Condo Weekend, Part 2: The Monday Reckoning

Mondays are the true test of a weekend. Are you tired? Hungover? Relaxed? Happy to be at work? Sad the weekend is done?

This morning, the weekend in the condo felt like a month vacation. It was awesome.

And yet, there were things I did and did not do that I had planned to do, like

• my taxes
• balancing the checkbook
• working on a quilt

Instead, I worked on the hardest jigsaw puzzle in the world. I have a friend who asked me once why do women feel like they always need to accomplish something. Why can't they just sit and have a beer and do nothing and feel good about it? He was well intentioned and has a point but I didn't want to say because women across the globe have been conditioned for generations to be taking care of other people and not ourselves, but I digress. My piano teacher said the jigsaw puzzle is meditative. She is right.

So today, on Monday, I was less eager to be at work than usual. I still like my job, but rather I loved my weekend. Perhaps my six minute walk to work from the condo didn't allow me to get in the proper mindset.

Condo Weekend and the City Mouse

This weekend, Jack took the Boy skiing in Canada while I spent the weekend at the condo. Two friends came to visit. It was fun to entertain and they seemed to enjoy my urban oasis. Or at least the novelty of it.

This is the longest time I've spent down here, and it is kind of weird. Maybe it is odd because I've spent a decent amount of time down here by myself as opposed to with other people in my family. I don't know. Nevertheless, it feels like vacation, but a homey vacation instead of a stressful vacation where you have to be places at certain times. For some reason, many of my past vacations came with a tight schedule instead of just chilling.

Friday night before Jack and the Boy went to Canada, Jack and I went to World Market and bought plates for the condo. Previously, we were using Jack's plates from his bachelor days. He had a set of four dinner plates, four salad plates and four bowls. While this was fine for a while, it wasn't enough to have people over for dinner. Even if there are four people over, sometimes you need an extra plate for the raw fish before it is cooked. And then you are cooking and cleaning at the same time, which is, as the Boys says, no bueno.

So now we have twelve dinner plates, twelve salad plates, and a slew of bowls in different sizes. Hurrah. Saturday, I bought an iron, an ironing board, extra sheets (more of a want than need) and three alarm clocks. I feel like we have hit a major milestone with stocking the basics. As far as stuff we need for the condo, we are nearly there for being functional. We still need internet installed, but the rest of the stuff we need is decorative: rugs, lamps and art of the walls. I was at a restaurant and saw really cool blown glass light coverings that would look awesome in my kitchen.

Now that we have nearly everything we need down here, I feel like the tide is turning for how we use the condo. Now we are using it more for fun and relaxation instead of trying to fix it up.

This morning, I went to Top Pot donuts for breakfast and got a mocha and a double-trouble. (Sure, there is a nice Top Pot in Wedgwood. A great one, in fact.) As I was walking home, I remembered how when I visited Seattle years ago and saw apartments near Pike Place Market that overlooked Puget Sound. I remember thinking I wanted to live there someday, and now I do.

As I unlocked the door to the courtyard, I wondered. After going through the hassle of finding a place, buying it, furnishing it, etc, was it worth it? It is as cool as I thought it would be?

Yes. Yes it is.

So my two friends visited. Katie and I walked along Elliott Bay and through the sculpture garden, which was nice. But I did something else this weekend, something both bad and good: I shopped and ate, the whole purpose of living downtown. I am not a big shopper. The guys in my office probably think I am thrifty because I pack my lunch every day. I pack my lunch because I don't want to decide every day where to eat. I have other hobbies besides being a consumer, but when the boys are having a weekend and I was left home alone, I cut loose. Steelhead Diner for dinner Saturday, lunch at Etta's with Ella today.

The Foxee Dog cocktail. Of course, I had to get it.

Ella and I were out and about, and she asked if I had ever been in Isadora's, an antique jewelry store. It is one of those shops where they have to buzz you in. It took the sales women less than two seconds to open the door for us. I didn't buy anything, but I left with a wish list. (Here is something fabulous...)

I walked to Lush and Sephora for soap and make-up. I stopped in the "Made in Washington" store because it had a sale sign in the window and bought chocolate and tea just because. I stopped in a clothing store called Beyond Threads and bought a sweater.

