A Time to Close
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Wednesday, OLeif and Collette became home owners for the first time. It took an hour to sign all of the papers out in Lake St. Louis with their loan officer, the title company, and the seller. All went rather pleasantly. And the deed was accomplished.
“You know, it seems like there’s more paperwork here than usual,” their loan officer, Julie, chuckled across the table with a can of Coke. “What do you think, Mark?”
Mark, the seller and real estate agent himself, looked at the papers thoughtfully, “Well, I don’t know. I guess I’d have to look at the whole stack together.”
“It’s about an inch thick,” OLeif said, in the process of signing his name for the twenty-seventh time.
Julie and Mark laughed as the papers continued to be signed.
The rest of the day involved the beginnings of purchasing house supplies: a new lock for the front door, spackling, paint samples for the kitchen (apple crisp: a color that OLeif picked out all by himself).
Then there was a swing-by for lunch (in celebration) and a movie for OLeif, and then a run-by of a box of energy drinks for Creole and his cronies (after OLeif had promised them one each last Wednesday after the SkyZone). And OLeif cleaned out the car (which was beginning to smell like rotting bananas, due to a sadly forgotten lunch in the back seat).
OLeif also went to see the doctor regarding his injured knee in the early afternoon and found that, as he suspected, it was probably only a minor dislocation. No x-rays necessary. Then he was off to work at five to transfer more computers. There were probably more barbecued ribs or pizzas already on order for the whole IT crew.
In other news, Rose had passed two more exams in United States history and psychology at UMSL, bringing her total number of credits to 45, just finishing the first semester of her sophomore year in college.
Baby was kicking up under Collette’s ribcage that day; it was almost as though he were trying to battle it out inside and couldn’t find himself a could position.
And Collette decided to crash for most of the evening. She hadn’t done a lot that day, but it had been a lot of running around altogether and she was feeling tired. But there were dishes to be washed and books to read, and Italian to study. Yes, Collette had decided to make another attempt at the language, one of the many she had tried over the past years. There was also French to consider. But she decided to take it one step at a time.
The apartment was beginning to look a little bare after everything had been cleared off the living room walls and piles of papers and books were starting to form on all tables and other flat surfaces, ready to be packed once boxes became available.
Sometime in the evening while Collette washed the load of dishes, the snow began to fall, unexpectedly – just enough to dust the ground like the tops of sugar cookies.
It was good to have a different sort of day.