Act Two: "Houston, We Have a Problem."
Act Three: "Sugar Shack"
I've probably said it before, but I'm a "summer" and Anna is a "winter." Anders is a combo, but likely a bit more like Anna. He loves sun, but prefers cooler days. The weather has been gloomy and cool since I've been in MN, which Anna loves.
On Monday things changed as we flew to Houston. Anna kept saying "this is your time!" Anna was excited for me because the trip encompassed so many things I love: travel, warm weather, time zones, airports, light rail, the Sun Belt, among other things. I was reaganing, hitting everything right on cue. Anna said, "You're right" on Monday more than she says that in half a year. For example, despite a tight connection, I guided us precisely to a Dunkin Donuts in another concourse. We hit the rental car shuttle at Houston Hobby right in stride. After that our (my) luck changed on a dime.
I anticipated an upgrade, but we got the standard Chevy Aveo. Then I got hopelessly lost as I tried to get from Hobby to I-45. According to Houstonians, this was a very difficult accomplishment. I wandered into an area where people were staring at me from their cars. We then drove to my deferred Father's Day supper at a solid Greek restaurant that was featured on the Food Network show with that annoying guy from the TGI Fridays commercials who Bobby Moynihan impersonates on Saturday Night Live. It was good. Anna threatened to leave me for her gyro. I had a heckuva time getting there as I almost missed my exit, which I would have done had I not stopped in my lane, flashed the blinker until someone let me in. I heard about that move, but I was worried that I would be lost in the Houston Vortex.
Houston streets were brought to you by the people who made Hennepin Ave. in Minneapolis and named streets in England. If you've tried to navigate in England or Houston, you know that most streets have at least two names, sometimes three names and they change name without warning. Also, people do not seem to be acquainted with the alternate name of their street, which only adds to the confusion. Conversely, there are some streets that go on in a straight line forever, such as the main street of St. John's, Westheimer, which by most accounts urban explorers are still attempting to find its terminus in the western Houston exurbs. So, it ends up being like Wichita and Salisbury, England had a child who grew up to be the Houston street pattern.
After dinner, Mapquest took me to our motel, which should have been just off the freeway. Instead the street ended abruptly, I got out of the car and wandered through a road construction site to search for the HoJo. No luck. Anna called home, we got the number of the HoJo, and we found the street a couple of blocks over. Anna was incredulous that HoJos still existed. After our stay, I wish they didn't.
Despite its location, the room itself was nicer than expected. The bed would become my torture chamber over the next three nights. Neither of us slept the first night, and I can sleep anywhere from the nastiest Econolodge to a rundown, dirty Warsaw hostel. I could not sleep here. The bed was soft in the middle and hard on the edges. It was like a donut or the state of Ohio. Anna notice two small holes in the curtains that were spaced like eyes, one of which was blinking or "winking" at us. The second night I pretended to be sleeping on a water bed, that coupled with exhaustion allowed me to sleep. I, however, awakened Wednesday with the most severe high back pain I can remember.
Tuesday morning we met our realtor, Mary, whose daughter teaches at St. John's and whose grandchildren attend the school. You might ask why we would need a realtor for a rental, well, read on. She showed us about 20 places in Houston based on price and location parameters. We were trying to stay within a reasonable distance from school. By the end of the day, we had narrowed it down to a couple of choices. Mary suggested we go back and look at the areas around our picks to see where we might go grocery shopping or the parks to which we might take Anders.
This trip to southwest Houston was illuminating. Most of the places around our top choices had check cashing and payday loan locations in multiple languages along with the odd "Cash for Gold" stores. Even if the houses were fine, these would not be neighborhoods where Anna would feel safe taking Anders out on walks. I would have likely still done so since I'm oblivious and stubborn.
The stress of being away from Anders on no sleep in 104 degree heat on a day where we looked all day but found no place where we'd be comfortable finally got to Anna. She shut it down for the day. I worked with my department head--Wendall, the HR director--Audrey, and Mary to fix the situation over dinner with Wendall. Have you ever had an avocado stuffed with cheese and chicken? If not, I highly recommend it. We decided the answer to our housing problem was to look in the same direction, but just past Houston in the SW suburbs, particularly Sugar Land.
