Now Everything is Easy 'Cause of You

When last we spoke (remember? I was the writer, you were the voyeur?), I predicted that The Boy and I were gearing up for sing-a-longs that consisted only of the songs, “All You Need is Love,” and, “I Got You, Babe.” I'd like to amend that statement. First and foremost, the song we’ve been hearing in our collective head has been “Changes” (the David Bowie one, not the Bruce Hornsby one. Or the remake of the Bruce Hornsby one. Anyway, not that one.). Because I can’t seem to post these days without some major life change occurring first, let me invite you into today’s version of the goings on. Watch your step, the sand, much like my attitude and faith, tends to shift.

Before we delve into the grandness of this most recent development, a lighter note. Since I’m sure you’re all wondering what The Boy did for my birthday, let’s revisit that first. He told me we had a reservation at 7:30. A week prior, when he asked if he could take me out on Friday, I asked if I needed to dress up. He said not really, so I bought a couple of very cute coordinating tops, ostensibly to wear with jeans. You know, to pretend I was going on a date with my boyfriend. When I came home from work on Friday, I was not concerned that I did not have ample time to get ready, since I had planned my outfit a week in advance. I had even bought some accessories to add to the ensemble that day and needed only to put everything on. After I dressed, I text messaged The Boy to ask if it was still okay that I was wearing suped-up jeans. He said, "It's business casual."

Feel free to refer back to the text above this was new information to me at the time as well. Go ahead, I'll wait. Yeah, I went crazy. My laundry, including most of my dressier pants and a couple of cute skirts, were at his house, in the dryer. I was Christina, Storm of Fury, tearing through my closet, throwing clothing over my head, calling The Boy names and repeating the phrase, “Are you KIDDING me?” ad nauseum. Until I found the skirt I bought for $10 from a discount outlet three years ago in Carolina. The one I wear backwards to enhance the effect of the newly-acquired caboose. Skeptically, I tried it on with the previously mentioned tops and accessories. Jackpot, and I’m not afraid to tell you, it was far better than what I had before. When I met up with The Boy, I tried to stay irritated, but I was so tickled by his obvious (and clearly stated) appreciation of the ensemble (or, rather, me in it) that all I could say was, "Yeah, well its by accident, because you did not properly prepare me." We have led a reasonably well-coordinated and fashionable existence together for over a year now, so this behavior was, obviously, disappointing at best.

From there, he gave me a hand-written letter that made me cry and tickets to Oasis and Jet, which I initially thought we wouldn’t be able to use, but we can. (Champagne Supernova for you, if you’ll be my girl.) We had dinner at Ruth’s Chris, where I had never been, and laughed because our definition of business casual leaves no room to include wrinkled, baggy Dockers, logo’d golf shirts and anything bearing any resemblance or relation to Tommy Bahama. We seemed to be alone in those beliefs. Later, at the piano bar, we sang Billy Joel too loudly and mocked the girl who spent $40 three separate times to sing her rendition of Alanis and the like. And it was a great birthday, even if we expanded the sing-a-long repertoire a bit further than I had planned.

Saturday morning we met my Fajsha, the Realtor, to look at a dizzying number of houses we had researched (and GoogleMapped). We hoped not to waste time, but it is very difficult to know what you’re looking at from a short, too-good-to-be-true description and a photo of the front of a house. (BigJohn calls these overblown descriptions of homes "puffing." I told him it would not surprise me if some of his colleagues died of lung cancer.) This is especially true with row homes, which all of these were. We saw 20-25 homes that day, including a few we loved, but with prices we hated or nonexistent parking. BigJohn had us rate each home with a number, 1-10. I am notoriously horrible at rating like this, because it is too black and white. I'd rather explain to you what I did and did not like, acting almost as if what I am evaluating has feelings I'd like to avoid hurting. This, of course, is nowhere near helpful.

We found a couple of homes in the 8-8.75 range. However, most were not. One was a 200-year-old mansion with marble floors, crystal chandeliers, 20-foot ceilings, no AC and, probably, ghosts. We practically ran from that one. N/A, I suggested. Another had two stories of spiral staircases, terra cotta floors, neon lights on the brick walls, a built in dartboard and pocket pool table in the living room and a four-person hot tub in the bedroom. I’m not going to lie to you, it was cool. But I am contemplating having a child in this house. On the sidewalk when we were finished, The Boy said, "I’m just going to go out there and say it-- 9.75." BigJohn laughed heartily and, thank God, The Boy came down off his testosterone high (or low, depending on how you look at it) within a few hours.

Another home we saw (it begs to be said-- across the street from a church, next door to a vet, but around the corner from a strip club and adult theater) had grapes and figs growing in the back yard. In the master bath of that house, there was a five-foot partially frosted window with a nude Grecian water carrier etched into it to reveal a two-person Jacuzzi, large stall shower and double sinks-- all of them a deep mauve. While I tried not to vomit at something that could have been so great turned so terribly wrong, The Boy said to my father, "Oh, look at this, a dimmer! To set the mood... umm, you know, of relaxation." Oy.

Finally, at the penultimate house of the day, we arrived an hour and a half late. It was in a location we like, but didn’t have secured parking and had only one full bath. The price seemed entirely too fantastic to be real, so we checked it out. The seller was home, so he told us some info on the house and allowed us to walk through. It was really nice. We thought maybe we read the price wrong. It would meet our immediate needs, continue to meet them if they were to change, and it would provide us the opportunity (and the instant equity) to make some additions at our leisure.

So, Sunday, after much discussion and my final birthday celebration (the annual Mom’s Chicken Parm and Chocolate on Chocolate Cake Extravaganza with the fam), we went to BigJohn’s office to write a contract. Because, even though I feared diving into this too early, we both knew we had to try to get this house.

Yesterday, on a break from my first day of class in D.C. (more to come on that later, and you’ll probably laugh), I found out our contract was joyfully accepted. We are buying a house. Granted, it's a house I won't live in until May, but it's a house. Our house. (And yes, it is a very, very, very fine one.) We would celebrate, but I’ve got class again tonight, and The Boy is off to California for four days in the morning, so there isn’t really time. In the words of David "Let's Dance" Bowie, "Strange fascination, fascinating me; changes are taking the pace I'm going through..."