mira! que bueno!

i want to write about what went down this weekend, but this is about all that's coming to mind at the moment:

holy shit!

we saw five places on friday night with our adorable broker and, as predicted, we both loved the one we'd been obsessing over all week. but it was good to have a few others to compare it to- different neightborhoods, different prices, different quality etc.

needless to say, by far the winner of the emmy for 'most memorable intercultural condo experience' was this beauty:



now i'm sure you're thinking it looks pretty nice- sure, that's what we thought... nice on the outside. and we did nervously joke that there were no interior photos to be found anywhere online, so we affectionatly referred to it as our 'mystery listing' and decided to see it anyways.

so we get there and are on the front porch waiting for the other broker to meet us- that sure would be styrofoam covering the broken window.

wow- look at all that peeling paint.

do you smell bacon?

other real estate agent arrives, swings open the unlocked (also unlockable, i might add) 3,000 year old door that's older than dorchester itself and up we go to the third floor. about half way up 6 or 7 very excited vietnamese kids come tearing down the stairs. we all kinda stop to laugh/say hi to the kids while the other real estate agent trudges on. when we catch up to her she's half way in the door, barking out orders in vietnamese as if she was 10 seconds ahead of an INS raid. People scatter- doors slam and she nervously leads us in as the smoke detector goes off. mama-san was cooking up something resembling what i'd roughly translate as 'viet-spam.' j.mo, myself and our broker are now completely lost in sensory overload as the other agent tries to point out the 'features' of this well appointed abode, currently housing a family of 40. behind door #1 was a crying baby. door #2 there was a vicks vapor rub stench and the outline of a body under the blankets- wonder how long they'd been dead for? bird flu? kitchen, well- very smokey and the lovely aroma of scorched processed meat product. door #4- the bathroom. whoopsies, papa-san was taking care of a little bidness in there. what had to have been 4 or 5 more doors later, we're finally being led down the stairs, through the basement and out to the backyard/garage area:



ok, well maybe that wasn't quite the scene, but i was fully prepared for it just in case.

so that was the big highlight, other than actually seeing the place we thought we'd love and really loving it... not to mention making an offer the next morning and having the 24hr drama of knowing someone else made and offer too and all we could do was sit and wait. luckily we had drinks and dinner with the butter queen, good dr, chix to keep us distracted (tibetan food in central sq- to die for!)

and then finally at 4.15p today we found out our offer was accepted. house inspection wednesday, wrap up the mortgage process this week and close by the end of the month. saddle up the uhaul kids, we're moving again. that makes 11 moves in 10 years for me- that must be guinessbook material? well whatever, this time we're gonna own it and i am not willingly leaving for multiple years. if not longer.

i'm still in awe over the whole thing. well, a little shell-shocked as well because today we dropped of my mistah bodhi (aka my jeep) at the dealership to be sold. you can't have it all right? and at the moment a home of our own is infinitely more important than any jeep could be.

so stay tuned- big happenings. and that means the great escape (completed!) housewarming invites will be coming out in a few short months...