My #Santa Fe No Saints Rule

Albuquerque Balloon Fest launch

Shortly after visiting this home in El Dorado (which we subsequently bought), I announced a rule, “We will have no saints.”  My reasoning: my Jewish ancestors would haunt me if I began putting up wooden carvings of saints.  After I did something like that, if anyone walked by the graves of my parents, the ground would be in upheaval from their turnings.  I could hear my mother complaining, “Better he should marry a shiksa (a non-Jewish woman) than have saints.  Come to think of it, he did.”

 Grace agreed with the “no saints” rule, although she pointed out that we had a carving of a saint in our home in Palm Desert.  I thought it was just an old hunk of wood, but I quickly amended my rule: no saints, except the one we already have.

  Just to show how firm and masterful I can be, once we moved in to the El Dorado home, my no-saints rule lasted exactly one week, when we bought a funny little saint with a wry smile.  I guess in New Mexico there is a limit as to how long anyone can keep any home saint-free.

  When told of my “no saints” rule, several friends gave me knowing smiles.  Some actually offered a tender, almost parental pat on the back before saying, “There, there.  It’s impossible to move to Santa Fe and not have wooden carvings of saints.”

  Hearing that there were two other offers due to come in on the home, we make an above-asking price bid despite my misgivings.  Basically, I was figuring that the real estate market was collapsing (it was) and if we held off a few years, we could buy this or any other home in the area at a much cheaper price. 

But Grace wanted to buy THIS house, which might not be available in a few years.   She was right.  And so was I, but she was more right.

  What convinced me ultimately to go along with Grace’s considerable enthusiasm was the fact that before each of our other home buys I had predicted gloom, doom and penury.  I did that before we bought our Chicago condominium, which we later sold for nearly three times what we bought it for.  And I was worried about buying our weekend home in Berrien Springs, Michigan, where we doubled our money. 

Based on my sorry track record of predicting real estate declines that happened but not for us, I went along with Grace’s lust for 6 Estambre Place.