I feel a certain satisfaction in being comfortable enough with myself - as I am - that I don't need to color my hair.

But my gray hair is not so premature anymore. Now that I'm 47, having gray hair isn't all that unusual. I think it's still a little premature. But not by much. Not as much as it used to be.

I had the same feeling about not being married. When I was in my 30s, I wasn't worried about not being married. I figured it would happen eventually. Now I'm almost 50, and it hasn't happened. And now I think, maybe it never will. I realized this also over the weekend when I celebrated my birthday, and I realized that I am the same age as my brother when he got married. And that we all thought he was quite old when he got married. And that we thought he'd never get married. And all that time, when we were thinking that he would never get married, I always thought that someday, some woman would be smart enough to realize what a catch he is and snatch him up. And then it happened. With a woman he'd known for a really long time. Who finally made him realize that he loved her too.

So I'm 47. And I'm an adult. And I have gray hair. And I've never been married. And I am old.

Seasons Change

Yesterday was the first day of autumn. I love the change in seasons. By the end of summer, I'm ready for it to be cool again. Ready for the crisp fall air. Ready for the leaves to change - though not particularly ready to rake them. :)

I don't know if it's because I've always lived where there is a change of seasons - as opposed to someplace cold where there's really no summer or someplace warm where there's really no winter - but I have found that I'm pretty much done with each season as it draws to a close. I'm ready for the next type of weather. I'm bored with my wardrobe and ready to move back to the other set of clothes.

So come on autumn! I'm ready for you.

Entering The Housing Market

Tonight, I had the real estate ladies over to give me an assessment on my house and the possibilities for the next house.

The good news - I think I should be able to sell my place for about what I thought I would.

The bad news - I have to get new carpet for the downstairs before I can show my house.

The good news - I have a great credit score so I should be able to get a good loan and rates are still low.

The bad news - I have to rent a storage space to move some of my tchochkes and clothes to "stage" my house for possible buyers.

The good news - The real estate ladies have another property listed that actually sounds pretty ideal for me - 3 BR, 3BA, 2 fireplaces, 1-car garage.

The bad news - No one gets contingency sales anymore, which means I have to come up with a bunch of money to put down on the new place to close the sale - BEFORE I sell my place.

The good news - I may be able to get that money from family.

The bad news - I don't really like borrowing money from my family.

More news to come....

It's Slow in Cat World

One of the outcomes of the slow economy is a serious drop in animal adoptions.

At the same time, more and more animals are being abandoned - if people can't feed their families, the family pet is sometimes sacrificed. The other thing that goes by the wayside is people taking the time and money to spay and neuter their animals. All of these things mean that there are more animals in rescue organizations and shelters looking for new homes.

It's a tough time to be a rescue organization. And yet, they are still there. Still taking in animals - as many as they can feasibly take in.

So think about that, those of you who can afford to take in a new cat. A new dog. Donate some money. Donate some food. Donate some old towels. Donate some old blankets. Whatever you can do.

It's slow in cat world.

Sales on Sale

As everyone is painfully aware, the American economy has been in the dumps for the past year or more. The retail market has been very bad. My friends who work in retail or in restaurants - who make a living from other people shopping - have been struggling, perhaps even more than the average person. While most people have felt like they can't do as much shopping as they might otherwise have done, that they don't have as much discretionary income as they did, retailers are doing even worse. Because when people don't shop, they don't sell.

And so most retailers have been having sales. Lots of sales. You could say that sales have been on sale.

Mens Tennis

Yesterday was the finals for the mens singles at the U.S. Open. Roger Federer was in the finals for the fourth straight slam in 2009 - Australian, French Open, Wimbledon, and U.S. Open. Very impressive. Federer has won 15 grand slam finals, including five consecutive U.S. Open titles. Which meant that for more than 2,000 days, he had been undefeated at the U.S. Open. Again, very impressive.

Yesterday, Roger Federer lost. Yesterday, a kid named Juan Martin Del Potro - a 20-year-old from Argentina - beat the best the game of tennis has ever seen. Ever.

