Last year I put my house up for sale. After signing the listing agreement I gave myself a week to get the house in pristine condition. We were getting it photographed to go on the market and listed in the mls. I wanted to hit the ground running. I'm a bit of a perfectionist and because I really couldn't do everything myself I hired some friends who are professional stagers to do the job.
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Papillon team moving me into my art studio
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Leaving detailed directions about what to keep and nervous about walking out the door I wasn't quite sure what to expect. Talk about perfectionists! When I came home it was like a reality home-makeover show. If you click on the link you'll see it.
The morning of the photo shoot I ran around polishing doorknobs and putting boxes in the garage before the photographer and the realtor came. I was very distracted and my dog Miles took advantage of the situation. He bolted for freedom. He's a rescue and used to run away regularly, thus the name Miles. Anyway.
My children and I have developed a system for getting him back. One of us will stay home and the other will scout the neighborhood for him. I reluctantly trudged up the driveway when my cell rang. The voice on the other end was a man with an unusual accent. He sounded northeastern (US) but as we talked sounded decidedly more eastern European. At first I told him I could just meet him at the end of the driveway. It sounded like he had found Miles while driving around. But he was apparently out of gas. He described his car as a white Lexus and tried to explain where he was.
As I was trying to figure that out he put a woman on the phone who sounded like she had a Romanian accent. Don't ask me why I thought she was Romanian. I have no idea. After driving around for a few minutes, sure enough, I did find a white Lexus parked on the roadside with a man, an older woman, Miles and a small child with a giant pink teddy bear. Who keeps a brand new oversized pink bear as large as a four year old in the car when the circus isn't in town? Gypsies? I have a very extreme way of looking at the world sometimes. But this looked staged and since I was already living in a parallel universe where my sheets were being steamed for a professional photo shoot, of course they were gypsies.
I grabbed Miles, thanked them, crammed him into the car and zoomed home. I did see a groundskeeper from the golf course stopping by their car when I left so I only felt a twinge of guilt. After dropping Miles off I decided to run by the gas station to top off the tank of the car. Guess who was there? Yes, it was the gypsy and his cute little girl. (Don't gypsies travel as families with small children while they try to take advantage of people?) The grandmother wasn't there.
I felt really guilty. While it was very strange to be in a high end luxury car and out of gas I decided this was probably one of the many people now in difficult circumstances due to the economy. I thought about whether I should offer him gas money and my guilt won out. He was horrified and told me he is a doctor who really doesn't need any money. As our conversation continued he offered me the help of his housekeeper to finish cleaning my house. (Wow, did he think I was stupid?) The whole thing became even more surreal when he told me he was also an engineer. No way. My former husband fits that m.o. This must be some scam artist who knows my house is for sale and is trying to find a way in. I made sure to make a note of his name for later.
Fast forward to the next day. I googled the guy and figured out who else in the area knows him. All of his "creds" checked out. He must actually be a nice guy. I decided to call and thank him for helping. We got into a nice long conversation where I found out he is a former Bulgarian Jew who grew up in Israel, moved to New York, became an engineer, etc. He finally ended up becoming a physician in LA. The woman he was with the day before was one of my neighbors and was indeed from Romania. His two year old is in love with the bear and takes it everywhere. He cleans it regularly and thus the fluffy new look. Wow. So he wasn't a gypsy who stole my dog for ransom.
Getting a show together always takes me a while. Even when the paintings are framed it seems I always have a dust cover or two to replace. Labels have to be printed; a new artist's statement written. Sometimes there's even a bit of touch up on the paintings. I'm (as you've seen before) meticulous about my final presentation even though I'm a very messy painter and can't paint in the lines to save my life! I have to make sure my "babies" look their best when they go out into the world.
