The Closing

Are 2 1/2 hour closings typical? Do lawyers usually put the buyer and seller in separate rooms and run hurriedly between conferences? Is it good when the sellers attorney says he thinks the title agent is "wrong?"

Disclaimer: our prior experience with closings is exactly 1. That closing (in New Hampshire) was fairly smooth. We all sat around a table, the seller brought her infant son, we signed some papers, a few checks were passed around and we left the meeting with a couple silver keys.

So the outcomes were the same. We left the closing with a few keys and the creeping realization that some mortgage company actually let us finance a couple hundred thousand dollars. It was almost like we got away with something...like at the end of The Usual Suspects when Verbal Kint slowly becomes Keyser Söze.

We drove to our new house and took it in. It looked bigger. There are projects, to be sure, not the least daunting of which will occur in the kitchen. But it seems manageable for some reason. After a few minutes alone, Matt (our friend and contractor) pulled up and we got to work with what would be done. My mom and Robert brought cold champagne and tortilla chips and guacamole (an excellent combination, by the way). Mike and Caitlin soon arrived, Mike with a housewarming gift of every power tool we'd need for the various projects detailed in a how-to book from the mother.

Sitting around - actually, standing, as we have no chairs yet - sipping champagne, looking around at that we change and what we leave...that's what made me enter this crazy world of blogging. And by the way, blogosphere is on my list of most hated words. I will not be using it.


So here it is!