Consummation of a Potentiality

A few days ago, I found an Jamaica Plain apartment for September, and I'm looking forward to beginning a new phase in my Boston life before too long. Last week we were discouraged after finding the perfect apartment--a beautiful two-bedroom with huge living and dinning rooms, front porch, and--get this--a working fireplace. But it was too expensive to begin with, and then when we figured in utilities, it became much more expensive.

So we decided to keep looking, and stopped in at Pondside Reality and began visiting with the agent on duty, our Greek friend Yorgos. He spend about two ours exploring different "potentialities," as he called them, and eventually we went to look at a newly renovated place on Rockview. We immediately liked it--cheap, heat and hot water included, skylights, third floor deck to ourselves, great location--and by the next day we knew were wanted to take it.

So we went in on Wednesday to "consummate" the lease, which I found a strange but somehow appropriate way to refer to the act of signing the paperwork. Yes, it's a legal commitment, but it also marks beginnings of a relationship with a new place, and so in that sense I suppose I prefer "consummate" to "execute."