Sunday, June 1, 2008

A simply ~surreal~ Saturday

So I took my mother to meet with the real estate agent (who fortunately for me is a friend of mine) and she put down an initial deposit to show she intends to purchase the house. It's very close to our house, so I can walk over and save gas.
We haven't settled on a price with the seller yet. We offered $10,000 less than the asking price. The house is in good, move-in condition but we are uncertain about the roof. It looks OK but we have no paperwork as to when it was last repaired/replaced.
This endeavor may become phase 2 of Patti's Learning to Negotiate...

The woman selling the house is waiting to hear about a mortgage. She is a buying a house with her daughter in a different town. I didn't realize she was going to need a mortgage. That could slow up the process. Dang.

We had a fun meeting with my friend, and my mother trusts her now that she has gotten to know her. Phew. We stopped for lunch, then home for a minute.

Next stop was meeting Benny at the fire and smoke-damaged dwelling my mother called home for 52 years. He is going to buy it. He's a contractor who rebuilds houses and sells them.
Benny is a nice guy who was referred to us by the insurance adjuster. We waited a few minutes for him, during which time I took some flagstones from the front yard to use in my own garden.

The surreal part came when the three of us went into my mother's old bedroom. She was looking in the bureau for a key and he and I looked in my father's top dresser drawer, filled with sentimental items, a pocket watch, a wrist watch, stop watches, (my father liked time I guess) cuff links, coins, new packages of shoelaces, handkerchiefs and tons of bow ties.
My father was an old-fashioned guy and sometimes wore bow ties to work. He was from another time and place (born in 1910) and that was him.

I held a super-powered beacon flashlight as Benny looked through my dear father's things from many years ago. Everything was still intact, sitting quietly in a top dresser drawer that always intrigued me when I was little.
Surreal.

9 comments:

Linda said...

That would be quite surreal and very sentimental, too. I was thinking about my grandfather's top dresser drawer which was very similar while reading this and I swear I could smell exactly what it was like all those years ago! Funny how memories can do that to us, isn't it?

Empress Bee (of the high sea) said...

sounds like you are doing a good job on helping your mom. sometimes the contract will say a certain percentage for repairs, meaning "if the roof needs repaired the seller will have to pay for such repair up to the amount of (for instance) 3% of the purchase price. i know that is standard here.

smiles, bee
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

magickat said...

Hi there. I saw your comment on Micahels blog that your blog was lonely so I came by to visit.

I'll def be back. :)

Odat said...

I hope it works out for you...i'm sure you'll get a good price!!!

That's sweet that your father's drawer brings back memories...

Peace

meleah rebeccah said...

Wow. You are On Top of things. Id be a little nervous about any kind of potential Roof issues myself...but thankfully you have someone you can trust and you mother is on board with everything!

Oh...and I was touched by reading about how the memories of your father came back to you.


So glad MICHEAL *introduced* us!

meleah rebeccah said...

and I hate that I just spelled his name wrong!1

Christy said...

Treasures. I'm glad you had a day to walk down memory lane. =o)

Michele said...

Wow, that was really neat how you described that. It really painted a neat image in my mind of that man out of the items you described... one day one your children will be doing the same of the items that you will leave behind in a drawer... hmm... what do you think you will have to represent Patti or even Ralph for that matter?

The Curmudgeon said...

The contrast of such neatness and normalcy in the middle of a scene of destruction is very powerful.