You Open a Box, You Get Stuff

I was awake at 6 a.m. I was dressed at 6:15. I stopped at the McDonald's drive-thru and got an Egg McMuffin (the only item I recognized on the morning menu) and a coffee. I know that they've tested it, and there are nutrients contained in the Egg McMuffin, it still chews like expired plastic window sushi. It took the 30-minute drive to La Crosse until the coffee was cool enough to drink.

So I was at the house at 7:15. I did a Y turn (very easy with the parking pad there) and backed into the garage. I assumed the truck would have to pull into the driveway to unload. I "rested my eyes" for about 20 minutes, then came back to the world. I hadn't slept much the night before, and was sleep I got wasn't very restful.

Around 7:45, two middle-aged gentlemen stopped on the sidewalk at the end of the driveway. They immediately reminded me of George and Lenny in "Of Mice and Men." George was probably 5'10" and a gentleman's gentleman among the local packing and unpacking packers here in La Crosse. He had pulled up, rather quietly, on a sharp vintage Harley. Lenny was about 6'5" with a massive frame. He rode up on a mountain bicycle.

They were both really nice guys, and did this work on a regular basis for about a half dozen national moving companies. Jerome, the Stevens Van Lines' driver, had told them to arrive at 7:45. George asked if he could park his Harley in the back of the house and I said sure.

I was a little concerned about what form the unload would take. My street, West Avenue South, is a state highway, so there is no parking in front of the house. Unless you really want to, I guess. Jerome pulled the truck up so the back doors opened onto my driveway. Not only was he blocking the neighbors' driveway, but also one of the two lanes of this state highway.

So when he opened the back doors and started unloading, I shrugged and thought if the cops come by Jerome's the one getting ticket. But that never happened. He put out his bright orange triangles and, when two temp guys showed up to help out, he had them park behind the truck for extra safety.

The first things off the truck were the box springs and mattress, both of which had to go up and over the balcony on the back porch). Everything else fit fairly easily through the front door. Big highlights: the condo-sized sectional fits perfectly along the far wall in the living room. If it hadn't fit, I was going to put it in the basement room and be at a loss for living room furniture.

Several things I discovered during the unload: notes on the boxes referring to their contents never seem to work for me. I try to list the major items but end up suffering from vague reference to the other 75% of the contents. And then there are times when you have room left in a heavy box, so you pack sheets or pillows in those boxes, even though they're labeled "kitchen."

The upshot was that about a third of the boxes ended up in the wrong rooms (totally my fault). It was obvious that these guys had been doing this for years. They critiqued the competency of the packing by Pink (a couple of instances, I had to agree with them) while never missing a beat in the rhythm of unloading and distribution. We were done by just before noon.

After they all had left, I surveyed the field: they had put the bed back together and put the box springs and mattress on it. They had reassembled the dining room table. Boxes were stacked neatly in the corners of every room, and unpacking was not something I wanted to jump right into. I drove back to Winona and had a solid afternoon nap.

Thursday morning, I drove back to La Crosse, back to the house. The cable install guy was coming between 3 and 5 p.m., so I wanted to clear out the TV corner (cable) and the office upstairs (internet) so he had access to them. I quickly found out there was no way I was going to get the big-screen TV out of its box by myself. So I located the TV from the office and offered it up as the monitor on which to check the cable box.

When he arrived, the cable guy said this place had never been wired for cable. The coaxial I found was from a digital antenna (which I later noticed on the ground near the garage). So he set about, getting the wire from the pole out back and splicing it deftly into the existing coaxial so as to maintain all the seals into the house. Overall, it was a very good job. That night, with the cable shadows dancing once more, I stayed my first night in the house.

Friday I got up one sore muscle. One big ache. I took a couple ibuprofen and reminded myself that this was not a race, there need be no desperation. I was plugging along, taking pleasure in cutting down empty boxes and stacking them back in their corners, when my brother Steve showed up, took the nickel tour and proclaimed it to his liking. He extended an invitation of Pizza Night (every Friday is Pizza Night), which I accepted.

After pizza, I drove back to Winona to get a shower, a change of clothes and check up on Patty. The cat was doing fine and seemed very affectionate, even playful. Saturday morning, Amanda and I met at my house and focused on getting the kitchen up and functional. I know it was too much to ask for that all the counters be cleared, or that everything had found a home in the new cupboards. We got all the kitchen boxes unpacked and broken down, and that felt good.

