Going on 80

Now that my house is sold and I’m no longer relatively penniless, I am about to shock the socks off my family. Grandma is getting revved-up to go on a wild and crazy spending spree!  

I have to be careful how I go about it.  I’ve read about cases where pitiful Aunt Penelope gets conned into investing her life savings in, say, the preservation of overstressed houseflies whose lives have been cruelly tormented by an unidentified crazy bloodthirsty murderess in Enumclaw, Washington.

As you well know, Octo-woman would never endorse such a costly hare-brained scheme. She’s way too smart for that.  She likes to contribute to nice comfortable retirement homes for lady bugs and honey bees — never houseflies. And never to sanctuaries for persecuted fleas, cockroaches, mosquitoes, or slugs, even if they are sponsored by Nigerian princes.

Sadly for Aunt Penelope, her family’s intervention following her spending craze can result in confiscated credit cards, as well as imprisonment in her room with nothing but a TV set, a jar of Macademia Nut Clusters, Ruffles potato chips, and prevention of her daily efforts to do the housework, laundry, grocery shopping and cooking. Tragic!

But back to my shopping frenzy. I would like to tell you how much I’m enjoying it, but I won’t lie. Actually, it’s been a real drag.

The first item I’m shopping for is some new wheels. This may surprise you since my driver’s license was confiscated several years ago, and as an upstanding, patriotic citizen, I would never do anything so nefarious as driving without a license, unless I could get away it, which is unlikely in view of my rather well-known driving skills.

As for which wheels I’m currently shopping for – No, it isn’t this one which is my longtime personal favorite . . .

. . . or even a Tesla or a Ferrari or a Harley Davidson, or a 10-speed dirt bike. No, it’s one that looks like this.

I know how shocked you must be since at first glance this one doesn’t seem to meet my impeccable standards for personal style and glamour. However, I intend to remedy the situation at my earliest opportunity. My crochet skills can surely crank out a version like this one. . .

Or for a more elegant Victorian look, this one has an attached GPS, a cow horn, and built-in gramophone.

Or best of all is this one which I’m sure will be attracting a lot of new friends!

The reason I have been forced to make this costly purchase is because of the unreasonable demands of my son Matthew. He seems to think that just because he is disabled, he shouldn’t have to share his walker with his sainted mother. It’s very unfair, if you ask me.

Formerly, my style of walking has been described as that of a penguin, but of late it’s more like the gait of a drunken sailor. In order to stay erect, I am forced to cling for support from walls, furniture, or unsuspecting pedestrians. Thus arose my new habit of relying on Matt’s hardware to lend me a hand – so to speak – and precipitating conversations like this:

Matthew: “Mother, where’s my walker?”
Me: “You mean the walker that’s supposed to be next to your chair?”
Matthew: “No, I mean the walker that disappears ever since you learned to hijack it and then forget where you left it.”
Me: “Don’t be picky. Sharing is caring.”
Matthew: “So are certain priorities. I HAVE TO GO TO THE BATHROOM.”

Now I realize that, on occasion, sharing the walker of a disabled person may seem a little unreasonable, and that’s why I decided to acquire – as a humanitarian purchase – a walker of my own on amazom.com. Time will tell if I can learn to drive it! At least, I won’t need a license, so there’s that, at least.

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My second big shopping excursion is for my ears. Get ready to drool over these. This is a pair that cost 57,000 million dollars and they don’t even match. The one on the left is called Apollo Blue and the one on the right is the Artemis Pink. Those are the ones I won’t be getting.

I have an appointment at Costco next week to shop for a pair that’s a little more economical and that may solve problems I keep encountering like this one:

Grandson Bryce: ”Grandma, I think you need to get a hearing aid.”
Me: ”Why do I need to get an earring made?”

Until now, I have been applying a strict rule about my hearing – or lack of. When somebody is talking to me, I never ask ”What?” more than three times. After that, I just give up, nod my head pleasantly, smile in agreement, and hope they didn’t just say “You have something stuck in between your front teeth!”

I have no idea how much these little ear ornaments are going to cost, but I hope it’ll be less than 57 million.

