It's back ...

There was a great skyscape outside my living room window tonight. The clouds look much more striking from a 9th-floor perspective.

That view was an antidote, of sorts, for the disappointing news that the contract on my old house fell through.

The young couple who were set to buy it apparently got cold feet. They nickel-and-dimed on the post-inspection modifications they wanted to make to the contract. My real estate agent suggested we opt out. I gave my okay.

So the house is back on the market. In fact, there was a showing this evening. And there is an open house coming soon.

Both the agent and I are optimistic. We're hoping we'll soon be getting a nibble or two from a willing buyer who understands that a well-kept 85-year-old house is never going to flaunt herself the way some new young thing might.

As in people, character counts.

Going, going, gone

The picture says it all.

Twelve days after I put my house on the market, we had a firm offer.

Three days later, we had a contract.

I'm awaiting the results of the buyer's inspection. Then will come the appraisal by the buyer's lender. The latter shouldn't be a problem, since a house almost identical to mine on the same block sold this summer, and we priced my house accordingly.

If all goes well, closing should be in early September.

Coincidentally, I bought the house myself exactly 33 years ago this September. I say "coincidentally," because we didn't plan the sale that way. That's just how it turned out.

Several friends have asked if I miss living in the house. I do, but I have no regrets. I miss the deck and the yard most of all. One step out of the kitchen door led me to a yard that the real estate agent called "park like" in her listing. I spent 33 years whipping what was a bare space into shape with plantings of althea, acuba, lilac, hydrangea, deutzia, mock orange and butterfly bushes, as well as exotic lilies, azaleas in a panoply of colors, and dogwood and fig trees. I planted crape myrtle trees that are now blooming in reds, pinks and lavenders.

One of the crape myrtles was only a bare stick with scraggly roots when I bought it at a grocery store 20 years ago for 99 cents. It's about 12 feet tall now. The variety is called peppermint, and the blossoms are each hot pink and white, like a peppermint candy. I'd never seen that variety before, and I haven't seen anything quite like it since.

And now, somebody else will have a chance to enjoy it all.

I'm at peace with that.

Alarming

So I'm having a cup of coffee and reading the newspaper the other evening and this ear-splitting alarm sounds. It was my first fire alarm here in my new high-rise apartment. I knew what to do: I headed for the stairwell and gathered there with other residents to await instructions.

A lot of people were obviously dressed in winding-down mode, although it was still fairly early by my standards. There were some men and women in pajamas and bathrobes. Others of us were in casual clothes -- me in a T-shirt and jeans and flip-flops, others in sport shirts and khakis and sneakers. We chatted for a while, shouting a bit to be heard above the blaring alarm. One of the women in a bathrobe said she was taking a shower when the alarm began sounding. Her wet hair was wrapped in a towel. She was clearly not happy.

There was no smell of smoke in the stairwell. About 4 or 5 minutes passed, and the alarm stopped. We heard voices from the floors above and below us, but nobody seemed excited, and nobody was evacuating from the floors above. The consensus was that it was a false alarm, and we ventured back to our apartments.

Cassie was hiding behind the couch with her ears laid back. She had clearly been really frightened by the loud noise. I sat down on the floor and reassured her, and she settled down, although she stuck close to me as I picked up the newspaper again.

Then came the sound of sirens growing closer, and as I watched at my window (from which I can see the main entrance to the building if I look straight down), a couple of fire trucks, a police car and a fire chief showed up. But nobody was hurrying. There was no laying of hose, no rushing into the building.

Then the piercing alarm started up again, but as soon as I got to my door, it stopped. Still, the scene below my window did not look like there was any emergency. The hallway was quiet; nobody was rushing to the stairwell this time. Firemen stood at the building's entrance, chatting.

I called the front desk to ask what was going on. Since it was after hours, I got a security guard who said he didn't know what was up either, but that I should not be too worried since the fire alarm had stopped and he had not been notified of any emergency. He told me, in essence, to stay alert.

The fire trucks stayed for about 30 minutes and then went away.

A couple of people were chatting in the lobby when I went down a while later to check my mailbox. They didn't know what had happened either. One of them told me that the most common cause of false alarms here is popcorn and microwave ovens. It seems people set their microwaves for too long and the popcorn begins to burn and smoke.

I eventually went to bed without knowing more. Maybe I'll hear something through the grapevine, or maybe from the management, which is fond of leaving flyers and notifications in the little wire baskets on the walls outside our doors.

Evidently it was nothing serious.

I did find out first-hand that there's no way I could miss a fire alarm here. It's really, really loud. And that's reassuring.

Why are there so many songs about rainbows?

I've never before lived in a building more than two stories tall.

Now I'm living in a ninth-floor apartment.

I love the views, from the sunrise most mornings to the sun painting its light across the treetops on clear evenings.

And, like this evening, I love the rainbows that sometimes arch across the firmament outside my window.

