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Mrs. Groovy here with Groovy Ranch Update 8. But have no fear—Mr. Groovy has no cause for wound-licking this week. It’s just that I got plenty to talk about. So let’s get to it.
We Chose a Realtor
We met three realtors to choose from for selling our home and liked them all. It was difficult to select one. All three pulled up the same comps (comparable recently sold properties in our area) and suggested the same list price. They also had similar marketing strategies and were in agreement that our house is in good shape and shows very well.
I enlisted help from my friend in New York who sold our condo—yes, the same realtor I “OR’d” about twelve years ago as I mentioned in Update 7. We’ve remained friends all these years. I sent her an email outlining the strengths of each realtor and asked her opinion and then we jumped on a phone call.
My realtor friend and I agreed that since the market is strong here, our home will most likely sell fast using any competent realtor. She boiled it down to two questions: 1) Who has the most knowledge? and 2) Who is the most communicative? She said a realtor is great until something goes wrong. Selling a home is never 100% smooth sailing. Determine which one will know how to negotiate best and which one will be most responsive if we have a problem. After answering those questions, Mr. Groovy and I came to a unanimous decision.
Update on Home Design
The designer said he usually completes a phase of work within five business. However, when we last met, he was a bit backed up. He said he hoped to have something for us to look at on Friday—last Friday.
I checked in with the designer by email twice now. I contacted him at the beginning of last week just to stay on his radar since I knew he hadn’t begun the work. He said he wouldn’t cash our check until he started and the check hadn’t cleared. I checked in again early Friday morning and asked whether he’d have something for us that day. In his reply he said he started the design and hoped to have it by end of day but wasn’t certain.
Now it’s the following Wednesday— more than two weeks since our last meeting. Prior to that, we lost another week when we thought the designer went AWOL. It’s time to speak up but I want Mr. Groovy to call him. I get tired of being the bad guy.
But in typical Mr. Groovy fashion—he wants to let it go a few more days. I’m beginning to get annoyed though, so he needs to decide. What’s better—an annoyed wife or an annoyed designer? I’m starting to worry about the timeline and we haven’t yet broken ground.
I’m sure we’ll need to make a few changes and revisions after we see the first draft of the design. If we keep up this schedule, our home may not be completed before Labor Day. And if we sell our current home quickly, that means we may be living with my Groovy in-laws for four months. Don’t get me wrong—we’ve got a love fest going with Mr. Groovy’s parents, but c’mon, that’s a bit much for all parties involved.
(Aside to Mr. Groovy: You’re planning a bucket list trip to a football game with your friends in September, a few weeks before FinCon, right? What if our home is at a critical build point and a decision must be made? Or we need to look at some part of the build before work continues? Remember, we thought we’d be living in our new home by September. And what about FinCon? That may be tough to pull off too. Getting our home right is more important than any trip.)
Let the Garage Purge Begin
We think we don’t own a lot of junk and yet we filled up four 30 gallon garbage bags from the contents of our garage. And we still haven’t gotten to what’s wedged up in the rafters. That’s next.
While going through containers in the garage, I found several photos of my parents and my grandmother who are all gone. I also discovered a few baby photos of my mom and her twin sister—my aunt whom we now watch over in a nursing home. And I came across photos of my aunt’s husband and her son—my cousin, Joe. They’re also gone. I was most saddened by a wedding photo of Joe and his wife. Seeing them young and smiling made me think about what he could have been, had he not fallen down an abyss of mental and physical disintegration. It’s a mixed blessing that my aunt has dementia as it keeps her from asking about Joe.
Also among the containers filled with relics I found some of my show biz mementos—VCR tapes from TV shows I appeared in, cassette tapes from my singing days, and cast photos. I’m not sure why I keep them. We don’t have children or grandchildren to show them to, I’ll never be able to review them in their current state, and it’s not worth it to me to have them put on CDs or DVDs. Still, they don’t take up much room and I’m not ready to get rid of them.
More Tales From the “I’m Just an Idiot!” File
We needed to hire a plumber to replace both our garbage disposal and the pressure relief valve (PRV) that regulates water flow into our house. Mr. Groovy prefers me to handle the communication with most service providers because when left to him, he neglects to ask the questions I want answered.
I called a plumber we used previously who worked out great. But this time his prices seemed very high. He quoted me close to $400 for the work. That was with him providing the PRV and us purchasing a new garbage disposal.