Can you imagine being Del Potro today? The center of a media storm. Flying on serious quantities of adrenaline. Trying to keep a level head in the face of many microphones, the same questions over and over, in a language you don't really speak, to explain how you pulled off the impossible. At 20.

It must have been quite a day.

Celebrity Deaths

Patrick Swayze, Jim Carroll, and Jody Powell died recently. Jody Powell was 65. Jim Carroll was 60. Patrick Swayze was 57. That's a pretty young trio to have died.

Why do these things happen in threes? Is it just that, because these deaths get reported, it's more obvious when they happen in threes? Is it just like celebrities dying at 27 - something that happened to a couple of them, and now every time it happens, it gets noticed? After all, surely many celebrities - take the three named above - don't die at 27.

Interesting how these things become a phenomenom. Like Friday the 13th being a bad luck day. Dan Brown asserted in The Da Vinci Code that the origin of Friday the 13th as a day of bad luck because the Pope ordered the slaying of the Templar Knights on this day. Other possible origins note that 13 has long been a sign of bad luck, just as 12 is considered a good thing - 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 months of the year, etc. Hmmm....what's the truth?

All this is not to diminish the sadness of these recent deaths. I feel saddest about Patrick Swayze, who was a crush of mine years ago.

My thoughts are with those left behind. Peace.

Grocery Shopping Etiquette

What is it about grocery shopping that makes people's brains go out the window? At least twice this morning, I tried to get through an aisle and someone had parked their cart beside either another cart or beside the carts being used to restock the shelves. The aisles are only wide enough for two carts side by side. So if you park your cart next to another cart, that means that no one else can get through. Why is this such a difficult concept for people to grasp? Maybe it means that you need to walk a little distance to pick up your items, but really? Is that so bad? Americans are overweight anyway - a little extra exercise at the grocery store might be a good thing.

And what's with the restocking on a Saturday morning? I would have thought that Saturday morning was a heavy shopping time. Sure seems heavy to me. But this morning, there were several aisles with restocking carts in them. Which meant that half the width of the aisle was taken up somewhat permanently. And meant that, like a lane blocked on a street, only one cart could get by at a time - from either direction. This makes no sense to me on a busy shopping morning.

The other shoppers that have become annoying are the shoppers for the online shopping people. Their carts are actually wider than the rest of us. And they tend to leave them in very inopportune places. Like next to the restocking carts. Do they not understand the concept of allowing others to get up and down the same aisles they are shopping? I don't get it. And these are employees of the store. All the more reason for them to be cognizant of exactly where their cart has been placed and whether it makes it more difficult for the other paying shoppers.

As I've written before, I'm a fan of the self-checkout. But recently, the grocery store where I shop has changed their self-checkout lanes from four checkouts to eight checkouts. How did they do it? They reduced the size of each station in half. That means that you can only put one bag in the station. That works for people buying only a few items. But not for anyone buying more than that. To be fair, they have a second set of self-checkouts that include two full-size checkout stations. But all too often, those are not open. Again, this morning - a busy Saturday morning - those lanes were not open. Now, understand that I don't buy a ton of food and try to use the self-checkout lanes. It's just me in my household. So I usually fill two full-size, reusable bags. That seems like a reasonable amount of food to be able to use the self-checkout. But with the smaller stations, it's almost imposible. I have to fill one bag and then put it in the cart so I can fill the other. This, of course, makes the checkout machine go bananas thinking that I'm stealing items. Argh!

One final rant. Why do I have to choose my payment option on the self-checkout screen and then again on the keypad through which I run my card? This morning, I just used the one of the keypad. But the system wouldn't give me a receipt for my groceries until I did both screens. Fortunately, it was smart enough to know that I had already paid so I didn't have to start that process all over again on the self-checkout screen. But really. Why twice? I don't get it. Do the two systems not talk to each other? Very strange.

Okay, rants over.

Civility

Last night, our President gave a speech before Congress. During the speech, one of the congressman yelled, "You lie" and pointed his finger at the President. Another member of Congress wore a sign around his neck that said "What Bill?" I understand that the Republicans in Congress disagree with President Obama's healthcare proposals. What I don't understand is the utter lack of civility in the debate.

