30 Things to Do Before I Turn 30

As I mentioned last year, I've decided to make a list of 30 things to do before my 30th birthday this year. I won't turn 30 until November of 2012, but I just think it makes more sense to do these lists in larger increments as I get older. Either that or I would eventually have to start filling the lists with complete minutiae. By the time I got to a "60 Things to Do Before I Turn 60" list I'd have to be accomplishing more than one task per week, and that's just ridiculous. So I have made the executive decision that the working list for the next two years is 30 Things to Do Before I Turn 30.

I found it challenging to make this year's list, mostly because of item number two. I have a feeling that becoming a parent will change my priorities entirely, so I can think of plenty of things I would like to do now but I imagine that I may laugh at this list in two years, when I anticipate life will be very different. We'll see!

Here's the list:

1. Finish the PhD (I try to leave major must-dos off this list and limit it to things I would just like to do for fun or because they will make my life easier/better, but I'm putting this one on the list because it is my #1 priority over the next couple of years.)

2. Become a parent (Actually, this one might be my #1 priority...honestly, it's sort of a toss-up. I feel like the pending occurrence of #2 will lead to the forced accomplishment of #1. I hope so, anyway, or else I'm terrified that task #1 will fall by the wayside. Not so terrified that I'm willing to put off attempting to become a parent until I've finished the dissertation, though, because ultimately my biological clock trumps all other considerations since that's the one thing I really can't control at all. I'm 28, my husband-to-be wants an entire hockey team of children, it's time to get crackin'. [Note: I am NOT on board with the hockey team idea...and I think he's joking...mostly...])

3. Convince myself that it's okay not to write a full-fledged journal entry every day. Notes of highlights and lists are better than nothing when life is busy. Print and bind the past four (wow) years of journal entries.

4. See at least ten live productions (concerts, plays, etc.)

5. "The unwillingness to give a hearing to contradictory viewpoints, or to imagine that one might learn anything from an ideological or cultural opponent, represents a departure from the best side of American popular and elite intellectual traditions."-Susan Jacoby. In the spirit of this quote, I'm going to attempt to read--with an open mind--something I'm inclined to disagree with. And I'm going to try to find at least one part of the book that I can agree with. (Yes, this was on last year's list but I really do think this is important, so I put it on the list again.)

6. Figure out a way to store my pictures that is organized and allows for easy viewing but isn't completely dependent on Facebook. (This and the next few items are things I didn't get around to last year but would still like to try to accomplish.)

7. Go on a 20+ mile-long bike ride.

8. Finish a Seasonal Reading Challenge on Goodreads. (This may be impossible, but I want to keep trying!)

9. Visit Monticello.

10. Take the Meatball to a local basset hound event.

11. Take a trip to Las Vegas with Penn.

12. Watch a Supreme Court hearing.

13. Take advantage of Restaurant Week and try at least one well-reviewed, trendy restaurant that I normally wouldn't be able to afford.

14. On a similar note, try at least 15 bars/restaurants that I have never been to before (restaurants tried on vacation when I have no choice but to try new places don't count).

15. Take a trip to Pittsburgh and see Penn's college campus.

16. Go to the local fish market.

17. Adopt a second dog.

18. Ski Taos or Telluride with Penn.

19. Get the fireplace repaired so that we can enjoy the fireplace in our den.

20. Get new chairs for the living room.

21. Remodel the pink bathroom (or at the very least paint the untiled portions of the wall a color other than their current peachy-pink).

22. Cross at least one new country off my list.

23. Cross at least one new state off my list.

24. Get myself a football jersey so I can fit in when we support Penn's favorite football team at the bar.

25. Obtain a membership to the neighborhood pool. (Apparently only 300 families can belong to the pool at one time, so basically I have to wait for someone to die or decide to sell a membership).

26. Buy or otherwise acquire three pieces of actual art for my home. (Real art, not something mass-produced)

27. Throw a party in my backyard.

28. Buy a four-door car.

29. Plant a small vegetable and/or herb garden in the backyard and attempt to grow some of my own produce.

30. Make the list of 35 Things to Do Before I'm 35.

28 Things to Do Before I Turn 28 Recap

I have been wanting to post my recap of last year's list and my new list for this year for almost 8 weeks now. I finally, FINALLY had time to do it today. It feels good to get this (admittedly self-imposed) task off my plate just in time for the new year.

