Elizabeth & Brendan

Oh Earl, please don’t ruin my plans.  Brendan is expected to fly home tomorrow and land around 6:30.  Earl is expected to arrive late afternoon, with the center passing over Massachusetts between 10:00 pm and 3:00 am.   With its current course, Boston will have winds of 35 miles per hour.  If it moves a bit out to sea, we may not see any real winds. 

What does this mean for Brendan?  I don’t really know at this point.  Since he is flying through Iceland, he is more north and wouldn’t fly into the hurricane but I doubt you can land with those winds.

…cancer free – many to go.

Going to dinner at Hungry Mother.

This is before it got really bad. According to local news sources, our town got 4.2 inches of rain in 45 minutes.

Okay so June 25 came and went and Brendan and I were getting the house ready for the big move. Then July 11th came. Moving Day. Awesome. We had a large truck and a cast of movers including us, Kim, Kevin, Karen, Keith, Jen, Hugh, Alett, and Paul. We started around 9:30 and ended at 12:30. We couldn’t believe a) how hot it was and b) how quickly it went. Then the BBQ started. Then around 1:30 some people left and around 2:00, the rain started. We watched the rain fall and laughed at the fact that Jen and Keith had just gone for a run. Jen returned first and she was soaking. Then Keith came home. We continued the drinking until a knock on the door came. Turns out the street was flooding and Keith’s car was in danger of getting wet. We then watched the waters come down the street and laughed. I went down to check our basement and just some water was there from the bulkhead. We go back upstairs and more drinking ensues. About an hour later, we realized that there was about 2 inches of water in the basement. We just moved. And now water. So Jen, Keith, Kim, and I begin to bail out the basement while Brendan and Paul go to Home Depot for a Wet vac. 2 hours later Brendan returned. As he was leaving, he ran into our neighbor Bob. Turns out Bob had about 2 feet of water in his basement (Bob says it was the second worst he has seen it in the 25 years he has lived here. The streets were so badly flooded, traffic wasn’t moving. (We later learned that a tunnel got completely flooded and 2 people had to swim to safety). Once we had the wet vac and the water began to subside, it took a few more hours but it was dry. The next night it rained again and panic ensued. Brendan and I were afraid to see if water was coming in but it wasn’t and it hasn’t anytime it has rained since moving day.

We later found out that most of Somerville was experiencing bad flooding. The police station lost 3 cruisers to the water and had to chain motorcycles down for fear they would be taken with the water. They estimate the damage to residents and the city at $10 million so far.

As I told Brendan, we seem to get done with all the hardships earlier than expected – major illness 7 months into marriage, flood one month into home ownership. That is how we roll I guess.

Boil water order lifted. Now we just have to flush out the systems. Not bad – less than 72 hours to get it fixed.

So a water pipe burst and we are now under a “boil water order”.  Basically a pipe burst in Weston and towns east have been affected.  As of this morning, the pipe has been fixed and pressure tested but now they need to purge the system of the non-treated water and test.  You need two consecutive “clean” tests before the order can be lifted.  It takes 24 hours to get a test result back which means we are looking at a best case of 24-48 hours until the order is lifted.

We will be leaving Medford for Somerville.

Some things about Somerville:

• It was an All-America City in 2009. About the All-America City competition: “The All America City Award is America’s original community recognition award, honoring communities of all sizes where community members, government, businesses and nonprofit organizations work together to address critical local issues. To win, communities must demonstrate close and effective collaboration among the public, private and nonprofit sectors to identify and advance the progress of key goals shared by the community. Other criteria include recognition and inclusion of the diverse segments of the population in community decision-making, creative use of community resources, and clear demonstration of project results and impacts, among many others.”
• Prospect Hill was the site of the raising of the first Grand Union Flag, under the orders of General George Washington, on January 1, 1776.
• Marshmallow fluff was started here.
• Barack Obama lived here when he was attending Harvard Law School.
• The Winter Hill Gang met up in the Winter Hill Bakery (in the Winter Hill section of Somerville).
• Most notably, we will be living there.

Finding a house is like riding a roller coaster – a lot of highs and lows.  So we decide to put in our first offer on a house in Somerville (about half a mile from where we live, I don’t like change).  We put in the offer and then take off for the Rhode Island baby shower for Baby Chase (this is one well feted baby).  But before we leave, we drive by the open house to see if there is anyone looking at the house.  We were close to sending in some spies but we held back.  So we go to Rhode Island, ooh and ahh over the baby girl clothes, and all the while Brendan is fielding calls from our agent.  Sellers had questions on our offer and such.

