New Old House.
While at Pennsic, the call came in, "You got the house!" The jumbo mortgage went through, at a decent interest rate, squeaking in on the tails of a mortgage loan crisis. This means I owe a boatload of money, and pay a hefty monthly fee to service the loan, in exchange for living in the most beautiful home on Earth.
What have I done?!!
- American Home, once the nation's 10th largest mortgage lender, said it fell victim to "extraordinary disruptions" that effectively cut off the funding it needed to make new loans. Falling U.S. home prices and a spike in payment defaults scared investors away from mortgage debt, including bonds and other securities backed by home loans.
By then, banks worldwide were looking at their portfolios and finding sizable exposure and hedge funds were closing down in a bid to stave off investors who wanted to redeem their stakes, essentially, a modern day run on a bank.
The only way I can contain my anxieties is to consider the Koi.
I just bought a pond with 5 big and 5 small koi. And a house comes free with the purchase. My koi swim sweetly around their tank, enjoying oxygenated water (at last) and the dappled shade of the world's biggest maple tree.
The purchase price was ruinous. I could find myself homeless in the street ten years hence. But for ten years, I can afford the monstrously expensive Koi pond, and the lovely house attached to it.
I also own two gi-normous trees. Having been recently reminded of the joy of climing trees by Donald, a pleasantly eccentric dancer, I plan to install access ropes, so that one may climb these trees when one's arboreal needs become paramount.
I own a lovely Koi pond. One fish is spotted like a moo cow.
I own a new old house.
Eek.