In which we are still in limbo...

[jesshartley]

Well, they made the offer. We're researching costs of moving/buying a new house, etc while waiting for the details. Technically we're "in negotiations" I guess.

Anyone have any insights into life in Western Massachusetts/New England?




Oh, and I stumbled across an old friend who's got a new CD out... Check them out. I'm very fond of urSOcool, but the rest of it seems really good, too.

Division Six

Comments

[jesshartley.livejournal.com]

You read 9 Chickweed Lane? It's not entirely unlike that, though that's obviously a bit more midstate (New York State) than Really New England (tm). But the strange farmer? That's some honest New England, turned up.
**Haven't read it, but I'll pick it up tomorrow if I can find it. Sounds interesting.

Cow tipping? It's real.
**LOL

"May I help you?" means "Get the hell off my land."
**Mental note made.

Unbelievably beautiful autumns are the standard feature they're rumoured to be. It's real. Also, there used to be really amazing autumn farmer's markets right around 5 (Greenfield Street) and Old Main in Deerfield, and parts south.
**We were just out there last weekend, and I was kind of amazed at how... grey...everything was. Of course, the leaves haven't come on yet, so everything's still mainly landscaped in sticks and dirty snow... But it still wasn't bad, and I can imagine that for a good half of the year it's probably much prettier.

Airlocks aren't just for spaceships. Your house should have one. If it doesn't, add one on. ^_^
**Mental note made. One of the things we were talking about out there was so many of the houses have no porch, no overhang, no nothing, just "wham, out the front door and you're outside."

Brattleboro, Vermont used to the the Gateway to Beer, but that's no longer true, so you probably no longer have to worry about drunken high schoolers driving down Route 2, I-91, or 63. But since old habits die hard, you might watch for it anyway. ^_^
**LOL

Road signs that say "thickly settled" warn you about clusters of farmhouses.
**We saw some of those.

March is when the snow melts and the crazy people windsurf in the flooded river valleys.
**Apparently late March, as they had gotten snow just before we arrived.

Amherst is really nice and has a worthwhile summer festival. It also has the Bates Motel, which is to say, a rental group house that looks exactly like the one in Psycho. I know people who used to live in it. Also, good bookstores.
**LOL Hurray for good bookstores!

Want to get more specific about where? ^_^
Northampton. Unfortunately, there's almost nothing for sale in Northampton with 3 bedrooms for under 250K. So we're debating tightening our belts and taking on a slightly larger mortgage to stay in Northampton proper, or ranging out into one of the smaller (But still within commutable distance) houses to get a better deal. They might be harder to resell if we decided we didn't like it out there, though. Insight?

[solarbird]

I'm from here. If you're curious. ^_^

Hm. Northampton. Never spent much time there. Amherst was more interesting, and if you wanted a big mall, you drove the rest of the way down to Springfield. It's nicer than Greenfield, I think, which isn't saying much but, well, is something.

People tell me that New England winters aren't what they used to be, to which I say HAH! YOU LIIIIIIIIEEEEEEE! because I know better. Tho' typically the snow does melt in March, and April's a rain month, and then May is all lovely. Tho' snow in May isn't unknown, it doesn't last. The traditional pattern was that snow hit right around Thanksgiving, stacked up to three feet tall, and stayed there until March, when the floods happen.

About that front door: the airlock is the entrance room just inside that door. They may and not protrude outward from the house, and they're where you take off your wet/outer clothes. They're separated from the rest of the house by another door, and that's all for insulation. Occasionally people think it's a good idea to take those doors out. They're wrong.

9 Chickweed Lane has just undergone a huge plot advance and change in focus - a lot of it now happens in NYC - so it's no longer about the same thing. You'd be better off with an older collection. ^_^

And as for real estate... hmf. All I can say is, don't be carbound if you can avoid it. Unless you're buying with arable land, don't buy anyplace where you have to drive to everything. New England has the advantage of being good for that. And old houses are better than new houses. And by "old," I mean, "pre-War," and by "pre-War," I mean pre-Revolutionary War, as in Colonial. You know how the south is still fighting the civil war? New England still defends the Revolution. No lie. (Not that I understood this until I moved away, but it's true!)

Of course, I kid, but it's only funny because, well, it's kinda true. ^_^ I mean, honestly, my high school had dorms that're older than this country. My home town was burned to the ground four times by the French. Revolutionary War-style bunting is occasionally used as decoration, without a hint of either appropriation or irony. It's part of the native tongue.

And I really kinda miss it. In a lot of ways, I'm a New England Conservative at heart. That's the good, sane kind, that cares about Good Government and Balanced Budgets and NOT BEING AN OPPRESSIVE RELIGIOUS FREAK and all that. But I digress. ^_^

One thing that might and might not be interesting is that of all the other regions in the country where you could move, it's the most like here you'll find, with the possible exception of Minnesota. (The voting pattern in the last election? Blue means one of two things: "California," and "New England cultural background." The upper midwest was settled by people from New England, moving west. Then the PNW was settled by people who had stopped in the upper midwest and then kept going. That cultural heritage shows up, still.)

random other thoughts

[solarbird]

Learn to love the roundabout.

Get a bike. Then don't use it all winter. If you do use it in the winter, don't be insane and try right-angle left turns during winter, unless you are well padded and are going for humour value. ^_^

Any decent town has a commons.

The odds of getting mediocre (much less bad) ice cream are very poor, at least, if you avoid bullshit like Safeway. Kind of like how cheap sushi here is usually good, as opposed to terrifying, nonexistant, or deadly like it is in most of the country? And like how all pizza in NYC is going to be pretty f'ing good, because everybody just knows how to make it right? Ice cream is a force of nature in New England. You might find bad stuff, but not often. Toscanini's is good out east (Boston area); I don't remember any brands specific to the Amherst area. But here are some places to try. One's in Amherst. I think I've had ice cream from there. It was good. ^_^