Where am I?

What the hell is that?

That is the spider that was camped out on the side mirror of my car. He rode with me all day today. It made we wonder what insects (or arachnids) think when they land on a car that ends up moving. I've had bugs sitting on my windshield when I start up in the morning that somehow have hung on until I get to work. Do they look around after we stop and wonder where in the world they are? They don't understand what a car is. All they know is that it was very windy and now they're far from home.

I don't think we're in Kansas anymore

Take this spider for example. Now, I don't know all that much about spiders, but I swear he was asleep all day. He (or she, I didn't check) did not move from that position since I first noticed him this morning. We traveled over 50 miles total today, and he slept through the whole damn thing in his cozy little mirror nook. I'm assuming he's awake now as I'm typing this and earning his keep by eating bugs. But, when he woke up, was he a little befuddled? Now, after all the places he could have potentially seen today, he merely ended up on the other side of the street. Still, did he think to himself, "Son of a bitch! I had some weird-ass dreams. There were all these strange noises and shit. Damn!" I'm not sure why the spider's language is so bad, I apologize on his behalf.

You see, I juggle enough stuff during the day to make a normal person nauseous, yet this is the crap that occupies my brain. You realize it's all fun and games until I go out tomorrow morning and the entire side of my car is covered in web. Stupid stow-away, free loading spider.

The love triangle...er square... pentagon, whatever (Part Two)

Now, Thinks-with-prick owns two big-ass Cadillacs. One is from the mid seventies, the other from the mid nineties. They are his babies. He keeps them cleaned and tuned and running right. The only catch: he can’t drive them. I’m not sure what the situation is, but he hasn’t been allowed to drive since I’ve been in the picture. I know this kills him, but he finds ways to get by. He’ll start one of the cars up from time to time and just sit there listening to the radio. He’ll have other people drive it to and fro, with him as the passenger. He’ll even drive it to the end of the complex and back every once in a while.

I’m an excellent driver.

So, on this particular day, Skinny-hoe is the driver and Thinks-with-prick is the passenger. Just as they are driving away, Bug-eyes is coming down for a visit. She sees them leave. She is still sitting on the stoop when they get back. The impending, inevitable confrontation ensues.

“Wacha doin’ wit my man?!”

“Who you think yo talkin’ to? He ain’t yo man or my man. I ain’t wit nobody around here. You betta get up out o’ my face!”

“You need ta stay away from him!”

“You need to be stayin’ away from me!”

blah, blah, blah

This goes on for a surprisingly short amount of time. It is capped with Skinny-hoe coming in to my office to inform me that “the crazy lady” is outside giving her a hard time.

“I don’t know what that lady is talkin’, I ain’t wit’ him. I just braid his son’s hair and stuff.”

Don’t care, don’t care, don’t care.

Later that evening, Bug-eyes decides that the best method is to drown her sorrows in some form of narcotic. We know this because at around 11pm she is out in the parking lot, wearing very little, and propositioning the maintenance guy as he comes home from shopping. She is workin’ it pretty hard with her best high-smoothness. Something to the extent of a Joey “how YOU doin’” escapes her mouth at various intervals. Then, when she realizes that the maintenance guy is sitting in his vehicle with his girlfriend, she changes it to “Oh, how you BOTH doin’.” Oh yeah, ménage-ghetto anyone?

Now apparently she hadn’t wanted to get high alone. So, she chose the neighbor who lives below her for company… the married neighbor below her. He emerges from his apartment looking just as high. He is followed by his wife, now home from work.

The wife starts in (or most likely continues on):
“So that is what you want, some hoe-ass-trick? Fine then, go be with her. Go on, stay your stupid ass out of my apartment. Better yet, maybe I’ll just run your ass over.”

The wife, keys still in hand, proceeds to hop in her car. She pulls out, makes a relatively lazy effort to run him over (he is, after all, at this point a lanky, wobbling, high, easy target), and continues on out of the driveway only slightly through the grass.

Later still, Bug-eyes, down off of her high and remembering the troubles of life, decides to go and key one of Thinks-with-prick’s Caddies (translates to scratching the side of the car with a key). I know this because he is in my office the next day to tell me.

“That crazy bitch scratched up my car! You’d think she would wait until a day when she didn’t just go off so it would be less obvious. But no, she gots to go an’ do this. Now I know it was her. She did this before too, and I got mad at her then. She’d betta watch herself, or I don’t know what I’ll do.”

