The Conical Glass: The greenest library

Thursday, October 18, 2007

The greenest library

I had to make myself scarce this morning since our first open house was scheduled. One of the laws of real estate is that the owner cannot be present when would-be buyers are looking around. Our Realtor did let me know afterward that about 16 people had come by, and a couple of them seemed genuinely interested. There is now a display of fliers on our coffee table (pristine! No magazines or remote controls are allowed to mar its surface!) featuring photos of our condo with the headline, "Stunning Bay & City Views!" I guess that's better than what I could have come up with. "Do you love elevators? I mean, really love elevators? If so, welcome to your new home!"

While Hobie hung out in Joe's office, I had one especially important task: I needed to apply for a library card. I'm going to refer to our new community as Brigadoon, because it is, in a way, an enchanted village -- it may not appear only once every 100 years, but to outsiders, it retains a slight air of mystery. It is its own little self-contained world, which is one of the things I've really come to like about it. Our house, with its high backyard fence and noise-obscuring fountains, is a little world within a world -- a world blessedly free of elevators. (Sorry, but if you'd spent the past couple weeks moving boxes and furniture down two elevators, you'd be obsessed with them, too.)

Anyway, the Brigadoon Main Library is relatively new, and a certified green building. The walls were insulated with recycled denim (!) and the carpeting is made of recycled plastic bottles. Good news for people who are worried about the tectonic time bomb in our midst: it's built so soundly it's determined to be one of the safest places to be in Brigadoon in case of an earthquake! There's a cafe, cleverly named Dewey's. Oh yeah, there are lots of books, too.

Now that I have my Brigadoon library card, I truly feel ready to move to my new community.

posted by 125records @ 4:47 PM

5 Comments:

At 7:26 PM, Josh said…

OH MY GOD YOU'RE MOVING TO PIEDMONT AREN'T YOU???

Or maybe Albany?

Alameda?

Kensington?

Certainly not San Leandro...
At 7:35 PM, 125records said…

We're not rich enough to move to Piedmont. If you're not prepared to spend over $1M on a house, forget living in Piedmont!
At 10:38 PM, neal said…

Note to self: When buying a home, see if the owner has a blog :)

I love the idea of the library being your earthquake shelter! For the first few hours of being trapped there, I think the books would be cool. After that, food and water might be useful.
At 1:05 AM, 125records said…

Wow Neal, are you reading my blog over in Spain? It's not like potential buyers will be unaware of the elevator situation, unless they buy it based solely on visiting the web site. You can always get lots of good exercise taking the stairs, unless of course you're hauling a dolly full of boxes, in which case the elevator is kind of a must.
At 5:09 AM, neal said…

I wish!

Day one of vacation:
Take cab to airport at 6 am. Sit around for 6 hours while not being able to get a stand by seat on either of the three flights I need to make my connection in Atlanta. Take cabe home. (Continental canceled a flight first thing in the morning and the ripple effect of a plane full of people trying to leave town knocked most stand by passengers out of the loop.)

Consolation prize:
- I went to Walgreens to pick up some supplies and was immediately greeted by someone who introduced me to the manager of Yuri Yunakov's Romani Wedding Band, who I did get to see play a great show that night.
- I got cabbie #1, employed at the cab company since 1968, for my 5 am ride to the airport today, where I think I have not gotten on the first flight of the morning :(