Dust to duct

The contractors who refurbished our house put the wrong size filter in the furnace, and didn't even attempt to seal the gaps around the filter with duct tape. During a gut remodel, a lot of dust and debris ends up in the basement, and when the furnace was fired up without the appropriate filter in place, a good portion of that dust and debris ended up in the duct system. The entire house was consequently coated with a thin layer of grit, and more grit was drifting down each time the HVAC kicked on. Try settling into a new place and keeping it clean under those conditions. I used to do drywall work and each morning in the new place I'd awake with that long-forgotten gritty taste in my throat.

No more. I hired some guy with a big blue sucking machine to suck all the stuff out of our ducts yesterday. Said duct sucking was quite satisfying, and if you have ducts you ought to get them sucked. It is expensive, but worth it.

The Neighbors

I've met some of our neighbors already. The house just north of us is home to A and B. A is English and blond and is always carting her toddler around. Her politeness is typically intense. Sometimes I hear the baby laughing and gurgling through our TV room wall, which is much more acceptable than lame techno beats and Busch-drenched frat boys shouting over fussball. B operates an antique store in Hampden, and we'll likely be shopping there soon for a dining room set. The house just south of us is home to E, who is a hoot. He's got dreads down to his ass, and when he saw me Saturday he put his hands in the air and yelled:

"Oh I have WAITED for this day! I have WAITED for a neighbor for 15 years, that old empty house raggedy for years and I have a NEIGHBOR AT LAST!" (vigorously shaking my hand and patting my shouler) "I'm a snowboarding instructor and I'm orginally from West Baltimore--love your hat, man!--and I am LATE FOR WORK but YOU WILL BE LOVED here, just watch out because somebody will probably slash your tires. They don't mean nothing by it, just kids you know--that is one NICE spoon back chair--man I got to go get PAID but thank you Jesus this City needs a HUG you know and it will HUG YOU BACK. I'm already planning a welcoming neighborhood brunch for y'all, ask anyone they'll tell you old E knows his way 'round in the kitchen, someday I'm going to run a hostel or B&B out of this house you know if I can get my shit TOGETHER. BLESSED BE I am so glad TODAY."

I was moving stuff around in the basement and the back patio two nights ago and wafting over from E's yard was a most intriguing smell, redolent of Dutch coffee houses and 1970's Econoline vans. Mental note: E has access to some primo.

Two houses north of us are L and her son G. She's Puerto Rican from Harlem, and he's half-black. They are extremely nice, and we actually met them the first time we viewed the house. Theirs was rehabbed by the same people, and she invited us in and showed us around so we could see if their work was holding up under habitation. It was.

Across the way I've met J, who told me the neighborhood is safe so long as you stay inside after nine pm, but I think (hope) he was joking. There are three more houses being rehabbed on our block, including both enormous turreted end units at the corner of Whitelock and Madison. Those will likely run more than half a mill when done.

I'll have pictures up as soon as I can get Verizon to turn on the damn phone and internet at home.

The First Supper

We've been in the new house since Thursday. It's funny how everything takes on an odd tone akin to nostalgia, as though we're borrowing perspective from the future and using it up now. Every 'first' is remarked, discussed, and associated with warm feelings. Awww, we're having our first meal in the new kitchen, or I just watched my first DVD in the new house*, or This insurance bill is our first piece of mail here, or Awwww, I just pinched my first loaf on Madison Ave. Such bullshit! The first meal in our new kitchen was great, I loved it, and it felt special to sit down with my wife and talk and eat and look around. But shouldn't every meal be like that? Does mere novelty explain that heightened emotional valuation? I don't know the answer, but I even had one of these awwww moments when I saw my first rat scamper across the parking pad.

What the fuck difference does it make if it's the first time we do something in the new house? The Buddhists are onto something with that 'living in the moment' stuff. Taking a bath in the whirlpool tub the first time is nice, but it should always be nice. I know for a fact however that in two years it'll be ho-hum, another bath in the whirlpool tub, whooopedy-do.

I suppose I can blame the exhausting moving process in part for making things feel so special right now. We've been living in chaos for months, and it's going to take another month to get settled in. Yesterday we bought some curtains and hung them for the first time in our new house(awww). Our first expedition to Ikea** to furnish the new place(awww). But the moved-in chaos is much better than the pre-move chaos as it doesn't have the actual moving chaos ahead of it.

I'm sore as hell after five straight days of heavy lifting. I took my first two Tylenol at the house Thursday, and have achieved my first 10 since. My hips, knees, and feet ache like a rotted tooth.

*It was David Cronenberg's ExistenZ. My own disassociation with reality following several days of heavy lifting and weeks of unsurety made this selection appropriate. That and the fact it was the DVD on top of the box I opened after setting up the TV room.

