Filed under: Work
I have often stated that real estate is much like a really bad poker game. And today is proving my little metaphor to the max.
I worked until 10 pm last night on an offer for one of the best homes I have ever seen. It is so great that on Thursday after seeing it for the first time, I came home and BEGGED the boy to buy it for me. I freak out when he buys me pizza but a $1.7M house is something I would take and enjoy. I see maybe a hundred homes a month – so over 1000 year (and this is my 5th year) and this is only the third that has spoken to me on an emotional level. This one pulls at my guts and says “You could be happy here”.
Needless to say, I am not writing the offer for myself or for the boy, but for some very nice clients who are freaking out over the price tag.
Long story short, we thought we had it in the bag and another offer came in and hosed it all up. Multiple offers have been scarce around here for the last year. When the market was hot, we just threw it all in – More money? Sure! No repairs? Of course! Have our firstborn wash your car once a week for the next 10 years? You got it!
Now things have changed. But seeing as that was the real estate I learned when I got into the biz it is hard to give up. My gut reaction is to give, give, give. And it probably does not help that I love the house, too.
The mom and I are psychoanalyzing the other offer and the moves than have been made between that buyer and the sellers. Like a poker game, we are trying to figure out what the weak point was and why it did not go together before our clients saw the house. And then make our offer stronger, cleaner, better. This requires a lot of back and forth and the emails are flying.
Wish me luck people, I need it!
Whoa. I am wiped out. I had such a great weekend.
I started on Thursday at a girlfriends new house where we walked her dog, ate chinese food and watched the Secret. It certainly is not a new concept, but I must say the woman who produced the dvd packaged the message very well.
Friday I headed into SF where someone was having a bachelorette weekend, and invited me for a sleep over. It started with cocktails, moved on to appetizers and champagne and new friends and much laughter, and ended with even more liquor. A perfect night as far as I am concerned.
I then got to sleep (pass out?), after introducing JB to I Love New York, with 30 pounds of cat. It sort of made me feel like I was cheating on my cats, sleeping with these pretty boys…but I am not sure I would have had a choice in the matter. These cats were my best friends Friday night.
Saturday started early with breakfast on couch (much like breakfast in bed) , still with 30 pounds of cat, and my new favorite tv trainwreck. We managed to pry ourselves off of the couch and headed to Union Square to meet another friend at noon. 4+ hours of shopping followed and included my first trip to an H&M in America (the one in London knows me well), iced mochas, ricotta torte, and cream puffs. Did we shop or just eat? I am not 100% sure, quite frankly.
Driving home, with traffic on the bridge, PMS kicked me in the head and by 6:00 I was on the couch crying while watching Workout. The boy, who I might point out, I did not miss all weekend, showed up at 8 with dinner and spoiled me with hamburgers and sweet words while I whined and complained. I did take a moment to sincerely thank him and explained that I had no control over my emotions when the PMS kicked in. Then he got on some stupid phone call and it was all I could do to not rip it from his hands and scream at the idiot on the other end of the line. My tolerance for idiots dips precariously low with the PMS. Then I went back to crying.
Filed under: Pbbbbt
Lately I have been getting a bit bored with the blogs I read. I am sort of over reading about their cute kids and perfect dogs. I no longer care about their favorite coffee drink or how they wallpapered the bathroom this weekend. I want it to be about:
1) Me
2) Funny as hell drinking stories.
And really, if you aren’t going to write about me…make me laugh so hard I cry. THAT is what I want from a blog these days.
As my lender reminded me today – I hate people. So why then am I allowing this boy to come in and take over my life?
That is the $64K question, isn’t it?
I hated having roommates. I could not stand people in my house, touching my stuff, using all of the hot water and breathing. But for some strange reason I can spend Saturday night with him in a different city and STILL want him to spend the next 4 nights at my house. I can handle that he uses ALL the hot water (what do boys DO in the shower? Shit), SNORES, and turns over in bed like a steamroller. It is all sort of comforting. Which is weird.
I sort of sit around, shell shocked. This is not who I might picture spending my life with. I always thought he would have dark hair. And be funnier. And certainly older.
He seems sure. He is more than sure. And being sure is great for the person who is sure. But the unsure person sort of feels like an ass. Why am I not sure? Am I too cautious? Too jaded? Too insecure with myself to think anyone could like ALL of me?
I am having fun. I enjoy the time we spend together – even when both of us sit on the bed with a laptop – him checking stocks and me checking blogs, the cats laying between us.
We seem to have no secrets. There is no subject we cannot talk into the ground. And I know that I can bring up any issue to be discussed to satisfaction.
AND THAT IS SO NOT ME!! I do not discuss – I stew. I bottle things up and bite my tongue until I explode. So who the hell is this mature Mere that is suddenly inhabiting my body? Because I liked the old moody, demanding Mere. She had spunk. This New Mere is all “can you explain that comment?” instead of flying off the handle, offended to the core.