At some point during the weekend Pam and her friend Connie dropped by the house and seemed to really like it. They both certainly like the carpet a lot more than I do. Pam was impressed with the size of the workshop space in the basement and advised that I take up some hobby or another. I know from Alaska that having a large project or hobby during the winter often keeps one from insanity.

Sunday my niece Emily and her steady-freddie Jim were here. We took a good deal of the time with Jim and I trying to figure out how the cable box plugs into the Blu-Ray plugs into the sound system plugs into the TV plugs into the cable box. Jim did the lions share of the squatting, connecting, disconnecting and reconnecting while I tried to devine exactly what the configuration was before they were torn asunder.

While Jim and I were busy with guy stuff, Emily unpacked the framed artwork and tchotchkes that were still packed up in the dining room. She did a dynamite job and I've only just touched the surface of the piles that await. The only other multiple-person jobs were uncrating the World's Largest Paperweight and moving the dresser from one room to another upstairs.

That evening I enjoyed a full-screen cable experience by discovering all my favorite channels that are not covered in the Tier 1 (Standard) cable plan. With just an upgrade, I can get those channels (and who didn't see that coming). There's well over half a dozen that I'd like to have, and that would only be a couple bucks a channel per month. I still have time to ruminate about that one.

Monday morning, I woke up with a determination to go retrieve the cat and move her over to the new house. I figure if I waited until everything was in place, it would be sometime next month. In the afternoon, Amanda came by the house again, and we spent a good deal of our time packing up paper and breaking down boxes. The living room is the only space without boxes any longer. Turning my attention to the kitchen is the next move, as I actually want to cook my own food for a change.

So Tuesday I took off. I slept in. Twice. Then I went out to Menard's (kind of a Home Depot, only with nicer people) and picked up two lidded bins (one trash, one recycling) for the kitchen, a shower curtain with rings for the bathroom and an economical microwave oven. Now all I have to do is find places for all the stuff that previously resided in kitchen drawers in Pasadena, which I think is going to be my chore for the rest of the day that I'm taking off. It's after 7 p.m. and I still haven't thought about supper. There sandwich fixin's in the refrigerator, and I could make some kind of pasta thing, I suppose.

Wednesday will be the calling day: lawn guy, electrician, handyman. If it works out, I should also head back to Winona one more time to pick up my clothes and the remaining paperwork I have over there (as well as one or two cat toys). It's funny, but part of me wants to leave a couple things over there, just because I don't want that time with Amanda and Natalie to be over.

Final Anxiety

I got the call today: the truck will be arriving tomorrow between 8 and 9 a.m.

At first I was just happy. By this time tomorrow, all my stuff will be in my house. Sure, most of it will be in boxes, but they'll be in the right rooms (if I labeled them correctly, that is. Did I?).

And so begins the last-chance for anxiety and worry as my move moves to its close.

Will the truck fit into the driveway? (There is no parking on my street.) Will everything fit through the front door and up the stairs, or will we have to lug things in through the balcony door on the upstairs floor? Will we have to take doors off their hinges to get things to fit in?

So images go spinning in my head. Fleeting, nightmarish concoctions of my subconscious; all the things that could go wrong, might go wrong.

My sensible side says these people are professionals. They've moved stuff into much more awkward houses than mine. They've moved much, much more stuff than my 4.5 vaults of belongings. So what if we have to take a few doors off to accommodate the bigger items. (Oh God, do they have tools? I don't have any tools; they're in the vaults on the truck!)

And so it goes, round and round, and I have a feeling that's exactly what my dreams are going to be like tonight. I will sleep fitfully and wake up an hour early. And once all is said and done at 325 West Ave. S., I will crash on my naked mattress and fall into a deep sleep.

On the lighter side, I replied to the e-mail from the local television station. I had applied for a part-time job working on the floor crew for the local news. Ends up they're only paying $7.50 an hour and the schedule is two split time slots of two hours apiece. (In other words, work for two hours, go away for three hours, then come back for two more hours, every day, all the time.)

I then turned around and applied for a job at the local newspaper doing prepress assembly and template building for the daily paper. The hours there are noon to 8:30 p.m. I wouldn't have to change my schedule much (I usually sleep from 2 a.m. to 10 a.m.), but it would preclude my getting involved in any sort of theater that rehearsed in the evening.

