First, I will probably not be updating next week.
I didnt include a celebrity death last week, but if I had read the news sooner, I'd have mentioned Rod Beck. I have to admit that I didn't much care for him when he pitched for the Red Sox, but 38 is way too young to die.
This week's celebrity death is Liz Claiborne. I used to own a fair amount of clothing she designed, since her styles in the early 1990's were very practical for work. The more recent stuff hasn't really worked for me. That's pretty much how things go in the clothing industry.
I spent most of the work week either in meetings or trying to write my trip report. I swear it takes me longer to write about a conference than it does to sit through the whole thing. It would probably help if I had a longer attention span and didn't get distracted by reading news stories and having water cooler conversations and so on.
I'm also distracted because I took the first steps towards buying a townhouse or condo. I'd been contemplating real estate a while. I had been starting to look in L.A. and then the job that got me to move to Washington came along. I didn't want to buy here before I knew the area better (and was sure I'd like it) and then the market went crazy, with people waiving inspections and bidding wars and the like. It's much saner now.
And then about 6 weeks ago, I was looking at the Fairfax Extra section in the Washington Post and glancing at the houses sold section when I saw a familiar name. Someone I know from work had recently bought a condo in an area I'm interested in. I sent her an email and asked her about her experience and she was very enthusiastic about the realtor she'd used. Who I contacted and who put me in touch with a mortgage broker who I talked to on Friday. It looks like what I want should be easily doable. I met with the realtor today and I think it will be easy to work with her. We won't go out until I'm back from my vacation, but at least I feel like I've started.
My other event of the weekend was going to Baltimore to go to the Book Thing. My friend, Chris, was interested in coming and I tried to call her before leaving the house. Except my phone was dead, i.e. no dial tone. I tried it in two other jacks with similar results. I couldn't find the other phone (it is somewhere in my den, otherwise known as the black hole of Fairfax), so couldn't figure out if the problem was the phone or the line. Since I am the only person in North America without a cell phone, I drove over to the 7-11 to use a pay phone there. Which wouldn't let me call Annapolis with coins. I went into the 7-11 to buy a phone card and had a surpisingly hard time getting them to actually sell one to me. I know that nobody who works there is a native speaker of English, but I really shouldn't have to learn Urdu to explain that I want a phone card to make a domestic call with. And, really, who knows what kind of phone card they want without being given some indication of the choices? It turns out that they actually have a book of all the ones they well, with the rates shown. I did eventually manage to buy a phone card and make the call, but Chris was having back problems so had gone to yoga and we didn't connect. I did donate 57 books (and take home 10), so it was a productive trip. I'm particularly proud of myself for remembering that they always need plastic shopping bags, too. And the phone was working fine (phine?) when I get home, saving me from having to deal with the phone company customer service, who I suspect are akin to the 7-11 clerks.
Copyright 2007 Miriam H. Nadel