Apparently what he’ll do is leave a threatening note on her door. Into the office enters Bug-eyes:

“Somebody left this note on my door and I don’t know who it was, but I don’t like it,” she says waiving the note.

“You don’t know who it was, eh? Well, I’ll give you three guesses and the first two don’t count,” I say as sarcastically as I can. She gives me a blank bug-eyed stare.

“Call the cops if you think that is the best way to go,” I follow-up, tiring of the situation rapidly. She mutters incoherently and walks out of the office. I make sure the door hits her in the ass on the way out.

See, I told you it was a long story. Hopefully it was worth the gap.

The love triangle...er square... pentagon, whatever (Part One)

Aside from the normal concerns I deal with on a day to day basis, occasionally I am faced with the burden of tenants' relationships amongst themselves. They do not complain to me about their dealings with those on the outside world, but for some reason if it is another tenant they feel I should be the moderator. On more than one occasion I have told a tenant that I am not running a club house, that this is in fact an apartment complex. I remind them that they are adults. Therefore, if they are not getting along with someone, they need to either stay away from them or figure out a resolution.

One tenant was notorious for this. She had a coarse personality and could not get along with anyone. She would be in the office complaining about this or that tenant on a weekly basis. And I'm not talking about the legitimate noise-type of complaint. I'm referring to the "She looked at me funny," "I don't like the way he spoke to me," "That person said something to this person about me," type of complaints. My threshold for this was eventually reached and she is no longer one of my tenants. Well, that and the call center/prostitution she would perform from her apartment.

Go sell crazy some place else, we're all stocked up here.

But this story is not about her. Lets talk about another tenant who still lives in the complex. In fact he has lived there for quite some time. He pre-dates me and most of the other tenants. For the most part, he is a great guy. He goes to work, raises his toddler son on his own, and doesn't bother anybody. His one vice is "dating" various women throughout the complex. We'll call him Thinks-with-prick.

Recently he came to the office to complain about one of these women, let's call her Bug-eyes.

Oh my, that is so rude to say something like that about a person.

Oh, I'm sorry, if you were looking for compassion you're in the wrong place. Feel free to go elsewhere. Besides, have you seen her eyes? I didn't think so. Anywho, he had been seeing Bug-eyes for a little while, but had lost interest and no longer wanted to be with her. Apparently she had not gotten the message and continued to come over. His complaint was that she would not leave him alone.

"I mean, she would come by and cook for me and what-not. You know, we would watch movies because she doesn't have any. It was all cool. But she doesn't know when to leave and can't take a hint."

I don't know what he wanted me to do about this, but I didn't ask. If he assumed I would take this information and make a move, he assumed wrong. I just nodded and smiled, as if knowingly understanding, until he left.

Now this grey-area of a relationship continued for a while, until Thinks-with-prick found another tenant he was interested in. This new girl, um... Skinny-hoe, started showing up on a regular basis. But, apparently Bug-eyes didn't notice, even though they all three live no more than 100 yards (meters for my non-American friends) from each other. That is, until one day last week.

The Amazing Appearing Closet

O.K., so it's not all that amazing, but the closet project is done none-the-less. I decided, mainly out of necessity, to build another closet in our house. I suppose you can never have too many, especially when you have a wife who can take up a large closet, and then some, on her own. Also, since we have developed a habit of hosting people from foreign lands in our home.

So, this new closet was created in the room that we use as our office, which you walk through to get to the room we use as our bedroom (it is a weird old house). This puts the closet just outside of our bedroom, which is as good a place as any. That particular corner of the room used to look like this:

Then, after relocating the wall-o-cds and file cabinets; moving the phone jack to the other side of the room; and a series of sawing, banging, and dust; the corner now looks like this:

TADA! Finished closet. Well, almost finished. I still want to build a few shelves and a shoe cubby inside, but that won't take long. And yes, I'm comfortable enough with my sexuality to say shoe cubby. Now, if only this would motivate me to finish a few larger projects throughout the house. Where does the time go when it's not around here?

Car Luvin'

Indulge me for a moment, if you will, while I talk with you about a subject that is very close to my heart: my car. What, you were expecting something more deep? Not in this post.

I will start by pointing out that I am a car guy. I don't mean this in the... let me check under the hood to diagnose the problem... here, I'll change the oil myself... pardon the grime under my nails- type of way. I am talking about the... read car magazines... shop for cars when I'm not actually looking to buy... hey, did you see that '04 Ferrari 360 Modena Spider just drive by? I wonder if it is the F1 or standard style- type of way. I love cars for their form and function. I enjoy looking at them, driving them, and thinking about them. Even my wife joins in on the fun of appreciating cool cars that go by, or at least she doesn't roll her eyes at my excitement anymore.

