Two Word Editorial
Monday, April 16th, 2007Gun control.
Archive for the ‘Op/Ed’ Category
Mail Fraud at Our New Home
Saturday, April 14th, 2007We do love our ex-neighbors, but we don’t tend to send them Martha Stewart mags as gifts. We’re on the record as being against superbikes, so it’s unlikely that we’ll be reading Cycle World. We’re against the wedding industrial complex, so Bride Magazine isn’t usually in the house. Husband, god love him, isn’t a supermodel worshiper and would not, no matter what the lady in the subscription office says, be suckered in to signing up for Sports Illustrated just to get the swimsuit DVD. Yup, it’s scam central in our mailbox.
I made about ten phone calls to subscription centers today to cancel Spin, Rolling Stone, Real Simple, Time, Maxim, Metropolitan Home, Sports Illustrated, Cycle World, Bride, Martha Stewart Living, Men’s Journal and, jeez, I don’t know what else. I can’t remember. Right now, I’m on hold with some OTHER call center listening to, god help me, an easy listening version of Runaway. Who is this song by? And why are they torturing Spin magazine subscribers with it?
We screened all of our bank accounts to check for any “unusual” activity. We called the friends that we supposedly gave Martha Stewart Living to. We called an identity fraud service and to my unbelievable irritation they spent the first 5 minutes of the call trying to sell me services. (Wells Fargo, hello. When I am trying to find out if I am a victim of fraud, I do not want to be sold to. I want common sense advice.) The BBB was not home, nor was the FTC or the Postmaster, but you can bet they will hear from me on Monday. As will Spin Magazine. Hello, if you’re going to shop out your call center, could you not at least give me some decent hold music?
A-hem. Anyone else had this happen to them? It’s not really very funny. No sir.
Update: We know who did this. We filed a police report and were informed by the very nice officer that doing this is indeed a crime, it’s harassment, theft, and mail fraud, all punishable with jail time. In the meantime, the harassment has stopped.
[tags]mail fraud, magazine subscription fraud[/tags]
On Leaving Capitol Hill
Tuesday, February 27th, 2007I haven’t lived anywhere but the Hill since moving to Seattle. I have always been walking distance from Broadway, at the most, about a mile, at the least, one block. I found my Seattle home here. I have not lived anywhere this long in my entire life. Not in my geographically tumultuous childhood or as an adult. In spite of the fact that I’ve had a bunch of different addresses here, Capitol Hill has been the only place that has ever really been “Home.”
Each apartment I lived in was no more than a mile from the previous one. I had a teeny shoebox of a place on Harvard managed by a man with a spectacular head of gray hair and a fascistic aversion to noise in the stairwell. I had a cute little courtyard studio on 10th where we climbed up on the roof to watch fireworks on the forth of July. I shared a swell low slung duplex on Olive with my best pal until the guy who we rented it from from returned from his travels, ruining everything by throwing us out. I veered to the outer edge of the hill when I lived in a sunny studio on Union, but I was still only a block from Broadway, so it was hardly “off the hill.” And finally, I bought the place I’m in now, up by Volunteer Park. What I’m saying is this: Capitol Hill is where I have, in Seattle , always lived.
I used to joke with our neighbors about never leaving the hill. Why would I? Everything we needed, groceries, hardware, dentists, parks, ethnic restaurants, discos, second hand stores, bars, everything, was no more than a 10 minute walk away. There was no need for a car, no need to go anywhere. North of the Montlake Cut? Sea monsters. Ballard? Like crossing the Atlantic by cargo ship to get there. With the occasional expedition into downtown or maybe Discovery Park when I was feeling beachy, I’ve been quite provincial for a city dweller.
And I’ve been supremely content. I’ve loved living walking distance to my neighbors. I’ve loved the “We’re making breakfast, come on down!” calls. I’ve loved the sheer convenience of Capitol Hill and my current neighborhood, by the park, is quiet and pretty with big trees and grand old homes.
But in the time I’ve lived here, things have changed. I’ve watched as the remaining small single family homes get purchased, torn down, and turned into “six townhomes with luxury appointments.” I’ve watched the apartment buildings go condo, renters displaced as their formerly affordable units get sold off “with studios starting at 200k!” There was an African American family in the house behind me - I used to wave at the parents from my kitchen window as they walked home in the morning after their night shifts at the hospital. They’re gone now and instead, I look out the window at the back of the renovated house where the new owners keep their boat. Parking has become increasingly difficult because as old neighbors move out, new neighbors move in with more cars - and bigger cars - too big for their little detached garages. Civil servants are replaced with lawyers, retail workers with Big Pharma managers, nurses with Microsoft evangelists, artists and writers with, well, we’ll see, I’ll let you know.
