Our Trip to Our Nation's Capital

Well, we're back, and truth be told, we didn't much enjoy our trip to

DC, for a number of reasons. High on the list was Michele, even though
it was through no fault of hers. She set out, a couple of months ago,
to buy a house in Luftkin, where she had found and accepted a better
paying teaching position than the one in the giant chemical complex
around Beaumont. She identified a government program that would let
her buy a place with a tiny down payment, and asked us to help her
with that. We agreed, and as time went on, it became clear that, for a
number of reasons, that proposal wasn't going to pan out. So, she kept
shopping, and long story short, she got a FHA loan to put her and the
kids into a nice house in a nice neighborhood. However, all of the
horror stories you might have heard about FHA loans are true. They
investigated her finances, and ours, as though we were Russian
oligarchs AND drug lords trying to launder ill-gotten gains into a
$145K house in a small town in Texas. Although she had already
supplied extensive information to her mortgage broker of choice,
Quicken Loans, something went wrong inside Quicken, a new loan agent
was assigned, and she had to redo it on a quick quick basis,. right
down to Quicken contacting her previous landlord. The closing was
pushed back three times and we were all concerned that the sellers
would just walk away. The procedure also required me to furnish an
ocean of information, including statements from my banks for 60 days
prior to the money we gave to Michele, and detailing rental receipts
and deposits to my checking account of those receipts. Can't be too
careful about drug money, you know. We spend a couple of days in our
unit in Alexandria waiting to respond to last minute requests from
Quicken/FHA. It was pretty bad.  We eventually got it all done...the
deal closed on the 4th of October and we all breathed a sigh of
relief.
When we had done all we could do about the loan information, Kate and
I went off to the new Afro-American museum on the mall, the primary
focus of our trip: Turned out that we needed a timed ticket, just like
Disneyland. That took out another day because if you don't get your
ticket several MONTHS in advance, you had to go online at 0630 to get
a ticket for that day. Kate, good scout that she is, did that, and we
went. 

The place was horribly crowded, and after a couple of hours we
wanted to get lunch and take a break...........turned out that the
cafe in the place had a line out the door, and it was a big place with
lots of room for a line. We left. The high point, for me, of our visit
was my chat with a Mr. Davis.  Mr. Davis, who was of the Afro-American
persuasion himself, and I found ourselves on a bench outside the
ladies' room, awaiting our respective spouses. We fell into
conversation, wherein I learned that Mr. Davis had worked in food
service in a prison for 22 years. I'd didn't ask whether that was as
an employee or as an inmate. Anyway, he and his better half were on a
bus tour coming in from New Jersey, and he was enjoying it all a great
deal. He also thought the cafe there in the museum was well done, and
as he said, he ought to know. We didn't, because the line to get into
the cafe was long, long indeed. We went next door to the American
History Museum, had lunch there and then hobbled to the Metro and then
to the resort---neither of us is walking too well these
days.......we're considering cutting back, 'way back, on our travel.
Besides, Kate doesn't like being away from her cats.

Stay tuned for our next exciting adventure.
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