So, here are the items I completed from my 28 Things to Do Before I Turn 28 list. I didn't do as well as I did with my 27 Things list, but, as you can probably tell, Penn and I have been pretty busy this year.

1. Write a book review and submit it to an academic journal. Not only did I write and submit my book review, I actually managed to get it published! It was published in October and I can now look myself up as an author in journal databases, which is pretty damn awesome.

2. Find a dentist here and make an appointment to get my teeth cleaned. For real this time! I did it, and it was a good thing I did because I had a cavity. I'm being especially good and went to the dentist in both January and November this year. It's not exactly every six months, but it's better than I was doing for the past 5 or 6 years.

4. Buy a printer. So, I don't technically have a printer yet, but I put one on our wedding registry, so at least I am attempting to own a printer. That counts, right? If no one purchases it as a gift I will buy it myself.

5. Attend at least six live productions, not including concerts (classical music counts, though; I feel bad making this highbrow/lowbrow divide here but the fact is we attend concerts almost monthly but spend much less time going to plays/opera/the symphony). Things I saw: War Horse, Oliver! (both on my trip to London), Itzhak Perlman/Beethoven's Fifth Symphony (Perlman played and then conducted), The Bluest Eye, King Lear, Richard II, Henry V, Da, and Hamlet

7. Cross at least one more country off my list. Scotland, Jamaica

8. Cross at least one more state off my list (only 17 more to go!). Montana

15. Take advantage of Restaurant Week to try a well-reviewed restaurant I normally wouldn't be able to afford. Penn and I went to a local Brazilian steakhouse and it was amaaaaaazing. I know the meat was the point, but I can still taste this delicious cheesy bread we had there.

16. Go to one of the historic local jazz clubs. We tried one club for Penn's birthday and then went to a different one a few months later when I got a Groupon. Both experiences were great.

17. Read the Dark Tower series. I joked to Jon he had to read the Harry Potter series or we couldn't stay together so he retaliated by insisting I read the Dark Tower series. He's about to finish Harry Potter, so I figured I should humor him and attempt to fulfill his request. There are seven books in the series and I'm reading the last book right now. I had promised myself I would finish the series before our wedding. I'm not quite sure if I'll finish before then since I'm on page 75 of 800ish pages, but I think I'll come close. I may have to finish the last few chapters post-honeymoon (since I'm not dragging that behemoth of a book around the world with me).

19. Eat here, here, and here. I've been to the third place twice now, and the chicken place has become part of our standard restaurant rotation because it's across the street from the liquor store where we buy kegs for Penn's kegerator. Sooooooo good.

21. Buy new ski clothes so I can quit wearing the ski pants I've been wearing since the '90s, then ski at least seven times this winter. It was an awesome ski season this year. Penn and I hit the slopes practically once a week all winter. As excited as I am about New Zealand, I'm sad we'll be missing so much of the east coast's very short ski season.

23. Go here. I went with my sister when she visited in March and enjoyed it very much.

24. Buy a new comforter for the bed. I also registered for this. I registered for a duvet, actually, since I love those things. I'm hoping we're gifted it, but if not I will definitely be updating our bedding when we get home from the honeymoon. It's time for a change!

26. Take a trip to Philly and research a bar for my dad. I actually ended up doing this with my dad when he visited in April. He and my mom rented a limo and took me, Penn, and some of our friends to Philly. It turned out that the bar was not so much a bar as it was a strip club, but it was still a really fun night (I was aware that there were going to be pole dancers but thought it would be more like a burlesque bar. But no, STRIP CLUB. The women didn't get topless, but there was plenty to see. In my dad's defense, he didn't think it would be a straight up strip club when he decided to take us all there.)

28. Make the list of 30 Things to Do Before I'm 30. This was pretty much done 8 weeks ago, I just didn't have time to edit and post it until now!

So, that's 15 of 28 things. More than half! Not bad considering everything else I had to juggle all year long. Let's hope I'm even more successful with 30 Things Before 30.

