We always thought it would take a gay man or a couple with no kids to appreciate the house's appeal: it's been meticulously kept, the finished attic and basement remodeling we did are stunning, it's eight minutes from the airport. Our buyers are an unmarried het couple with no kids. We think this is their first time buying a house. They got ours for a SONG.
Much has happened in the two months and three weeks since I've written a post. We completed the purchase of our Port Richey house. We traveled there together in mid-June to visit and care for it and initiate things like pest control and window cleaning. We put our Minneapolis house on the market in mid June (a huge job), held open houses and had showings, having every time to cart dozens of items like cat furniture, cat litter boxes, kitchen garbage can and bedroom TV sets out to the garage, usually in horrible heat, so the house would be perfectly staged and de-cluttered. No wet towels, no personal items in the bathrooms, no pet food bowls. Then after each showing, cart it all back in again. That disruptive, tedious process has now paid off.
I've been rejected for three higher education jobs in our new area and am concentrating right now on learning how to teach on-line. I'm already hired by one of my University of Minnesota gigs to teach two sections of a class on-line from Florida, which I'm so glad about. It lets me maintain close contact with that group of colleagues who I'm kind of in love with and I get to learn new, of-the-moment skills. Plus it's all a good fit for my temperament. I may do more of it if I get good at it.
My friends came for a goodbye-for-now party in mid July. Bruce's friends are giving him one in early September. We engaged a moving company and then changed our original move date of August 3rd to mid September. Bruce's Colorado brother, Michael, was remarried just a couple weeks ago to his long-time love, Sheryl. We went to their wedding, amidst needing to have an open house that weekend and our impending move. People have started to ask me, how is packing going? And I think, oh, yeah, maybe I should get some boxes and make a schedule. With the house sold (provided it passes inspection and our buyers get their financing), maybe that can become a real activity.
TigerRobin, our senior cat, and I were both in the emergency room last week. My episode was dramatic: Bruce was at our Florida house and my friend, Kim, was with me, thank goddess. I went from feeding the cats to dropping into a kind of "child's pose" on the floor and was soon completely incapacitated with a kidney stone. I could barely communicate with Kim, had to concentrate really hard to be able to tell her Bruce's phone number or what button to push on my cell phone, and I could barely crawl. I don't know how long I was like that before I asked her to call an ambulance, maybe 30 minutes? Maybe 45? The ambulance was the first crescendo of the whole thing because it meant the pain was too acute for me to handle, even during a car ride with Kim to the hospital. Thank you, western medicine, for EMTs who can pull up in a noisy rig, get you onto their stretcher, thread in an IV and shoot you up with morphine. The second crescendo was hours later, after more morphine and a CT scan, when I was released and able to walk upright--though still as the owner of an unpassed kidney stone.
Tiger's ER trip was stressful for her (and for her mom). I had to drive her there, alone, the second day after my kidney stone and we were both upset. The emergency vet did blood work and took x-rays and we learned Tiger has early kidney disease, something we are glad to know. They gave her a shot of pain medication in order to be able to handle her since she's quite grumpy naturally and that seemed to take days to wear off. And then just last night, our housecall vet came to see her. She has a respiratory infection and swollen glands around her mouth that have her coughing, sneezing and not terribly interested in food. The housecall vet gave her a shot of antibiotic but I now have to figure out how to get pills down her twice a day for the next few days. And that will likely be ongoing--both vets suggested we give her prevacid to protect her tummy lining from chemicals her kidneys can no longer filter out that may make her nauseous. She's lost the better part of a pound since April. Plus, she may eventually need subcutaneous fluids to keep her properly hydrated. We're going to try giving her some of those a couple times before our long car trip to Florida.
I've gotten to spend a lot of time with Tiger the last week as we've both been recovering. I think she's liked it. I know I have.
Bruce has traveled twice to the Port Richey house to tend and occupy it. It now has a security system, cable, phone and wireless installed. Our front steps and the little "deck" that holds our air-conditioner (everything must be elevated to second floor level in Florida in case of flooding) have been re-sealed. Our "lawn" has been mowed and a landscape consultant located. Bruce wants to put paving stones in our back "yard" and has made the design for it with the landscaper. Carpenter ants our pest control person discovered in June have been knocked down and thwarted. We live right next door to the wild--that's what we love about the house--so some of our strange, winged, crawling neighbors will just have to be tolerated. Twice when Bruce was there last week, cranes and herons were resting on the roof of our house. As though it were a weigh station before the wilderness. Bruce found a place to get take-out lasagne and watched baseball a couple of times at our neighborhood bar and restaurant. He figured out some important things about our little speed boat, which we're bringing with us--it would be almost impossible to back the boat into our garage. The driveway curves and the garage door openings are quite narrow. So he's located a marina that will store and retrieve the boat for us every time we want to use it (for a price that makes sense).
He is growing more accustomed to what living in Florida will mean--he won't as readily be able to call Jorg, Tony or Tom for spur of the moment lunches or ball games. His clients have so far been very responsive to the news that we're relocating and that's a relief. He will be back in Minneapolis a lot for gigs because many of his clients are here, so we're kind of fashioning a new way to live two places. Different paradigm than renting a Key West house in January. I'm less anxious about leaving my chinese medicine doctor/acupuncturist, yoga place, haircut person and eyebrow woman. I'll find a new acupuncturist with Dr. Ren, my current doctor's, help and there must be plenty of yoga in the Tampa Bay area. Joining Angie's List to find a good independent computer consultant was really smart (something our independent computer consultants here, Chipheads, suggested) and I can use it for acupuncture and yoga, too.
Florida just doesn't have good hair and eyebrow people, though. I'll just have to come back here for that.
Moving is four weeks away.
I feel some concern about the area we're moving to. The unemployment and foreclosure rates are some of the highest in Florida, which has some of the highest in the country. My google alerts are often about crime (though one was about a woman who set a file cabinet on fire so she could get to "legitimately" leave work early). We have to be registered to vote by October 4th--no same day registration for Florida. The state's AG, former House Manager Bill McCollum, vigorous prosecutor of Bill Clinton's impeachment, just made up an immigration law in some ways worse than Arizona's. Some other woman running for office wants to set up camps for illegal immigrants, like--she thinks--the WWII internment camps (which of course didn't contain illegal immigrants). And then there's Marco Rubio.
But here, there's Tom Emmer. And Michelle Bachmann. And Diamond Lake Road in deplorable condition, until about two days ago.
We'll see.
