Year 8 from 12/28/1989 to 12/28/1989—How We Got Our House
We camped during June and July, including visits to family in Southern California. When we returned, loads and loads of dirty laundry and piles and piles of filthy camp ware waited. In morning, the kids woke wanting pancakes for breakfast and lemonade with brownies for lunch. Perfectly sensible. Totally sugar. Definitely summer. I made breakfast, washed camp dishes, and sorted laundry. Meghan showed renewed interest in toys not seen for weeks and now scattered over the floor. The boys next door, Chris, Michael, and Douglas, appeared at the front door, wanting Meghan and our contribution to the neighborhood lemonade stand. They used Meghan’s Playschool kitchen, with a sign hanging from the plastic range advertising “Lemonade 20 cents,” and then ran up and down the street shouting the opening of their new business.
Meanwhile, Allie’s naptime at 11:00 was disrupted because of being home. Her summer naps often occurred in the car seat when we moved from one campsite to the next. Now, sleep in her crib was foreign—on a mattress in a quiet room. I asked my neighbor to watch the kids (fair exchange—paper cups and lemonade for ½ hour babysitting) as I put Allie in the car for a quick drive to help her fall asleep. Sure enough, a mile down the road, Allie’s eyes began to flutter and she assumed her sleeping position—car seat mode. I had a few minutes left on the clock, so I drove to where the sun was shining.
Indian Springs always held an attraction for Dale and me. Most of the time, the valley sucked in the fog like a giant vacuum. In summer, a dark line of dense clouds and mist hung over the entire valley floor. The plants loved this; we did not. I drove around the Indian Springs neighborhood, dreaming and looking at houses. Few homes were for sale this year—not a buyer’s market for sure. Whether it was the woman pulling weeds or the “For Sale by Owner” sign that caught my eye, I stopped in the driveway.
“May I see your house?” I assumed this was her place, not a neighbor’s she was weeding.
“Yes, of course, come in.” Didi, widowed a year before, had moved to her daughter’s home in town, returned periodically to check on the place. I knew as soon as I walked to the front door that this was our new home. The overgrown weeds, the unpruned roses, the sprawling mint, the gravel lawn (which I hate)—were cosmetic yard work which I love. The front doors opened to a magnificent valley view, the living room to a view of the oak forest. The layout of the house, despite the ugly orange and brown shag rug, was open and flowing. We needed to remove the layers of unsightly wallpaper, rip up the repulsive carpet, replace the broken tile, but the house would work. Most significantly, the pool desperately called for a fence, but the place was doable.
I asked the owner, Didi, “Can you take a contingency?”
She smiled and said, “Where do you live?”
I described our place and named the street, to which she replied, “Oh, I know that house. My daughter lives around the corner from you. May I see your home?”
“Sure, of course,” and by now I needed to get back anyway.
Didi followed me home to the disaster I left. Paper cups flew beyond our yard, to our neighbors on both sides and down the street. Breakfast dishes covered the counter and table. Laundry and camping gear, still not put away, surrounded the couch and the floor. Meghan’s toys, along with Chris’s, Michael’s, and Douglas’s multiplied in my absence, making one of the messier days I left. Didi and I sidestepped the debris, carefully dodging Legos, Lincoln Logs, and assorted body parts of Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head.
“This is the same model as my daughters,” she chuckled, “I’ll take it.”
“Excuse me?” Not sure if I heard this correctly. “Did you say you’ll take it?”
“Yes, we can work this out.” Didi smiled sweetly and suggested I name the price for her home. I made an offer, knowing this was far below what her list price was, and she said, “Yes, that will work fine.”
I called Dale, who was working at his summer “fun” job of crashing computer programs for Digital Research. “Hi, Honey. I sold our house and bought a new one.” Of course, I gave a few more details. “Okay, great, I’ll stop by the library for the forms.” I realized afterwards that Dale did not question me, that he agreed to it sight unseen.
Two days later, we contacted the title insurance company and escrow began. On the third day, Dale dug trenches around the pool for a fence; I enrolled Meghan in Spreckels kindergarten class. The next two weeks we packed. We paid a team of our high school football players $20 per hour plus pizza to move Didi and us. Poor guys had to move furniture to and from both houses, but they loved earning money and eating food. Boxes lined our hallways from floor to ceiling. We did it—in two weeks, with library reference books and without realtors. The title insurance company representative told us he never, in his thirty years in the business, encountered such an efficient escrow.
The bus picked up Meghan at her new house on the first day of school. We were home.
Love is Complicated 