Sugar Land remains the head quarters of Imperial Sugar. I can imagine the flat fields as a sugar plantation before they turned into suburban developments. Sugar Land had some of the first planned developments in the Houston area. As haphazard as Houston was, Sugar Land was meticulous. Houston is a city that prides itself on a lack of zoning laws. This notion blew Anna's orderly Minnesota mind. We we looked in Houston we could not find a proper grocery store beyond a corner Salvadorian market. There were no movie theater, no Target, you get the idea.
Sugar Land has all of that including a mall, a Whole Foods, a Pot Belly Sandwich Works, and Kroger Signature, which is a step of from the already super-nice Athens Kroger. Sugar Land is also the home of "The Hammer," convicted Former House Majority leader and pest exterminator Tom Delay, a man so awful W couldn't stand him! Sugar Land also does not have the standard corporate colors of the box retailers, no red Target bull's eye, no orange Home Depot sign, no yellow and blue Best Buy sign. The stores are brick and the signs are all a kind of bronze color.
We looked at about ten places out there on Wednesday. There were no scary neighborhoods and most of the places we saw were at least acceptable. Anna and I both found favorites. Fortunately, her favorite was my second choice and my favorite was her second choice. We decided that her favorite would be our first choice.
We learned a lot about renting a house in post-2008 crash America. It is a cut throat, competitive game. We would not have a place if not for Mary. Going into this world without a realtor would be akin to entering a knife fight with a toothpick. We found out Wednesday night that our first choice, which had been on the market for a few days had 18 showing and 6 offers, of which we were 3rd or 4th best. We subsequently created a long list of places where we could live and ranked them according to preference. A couple of those were gobbled up yesterday. Our second choice had another offer with which we were competing.
Once we decided to go all out for our second choice (my 1st choice), we had to move fast. We were at Mary's house until 10:30 pm Wednesday night procuring and filling out paperwork including credit reports and credit scores. Mary has a lovely house just west of Rice.
Yesterday was a travel day for us. We woke up at 3:30 am. I found the airport without much incident. We departed at 6:30. In Atlanta at 9:30 EDT, I was calling St. John's and Mary trying to get my contract faxed to her and work on other elements of this particular rental application. Anna drafted a letter on the tarmac to our potential land lady that would make our case as good tenants. We arrived in blustery Minneapolis at 1 pm CDT and trained to Mandy's house where Anna typed the letter and emailed to Mary and her dad. We then drove to North Memorial Hospital where Greg works to fax the amended contract to Mary and edit our land lady letter. He sent the letter, but Greg could not send a long distance fax from work. We left NW Minneapolis and drove out to Maple Grove to find a Kinkos. The self serve fax machine was broken. I called my friend Ben Rudolf in an attempt to find a functioning fax machine. Ben is a great emergency contact because he is always near a computer and he usually answers his phone, which is rare in this day and age. Kinkos took the fax to the back and got it faxed.
Then last night, we sweetened the pot by adding a second year to the lease and upping our pet deposit. We were pulling out all the stops. This morning, I drove down to Elk River early to send another fax adding the second year to our contract. I got a call from Mary an hour ago saying that we have locked down the place we wanted. Whew!
Mary said this level of competition and the amount of documentation needed to rent has amped up in the past six months. Mary's last rental six months ago was not like this. Mary deals primarily in buying and selling houses and I'm guessing her experience is with more upscale places. She really went to bat for us and worked diligently and competently for us at all hours. We are grateful for her. It was easier to buy our house in Athens in 2006 than to rent a house now in Sugar Land.
We are in a great neighborhood, just a half a block for our community pool and tennis courts, to which we will have a key. There are sidewalks everywhere. You can't sneeze without hitting a school out there. It's relatively lush out there. There are tree lined boulevards everywhere.
The food down there is amazing. We had an amazing meal of Texas seafood on Wednesday night to celebrate. We had a Tex-Mex shrimp cocktail that was remarkable and mesquite grilled fresh seafood.
Anders is up, gotta go. It's off to Sugar Land next month!
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