Tonight's adventures brought to you by the letter T

Throats. Telephone. Trust Fund. Tamale the dog. Tate the small town realtor. Timing. It's been quite a night.

Tonight, Rab and I put an offer down on a house via fax and through telephone conversation with Tate the small town realtor. It's 2000 sf on 1.6 acres in the country - 4 bedrooms, big living room, big family room, great laundry/utility room, mud room (!), decent kitchen, standard dining room. The land is the sweet part of the deal - the property line is marked out with large trees all around, there's a circle drive before you get to the driveway for the double car garage, and there's certainly room for a hot tub. We low-balled our offer because the house was repo'ed in 2005. Our CPA told us we probably had some wiggle room. So we wiggled...a lot. We'll see what happens. Rab had to break into the last of the trust fund money he inherited from his dad to make the earnest money payment. It felt weird to know that was the 2nd to last check we'd ever write from what used to be a mighty large sum.

After our conference call, Tate faxed the paperwork up to the Castle. We received it but then the phones went out (again...it's been happening all night) and we couldn't fax back the signed papers. Rab headed to his office to fax them and I was going to walk home. Just then Sister Shana drove up. She was headed to the library to send a fax. I explained the situation, we flagged down Rab and he faxed Shana's paperwork for her. Then she gave me a ride home. How's that for timing?

Now would be a great time to let you know a little about Tate. He is a small town kinda guy. We really like him. He doesn't do computer forms for offers - it's all handwritten. When he showed us around town last weekend, he suggested we follow him in our car because, "couples like to talk about the houses in between each one and if I'm there, you won't talk as much." At each house, we got a quick overview of who the buyers were and what their story was -- this was an entirely unique phenomena to us big city folks. When we were writing the offer tonight, we got to one page and he said, "This is the page that says I gave you the brochure I'm supposed to give you that I haven't given you. Just sign it at the bottom."

Poor Sony has strep throat. He hasn't been in school since last Wednesday and he's the kind of kid who is bummed by that. I keep calling him Ferris (as in Bueller)...he pretends he's not amused but he's laughing inside. Minky had to get a strep culture too, because that's just how our pediatrician is. His came back negative. Kind of like his mood. Just kidding... he's doing great (and I even caught him reading again today! WOW).

Minky and I just got back from letting Tamale the dog out. PMC's former music director had to leave town quickly and his wife called to see if we could watch Tamale until tomorrow night. We've watched Tamale before, so we were a natural choice. Tamale loves being at our house and hanging out with all the kids in the cul-de-sac. She's a cutie. However....grrrrrr....she opened the screen door on her own this afternoon and made a run for it. I had to trek through the burr-infested woods after the little monster. My favorite wool sweater seems to have been burred in vain - my neighbor caught Tamale. I love him. I used to love Tamale but not anymore.