#55 - Closing - July 27, 2012

I missed daily entries for about 2 weeks. Entry #44 to #55 is out of order, but they will all be posted on the same day. So if you are confused, check the date and that’s probably why.


Friday. I went to work as normal this morning, and left at noon. I met Katrina at the bank’s attorney’s office, and we got to work. It was surreal. Very different from closing on a home in Oregon.

We met in the posh attorney’s office, seated around a 10-person table. To my left was the “closer”. Her name was Gina and she works for the title company. I still don’t know what the title company does. Katrina was to my right. I know most of what she does. To Katrina’s right was our attorney’s paralegal, Karen. Evidently, we aren’t paying our lawyer enough to actually show up for a closing. One empty chair to Karen’s right, at the other end of the table was the bank’s attorney, Rick. He happens to know our neighbors who are moving. He’s a very chatty, friendly fellow. Going to Rick’s right on the other side of the table was a vacant chair, later to be filled by Bill Schilling, the Seller’s attorney. To Bill’s chair’s right our realtor, Beth, sat. And then Gina again.

The surreal part about it was that we were largely spectators. All these real estate professionals sat around the table, joking, discussing fine details of the job with jargon we didn’t understand. Everybody smiling and seemingly self-congratulatory. We sat and signed papers. That was our deal. Every piece of paper that was placed in front of us took a 3-sentence explanation, and then we signed and pushed it over to the paralegal for her stack.

It seemed excessive to me. An excessive number of people, being excessively self-congratulatory and excessively paid for providing an unnecessary service.

We arrived at 12:40, and by 2pm, we were done. We shook hands all around, hugged our realtor, and she gave us flowers. We called the kids and let them know. And we split to gather things. We hit Namco to pick up the rest of our patio furniture, Big Lots to get Libby’s bed, I checked out a couple places for grills, and we went home.

We got home about 5, ate a quick dinner (Aria had made Mac and Cheese and fed the other kids before we got home), and left to get library cards for our new hometown library. Then we needed to go for ice cream. I did a search for ice cream on my Google Map app, and it took us to Debra T’s. It’s magical. Light pink and blue gingerbread-house shingles, happy lights, a train built of brightly colored 2 x 4s, and great ice cream. It was a complete winner.

Then home. To our home. Finally. No longer vagrants, we went home.