After dinner tonight, I walked Fox, which aside from hanging out with my friends, was the highlight of the weekend. If I didn't have a dog, I'd be some random woman walking the streets at 8:30 at night when most things are closed. But no one looks at you strangely when you have a dog on a leash. I walked through the closed Market. I looked at the closed Highway 99. I saw the stars and the super moon, all against the lights of the city--the ferris wheel, the lights of the West Seattle harbor, and the tall buildings behind me. Tomorrow, I'll have a six minute walk to work.

I like being a city mouse, in case you couldn't tell. So does Fox(ee) Dog.

Condo Dog, or as the the Boy calls him, CORNdo Dog.

FIRE v Condo

** Note: This is a blog post from the end summer that was stuck in “Draft.” I had wanted to write about the emotional roller coaster of buying the condo, but I didn’t want to make those thoughts public to sellers, bankers, realtors, etc. who after a 3 second google search could read my mind. Here it is now, because it will relate to my upcoming post. Enjoy! **

A few weeks ago, the New York Times ran an article about FIRE: Financially Independent, Retire Early. Initially, the FIRE movement was started by people who wanted to live simply and consume less. It has since been taken over by people with high paying, burn-out jobs who amassed a decent amount of money but wanted to bail on the workaholic lifestyle.

Without even knowing what FIRE meant, I always kept that possibility in mind. Both Jack and I had grown-up in families that who were once comfortable and then experienced a financial crisis. As a result, we both have been reliable savers and conservative with spending our money.

For me, money in the bank is a parachute, a get-out-of-jail-free card for a bad job. And I hate Jack's job. I loathe and despise it. The job turns Jack--who is otherwise a nice guy--into a self-absorbed, irritable, do nothing around the house, zombie when he is at home.

Long story short--I saved a bunch of money and paid off the mortgage. I did this initially as a way to maximize our cash flow before Claire-Adele went to college, but then she got into a state school (granted, out of state) and got a scholarship, and we ended up with an extra bolus* of cash we weren't expecting.

After we learned about Claire-Adele's college situation and I paid off the mortgage, I told Jack he could quit his job. We had no debt, money in the bank and I had a job. I didn't know the term FIRE at the time, but we had lived it: we were financially independent (mostly) and Jack could retire early.

I told him this for nine months. Nine months.

Finally, one day he said to me. "I'm not going to quit my job."

Fine.

Okay, not fine.

What should I do? What kind of person wouldn't take me up on such a wildly generous offer? I told a friend what I told Jack and he said letting someone quit their job was the most supportive and generous thing a person could do. But now what do I do? How should I responded my offer being rejected?

“Buy me a condo downtown.”


* Jack is a physician. We use terms like bolus around the house even though it means nothing related to what we are talking about. According to my internet dictionary, bolus means a small rounded mass of a substance, especially of chewed food at the moment of swallowing. Normal people don't use words like bolus.

Fox & the City

Jack, the Boy and I spent the our first night in the condo last night. Yay! At first, the Boy didn't want to go because he is a teenager and has to crap on any idea that isn't his own. Whatever. He got over it and was fine after he ate and saw the Warren Miller movie.

Last night, we were all ready to go to sleep around 11:00 or so. Except Fox. Once we were all tucked in, the dog started to fuss. He'd walk back and forth between the master bedroom and where the Boy was sleeping, his nails clicking along the floor. We put his dog bed upstairs, but that didn't help. He was lost like a toddler who needs to sleep in a new place but can't get settled. I don't even know where Fox ended up sleeping last night. I think he might have slept on the Boy's bed. Perhaps the Boy had empathy for Fox, thinking, "Yeah, they dragged me down here too against my will. You can sleep with me. We are a team." As if living in downtown Seattle is a prison.

The next morning, Fox came running to my side of the bed as soon as I stirred but wasn't awake. Fox wanted me to know he was there. Jack and I walked to the Biscuit Bitch for breakfast to get bacon and egg sandwiches, and we brought Fox along. I told Jack what I wanted to eat, and he went into order as I walked the dog around the block. As we walked, Fox pulled at the leash, in a big fat hurry to get I don't know where. He was skittish as he stopped, smelled, and peed on every lamppost, tree, garbage can, building corner, planter and patch of ivy. It was like Fox was Rube in from the country walking downtown, like he had never seen or smelled a garbage can before. For the first time in his life, he had to poop on concrete. Nor could he wait until no one was around because it is the city. Someone is always around, from the cute tourist couples getting breakfast to the crazy guy wondering if he is going to barf or not. Fox survived.

