Category: November 2017

4 houses going on 2

As most of you remember, our initial attempt to purchase the Santa Fe townhome hit a snag when the appraisal came in many thousands of dollars lower than the agreed-upon purchase price.

In order to bridge the gap, we negotiated a somewhat lower purchase price (basically split the difference), and then we went with a new lender in order to  get a new appraisal. The new appraisal came in yesterday, quite a lot higher than the first appraisal, and it meets (slightly exceeds) the new, lower, purchase price. We have bridged the gap! This morning they approved the loan, and we are set to close on Monday morning!

It all worked out great. We got a lower purchase price, and all it cost us was an extra month’s rent (due to the delay) and the cost of the second appraisal. (And the hassle of getting a thousand documents to a second lender, and some nail biting.)

We’ve given notice to both the landlords; for the rental in Placitas and the casita in Santa Fe. We’re keeping both places until the end of December, to give ourselves plenty of time to get moved. I’m really looking forward to January when we’ll only have 2 residences. Four is ridiculous!

The remodel isn’t livable yet, so I was thinking worst case scenario, John could commute from Santa Fe until it’s ready. But he says no, he’ll move in anyway, even without a kitchen. He used to eat Corn Chex with nut butter for dinner, but lately it’s been Fritos with hot sauce. So who needs a kitchen?

He does make some nice meals on the weekend though, so I guess he’ll just have to spend weekends in Santa Fe. Because I’m staying in Santa Fe all 7 days of the week until there’s a kitchen in Placitas!

One thing I am noticing this past month is that I haven’t been at all nervous alone at home at night in the casita. And that’s not always the case in Placitas. When I was in Placitas and John was on business trips, I could get a little on edge at night. I’m not sure what the difference is.

It could be the wind, which is significantly stronger out there in the hills in Placitas than in this dense, older section of Santa Fe. And that wind makes some weird noises!

Or it could be because the casita’s so small that it feels cozy, and there aren’t any long hallways with dark rooms lurking in the distance. Or it could be because the casita is attached on two sides to Marcy and Steve’s house. Or it even could be the courtyard – both doors open into a small, completely enclosed courtyard, with a locking gate.

I also wonder if it’s the dogs, who have been with John in Placitas recently. You would think that having dogs around would help me feel safer, but they get edgy when there’s little noises, and I wonder if I pick up that sense of concern from them. Kai in particular is always looking around and growling for no apparent reason. Or if I set my coffee cup down on the desk with a thunk, he starts barking. Is it possible to pick up nervousness from one’s own dogs?

Or maybe I’ve just been too busy and exhausted to notice that I’m home alone at night. I’ve been coaching every evening, at least one and often two clients per night. So it’s pretty close to bedtime by the time I’m done working for the day.

I’m hoping I have the same sense of security in the new townhome. It’s also small, although not as small as the casita. It’s closer to the edge of town so it will get a little more wind than the casita, but it’s still quite protected. The backyard is enclosed, but the front isn’t. That is one thing I want to do someday. It’s very common in New Mexico to have front courtyards and well as walled backyards, and I definitely plan to put one in.

I don’t know anything about the neighbor in the other half of the duplex (I don’t know why they call it a townhome – it’s a duplex). I’ll make a point to meet them as soon as I get moved in. It would be great if they were friendly. It’s too much to ask to have a best friend for a neighbor (wouldn’t that be amazing?!), but I do hope they’re at least nice enough.

I actually want to buy the other half of the duplex someday (John is rolling his eyes as he reads this). No seriously, what’s the point of owning half a duplex? I’ll own the other half someday. You just wait.

Anyway, here is the unglamorous appraisal cover photo (so unlike the marketing photos!) Plus the landscaping is suffering from it being empty for so long. It’s not looking all that impressive in this picture.

However it’s a lot better picture than the first appraisal cover photo; that guy just had it in for us. Mmmm, nice, who wouldn’t want this house? Or…maybe not so much.

My own shot  – note the emphasis on the landscaping, oh yes, there’s a house back there somewhere.

And the marketing shot – good balance, good light – yep, that’s the one!

All about knives

Actually I should title this, “a little bit about knives” because otherwise it would have to be a book, and I’m not really all that into it.

I decided to buy a good set of knives for the townhome, so John and I have been doing research. Here’s a photo of Global knives, which is a Japanese brand that sells well in the US.

 

Basically, your options are German knives or Japanese knives. In general, the German knives are heftier and withstand more abuse. They are a slightly softer alloy, which means they are less brittle and less likely to chip or break. They also get duller faster. Two big names in German knives are Wüsthof and Henckels, with Henckels being more affordable and probably the better value.

There are also differences with the angle and shape of the blade. I believe that some traditional Japanese knives only bevel one side, but I don’t have a picture example of that. What I do have is a photo of the difference between a Global bevel and what would be a typical German bevel on the right:

I went with the Global knives (in the top photo), even though that is clearly going to be a more delicate blade. I’ll need to put up a sign in my kitchen, “Do not twist or pry with my knives!! Do not slam blade against a hard surface!!”

The other issue with Global is they will rust, and they will rust quickly, and I don’t think there’s much you can do about it once they have rusted. Here’s a photo off the internet of what happened to someone’s Global when they tossed it in the kitchen sink for a few hours. Oops! And it goes without saying that these are not dishwasher safe.

So I’ll need another sign that says, “Hand wash and dry knives thoroughly, IMMEDIATELY!” And pretty soon my kitchen won’t be a homey, warm and welcoming place, it will be full of threatening signs about keeping your paws off my knives.