It would be nice to have benefits again, and I would have a chance to sock away some more money for retirement, but it would also mean going back to a full-time job. The nice thing about the situation is I am able to turn down employment for this first year. Perhaps I'll interview, turn down the job and then wait for something a little more suitable to open up. I've got a whole year.

See? Writing about the job stuff really calmed me down. Just like unpacking boxes will really calm me down tomorrow. But until I have all my stuff in my house, I'm going to have this anxiety.

I think I mentioned in an earlier post that my dad once said anxiety is just excitement that you're sitting on and won't let out. If this is the case, perhaps I should do some silly dances and whoop and holler (luckily, Amanda is working tonight at the bar in Ettrick, so I'm alone here). That might do it, bring me to a peaceful, joyous center that would allow balance and harmony in my soul.

But, hey, where the hell's the fun in that? And I don't think that would be enough to unbind the knot in my bowels that's been building all day. And it might not be such a good idea to unbind it until I'm in a position to really let go. And I've unpacked the toilet paper. (Did I pack the toilet paper? Oh, no; here we go again!)

Patience Returns

The new digs on West Avenue in La Crosse.

Back of the house with porch and balcony above.

On Friday morning, I got up at 6:45. Amanda and Natalie were here getting ready for school, but there was no real rush for the bathroom. I took off about 8:10 for La Crosse and my Realtor's office and the signing of the papers. This being a cash purchase, there weren't a whole lot of them. There was the guy from the title company, Mike and myself. There was a lot of relaxed chatter, the presentation of the final statement on the escrow, and once I handed over the cashier's check for $153,003.16, the deal was done.

Kitchen door onto the
rear entryway off porch.

On Wednesday, Mike had e-mailed me the final amount for the cashier's check, and on Thursday afternoon I drove into La Crosse and got the check from the bank. My personal banker, the VP who had helped me open the account a few weeks ago, was on hand to walk the teller through the process (no fee for the check, which was nice). Afterwards, Mike and I headed over to the house for a final walkthrough.

Kitchen, ugly fan, from the rear entry.

The seller's Realtor, true to form, was not there for the closing. The people from the trust that was selling the house had presigned the papers the day before, so by 9:30 on Friday we were out of there, and I was heading over to my house with keys and garage remote and deed in hand.

Arch leading to stairs, dining room.

My first order of business was measuring out the kitchen. It's kind of a weird space, though open, and I wanted to get a schematic put together in Illustrator so I could play with the configuration of the room. My second order of business was to go through the house and take photos so I could show the place off on Facebook and here on the blog.

Up-and-over stairs
into living room.

If you have Facebook, you've probably already seen these pictures. If not, this is a first-time viewing for you. I will try to generate enough copy here to wrap around the pictures, but there over 20 of them, so forgive me if weird gaps show up on the page, as I may very well run out of things to say before I run out of pictures.

Turn around and you
see the guest bath.

Once at the house, I realized I still didn't bring anything to pry up a corner of the carpeting. I'm feeling torn by the carpeting. On the one hand, it's top-notch, cut-loop wool that's bound to be a plus in the winter. On the other hand, if there's original hardwood underneath (and I'm almost positive there is), taking the carpet up might really lighten up the rooms.

Living room (left) and kitchen
entry as seen from dining room.

I've already promised Pam, my sister-in-law, that we'll cut a section out if/when we pull the rug up, and it will fit perfectly in their living area upstairs in their home in Ettrick. When I mentioned that to her, brother Steve gave a sideways glance, I'm assuming at the chore it will be to lug that much carpet from La Crosse to Ettrick (about 35 miles).

Dining room from kitchen entry.

Even if we do take the carpeting up, I do want to keep it on the stairs, since is just seems to belong there. All of the upstairs is also carpeted, as well as all the spaces in the basement (which was not photographed for this blog, since there are really only two "rooms" down there: the laundry room (with its own 1/2 bath and shower) and a room that would be another bedroom if there were legal egress through one of the windows down there.

Dining room, looking toward
front door and living room beyond.

The basement is painted all white, though, and very light and airy. I'm sure this summer it will be an escape from the heat and humidity we are bound to experience.

Front door and period
mail drop in entry.

The last chore I had at the house on Friday was taking an inventory of the lighting fixtures. I'm sure someone came through the house and removed all the original ones, since the ones in the house now are the cheapest of fixtures, some wired unsoundly, with peeling brass finish over plastic and cheap metal.

Entry seen from front door: living
room left, dining room right.

