putting the 'ho' in HOA

Oh boy, there's nothing quite like turning 40 and becoming the president of your homeowners' association all in the same week to make you feel like, well, a 40-year-old home owner. Or maybe like someone's mom, except for that little detail of having forgotten to have children.

I hosted our first TIC (that is kind of like a co-op, for you non-San Franciscans) HOA meeting at my apartment on Thursday night, in part to discuss the solution to an unfortunate plumbing mishap on the other side of the building that is likely to cost one unit's owner (who hadn't even moved in yet) around $15,000 in repair costs. Part of the joy of sharing equally in a 6-unit building is that anything that goes wrong with the common parts of the building immediately becomes 1/6th your problem. Then again, you only have to pay for 1/6th of a gardener, so there are also some perks.

I'm pleased to report that my neighbors all seem nice, and a couple even seem like people you'd want to hang out with. I'm a little less pleased to report that the couple upstairs is due to contribute a new infant to the world in approximately one month. An infant whose nursery will be directly above my bedroom. Luckily (?) I already invested in a pricey white noise generator to drown out the 24-hour churchy elevator music and gospel preacher tapes from the near-deaf old lady below me (who is a renter left over from before the house renovation/selling of the remaining units).

Speaking of Downstairs Church Lady, right when I moved in last December I'd often see a guy maybe around my age sitting in the common area on the first floor talking on his cellphone. He was clearly somehow related to Church Lady, and was quiet and polite and seemed harmless enough. I hadn't seen him since those first couple of weeks, but thanks to a discussion at the HOA meeting I know now that he was her nephew, and I also know this: shortly after I went to India in January, the guy in the other unit on my floor heard pounding on his door and men shouting "Open the door! FBI!" He thought it was his friends playing a hilarious prank, albeit with unusual enthusiasm. But no. It was the real live FBI, wanting to go through my neighbor's apartment to reach some other part of the building so they could continue their attempt to find Church Lady's nephew. BECAUSE HE WAS A WANTED SEX OFFENDER IN UTAH. They didn't find him that day, but we're told that in the meantime he's been arrested. Anyhoo, it just goes to show you that the mild-mannered guy with the churchy aunt who's sitting in the downstairs hallway every afternoon is maybe not someone you want to invite over to your weekly game of Scrabble or strip poker. Live and learn.

I'm way excited about having finally ordered cushions for my Danish living room set. My couch will have cushions covered in this "alfalfa" colored textured fabric:

And the matching chair will have cushions in this "peridot" colored pattern:
These are both green and definitely go together, even if they look yellow-y or beige-y and non-matchy on your crappy monitor (because they certainly do on mine).