The procedure went into full drive on Tuesday afternoon. I was nervous. A traveling Notary Public was coming to our new home in Enumclaw to deliver what I expected to be 435 or so documents to be signed and witnessed thereto – as part of the closing of the sale of my house in Seattle.

I had good reason to be tense. For one thing, I’ve been waiting for the axe to fall before the new owner signs on the dotted line and the sale goes official – like an earthquake flattening the house, a lightning strike, another sewer eruption, or a plague of bedbugs or cockroaches raining down upon the property, just as a horde of evil tax assessors are frantically inspecting it to ascertain whether I have been mistakenly undercharged for this year’s property taxes, and if so, they’ll be sending the sheriff to either pick up the check, or shoot me. In other words, I’ll be expecting the worst till the “SOLD” sign goes up in the front yard.

At 2 PM – right on the scheduled dot – the Notary Public arrived, masked, armed with his trusty embossing stamp, his logbook, two blue ball point pens – one for him, one for me – and an unexpectedly rather modest-sized briefcase.

I had him sit at the kitchen table where he proceeded to lay out his stuff, while I kept flexing my right hand to limber it up for the blizzard of signatures I’d be signing. Whenever husband Gene and I took out a mortgage, we got writer’s cramp signing up for it, so I knew I better be prepared.

When the Notary Public slid each paper in front of me, he’d point to random entries explaining what they meant. I’d keep nodding my head studiously as though I, of course, understood perfectly – hoping to hurry him up till he could get to the item called “Proceeds of Sale”. (At which point, I heaved a sign of relief!)

Finally, after I signed and initialed about 6 or 7 papers, he had me sign my name in his logbook, and then proceeded to start packing up his stuff. I couldn’t believe it. He had been here for about 8 minutes total. He probably left his car running while he was in the kitchen stamping, and witnessing, and scribbling on the documents which constituted the official sale of all my worldly goods. It seemed like he could have at least marked the occasion by sprinkling some holy water on the papers or burned a little incense and sang a hymn or two in Latin.

That was Tuesday. On Thursday, the next event in the momentous “Closing Ceremony” took place. This photo marked the dreaded occasion.

What you’re looking at is my son-in-law Brad just completing the task of boarding up the gate that used to lead to our shared backyards! Gulp! If you’re one of the multitudes who so often traipsed back and forth through that gate, don’t be embarrassed if you get a bit choked-up! The doorway to Narnia is now closed!

On Friday – right on schedule – I was notified by the mysterious “Escrow” persons that the ownership of my house has been officially transferred to its new owner. Now I don’t know whether to feel relieved or “homesick”. I just hope she’ll take better care of it than I did! To help her out, I decided I’d better leave a final message to the house.

Dear House:

I want to apologize to you for any abuse you may have experienced while under my possibly neglectful stewardship. You didn’t deserve it. Well, maybe a little.

I’m sorry for all the times I yelled at you for letting the floors get filthy and then punished you for it by keeping them that way. Same with all those fingerprinted window panes. Still, you really do have to take a little more personal responsibility for your appearance, Dear. You don’t want to continue life as a slob. Try to shape up for the new owner. You can DO it! ……. Hopefully.

About the four toilets: you just have to try harder. Your dreams of the new owner converting them to outdoor privies is a fantasy. You’ve been reading too many “Better Homes and Outhouses”. Like I keep trying to tell you “Basic cleanliness counts!”

And I don’t want to hurt your feelings about the crusty cooktop and the insides of the oven, but I really have to point out that just because all that fungi looks amazingly healthy, doesn’t mean it’s supposed to be growing in the refrigerator.

As for your outside, House, I suppose you would rather not discuss the way the gutters get clogged, the paint chipped, how holes appear in the window screens, moss on the roof, but somebody has to talk about it – besides the neighbors. Of course, I know I could have contributed a little more elbow grease myself, but you have to realize that we can’t both look good at the same time! It’s either me or you. So I hope that in the future you will straighten up and bravely soldier on for your new owner.

So I guess that’s all the apologizing I can do for now, House. I hope you’ll let me visit you from time to time to see how you’re doing.

And thank you for taking such good care of us for the past 50 years.