Where there are ceiling fans, I'm replacing them with ceiling fans (the kitchen and the two bedrooms), relying on the previous owner's wisdom about their placement. The rest of the fixtures are being replaced with what I hope to be a coordinated design of bronze-finished fixtures with an arts-and-crafts/art deco twist.

Gas fireplace in living room.

After leaving the house, I drove back to Winona, stopping at a Perkins (kind of a Baker's Square type restaurant) for a late breakfast. When I got home, I crashed for a time before getting up. Most of the rest of the afternoon was spent online looking for period fixtures (which cost a fortune) and appropriate new-designed fixtures that are more in my price range.

Stairs from living room to
upstairs landing; note
period telephone shelf

Pam texted me in the afternoon, asking if I could pick up a pizza for Pizza Night (which is every Friday). So I stopped at the Papa Murphy's Take 'n' Bake here in Winona before heading out to Ettrick for the evening.

Stairs up to landing

We've already had several muggy days, but nothing terribly uncomfortable. So Steve and Pam and I sat out on the front porch in Ettrick with Natalie playing in the sandbox while her mom, Amanda, was working her part-time job at a local bar.

Period details!

While sitting upstairs in their living room, I commented to Steve and Pam how calm I've become since the house is really, officially mine. And I realized that, once that had occurred, I began thinking about my move-in and the improvements I wanted to make on the place, and my plans have been heavily revised.

Balcony off the office space.

Originally, I was going to drop a large amount on replacing all the appliances, since they were supposed to be removed before the close of escrow. I'm thinking that the seller's agent simply filled out the MLS forms wrong. In any case, the appliances are all there, so I'm not replacing them right off. Once that decision was made, my mind turned to the lighting.

Office space at top of stairs.

So I drove back to Winona that evening feeling much more grounded, more connected to this new place I've adopted for my home. The people have all been so nice and every time I need a person for electrical or plumbing or yardwork, half a dozen folks have someone they know who does what's needed at a reasonable price and in a conscientious manner.

Upstairs bath will get a soaker tub.

Saturday, Amanda, Natalie and I drove into La Crosse, got some lunch and went to Wettstein's Lighting, which is a satellite store of Wettsteins where the appliances are. Like with most lighting stores, it's rather overwhelming when you enter. So many designs, so many prices, I have a tendency to lose focus in a place like that, looking at stuff I like but that is no solution to the design parameters facing me.

Master bedroom (w/fan) is almost as big as the living room.

So I decided to focus on the fans. Seems the federal government recently defined fans as appliances, so for some reason the lighting intensities of lighted fans have been stunted. This was rather a downer, as all the fans' lights are also the main light source in each room.

Fan style for the bedrooms.

I settled on two lighted fans with a nice deco-styled motor mounting and a single central light. For the kitchen, I swapped out the light over the sink with a four-bulb rail fixture. That way, I can put the light where I need it and not have to rely on the kitchen fan's light for anything but a general light.

So I made the purchase and asked them to hold the lights until I could pick them up (I don't want them lying around while I'm trying to unpack the household), and we drove over to my place.

Focused rail lighting over sink will help keep kitchen bright. 

Natalie was delighted to explore a new house, and Amanda liked the place, I think. At one point, Natalie came up to me and asked, "Do you have a TV?" Yes, I explained, but it's on the way here, on the truck, like all the rest of my stuff. She seemed to accept the explanation, but you could see it was far from convincing her that I didn't just live in an empty house.

Kitchen fan to match rail lighting.

And so we headed back to Winona. I spent some time online and finally found the kitchen ceiling fan that I liked, pricewise as well as designwise.

So I'm hoping my stuff will arrive sooner than later next week, and that I can show you pictures of my old stuff in my new place. And perhaps, by then, I'll have a solution as to whether or not I'm going to tear up that carpeting. It might be a different story once we get the furniture in, but I still want to see the floors underneath; that may trump everything.

Champing at the Bit

Well, escrow is supposed to close on Friday at 9 a.m. But Mike, my Realtor, hasn't heard from the seller's agent (the guy who takes three and four days to return a phone call or an e-mail). So we're still not sure that escrow will close on Friday if no one from the seller's side makes it to the signing. I'm hoping that the jerk will call before the meeting and let us know they'll be attending. So that's an "if" that's unresolved.

