Celebrating closing

Here, Dynamo and I have perfected the fine art of celebration. After one of the biggest moments of our lives, we ate gyros from a nearby, Hungarian/Turkish gyro shop; washed it down with Arizona's fine 99 cent green tea from a can, 2006 vintage; and relaxed on our only piece of furniture, a heavy wooden desk and rolling chair.

WOOOOOOOO PARTAY!

Closing Costs

Friday, October 6, 2006. Dynamo and I were scheduled to meet at Michael and Swerdloff, attorneys-at-law's office. The name itself throws me off, because very few people use their first names for the law firm. Take, for example, Crane, Schmidt & Poole, the law firm on spectacular TV show Boston Legal (I may have a man-crush on James Spader). Those are all last names. They're pure fiction, but so is the use of Swerdloff as a first name.

After searching around for what we imagined the law firm's building would look like, we found a house. With a sign. A paper sign. Taped in the window. An 8 x 11, printed on an inkjet printer, sign taped to the window mostly hidden by blinds, welcoming us to the law office of Michael and Swerdloff. It was more like a dentist's office. We all took seats in the waiting area, half expecting a swerdly looking oral hygienist to come out and offer to clean our teeth while we closed.

Closing went smoothly, except for a few things. Such as our lawyer not understanding basic principles of math. Us not understanding basic principles of not getting extra money back. Finding out our monthly payments were going to be $500 higher than originally expected. Being moved from the first room because some guys had to do something with air ducts or something .

Closing is an exciting, yet extremely stressful time, and any little thing sent my eye twitching. We wanted to make sure everything was completely in order. Two and a half hours later we were in the clear. Except, at the very last moment, I noticed my name was spelled incorrectly on the housing deed and title, which actually were not in the expected Monopoly form. If it wasn't for my timely actual reading of the papers thrust before me to sign, the small error would have granted my condo to Phinneas Q. Sherberthead.

We had finally closed! And the first mortgage + city taxes + pickle taxes + not having a pet dingo charges weren't due until December 1st! Free ride, baby! To this end, we hopped in my pimped out pimpmobile (1993 Mercury Villager with questionable turn radius) crusin' and playin' Wu-Tang (on the radio)...with no particular place to go.

Everything was high 5s and W signs, until we got close to the apartment. There, in an act of ridiculously bad driving, I managed to hit a cop. Not a cop car. An actual, ticket-giving, clearly-shouldn't-have-been-walking-so-far-in-the-road, definitely-shouldn't-have-raised-his-left-arm-when-he-did, cop. My right side-view mirror cracked back into the passenger side window and I had an "Oh Crap" moment. I always considered myself a rational person, until Dynamo had to calm me down and direct me not to flee from the scene. I pulled over, got out the car, and walked towards the policeman, shaking like a Polaroid picture the entire time.

"Holy crap, oh crap, are you okay? I'm so sorry. I have no idea what happened, I thought I was further over on the left, and I think a car came into the lane and I moved over and didn't have as much space as I thought..."
"It's okay, I'm fine...you barely grazed my elbow, which was jutted out way into the road while I made my 'I'm a little teapot' pose."

Well, I'm glad he was fine, but my mirror was cracked right down the middle. And those things are not cheap to fix. I'm still waiting on the cop to give me money for the damage he caused!

A P-Killer Dedicated Polar Bear Update

This post is dedicated to P-killer, who always makes an effort to get me to write more consistently and considerately provides this blog space with humorous commentary. And as we all know, humorous posts plus humorous comments is a great recipe for chili.

It's been a solid 15 days (or what the experts refer to as "more than enough time to get a polar bear) now since we've painted the apartment "Polar Bear," and still no luck. Thinking perhaps the paint was not so much a lure as a way to transform our condos walls into living, breathing, actual polar bears, I started petting the walls. To no avail. Not only are the walls NOT super furry, cuddly and seal-hunt-ly, but they're filled with roller drip marks.

This proved my original idea of paint as a lure must have been correct, and yet so far only failure. Meditating on the problem, I thought maybe the polar bears were actually being camouflaged, and running out before we could properly introduce ourselves. To this end, I painted one wall "Chile Pepper," figuring there's no way a polar bear could blend in against a bright red/orange wall. That is, until I watched Lost and realized how smart they were. The bear could paint itself bright red/orange as well! This was going to be trickier than I thought.

On this same episode of Lost, however, I realized some polar bears (some, not all, before you start badgering innocents) are actually quite dangerous and live in caves on lush tropical islands and eat people with walking sticks. Dynamo had a cane, and maybe these clearly insane polar bears can't differentiate, so maybe it's best not to lure one in.

I'd do more research on this topic, but I've got to go paint my walls "Delicious Golden Honey." To lure in grizzly bears, of course.

Polar Bear Picking

In a last ditch effort to attract a polar bear companion, Dynamo and I painted our new condo. Planning for days, we decided to paint it white. But not just any white. Polar Bear white. And not just any Polar Bear white paint, but Behr Premium Plus. You know, for more Behr attracting action. While Behr is spelled incorrectly, I can assure you their logo is an actual bear, which in turn reassured me that my plan would work.

So far, however, all I've gotten is 3 kittens and one cat, who may or may not be feral but are ridiculous cute anyway, that crap a lot in our condo's shared backyard.

While this is a hotly debated issue, I've come up with a few reasons why so far a polar bear hasn't sauntered into our living room:

1. I calculated incorrectly, and their favorite color is yummy seal gray or coca-cola black
2. It's not yet cold enough
3. The paint that attracts them is flat finish; we used eggshell and semi-gloss