More Tricks Than Treats

Inspirational song: Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (David Bowie)

Ah, the joys of being a relative novice in the world of real estate. When one has a prospective client, no matter how far away, one jumps in her car and races toward a face-to-face meeting, in the hopes of turning it into real business. I made the appointment on Friday for a coffee meeting this morning out in Greeley. I dragged my groggy self out of bed, showered, dressed cute but not fussy, and had a cup of coffee so that I'd be alert enough to drive 45 minutes to have another cup of coffee. I sat in the chair that was being blasted with the smallest percentage of blistering sunshine (yes, I'm overly sensitive, I admit), and I waited. I waited for 10 minutes before I started texting my family, trying to stave off boredom. Another 5 minutes and I texted my contact, asking as politely as I could whether he was going to show up. He forgot and was on his way across the northern border to Wyoming. Well, crap. I made sure he was aware of the email I sent him last night, got myself a chili mocha, and headed back home.

I had more business to take care of once I got here. I set up a tour for a new person to see a foreclosed property I have seen many times from the highway, and wondered about every time I drove past. This place was devastated by the 2013 flood, and has been uninhabited -- uninhabitable that is -- ever since. The county has placed significant restrictions on rebuilding in this flood plain, right along the north St Vrain river, and getting permits to build here will be a huge obstacle. Homeowners insurance is going to be tricky too. Not sure whether we'll move forward on this or not. The location is gorgeous, but the structure is a wreck. We wandered around it for half an hour playing Forensic Real Estate Agents and Clients (more fun than Cops and Robbers), trying to piece together exactly what was going on with this house before the floods. We left thinking it might have had a little "illegal duplex" action in progress. The electrical panel was its own kind of scary monster, and I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to see daylight along the floor in the bedrooms. I had a whole lot of fun touring the property. Who knows whether we'll be writing an offer to take it from the bank? Depends on what the county says about permits, I'm sure.

On my way back, Mr X and I grabbed some pumpkins from a local market, and came back hoping for a parade of children seeking bags of sugar to come by the house this evening. He got a big carving pumpkin that he turned into a pirate, and I bought a fancy pale green one that will be soup in a few days. I dragged out last year's costume (Fudge's football jersey from Key & Peele's East-West bowl), and Mr X rummaged through old clothes he'd left here months ago. He made himself look like a stuffed scarecrow, intending to startle kids who didn't realize that it was a real guy inside the costume, and I sat out with the candy pretending that I was alone, playing on my iPad, not talking to the scarecrow next to me. Very few houses on our block seemed to be giving out candy, and very few kids dressed up and tried to collect it. Of the maybe 11 or 12 kids who came to my porch, more than half recognized that he was real before he moved or made noise. This trick was a whole lot more fun 10-15 years ago, when we lived on air force bases and had waves and waves of kids coming into our yard. I miss the good old days sometimes.

Be Nice or Leave

Inspirational song: Looking for Love (Johnny Lee)

We wandered through several vacant homes this afternoon. Well, three vacant and one occupied. Of those, three (not the same three) were absolutely adorable, and one is at best a diamond in the rough, at worst just rough. I didn't take many pictures of them. I was mostly taken by the pretty trees and bushes at each place, although the one occupied home had a china cabinet that I would have loved to own. These two particular clients are rather close to me (rather), and I know that this is just the very beginning of their search. We really aren't even sure of our budget limits yet, so this was more an exercise in how to search. I think we learned a lot in a few short hours. We shall be going out again (and again and again). They will be quite savvy by the time they make their first offer. I'll see to it. The hard part is convincing them not to fall in love with every house they walk in. It's a hard lesson for most prospective buyers to learn.

