The Earth Moves (and other things do too)

We haven't been out to the Bungalow since Tuesday's earthquake, but I'm guessing if the house completely collapsed we would've been contacted by now!  Funny thing is, after we got ourselves outside and onto the front sidewalk, the first thing I thought of was not "how is my son faring after this earthquake, seeing as today is his first day at school?"  No, rather, it was "I sure hope the Maryland Historical Trust Board Meeting didn't have to be canceled!"  On Wednesday morning I shot off a polite-as-can-be-yet-completely-ants-in-the-pantsy email to Amy at MHT, asking how Tuesday went.  Her response makes me tentatively hopeful:

We were actually in the middle of the Easement Committee meeting when the quake hit.  We did review your Application and the Committee will have recommendations/comments shortly.  I wanted to let you know that a site visit was requested by Easement Committee members so that they could see the house and be better informed when reviewing future Applications.  Renee and I will contact you (or Rory?) shortly to arraign a site visit for early September.

A shot of Leo (or is it Theo?) in our
Great Room, by Michael G. Stewart

The part I, as a hopeful applicant, picked out of that statement was the "recommendations/comments" part.  And the fact she didn't say "the Committee laughed in the face of your application, and your house fell down because of the earthquake."  I'm hoping you all see the same potential conditional acceptance reflected in this reply I did.



Besides the movement represented by MHT's partial answer, we also got a partial batch of pics back from Laurie and Michael, the two photographers who were in the Bungalow on Saturday.  (And I have to correct something I said earlier: Michael is not Laurie's assistant; he is a photographer in his own right, and found it amusing I referred to him as such.  Sorry, Michael!)  Anyhow, Michael sent me a few really cool pics he took of the place.  My favorite is of Theo (or is it Leo?) in front of our fireplace.  Check it out.



A shot looking up at the ceiling in the Dining Room
section of the Great Room, by Michael G. Stewart



Finally, there's some more possible movement on the neighborhood home-sales front.  According to local real-estate websites, the Swiss Chalet has been put under contract.  For those of you who may not know, the Swiss Chalet, which is located on the edge of the Seminary property right next to the Chinese Pagoda, is the house that initially drew us here.  We toured that house-- absolutely gorgeous, but in even more desperate need of help than the Bungalow-- first, then looked at the Pagoda next door.  It was only after that, when I was hooked on the former, and Abby was hooked on the latter, that Marc, the realtor showing the places to us, suggested we walk through the tunnel and see the Bungalow.  So, for better or worse, we owe our being here in the first place to the Swiss Chalet.  Danke schön!

The Swiss Chalet: the younger, more expensive, and
in-worse-shape "Alpine" version of the Bungalow



Taking pictures, crossing fingers

Interesting weekend with the Bungalow, in that it involved others availing themselves of the house without needing me around.  Yesterday, while Abby played the model parent helping Isaac's new school do last-minute set-up stuff (I think it's called "barn raising?"), I took the kids to the Bungalow so a local photographer could do a shoot inside.  I had seen her stuff while doing online searches of the place, and had commented about liking some of it on her blog.  She wrote back and asked if she could shoot inside, and I didn't see the harm, so yesterday happened.  She showed up with an assistant and they took about two hours to shoot, while the kids and I rode bikes outside until we were sweating too much, then headed inside to the community room, ostensibly to play foosball and pool.  But it was Saturday morning, and some kids that lived in the apartments were watching cartoons, so invariably my kids sat leaning against the foosball and pool tables, transfixed with the images on the tv screen.  (Pokemon: what a ridiculous cartoon...)  Once the kids left, I switched it to something more palatable for me, and enjoyed the air conditioning.  In a week or so, I'll be able to see some of the shots she did, and hopefully they'll be linkable so I can put them up here, but in the meantime you can see the photographer's stuff at her blog, Laurie's Lane.  Her assistant also has an interesting website, and says he's shot album covers for local bands on the grounds of the Seminary, which would definitely be cool to see.

Today we went to Six Flags, but my friend Dave, who works for State Farm Insurance,  told me he wanted to see the place.  So I gave him the combination to the lockbox and hoped he wouldn't find some terrible reason we shouldn't have bought the place-- a reason the home inspector and the general contractors missed.  I trust him because he's been an interested bystander (and frequent contributor) to our current house in its various states, and because of his professional background.  He came over afterwards and had interesting and constructive things to say, but nothing like the crazy awful things we were fearing, so yay!  (And no, Dave's not the holding-punches kind of guy...)  He did mention it was funny we had two lockboxes on our door, yet some of the window panes were knocked out and, if you really wanted to, you could just reach in and unlock the door from the inside.  (It's like I teach in Botswana: it's the appearance of security that matters!)

We're still crossing our fingers for Tuesday's board meeting, after which I've convinced myself the Maryland Historical Trust is going to call me personally to gush over our wonderful plans.  That, or there are 1000 things we left off the forms, and we have to redo it all and spend another 45 days waiting until the next meeting.  (I already know we forgot to talk about removing the paneling from the basement, and talking to Dave has me second-guessing our room placement again...  Argh!)  But no matter: it'll be another 36 hours until the board meets, and it could be up to two weeks before we hear their results.  I asked Abby to bake some cookies and show up at the meeting, but she says she doesn't think showing up with baked goods as well as two screaming kids would help our cause.  I say bake a second batch and stuff the kids to stop the screaming, but she says I'm crazy.