Then there's the actual move of my household goods. They haven't been picked up yet, which means the stuff might not show up until the latter part of the May 18-25 delivery window. I will know when it leaves Monrovia, as Pink Transfer will be sending me an e-bill for the haul which I will have 48 hours to pay. I won't know the date and time of delivery until the day before, when the driver will give me a call and let me know the particulars. So that's a second "if" that's unresolved; two more if you count the driver's phone call.

I went down to AAA yesterday (the offices are in Onalaska, which is just north of La Crosse) and got homeowner's insurance on the new house. I paid the full year and they did a wire transfer with the check, so the coverage will be in place on Friday. That's an "if" taken care of.

This morning I had the electricity and gas service transferred to my name as of Friday, so that's another "if" taken care of. Mike said the water and trash (called refuse and recycling) transfer will be taken care of at close of escrow. On Friday. If everyone shows up.

I've got the new appliances picked out for the house, but I haven't placed an order yet because I'm not sure when I'm going to have them delivered and installed. I'm heading into La Crosse this evening to be part of an information-gathering seminar on LGBT healthcare needs (my first foray into networking with the gay community), so I might head in early and stop in at Wettstein's and place the order. Or not.

Then there's still the bed to deal with. I want to get a new one, so I have something to sleep on at the house before the household stuff (and my old bed) arrives. I'll have to locate a couple of retailers in La Crosse and find something suitable. It would be really cool if I could get all the local stuff in the house next Monday or Tuesday, so I can start overnighting there.

I've decided to leave Patty in place here in Winona until the house is unpacked and in some kind of order. God knows she's had enough change and disruption for one cat. She's getting more relaxed now and actually shows herself when just Amanda and I are in the room. She has even come out while Natalie was on the quiet side, and Natalie has attempted to play with Patty using the one toy I brought in the car from California. The encounter didn't last long, but it was clear the cat was not panicked, just kind of non-plussed by this little person with the penny-bright red hair.

So here in the home stretch, it's kind of like driving home and needing to use the bathroom; it seems like the closer you get to the toilet, the worse you have to go. It's the anticipation, I think, of reaching something dearly desired; something that will make the discomfort go away and bring a sort of balance back into my life.

Champing at the bit. It's very frustrating. I want all the "ifs" to go away. I want to flop down in my own house and just be there. I want my stuff back with me again. I want to wake up in the morning and take a walk in my neighborhood filled with lovely, old regal homes. I want to park my car in my garage. I want to try out the toilets and the shower and bath. I want to sleep in my own bed and put my clothes away in my own closets.

I want to make breakfast and burn the toast and smell it all over the house. I want to watch the cat charge up and down the new stairs with that sparkle in her eyes that says she knows she owns the place; I just pay the insurance and the taxes and keep the food coming. And I want a place to invite people over, have a dinner party, watch the Oscars (in lieu of football games).

So much want. Such driving need. All just up and over this small hill, waiting on the other side, and there's nothing I can do about it but wait. It will all unfold, like an old road map, over and over and over again until it's wide and flat and revealed. Only then do you get a sense of proportion and direction.

Ommmmmmmmmmm.

Get the Ball Rolling

Finally, today, all the inspection reports are completed and in. And beyond the minor and medium fixes that you'd expect with a house of this age, all the news is really good (with possible exception of the garage roof, but if it leaks on my car I'm not too concerned). So I called Realtor Michael today and let him know I just wanted to move ahead with the sale (no contingency remedies) and get escrow closed as fast as possible. I WANT MY HOUSE!

It's not that I don't enjoy staying with Amanda and Natalie (now that I have grown inured to her occasional emotional meltdowns — Natalie, not Amanda), but I want my stuff, in my new house. I want to know that I'm not going to move the cat again anywhere (except the vet's) for a long, long time. I want to get starting a new life in a new town with new people. And I want somewhere I can fart without saying "excuse me," (which is more for Natalie's etiquette training than my own need for acceptance).

I'd say it's been about a year since I felt "at home." This feeling of not belonging anywhere started with the remodel of my place in Pasadena and has expanded with the sale and move out in California, the cross-country drive with Patty and our temporary housing here in Winona.

And while Winona is a very beautiful place and it's pleasant to visit with Amanda and Natalie, they are elsewhere most of the time, living their lives, and any business that takes me into La Crosse means a 30-mile drive each way. Likewise, visiting Pam and Steve in Ettrick is also 30 miles each way. It's like a McDougal triangle: 30 miles in any direction to visit.

