The House

I thought that by this time tonight I would be able to write to you about our descent into buyer's remorse induced depression, as we sat in our newly acquired 3 bedroom house with a detached two car garage.

However, it is difficult to have buyer's remorse for something you have not yet bought.

Difficult, but not impossible.

On Friday, we got a call from the Title Insurance people, who were all in a tizzy about the survey not being right. Naturally, they waited until the day before the closing to look into this. According to our lawyer-y friends...this is par for the course in real estate.

The problem has something to do with a pin at a distance of 83.84 feet from the Westerly corner of Braddock Avenue. And Nellie G. Coll's property. Nellie is unmarried, by the way. It says that on the deed.

Anyway, tomorrow is a holiday. For some people, not me. The courthouse is closed. Nobody can go there and sift through crumbling, faded papers to see if they can clear up the problem with that pin that is 83.84 feet from the corner. So we wait.

Unlike the title insurance people, I'll be going to work, which is good because I already have some of the new expenses of home ownership. I turned on the utilities in anticipation of the closing, so that they would be on and we could have heat and hot water when we acquired our property today. So in addition to all this other crap, I am paying utilities on a house I don't own. Although, really it is M who is working to pay for these expenses, since I make peanuts right now, on account of my other problem. I'll get to that in a minute.

Instead of enjoying the heat and hot water in my new house, I am sitting in my crappy apartment listening to the downstairs neighbor say "Pow!" and the upstairs neighbor...nevermind, you don't want to know what I can hear him doing.

Additionally, I am still waiting to hear from the Pennsylvania Department of Education to find out if they will grant me a license to teach here. You may recall that my saga has to date involved approximately $2,000 in testing and administrative fees, $15,000 in lost wages, and $350 in travel expenses. It was a mere 14 weeks ago that I traveled to Harrisburg to plead my case in front of the Certification Appeals Committee. You may remember that one of the first remarks after I gave my well-crafted and impassioned speech as to why I should be permitted to educate the youth of this Commonwealth was, "I don't see why this girl doesn't have her certification. What's the problem here?" This was from the former head of education in the Department of Corrections. He's a real no-nonsense kind of guy. He also was on a first name basis with the very girl whose position I took when I moved to Phoenix. Small world.

The committee was, naturally, quite charmed by my eloquent words, and I'm sure would have issued a certificate on the spot, if they could. However, for some reason they have to wait 12-16 weeks before making a recommendation. I was going to call them tomorrow, just to check on the status, since I've heard NOTHING so far, but, of course, they'll be closed.

Par for the course.