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Good Things and Bad ThingsWell, the good news is that I basically committed to buying my townhouse today, removing the contingencies from the purchase. I don't actually own it yet, but I can't easily back out of the purchase at this point. And you know, I feel pretty good about it. Removing the contingencies was a big step, because it was the last real decision I had to make. Oh, I have to go through the closing procedure (which I understand means signing documents until my arm falls off), and packing the moving, but those are all just processes, not decisions. Today, when you get right down to it, I decided to buy this house. This week has been less stressful than last, although not without its moments. But, really, I consider myself pretty lucky: All of my concerns have been promptly addressed in pretty much the way I'd hoped they'd turn out. So when it came down to it, any reasons I could think of not to buy this house were pretty far reaches indeed. I like the floor plan, I like the neighborhood, it's big enough, it's in my price range, it seems structurally sound. What's not to like? Yesterday I took one more walk through the place with my agent. I've learned during the last week and a half that there's no reason not to go investigate little things, just to have some peace of mind that they won't be "one more thing" I'll have to deal with. Not that there's much about the unit that needs "dealing with", just that there are so many things involved in buying and moving that I have to cope with. So I spent 45 minutes wandering around my home-to-be, testing things out, and looking forward to living there. If all goes as planned, at this time next month I'll be all moved in to my new home. And the cats will be hiding under the furniture, no doubt. Well, I think they'll come around and appreciate the place.
 Other than that, though, this day was kind of sucky. To start with, the New Yank Yorkies have taken a 3-games-to-2 lead in the World Series, and a fourth consecutive championship for them seems all but assured. Since one of my two or three greatest hopes every baseball season is for the Yorkies to lose, that immediately makes this a downer. I've only watched maybe three innings of this year's Series, because a Series with the Yorkies is just intrinsically Not Interesting. Next, well... I don't think I've mentioned here yet that my sister is getting married next month. Heck, I don't even mention my sister very much. I have a younger sister, Katy, about four-and-a-half years younger than me. We're not particularly close, though we get along now (we didn't get along so well as kids). Anyway, Katy and her boyfriend decided to get married on fairly short notice - I didn't find out about it until mid/late September, anyway. Unfortunately, as you might have guessed, this is not the most convenient time for me to be flying to the other side of the continent for a wedding. Especially since I've lost a bunch of weight since I last wore my suit, and I need to buy a new one. Basically, looking for a house, and then going into escrow, has taken up a lot of my time, and even more of my energy. It's been tremendously exhausting, and I'm still pretty stressed over it. Overall it feels even more tiring than did moving to California. So I haven't really done much about looking at getting plane tickets or booking a hotel room. But before I left work tonight I looked at some prices for each, and geez! It looks like it's all going to be tremendously expensive! In fact, I might spend somewhere over $1000 for the whole trip. Which is, well, rather more than I'd expected to be spending. On top of the whopping huge checks I'm about to write out for the house, this is rather stunning for me, especially for what's going to be basically a five-day trip. Debbi and I have been talking about going together, though once it's clear how much it will cost her to go (even with sharing a room), I wouldn't blame her if she decided to beg off. We'll talk about it this weekend. I know, I know: It's my sister's wedding, and I shouldn't gripe. But it's just One More Thing piled on top of everything else I'm trying to deal with right now. And it helps me understand why many people plan their wedding a year ahead of time: To let other people work it into their schedules. I'd already been looking for a house before I learned of the wedding, and I couldn't really put it on hold from September to December. So I'm just pretty frustrated with it all. And the icing on the cake for today: I drove up to Cafe Borrone to try to unwind from all this. They're usually pretty busy on Fridays, especially when they have a band, like they often do on Fridays and did tonight. I don't really go for their bands, since they usually play awfully loud (it's a cafe, people; if you play so loud that people can't hear each other talk, then you're defeating a key purpose of the place!), and often play the same repertoire. I like having a fairly quiet place where I can relax. Anyway, on top of this one of the waitstaff started giving me a hard time about taking up a table all by myself! Which was a new one on me, since I've been there many other busy evenings with my own table without getting harassed. And of course I've been there many evenings when the place was pretty quiet, spending my money on their expensive food (and sometimes meeting with friends as well, who also spend their money on their expensive food). To be fair, I was sitting at one of the larger tables, though it's not like there was a lot of selection, and their lighting is often rather spotty, so I try to grab the table with the best light. So he finally asked me to move to a smaller table - not that there was even one vacant that I could see - and I decided "screw this" and left. I suppose it's all just a tempest in a teapot, but it left me pretty pissed. I think I need to start finding some alternative coffee shops to hang out at. Maybe once I move I'll be able to do just that.
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