Christmas Wrap-Up

Penn and I are watching Lord of the Rings on TV right now and it is making me SO EXCITED to be in New Zealand. It looks so magnificently beautiful. Two more weeks and we'll be there! Penn has been in charge of planning the itinerary and it looks like he has put together a great trip: hot springs, cave tubing, speed boating, fishing, exploring Milford Sound, bungee jumping (look at YouTube videos of the Nevis bungee in Queenstown; that's what we're going to do...if I don't pass out in terror before I can jump, which is entirely possible).

Anyway, Merry Christmas! This year was the first year of my life that I didn't spend Christmas with my family. Since we needed to save Penn's vacation days for the honeymoon he couldn't travel to be with my family, and I couldn't imagine doing Christmas without him, so I stayed here, too. I thought it was going to make me really sad, but actually, it didn't. I had a really great Christmas. Penn and I decided to celebrate alone, just the two of us. We went up to his family at Thanksgiving and we'll see them again at the wedding in a couple of weeks. Plus Penn's mom came down last weekend and did early Christmas with us (she got Penn a deep fryer for Christmas, you can imagine how excited he was about that!). So, since we have seen his family recently we didn't feel obligated to drive the two hours to see them. Also, we liked the idea of starting our own traditions in our new home, so that's what we did. Last night I carried on my family's usual tradition of Christmas Eve fondue. I did the meat fondue (which is easy: get a really good quality steak, chop it up into bite-sized pieces, skewer it and stick it in corn oil to cook) and I got Grandma's recipe for the cheese fondue, too. It came out perfectly. It was wonderful having my kitchen smell exactly like Grandma's kitchen, and very comforting to realize that I can carry on her tradition and someday pass it along to yet another generation. After dinner Penn and I went to the late-night Christmas Eve service at church. I had always wanted to do that, but growing up it was never part of our tradition because we always went to my grandparents' house instead. The church service was really nice. There was a soprano soloist with an amazing voice who sang a couple of Christmas numbers, and we sang Christmas carols, including "Silent Night" by candle light at the end. I enjoyed it.
This morning when Penn and I woke up it was snowing! The snow was just flurries and it didn't stick, but it added to the Christmas atmosphere as we ate our cinnamon rolls and opened Christmas presents that my parents sent us. My parents and grandparents were way too generous, as usual. They gave us some money to use for the honeymoon--hooray!--and the best gift from Mom and Dad was Kindles for both of us. We've both spent a large part of today playing with our new gadgets. I think Penn has downloaded something like 40 books already (mostly public domain classics)!!
I spent part of the afternoon in the kitchen making us a Christmas feast. I told Penn several weeks ago that I would make him whatever he wanted for Christmas dinner, and he requested a pork knuckle. Yes, a PORK KNUCKLE. Apparently he ate one in the Czech Republic and loved it, and he wanted me to see if I could recreate it. So I embarked on a culinary adventure that began at an Amish farmers market and ended with ham shanks simmering on my stove for three hours this afternoon. I also made mashed potatoes, my mom's cheesy squash casserole, a salad with my other grandma's salad dressing, crescent rolls, and a cheeseball. I figured it was a wise idea to make plenty of sure-to-be-delicious side dishes just in case the schweinsaxe was a bust. Luckily it came out pretty good. It did get slightly smokier than I expected, and it turns out that as far as meat goes it's just a bit too fatty for me to completely enjoy, but Penn really liked it and I was happy tasting a few bites and then loading up on squash and potatoes. Yay successful Christmas feast! While our meal was cooking we went over to our neighbors' house for a while. They have a daughter slightly younger than us with cerebral palsy ("among other things," according to my neighbor). Normally the daughter lives in a group home in a nearby town, but she was home for the day so my neighbor wanted us to come over so her daughter could meet our dog. So we went over and had a glass of wine and introduced our Meatball to their daughter. I was so proud of my hound. The woman is in her early twenties but she can't really talk and she has the mental capacity and interests of a five- or six-year-old child, which meant she didn't entirely understand how to be gentle with the dog. We were all trying to help her be careful with him, but she would sometimes tug on his leash and grab at his ears and I kept having to boost him up onto his hind legs so that she could reach him from her wheelchair to pet him. And my dog was so incredibly sweet and patient. He let himself be poked and prodded and yanked around and he didn't so much as yelp. And it was so fun to see the daughter's eyes light up and hear her laughter as she played with Meatball. I was humbled, and incredibly grateful for my own healthy life, and so proud of my sweet dog.
All in all it was a great Christmas. I do miss my family, but I'm hoping we'll be with them again next year, and for now I am more than satisfied to be here. We're supposed to get hit with a snowstorm tonight and tomorrow, so I'm hoping to spend the day hunkered down with leftovers and books. Right now there's a slice of my neighbor's pumpkin pie with alcohol-spiked whipped cream calling my name, so I'm off.
Merry Christmas!