But in reality, we don’t do much entertaining, and if we did, we’d probably do it at the house in Placitas (if the remodel gets finished in our lifetime). So it’s just a few family members I’ll have to train. They’re up for it, right guys?

Halloween Office Party in Costume

Here is my boss, Carina, isn’t she beautiful? (and even more so in real life, without the inked eyebrow.)

Can you guess who she is dressed up as?  A lot of people knew who she was, because the culture here is so closely tied to Mexico. I’m embarrassed to say, I did not catch the reference myself. She is dressed as Freda Kahlo.

Here she is with her little pumpkin! His name is Santiago.

Rebecca is Suzie Wong of Hong Kong. I didn’t catch that reference either. I just thought she was a geisha.

I’m generally not very good at guessing who people are, because I don’t watch TV or movies or read about celebrities on the internet or anything like that.

A witch – I figured that one out. Love the shoes!

And batman. This is Kyle, the other new employee on our team. Once Carina is gone there will only be 3 of us, and Kyle and I are both brand-new. Luckily he’s really smart and patient with everything.

I don’t know what the purple goggle thing is. I believe it’s a well-known TV/movie cartoon character. You will probably recognize it. Anyway, this is Kristina, and she’s head of the admin staff, and she’s excellent. She’s the one who helped me with the phone fiasco, and she kept a great sense of humor about it all.

I did understand the redacted costume, lol. Course it says “redacted” right on the costume. Now if everyone would just label their costumes, I’d be in better shape!

Sad News in Silicon Valley

Laura had sad news this week – her company is not doing well. When she got back from visiting Japan she discovered an email that had gone out, telling staff that the company was going to shut down for the entire Thanksgiving week, and they would have to take unpaid leave if they didn’t have vacation time. The email tried to make it sound like a good thing, “enjoy some quality time with your family and friends”, but of course we were thinking, “They can’t make payroll.”

Laura immediately started sending out resumes. I’m expecting she will get a great response, because she has everything they are looking for in Silicon Valley – data analytics, leadership experience, youth, creativity, great ideas, hard work and determination. It’s going to be a challenge for her move and learn a new job all while continuing to work on her master’s degree, but she’ll pull it off.

Then yesterday, her company laid off about ¼ of the staff, at all levels including executives. They did not lay off Laura! But still, it must have been traumatic to watch. I’m guessing ¼ of the company would have been about 50 people. There was a security guard posted in the lobby, and they walked people out, one at a time. Some were allowed a few minutes to say good-bye to coworkers, others were walked straight out. The entire morning staff just stood around waiting to see if they were going to be tapped on the shoulder to go. Can you imagine? Watching people being taken out and waiting to see if you’re going to be next? It makes me cry to think about it. Laura’s manager told her when she first got in that she would be staying, but most were not so lucky.

Red Dirt! (I mean, sand)

Our brick flooring guy is really good and not too expensive. Except he’s slower than molasses. He started the project a full month after the contract said he would, and he’s been slowly working on it for a couple of more months. Which wouldn’t matter if we had lots of other things going on anyway, but if we’re paying rent because we can’t move in because we’re waiting for him – then he isn’t such a good deal after all. But at least he seems to know what he’s doing.

And he’s very local – meaning he really knows the local ways. Remember when our pink sand had too much dirt? Once he realized what we wanted, he went out and found red sand for us. I don’t know where he got it, but I can see red hills from the freeway on a local reservation. So it could be there or somewhere else nearby.

Red sand! (looks like dirt to me)

Día de los Muertos and aliens and other things New Mexican

Hello world! Just a heads up, we are going into blogging mania this morning. I’m “supposed” to be packing. I was also planning to cook. Carina is having a Day of the Dead party, and we’re supposed to bring a favorite dish of a loved one who has passed (that’s what Day of the Dead is about; honoring those who have died).

By the way, in Mexico it’s called Día de Muertos, but in the US it’s usually called Día de los Muertos, which is sort of interesting. Because basically from what I can understand, the phrase Día de los Muertos came from English speakers translating Día de Muertos into English (Day of the Dead), and then back into Spanish incorrectly. And that so epitomizes New Mexico. Back-and-forth iterations of culture, with the result not being Spanish or English or Native American, or even just a blend of those, but an actual truly unique evolution growing out of the three.

Plus, the past 75 years have added a fourth culture – the nuclear labs and the crazy scientists (like my hubby). And of course the aliens. I blame the labs for the aliens.

(Note how that alien sort of looks like a scientist?!?) LOL. I haven’t talked much about the New Mexican aliens, but presumably that’s all linked to the labs and the lab activities.  The labs have definitely put mysterious flying objects into the sky at times – and then attempted to keep it all a big secret. So of course you’re going to get colorful stories.

Here’s a cute little one in Old Town Albuquerque:

Plus the insane sky.  For example, there’s no colored lenses or photoshopping on this picture; I just snapped it with an iphone. It really did look exactly like this. Purple! And weird-shit clouds. Truly the heralding of the aliens.

Anyway, back to today’s agenda: I could spend all morning cooking some traditional food dish for Día de los Muertos (I had in mind stuffed green peppers, because I know my grandmother liked them). But my grandmother also really liked modern conveniences after a brutal childhood on a failing farm, and she wasn’t actually all that into cooking. I think she would totally approve of me purchasing a pie instead of cooking all morning.

So let the blogging begin!