So, imagine my joy when I recently went looking for a new car for real, and finally. By finally I mean I was looong over due. Back when I first decided to go back to school to get my real estate license and start my new business, I knew money was going to be tight for a few years. That meant that I needed to sell my everything-you-do-to-me-is-expensive-but-I'm-worth-it baby and buy the uber-practical-and-reliable Honda Accord. The Honda was a fine car, low miles, one owner who treated her well (I knew them). She was nothing fancy, but I was sure I wouldn't have her for too long. Just until I had my business foundation set. Seven years later, she was still with me. This is mainly because, for all of my dreaming, my fiscal sense normally wins out. I sometimes have trouble spending money on something that won't make me money. Plus, I had bought the car outright, so not having a monthly payment was nice too. Then over the past year or so, I started playing the step game. You know, after this step happens, I'll get a new car; no, after this step happens I'll get a new car. Finally near the end, besides really showing her age, she started having one issue after the other. It got to the point where it was just time.

So, after much researching, searching, and hagling, I have a new car. I ended up with an '06 VW Passat:

The color of the picture isn't right. Mine is more of a steel blue than the baby blue above, but you get the idea. I've had her for a little over a month now and I couldn't be happier. I am so glad I ended up where I did. I looked at some fancier cars, but again ultimately my practical side won out (by the way, did you know the fancy-pants guys don't like to hagle as much?) Am I going to pay more for an Audi when this car has the same engine and interior (VW being the parent company to both)? Nope, not at this point in my life anyway.

I hope you don't think that I'm doing a la la la, look at what I have dance here fellow readers. I am just very excited to finally have something I'm proud to drive again. I want to share my excitement with the world. As Ron Burgundy put it:

I am so happy that I wanted to shout it from a mountain.

But, I didn't have a mountian, all I had was this.

Sometimes it's the little things that make me happy. Other times it's a car.

Back in action

O.K., I'm back from paradise. It was nice and relaxing. Just what the doctor ordered, so to speak. But, even though I can chill with the best of 'em, I couldn't help being a little anxious in one regard. When I have time to relax, the creative juices start to flow. In this instance I started getting the feeling that I needed to get on board. The feeling that I am missing out on a prime opportunity. Now, when my mind starts cooking up stuff, it is not always real estate related; but this time it was. The real estate in Southwest Florida is going crazy. And over the next ten to fifteen years as the baby boomers start to retire and look for "year-round living" prices are only going to soar higher. I just need to figure out how to get my piece of the pie.

Mmmm, pie...

Anywho, let me share the story of a closing I went to right before I left for vacation. Now as a real estate agent, my role at the actual closing of a house is really minor. Basically I am there for moral support and to pick up my check. It is the culmination of a few month's work and ends with a sense of relief by all. There is nervousness up until the final moments however, as you never know what kind of wrinkle can crop up. Just as with the rest of the process, no matter how hard you try and prepare, all it takes is one little glitch to throw the whole thing out of whack.

Normally my closings average around 45 minutes, but Thursday's was over 2 hours. How could it take more than double the amount of time? Oh, how indeed. After getting stuck in traffic, I arrive a few minutes late. The festivities had already started, as I'd hoped they would have. I am greeted by the other agent who is outside of the closing room. "There is a little bit of an issue, but we're taking care of it," he says.

As I enter the closing room, I see what the problem is: only one of my sellers is there. Now, even though the house is technically in her name, he still needs to sign stuff since they are married. We have gone over this before, and he has been signing everything so far in the process, so I thought this point was clear to them. Apparently not.

"Where's your husband?" I say.

"He didn't think he really needed to be here. He went to the hospital to have some tests done," she responds.

Now I know he has various health concerns, so it is hard to be mad at someone for needing to go to the hospital. That is until the next words came out of her mouth: "He's stayed out of the hospital for four months, then he picks today to go in."

To add to the fun, the buyers are from Vietnam. I knew they were asian, but I didn't really think anything of it. Then I realized that the person sitting next to them was their translator. So everything the closing agent said had to be explained to the translator, then explained to the buyers by the translator. To make matters worse, the husband buyer at one point spoke up to point out that his name was spelled wrong on the documents. His name, which looked more like sound effects, was a series of syllables made up of two and three letters and put together with hyphens. Apparently they had missed one of the syllables.

After what seemed like a lifetime, all issues were resovled and we closed. Vacation came not a moment to soon.