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Not really, but, you know. Courtesy of The Onion over here. I can’t tell whether this is supposed to be a dig at MoveOn.org or Dick “oops, I missed” Cheney.
Click to enlarge.
While I’m not one to slap a “Kill Your Television” bumper-sticker on my car, I do appreciate the sentiment. In fact, one of the many reasons I’m voting for Obama is that he’s the only candidate who has been saying for years, and I quote, “children can’t achieve unless we raise their expectations and turn off the television sets.” Reading his memoirs and listening to his speeches, one gets the sense that Obama owes most of his success to his mother who, a feminist and an educator, made reading a priority in her home. No wonder he does well among the “educated elite” (code these days for “people who read and think too much”). He speaks a language many so-called “low information” voters don’t. It’s a language marked by subtlety and understatement that appeals more to our intellect than our gut. Not necessarily the kind of stuff made for Crossfire, Hannity and Colmes, and The O’Reilly Factor.
And, unfortunately, all of this might work against him. Read the rest of this entry »
If you haven’t discovered her yet, perhaps this will convince you to do so:
I get the feeling that people around the world are looking at this election as a gauge to see if America is finally ready to wake up and realize that we are not the only country on this planet. They are waiting to see if we are going to put yet another fundamentalist loon in charge of public and foreign policy, someone who doesn’t think that global warming is in any way caused by humans, so screw the rest of you who live here on this planet, we need that cup of oil with breakfast in the morning.
Well, actually, the bank owns it, but you know what I mean. The cute two-bedroom Craftsman bungalow that gets “oohs and aahs” from passers-by is all ours. Home sweet fucking home. Unfortunately, I relate to this house as one might relate to a lukewarm relationship: definitely not something for the long term, but it’ll do for now. Until something better comes along. Cruel, but oh. So. True.
Escrow closed yesterday. Mr. G. and I haven’t had time to celebrate, unless you count the champagne we popped last night. I still don’t know how I feel about this. Here’s why: the house is small. We could’ve purchased much more house, but we wanted to live closer to the action, in a historic neighborhood (where Craftsmans and Victorians dominate), and in the “blue” parts of town. That is, we wanted to be closer to the water and further from the “red state” suburbs. Problem is, most Crunchyville residents want to live in these cute, tree-lined neighborhoods (they have sidewalks! parks! and coffee-houses!) so you get less house for your buck. Period. We chose this house because it was listed 10K below market value — seller had to get the hell out of dodge a.s.a.p. When our loan almost fell through, she even agreed to kick in 6K towards closing costs *and* replaced the old oil-furnace with a new energy-efficient gas one. Ah, the thrill of instant equity.
Any advice for a family of three living in an 800sf home?
Before you crap your pants, remember that we have a dry, partially finished, relatively bright basement of about 700sf, which is where we plan to expand. Mr. G . is going to enlarge the three windows so they’re “egress” windows, which means we could list this as a three-bedroom house when we sell. And we want to finish the rest of the basement so we can, well, live in it. Right now, having the basement helps keep the upstairs clutter-free, so it hasn’t been too bad. But it sure isn’t the 1500sf rental we grew somewhat used to this year. Then again, we’re not paying that much more per month to live here and we aren’t “throwing our money away.” Not all of it, anyway (5.1% interest rate). So I suppose if you consider the fact that we’re not financially strapped and we have the basement for storage and for an eventual expansion, then we’re sitting pretty. Plus we’re in a neighborhood where it is geographically impossible to increase inventory, so the supply:demand ratio will generally work in our favor (as soon as we pull out of this nightmare housing situation, of course).
While the house might be small, and we’re certainly feeling a little crowded, nothing beats the feeling of having it all to ourselves. Amazing how that works.
G
An update on my so-called life:
1) Financing fell through yesterday around 3PM, when I was informed that while it didn’t matter just a couple of weeks ago, Mr. G’s spotty credit matters now. So I say to the woman, “well, let’s just take him off the mortgage for now.” Assumed this would nix his income *and* his debt from the loan application. But, get this: debt stays, income goes. So all of the sudden the income-to-debt ratio (we both owe the Department of Ed handsome chunks of change) is too great to qualify for an FHA loan. As our agent told us with great sympathy: responsible borrowers like you and Mr. G are caught in the “aftershocks of the sub-prime mortgage crisis” as the Government cracks down on all of the details. Talk about a shitty day.
2) Fast forward one full day: Seller is motivated enough to contribute 6% towards price of house. Suddenly we have a “good chance” at this not-too-long-ago declined loan.
3) Agent feels really bad because we are essentially homeless come August 1st, unless we find a rental available by then that takes pets, isn’t in a seedy part of town, and is something we could deal with for a year (most rentals in this rental-competitive mini-city require a one-year lease). As a result of feeling bad, she finds us a temporary rental — property owned by a colleague of hers who has a house she’s not ready to put on the market just yet. Colleague is very wealthy: house is over 4000sf and she’ll take “anything” in rent for it as a favor to us. See picture of bathroom w/fireplace below.
4) I’m sick. Bump’s sick. We’re moving in a week and we have not started packing yet. And we don’t know where we’re going to live (rental isn’t 100%) so I can’t do things like 1) fill out a change of address card, 2) transfer utilities, 3) order new checks, 4) think straight.
Here’s the rental. Its palatial. And I’m worried that moving from that to a much smaller home (under 1000sf before we finish the rest of the basement) will be t.r.a.u.m.a.t.i.c. No?
So I’m thinking we’ll fail to mention that this is rental and host a party. Let em’ wonder.
With a “yard” like this, do you think they’ll take pets? Seriously. We’ll build a cat-house.
“Hi, it’s GS. Um, I can’t come into work today. I’m sick.”
