Aw shit. I did it again. At least I didn’t bet on it.
Maybe you did? Was there a pool? How much was the ticket worth for “JT will live in three Georgia counties within the first 24 months he’s in the state”?
I hope you took the under.
It wasn’t my fault. Sugar-mama did it again. She drives this party bus I live on and I’m going to put any of your losses at the betting parlor squarely on her.
True, I’m a partial observer to this effort. But I’m too lazy to really be considered a co-conspirator. I just say “Sure” and sign on the dotted line.
It all started around the time we went to Vegas in January. Maybe she just had the itch to roll the dice even more than I thought?
Anyway, she said, “Hey, let’s look for a house.”
Innocent enough.
Then wham, bam, you’re stuck in a 30-year mortgage, thank you ma’am. It didn’t take long at all.
Less than a month actually. We went from looking at a couple of OK places and even putting a bid on one that, while I was totally okay with it, in retrospect, I’m quite glad we didn’t get it. Then we looked at a place the Realtor sugar-mama got us hooked up with suggested as a “new construction.” It’s connected with her company and made for an easy sell on us hucksters. Anyway, I’m sure somehow she made triple special-incentive extra commission.
And yet it’s still perfect.
While I am blaming all of our moving on sugar-mama — this will be my 22nd official address of residence in 22 years although she didn’t push me into more than five or six of those — I’m also going to give her all the credit in the fact that I really love this place.
Or what this place will be, actually.
Again, it’s new construction. We’re completely clueless on this, so we’re starting from scratch. Without a clue. That’s what clueless means.
We saw the same type of house as it was being finished and we put in a bid on a lot. It’s in a subdivision about 1.2 miles from where we currently are, so really it’s still in the ‘hood and actually maybe a little further in, at that. But we’re in on it from the ground up.
They have a floor layout and all that stuff set, but we got to pick the colors for the walls and the exterior. We had to pick our lighting and appliances. The colors of the doors and hardwood floors and cabinets too. Granite for the counter tops, bricks or whatever they are around the fireplace, all that shit was part of the process we had to do.
Wow. It’s pretty overwhelming. But luckily I have sugar-mama telling me what to do. Ha, yeah, we all know she doesn’t tell me what to do for anything, but she is a great guiding voice. And I just say yes, unless I hate it.
I hated a couple houses we looked at and we just walked away. This one didn’t bother me. There were a couple colors for paint, stain, and such that I was definitely against. Luckily, our first choice for almost everything was exactly the same. It’s like she’s a chick version of me, so it’s all good.
Hmm, that was probably rude and impolite and quite disturbing for sugar-mama to hear. If I had a conscience I might actually delete out that previous line.
Anyway.
They poured the foundation about a week ago, and they’ll start framing sometime in next couple weeks. Because of my June work schedule and the construction company having two other closings in the subdivision in July — not to mention our 10th anniversary vacation. Yeah, holy shit, we’ve been married almost 10 years. I’m scared to think how sugar-mama verbalizes that same sentence — we asked to put closing off until the beginning of August.
So, once again, we’ll be moving in sweltering summer heat. F. M. L.
But it should be cool once we get in. The neighborhood seems nice and from what we’ve heard, it’s fairly friendly and people seem to get along. Which is great because I’m so easily approachable, they’ll just love me.
Blah.
Actually, I am going to try to make some roots. I have never talked to people in three houses around/across from us in the past year, and the other one next door, I only talked to them three weeks ago when they told us about a robbery at the house on the other side of them while we were in Vegas (at least this time it was an actual break-in, instead of someone stealing the central air units from outside the house again. That business is getting kinda old).
Most other places, I might say hi to a guy who has a truck that we may be in need of using at some point, you know for moving again, but really, until now I haven’t had much need to get to know people. It was easier in my previous work life because we had student-workers and interns who could move us, or our players, or more likely, the basketball student managers (Zach, Bean, Svatos and Jaden got shit with a capital ‘S’ done). But not anymore. Oh well.
At this new place, I’m going to be more willing to talk with people, even if they can’t help me with anything.
Sugar-mama has met the people across the street, and we both met the guy next door (we have an open lot on the other side, so there will be some construction after we move in still). The guy next door seemed nice. His name is Victor and he’s a cupcake maker. He owns a cupcake shop in New York and travels back and forth between Atlanta, where him and his partner live, and NYC. He may have a shop in ATL as well, but I didn’t really catch that (to be fair, if it was a guy who owned a brewery I would have picked up a lot more on the situation, so…). But the point is, he seemed cool so I already like the place more than some I’ve lived.
We still have to figure out the fence situation as I’m starting to get the itch for really wanting a dog. I definitely get a bigger TV — it’s a Trickie rule that if you buy a house, within one year you get a newer, bigger by at least 13 percent television, guaranteed — but I do want a dog. I’m sure sugar-mama wants one too, but we need to decide on what size, type, color, etc. That may be a while.
And I’m sure our cats — F’ing and Glenda — will be interested in this move and the outcome of the dog decision. They didn’t like riding in a car for 13 hours the last time, so I think they’ll be okay with only having to be in a car for six minutes on this move. Although there is a lot more hardwood and less carpet, so they may not be happy for a while.
Fuck ’em. They’re cats.
Anyway, I’m really looking forward to the new place. So much that this time I will put money on me that I will not move to a new residence within three years — hey, I’ll bet on me but I ain’t getting crazy and saying anything like 5 or 10 years.
And Cliffy, if I do move within three years, you can bet your ass it will be into a mobile home. I’ve lived in one before (actually, more like three in my lifetime, but who’s counting?), so I can do it again.
You’ll probably get tired of it over the course of time, but here are photos of the lot during the first three weeks since we got signed, sealed and started on our first “new” house.
Enjoy and let us know when you’re coming to Atlanta. We are in a great area and know plenty of good hotels not far from here.
Six-7 Offsuit 