Your friend-through-thick-or-thin,
Octo-woman

P.S. I guess I should leave a footnote for the Yard. Thanks to daughter Gretchen for keeping it watered for the past seven weeks of our Seattle summer drought, and grandchild Corr for their meticulous weeding, mulching, and “hair cutting” – here’s a glimpse of how it looks all dressed up for its new owner:

So Goodbye Gate. Goodbye Gardens. Goodbye House! I will always love and remember the time we lived with you!

I have always considered myself to be city-bred. Don’t snicker. Just because Cedar Rapids, Iowa’s population was only 60,000 during the years I was corn-fed there, doesn’t mean I’m not accustomed to the high-living cosmopolitan city life. We even had indoor toilets, a public library, iceboxes, streetcars, and a semi-comfortable city jail where miscreants could be incarcerated instead of whipped in the public square or burned at the stake. In other words, a sophisticated midwestern city of the future and of leading edge technology such as production of Captain Crunch and lots and lots of cornhusks.

Of course, since then, I have dwelled in other large cities, too. During the 10 years I was pregnant, I regularly threw up in some of the most advanced metropolitan citadels of the world – New York City, Washington D.C., Schenectady, Dubuque, Iowa City, Detroit, Miami – so you can’t say I haven’t been around a block or two. Like the good Girl Scout I wasn’t, I always tried to “Leave a Place Better than You Found It”, – and to leave my mark so they’d always know that Octo-woman had been there. Fertilizing it, so to speak.

Tragically, during my first 6 weeks living on an actual farm among the donkeys, horses, ponies, dogs, cats, and ducks, I have become keenly sensitive to the fact that they definitely don’t need any more fertilizer here, so I’m going to have to learn another way to make my mark.

At the moment, now that daughter and son-in-law Susy and Curt will be assuming some of son Matthew’s caregiving, I am considering amplifying my income by taking up a new career as a bootlegger. This is necessary because some of my strait-laced relatives have been critical of my past life as a marijuana farmer in the Laurelhurst neighborhood of urban Seattle. (But more about my exciting planned career change below. Stay tuned.)

Fortunately, I’m very adaptable. To fit in, and to adjust to life in rural America, I’m planning to acquire a new vocabulary, including such colorful lingo as “‘Tarnation!”, “Gosh, dern!”, and “Where’s the outhouse?” To bring in today’s mail, for instance, I can tell you for a fact that the mailbox isn’t on the front porch. It’s “just over yonder a piece down the road”.

It seems that Susy and Curt haven’t learned the lingo yet, but I’ve always been a quick study myself and as soon as I get my new bib overalls, straw hat, a shotgun, and l’arn to spit chawin’ tobaccky, I know I’m going to fit right in with the best of the sodbusters, by cracky!

Now about my new career. I know I have a lot to learn about making moonshine and setting up my own still, but how hard can it be for somebody who knows how to make Hamburger Helper or Kraft Dinner? You simply have to follow the directions on the box. And that’s why I have to learn to talk Rural. It’s no use trying to be a successful bootlegger if I can’t translate instructions like: “Get you a copper kettle, Get you a copper coil, Cover with new made corn mash”.

Right away I have a problem because I don’t have a copper kettle or any corn mash, whatever that is, or for that matter any corn (unless you’re unkind enough to use the term to describe my writing style.) Nonetheless, I am undeterred. Where there’s a will, there’s a still.

It’s time to be creative. Who needs corn, anyway? Everywhere I turn on this property there are trees and vines heavy with all kinds of fruit that none of the residents – unless you count the ones on four-feet – are standing in line to eat. Apples, pears, figs, grapes, blackberries. So what I’m going to do – maybe you should write this down – is mash them up in the Cuisinart. After that, all I have to do is find a copper coil, maybe on amazon.com, and then look up the rest of the recipe for making good ol’ mountain dew.

Some of the fruit awaiting harvest

For a catchy name, I think I’ll call it “Octo-woman’s Fruity-Dew”. I’m pretty sure the entrepreneurs on Shark Tank will be crazy about it, and you can always remember that you read about it here first. Come to think of it, in case you’ve been looking for a hot investment for your life savings, I’m willing to let you in on it! (This is where you can yell Yee-HAA! I know you’ve been wanting to. After all, not counting some possible jail-time, what could possibly go wrong?)