I checked our online neighborhood bulletin board and found the names of a few plumbers who were highly recommended. One of them, Dave the Plumber, had many positive reviews on another site as well. That was good enough for me to investigate so I sent him an email inquiry on Friday. He responded quickly and provided a written estimate of $216 for the same work. He also asked me about the disposal and after I described the problem he said to buy a new one in case we needed it—but quite possibly he could fix the one we have.
Dave the Plumber showed up as scheduled on Monday. He fixed the disposal, unclogged a few faucets and a shower head, checked all the water pressure, and examined the valve we thought we’d need to replace. He said it was fine and adjusted it to raise the flow.
The total charge was $102, including tax. I saved us almost $300.
But what do I know? I’m just an idiot.
Incidentally, you’ve got to hear Dave the Plumber’s story. His last name, Wadell, sounded very familiar to me. And that’s because he’s a former member of our town council. But the real reason I remembered him is because when he left the town council a few years ago, his letter of resignation went viral.
He wrote it in Klingon!
I’m not kidding. If you Google “town councilman resigns in Klingon” you’ll find his story everywhere—from Reuters, to the New York Daily News, to Esquire, to the Mirror in the UK, and more. Here’s one of the funnier pieces about his resignation from a local Montana newspaper.
P.S. Do you know when it’s time to consider that your home could sell very fast? When your plumber tells you, “You better be prepared to move when your house goes on the market. They’re selling like hotcakes here.”
The Plight of the Foyer
Monday night I was at my computer upstairs looking at towels and decorative items for staging our home for sale. Afterwards, I went downstairs and Mr. Groovy was on the phone. He stopped the conversation abruptly, handed me the phone, and said that Groovy Brother wanted to talk to me—about the foyer! You’ll recall that little issue of the entry space I want in our new home, that Mr. Groovy and I argued over.
Uh-oh. I was faced with two against one and I knew this wasn’t going to be good. So you can imagine how surprised I was when Groovy Brother said, “I totally agree with you. I don’t want to walk into a home and be right inside the living room and I don’t want to look at something ugly.”
In the words of Detective Joe Kenda—Well, my my my!
My Husband Kicked my Cat on Our First Date
By popular demand I have to tell this story. You read about it in my last update.
When Mr. Groovy and I met in 2000, he took me to a quaint little Italian restaurant I suggested in my neighborhood. Afterwards we took a stroll and returned to my apartment for coffee. At the time, I had two cats. The little one, Sweet Pea, was only a few months old.
Mr. Groovy sat on the sofa looking at a book while I was in the kitchen with my back to him, preparing coffee. But out of the corner of my eye I could see Sweet Pea approach him at the sofa. Then suddenly, his foot moved and she was two feet in the air!
“Did you just kick my cat?”
“I didn’t kick her, I just gave her a tap with my foot and she jumped!”
“What do you mean you gave her a tap with your foot?”
“I was just trying to pet her. It was a love tap!”
“Do you mean to tell me that you deliberately lifted that large foot of yours, that foot that’s in a hard work boot, touched my cat with it—and you call that a love tap?”
“Yes, exactly!”
I’m pretty sure this was the first time I blurted out the most common refrain known to every woman that’s lived with a man, since the beginning of time:
“You’re an idiot!”
The love tap incident marked the beginning of a twelve year stretch where Sweet Pea wanted nothing to do with Mr. Groovy. But that didn’t stop him from trying. And it didn’t end with his feet. Oh, occasionally he tried to pet her like a normal person with his hand. But most times, rather than gesturing to her with an open hand, he found it quite amusing to grab anything in his vicinity to give her a “love tap.” A book, a cup, a magazine, a paper towel holder, and I don’t remember what else. But I do remember it coming to a boil one day with me screaming at him:
“Do NOT touch my pets with objects!”
[Mr. Groovy here: Mrs. Groovy got the story mostly right. I wasn’t wearing work boots. It was our first date. I definitely had shoes on. And what happened was this. I was sitting on the couch waiting for Mrs. Groovy to make the coffee, and Sweet Pea, who was around five months old at the time, decided to stroll between the coffee table and the sofa and pass over my feet. And as she was passing over my feet, I decided to be a little playful and raise my foot a little bit to touch her belly. How did I know she was going to fly into the air like she stepped on a landmine?]
The Fight-O-Meter
There’s no change this week. Although I could take a point for Groovy Brother going to bat for me on the foyer, I already scored on that topic in Update 5. Besides, I need to give Mr. Groovy a glimmer of hope for catching up.
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