Real Estate and Romance

One thing I learned today is that mint chocolate Toffuti Cuties with mangoes on the side make a pretty good meal.  I chose to stay in all day and eat what I had, and that meant Tofuti Cuties and mangoes. There is still plenty of wine and for that I’m grateful, especially since Gigi doesn’t want me smoking weed in this apartment since it’s not her apartment.  I can live without weed for a few weeks, although I kind of like the idea of taking a pin joint for a stroll in the park. 

I took a little walk in the park yesterday, intending to go up to The Cloisters, but the path was too isolated and the foliage too thick and wild for me to be walking through alone at twilight.  I was fairly certain I was completely safe, but you never know when some random crazy person will be wandering around in a park.  You don’t want to spook a random crazy person, or anybody else for that matter, and the shrubery in the area was such that it would be a good place for fucking too.  There are plenty of folks in New York fucking in all sorts of places.  Either they’re into that, or they have nowhere else to go, but I spooking an amorous couple is kind of like stepping over used condoms on the stairs into the subway.

In any case, the situation was such that if anything happened to me yesterday on the isolated path through the thickly wooded area on the way to The Cloisters, everyone I know would have said, “Tricia knows better than to walk up a path like that,” and sure enough, I do.  Ergo:  I walked along the outside of the park, safely on a well populated sidewalk, but it was so much farther than cutting through the park that I eventually turned around and went home.  When you are living on the fifth floor of a walk-up, and there’s a stoop and another half flight of stairs before you get to the first floor, you think about how your legs will be feeling when you get back home.

It’s nice here at Gigi’s, and I’m finally feeling settled.  Certainly I would prefer to be settled in my own apartment – specifically that Edwardian Charmer on Convent Avenue – but real estate transactions take time even when everyone is eager to get the deal done.  This one will take a little longer than anticipated since (1) the selling agent is some special kind of lazy or stupid and (2) when I took Velvet to see it last week, we discovered there had been a flood in the kitchen.  The reason I say the agent is some special kind of stupid is that he let my completed application sit on his desk for 10 damn business days before submitting it to the Coop’s managing agent.  It would probably still be sitting there now if my agent hadn’t called to follow up and found out it was still sitting on his fucking desk.  What kind of person who gets paid on commission lets a potential sale sit on his fucking desk for over a week? 

Once the managing agents got the application, they wanted a signed contract with the packet.  The last potential buyer had to be approved by the board before he could get a contract, so it was a bit of a surprise to be told I had to have a contract until I walked into the water damaged kitchen. 

 It seemed a bit odd to me that a real estate agent would be so completely unaware of the state of the property he is supposedly selling, but in the overall gestalt, where crucial papers sat on his desk as if he had forgotten all about them, I figured it would have been odd if he’d have known his head from his ass. The good news is that the floor underneath the linoleum debris appears to be a nice, 2” hardwood plank floor – and I would have been pulling up the linoleum sooner or later anyway.  Nevertheless, the state of the kitchen was alarming.

Anyway, by the time I saw the kitchen, the agent had said he had already sent papers to my lawyer so she could draw up a contract.  That, too, is irregular since the seller’s attorney is supposed to draw up the contract.  I called her the next morning to see if she’d gotten the documents, and she hadn’t gotten shit.  Turns out that the file he sent was so big it kept bouncing.  Fortunately, he copied my agent, the lovely and talented Jamie, who is really an accomplished off-Broadway actress.  She was in Florida at the time, and the files sent by the selling agent were so big that Jamie had to separate the documents to send to Lawyer Jill.  I believe we are on track now with the documents – but in the meantime, I decided this whole situation was such bullshit I adjusted my offer down by $15,000.  I don’t pay extra for bullshit.  We’ll see what the seller has to say.

In all this paper shuffling, I have learned that the apartment is part of an estate and has been standing empty for over two years – and that the only person who really knows anything about it is the super of the building.  The managing agent most likely knows a thing or two as well.  The seller, who may or may not be related to the dead lady who lived there, is a criminal attorney and didn’t want to draw up his own contract since he doesn’t know real estate.  While that seems reasonable, but sounds to me like he doesn’t want to spend one extra penny on the sale of the apartment or he would hire a lawyer like everybody else.  I’m not sure if drawing up the contract is a big deal or not – but all this foolishness and irregularity over the last three weeks made me feel like dropping the price.

I’m confident we will reach an agreement, however, because it’s has become increasingly evident that very few people match the board’s criteria for admission to the cooperative. I kind of like it that the board is so tough about people meeting criteria because, after all, you’re stuck with each other as neighbors for years and years and years.  You see them in elevators and laundry rooms.  It’s an intimate relationship and not to be entered into lightly.

Speaking of intimate relationships, Mr. Wisdom has failed to acknowledge my birthday even though I sent him a text on my birthday telling him it was my birthday but he could spank me anytime.  I’m not sure Yankees have the tradition of birthday spankings that we did in the South and Midwest.  In Webster Groves, Missouri the children in my elementary school lined up to make a spanking machine on each other’s birthdays.  Teachers watched and cheered.

Spankings or no, Mr. Wisdom did not respond.  Thirty six hours later I was compelled to notify him that after an internal dialog involving my Head, Heart and Pussy, Pussy had tossed him into Whatever Land and locked on the panties.  He didn’t respond to that either. I sent him a second note saying I was officially pining for him.

In point of fact, I am a woman whose panties are locked on, hanging out at The Cloisters and fixing to live on Convent Avenue, not to mention working in a Church with a gothic tower.  I might as well be locked up in a nunnery.  Besides, I’m not as mad at Mr. Wisdom as all that.  I am well aware that he rarely communicates except to set up a date.  We had a date for the week before Memorial Day, but he had to break it because of some sort of promotion from the network.  I haven’t heard from him since.  In the meantime, he has dismantled the family nest – the apartment where the family had been living for the last eight years – and the oldest son graduates from high school this month as well.

I’m willing to bet that breaking up the family home didn’t go nearly as smoothly for Mr. Wisdom as moving into Gigi’s went for me.  I have to say, though, that it bothers me to have Granny the Ho’s ashes stowed away in some warehouse in Queens.  I wish I’d have brought them with me to Gigi’s, but I didn’t bring any of my treasures.

I’m looking forward to unpacking my treasures into that apartment on Convent Avenue.   A lady named Hope lived there for decades.  I’ll be buying it from her estate.  I like to think she’s watching over the place and making sure I get moved in safely because she wants somebody to love her home as much as she did – but then, I’m romantic that way.