All Hail The Velvet Wizard

In the dawn past the Credit Agency giants, bathed in afterglow of our debt-soaked slog through the Entertainment swamps and fresh from slaying the Listingbook monster, we stand at the river Tax Credits, victorious.

The river is wide and treacherous. The angry waters crash into black rocks whose shiny faces send daggers into our eyes, cutting us off from our quest, a cottage on the opposite bank. She’s a damsel in distress neglected and abused by the ogre who has held her for far too long.

A fiery-haired woman paddles ashore in a boat that looks too small and shallow for the task. In the boat, only the woman, the oars and a fat yellow bag that rattles when she touches it. Her smile is as warm as her hair, her demeanor gentle as she invites us to join her. The river turns dark almost immediately with disappointment and dread. Old ghosts of our life’s despair fly in our faces but the woman skiffs over the fear without allowing our hearts to sag once.

Reassured by our guide and spurred by the cries of the damsel on the bank we press on to the driveway of the ogre’s. Here our guide tosses her bag over her shoulder and she becomes a velvet wizard, completely unfazed by ogre or his stench. She keeps him at bay, plying him with her sincerity and warmth while we glimpse our damsel up close, her location, her condition, her charm. Then, as quickly as we arrived, we leave.

To free the damsel we must prove ourselves worthy yet again but now with a wizard on our side we cannot fail. Together we face the Guardians of Homeownership: Loan Officer, Loan Processor, Escrow Officer, and the most mysterious, Underwriter. We hire guns: General Inspector, Sewer Guy and Pest Guy. One by one our boat fills up as Guardian and Gun is wooed and won.

Today we sail toward the damsel again, this time to her rescue. She’ll be freed on the Solstice and before we’re finished she’ll be the best on the block. There will be wreaths, cakes and ale that day, especially ale, lots of ale.

Our Letter To The Owner

My husband Fredd and I came to LA in 1999 – run-a-ways from a town where creativity was a handicap.

Fredd graduated from his editing program; I got my BA, Our eldest was off to college, our second son graduated from Jr. High and our daughter from elementary school. If we were ever going to try to make a life in LA, ’99 was the time.

We rented our home in Tacoma to a friend and we set out to achieve our goals in entertainment. We brought two kids and a U-Haul down here with all of our belongings we could stuff into the back compartment.

When we arrived, my husband’s job was given away, the kids were hungry and my friend was still promising to pay the rent. We ate cinnamon French toast on Lankershim Boulevard for breakfast that first day. In typical fashion, the kids weren’t finishing their plates. Fredd and I looked at each other, not sure how our “goals” were going to fill their noon bellies, and pressed, “come on guys, eat up.”

Here we are eleven years later. Our eldest works in IT and loves the music scene in Seattle. Our second son is a computer engineer in San Jose. Our daughter is a personal trainer in Seattle. My husband is an editor at a company he could have only imagined back in ’99. I’ve worked for years as an assistant until now where I’ve got my own office and work as the company’s art director.

Your house is a dream come true for us, our real world Oscar. We’ve worked unbelievably hard, sacrificed so much, and now that quiet, tree-lined street you’ve cared for so long could be our reward. When I walked out on your patio I saw it wrapped in Christmas lights and all our friends around the food table. I could hear the shovel sinking into to healthy, organic soil in the yard where I’d raise vegetable beds. I imagined my new puppy, who was waiting in the car, running and playing safely off-leash.

I can tell by the improvements that you’ve made to your home that you are a creative like us. The sun will glimmer brightly off the stained glass panes I’ll make in the garage and hoist up to the skylights.

We want to finally leave apartment living and go back to having a guest room where family can come and visit. Your place is perfect for us in every way. We’ve been looking for over a year and experienced more than one disappointment. I am proud to be a veteran, having served in Special Ops in the years of Noriega but as VA buyers we are the lowest in the hierarchy.

I hope you’ll consider our feelings for the home along with our financial offer.

Into The Deep End

Re-focused and confident, our search surges with new possibilities. A 3-2 in Northridge is a little too Country. Interesting addresses in Lake Balboa are a little too Rock-n-Roll. Then we see it, glowing like the pool in “Cocoon.”

Kitchen cabinets painted FDIC green, but "that’s just paint." Ebony hardwood throughout all 1100 square feet and a spacious backyard, a blank canvas for my mini farm. All total, nearly 7000 square feet of 4D, customizable, personal-expression space!

Fredd picks me up after work. We’re sharing one car to save money and pay down our debt so we can qualify for more debt than we’ve ever been in?

So, yeah, Fred picks me up and we head west, discussing the PM Monday commute and the feasibility of public transportation. While just above our heads, four choppers point in our direction and a fleet of cop cars streak past, toward Universal City. Turns out it’s the last leg of a high-speed chase that ends with a Burbank PD bullet in the driver/ murder suspect.