21 Days

Three weeks from right now I'll be a married woman. A married woman who will hopefully be taking full advantage of the honeymoon suite at the reception hotel with her husband (which, let's be honest, probably means sleeping because we will be exhausted and we have to fly 30 hours the next day(s) [My mom was so buzzed and exhausted on her wedding night that she fell asleep before, uh, the marriage could be consumated, a fact my dad still brings up teasingly almost 30 years later. I'm going to do my best not to follow in her footsteps on that one!]).

I have an urge to write a contemplative post on the verge of this major life change, but my life has been such a whirlwind lately that I haven't had time to sit down and get my thoughts in enough order for a proper post. Honestly, this entire year has been a whirlwind. The last time I remember feeling like I had time to truly relax without places to be or tasks hanging over my head was on our trip to Jamaica. That was seven months ago! And that trip was only a few days long. Since that time I have been going non-stop: heading up a major summer project, dog-sitting and living at someone else's house for almost a month, teaching summer school, prepping and teaching a fall course, accepting every private tutoring job that came my way, hosting house guests for my bridal shower and various other random weekend events, house hunting and buying a house, taking trips for weddings and conferences, planning the wedding, working on the dissertation when I can squeeze it in. The three-week honeymoon is MUCH NEEDED.
I started working on my 30 Things to do Before I Turn 30 list way back on my birthday six weeks ago and haven't even managed to post that yet. I hope to get it up eventually, but maintaining this blog is at the very bottom of my to-do list. When I don't have any sort of regular routine (and I really haven't for months now) it's the last thing to get done. One of these days when there aren't so many (admittedly pretty awesome) special events going on in my life I'll be able to keep up with this thing again. I hope.

Which brings me to one of the reasons I'm most excited about my wedding: I am excited for life to have a regular life again. I have loved my year of being a bride-to-be, but I'm ready for everything to go back to normal. And that's ultimately how I feel about marrying Penn. It feels like the most perfectly normal, absolutely right thing to do. I feel great excitement for the wedding day. I'm almost bursting with anticipation these days (especially since it's the Christmas season; there is a natural feeling of anticipation in the air anyway that compounds my feeling). I like imagining what it's going to be like to have all of our friends and family members from different times and aspects of our lives together in one place for one crazy day. I keep trying to remind myself that all of this, all of the giddiness and stress and hopefulness and joy that has gone into planning this wedding, will happen only once in my life and I need to savor the feelings and not attempt to rush through them to the next step. But the truth is that the reason I'm excited for the wedding is not so much for the wedding itself, but because when it is over Penn will be my husband. We will be formally bonded together for life. I can't think of someone I would rather face life's challenges with, and I can't think of someone who could better help me appreciate its joys than Penn.
I can't wait to put on that dress and veil and stand at the altar of our church and promise Penn and 100 other people that I will be faithful to him until death. I can't wait to eat mashed potatoes in a martini glass and drink and dance and laugh and pose for hundreds of pictures. I can't wait to explore New Zealand and lounge on the beach in Fiji. But, mostly, I can't wait to come home and finally, officially be Mrs. _______, with all the domesticity and normality that entails. I want to continue to fix up our house and cook dinners and go to our jobs and make budgets and take road trips and walk the dog and have babies and cuddle them and yell at them and walk them to school and cry at their graduations and weddings and watch the seasons change through the picture window in the living room and grow old with my husband. I don't need anything more than that. That life is the most spectacular life I can imagine, and I can't wait to start living it.

The Future of America

I'm proctoring an SAT practice exam right now for my parttime tutoring job. I just finished grading my students' essays. Here are some of the things these high school juniors apparently believe, judging by the examples they provided in their essays:

1. Romeo and Juliet were not allowed to get married to each other, and so to punish their families they killed each other.

