Kindly Póg Mo Thóin

I’m currently renting in my own home.

The closing was Wednesday. It got started late because the buyer’s attorney went to the property manager’s office in Bay Ridge rather than the transfer agent’s office in Borough Park. Then the representative from the buyer’s bank had another closing and couldn’t come until much later, but the transfer agent will only schedule closings for 11 a.m. at his office.

Which was a trip, let me tell you. The transfer agent is Hasidic, and the office is in the basement of what appears to be a residential building. The room where the closings happen looks like it was a kitchen at one point, and there was a refrigerator and stove nearby, and an ironing board in the corner. There was a lot of yelling in Yiddish going on in the other room, and every now and again, a door behind where I was sitting opened up and someone — usually a woman in a housecoat and a turban — came in and, without saying hello or excusing herself, went to the refrigerator and rooted around. I wasn’t sure what they were getting, because the fridge looked empty to me.

Then you had the buyer’s attorney and broker, who were Very Manhattan. The rep from my bank came from Westchester, the rep from the buyer’s bank was from Queens, my attorney was born-and-raised Brooklyn, and my broker lives in my building but was from Arkansas and raised in Dallas.

In the end, all went well, it clocked in at less than two hours, and I walked away with more money than I’ve ever had in my hands at once. And immediately set to work paying bills.

Next step, a sublet for the month of June, then another for July. Then, if all works out, my dogwalker (whom I wound up not firing after all, for a variety of reasons) manages a building in Carroll Gardens and she’s got an apartment opening up August 1. And she can get me in regardless of my lousy credit and my pets. Yay!