Selling. Open House.

PICTURE PERFECT! THREE BEDS/2 FULL BATHS/UPDATED 1891 VICTORIAN

HAWORTH, NJ

The Open House started with cat pee. Cat pee on me. Had a ring to it, but not a good omen. Sarah, our realtor, my friend, said the four cats might distract potential homebuyers from marveling at our Victorian moulding and new gas fireplace insert. I knew that most likely the cats would cower in a closet and never be seen—but people do have allergies and phobias and cat-cleanliness issues. So we devised a plan. To wit, we would do the impossible—herd the cats with a combination of Fancy Feast and gile. Then we’d put Mittens, Skye, Jace, and Jag into a little cat jail, a small store-room, in the basement, with a whimsical “DO NOT OPEN, CATS INSIDE” sign. We’d block the opening under the slightly short door with a nearby ironing board on the outside, boxes on the inside.

The herding went fine, except that Mittens was as nervous as a -- …. and my clothes suffered the consequences.

The cats escaped anyway. Image in my head of cats lining up, pushing together to move the boxes and the ironing board, “OK, on three….” Or making a little cat ladder to get through a transom. Who knows. Frantic text message from Sarah just after we’d left the house: “CATS R OUT.”

We bought the house in Haworth 16 years and 7 months ago. We were moving from Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, and we’d looked at what felt like over a hundred houses. Felt that way probably because I was pregnant and we usually had our two-year-old son in tow. Nothing tingled. We’d sold our house in Swarthmore in six days, and I’d been on bed rest with David, and who knew how much time I’d have before I’d have to hit the sofa with this baby-in-the-womb.

We went into a rental house in Ardsley, NY, while we kept looking and I kept growing. We tried very hard to live in lower Westchester County, because Ned’s family was all in Scarsdale and Hartsdale. I imagined cousins growing up together and baby-sitting on demand. But coming from a very reasonable housing market in suburban Philadelphia, in Westchester we saw only kitchens that needed tearing out and bathrooms in which you could use the toilet, brush your teeth, and shower—all at the same time. All this, of course, for a big chunk of change. It was also a bad sign that I was rear-ended twice on Central Avenue during our rental stay in Ardsley (I’m big on omens).

A radical idea was finally suggested—look for a house in New Jersey. My father-in-law had a first cousin with a realty agency in Haworth, and we decided, what the heck, let’s take a look. Yes, there was a formidable river separating us from family, but after living in Chicago, Boston, and suburban Philly, the Hudson didn’t really seem so insurmountable.

We looked at all of four houses in Bergen County, two in Tenafly and two in Haworth, and we could have bought three of them. There was breathing space, a bit of land, town centers that I could walk to, more reasonable taxes and prices (remember, this was 1994).

The house we stared at the most sits on what would be the Main Street of town, diagonally across from school in one direction, across from the duck pond in the other direction, a walk to pizza and the library and a hardware store and the post office and a MinitMart and a pharmacy. The creamy yellow exterior paint seemed a little tired, as did some of the interior, especially a sad blue downstairs carpet, but we did like it. I felt a tingle when I saw the wraparound front porch, and we bought it.

We pulled up the blue carpet and found beautiful inlaid floors, our daughter Kate was born, David started school, a new roof was put on, the outside was painted, I started a book group, David began piano lessons, Kate started school, I had so much fun finding out about our old house I started a house history business, kindergarten graduations, we got a cat, we got a cat, we got a cat, David quit piano lessons, my business was profiled in the Bergen Record, 8^th grade graduations, master bathroom all done in white, my Dad died, Ned’s Dad died, we got a dog, David started electric guitar lessons, Kate’s room re-painted lavender, Kate’s room re-painted aqua blue, Kate’s room re-painted light lime green, my Mom died, gas insert put in the wood-burning fireplace so we’d finally use it. 16 years, 7 months later. House is for sale. First Open House. Cat pee on me.