2. There is a European nation. Just one (and no, that wasn't just the kid leaving off a critical s in his rush to finish the essay, he repeated the phrase "the nation of Europe" many times).

3. Martin Luther King, Jr. Gave his "I Have a Dream" speech during the Civil War.

4. Barack Obama faces racism due to his race. (As opposed to racism based on his...yeah.)

5. "100 years ago people used to wear colorful clothing in America known as the "hippies" era. They danced to jazz and rebelled against social norms." (Wrong, and then wrong again.Also, oh my god, sentence structure!)

Next Time

The next time I come to Seattle, I really want Penn to come with me. I've been here twice now without him, and I know he would love it here. I really like it here, too. This is my second trip to Seattle and I'm now convinced that this is one of my favorite US cities. I took a little bit of time today to walk down to Pike Place Market, where I sampled a bunch of food and bought apples, fancy flavored pasta (I got some for my sister, too, since we had fun picking out our favorite flavors last time we were here), and a treat for my meatatarian almost-husband. I treated myself to a nice dinner at an oyster bar/seafood restaurant tonight, and now I'm back in my hotel room. My room is amazing. I named my own price for a 4-star hotel on Priceline and I couldn't believe my luck when I got here. I'm on the 39th floor of the hotel and my room has an enormous floor-to-ceiling window with a spectacular view: the Space Needle is framed right in the center of the window and if I look to my left I can see the Puget Sound. Every night it has been exciting to come back to my room. I put on the hotel robe and climb into my super-soft bed and read myself to sleep taking occasional breaks to stare out my window at the glowing Space Needle. It has been nice having this beautiful view because even though I didn't have much downtime to explore the city on this whirlwind trip I get to feel like I'm a part of it every night.
Next time I come back here I'm coming back with no agenda. I want to soak up the city on my own time. And there will be a next time, I'm determined. I want to see as much of the world as possible in my lifetime, but there's something to be said for going back time and again to places that really click for you, and I think Seattle is one of those places for me.

Success

This has been a successful conference so far. I went to my session yesterday and was told that the things I am exploring in my research are "fascinating." A well-known scholar in my field approached me and said he'd like to talk more about what I'm doing! And my advisor, who was part of the session also, approached me afterward and said he'd heard good things about my paper and that it was well-received. This all feels really good since this is my dissertation research and I'm obviously invested in it. Unfortunately I didn't get much critical feedback that I can actually put into action, but I'm satisfied with knowing I've sparked interest. I also had a really bizarre experience at the conference yesterday when someone noticed my name tag and said, "Oh, you went to[ School Where I Got my MA]!" I said, Yes, I did. How do you know that?" and she said "I'm working on my MA there now and they talk about you in our classes." I was like, "What? Seriously? Why?!" She laughed and explained that one of my professors is still using a paper I wrote in 2005 as an ideal version of how to complete the assignment, and that in general they talk about me because I bucked the usual trend of the department and instead of going on to the local state school for a PHD I got out of the state all together and went to a higher tier school. I can't believe I'm being held up as an example of how to succeed. Especially at this point, when I feel so behind on my dissertation process. It's flattering, for sure. It's beyond flattering. It also adds pressure, though, to know that not only do Penn and I (and to a certain extent the rest of my family) care that I finish, people at both of my old universities have staked some sort of bragging rights on me as well. It's things like this that make me question my path, just a little bit. Despite my self doubt about my work, I wonder if maybe I do, in fact, have the skills to make a splash in this field, and I wonder what I'll be losing if I do walk at least partially away from it (and I know in my heart that's what I want to do, I can't reconcile parenting with the work it takes to be one of the academic bigshots, and just by marrying Penn and not being willing to move anywhere in the country I've severely limited my career opportunities). Then again, the fact that I'm willing to turn from the path at all means that maybe academic overload isn't the life for me, and the not-so-confident part of myself thinks that maybe I'll ultimately be more comfortable always wondering what I could have done with an intense research career instead of actually trying it, burning out, and ultimately disappointing myself.
And maybe there is some way to balance the sort of active, involved family life I crave with an academically rigorous lifestyle, but I've yet to see that play out for anyone in real life.
It shouldn't be an either/or proposition, but it is. Compromise happens somewhere, and I think for me the compromise will be the career trajectory. Will I have a career? Yes. Will it be what it could have been if I didn't choose Penn and a family, or if I decided to put career above those things. No, obviously not. And this is nothing brilliant to be talking about, just the plight of most middle and upper class, educated women in the US in the twenty first century. It's just frustrating to know how complicit I will be in continuing the cycle.
Blah. Back to the conference!
Edited to add: I find it funny that when I originally posted this at 9:30 this morning the fact that I was typing on my Blackberry caused me to typo "Success" as "Sucess" in the title. Maybe that's telling?

