Loft Update

A brief update on the loft...we were supposed to close Wednesday, but the appraiser didn't do his job on time, and the title did not clear because the architects had not split the property (there is another town house attached to ours), so the construction loan is encumbering both pieces of property. We're hopeful we can close this week (like Thursday). But it's a little scary, since there is a leak from the other town house when it rains. It looks like water is coming in their front door, then flowing all the way over to our garage.... I want that fixed, like, yesterday! We were able to have the Harry Potter party there, though. I hope to find time this week to blog about that! It was awesome!!

Insult to Injury

As if being burned by celebratory pyrotechnics wasn't bad enough, as DH walked and I waddled home, we looked up at the deck of our new place AND THERE WERE PEOPLE UP THERE. This immediately made me furious. It seems our architect had invited five of his friends to view the fireworks from up there with his wife and kid. If it had been our contractor rather than our architect, I probably would have called the police. We stood across the street, looking (read: glaring) up there, until they peered over, then DH yelled, "Is this why you haven't finished our place yet???" The architect yelled back, "Hey! Do you want to come up?" I was so livid I just wanted to go home; I wasn't sure I could be civil. Fortunately, my need to be liked cut in, and the only passive-aggressive comment I made was, "You know, for the longest time, when people asked when the new place was going to be finished, I'd just tell them, 'I'm not sure, but just show up on the 4th of July and we'll watch fireworks from the deck...I'm sure we'll be in by then!'" (That is completely true, BTW.)

Now let me stop right here and say that it's perfectly legal for him to have done that. After all, he does still own the place. And I don't even really blame him. I probably would have done the same thing. However, I think I would have called the new owners, who have been wanting to get in the place for six months, and who live TWO DOORS DOWN, to see if they wanted to come, too. They really only were there for about an hour; they got there right before the fireworks and left pretty quickly after we got there. But it still made me intensely mad. I think, mostly, because I thought I'd be up there by now, and I was really looking forward to it after being rained on last year (it was like a monsoon; I've never seen so much water come out of the sky at once, and we get some doozies in the ATL).

We did go up, and the view was incredible, and they told us that you can see about four different fireworks shows from up there (Centennial Olympic Park, Underground, the Ted, and some city one).

Weasels.

The rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting on...me

'Twas the night of July Fourth, and all through the Park
The people were waiting for it to get dark.
The blankets were spread on the ground everywhere
With a light breeze blowing, we hadn't a care.

There were picnics and lawn chairs and revelers en masse
DH and I wandered down and just sat on the grass.
Free gelato in hand, from our local shop Charm
We had no idea there'd be cause for alarm.

When up in the sky, we saw a big flash:
The fireworks had started with a bang and a crash!
The rockets, how they twinkled! The fountains, how pretty!
Roman candles on building tops...only in the city!

As we watched gorgeous starbursts, we started to wheeze,
and we saw sparks float towards us (remember that breeze?)
When what in our bedazzled eyes should fall,
but debris raining down on one and on all.

Like bright lights that above a campfire swirl
And fly upward towards heaven, and through the flames twirl,
So some sparkles dropped down, really just a few
Most burning out quickly, but some hitting, too.

And then in a twinkling, I heard someone cuss;
A live spark had hit the guy behind us.
The smoke, it encircled our heads like a cloud,
While the salutes continued, frequent and loud.

I felt a sharp pain, and what did I see?
Something was glowing, and it was on...me!
I spoke just one word, "Ow, ow, ow, ow, OWWWW!"
As I patted and brushed and shouted out loud:

"On my shirt! Hey, DH! I think I'm on fire!
Now my leg! Get it off me! It burns like a pyre!"
My thigh was all covered with ashes and soot*
To find something cold, we set off on foot.

Thank God for the employees of The World of Coke,
Giving away free Diet...25th birthday...no joke!
So a cold can to my leg, I waddled home like a duck,
Thinking if it's not raining water, it's fire--what luck!


*Not to worry...the biggest burn is only about 1/2 a pencil top eraser in size

Happy Independence Day!

I'm proud to live in the land of the free and the home of the brave!

The Defense of Fort McHenry (verses one and four, courtesy of usacitylink.com)
by Francis Scott Key
20 September 1814

Oh, say can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner forever shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Amen!

Loft update

This post is going to be kind of scattered, because that's the way I feel right now. I haven't given a loft update in a while. That's mainly because most conversations with the architect go something like this:

Architect: Hey, when can you close? Our construction loan is coming due soon.

Us: A week after we get a final price. When will we be getting a final price from you?

A: We're working on it.

I disapprove of this response. We weren't about to try to get approved for a mortgage in that state:

Us: Hey, we want to borrow some money!

Bank: How much?

Us: Well...we're not sure.

Bank: Well...we're not sure we can approve you for that much.

Don't get me wrong; we know about how much it will cost. But how long does it take to write up an estimate, for heaven's sake?? And there's all this "higher math" that's going on...the tile installers messed up and we had to purchase more tile for them. But we're not getting a credit for that because we're tiling places that originally weren't going to be tiled, so instead of paying us back for the tile, they're not going to charge us for labor to put the tiles where they weren't going. The technical term for this is horsetrading. And it makes me nervous; it always feels like we're getting stiffed somehow. I trust our architect, I just don't trust the contractor he's hired, especially when we've been "about to close" for going on seven months now. =)

The big stress is that we're having a party on July 13th. In the new place. (!!) Why would we plan a party in our new place when we don't even have a closing date yet? This party has been "planned' since about November last year, when we found out the release date of the new Harry Potter movie. (I really need to post some pictures from past parties. We go all out...the invitation for Prisoner of Azkaban was a four-page Muggle Mail edition of The Daily Prophet.) We went shopping on Saturday for cheap seating (hel-lo, IKEA!) and ended up buying the most beautiful deck furniture ever on Sunday (not from IKEA). Hopefully we can pick it up next weekend...and it doesn't rain the night of the party. I wish I had taken the camera with me so I could show you the furniture (it's all teak and steel)...but since I didn't, here's some inspiration...what we'll see while sitting in the comfiest chairs ever...