“Neighborhoods change,” says a friend of mine, philosophical and sad. He’s just returned to the Hill after living away for the last few years and I’m sure he’s disappointed that just as he’s getting settled in to his rental apartment, in a house that’s sure to be torn down and sold to developers in the next few years, his people are moving away.
He tells me that we are in the most expensive zip code in the city.* That explains why I’ve been unable to find what I want here: a little cottage house with suitable workshop space for painting. This seems not much to ask, but neighbors recently sold their tiny two bedroom cottage around the corner for 440k, well above what I can afford. Look at that number again. 440k for a 900 square foot cottage.
As I’ve told people about my upcoming move, I’m learning that I’m part of an odd sort of urban flight. I’m in the company of folks who really don’t want all that much - a modest house with a patch of yard - but can not bring themselves to pay half a million dollars or more to get it - if they can find even that. A friend who I consider to be quite well off told me how she and her husband were starting to question the wisdom of paying So Much Money on a mortgage.
Oh, it’s all a rambling mess of feelings and ideas all tied together. Maybe it’s not possible for a neighborhood to gentrify itself too much, there is always someone richer than you willing to take your place. Maybe I’m going to go make my next neighborhood unaffordable by the sheer fact of my moving there. Maybe it’s just a cycle and in another seven years, I can move back to the Hill. Maybe.
Barring unforeseen obstacles, I’m moving. That’s what I meant to say. I never thought I would leave Capitol Hill, but I am. See you in West Seattle.
* Note that I’m just quoting “some guy I know” not a reliable source. If you have a reliable source, link in the comments, please.
[tags]Seattle real estate[/tags]
February Breakdown
Sunday, February 11th, 2007
We’d spent the afternoon looking at housing and I was hungry. Really hungry. Over grilled shrimp tacos (me) and eggplant lasagna (B.), we flipped through the sheets on each of the properties we’d seen, dividing them in to “Maybe” and “What? Are you high?” stacks. The waiter - never underestimate your waiter, people - saw the sheets and proceeded to engage us in a long conversation about price per square footage and renovation practices and modern architects and well, I’d had enough; we’d seen eight properties. Check please?
There are some craptacular houses out there, boys and girls, painted in the most vile colors you’ll ever see, remodeled in ways that Make No Sense, carpet in the kitchen and outbuildings that reek of dry rot and well,hoo boy, there are some stinkers. If you’re going to pay to remodel your kitchen,would you not incorporate the appliances rather than leave them freestanding with no place to be? If you’re going to loft your ceilings for skylights, would you not loft the entire room instead of making some complicated shaft? If you’re going to install hardwood floors, why would you leave that weird island of carpet in the middle of the room? Why all the mirrors? Where do those stairs go? What is that smell? So many questions. Only one answer: Um, no.
[Sidebar: Prize to the property with the most amazing neighbors goes to an absolute disaster of a place right next door to the Walker Rock Garden.]
I fancy myself a little cottage house with a bit more room than my current place. I’d like a studio space, a bit of additional dry storage, a way to get the sometimes overnight guests out of the living room. Gravy? Room for a real dining table for dinner guests, a place for an office, a teeny tiny yard to grow tomatoes. It seems not so much to ask, yet I am finding the compromises I’ll have to make to get there rather difficult, plus, wow, the expense is quite shocking! I cannot believe the wisdom of the purely emotional choice I made in buying my current flat, the top half of a 1913 house in a rather swank and getting swankier neighborhood. Getting in wasn’t so hard, but getting out and into something else is a bit more difficult.
There were two properties that made the cut, one, a ramshackle little place in a primo location. Pros? Location, location, location? Cons? It’s a ramshackle little house. The other? Quite a nice little house in a not so primo location. Pros? Quite a nice little house. Cons? Location, location, location. Sigh.
It was raining as B. dropped me at my car. As I rolled out of the parking lot, I noticed something funky about the way the old Tercel was handling. At the light, I looked out to see my front right tire was a flat as the proverbial pancake. I called B. who wasn’t quite home and he drove back to keep me company as I waited for AAA to arrive. “There’s yer problem right there,” said the remarkably cheerful and efficient mechanic, pointing to a screw embedded in my tire. “That’s not supposed to be there!” I said and the mechanic laughed.