**I loathe the local Ikea. The customers there are the rudest, most hateful bunch of schmucks anywhere on the planet, with absolutely minimal regard for other human beings. If a meteor crashed into the damn building on a Sunday afternoon the planet Earth would benefit dramatically.***

***I would include my own loss as a Sunday Ikea shopper as also beneficial to Earth.****

****My boss/editor always corrects me when I put the definite article in front of Earth, as in "The Earth." She says "Earth is the planet, the earth is dirt." I argued that Earth often takes the definite article, and she said I was looney. The curriculum we were arguing over was written by me***** for a book called Voyage to the Center of THE EARTH, however, so I won the argument.

*****She also hates the passive voice, but then again the passive voice is also hated by me.

Striving for normalcy

We owe a big debt to those poor unfortunates stuck with helping us move last week. The Thursday crew did the heavy lifting--BroJ and Big Al and our parents put in a full day and Teeny Weeny lent a hand briefly.

Friday and Saturday we had a great deal of help with the de-junkifying of our old place, including again our folks and also Leesha who very kindly drove down from Manhattan and helped with such delightful tasks as cleaning out the attic. Earthdragon and Poptart RULE--they gave us much of their weekend, and enough beer doesn't exist to repay them. Sandstress even provided photography services before we left the old place, and had a final run-in with the restless door-opening entity there. K'wali and Klezma showed late Saturday and helped haul boxes up and down the steps as well. Our moms are the best: mine provided her much-needed Jeep pickup for trips to the dump and house and put in four solid days of labor, and Cha's kept us all fed, did a lot of cleaning and box pushing, and minimized our trips to the Goodwill by reclaiming half the stuff we were dumping. We can't forget my niece Danie either. In between packing and cleaning she entertained us with pink tennis ball juggling. Awesome.

Thanks also to those Evite respondees who were scheduled to come but who were cancelled because of the quick and efficient work of the other volunteers. You guys also rock.

Now I'm back at the job with a pile of editing to do, but I feel I can relax. Today was my first automotive commute to work in something like 13 years.

UGH

Moving sucks. Every aspect of it sucks. Looking at houses, selling a house, buying a house, signing contracts, doing inspections. It's a pain in the fucking arse long before one even has to endure the actual physical move itself.

All systems were go for our move this week until late Friday, at which point our title company found a ground rent lease attached to the home we're buying. This was not disclosed by the seller, who had claimed it was a fee simple property on their listing, and our contract of sale was written and accepted with this understanding. (A ground rent indicates that somebody owns the lot upon which your house sits and that instead of owning the ground you lease it. There has been much scandal of late in Baltimore over this practice, with good reason. Fee simple designates the more traditional whole-kit-and-caboodle, lot and house included in the sale.)

The sellers, notified of the problem, said that the property is indeed fee simple and that they would resolve this easily.

Now our mortgage underwriter wants to delay settlement because they are suspicious of such a title discovery this late in the process. ANY delay in settlement on the new house could fuck us, because we have to move out by the end of this week, and settlement is scheduled for Wednesday. If settlement got pushed back to next week we'd have to put our stuff in storage, settle on the new house, and then move again. That's assuming the ground rent/fee-simple issue is easily resolved, and doesn't result in lawsuits and breach of contract claims, which could result in us starting the house search over again, this time based out of a studio apartment or--worse yet--based out of the in-laws' basement.

I can't do anything but wait for the hired guns to wrangle over this. I'm not sure if that's good or bad for my mental health.

Might as well be spring

I seriously doubt winter is finished in Baltimore but one could be forgiven for thinking so today. It's fucking gorgeous outside, close to sixty degrees and sunny. The solid-frozen snow and ice that seemed so permanent a mere 48 hours ago have dwindled to pockets of wet grey sludge. We had a very short winter, with days like today running all the way through December and deep into January, but the cold snap we endured the last six weeks was brutal.

I took a long walk instead of eating lunch, and now I can't face the pile of editing on my desk. According to forecasts, similarly warm weather is expected when we move next week. Of course it's going to rain, because EVERY TIME I HAVE EVER MOVED IN MY ENTIRE LIFE IT HAS RAINED LIKE HELL.

Saw Double Engine and baby Holden on my walk around Towson. Cute little guy!

Moving

Can any hell be more horrible than now and real? -James Douglas Morrison, Lament


I've been sorely neglecting this space for weeks now, and the traffic numbers reflect that fact. I apologize. My mind is elsewhere.

I live in a shambles of crates and boxes. There's no heat in our house. The frat boys are partying hard core in our neighborhood, gleefully anticipating our departure. Insurance companies need this, banks need that, mortgage providers want those, real estate agents want these. Inspections, utility services, address changes occupy my time. Soon I'll be throwing a car purchase into the mix, with the requisite trips to the MVA and further confrontations with insurance company types.

The bureaucracies are nearly sated, leaving the actual physical move, which is always unpleasant, but which will be accomplished by Saturday next week. Then, the purchase of rugs and curtains and curtain rods and new furnishings and the installation and hanging and positioning of such things.

Look for a housewarming party in May. I'll be wearing more than one lampshade that day.