Help me Rhonda

For the third weekend in a row, we’d made plans to view the homes we ‘hearted’ between Zillow and Redfin with our ‘cool Grandma energy’ realtor, Rhonda.

We’ve spent the last twelve months in a rental home that has sprinkled us with sadness and a dividing living space, peppered with hundreds of giant house spiders and the kind of disappointment that had us stop unpacking after a couple weeks.

Why bother, we glumly, collectively thought. We can’t stay here, knowing that fact fully within our unimpressed, exhausted hearts. If I were in “A Tale of Two Cities” deciding what kind of times we were in, I can guaran-damn-tee these were the worst of times, the holidays absolutely fueling our winter of despair.

I wrote about ’em, my holiday edition, if you want to read pure insanity.

Once we got through the harrowing experience of getting pre-approved for a loan we’d set right to work finding homes that could help us rest finally. My husband had a realtor he wanted to work with and I acquiesced reluctantly, hoping that honestly whatever realtor we found would work quickly, be an expert negotiator, and most importantly tell me what to look for. The hell do I know about crawlspaces and the like? Heckin’ nothing. I looked forward to having my hand held for my first home-buying experience and then buying a house with my family in tow.

Rhonda was typically dressed sporty, in leggings and a smart puffy vest or leggings with a handsome windbreaker, always with shoes that slipped on and off easily so as not to track on any of the house’s carpets or hardwood flooring. Her Kirkland-brand black socks tip-toeing with us through all those houses’ proverbial tulips while we inspected each residence’s merits.

“So I know you wanted to see that Grennan house, but the sellers aren’t letting us do that today,” she’d start almost before a hello, shoving her “cheat sheets” of houses for the day into our hands. When her phone rang it was the Beach Boys’ jam “Help Me Rhonda” on a loop of the chorus; she would grin when I grinned, and look concerned when I was concerned. It felt like she was on our side and when we first met she gripped my hands in hers, promising that she’d find us a home we’d just love and not to worry, honey, her chunky blond and red highlights bouncing, her lined face kind with motherly affection.

When we drove way up north to Mount Vernon we nervously poked through a decrepit house whose basement-level beams were propped up by a single crutch, a house that said it had acreage but whose backyard could double as a postage stamp, as well as a home that had creepily set up a top-to-bottom black iron cage in the backyard, easily big enough to house four fully-grown men. We shuddered to imagine the dog that had to be housed there, or worse – the bad human.

When we walked into the lake house, Rhonda quietly but firmly told me she’d be keeping her shoes on here, followed by a breathy yikes. We did the same. The carpet looked to be decades old, sometimes bunched up in the best cases, splotched with either bong water or blood in the worst. We tenderly wove through the cigarette smoke-stained hallway, careful not to touch anything as it looked.. sticky? The walls were either a garish burgundy set with a high gloss, cutting the beautiful wood walls with coral, pink, white, and mauve sectionals, or deep, midnight blue (also high gloss) and a quite shitty, shiny turquoise. I remarked to Rhonda what kind of money would come off the sale price if we thought human feces were on the wall. She visibly shuddered.

Is that vomit? I thought, poking my head into a closet. Always alarming when your best-case scenario is just vomit.

[Spoiler alert! It was absolutely vomit!]

When I walked out the front of the house to the deck, though, I knew I was in some trouble. It felt like we were on top of a mountain overlooking the lake and a luscious, rolling mountain that was still snow-speckled and untouched green. Mount Baker piped up just behind, stunning and white with snow. I pried my eyes away from this million-dollar view and looked to the right, greeted by a tree absolutely bedazzled by thousands of tiny, white blossoms.

Cherries. Dear God. Only my favorite fruit in the whole world, also the only fruit attached to a wound of a memory still tender from our last rental home; I had nursed a young but promising cherry tree over a couple seasons with money and love, then we were abruptly ejected from our home when the owners decided to sell and shockingly gave us thirty days to vacate. In the middle of a school year, too! It’s still a memory that smarts when I choose to think about it.

There was nothing I wanted more than a cherry tree in my forever home and this was a massive one, easily decades old and established; judging by the blossoms on it it was going to be a banger year. I stood beneath it, gazing in awe at the branches that seemed to go up for miles and the beautiful, knotted wood before me. It was a chilly day but I was warmed within just looking at that tree.

Instead of leaving the house with any level of excitement, we left with the general feeling of needing a shower. I ruminated to my husband that the house could be beautiful, but did we have the skills to turn that abject shit show into a home? Did we have the handy skills necessary or was this simply out of our depth? We rode quietly to the next house. That view, though…

After my home-flipping, construction/remodeling experienced Uncle took a gander at the house the following weekend with us (and of course sweet Rhonda,) he told us to put an offer 50k less than asking and be prepared to go up by 25. We did. The very next morning the sellers accepted, $50k less, no negotiations necessary.

As I type this, we’re now in about $25K to our remodel, learning every day about how to do literally everything you can do to a house in one intense, four-week crash course. I have quit my job without a plan, hoping fervently that since I seemed to have manifested the house I’d always wanted (with so much room to “customize”) that clearly the universe is telling me that I’m going in the right direction. To leap without knowing your landing is to gamble everything, sanity and life included.

I could be brave, or I could be deeply stupid. Here’s hoping that in any case, my family will be happily chomping on cherry hand pies while I rectify my hubris.