Reemerging

Not surprisingly, buying a house and moving really shook up the routine for a couple of weeks (not that I've had much of a routine this fall...or really this entire year anyway!). I had to drop the ball on a lot of things, particularly from last Thursday through Monday, when we had no internet access at either the old place of the new place. I basically gave myself permission to focus only on moving. The bad news is that I now have two weeks of grading to do and I haven't touched my dissertation in close to a month. Gah. The good news is that this was somehow the easiest move I've ever had, despite the fact that it was the biggest one in terms of the sheer amount of stuff we had to move. It definitely helped that both Penn and I were able to work together to get everything packed. We also had so many friends help. Two of Penn's friends from his hometown spent Thursday and Friday of last week helping us get the house move-in ready. They helped Penn with a ton of yardwork (including chainsawing down a dead tree that was three times as tall as the house; I was at work while they did that, thank god, because I would have been obnoxiously nervous if I had to watch them do it. It could have landed on the house!) and they hung my blinds and curtains and did some other random tasks around the house. It was hugely helpful. Then on the day we moved in we had half a dozen people show up to help (loading up took three hours but we unpacked the U Haul in half an hour flat!), and Penn's good friend and his girlfriend stayed with us on Saturday night and helped us unpack, so by Sunday afternoon the job of organizing the house was more than halfway done. It's amazing to have such kind friends, since all they got in return were a few meals and beer. I feel very blessed. I managed to get most everything else under control over the course of this week, and now I just need to unpack our enormous book collection and get our "art" (we have very little actual art) and decorative touches into place.And Penn has taken care of most of the minor repairs that needed to be done and he has the yard in good shape (and because he chopped down that huge tree we have years worth of firewood. Seriously, YEARS.)
It feels amazing to finally be in our house. I can see why home ownership is so seductive. Don't like something? You can change it! And there are other, less tangible emotions that come from having the house now. Penn told me the other night that he couldn't believe he was sitting on the couch in his own house with his soon-to-be-wife, and he didn't need to say more than that because I knew what he meant. There's a great confidence that comes from owning a house together, to planting our roots in the same place and making it ours. I spent most of my teens and twenties feeling like I was biding my time, having fun but ultimately waiting to get to where I am now. I was always just so curious about who I would marry and where I would live and how we would make a living. And now, barring a life-changing disaster, I know the answers to those questions. For someone like me who craves stability and security more than anything else, tying myself to Penn and this house is, paradoxically, liberating. It's frightening, too, because I sometimes have a sense that having received what I always wanted means it can only go downhill from here. I suppose I can only hope that we continue to work hard together and be lucky.
I love the house. I love seeing my dog snuffling around his big backyard, I love using all of my counterspace to prep meals, I love simply walking down one flight of stairs to do laundry and not having to worry about whether or not I have quarters to pay for it, I love the wood floors, I love finally living somewhere with a proper hallway again. I love imagining what it will be like to finish my dissertation in my new office. Even more than that, I love imagining what it will be like to bring our first child through the front door and tell him or her that this is home. I hope I get to do those things.
Anyway, I'm on a shuttle headed to the airport for a conference and we're almost there, so I have to go. I have my own hotel room in Seattle and some other posts brewing, so there may be more to come soon, for a change.

We Got The House!

