One Less Thing to Worry About
We're a sad and sorry pair. Not me so much, just a touch of a cold, but he's in fairly miserable shape. Head buzzing, chills, fatigue, not much fun at all. The mother of the little kid who shared her virus with us is also similarly afflicted. We can stay home and be miserable, she has to go to work and be miserable there. We'll live, all of us.
No ravine walk for us today. Unlike yesterday, today was cold again, it's winter after all, windy and with his cold not a good idea to go out. I went out to shovel the driveway, walkways, porch and deck out back, after I'd finished cleaning the house. A little bit of fresh air and exercise was just what I needed, actually.
In any event, she had to go to the office. Which takes her directly downtown. Which is where her lawyer is located. Ditto her bank. She was awaiting word from her lawyer that the money owing her was finally transferred. From there, to the bank. From the bank to the real estate lawyer who would finalize the real estate transaction, and the house and property would be hers.
We had our doubts, of course, since her ex-partner had done everything in his nasty little bag of tricks to keep her from claiming what was rightfully hers. He'd engaged a lawyer who was as nasty as he is, but to no avail, since, although our daughter represented herself, did all the legal legwork, she prevailed, and the Family Court Judge ruled that she was owing her initial investment of $24,000, plus an additional $3,500. So he was dragged, kicking and screaming, to the inevitable conclusion.
Saturday is moving-out day, moving-in day. It'll be fun and games for certain, what with seven dogs, a cat, and seven rabbits to keep out of the movers' way. Not to mention our own two little dogs. What an incredible menagerie. We're hoping that the two mattress sets and bed frames we bought for them will be delivered on that day as well, else they'll be sleeping on inflatable mattresses, in sleeping bags in their new home. A trifle, a mere inconvenience.
She is more than happy to move out of that once-shared house. He'd never done anything to maintain it, and it's steadily falling apart. She can't use the light in the garage any more, since the light fixture started shorting out; he'd long known it was improperly installed and a potential fire hazard. She could no longer use the hot water faucet in the upstairs bathroom because after the installation of the new hot water tank the pressure was too high. The sump pump under the shower stall in the downstairs bathroom isn't working and when she does laundry, water rushes into the stall. The window in the laundry room, the inside layer of which had cracked aeons ago continually weeps and there's a heavy mould build-up. There is mould, matter of fact, all through the lower level. He never bothered replacing the sliding doors after one of the layers shattered, so there's a continual build-up of ice on the inside of the door in the winter.
The vanity countertop in the upstairs bathroom is a complete mess; he wasn't interesed in replacing it even when she said she'd pay for it. She re-painted some areas of the walls where she's taken down her own paintings, and she's also done the windowsills, but some of them are so rotten, she was unable to do a good job of it; this, because he'd long neglected to paint the outside of the house. During last night's heavy winds, she found a large number of shingles blown off the roof of the house; this is the original roof on the 30-year-old house. Goodbye, good riddance.
She'll have her own place. Angie is looking forward to it, just as her mother is, while at the same time feeling conflicted about leaving her old school, her school friends. She'll make new friends, she'll like her new school. We'll miss looking after her after school; after all, we've done so for almost ten years, from the time she was an infant to now. Time to move on.
While her mother discussed the week's plans with us, Angie danced about, gobbling up the grilled cheese sandwich, the blackberries, the chocolate milk. And interrupted us to tell tales on her mother, aggrieved that Karen had eaten most of the four-layer, lemon-filled cake she'd taken home from here on Friday. She'd only had a small piece, she said, her mother had eaten all the rest. Second time we've heard it; she'd told each of us the same tale of grief and deprivation over the telephone on the week-end.
They're a matched pair, those two. Look-alikes, similar dispositions. Even similar in their behaviour patterns, but why not, it's the law of inheritance and genes are genes, an endowment from parent to child. Simple biology. Here's to the future.
posted by Pieface @ Monday, February 06, 2006
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