The next day (Monday) we learn that there are other offers on the house.  And if this goes to a bidding war, we are going to bow out gracefully because we can’t win.  By Wednesday we learn the house has gone to another buyer (a third one swooped in at the last minute).  Needless to say we are bummed.  But we move on and a week later visit a place in Cambridge that while small has the feel that it is larger.  We really like it and decide not to wait and see.  We call our agent to set up a showing so we can talk to her about it.  That is a Sunday.  On Monday we get an email from Alissa (our agent) who said they sellers accepted an offer but because they listed the open house in the paper, went ahead with it.  I guess they should tell you when you get to the open house that there is an accepted offer on the house but no, they didn’t.  So we are once again feeling like unless we won’t a complete gut renovation or to spend a ton, we are never going to find a house.

But then, Tuesday comes.  Brendan comes home and says that the original house was no longer listed as “Offer accepted” but “Active”.  We immediately call Alissa who calls the sellers’ agent.  And sure enough, it is back on the market.  The original buyers walked after the inspection (later intel would inform us that they had the inspection and then said “we don’t want it” and didn’t want to negotiate about anything.  Everyone believes they found another house they liked better).  So once again, we draft an offer and begin to negotiate.  After three days of back and forth (during this time I have reversed look up the address, know who the owners and where he works.  The internet is a scary place.), we drop off the “Earnest deposit” and then the chaos begins.

(Also during this time, my company was in the processing of being bought so I am hesitant to even look at places.  However, before we signed the offer letter I was notified that not only was the company bought but I was being brought into the new company.  Phew!)

The sellers accepted our offer on a Sunday and I was leaving for Europe (Germany and Switzerland for work of course) on Monday.  This meant that Brendan was left to handle the inspection and negotiations for the P&S (purchase and sale) without me.  Oh and in order to qualify for the tax credit, this all has to be done by Friday.  And I have to figure out a way to sign the P&S.  Stress!  Brendan spends 3 hours at the inspection and I wait up in Europe for him (I was 6 hours ahead).  Inspection brings up a couple of things so we are now going back and forth to get these items included in the P&S.  We win on some, we lose on others.  A P&S is drafted and accepted by all and I am picked up at Logan and taken home.  Alissa arrives shortly later and I sign my name and initial in A LOT of places.  My jet lag is horrible at this point and I feel like I am cross-eyed.  We hand over a large sum of money and we wait for closing.

Now we just have to tell our landlady (the nicest woman in the world!)

For those interested, some info on the house.

The wording from the ad:

“Attractive SF with huge landscaped yard. Near Davis Sq Bike Path, new Albion Park, and future Green Line T. First floor open living with hardwood floors, fireplace, & lots of light. 3+ bedrooms, incl. large master on second floor, 2 full baths, and bonus finished space in basement. 2 car, side-by-side parking. Ample storage inside and out. Recent updates include custom closets, sprinkler system, kitchen counters, circuit breakers, & cedar fence. Celebrate spring in your new home. Walk score=85″

Well the closing is not until the end of June so we will not be celebrate spring in our new home, but we will be celebrating every other season for the next million years.

And a picture of our new, humble abode:

And here is the yard (a big motivator of our interest):

On Saturday, we ventured out in Somerville to a dog park. Eli goes to day care and plays with other dogs so we thought he would like the exercise.

As we walked down Putnam, you can hear the dogs and Eli was getting all excited. So we go in and Eli starts to sniff around and get familiar. He was very shy at first. He hung out near the fence, watching the others play. (There were a few big dogs we think intimidated Eli.) Eli would sniff a dog if said dog was off on his own near a fence. Then every once in awhile Eli would walk out to the middle of the field. You could tell he wanted to play but was just a bit shy. Eventually after about 10 minutes (during which time he hammed it up to other owners for pets) he got into the mix and started to play. And man, can the dog run. We never realized how fast he could go. So we let him run to his heart’s content with the other dogs for awhile.

The best other dog was “Dexter”. Every few minutes you would hear someone yell “Dexter!” and turn to find the dog humping yet another small dog. It was pretty funny – not just for the obvious but because Dexter was dressed in a monogrammed coat and his owners were mortified.

OK so the saga of the blue bin continues because after being on set out as if ready for garbage, the blue bin was placed in our front yard.  I have a lot of theories and of course all of them are plausible.

1) The neighbor read the blog and then felt guilty.

2) Dave (the mayor of the street who reminds people how to park on Bristol Road and snow blows the sidewalk) or his wife from next door brought it back to us.

3) The neighbor just did the right thing and brought it back.

I am voting for theory number 2.