!!!!!!!Yayayayayayayayayayay!!!!!!!!!
The final loan approval came through yesterday and the closing has been scheduled. We're doing a walk-through of the house on Friday at 10:45 and then we go to the title company to sign all of the paperwork and get the keys right after that. Friday also happens to be my birthday, so as soon as we get the keys we're heading to the house with a bottle of champagne for a double celebration. I can't wait!
There was one last tiny hitch, of course. The current owner asked to be able to rent the house back from us for six extra days. So, basically, we would go to closing and get the keys and ownership papers but then the batty old lady who is living there now would pay us rent and keep living there until next Wednesday. At first Penn and I were like, "Okay, maybe." It would mess up some of our plans--we were really hoping to start doing yard work and cleaning the interior of the house this weekend--but we would have dealt with it. But then we realized some things:

A) They (the seller and her lawyers/guardians--I'm not entirely kidding when I call her batty, she legally has mental issues) were the ones that pushed for an early closing to begin with. We had initially suggested November 22nd as a closing date and when we were counter-offering back and forth at the beginning the sellers said we had to close by the end of October. So the 5th was a compromise, more on our end than on theirs, which made it really obnoxious when they were like, "Hey, we know we really rushed this closing process and made it harder on you guys and your team of inspectors/assessors/lenders, but now that we managed to miraculously meet our agreed upon closing date, can we please stay an extra week?"
B) The sellers were trying to act like it was our fault that they aren't prepared to move out by Friday because they supposedly didn't know if our financing was going to come through. What a bunch of bull. The seller's agent looked at our finances very early on in the process and figured they were fine. That's why they accepted our offer in the first place. Other things could have fallen through, but our financing was always relatively secure. And, just to be on the safe side, don't you think you would get your ducks in a row and be prepared to move if the financing did go through? They have known for almost a month that closing was going to be on the 5th; that's plenty of time to prepare. We don't have a lot of patience for sob stories at this point.

C) We would only make $200 to let her stay the extra days. That money would just get shaved off our closing costs and it's a drop in the bucket compared to the overall cost of the house. Not worth it!
D) The only "safeguard" we had in the rental contract was that if she refused to leave after six days the daily rent would double. It would double from a whopping $33 to $66, still way cheaper than a hotel or rental apartment or nursing home room. So it seemed frighteningly likely that she might continue to say she wasn't ready to move indefinitely, and then we would be stuck paying lawyer's fees to get a crazy old woman evicted from our house. NOT WORTH IT.
E) We have a contract with the closing date on it, they don't have a leg to stand on. We get OUR HOUSE on Friday.

I can't wait to move all of our stuff over next weekend and start getting settled. And I'll try not to talk about it constantly because I know house stuff is really, really boring. But, really, it's home repairs/furnishing or wedding planning that is on my mind 90% of the time these days. I don't blame you for not finding it all as fascinating and exciting as I do, but if that's the case I suggest that maybe you try back here in February when I'll be on to other topics.

Speaking of other topics, I went to Jon Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity last weekend, and it was awesome. It was so uplifting to be around other people demonstrating tolerance, open-mindedness, and reason (and very witty senses of humor!). It wasn't about how we lefty academic east coast elite liberals are right and tea partiers and the Christian Right are wrong (although admittedly a lot of signs played on insani"tea"). Instead it was all about just listening to each other, seeking out the facts wherever possible, and avoiding the fear-mongering and bluster that is such a part of mediated politics these days. "If we amplify everything, we hear nothing," Stewart said in the rally's closing speech. He also reminded us that "We live in hard times, not end times." It felt wonderful to be standing on the Mall with a hundred thousand plus people who seem to understand that. The results of yesterday's election were not encouraging to me. It's obvious that the majority of voting America has fallen prey to the knee-jerk reaction. But you know, the government is a self-regulating system. I'm confident that the Republicans won't really get anywhere, either, and that two years from now we'll likely see another sea change. But you know, if they do get us out of this recession I'll be pleased, not pouty. That's the thing: it's politics, not a freaking football game where my side has to "win." I wish there was more rational, critical thought and less anti-intellectualism in this country. But being at the rally on Saturday did manage to convince me that "my people" are out there in droves and that perhaps I don't need to move to Denmark.
Which is a good thing, since we just bought a freaking HOUSE. We're stuck here for a long time now, like it or not!

