Stopping by Pots on a Sunny Afternoon

The house has been on the market for three days and we've had three lookers. And you know the worst part? The fear. The fear that there's no upside to having three lookers. That in this economy, we're all simply doomed. My mother, ever helpful, told me that one of her bridge cronies had prospective buyers by the coach-full, but no one ever made an offer. These particular cronies closed up their house and moved on.

But next to the anxiety, I have hated the shopping most. Endless rounds of tchotchke hunting; endless trolling for the Perfect Little Thing that will show the house off to its best advantage. And there were repeat visits to Home Desperate for duct tape, paint blades, window cleaner, grout. Sweet gods of the vine, I'm sick of it. Sorry to sound so negative! But, as I gazed out at a cluster of pots, thinking I'd buy one to smarten the garden up with, I could only think, "One day, they'll all be cracked."

Speaking of crack-pots, my Famous Big Mouth has probably run off the only potential buyer we might have had. A few days before the house was scheduled to go on the market, I sat down to my laptop and quickly flicked through the emails from the neighborhood listserv, a Yahoo group for homeowners living in the Rosedale section of Austin. The rules for Rosedale are sensible: you can talk about home-ownership issues all you like. You can alert others to lost dogs and break-ins (which are rare) and another visit from the Phantom Coyote (Mike prays the Phantom will carry off the Shih-tzu). You can blather on freely about color-safe bleach and organic vs toxic pesticides. But please keep your mouth shut on anything relating to religion, politics, your small business, and anything you want to sell rather than just give away. I have strictly observed these rules all these years. After all, there are plenty of places on the internet to yak shamelessly on as if you were an NYT pundit.

Now, the better part of wisdom says to just be quiet when the rules are broken. But I was feeling a little blue on this particular Friday afternoon. The news had finally reached my ears that Royal Worcester, the manufacturer of Spode china, was no longer in business, that some ropey outfit in China was making my beloved Blue Italian. So I found myself responding to some local gas-bag's advertisement of a community meeting where we could all hear some famous social conservative talk about the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolution. The gasbag said that this would be good for "us" (by which he meant everyone but himself), since we were Austinites and clearly needed to hear other points of view. Almost before I could engage my conscious mind, my fingers flew, writing, "What a pity I won't be able to come. The Flat Earth Society is meeting at the same time." I hit SEND.

Before I knew it, I was engaged in a bit of an email altercation with a gasbag defender. I was very polite in my response. Just as I hit SEND again, I noticed an earlier email from the defender. Apparently, she had a client who wanted to see my house. Balls, I thought. I hadn't realized that she was a realtor. And, no, she's never brought this client around to see the house. So, you see, that was the guy who might have a) wanted the place and b), have had the money to pay for it. And I royally ticked his realtor off, who has no doubt informed him that the house has a cracked slab, Africanized Honey Bees, and three previous suicides.

******

A few weeks ago, NPR asked listeners to send in their suggestions for what the current economic crisis should be called. I was a little taken aback by how unexciting the suggestions were. "The Second Great Depression"? "The 00 Recession"? I mean, I realize that NPR can't take the liberties that a Jon Stewart can take ("ClusterF**k to the Poorhouse"). But surely there's something a little livelier to be said? Economist Paul Krugman, writing before the recession started, suggested the next recession be called "The Great Reckoning." Dull. If my mother had a vote, it would be called, "The Great Boomer Smack-Down." That's better.

But because I'm a little bit depressed and therefore inclined to look no further than my own ego, I call this recession "It's Time To Give Sherry a Good Pooching". The current recession is -- wait for it -- a bit like going through chemo. And, like chemo, you may end up dead before the cure kicks in.

On that front (do stop and take a nip of gin if all these vertiginous segues are starting to get to you), I have no news. I should know by the end of next week. Or, you know, not. While waiting for the last test to be completed, Mike and I gradually perfect our plans of what we'll do if chemo is indicated.

A neighbor has a small apartment she could rent to me for a couple of months, just four houses down from where we live. It may sound crazy to take on a third property while all this is going on, but it's even crazier to live in our beloved house while trying to sell it. I can't so much as bite a cookie for fear of crumbs, or brush a dog for fear of hair. I need to be in a setting where my kid can finish middle school and I don't have to deal with people any more than I'm inclined to and where I don't have to get out of bed if I don't have the energy. The idea of going up to New York while my kid lived in Texas with her gran has fizzled. Keeping Mother mentally organized enough to handle the job would become, for me, as odious a task as making beds and dropping to my knees like a nun to bleach the bathroom floor. If only I had a clone of myself to do the job of being me while I went on holiday for a couple of months.

If the house sold quickly and solidly, I would stay in it until school is out, grateful for the extra time together. And what a lovely time it's been. We brought our 3-year-old into this home, 11 years ago. I knew it was the right place for us on the first night in the house, as I carried her down the hall to put her to bed in her new room. Right outside the door to her bedroom, underneath a dingy carpet we replaced as soon as we could, there was a reliable creak. Nowhere else in the house was there such a noise. Step on that one spot a few inches from the obvious 'Child's Room' in the house, on whatever kind of day it is, humid or dry, and you get a creak, the house's little sigh of contentment. At least a dozen parents before me, also checking on their sprats in the night hours, were doubtless the cause of that imperfection. Others have been here. Please add your own weight.

I need to remember that little creak in the floor as we go house-hunting in the months ahead. I'm sure I'll again be tempted by a property that's spanking new. Years ago, we had a large Queen Anne on the edge of the Blackland Prairie north of Austin. Built of cypress, with a dozen gables, it had been beautifully restored. All the original molding, the golden pine floors, were intact. But the time came to sell -- the commute into Austin was killing Mike -- and there was a frenzy then, too, to get it ready. Old homes require a lot of maintenance, which we had not kept up with. Nearly every surface needed painting. The black clay of the prairie is hard on pier-and-beam houses and there were hairline cracks in the sheet-rock, every one of which had to be filled and repainted. Gormless buyers came forward and withrdrew just as the season was coming to an end. Thoroughly pooched, we stayed in the house another eight months, fixing, and filling, and painting. When at last a buyer who wasn't a feckless idiot came forward, we fled to a new home in Lakeway.

And started loathing it almost immediately. There was simply no there, there. And the people next door, an older IBM exec and his trophy wife, were not our kind of people. You could sense their disdain: "Democrats," they were probably thinking, with a sneer. The house seemed to sneer at us, too. Instead of feeling the lives of families before us, we felt only a builder's lame sense of design and his lust for cutting corners. There was no trim around the windows. The doors were hollow like papier mache. I must keep these memories fresh as I feel myself yearning for the spankingest new house on the North Shore of Long Island.

Must resist the shiny new object. Must listen for the creak in the floor.