Broken houses, broken cars. My website was broken for a bit until I found the stray tag in yesterday’s post. Sometime next week the sewer company is breaking ground (again) in our backyard to fix our (still) broken line. “Give yourself a break,” I think. “This is just February, a broken time of year.”
On the plus side, the air smells like spring and as I walk through my neighborhood, I see crocuses breaking through the wet ground.
[tags]Seattle real estate, flat tire[/tags]
For the fearless, here’s me, singin’ the blues. It’s classic that I learned to play about, oh, 20 minutes ago. One (and only) straight take, no post production.
Lighting Round
Saturday, February 10th, 2007Yep, there was a Fish Wednesday, but it wasn’t hugely exciting - though it did feel clever to find all that stuff in the kitchen and make it happen. Dinner? Pasta with tuna, capers, and the last of the summer tomatoes. Yum.
I really hope the democratic candidates spend more time telling me what they are going to do right than they do telling me what their opponents are doing wrong. I know that stuff already.
The Travvies are here. Go nominate your favorite blog about traveling and hurry up, okay?
I am returning my third Tivoli iSongBook to the manufacturer. The third one! How much do I want to lie in bed listening to podcasts? SO much. So much that I believe I will, some day, get a working iSongbook, dammit. The Tivoli folks are actually really nice.
Yes, we are talking about moving to Munich. We’ll know more later this week. The jury is out.
Events lately have conspired to make me question the idea of karma. My eyes are open for something to restore my faith in this concept.
Car Talk
Wednesday, January 31st, 2007Ever since some person who’s going to be in the same circle of hell that’s reserved for bicycle thieves hit the Tercel, I’ve been noodling over the idea of a new car. Not a NEW new car, but a new to me car. A newer car, shall we say.
I have shopped for cars exactly once in my time on planet Earth - and that was when I got the Tercel. I wasn’t even really shopping for a car, I’d just decided that I’d lived long enough without one and I was walking around my neighborhood and there he was, the Yodler. I bought him the same day that the owner put the for sale sign in the window. I’ve got his birth certificate - in Japanese - and every single record of every single oil change etc etc amen. The first time I took him in for an oil change the guys at the shop - they’d been working on Yodler since he was brand new in 1985 said this: “You’ve got Marsha’s car! You got the better end of that deal, no matter what you paid.”
Yodler carries a ton of camping gear, he is hopelessly reliable, he works as a kitchen when it’s raining and your campground doesn’t have a cook shelter, and he gets outstanding mileage for his 21 years. He’s compact, so it’s not hard to park him here on parking challenged Capitol Hill. Given all those qualities, what I’m looking for in a new car is pretty specific. In a perfect world, I’d find a well loved, low mileage, 1985 Toyota Tercel Wagon.
That’s not going to happen, so we’ve been shopping and I’m pretty disappointed at the offerings. I really like the Yaris, it’s super cute, but it’s just too small to suit my needs. I like the Matrix, but it doesn’t get the mileage that the Yaris gets. I like the Subaru wagons, but they seem to come with too much engine, which means lousy fuel economy, and it’s not easy to find one that isn’t all wheel drive, and excuse me, I do not need that. And all of those things are quite expensive, and I am a fiscal conservative. I ain’t buying a car that I can’t afford and I ain’t working for my car. Man.
The closest thing to acceptable so far has been the dull as dirt but well reviewed Ford Focus Wagon. I sat in one yesterday and I can’t say I loved it. I really liked the Passat wagon, man, that’s a nice car, but how can a car that’s 10 years newer than mine get half the mileage? I’m aggravated by the fact that most cars we’ve seen don’t come close to offering the fuel economy of my 1985 Tercel. And those that I can afford are too teeny and the hybrids are out of my budget.
Yo, Detroit. Yo, Toyota. Yo, auto manufacturers! I want a small four door hatchback that is reliable, fuel efficient, and doesn’t require me to take out a second mortgage. I would buy a diesel if I could find one, I’d buy a hybrid if it came in the configuration I want. It’s clear I’m not too picky, after all, my favorite car ever is a 1985 Tercel. Could someone get with the program, please? On the short list but not in the budget? The Honda Fit and the Toyota Matrix.
Current plan? Keep the Tercel a little longer and save more pennies. While I’m saving my pennies, maybe a new generation of smaller, fuel efficient econoboxes will hit the market. Here’s hoping.
You think I’m crazy? Check out this poem to an 87 Tercel.
[tags]Toyota Tercel Wagon[/tags]