Deeann Hoff, whom I used to work with at the Hollywood Reporter, is from Viroqua, a small town about 40 miles or so south of La Crosse. She e-mailed that you have to get used to driving 30 to 50 miles to go visit people; things are just that spread out here. This is one of the reasons I wanted to live in town; more likely people will come visit me while partaking of the city's amenities.

The biggest stumbling block in the process of getting my place is the seller's agent: it takes him three and four days to return an e-mail or phone call to answer a simple question. Michael said he's a new agent in town, and I told him, "He doesn't really have the necessary communication skills for your industry, does he?" Michael laughed at that. Then I suggested the guy would call right quick when he heard a cash payment was in the mix.

I'm hoping Mike and I will get to be friends once this sale is done and long finished. In a town of 50,000, there are not a lot of gay professionals to hang with, and Michael is involved in the LGBT resource center (which I plan to work with), so we'll probably cross paths in the future.

So I closed the conversation by saying I will await his call on what my next move is: probably cutting a cashier's check and signing some papers. Then comes coordinating the move in and getting settled. Lesson learned from my move out: make sure there's at least one bed and one table and one chair. All else can be dealt with later.

I saw an ad online for a production artist for a sportswear manufacturer here in Winona, but I decided not to send a resume. This is my time, these next 12 months, are for me: to establish myself, make friends, and network in the community. There is no need to put my nose to the grindstone just yet. I’m trusting that something wonderful will emerge from La Crosse, either employment or business clients or a whole new form of generating income I haven't even imagined yet: that's what this year is for…and to have fun!

The weather here is very weird, changing every 45 minutes or so. Today started sunny and cool, then blasts of winds that would beat out the Santa Ana winds came rushing through; they subsided and it started raining, then everything got still and muggy. Then the wind was back up again and the sun popping in and out of a partly cloudy sky. And that was all in about four hours’ time.

Half the people here seem like they stepped out of the Cohen brothers’ “Fargo,” you betcha. Lots of what in California they would call funny looking white people. But these folks are simply who they are. Pretense is not rewarded, I think. "Beautiful people" and celebutants are few and far between, and that is so refreshing for me.

My online banking is all set up now with a local bank that has maybe three branches in the entire county. I realized that a new customer coming in with a six-figure deposit was a big deal, because they immediately assigned me to one of the vice presidents of the bank. And Pam, my sister-in-law, has worked with the CEO on many charity projects, so I’m not a total nobody, as with BofA.

And so I congregate with my people, here in the Midwest where I was born, and chant to corporate America: "I am somebody!" Then we all huddle in the shadow of Gov. Walker and sing "We shall persevere. We shall persevere. All we need are cheese curds and draft beer!"

I'm really getting into this, don't ya know.

Everything I Wanted to Hear

Today was the day: home inspection. I've kind of fallen in love with this place, so I was dreading hearing bad news about an 80-year-old house. It looks great, inside and out, but I don't have the eyes or the experience of a home inspector. I know some of what to look for, but not everything. And I certainly can't spot things that become potential problems in the winter.

I arranged for the inspection last week. I was told the inspector would arrive at 9:30, and that I was to arrive at 11 a.m. I fully expected a few terse comments, an overview of his findings, really, and then a request for a check. What I got was very different.

When I went into the house, Dale (the inspector) was downstairs. I was deftly measuring spaces in the kitchen when he hollered "hello?" up from the basement. We met halfway and he started talking about the house. At first, I wanted to get the stuff I wanted to get done done, but he kept moving from one bit of minutia to another. 

After a minute or so, he had me hooked. He was pointing out quirky things, things you don't find in new houses, things particular to this home's design, things that wouldn't be code today, but were 80 years ago. Most of these things weren't good or bad, plusses or minuses, but just small points of fascination. And then I got it.

This guy loves houses, especially old houses, and he knows what he's talking about. As we walked through the home, it was clear that there were small fixes the should be taken care of, and one or two things that absolutely needed to be done, but on the whole, it was Dale having a love affair with a house he really liked.

So I need shut-off valves for the gas fireplace and the gas range. I need to replace the smoke detectors (he suggested a linked set, since it would be impossible to hear the one in the basement from the second floor). The fan in the upstairs bathroom needs to be removed or replaced. There are two outlets upstairs that are not grounded, which means they are probably remnants of the old knob-and-tube wiring. He suggested getting an electrician out to review several items, but said the wiring seemed sound.

