It's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegone . . .

Well, not really.

Let's see . . . Some time ago (I think, actually, that it was only last week), we had a call from the Bonnens, who were in the state - in East Lansing, in fact - visiting Clarence's parents. Emil, Emma and I cruised up for a wonderful afternoon's visit (Emil and Kate played tennis, and Emil got his clock cleaned - he said later that she was the best tennis player he's ever played), followed by a nice dinner with Clarence's parents, who are lovely people. It was fun to watch Emma, Kate, and Ben pick up where they left off some fifteen years ago . . . We've seen them a few times over the years but not enough really to explain how those kids manage to reconnect the way they do.

On Saturday, I went to a Toledo Mud Hens game with the students from the summer ESL program. That was wa-aaay fun! It's just very neat to get a chance to talk to them outside of class and to find out what their lives were like in their home countries. It's pretty clear from talking to the Chinese students that China's economy is booming, and they are the beneficiaries of the economic good fortune. They're optimistic, enthusiastic, and the world is their great big oyster . . . I really like working with them. I doubt I'll be able to continue next year, which is a pity because it's really fun.

Then on Sunday, Rob arrived. Yay!!! Rob is in transit; he spent a few days with us on his way back to Detroit and then on to an island off the coast of Maine (very close to Boothbay Harbor, in fact - where Emil and I lived for a decade one year many years ago), and then up the Kennebec to Augusta, where he starts his new job at the local University of Maine campus. It was wonderful to see him. I wish I could have hung out more, but alas, I had to work . . . Nonetheless, we managed to have dinner at Emma's and my favorite Thai restaurant (which Rob proclaimed better than anything on Guam), and to squeeze in trips to all the local thrift stores. Unfortunately, when Rob left for Guam, he gave all his sweaters to his mother to store, but she seems to have either mislaid them or given them away. (Oddly enough, the very same thing befell our sweaters when we went to Maine . . . we moved [almost] all of our worldly possessions in a Volkswagen beetle, leaving our sweaters in the safekeeping of others, hoping that the sweaters could be shipped to us in time for fall. But alas, when the time came to send them, the people who kept the sweaters couldn't find them. We got them back when we returned from Maine, went over to their house, and located them . . . but I digress.) At any rate, I love going to thrift stores with Rob. Sometimes I can find those places depressing, but not with Rob. He got a bunch of long-sleeved shirts and a fabulous Harris tweed blazer (for $6. He was irked, because he'd never paid more than $5 for a Harris tweed before. I had to remind him that this is Ann Arbor, after all . . . ). I scored a cool Columbia fishing shirt, an LL Bean rugby shirt, and assorted slacks. (I always manage to find lots of nifty clothes when I shop with Rob, too.)

Rob left us Tuesday evening, and since then it's been much work and cleaning of the house. We've got a long list of tasks to accomplish, and we're just working our way through them. It's a very high-anxiety time around here these days because the real estate market in A2 has flattened out just as badly as it has in the rest of the U.S. - last week, not a single house sold in the city. There are four houses in our price range for sale on our block-and-a-half-long street. Two of them have been up for sale all summer, and they've only seen a handful of potential buyers.

So we're starting to think about the ramifications of not being able to sell our house. Since the point of the move was to lower our expenses because this house is too expensive for us to manage on my income alone, the thought of signing on the dotted line and buying another house is starting to seem downright foolish. Whatever gas prices do next year, they can't possibly equal the cost of this mortgage . . . The prudent course would have been (would be?) to sell this house and then buy one in Lansing, that's for sure. If we back out at this point, in addition to losing our deposit, we'd look like idiots. But that has never stopped me from doing anything . . .

We're supposed to close on the house up there next Friday. Next Sunday, we have an open house down here. Also next week, Emil will learn whether he's gotten the job he interviewed for the week before last . . . (did I mention that before?). So the range of possibilities goes like this:

• If he doesn't get the job and we don't sell the house, we have two houses and one job, which spells Economic Catastrophe in relatively short order. I can't stand the idea of decimating our savings over this; when I can't sleep at 4 am, that's what I think about. We're tempted to see if we can delay closing on the new house until we find out for sure about the job, since the timing will be very close but not to our benefit as it stands right now. (Probably what would happen here, our luck being what it is, is that we'd pull out of the house deal, then discover he'd gotten the job, and then we'd not be able to get the house back, or we'd get it back at a much higher interest rate.)
  
  
• If he gets the job but we don't sell this house, we have two houses and two jobs. Not great, but we won't be marching steadily to the poorhouse, anyway.
  
  
• If he gets the job and we sell the house, we have two jobs and one house, which at this point looks like Winning the Lottery. Since it's starting to look like the sale of this house and purchase of the other is not going to be the break-even deal we'd hoped for (nay, planned on, those few short months ago when the buying and selling of houses seemed like a routine matter), having lots of extra cash to quickly make up the difference would be just wonderful.
  

This is all way more excitement than I'm really up for, truth to tell. And it's a lot of work, too; we spent the day in a flurry of cleaning, since we had a showing this afternoon (at the hottest part of what turned out to be the hottest day of the summer so far . . . I'm not pleased, because the sunroom does tend to get a bit warm when it's 92 in the shade). I was supposed to spend the day grading, as my online class winds up this week. I simply have too much going on right at the moment, and I'm starting to feel the stress. I still have only been to the pool twice this summer. Grrr.

On the plus side, Emma is all registered for fall classes, and she seems very enthusiastic to be starting school again.

Also on the plus side, tonight Emil and I saw Scoop, Woody Allen's new movie . . . and I absolutely loved it. I thought the plot was really well done, and I don't remember the last time I laughed so hard at a movie. Yes, it was Woody Allen doing his typical nebbish shtick - but still, he was really funny, and Scarlett Johanssen played a great character. (I read a review in Entertainment Weekly that panned this film, saying it wasn't nearly as good as Match Point - but actually I thought it was way better. I thought Match Point was extremely forgettable . . . )

Anyhow, that's the news from here. With any luck, I'll get that grading done tomorrow . . .