As I work in the same neighborhood as my condo, I have seen other dogs walking in the city before, who look and act like normal dogs, not like my hick dog. The other dogs act normal, blase to food scraps left on the street. Fox found something to eat this morning on the ground and he acted like he had never seen food before. You'd think he was some crazy mutt, not a Pomeranian-chihuahua for god's sake. If a lapdog can't be a city dog, what is wrong with the world?

And I was worried about the Boy being the blocker for the condo. Instead, it is the dog. Hopefully, one of these days Fox will turn into a civilized city dog.


Biscuit Bitch at Cafe Lieto, 1909 First Ave, Seattle WA

Le Pichet and My Dinner with Michelle

First news: We got a condo. We closed almost a month ago. Like when I ran for School Board, I stopped blogging a) because I was busy looking for a condo, b) I didn't want potential sellers to read my inner thoughts and c) once we got the condo, we needed find furniture and that was a huge endeavor. Now that the place is livable (minus kitchen supplies like pots, pans and food), I have a few moments to write.

The week before we found the apartment we bought, I thought we'd never find a place in a location we liked, in a building we liked, that fit our space needs and had a nice layout and was affordable. I thought our search would be like two circles in a Venn diagram that have no data points in common, never touching.

Just as I was beginning to despair, the Seattle Condo Gods smiled upon us and we found a really, really cool town home.

Tonight, Jack and the Boy went to see Warren Miller's latest pre-ski season, testosterone fueled epic.

"Do you want to go?" Jack asked.

"No," I said.

"I feel bad going out with Peter and leaving you alone," Jack said.

He should never feel bad about male bonding with his son. Ever.

I went down to the condo, dropped off the dog, and then headed out to find a place to eat. Should I have cassoulet at Cafe Campagne or go some place new? I walked around and remembered a place my friend Diane and I used to visit for lunch when I was a stay-at-home mom. So I went to Le Pichet for dinner, a posh French bistro around the corner from the condo. I sat at the bar and ate dinner with Michelle Obama. I got the last copy of her new book at Third Place Books today. The bookseller had read up to chapter five and was crying about how good it was. We joked about how Oprah was endorsing it, as if Michelle Obama needed promotion.

In the opening of her new book, she talked about a night after Obama was out of the White House and she had an evening alone without her family. Barack was out of town, and her daughters were out. This was the first time she was truly alone. She went to the kitchen to make toast, and there weren't any White House kitchen staff there helping her watch the bread turn brown. She loves her family and her old life, of course, but still she had a night alone. And it was awesome.

As I was eating my steak, I overheard a man tell his wife how he needed her to support him working more. She listened quietly, and drank more wine. I looked out the window, watching city life go by. I left the restaurant, walked down the block and around the corner, and I was home. Fox was waiting for me at the door. I don't think he left the door since I left for dinner. I took him for a walk along the waterfront.

It was awesome.

Le Pichet, 1933 First Avenue, Seattle WA

When is the Future?

I was talking to a friend about my idea to buy a Belltown condo. He and his partner are interested in moving in the opposite direction -- out to the country, perhaps on one of the San Juan Islands. Where my motivation is to walk to work, his is to telecommute from a remote spot. When his partner got a new job where he can telecommute, all of a sudden the present turned into the future for half of the pair. If Travor was going to telecommunte anyway, why not move to the islands now? Zach wasn't ready for this.

Sometimes the future has arrives sometimes like a train on a schedule. Other times, it pops up when we least expect it.

When I started to look at condos in Belltown, the future came up out of the ground like an early crocus in the spring. You know it is coming, and you know about when, but it still is a surprise. I was surprised that Jack and I had such synchronicity, that we both thought that the time for the future was now.

My other future, the one I knew was inevitable since the day she was born, arrives tomorrow morning at 7:45 a.m., when Claire-Adele gets on a plane for College Park, Maryland. That had always been a someday, a point in the future that we could and couldn't imagine.