It's not even really a debate. It's been acrimony piled on acrimony. Obama was trying to avoid the mistakes that Clinton made in appointing a special panel to try to fix the problem that then came to Congress with "the answers." Instead, the President gave Congress a broad scope of what he wanted out of healthcare reform and waited for them to come up with a proposal.

What we got was a fight, as bad as I can remember. I'm a Democrat and I believe in helping others. But I'm ashamed of the way that the Democrats in Congress have handled things, too. Rather than reaching across the aisle, they blocked the Republicans from participating in the process. The Republicans, in addition to being uncivil during the President's speech, appear to have bussed in dissenters to town halls. Sarah Palin, a sad excuse for a human being IMHO, coined the phrase "death panels" and stirred up more acrimony over a point that has absolutely no basis in fact.

What I'm truly appalled by in all this is the lack of civility. I expect our two parties to disagree in how to solve problems. Healthcare reform is perhaps one of the toughest nuts to crack - ever. As Obama mentioned last night, they've been trying to solve this situation since the 1940s.

But I expect them to behave like adults. To allow participation in the process. To not spread false and vicious rumors. To offer up an alternative if they don't like what they hear, and not just pooh-pooh the other guy's solution. In other words, to be civil.

New Life

The youngest of my cousins (on my father's side) just had a baby! Another generation has arrived. Mother and child are both recovering well. A truly happy occasion.

My extended family has some interesting branches. My father is the oldest of seven children, born to a minister over a period of many years. My father's youngest sibling - the mother of this particular cousin - is something like 16 years younger than my father. It makes for interesting generations. We also have all kinds of races in our family - we are not your average WASPs.

Here's the breakdown of cousins and the next generation:

• John - four kids, none of whom had any kids, though my brother-in-law has two children (who are 31 and 28) from his first marriage that we've "adopted".
• Naomi - five kids; the interesting thing about this set of siblings is that the oldest of them, who's in his late 50s, adopted two little boys from Guatemala a little over a year ago and, just recently, another little girl who is African-American
• Richard - two children (one of each), neither of which had any children (as far as I know; we don't talk to them much)
• David - five boys; I think there are something like 15 grandchildren
• Lois - four children; not sure how many grandchildren
• Arthur - one daughter who just adopted a little boy from Russia
• Ruth - one son who is half African-American and married to an African-American woman; her first grandchild - the subject of this blog entry - also African-American

My mother's side of the family is also not all WASP-ish. There aren't very many cousins on that side of the family - there's only 7 of us left (2 have died) and 5 grandchildren. One of those grandchildren is married to an Arab guy with a couple of little kids of her own.

Personally, I love the diversity. In today's world, especially with our first African-American president, it's great that my family represents the kind of world we are moving toward. Honestly, except for in an accounting like I just did, I don't even think about the fact that several of my cousins and second cousins aren't the same race as I am. It just doesn't even come up.

New life. New way of looking at the world. Good things.

To Tan, Perchance To Dream

I have gray hair, green eyes, and a fair complexion. Needless to say, I don't tan particularly well.

This past weekend, I went to Bethany Beach. On the drive down to the beach, I had the top down on my car. I suppose I should have thought about the fact that I would be in the car for more than 3 hours with the sun beating down on me. But I didn't. Didn't give it a second thought. Until I hit about 1-1/2 hours in and I could feel that my skin was starting to be none to happy with me.

At that point in the drive, I was just past Rt. 50 and on Rt. 404 heading east. Since I was heading east, I was not driving directly into the sun. The sun was behind me, dropping down in the western sky. So I guess I figured that I wouldn't get any more color. Or at least not a significant amount.

I was wrong. By the time I got to Bethany, my left shoulder just next to my neck (inside the scoop neck of the top I was wearing) and the tops of my legs were burned. I had a definite line across my things where my shorts had laid as I drove. The burn wasn't bad. I've certainly had worse. It did, however, make for an interesting look in my bathing suit. I was sort of tricolored. White belly (my stomach hasn't seen the sun in years), tanned arms and most of my face (from driving with the top down in general) and burned shoulders and part of my thighs.