Five days after it was listed for sale, I signed the preliminary papers agreeing to sell my house. Using my index finger. On my iPad.

I can still remember when we used to use pens with ink in them, but get a grip, guys. Today when you sell a house, you are still expected to sign your name 643 times, but thanks to electronic signatures, – with or without a handy stylus – there will be no two scribblings alike. And if both your index fingers have been previously amputated, no sweat. You can just use your elbow – nobody will notice, except maybe by an endangered species of nuns, who may still be trying to foster use of the Palmer Method of Handwriting.

It’s okay, though. There’s nothing wrong with finger writing. After all, the Book of Exodus tells us the Ten Commandments were written on tablets of stone by God Himself. And many biblical literalists have an anthropomorphic image of God at this point, suggesting that He wrote the words with His “finger”.

Not being God, this is how I wish some of my signatures could have looked but didn‘t.

Now and then, if I couldn’t make room in the little box for my last name, I didn’t worry about it, because, obviously, I was just testifying to the truth of all kinds of statements which were presented in a so-called real estate language possibly similar to cuneiform, Sanskrit or speaking-in-tongues, none of which can I claim any fluency.

For the final “Closing” papers, a real-life notary public will be showing up here in our donkey paradise with 997 pages of also unintelligible documents to be signed, presumably on paper, and with what I can only assume will be either a ball point pen, a feather plume, or finger paints – whatever they currently use to prove that, yes, I am selling my house to a new owner.

Not that I was worried about whatever statements I was signing. The house sold for so much more than its list price, that – in humble gratitude – I would have been willing to sign up for Game of Thrones’ Night’s Watch emptying bedpans, or work as a telemarketer, or join the Kardashian Fan Club, or cut off both of my big toes, or maybe my left ear which doesn’t hear very well anyway.

The bidding was competitive but was won by (gasp!) the young neighbor who shares part of my sewer and the ground the sewer runs through! Who would believe that after all my griping about needing a repair, the sewer would in the end – you should pardon the expression – ensure that our home will continue to shelter a classy neighbor like her, of all people! To sweeten her final offer, she even offered to write a check to pay for the sewer repair! Like I said, classy lady! The happy future of the house is ensured!

Along with her and her little daughter, I think the house will now be occupied by her parents, and I’ve got a comforting feeling that it will continue to be a place of peace and contentment.

The only thing I feel bad about is that they’ll be on their own. I probably can’t expect my son-in-law Brad to keep it that way for them. Along with the staging furniture and artwork, he won’t be included in the “package”. As everybody in my family is keenly aware, – due to my do-it-yourself ineptitude, – son Matthew and I couldn’t have kept living in the house after my husband Gene’s death, without Brad’s steady battening down of the hatches or keeping the mainsails intact and afurl.

Brad’s wife – my daughter Gretchen – has been diligently working her oar, too. Such as keeping the gardens watered for 2 hours every night during our persistent heat wave. Both she and Brad have other rigorous professions to deal with during their workdays than “handyman” and “gardener”, but under cover of darkness, they don their Batman and Wonder Woman attire and heroically show their true colors!

Before I sign off tonight, I have to tell you that the sale of the house was what you would have to call a roaring success, and because of it, I think I can offer you two exceedingly valuable home buying and selling tips, and here they are:

1. Hire a brilliant real estate agent and then LISTEN to whatever she tells you. As an example, the patio furniture with its bird droppings and frayed covers may indeed be truly comfortable and enthusiastically appreciated by your family and friends all these years, but you have to accept the pain and loss of ditching them . (I did, but only temporarily. Nobody said it had to be permanent. They’re now residing on our new porch in Enumclaw. I hope you can come and sit a spell. You’ll enjoy it! Of course, it may not make you want to buy the house, but it’s perfectly okay. We’re not selling.)
   
2. If you don’t live in these parts but you want to sell your house, and it isn’t selling at a reasonable price, here’s the most valuable advice I can offer: engage a house-moving company to put the house on wheels and then MOVE IT TO SEATTLE. You‘ll be amazed at what you can get for it. I don’t see how you can lose. Of course, if you don’t have a house to sell, do come anyway, but it’ll be a bit tricky. It might be a good idea to bring a waterproof yurt to live in. And maybe some food stamps.