He spent just as much time admiring the details of the main stairs and the extensive dampering system built into the original HVAC ducting, where you can control the amount of air reaching each and every vent in the house. He pointed out the overbuilt floor joists and admired the floorboards built on the bias.  He also pointed out that the original laundry shoot from the second floor now comes out directly over the toilet in the basement bathroom.

I almost felt embarrassed to watch his love affair with architecture actualize itself in this wonderful old house. And even though we couldn't get into the garage (no keys and no garage door opener), he took me on a tour of the exterior, from the roof in need of replacement to the questionable craftsmanship of the added-on workshop section of the structure.

So I'll be awaiting the report, anticipating a to-do list that will probably stretch out a year or more. But the house itself is solid and a piece of work that Dale truly admired. And so do I. Again, I didn't take any pictures, but I wasn't so interested in that. I was having too much fun seeing my new home through the eyes or someone who's seen them all, and really liked what he saw in my place.

Just as Stressful in Reverse

Front of house. Things are much greener now.

Selling a house is stressful. Buying a house is just as stressful, even if you have enough funds to make a cash purchase. Everyone is asking for photos of the place, but I won't have possession until the 18th, so I haven't had a chance to take my own photos of the place, so I am borrowing the photos from the MLS listing to give you an idea of the place.

Old mail on left of door, round-top
front door, interior arches.

One of the things you have to ignore is the snow in the photos. Now everything is coming up green, including the big trees.That stick in the righthand photo above (blocking the view of the front door) is a pink tulip tree now in full bloom. Actually, we've had warm days the last half week, with mild evenings. A breeze blows in at night, sometimes the clouds pass by, drop a little precipitation but nothing that can be called real rain.

Dining room with built-ins and ugly carpet.

So I went into La Crosse, on Wednesday, opened by bank accounts, signed the acceptance papers and touched bases with Realtor Michael. Then I scheduled the home inspection (and radon test, just to be sure) which will take place this Tuesday. The seller needs to have a termite inspection done, and my purchase payment for the house is due this Wednesday (the day my accounts are released from the hold the bank puts on new deposits over $5,000). If there are no problems found in either of the inspections, that's that. And I think any mitigation of any problems found can be taken care of in the week in between.

Looking from dining room into living room.

Thursday I went back into La Crosse, since I had a coffee date scheduled with Jackson, the executive director of the local LGBT resource center. We met at the center and had a good, long chat about La Crosse, the community in general and our views on where the politics of civil rights were headed.

On Friday I scheduled the move of my furniture from storage in Monrovia back in California to here. At first the carrier gives you a 7-day window for the arrival of the stuff. In the week before it arrives, they give you an actual day when they will be here. I hope they do that soon, as I also have to coordinate the arrival of the appliances I need to get for the place. (The appliances were not included in the sale price, but the seller would negotiate selling them: screw that; if I'm going to buy appliances they might as well be new.) In the evening, I went out to Pam and Steve's for pizza night. While there, I prepped and signed the document necessary to get the move rolling and sent PDF versions via e-mail to Pink Transfer. I was going to bring out a load of laundry to do there, but I forgot it in Winona when I left the house.

Only about half of the kitchen shown. Lots of period details in this room.

Today (Saturday) Amanda and I went out (she being my guide in the field) to check out the local appliance and furniture stores. Wettstein's is the place to go for appliances, and they had a really good selection. We found a nice suite of appliances from GE and a washer and dryer set. Then we headed out to International Furniture and checked out what is the top-end store in the area, I'm assuming. Afterwards, we stopped as Fayze's downtown for lunch and headed out to Ettrick to pick up Natalie, who had been in the care of her grandparents while Amanda and I shopped.

I think the strategy is going to be splurging on one or two items, then picking up the final pieces over the next couple months. There are auction houses and consignment shops and secondhand and thrift stores to be checked out before purchasing everything new.

Balcony off office upstairs; garage with large workshop area and nice yard.

There are still unknowns before I actually order any of the stuff for the house, but I think those will all become knowns on Tuesday, after the inspection. (Like does the kitchen have a proper venting system for the oven, or do we need to install that?)

So I've got 16 days between now and taking possession of the house. It is going to be very difficult to remain calm, but I'll be in much better shape once the inspections are over and done with. Once again, I'm sure everything will work out fine. I just worry because there's something so exciting and fabulous to worry about.

Tomorrow (Sunday) Amanda and I are going to take Natalie to see Disney's life-action "Cinderella" at the Rivoli Theaters. I understand you can order food and eat it right at your seat. This should be interesting.