Now, I'm sure that I'm not the first person who has put on a bathing suit without having an even tan. However, I was definitely not comfortable with how I looked. Not that I love the way I look in a bathing suit to start with. The tricolor skin didn't help.

When I was younger, I dreamed of the perfect tan. I dreamed of an all-over (well, not completely all over) even tan. Not a burn. But, as I said, I have fair skin. It's VERY hard to put on just the right amount of sunscreen to get tan but not burn. To cover your skin evenly and at all the edges. Virtually impossible.

I've only done it once. Once in 47 years. I was in a beach house in the '80s for a few summers. One of those summers, I got down to the beach fairly often. And then at the end of the summer, I was there for almost 2 weeks. I ended up with a golden tan. It was classic. All-over. Even. And apparently, a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

In these days of warnings about skin cancer. it's less of a dream to have a perfect tan. These days, I can go for a whole summer with almost no time in the sun. And that's probably a good thing.

But I still dream of that perfect tan.

Lonely vs. Alone

I am used to being alone. I've lived by myself for more than 20 years. Most of the time, I don't think twice about it. It's just the way things are. I enjoy being alone, too. There's enough introvert in me that needs time alone. If I'm around people too much, I get really tired and cranky. Definitely need some "me" time.

That's not to say that I don't like people. I do. I enjoy the company of others. Would I like to find the "perfect" man? Absolutely. Would he have to be able to give me some space in the relationship? Absolutely again. I would probably not be able to get too involved with a guy who needed to be with me 24x7. If I did live with someone, I would definitely need a room that was my hangout. I would expect him to feel the same. At least my ideal mate would.

But this past few days, I've been feeling lonely. I was in unfamiliar territory on vacation. Not surrounded by my cats and my belongings. But instead surrounded by families and couples, and without the comforts of home. And it made me lonely. It made me wish I had someone to share those experiences with.

It's interesting to me that the same circumstances in my home environment and other environments produce different emotions in me. At home, I don't mind being alone. For the most part, I can go whole days without interacting with anyone I know. I do errands, run to the grocery store, etc. So I have human contact, but not with people I know. And generally, I'm okay with that. I'm alone, yes, but not lonely.

But put me in the same situation but in different environs, and the loneliness sets in. Wikipedia defines loneliness as a feeling of isolation or disconnection. In the world, that's just how I feel. Isolated from those around me. Disconnected from the things and people I know.

Perhaps it's just that in my home, I'm used to being alone and so it's normal for me. I think I'm more aware of being alone and being perceived as alone when I'm not in my normal environment. Out there - in the world - people don't know my circumstances. And I feel judged for being alone. Whether or not that really happens. And I feel like explaining why I'm alone to everyone. Justifying it.

Not that I really understand why I am alone, you understand. It's just that, at home, it's the norm. It's the way it is. It's what I'm used to. It's something that I have tried to change - on occasion with all the forces at my disposal - but it hasn't worked out. I'm alone. Have been for a long time now. And since there's that introvert in me that craves some alone time, I have learned to deal with it. To cope with the loneliness in the being alone.

But in the real world, being alone is perceived as being lonely. Which makes me feel the loneliness in being alone.

Reality TV

I remember when reality TV was born with shows like Survivor. As a general rule, I think reality TV is a mixed bag. Some of it is amazing. Some of it is schlock.

I didn't watch the first season of Survivor until toward the end. To this day, I can't stand Richard Hatch, the guy who won the first season. But I understand that he played a good game. But to me the game play is almost incidental on Survivor. While interesting from a psychological perspective, the thing I find most amazing are the challenges. Not the food challenges - those are just gross. But the physical challenges are often amazing. The creativity that goes into them is remarkable.

I have very much enjoyed shows like Top Chef and Project Runway. They cover two areas about which I know nothing - cooking and designing clothes. On Project Runway, at least, I can look at the clothes that are created and decide what I like and don't like. Sometimes what I like the judges don't. And sometimes what I think is awful the judges love. But at least I can bring something of a perspective to it. However, for Top Chef, I have really no knowledge to bring to watching. I don't cook - a little baking, but not really any cooking. And I am a quite picky eater. So most of the food they cook I wouldn't eat. And yet, I enjoy the show and make a point to watch it.