One very good house. In excellent condition. Rigorously tested for stamina, stress and strain for nearly 50 years by large, rambunctious family. Weathered all abuse leveled at it with true valor, strength and heroism. This is a house that knows how to survive any disaster – except abandonment. Yes, tragically, it has been deserted by its family, ignominiously cast aside for greener pastures containing, yes, seven miniature asses. A house put up for sale, cruelly abandoned – and this is the thanks it gets for stoically enduring all those years of hardship, the less-than-fastidious housekeeping procedures applied to it, and the green shag carpeting covering the garage floor for the past 45 years. Please adopt this endearing and deserving house.

Well, I haven’t yet seen the brochure the realtor wrote for our house yet, but it’ll probably run along those lines.

Yes, the house got “listed” yesterday. (As in “up for sale”, not as in leaning over too far.) Kim, the realtor, said the listing went “live” at noon, and by 3 PM, she had 12 confirmed appointments for touring visits. An Open House was scheduled for 5 to 7 PM and during it 20 groups visited. More are scheduled today and tomorrow, and now I’m starting to panic. Redfin is describing it as a “Hot House”. It might actually happen that somebody’s going to try Take My House Away From Me. I’m appalled at the nerve of some people.

In case you’ve suffered with me through all my self-pitying blobs about my trials with moving and getting the house ready to be “listed”, please note that I’m not alone. In his book “Houses and Other Black Holes”, the humorist Dave Barry describes moving as being harder than bearing children.

“You take Couple A, who just had a baby, and Couple B, who just moved their household, and if you keep track of them, you’ll find that years from now, when Couple A’s baby has grown up, left home, and started a family, Couple B will still be rooting through boxes full of wadded-up newspaper, looking for the lid to their Mr. Coffee. Also, during childbirth, when things go wrong, trained professionals give you powerful drugs. Nobody is ever this thoughtful during a move.”

So I was busy. Too busy unpacking and trying to find Matthew’s toenail clippers to be rational. I can hardly be blamed for failing to fully assimilate the implications of “listing” my home. What was I thinking? Strangers are going to be staking their claim to my domicile of the past half century. What have I done?

Here’s one of the websites announcing the sale of the house, all staged and dolled up in party clothes. Isn’t it beautiful? Somebody besides me is definitely going to want to live there.

https://www.redfin.com/WA/Seattle/4714-NE-50th-St-98105/home/120920

Omygosh! That’s my house, guys. The one I’m abandoning.

I just read the realtor’s description of my treasured homestead. Unlike the one I composed above, here it is in case you missed it.

“Surrounded by mature landscaping and beautifully maintained gardens, this classic wood framed shuttered home abounds with charm and possibilities. Double door entry opens to find a light filled office, large formal living room with wood burning fireplace, a formal dining room, a chef’s kitchen with space for informal dining, and a great family/rec room also with fireplace. The family room and kitchen have access to a gracious patio and amazing grounds, including a garden shed. Plenty of room for a DADU! Upstairs are 6 large bedrooms including a primary suite with walk-in closet, romantic fireplace and full bath. A second set of stairs can be accessed at the end of the hallway. Oversized 2 car garage. Fresh paint and new carpeting.”

I’m going to have to face it. This is what happens when a realtor “stages” your house and then announces that it’s for sale. It makes somebody want to buy it. All jesting aside, however the sale goes, I’m exceedingly content with what my realtor has done. In case you want to know, her name is Kim O. Dales and she’s with Windemere Realty here in Seattle.

A few days ago, when the prep work was nearly finished, grandson Bryce did a fast unedited video walk-through the house so all of us who lived there could see how it looked before making its big debut on Zillow and Redfin. Here it is:

So that’s it for now. Once the sale is made, I hope the new owners will let me make a visit I need to apologize to the house for putting it up for sale – after faithfully sheltering the Ford Horde for so many happy years. Thank you, house.

A major sewer repair is like having brain surgery. It’s really something you’d rather not have.

