THE NEXT PHASE... at home (Part 106c)

By the time my father came to pick my mother up Dolly and the baby had bonded. There was no denying that Kaye was a “mommy’s girl”, always wanting to be held by her and no one else. I was pleased to see that as both Elle and I felt that Dolly needed something to cling to, especially with her mother having died. We spent the evening playing with the kids but none was on the floor as it had been the previous night. Unfortunately, my panty peeking had come to an end as Dolly chose to stay fully dressed right up to the time we all turned in for the night. As she had to catch the early train (6:15am) back to the city so she could make it back to her college there were also no peeks in the morning. However, I still had the picture as she never once brought the subject up, and that was a plus.

About the middle of April I got a call from my father telling me that I needed to get the race car out of his neighbors garage where I’d stored it for the Winter. They were beginning their weekend visits in order to prepare their cottage for the Summer renters. During the Winter, after having gotten involved with Darren who worked at James’ service garage, I’d fantasized that I’d be able to keep the race car there. Parked out at the mobile home park I really struggled when I had to do repairs. So I stopped up at the garage to run the idea by James. He truly was a nice guy but he did have a “thing” about race cars and it wasn’t good. The answer was “NO!”. Since Darren had said he'd be on my pit crew I asked him if he’d work on his boss to see if he’d relent. By the time I went to get the car Darren had gotten James to relent but just a bit. He didn’t want the car there in daylight and if we needed to work on it we could use the back shop BUT... we couldn’t bring it there until after dark and it had to be gone by morning. A saying that I’d heard from my grandfather, “a little is better than nothing at all”, seemed to hold true in this situation. The only things that had to be done before the open practice didn’t need a shop to be completed so I was moderately happy.

If you remember back to the visit we made with Elle’s old friend, Nan, I was making notes about their new house. Upon our return Elle started collecting house floor plans from the newspapers. It seemed that the baby’s new found ability to get around was creating more and more concern about just how long we could remain in the mobile home. When she was confined to her crib or playpen we had adequate space. But she wouldn’t stay in either for very long which created a whole slew of problems as she made her way around. If you remember back to my leaving the other bank, Artie, the mortgage officer, had offered to give me a hand when I decided I was interested in a house. With Elle looking at house plans and with the knowledge I’d learned at the other bank about how long it took to get a new house built I felt that it would be best to buy an existing house. Elle didn’t agree but said she would be willing to look around. When I contacted Artie he set up a meeting with us on the first Saturday in May.

I hadn’t known it but Artie was “moonlighting” as a real estate agent on the weekends. I’d come up with a dollar figure that I felt we could afford. The “boys” at the park had given me a value on the unit which became my base. I figured we could handle a mortgage of about 15 to 16 thousand dollars based upon my new income. So with those numbers in mind the three of us headed out. We’d left the kids with her mother so we didn’t have to worry about them. I’d told Artie that we wanted to look at traditional two story houses and he said he had a few picked out for us. Elle liked the first house we were shown but with one big exception... it was way too close to the road. Even in the back of the house you could hear cars passing by and there seemed to be quite a few. It didn’t take much to figure out why the next house we were shown fit into our price range. It needed a LOT of work. It wasn’t something I was willing to tackle at that time. The last one was almost a replica of the house I’d lived in for a semester at college. It was very old and as soon as Elle saw it she shook her head indicating she wasn’t even interested in getting out to look.

We’d only been out for about an hour and Artie apologized for not having any more two story houses to show. He asked if we’d even entertain a look at a ranch type house. With plenty of time we both agreed it wouldn’t hurt to look. Artie said he knew of one in our price range that was only a few years old so we headed for it. As we approached, the house looked quite big. Going up the driveway I saw something that really interested me... a T pole wash line with clothes blowing in the wind. As we pulled up behind the house I could see why it looked so big... a two car attached garage. I’d been fooled by the windows I’d seen from the road and thought that they were an actual part of the house. Once inside we were impressed by how light and cheerful it was. However, as we looked around Elle and I were both concerned that there were only three bedrooms and that they weren’t all that big. What I really liked was the semi finished basement. It was obvious that the man of the house had not only designed it but had also decorated it. Elle wasn’t all that interested and returned upstairs with Artie. I won’t lie... I LIKED the basement!

Elle was looking around the kitchen when I got back upstairs. I made a positive comment about the basement and got a quick retort about how we were supposedly looking for the whole family and not just for me. Artie had gone outside so I went out to talk with him while Elle took another look at the bedrooms. He’d walked out towards the back of the property to have a cigarette and was almost to the wash line. He hadn’t told us a price and I wanted to know just how much the owner was asking. When I caught up to him I was in position to see some of the items at the very back of the wash line and, much to my great pleasure, there were a few panties. I wasn’t close enough to make any kind of judgement on them but it was a nice sight for my eyes to feast upon. Artie told me the owners were moving upstate and they really wanted to sell quickly. The house had just been listed and he wasn’t sure of the price but he thought it was around $20,000. That was a little rich for my blood especially with the concern Elle and I had for the size, or lack thereof, of the bedrooms. When I saw Elle outside the kitchen door I figured it was time to go. I thanked Artie and told him we’d be in touch after we’d had a chance to talk about it.

To be continued...