The Landed Gentry

One year ago today, Lynn and I became landowners. If you want to get all technical about it, we signed papers the day before, because Lynn could only make an afternoon closing and due to banking, we needed to sign on the 20th to get credit for the 21st. But it officially became ours a […]

The State of Real Estate

As mentioned at (or near) the outset of this blog, the place to which Lynn and I are planning to move — Riverwalk — is a failed development. Or it was: the original developers bankrupted in the recession, and the property fairly well languished, with minimal transactions and very little building taking place. Then, in […]

These 100 Days

Why I think I will keep up with a blog I don’t know. –me, Nov. 11, 2018 So here we are, 100 days later. If this were a television series back in the three-network heyday, we would be somewhere in Season Five before celebrating the 100th episode. Instead, it’s been just over a quarter of […]

Great, Gatsby

Sometimes I am the most illiterate English major you are ever likely to meet. Okay, really none of that sentence is correct, but it’s dramatic, don’t you think? The fact that I am typing these entries (and relying far more heavily on spell-check than the old days), suggests I am not illiterate. But I am […]

Grayscale

After talking so much about the weather recently, it’s time for me to turn to . . . politics. Well, only sort of, but this has been on my mind for awhile, so I’m going to go ahead and air it. It’s the state of the state (really, a commonwealth) of Virginia that’s been on […]

The Puritan Way

In 1632, John Livermore arrived in the British colonies of North America. I know very little about John, except that after several generations of begatting, here I am. I figure, given the date and his location, that he was probably a Puritan, so from time to time I like to refer to my “Puritan ancestors,” […]

My Valentine

Some snowy January nearly two decades ago I woke up with a singular thought: I need to go to Wisconsin. So I drove to the airport, bought a ticket, and a few days later was winging my way to Wausau, where my sister Terri had once lived for a very short time, and that was […]

Getting Real (Estate)

Remember how Dickens wrote, “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times”? Yeah, I didn’t actually read it either, but I’ve heard it quoted plenty of times. [Ooh, early aside: if you want good literary quotes without being, you know, literary, Star Trek movies are your go-to. Lots of Shakespeare, some […]

Weather Window

Because I made it seem like so much fun, Lynn was planning her own trip to Denver last week. Then the forecast for last Wednesday (her departure date) came in, and I told her she couldn’t go. To be clear, no one tells Lynn what to do. Let’s just say I strongly suggested she postpone […]

Tight Spaces

I’m feeling very cranky this morning, and a little dizzy. I avoided antibiotics, but this has left my ears stuffed full and still crackling since the beginning of the year — and I am tired of it. Particularly if it’s going to make me dizzy. I just spent 15 minutes rearranging three different blog posts, […]