I am surprisingly sad about this. I thought I'd be immune to these emotions, that my happiness for her would override my own sense of loss. That didn't happen. I don't want to rain on her parade, be a wet blanket snuffing out her excitement and anticipation. And yet.

I got her (and me) some flowers, the all purpose gift, appropriate in times of both happiness and sorrow. And so we share them, and each enjoy them for our different reasons.

A (Clean) Room of My Own

So Why do I want a condo? I found an amazing loft. I fell in love with it. I also fell in love with two other units, so I am perhaps appropriately cautious. I understand how people can love other people. I can understand how people love dogs. (Cats, not so much.) But how can people love space, places and locations? We do, though. What do they give to us? What do we give to them? I can see how a garden can be reciprocal, but not so much a regular place.

And yet. Last night, the Boy, Jack and I were watching Weekend at Bernie's. (The Boy was looking at his phone during the movie, which is odd because he was the one who wanted to watch this movie. I would have been happier to watch the new Nanette comedy special on Netflix, but I digress.)

In the movie, the two young men who schlep Bernie around for the weekend comment on "The view! The view!" Like they had never seen the ocean or sand before. Why do we like views? Do they make us feel calm? Do they erase our other thoughts and we relax? There must be a reason why we like or dislike the space we live in because having an emotional reaction to our surroundings seems to be universal. I am not talking about "taste" or what kind of countertops people prefer in their kitchen, though that is part of it.

How will I know when I have found the right space? I thought I loved this new condo. I did, but I find this love is like a roller coaster. One minute I find reasons to think it is divine, that it will be the center of all of my happiness, and then I think of the open aspect of the loft and think "At every morning while I am trying to sleep, Jack will be grinding his coffee and I will be pissed." Every noise he will make in the kitchen will float to the bedroom. Likewise, every noise we make in the moring will wake the Boy. There are giant sliding doors to shut, but they open on top. No grinding coffee, no emptying the dishwasher without waking everyone in the place.

Oy.

Or maybe it will be good for me and Jack not to empty the dishwasher upon waking. Instead, we will read the newspaper, a magazine, a book. Or, he can walk across the street to get his cup of coffee. It will be the city of chrissake and there are coffee shops every three feet in Seattle. Maybe we have Quiet Hours. Maybe I'll sleep like a log.

Before we watched Weekend at Bernie's, the Boy started getting my grill about how horribly messy our house is. He has a point. I have a full-time job and his father who works nights and weekends on top of the usual nine-to-five, and neither he nor his sister do any chores and I am too cheap or am challenged to pay someone to clean my house for me. So, I focus on laundry, grocery shopping, vaccuuming, etc., such that the clutter build up is getting impressive.

So this is my desk.

Yeah.

And I want to live in an open floor plan where this (see above) will have no place to hide.

Or will it?

Could that be the beauty of having two places to live? One is clean and awesome and pristine and the other looks like this (see above again, if you want to)?

I just want a clean room of my own, like one of these beautifully staged places with carefully chosen artwork on the walls and perfectly sized furniture. I can leave all of the crap in the Ravenna house.

Or maybe I want to change who I am. Instead of being NE Seattle soccer and PTA mom, and can be a version of a middle-aged urban hipster who walks her dog at the Seattle Scuplture Garden everyday and has a perfectly clean and tidy apartment with cavernous ceilings. Who catches the latest movies at the Big Picture, and hangs out at the Balck Bottle and buys her veggies from Pike Street Market. Seriously. Is that who I want to be?

Hell yeah.

Condo

Two weeks ago when Claire-Adele and I got back from London, I was pissed at Jack. I don't remember exactly what I was pissed about, but I was pissed. I was tired from the trip and probably PMSing and then set off by something that legitimately made me mad. I was probably pissed that he works too much and is never around. In my anger and rage, I decided to Google "Belltown Condos," and up popped a really cool looking place on the Redfin website. If your wife is ever mad at you, the last thing you want to find on her search browser--worse than details of an affair--would be surreptitious searches for real estate. This condo had two bedrooms, an outdoor dining terrace, a view of the Sound and was two blocks from where I work.

"Do you want to tour this place?" a little box popped up and asked me.

Hmmmm.

"Yes," I clicked back. The next day at lunch, I checked it out.