I took the picture above at about 7:30 p.m. I was reading a book (Jan Burke's "Kidnapped") and hadn't even noticed that it was raining. But when I finished my cup of coffee and headed for the kitchen, I looked out of my dining room window. There it was: an exquisite rainbow in the eastern sky.

Practical people accept the scientific explanation for rainbows: they're caused by the reflection of light in water droplets in the atmosphere acting as prisms. The more whimsical amongst us think that leprechauns hide their treasure at the end of rainbows. The Judeo-Christian belief is that after the Great Flood, a rainbow appeared as a symbol of God's promise that he would never send another.

Perhaps all of the explanations are true.

Whatever the reasons for their existence, rainbows are ... well ... just enchanting.

I took the picture above with a 8.0 megapixel Canon PowerShot A630 camera.

I took the headline for this post from a song sung by Kermit the Frog.

For sale

I deliberately did not drive by my old house today.

When I went by yesterday to sign a check for a contractor, the house looked so good that I almost wanted it back.

The hardwood floors downstairs have all been refinished, there's a new floor covering in the kitchen and pantry, and the pine floors upstairs are naked and gleaming for the first time in more than three decades. There's a new range and hood in the kitchen, the walls throughout have been painted a benign beige, and the trim is now a warm white.

Outside, the curb appeal has been improved with a couple of pots of caladiums and some mulch and by ripping out some ivy. (I took the picture above a few months ago to capture the azaleas and tulips in bloom.)

It all looked fresh and new.

Now there's probably a "for sale" sign out front. The two agents who are handling the sale, Erin Barton and JoanElaine Justice, told me yesterday that there would be an open house today from 4 to 6 p.m.

So I stayed clear of my old street -- even though I was curious -- because selling a house is not for amateurs. I'll make the decisions and write the checks (and eventually deposit a big check in my own account). Now it's time to let Erin and JoanElaine do the heavy lifting.

Little things ...

As I settle into my new space, it's the little things that are keeping me busy now.

A new shower caddy for my bathroom. A new bathmat for the guest bathroom. A trash can for the den. The list is a long one.

But I'm getting there.

I like the new apartment a lot. But I haven't developed the patterns and pathways yet. Coming out of the kitchen, I have to think about which way to turn to get to the linen closet. If I'm in the dining room, I have to stop for an instant and plot the way to the coat closet.

These things will become automatic -- quickly, I hope

But no matter where I live, there are touchstones in my life that go back to my boyhood.

Those of you who live in Richmond or have lived here know what a cause for celebration it is that Hanover tomatoes are beginning to come in. (Hanover is a county north of Richmond that is famed for its tomatoes; it has something to do with the soil.)

For lunch today in my new apartment, I had a Hanover tomato sandwich with Duke's mayonnaise on white bread. The first taste of the season's local tomatoes is an experience almost like ecstasy. When I was a child, my father taught me the ritual. We'd take a salt shaker out to the backyard garden, pick the first ripe, warmed-by-the-sun tomatoes from the vine, salt them and eat them right there on the spot. Does anything ever taste so delicious?

When I grew up and had my own garden, I continued to eat the season's first tomato in just that way.

Alas, I no longer have a backyard. But this year's first tomato, bought from a farmer's stand here in town, was just as good.

The little things can also bring great satisfaction.

Not yet the end

Last night was the first I spent here in my new apartment.

I slept well.

But the big adventure is not over.

Not by a long shot.

The picture is of the corner of the living room that looks the best tonight.

The art, which you can see stacked under the window, will be hung Monday afternoon. I'll have some expert help with that. It'll make a big difference in the way the place looks.

But there will still be a big empty space in the middle of the dining room. I have yet to buy a table; the table I used to have was too big for the space. Maybe I can go shopping next week. Right now, the "look" is spare. Or perhaps I should call it Minimalist.

The packers, movers and unpackers did a great job. They took photographs and kept records of where every item -- large or small -- was and ought to be. At one point I counted six people from the moving company at work in the apartment. They even brought the remote control to the alarm system at the old house and put it on the exact table in the precise spot here in my new home. I took it back to the old house today.

As they were leaving, the guys that handle the furniture turned around and came back when I decided I wanted a chest of drawers moved to a different spot. And this was at the end of a l-o-n-g day.

I'm finding everything I need. Sometimes it takes me a few minutes. It took me a while last night to find the bag of cat food. But once I stopped and thought about where it ought to be, I found it -- in the closet closest to Cassie's food bowl.

Speaking of Cassie, she's been busily exploring, apparently in 20 minute bursts. Then she'll settle down on my lap or near me until some sound or noise beckons, and she's off to investigate.

The cable installer came today, and was extremely knowledgeable about how to connect my TiVo, add a new cable card, reset the TiVo for a new cable system, and set up my wireless router to provide Internet service for my PC and my netbook.

But there are still so many little things to do before I sleep tonight.

And tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, too.