I am not sure what it will take for me to know for sure. I do not really understand what makes him sure. He talks of chemistry. And my experience with chemistry is more drunk and making out in a bar than long calm chats about how I am never moving to Texas (don’t ask why that one came up).
So I am along for the ride, for now. Not freaking over the talk of marriage. Not sure that is what I want from this situation. Part of me seeing the future, part of me wondering if there needs to be fireworks.
So my question to you – how did you KNOW? Were there fireworks? Was it a feeling in your gut? Or in your loins? Was it more about timing? Had you met him/her 5 years earlier would it have been the same?
Filed under: dating
Which might mean I should be putting clothing on…but nah! I will put in a quick post.
The weekend in Monterey and Carmel was awesome. Awesome. The aquarium, a grilled artichoke, and a bloody mary started the day off right. We then meandered into charming Carmel-by-the-Sea and promptly went on the beach hike from hell. My ankles and calves are SORE!
We crawled through some tide pools and found lots of nerdy stuff that made me very happy.
Then we went into Tiffany and I tried on a $35K engagement ring.
No really. I did.
Filed under: dating
The boy has this habit of buying DVDs….DVDs he knows nothing about. Which is why I spent my Sunday night watching Let’s Go to Prison.
I am not a fan of stupid movies. I thought that Anchorman one sucked ass. (At first I wrote “that Ron Jeremy movie” instead of Anchorman….meaning that Ron Burgundy movie, of course). So sitting through Let’s Go to Prison was a particularly hellish experience since it was stupid and in no way entertaining.
The ONE funny line was when the big black guy was trying to romance the skinny white boy and make him his bitch. “Prepare to be woo-ed”, he said. 2 syllables. Woo-Ed. That made me giggle.
The boy, the same one with the bad movie taste, and I are going to Monterey for the weekend. I am so excited I can hardly contain myself. We get to go the Monterey Bay Aquarium (my fave place on earth!) and then we are staying in Carmel, within blocks of the beach and a short drive to the 17 Mile Drive.
This is not the first time we have been out of town together, but as I told a friend tonight – the first time was like our 4th date, so I was sucking it in the whole time. This time I can relax and enjoy and not worry about him seeing me without my makeup for the first time. This time I will know that he snores and hogs the blankets. He will not be surprised when I want to go to sleep at 10:3o and awake at 6 am.
This time we have a fireplace. And a king sized bed. And there will be champagne. And giggles. We will relax this time. We will not worry what to talk about.
As he texted me today “Be prepared to be woo-ed”.
I am not good at settling into a “relationship”. Those quotes prove my neurosis. I never want to assume he will be around next week…no matter how many times he tells me I cannot get rid of him.
But today, we had a first. Today marks the first time I forced him to tell me if he wanted to see me this weekend. Forced is the wrong word, but I needed to know so I could plan my weekend open houses. I needed to know today if he wanted to golf with the boys on Saturday or hang with me. There was not pressure for a decision either way, I just wanted to use my Saturday wisely if he had other plans.
Pathetic, no? Pathetic that I even NOTICED that this was the first time? Pathetic that it gave me a little ulcer to even pose the question?
A few years ago I discovered the buttery smooth goodness of brie. Brie is not a pretty cheese for those of us raised in the 70’s on blocks of cheddar and Velveeta. And I avoided it for years and years. Then I was at a party and someone made a brie/almond/brown sugar concoction that sent me to the moon. Where had brie been all my life? This picky eater needed to stop judging cheese by ugly rinds!
I swore right then and there that I would NEVER try a new cheese EVER again. I had just added the FINAL cheese to my list of cheeses. No more. My list of cheese was full. If there were more yummy cheeses out there, I did not need to know them – unless I wanted to weigh 400 pounds – and lets face it, my love of bacon can get me there just as fast.
And I have held up to that promise. No more cheese.
But you know what else I never need to eat again? New ice cream.
Last night the boy and went to a nice dinner at a steak house and then went to Cold Stone. Dinner was sort of disappointing and we were both really tired. We each got our favorite ice cream concoction and put them in the freezer at home for a few hours while we digested.
As we watched some LAME movie and snacked he kept offering me a bite. But I was happy with my Coffee Lovers special. VERY HAPPY with an ice cream I can eat 3-5 times a year. I do not crave it. I look forward to splurging with it. That is all I need out of an ice cream.
But after offer number 307, I relented and tried his Birthday Cake Remix and promptly had an ice cream orgasm.
Ice cream that tastes EXACTLY like Duncan Hines yellow cake batter. Down to the funny aftertaste. Holy shit, I did NOT need to know this existed. So good. So tasty. Just like childhood.
Neither of us finished and I returned the ice cream to the freezer.
And I keep returning. Oh! Did I just wash the hardwood? I deserve a bite of heaven! Do my nails look like shit and need to be painted? Too bad, have a bite of yellow cake flavored ice cream!
This will be my downfall.
