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Looking at PropertiesSo yesterday was the big day: I went out to look at properties (that's "houses", to the non-real-estate-inclined of you, or "townhouses" for the real stickler who understand what "properties" cost in Silicon Valley). Debbi was nice enough to come with me, although she said she likes to look at houses anyway. Which I can kind of understand, now that I've done it. I asked my agent to show me four properties, but one of them was taken off the market late in the week. Still, it seemed like a good start, and all of them are in my hoped-for area. Two of them actually are in a nice central location to many things I do and friends I see. The first property was a two-bedroom townhouse which the owner wants to sell "as-is". What this means is basically that it needs work, as it's been repainted with a rather poor paint job, and some elements of the place need to be replaced or upgraded. The floor plan was reasonable, although I find the long hallway to get to the living room from the front door somewhat unattractive. On the other hand, it has a large garage and three porches (a deck on the first floor, and two on the second floor). So it seemed okay for a start. (But what would I do with three porches? The second property, however, removed any thought of the first from my mind. Carefully maintained by a single owner since its construction, she'd also done an amazing job of decorating it, and had cultivated a lovely flower garden in the back yard (which includes a lemon tree!). The living room is right by the front door, with a short hall back to the kitchen and dining area. It, too, has a second-floor porch, and a large walk-in closet, as well as large sills on both floors inside the wide windows (yep, I immediately envisioned my cats sitting in them). It does have a few downsides, though: It has electric baseboard heat, which - although not everywhere - would restrict my choice of where to put my bookshelves. The garage is smaller, and probably wouldn't let me keep both my car and some stored items in it. And the second-floor deck unfortunately has a view of a church parking lot. Still, it's a very attractive unit. The third property had almost exactly the same floor plan as the first, and was clearly designed by the same architect. However, it's a somewhat larger unit inside, lacks the third porch, has a more spacious back yard, and is in a much larger complex with a pool and a spa! As well as being in a pleasant residential neighborhood. I'm still not wowed by the floorplan, and the unit seems a bit overpriced (relative to Valley prices), but it seems like an option. Having a pool to sit by and swim in would not be a bad thing. So after this I felt considerably encouraged in the prospects for my hunt. All three properties are within my budget and in places I'd feel comfortable living. Other than what I've noted above, my biggest regret is that all are two-bedroom homes, and I'd like to get a three-bedroom if at all possible. But, I admit that maybe that won't be possible. Debbi and I talked about the properties for quite a while thereafter. I eventually came to the conclusion that I want to see some more properties. I could see myself living in the second or the third, if that's the best I can do, so I know now that I have something to fall back on (in a broad, general sense). But neither of them is strongly calling me (though I have played in my mind with how I'd set myself up in the second one). I figure if these properties are sold soon, then there's nothing wrong with that right now. Better to feel comfortable with my purchase in the long run then to act in haste. Best of all, I feel much calmer about seeing properties. I've cleared another hurdle, my agent continues to be great to work with, and I feel like I'm making good progress. (Several people have commented that I'm acting really quickly, now that I've started. It still feels to me like I'm dragging my feet whenever possible, but I'm not an objective judge.) So that's all something to be proud of.
 Debbi and I spent the rest of the afternoon shopping. We hit some used book stores where I indulged in collecting books for my latest not-that-I-have-time-for-it-anyway project: Reading all the novels which have won the Hugo or Nebula Awards. This is not as ambitious as it sounds: I've already read somewhere between a third and a half of the winners, including many of the recent winners, which tend to be the longer ones. And there's a lot of worthwhile SF in there which I ought to read anyway. I picked up several such winners (see sidebar), including one which has long been out-of-print (the Clifton/Riley one, which won the second Hugo), so I was a happy boy. I picked up a couple of other books as well. Not that I have immediate plans to read most of them! We also stopped by the custom jewelry store in downtown Palo Alto which I'd told Debbi about and which she wanted to see, and we wrapped up the day at Cafe Borrone, reading and having dessert after dinner at Su Hong.
Today we drove up to Millbrae for their annual Art & Wine Festival, which Debbi wanted to go to. I must admit I was expecting it to be either really "girly", or quite small, but it turned out to be neither: They had many nice art vendors, including some stunning photography, and various knick-knack vendors who I'll have to keep in mind for when I own a home. I also bought a semi-automatic rubber band shooter, which is a pretty cool piece of technology (though I'm having trouble getting it to shoot just one rubber band per squeeze). It was a fun afternoon of walking around. Afterwards, we just lounged around for the rest of the day, and I finished reading Anita Diamant's novel The Red Tent, which is the book for this month's Speculative Fiction Book Discussion at Kepler's. This is the story of a minor figure from the Old Testament (or so I understand, not having read that collection of yarns), Dinah, the son of Jacob and sister of Joseph. Born into a family with four fives and ten sons, Dinah is revered by her mothers as the only daughter, and learns to be a midwife. But when she marries, tragedy strikes her, her husband's family, and her own, and in the wake of it all she ends up fleeing to Egypt, pregnant, alone in a strange land with only her self and her skills to see her through. I can't say that The Red Tent is a book that demands to be read; it's really a book that's endured more than read. The whole book is basically about women enduring things: Mostly childbirth, partly men, partly other women. The whole first part is basically about Jacob's wives getting pregnant, being pregnant, giving birth, and helping each other give birth. The other two parts deviate from this somewhat, but still it's mostly about the hell that women seemed to go through all those millennia ago. It's not cheerful. It's also not really educational: The book mostly speaks in generalities and rarely in specifics. Narrated in the first person by Dinah herself, we never really know Dinah or the other characters. She makes a point that she never really knew her father, so Jacob's ethereal persona is acceptable, but it's rarely clear what these women spend most of their time doing, what they hope for, what they hope against, what they think of their lot in life. Surely these things were on their minds most of the time! There are few scenes as such: Sequences which occurs with characters interacting directly and resolving or failing to resolve) issues through direct contact. Scenes are generally described indirectly: "She did this." "They never were reconciled with each other." "He was very angry and shouted at her." That's the narrative style of the book, and it ends up feeling very impersonal. And the most emotionally powerful moments of the book are pointedly glossed over in a few brief paragraphs, apparently (I infer) to suggest that Dinah can't bear to remember them, but it defeats what power the book has. The book's biggest problem, though, is this: It never feels remarkable. I rarely got a feel for what made this period in history (even fictional history) interesting, or why Dinah's story was worth telling. Perhaps it's entirely based on context: Without knowing the Biblical backstory, her story has little meaning. If so, then that's okay; I'm just not the book's target audience. But it's far from my concept of "speculative fiction", and didn't work for me on any other level, either. Ah, well. Book discussion groups always have a few clunkers.
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