I have to pause to complain about something that is really getting under my skin. Years ago, I tried signing up for AdSense, in a futile attempt to make a tiny living on this blog. You have to wait until you hit a hundred dollar threshold before they pay out, after getting a few cents per click. You're not allowed to solicit clicks, or do it yourself, and I followed the rules. When it came time for me to get my first check, after five months of waiting, the company "audited" my account and decided to disallow it forever, based on criteria they would not tell me because it was their own corporate secret. I asked them to review it, and they sent me a form email that basically said, "Yeah... no." I thought maybe the reason I was disallowed was that I had bots who were making hits on my account. What that means is that spam sorts of accounts give you post views often enough that you see their web sites as referring sites in your stat pages (where most of my clicks come from Facebook). They're trying to get you to click on their addresses to see who the hell they are, and from what I am told, they're phishers or porn. They appeared to be coming primarily from Russia. Once my AdSense went away, most of these fell off. I still get a hit almost every day on a post I wrote in the first three months, but that's nothing compared to what has started happening in the last month. Some spam bot in France has a grip on me and won't let go. It started hitting a string of four or five posts once a day. Then it jumped up to four, six, nine... The last time I looked, this afternoon, it was somewhere north of 40 a day, on each of about a dozen posts I've written since late September. I really like having an accurate count of how wide my audience is, even if it's rather small. I want to know if I have 30 regular readers or 60, or somewhere in between. I know for a fact I don't have over 600 a day. Not yet. Maybe someday I will. All I want is the truth. I want these spam bots to go away forever. I wonder whether there is a way to block them. Someone with more computer know-how than I needs to come help me. I am not loving this.

Things That Go Bump

Inspirational song: The Leavers - IV The Jumble of Days (Marillion)

I have wondered for a while how I was going to write this particular post, and the longer it was delayed, the more I put off figuring it out. I never came any closer to knowing where to start. I have houseguests again, and this time they've come in like they own the place. That's because they do. Mr X and my dogs have come here temporarily. Before you read anything into it, this was the plan all along. After his excursion to the ends of the continent, he always planned to come back and finish the tasks that were left undone when he drove off. Nothing has changed except geography. Nothing that affects the blog, anyway. The bonus here is that now I get to spoil my pretty, pretty princess and feed her apples all day, and I get to hug my little red-headed dog like I have wanted to do for months. I've missed the pups desperately, and worried that they were not handling the stress of living on the road very well. They're senior citizens now, and they need a good place to rest their bones that doesn't rock and lurch along a highway. I know they liked getting to roam all of the national parks west of the Rockies, but I want them to relax and get the stress off of their faces. I got lots of doggie cuddles when they got here, and I've already cut up a large apple to split between the two who wanted it. Little Hot Wheels has decided he's not interested in apples anymore.

I've gotten myself busy with work again, thanks to some judicious phone-calling by someone I recruited into the brokerage. They say that internet leads produce one solid client for every 50 to 100 hits on your website. My genius sales woman buddy has already given me two live leads from less than 24 hours of calls, maybe 10 or 12 total? The first one was when I was standing right next to her and she just handed over the phone for me to set an appointment. The second one she tried to run through the managing broker, and when he didn't respond very quickly to say who to pass it to, she called me and said to jump on it while it was hot. I am so glad she came along. Of course this means I'm going to be so busy I won't know what day it is without consulting my phone calendar. I think I can handle it for now. My health seems to be stabilizing and my wallet could use a home sale. It's time.

The Beholder

Inspirational song: In Your Eyes (Peter Gabriel)

I went looking for beauty today, and I wanted to find it in unusual places. I was inspired while I waited for an exceptionally long train in the more industrial parts of Main Street, and in my boredom I noticed how beautiful the sky was just beyond a repair shop. I took a picture right before the train cleared the intersection. A little further up Main, I passed the cemetery I mentioned a few weeks ago, the one that I keep wanting to wander through. The afternoon sun was casting really pretty shadows, and I decided that today, three days before Halloween, I would give in to that impulse. I left my car at the house, put on some walking shoes, and walked out the back door to go back to the cemetery. Immediately I saw another oddly beautiful sight. The trees that are growing like weeds along the alley have burst into vivid color, and all along the ground, scattered among the trash cans, are golden brown leaves. I'm not sure I've ever enjoyed looking at trash bins so much before. (Other than perhaps the time that we stuffed three alley dumpsters ahead of our move from New Mexico, and I was just happy to lighten our load in any way I could.)