Side note: California has more inmates on death row than any state and it costs 90K a year to keep them there. Death cheaper than Life?

The neighborhood is “ridiculously quiet”, Our Agent observes. The cupboards aren’t so bad. Fredd promises to wash dishes for the first year as the place is sans dishwasher. Okay. No air conditioning – no problem – we just get it in the contract. Phew! Good thing ‘cause we’ll sweat our butts off in 114° July and August.

We scan more papers for the Mortgage Broker. Thanks in part our One Car policy, we’re equipped with our best credit score ever. The offer will be ready to sign by EOD Tuesday.

That night, we’re incredulous yet compelled to talk details: we’ll have to buy a fridge, the windows are bare. We don’t even own a shovel and the soil is going to need serious amending. At the table, our life is transported to a garden home in Reseda. Ah yes, Max and a yard. The cats, they could finally set foot on real grass not that stuff we bring home in the 3” square white cartons from PetCo.

Tuesday, 5PM, we sign the offer but only after a finance call where our Broker tells me SHE’S worried about the fact that we don’t have any savings! "Imagine how worried that makes me?" I ask her.

Our Agent, calls before eleven on Wednesday, the offer has been rejected. They got offers over Asking with cash down, and no mysterious VA mess attached.

We’re going to need a strategy.

Twas The Day Before Yesterday

Saturday morning, before 10 o’clock.
Apple fritter and coke, thankful no insulin shock.
Every Lexus stuffed with the next millionaire Lincoln, Honda, Nissan, Miata, Caviler.

One-thirty-four, One-oh-one, and Four-oh-five
Past the “Scubs”pital, Namies, and Sunkist we drive.
With Max on a pillow, asleep in my lap,
Mytouch navigation app: Google Map

Hartland, Archwood, Gaviota, Gault, and Cohasset
The listing: double sink master, stainless kitchen and walk-in closet
Tarzana to NoHo we readied each other’s minds.
“learn[ing]” like Tara, “to love the rind.”

Weeds three-feet-high, iron gates three-feet higher.
Cemented front yards, tagged billboards, and swelling bladders
Van Nuys, California “America’s Suburb,” Marilyn’s old stomping ground
Crammed with bulging dumpsters, and cars broken down

The North Hollywood Shoot Out happened right there!
Phenobarbital and body armor under their knitwear.
All of a sudden, my Liberal blindfold flew-off.
Fredd and I both started a sentence with a cough.

This place is all wrong and I don’t mean the house
It’s the yards and the spray paint and probably the louse
We’ll go back to our desk and re-define that bookmark.
Chatsworth, Reseda, Tarzana, Lake Balboa, Canoga Park

Too Far North

Attracted by a crown molded kitchen and terrazzo tile back splash, a mini version of my brother’s thoroughly modern mansions, my husband and I drove to the northern tip of North Hollywood to see a house in our price range. I took the fact that it was at the cross street of my friendly co-worker’s first name and his last name as a portent for success. I couldn’t help thinking on the way that we were about to find a gem, hidden from “over Oxnard” denigrators.

It’s been a six-month hiatus from house hunting since the last round nearly broke us up. Our plan, up until now, has been to wait until May. Then, with the typical 90-day escrow for the VA, we’d be just in time for our apartment lease to run out. But, we couldn’t wait. Our neighbors on one side are punk rockers thumping our adjoining walls at all hours. The shrill Chihuahua with separation anxiety on the other side provides extreme vocals and the heating unit above us all punctuates the baseline with an oompapa, oompapa… normally at three and five AM.

At first the street is confusing, house numbers jumping from four to five numbers immediately but we soon worked it out and thanks to handy, dandy Listingbook, I knew what I was looking for. Once we worked out the through street there it was. It was like a glistening orange clitoris atop a mangy pubic mat. The railing on the front porch was exactly as pictured. Perennial Echinacea plants, fresh as the daisy-like flowers they are, shown in the golden-hour light. It was as if the place had been set down out of a hurricane not a leaf out of place in a neighborhood that bore no resemblance to the one it originated in.

“Levels of sophistication vary” a leasing agent once told me when I was complaining about an obnoxious teen at the pool. Such was the case in north, North Hollywood last night. It wasn’t clear at first as there were fathers outside with their kids and nice cars in the driveways. But in the long view if you don’t edge your yard or you fill it with cement and park your four-wheeler on it your likely not to pay attention to your stereo volume.

And so my modern kitchen turned to sand and flowed out between my closely set fingers. Maybe it was my punishment for a false start? Nah, the gods or real estate aren’t that cruel. We didn’t freak out completely but we both had an emotional re-visitation to our six-months-ago selves. The key lesson this night was – tread lightly on each other. You don’t know how the other person might be hoping and praying that this is THE one.