I was in love. Or lust. Smitten. Whatever. I needed this place. So much so, that I called Jack to tell him about this amazing place even though the reason I looked at it in the first place was because I was mad at him.

"What?" he said. "Why are you looking at Belltown condos?" He was not amused. I didn't care.

"We have an appointment Saturday at nine to see it," I said.

When I got home from work, we sparred about it. I can't remember the exact details, but somewhere along the way, I said "You can either quit your job or you can buy me a condo."

"I am not quitting my job," he said. So a condo in Belltown it is.

"Why do you want a condo?" he asked.

"I want to go back to my urban roots," I said. "I could live like I did in London, like we did for years in Chicago." In London, Claire-Adele and I had stayed in a flat South Kensington five minutes from the Underground. In Chicago, Jack and I lived in Lincoln Park. My notions were not some romantic fantasy. I have lived this life before and I'd do it again.

Where I lived in my twenties. We were in the second floor apartment above the door.

"We could always rent this place," he said, referring to what I am now calling my Ravenna home. I knew he was considering it. He could be budged.

When we left the next morning, Jack was still fuming, or at least acting like he was. Perhaps he wasn't mad, just confused and confounded. Until he saw the place.

He agreed it was amazing. All I had to do was bait the hook and he bit.

Sunday, we walked along the Sound in Myrtle Edwards Park next to the Seattle Sculpture Garden. There were dozens of people out walking their dogs in the park, including our Congresswoman.

"I could see walking Fox here every morning," I said. Living close to the waterfront is one of the main reasons I want to live downtown. I saw Jack's shoulders uncoil from stress. He smiled for no reason. We currently live less than a block from Ravenna Park, which is awesome and amazing, but it can't compete with water and mountains.

Monday morning when I was at work, Jack texted me: "Maybe we could check these places out," with links to places that are 50% above what I had wanted to spend. Places on the top floor with spectacular views. I guess I baited that hooked with a synthetic opioid. Jack was more gung-ho about the idea than I was.

The kids were not nearly as thrilled.

"Why do you want a condo?" both kids asked me at dinner one night while Jack was working.

"I'm going to college," said Claire-Adele. "Please don't spend all of my tuition."

"When are you going to live there? I have to finish high school," said the Boy.

"We have extra money from paying off the mortgage and now I'm working," I said. "I want to put that money to good use."

I could see the light bulb pop above my daughter's head. "So you want to spend your money on something tangible that will create value in the long-term?" she said. Actually, I can't remember exactly what she said. What she said was better phrased and sounded like it came out of the mouth of an economist. Sometimes my kids surprise me.

"This is a stupid, impractical idea," the Boy said. Sometimes they don't surprise me.

The next morning, I was walking Fox and I ran into my neighbor, Stanley and his dog, Taylor, and I told him of my plan. I was actually feeling cold feet about the condo concept before I ran into Stanley. Did I really want to have two houses, one downtown? Wouldn't I miss my neighbors and my neighborhood? We were eating dinner in the back yard the other night on the back deck. Under the canopy of trees you can barely see the sky. Why would I leave this Eden?

I explained my idea to Stanley. I must not have been very convincing.

"Lauren," said Stanley, "It sounds like you've thought about it, but it still sounds impetuous. You are usually so analytical, so thoughtful. This isn't really like you."

Yeah, it's not.

"You should talk to Amy," he said. "Her mom sold a house on Hunts Point and moved downtown while Amy was in high school."

"What did she think about it?" I asked.

"You should talk to her," he said.

I don't want to talk to Amy. I love her dearly, but please, just tell me the punch line. Don't make me wait. Most especially, I don't want to hear from Amy that my kids might be right. This might be crazy.

An hour later, I was riding the bus to work and I was started to think. If I were in a downtown condo, I'd still be in bed because I could walk to work in five minutes. Or maybe I'd be walking Fox. Who is that woman walking her dog at 8:30? She must not have anywhere to be, people might think of me, but ha! I'd show them. I can walk my dog at 8:30 AND work. My crazy idea was back on the front burner. While I was on a mental roll, I texted my friend Sarah about the condo idea and asked her what she thought. In the past, she has not passed judgment on my spending habits.

"I think it is brilliant," she said.

In less than two hours, I have two opinions: impetuous and brilliant. The truth is probably somewhere in between.