Fasten your seatbelts…

At the airport now, trying out the mobile interface for the blog on my iPhone – which, incidentally I didn’t get around to having hacked so I can put an Irish chip in it. Groan.

I’m sure there will be other things….ack! Just thought of another thing I forgot to do…(Nick, if you are reading this, I will send you a check for the parking tickets)

Anyway, I’m a little freaked out since im kind of headed into uncharted territory here, no idea what the future holds.

The fear/excitement of the unknown could be what is causing the mild chest pains I’m suffering from as I sit here listening to them calling various rows of my fellow passenger to board. It’s either that or I’m suffering from the after effects of the generous but rather extreme number of tequila shots that kept being presented to me last night in O’Reilly’s.

Quite a warm sendoff and full of surprise guests like my Mom who turned out in fine form and Leif and Sep and John Millott – unbelievable.

Oops, gotta run – boarding all rows.

Strangely Smooth

So this morning I had a chat with my managing broker about my heading off to Ireland for the foreseeable future.  I characterized it as “working from home” – except that home will be in Ireland for the time being, and “work” will mostly consist of my referring any incoming calls to other agents.  Jeff thought it was a great idea.  He was very excited for us and supportive and sent me to work out logistics with our office manager who was also surprisingly calm about the whole idea.  I say surprisingly because it’s Wednesday and they each said “So, when are you headed out?” and I said “Friday morning 8:00am” and nobody really thought that was all that strange. 

After the last post, I’ve gotten plenty of feedback about my notorious reputation for leaving unpleasant tasks to the last minute and then rushing rushing rushing to get everything done on time.  For me this is part of the “rip the band-aid off quickly” philosophy, but for other people in my life it is just plain stressful to watch or be a part of.

But today was obviously something of an exception: I totally left my office logistics to the last possible minute, but everything seems strangely smooth on that front.  Wierd.

Untethered

I don’t know if you saw the movie “UP” but there’s a moment when the little old man has attached all the balloons to his house and it pulls away from the foundation and starts to float into the air – untethered.   It is a powerful scene and an epic metaphor.  It is also what I feel like right now.

At first thought it seems like the house will lift off effortlessly now that it has enough balloons to float, (and I may be projecting my own ideas into my recollections here…) but the house does not just glide seamlessly into the air.  Each point at which it was attached to the foundation jars the house out of balance, it knocks stuff off the shelves, it tilts the picture frames, breaks the cherished mementos.  It turns out that even though the little old man attached all those balloons to his house, it is not all that easy to make a house float away into the air and it never goes smoothly and there are a few broken items along the way.

There will be loose ends I don’t tie up, and there will be miraculous resolutions to all sorts of unexpected things, but it is a certainty that at 8:00am on Friday I will be at the airport on a plane to Ireland.  It is also pretty certain that there will be people disappointed because they didn’t see us before we went, or people disgruntled because I forgot to get them that file or that signature, and I will have to scramble and impose in order to get it done from abroad.  I will apologize in advance for this, and try my best to avoid it, but at this point, it does seem likely that there will be loose ends that don’t get resolved before I go.

Mary and I call it “The Groans”, and it happens most often when one is lying in bed at night just about to fall asleep and your brain is reviewing the day and what you accomplished.  There is a moment when you realize that you didn’t call back that person and the call was critical to the deal and without thinking about it you vocalize a long, low, disappointed groan.   I have a feeling I may have a small case of “The Groans” as I nod fitfully on my Friday flight.

Nonetheless, I am mostly untethered already.  I guess I’m in the phase of the movie “UP” where the old man looks out the window and realizes the house is floating but there are still bits attached that keep yanking at the structure and upsetting the balance. 

I moved out of our apartment on Saturday morning.  And quite a bit into the afternoon actually.  Heidi was instrumental – to the point where I can safely say that I on my part, laziness, distraction or bad prioritization that caused me to delay any semblance of packing up the apartment prior to moving, but there you have it.

The tenants were scheduled to meet me at the property at 1:00pm Saturday to pick up the keys and move in.  In my optimistic imaginary universe, this would blend perfectly into the property tour that I was taking a client on from 10:00am to 12:00pm.  I thought to myself as I planned it ‘we’ll finish up the tour on Russian Hill, and then I’ll drive back to the Mission and have a few minutes to make sure the place is perfect for the new tenants.” 

In reality this went sort of like: “Get up at 5:45 shove everything that was in a closet into a large black contractor garbage bag, pull every one of the ten thousand wall-hanging paintings, masks and objets d’art off thehooks and run everything into the garage as fast as possible.  Realize at 9:15am in a full sweat that I need to get into my suit and go meet my clients and the agent who will be taking over for me and that I am nowhere near being ‘moved out’.  Call said tenants from car and delay move-in until 3:00pm.  Contact sister, try to organize for her help.  Tour clients.  Return at 12:30 get out of suit, continue running up and down stairs to garage for three more hours until apartment is empty.”

Another animated movie reference: remember the “Cat in the Hat”?  Remember how the cat and the kids destroy the house and then have to clean it up just before the parents get home.  It felt a little like that, the tenants kept texting that they were running little late, and I’d shout to Heidi “we have twenty more minutes!!” and we’d continue running up and down the stairs with stuff. 

Until there was no more stuff in the apartment.  And we sat down on the front steps.  And the tenants arrived, not knowing the herculean efforts that had been exerted in the preceding hours.

So I have become homeless for the time being.   Untethered as it were, so Heidi and I headed down the hill to Zeitgeist for a dose of the quintessentally (annoyingly) hipster, fixed-gear bicyclist, trendy mission vibe and a cold beer.

And then over to Oakland to spend the night with my parents.  More on this later.

 

Burning the midnight oil at both ends

It’s just before 11:00pm and as much as I want to go to sleep, I am still up trying to get a counteroffer out on a backup offer for Grove St before tomorrow. 

The day started at 5:00am when I had to drag my sleepy ass out of bed to go move Nick’s Giant Truck that I’ve been successfully parking around the area while I shuttle large objects in and out of my life.  Unfortunately, last night I had to park it in a 6:00am street cleaning spot since that was the only available place.

You may be asking why I had to get up a whole hour before I had to move the Giant Truck and that would be a good question.  The answer is that I had a phone interview with a guy in London at 6:00am and I needed to move the Giant Truck and be back, prepared, and caffeinated in order to sound “high-energy” enough on the phone to have a good conversation.

It seemed to go well and we set up a follow-up call for when I get to Ireland, so there’s my Monday meeting already in place.  Oh, I didn’t mention the plan: hit the ground running.  I don’t want to waste a minute once I get there and I wanted to set up meetings for the first day I arrive to establish in my mind, and those of the people around me that I am serious about finding gainful employment as soon as possible.

Anyway, I got that done this morning, before the rest of the day unfolded which now has included a counteroffer on my own house sale as well as submitting an offer on behalf of a client who I took on a four hour tour – in Nick’s Giant Truck. 

Tomorrow I’ve got all sorts of excitement: window people coming at 8:30 to install the new window, appliance people coming at 9:00 to install the new washer/dryer, Saturday’s tour to set up, Thursday’s offer to negotiate, and, oh, that’s right I’m supposed to pack up all my stuff and move out!!!  Ack!!! 

I better get to bed.