I walked as fast as I could toward the cemetery. It had clouded over a little heavier at that point, but I knew the sun would peek under once again before it set. I cut through another couple alleys on my way down, passing some graffiti murals I'd known were there from months ago. There is some seriously lovely work on the back of a strip mall, and I had to share a little of it. I kept plugging along, cutting over to walk along Main Street for a few blocks so I could cross at walk signals. I thought perhaps I'd see something else to fit my paradigm. I did not. Not only was there nothing beautiful in the blight in that stretch, even the air felt ugly. It was rush hour, and the street was completely congested, auto pollution in every cubic foot of air.

Once I made it to the entrance of the cemetery, all of my tensions melted away. I don't understand why I react that way to these places. I get so happy, so restful. I have no intention of ending up in a cemetery myself, unless I get planted au naturel under a tree as mulch. But I absolutely love wandering among headstones, as if I can hear entire life stories by the monuments left behind. I do get quite a bit from them. There was one carved in 1963 that screamed "bowling alley" as loud as it could. I saw several graves of children. It appeared a hundred years ago, it was "the thing" to use what looked like big granite core samples as markers. And then I came across a woman who was listed as "Elizabeth wife of J.C. Bailey," and that one bothered me most of all. Even in death she was only identified by her relationship to a man. I stopped short and looked at her marker, and asked out loud, "Who were you in your own right?" I wish she could have answered. I really wanted to know.

Not Naive

Inspirational song: The Fruit of the Wild Rose (Marillion)

There are days that only a food metaphor will do: Even though I generally despise leftovers, there are a few exceptions. When I make a really good boeuf bourguignon, I always make enough for it to sit around to be enjoyed a day or two later. The flavors don't completely marry and mellow until the second or third day. I have been letting Tuesday night's concert simmer in my memory for 48 hours so far. Its flavors are continuing to blossom in my soul. Bits and pieces of the new album are still echoing there and I keep singing along with them. I wrote right after the show that even we die hard fans take time to bond with each new album, and I was only beginning to approach a full understanding of the latest record. Watching the face of Steve Hogarth as he sang his lyrics took me much closer to that point. I am especially taken with the song "Living in F E A R." I can't stop thinking about it. "Our wide eyes aren't naive/ They're a product of a conscious decision/ The welcoming smile is the new Cool/ The key left in the outside of the unlocked door/ Isn't forgetfulness/ It's a challenge to change your heart/ There's a price to pay/ Living in f e a r is so very dear/ Can you afford it?" In a haunting prog rock song, Steve Hogarth has summed up the direction I have intentionally aimed myself, and I will not be turned. I live openly, conspicuously, and I refuse to let the outside world tell me that a pervasive boogeyman is always knocking at my door. I will occasionally encounter situations that are not designed with my best interests at heart. But I'm not going to let the media and politicians tell me to live continuously in fear of "the other" and let them control my votes and my purchases that way. I'm going to keep meeting new people and letting them see the heart of me. I'm going to keep forgiving people who don't deserve forgiveness. I'm going to keep being honest and open. I'm going to be silly as long as it makes me happy. To paraphrase Hogarth in that same song, I'm not green, I'm just pleasant.

I changed my look today. I got rid of the glasses that looked like the ones my Gramps and Granny wore in the 1970s. I picked up a pair of nerdy girl frames that better fit my personality as it is right now. I tried about 15 times to get a selfie that I liked with them, and nothing really beat the one I took immediately upon walking away from the counter at Costco after I bought them. So far I can actually read in these. I haven't taken them off to look at my iPad yet. I think they are winners.

I'm still enjoying the hell out of autumn, for as long as it is hanging around Colorado. It was a record high in the 80s today, and the sun actually hurt me as I drove to get my glasses. Even so, my roses are starting to set hips for the birds and the new baby trees we planted in the last year have finally turned their leaves. The cherry tree hung on until only a few days ago, and then it went suddenly yellow. It's going to look beautiful as it grows, competing with the burgundy of the existing tree out front. And I discovered this afternoon that nectarine tree leaves turn the same color as their fruit. I am looking forward to living with this little beauty for the rest of my life, assuming it does well after a Colorado winter. I took my company to Boulder reservoir Tuesday morning and the scene was entirely changed from when I went out two weeks ago. Everything was brown and dry, and most of the trees were bare. It was still beautiful, and my Okie friends loved it. I embrace the change to winter willingly, happily. I'm proud of myself for surviving one more season.