The bird, the bird is the word

It’s that time.  Season, as those in the restaurant world might say.  The birds are back.  Not these birds, fortunately, rather the South Florida Birds.  The white-haired, Estee Lauder-perfume-smelling birds.  The birds that forget to use their blinker and tend to always ride in the left lane.  Yes.  Those birds.  They’re not all bad birds, of course. 

JP propsed the question, “Would you pledge to never visit New York, if that meant one person (i.e., snowbird) couldn’t come to Florida in the winter?“  Since I’ve already been to New York, and the only person I know who lives there doesn’t live there anymore (NYGirl4EVA moved to Jersey! Ha!), I think my answer might be … yes?

In any event, the birds are also a sign of good things — holiday cheer, colorful lights, fattening foodstuffs, Publix commercials that make me cry.  The usual suspects.  With Thanksgiving over, it’s just a hop-skip away until Christmas … then NYE … then JP’s birthday ….  The pah-tay never stops, huh?

That’s not very Asian

I recently stopped by Fortune Cookie to pick up some foodstuffs.  Oriental foodstuffs, that is – as if you didn’t figure that out already.  I mean, come on, Fortune Cookie.  You know they’re not selling gnocchi here.  Cute-but-trite store names aside, I love going to this place.  It’s your typical asian grocery store.  The aisles are skinny and packed tight with more brands of soy sauce, mirin & rice wine than you could imagine being on one shelf.  Noodles are in every shape and size, and made of rice, buckwheat flour, or tofu.  And would you like those fresh, dry or frozen?  Because they have it.  And, instead of tomatoes and cucumbers in the veg section, there are fresh bunches of bok choy (bok choy, baby bok choy, Chinese bok choy…), huge daikon radishes, packages of brown & white beech mushrooms.  Not hungry?  Maybe you need a new dim sum steamer, or a pack of 50 chopsticks, or some sake.  

On one of my recent trips to Fortune Cookie, I had the pleasure of meeting the owners.  

“$13.99″ owner said. 

So, I handed him my credit card.  He swiped the card, read the front of it and quickly looked at me with an interesting grimace. 

“Cara.  Your name?  That’s not very Asian,” owner said. 

“Right.  Ok.  Well, that’s my name,” I replied with a smile.  I didn’t want to jump into the I-was-adopted details at the moment.  What did he expect?  Ling?  Sumiko?  Yin? 

“And, what’s your name?” I asked.

“David.  And that’s my wife, Donna.”

Well, well…that’s not very Asian.

Buying a house is crazy

You know those moments in life when you realize, Shit, I am an adult now.  And, trying to buy a house is definitely one of them.  I’ve always proclaimed to be a Renter-for-Life; it’s just easier.  The toilet breaks.  Call the landlord.  See a bug?  Call the landlord.  Air con not working.  Call the landlord.  You get what I’m saying.  Renting allows you to stave off a bit of responsibility for awhile. 

Ahh, but then reality thumps you in the arse.  Reality says, “Girrrl, get out of your apartment!” [yes, my reality says "girrrl" and is slightly ghetto] and then it reminds me, ”That dog next door is crazy and annoying!”

Then I try to comeback with, “But I can walk to Publix and the Library!”

Reality always wins, though.  Thus, Justin and I started the process of looking for a house about a month ago.  What an eye opener.  I’ve come to better understand just how the housing market got to be in the shitter.  Fraud and foreclosure are buzzwords.  Short sale signs are everywhere.  It’s a jungle out there!  And that $8,000 federal tax credit for first-time homebuyers?  I think a round of double dutch might be easier.   

But, alas! we stumbled upon a little foreclosure casa around the first of the month.  We walked in and our realtor said, “I hope you brought your checkbook!”  We signed a contract that day.

About a week later, we got the verbal OK on the sale from the bank   We started gathering paperwork and money like chipmunks that stumbled upon a pile of acorns.  However, apparently the bank was having “tech problems with their software” and couldn’t “produce the addendum just yet.”  I don’t know if this is standard bank bullshiz and translated is “We are slow.”  In any event, in the meantime, the bank did take care of cleaning and acid washing the pool (yes! a pool!).  And they pressure cleaned the driveway as it was a violation the house had from the city.  Finally, about 3 weeks later (that is, this Tuesday), we finally received the long-awaited addendum. 

Are you exhausted yet?  Because I am.  This is stressful, albeit exciting.  But, stressful.  It’s a huge purchase.  We’re not talking splitting up CD collections anymore.  This is the stuff of grown folks!  Are we ready for this?!  Do we even really like South Florida that much?  Would we raise a kid here?  Will our cat like the new place?  All of these questions have no answers yet.  But, so goes the process in buying a house.  

I’ll keep you posted!  Fingers crossed!

South Florida National Cemetary

Not that it’s a topic that surfaces often, but when I hear “national cemetary” I think “Arlington.”  Who knew there were actually 130 national cemetaries in 39 states?!  I didn’t.  And Florida has 7 of them.  JP & I went to check out the South Florida National Cemetary…well, because we had nothing else to do that day.  It’s pretty cool, though, to see that South Florida is using a bit of land for something other than a  residential community or strip mall.