A couple days ago, I was facing the headache of an expensive sewer repair the pre-inspection of the house had gloriously revealed. The second bid I got this week was gentler than the first one was but still enough to inflict severe pain on my budget. The 3rd one today was for the hilarious amount of $31,000. (I thought they were kidding, but, silly me!)

To add to my consternation, consider the aesthetic value of such a repair. No prospective buyer is going to stand in front of the house drooling with excitement in feverish anticipation of owning a house adorned with a more-or-less pristinely renovated sewer – no matter how fervently the real estate agent gamely raves on about its splendor. There’s a reason sewers are underground — nobody will ever gaze on one of them with sincere affection.

The expense of selling a house is starting to seem similar to coping with multiple brain tumors. They don’t go away, just because they’re not welcome. I was trying to convince myself to quit crabbing though, because at least that was the only major problem the inspection report laid on me. But that was before I got the phone call from Tyler, the contractor, readying my house for selling.

TYLER: ”Pat, were you having a problem with the refrigerator? It’s lights are on, but it’s not cooling anything and its freezer isn’t working, either.”

ME: “It was working perfectly before we emptied it of the 2-week-old leftovers and scrubbed it out for the new owners. It’s only 7 years old. Maybe it’s in shock from seeing its sparkling new insides. Can’t you just plug it in again or kick it or something?”

Well, to sum up, he couldn’t. And as all homeowners are sensitively aware, it’s no use calling an appliance “repairman” because there are no modern appliances in existence which they know how to repair. Their job is merely to write-up a “diagnostic fee” indicating the need for a new part which will cost more than the price of a brand new appliance which, to your very good fortune – if you’re lucky – can be applied to the selling price of the new replacement refrigerator they also won’t know how to fix.

According to the realtor, no prospective buyer is going to accept my carefully preserved styrofoam coolers from Omaha Meats as a substitute for a working refrigerator. I can either fork out the ransom for a new one, or I can give the buyer a $2,000 credit because of the gaping hole there’ll be in the kitchen where there used to be a refrigerator.

As often happens, as I was sitting there pondering whether my future life wouldn’t be better spent in a maintenance-free yurt, a log cabin in the woods, or a tent under a bridge, my guardian angel stepped in to lift me from my despair. A message arrived in son Matthew’s email box, which I immediately read. (I regularly invade his privacy – entirely, of course, for philanthropic and therapeutic purposes. After all, what’s a mother for?)

My guardian angel didn’t actually send Matt the message, but I know full well he had something to do with it. It was actually sent as a group message to all the members of Matt’s alumni from Seattle Prep, but it gave me an improved perspective on Life and How There Are Some Things More Important Than Mere Money.

Here’s the meat of the message:

A father passing by his son’s bedroom was astonished to see that his bed was nicely made and everything was picked up. Then he saw THE ENVELOPE, propped up prominently on the pillow that was addressed to ‘Dad.’ With the worst premonition, he opened the envelope with trembling hands and read the letter.

Dear Dad:
It is with great regret and sorrow that I’m writing you. I had to elope with my new girlfriend because I wanted to avoid a scene with Mom and you.

I have been finding real passion with Stacy and she is so nice. But I knew you would not approve of her because of all her piercing, tattoos, tight motorcycle clothes and the fact that she is much older than I am. But it’ s not only the passion………Dad, she’s pregnant.

Stacy said that we will be very happy. She owns a trailer in the woods and has a stack of firewood for the whole winter. We share a dream of having many more children.

Stacy has opened my eyes to the fact that marijuana doesn’t really hurt anyone. We’ll be growing it for ourselves and trading it with the other people that live nearby for cocaine and ecstasy. In the meantime we will pray that science will find a cure for AIDS so Stacy can get better. She deserves it.

Don’t worry Dad. I’m 15 and I know how to take care of myself. Someday I’m sure that we will be back to visit so that you can get to know your grandchildren.

Love,Your Son, John

P.S. Dad, none of the above is true. I’m over at Tommy’s house.

I just wanted to remind you that there are worse things in life than a Report Card that’s in my center desk drawer.

I love you. Call me when it’s safe to come home.

After reading the foregoing, I felt a lot better getting my priorities in place. And I don’t think I would have liked living in a yurt, anyway, and besides, where would I put all my stuff?