It’s Hot

I am tired of the current heat wave. Last couple weeks the daily temps have exceeded 110. Which is insane. San Francisco was 104 yesterday. Santa Rosa was hotter than Dixon which has never happened in my memory. Just crazy. So what do you do on a hot day? You head out to look at prospective rental properties so you get to be outside all day. Today was most convenient day of the week and we really need to find a place to rent. Seems as though our house could sell at any time. Who knows? But we want to be ready.

So we are up and going early, coffee and breakfast. Read the paper which had nothing in it today. And we are in the car going to pick up agent Linda. She tracks down the rentals for us and negotiates the lease for us. She is a doll. Or maybe an angel. Or both.

Linda has joined us. We met her at the Starbucks in West Sacramento. As always, she is dressed to kill. Hey, great thing, Linda is sitting up front monopolizing the conversation with my wife. That’s great, I can’t talk that much. So I am saved, in a sense.

We are twenty minutes out of Auburn and fifteen from Newcastle. There are four rentals in Auburn and two in Newcastle for us to see. Four hour time budget we believe. That would be good

The front seat has been a conversation about yoga and working out. And types of working out and all these different types of exercise they participate in. How they feel after or during and do they need to treat themselves with ice after. A very animated conversation. Which does not include me. Again, that’s a good thing. I don’t mind and I believe I would add nothing to the discussion. Nothing of value. So here I sit in the back seat looking at the other cars and making up things about the other drivers. I think I saw a sociopath in a very late model Ford Bronco. Sociopaths ride in old Broncos. At least that’s who I saw. Could be he was a teacher. Or both. My opinion is the only one that hits the blog. An ambulance just went by, driving about 80. No lights. Do they ever get speeding tickets? Probably not. Couple hipsters s in an old Toyota 4 Runner. Roof off, of course, because that looks cooler. Wanna Bees.

First house smells like pot. Big house with pool and lots of space. Out of date house in need of lots of work. Need a fantastic landlord to do all the work I want.

Next house smaller, lower rent and beautiful. I vote for it. It’s way out in the forest, 15 mins off the freeway. That’s a negative. No work needed. Emily, though, does not like the entry. Onward.

Third house looks a lot like the one I live in now. But not as nice. And way too much rent. Crazy too much. Goodbye.

Four. No one home to show. Guess we don’t like it.

Fifth. Same as the fourth. I guess they really don’t want to rent it. But take a look at the pond.. That’s just a pond. About 75′ long and 20 wide. Green water and little tiny fish. And a number of small frogs. It’s about ten feet from the back door. Only thing, wtf? In what universe do I blow my wad on a useless big pond?

Productive day either way. We got a feel for what is out there.

We do both agree on the number two house. Agreement is good.

We drove back to West Sacramento and dropped off Linda. She is a huge help within these house things.

We drove home. Emily and I cleaned the house a little bit. She took off for school to get a little work done. She wants to be out of the way when our house lookers come by at five.

The lookers are here for a second look. Last time they missed a look at the upstairs apartment. Slightly different mix of people looking this time. No husband, but plus a dad. So different questions and different looks. They really seem to like our house. That’s a surprise after a year of lookers who don’t like it. We will see.

Emily finally got home at 610. About time. Now we can start our weekend.

We face timed Marika and are trying to talk to her while drinking cocktails.

Btw I do recommend this. Drink straight or on ice. Or maybe fancy up a margarita. Very, very smooth tequila. I made Emily a whiskey sour. I had a little sip of the tequila and a glass of red wine. Perfect end of day drinks I must say. We need to make dinner, it’s 720 and all we have had to eat is the cocktails. Garnishes are not a salad.

Marika has been texting and complaining about the heat. She is in Santa Rosa where it is usually very cool. Today it is over 100. I say get used to it we have it every day.

We had the leftover calzone, from yesterday, for dinner. Still enough left for another lunch. So we can get three meals out of one calzone. Marika sent us a picture of the turkey pastrami wrap she made. With bell pepper and hummus. She said it was delish.

We are back to looking at houses online. It’s an obsession I think. It is tough to be satisfied with what you have and you feel compelled to keep looking. So we keep looking. I would like to be done with it.

Off to bed, it’s late. Just a note, Emily woke me at 115am. She had a dream that Marika and I were robbing banks. She may be crazy. I couldn’t get back to sleep so I took a pill. That works. Unless I rob banks while I sleepwalk.