Things are tough all over...

The Hancock Tower, the tallest building in Boston, is facing foreclosure. They're planning to auction it off this weekend. I find this mind-boggling. It last sold for $1.3 billion in 2006. Now it's worth a mere $900 million or so. Somebody could pick up a bargain! Maybe one of those bankers who's been pocketing all that bailout money in bonuses. Or maybe some rock star who thinks it'd be cool to own the building I still think of as the Mighty 'Cock. I worked one day there once when I was temping back in 1998. The windows had stopped blowing out by then. Back in the 1970s there was scaffolding over all the sidewalks, just in case another window blew out. I worked on Clarendon Street and I walked by the Hancock Tower every day, but I never saw one blow out, to my great disappointment.

My old apartment building in Somerville has been sold and renovated and split up into condos. I always said that if I could, I'd buy back my old apartment. Ha, ha. I looked it up on boston.com yesterday and discovered, first of all, that three units are already spoken for. There were six apartments, so I assume there are that many condos. The two I could find prices for were first- and second-floor units (I lived on the third floor) and listed for $539K (first floor) and $379K (second floor). WAAAAY over my price range. What are the odds that the last unit is a) my old apartment and b) $300K or lower? Yeah, that's what I thought, too.

Yesterday my furnace broke. I never turn on the heat before work any more - got to save money somehow! - and although I was colder than usual, I didn't give it any thought. By the time my son dragged himself out of bed at 11 or so, it was down to 48° inside. He called me at work, and I handled it with my usual competence - I panicked. I've never had to call a furnace repairman before! Where do I go? What do I do? Thanks to the various online Yellow Pages I looked at, I was able to locate somebody who would come out sometime between 2 and 5. Suuuuuuure. He showed up at around 5:30. But he fixed it, and it didn't even cost all that much. Yet another crisis faced and handled as I learn how to be a responsible adult at age (ahem!) - well, let's just say way past the time most people learn.