Another cubic foot of paper shreds met a fiery death this evening. We're making excellent headway drinking most of our wine collection (so we don't have to move it) and ridding ourselves of yard debris and papers with personal information on them. What better way to do it than sitting calmly in the yard, watching beautiful dancing flames, to the sounds of fire trucks and cop cars screaming down the major thoroughfare a hundred yards or so past the woods, and dogs barking at everything small that scuttles through our Park? It's quite relaxing, to the point that I was afraid both the Mister and I were going to fall asleep in our chairs, wine glasses in hand, leaving the fire technically unattended.
A couple days ago, the ladies who took me to the distillery down the coast and I were discussing camping. Namely, we were wondering who exactly thinks really roughing it is fun. Our driver said she bought a really nice tent for a camping trip that actually counted as a college credit, but anymore it only sees use at Black Friday sales, if at all. I had mentioned that I'm so ready to have a place of our own that I'd be willing to get a boxy canvas army surplus tent, to live in until we could build a shipping container house or log cabin on our property in the mountains. It was hyperbole, yes, but not without a grain of truth. Tonight I was reminded again of a memory I shared on that car ride back from buying booze, that when I was a child, living in Idaho, all the kids on Chestnut Street (myself included) thought that the coolest thing to do was grab our sleeping bags and sleep out under the stars on someone's front lawn. On any given weekend during the warm months, there were anywhere from two to ten kids piled together on the grass, staying up late talking, freezing our butts off on the cold hard ground, and waking early to go inside to the bathroom and sleep for the rest of the morning in our own soft beds. On the retelling, I couldn't quite remember why it was such a desirable activity, but just now, sitting outside, I almost felt the urge. The fire was hypnotizing, the humidity was low enough that the bugs were out in fewer numbers, and my glass of wine nearly put me to sleep in the yard. I could remember the feel of the cool cotton of my sleeping bag, and see in my mind's eye its printed pattern that looked like a scrap quilt in yellow and purple and white. It looked like it was soft and fluffy, but put an eight year old in it, lying on the sticker-laden dry grass in southern Idaho, and it might as well not have been there. Yet still I wanted to curl up in it just now, as I watched the fire collapse in on itself. Who knows, maybe Mr S-P will get me to camp once more before I die. Maybe.
I have been thinking quite seriously about going back to school and taking the exams to get a real estate license. I may be going sooner than I expected, but still I can't move on anything until after we are out of the Park. All week we have been dealing with the final processes before closing on the sale of the condo. The inspection objections have come through, and emails and phone calls are flying around, getting cleanings and repairs and warranties and credits and whatever else we can negotiate between us. It's stressing me out, even though all the professionals seem to take it in stride, like they do this every week. I've questioned whether I really want to get into the real estate business, especially in a hot market. But then, I remember how I learned to be an education counselor ten years ago. I had been in my job about five weeks, when everyone left me by myself. The top dog was out for a surgery when I was hired, and I had yet to meet her, and the two old hand counselors, who had only vaguely trained me, left for the winter holidays. I was on my own, with a manual four inches thick, and all of a sudden, everyone needed to come in and get signed up for the spring semester, and they all needed tuition assistance from my office. Every time a new kid walked through the door, I could feel a wave of stress hormones slap me in the face, like I had walked through a beaded curtain. But somewhere in that trial by fire, by the end of the second week on my own, I realized I totally had my job down. I had a few details to work out, but I had this. I figure it will be the same with real estate. It will be busy and frantic, but that will be the best way to learn. After years of wanting to do this, I think it might just be time to jump into the fire and learn.