To me, these shows (and some others to come) represent the best of reality TV. The worst is much easier to find. First, I would nominate ALL of the dating shows. The Bachelor. The Bachelorette. More To Love. All terrible. Exploitative. But the worst, worst, worst shows are on VH1 - Rock of Love, I Love Money, Flavor of Love, Shot at Love. They are beyond exploitative to truly disgusting. If an alien landed on Earth, and that's all they watched as representative of our culture, I would be appalled.

American Idol is a powerhouse. Although its ratings have diminished somewhat in the past couple of years, it still wins its timeslot week after week. And for all that the rest of my family likes to make fun of it as a talent show - although I'm not sure that some of the talent shows from the '50s were any better, even Ed Sullivan - it has produced some artists who are both at the top of the charts, big money makers, and talented to boot. The judges drive me insane on the show, but I get past that to pay attention to the singing.

But my favorite - despite its judges again - is So You Think You Can Dance. First, unlike American Idol, during the audition shows, it doesn't spend weeks making fun of the bad contestants. While it does include some auditions that make you embarrassed for the dancer, there aren't that many of them and the dancers who can dance far outweigh those who can't. Once the competition actually starts, both the dancing and the choreography are just amazing in quality. Now, like cooking, I can't dance worth a lick. Well, I can dance to rock music, but that's just not the same thing. The kind of dancing on SYTYCD is just a level above. Honestly, I'm not sure that I even knew such dancing existed as widespread as it must in order for the show to get thousands to audition. One of the most interesting things to me about the show is that I am not a fan of contemporary dance troupes as a general rule. Sometimes they are just too avant garde for me. But the contemporary dance on SYTYCD is very watchable. It probably helps that the dances are reasonably short and set to vocal music, as opposed to instrumental. Tonight, they rebroadcast the top 15 dances - as chosen by the executive producer, Nigel Lithgoe. And it just reminded me why I love the show. Amazing dance. Amazing choreography. Just amazing.

Hear You In My Dreams?

I dream a lot. I think I've mentioned that before. I believe it's because I wake up several times a night. And unlike most people who sleep through the night and therefore may only remember one dream, I often remember more than one dream a night. So whether I really dream more often or whether I remember more dreams because I wake up several times a night, the net is the same. I dream a lot.

The really interesting part is what feeds my dreams. If I have a bad day, I will often dream that I am stuck in something. When I worked for a polling firm, I would have Alice in Wonderland dreams about being stuck in the cell of Word table. That is, literally stuck inside the cell of a Word document, trapped by the gridlines. Other times, I have been stuck in caves, rooms, houses - the usual things.

If I see a scary movie, I will often "recreate" what happened in the movie in my dreams - which is why I don't watch scary movies. Same with scary books. Suspenseful books work much the same. When read right before I go to sleep, suspenseful books will make my dreams be full of some event that is delayed and delayed, leading to anxiety.

But the other thing that happens - which I find really fascinating - is when the music that is playing around me works its way into my dreams. I often nap on the weekends in my living room on the couch with the stereo playing. Usually for about an hour. It's interesting to me how often the music that's playing works its way into what is happening in my dream. Sometimes I'm in a singing contest. Sometimes I'm jamming with some musicians. Sometimes I'm just trying to prove my singing chops. But often as I'm waking up, the last song I heard in my dream or was trying to sing in my dream is the same song that's playing on the stereo.

I also wake up to music. My "alarm" plays for about an hour, at the end of which I get up. During that hour, I usually fall back asleep at least once or twice. The other morning, I must have dreamed during one of those times because in my dream, I was at a concert. And when I woke up, the song that was playing at the concert was the song playing on my alarm.

I've heard that your ears don't register noise when you're asleep. Something about the nerves getting "turned off". Well, either that's not true or, when you dream, you're not really asleep. Otherwise, how could I hear what's playing on the stereo or alarm and make up a dream to match?