Trying to be Patient

I celebrated Halloween yesterday by waking up with Quasimodo Face. I had a terrible allergy attack late Saturday night and I decided to just take a pill and sleep it off. As it turns out, going to sleep when your left eye is all red and teary and puffed up is not a good idea. When I woke up in the morning I felt better, but it looked like someone had punched me in the face. My left eye had an enormous puffy fluid bag under it and it was still blood red. And of course I had to be at the tutoring company office at 9 AM to proctor a practice exam for half a dozen students. I have no idea what they were thinking when they saw my puffy face, but they were all polite enough not to say anything about it. It was only later that I realized I could totally have gotten away with wearing an eye patch and pretending it was all part of my pre-planned pirate Halloween costume. Not that I actually have a pirate-style eye patch just lying around the apartment. Oh well.

So, about the house. We're supposed to go to closing and get the keys on Friday, four days from now. Four days out and I STILL don't feel completely confident that we're actually going to get to buy this house. I feel like maybe if we're lucky we'll get to buy it eventually, but I have zero faith that it will actually happen on Friday. Much of our mutual funds and stocks have been sold and some of our relatives very generously gave us our wedding gift money early so that we could amass the money for the down payment (20% of the cost of a house is a frighteningly large amount of money. I can't even look at our savings account balance right now because it's giving me heart palpitations). The loan package has been sent to the underwriters for final approval. We had a scare last weekend when suddenly a required termite inspection spiraled into two days of phone calls about whether or not we would need a structural engineering report as well ($500) and a termite treatment ($800) despite the fact that the termite inspection turned up exactly one spot of termite damage that was obviously from a very long time ago and the home inspector says the house is clearly structurally sound. Luckily I think that issue has been taken care of and the current home owners are taking care of the (made-up, in my opinion) termite issue. We have a stack of documents three inches tall that we have e-mailed to the lender. Obviously they are just trying to cover all of the bases, but I sometimes feel like everyone is going above and beyond what is actually necessary.
We've jumped the inspection and assessment hurdles and tracked down all of the documents the lender needs to see, but I still feel like something could go wrong at the 11th hour. I think it's because every other day we get a phone call saying, "Oh, by the way, we also need you to fax us [fill in obscure financial document here]," so I have no faith that those phone calls will magically stop this week. Buying a house is definitely one of the most stressful things I have ever done. It's exciting, but the process could not possibly be more difficult. It is not streamlined AT ALL. Also, you have no choice but to be completely invested in the process financially, and it's almost impossible not to get invested emotionally. The stakes are so high, and even if you are very organized and you read every bit of fine print on every single piece of paper that crosses your path and even if your realtor is good at explaining things, you still feel like the process is out of your control. Honestly, I'm not sure I want to do this ever again. I think that ultimately having a house will be worth the trouble. Having that investment property--not to mention having a home to live in and enjoy--seems worth some initial frustration. But I think that I'm going to need at least a decade to recover before attempting to do this again. And if we don't actually get this house? Well, hell, if we have to go all the way back to square one right now I'll seriously reconsider the perks of being a renter.

Let's see, other things...last weekend our best friends from here got married in the bride's hometown in Texas so Penn and I flew out to the wedding. Watching them get married was wonderful because I like both the bride and groom so much, and the reception was so much fun. There were margaritas and a mariachi band at the cocktail hour and yummy food stations and of course there was plenty of dancing. At one point I looked over and the bride was drinking a Strongbow in a can and it really felt just like any other night out partying in the city, except that she was in a white wedding dress and he was in a tux. I'm really, really happy for them. I just love when my friends find someone they love enough to marry, and I particularly loved it in this case because Penn and I have been equally friendly with both the bride and the groom for a while now and they're both very funny, kind, good people. Being at their wedding was also exciting for a different reason, though, because they got engaged just three weeks before Penn and I did, and this whole year I've been using their wedding planning as sort of a measure of where we should be in terms of our planning. And now that they are married, the next wedding I go to will be my own! We only have 10 weeks left to finish planning!

It has turned out to be a hectic year, for sure. But I've realized recently that despite sometimes feeling stressed out I'm nowhere near my perceived breaking point, and that Penn and I are actually handling this year's changes together really well. He's a great partner for me, and although I'm excited about the wedding I'm most excited about the marriage and all that we'll face together once the wedding is over.