1) Twenty years ago today I became a homeowner. From the closing I remember a stare-down between the attorneys (mine won), and the momentous feeling of being given a manila envelope with all the keys. I stayed there that night on an inflatable mattress reading a new biography of Edith Head.
1a) Happily I had two weeks to move from my South End apartment to Maison Robaire, during which time I was able to have a No More Beige party to celebrate leaving behind the beige walls of rentals forever. A friend had to diaper her baby girl on the floor (because all the furniture was gone at that point) — a baby girl who has now graduated from high school.
1b) The most terrifying moment of the move, possibly of my entire time here, was when the movers arrived with Gramma’s piano. I swear they nearly dropped it three times getting it up the front stairs!
2) In the intervening years I’ve had four roommates (the last one moved out in 2017) and a succession of upstairs neighbors, including a period when there were five children under the age of six living upstairs. In general we have all gotten along very well, for which I am very grateful.
2a) Crises, we’ve had a few. Just about every hot water heater in the building has burst once. A middle-of-the-night leak into one of my bedroom closets led to the the discovery that we had the last tar and gravel roof on the block — and a new roof. An exterior paint job displaced chocolate-brown and white with sage green and cream accented with Caliente Red. We’ve had adventures with falling tree limbs during wind storms. When we discovered that squirrels (!) were getting inside the walls, my determined third-floor neighbor set up cameras to figure out how they were doing it. The answer: leaping from a nearby tree and getting in through a poorly-secured chimney or something on the roof. With the tree cut down and the access point sealed, we found out that two of them were still inside when they gnawed their way out via the third-floor cornice!
2b) What’s absolutely wonderful now is that my third-floor neighbor’s mother, recently retired, has adopted our garden as a project, and it looks fantastic. Never have we looked so clipped and spruce! Happily my large plot of pink lily-of-the-valley remains. Started from half a dozen that my friend Olive gave me in 2005, it’s now something like six to nine square feet.
2c) I renovated the bathroom about ten years ago (an adventure), and of course the kitchen was completely done over during the pandemic. (Start reading about that adventure here.)
3) My guest book is full of signatures (and a few drawings) from parties, dinners, drop-ins, road race open houses, and Poverty Pastas. Like my Granny Dimmick, I love having people around.
3a) Two friends were here for dinner last week, and one said to me “I was worried about you during the pandemic being cut off from people.” The simple fact is that I love to be in my house, and during the pandemic I was completely content starting the Dress Dinner Challenge and keeping up with people via technology.
4) Twenty years ago this was the first of three momentous life events that came within three months: buying a home, changing jobs, and turning 40. I hope I’ll still be here 20 years from now, when I turn 60.
