"...Gang Aft Agley"

That's what happens to best laid plans, quoting from the original by Robert Burns, with a nod to my ancestors on the Scottish side of the family. For a while today there seemed to be a serious risk of that happening with the house sale. Plans had been "best laid" for closing in 3 more days, but then we heard from our realtor, and the title company rep, and the solar company.

It started with our realtor in a phone call telling us not to panic from her email.

Email? She sent an email that we missed? What's going on?

We knew that the buyer is an investment company. What we hadn't known is that they'd already sold it off before closing to a second company which sold it off to a third company. (So far, anyway.) Not our problem so long as the house sold without a hitch, right? Except....

There were problems with the solar company connecting with the proper most recent wannabe owner in order to properly transfer the contract on the panels to the people actually in possession of the house. The names kept changing. I kept getting emails asking me to e-sign documents to transfer the contracts, did the e-signing, and turned around to get another request. None of the company names meant anything to me so it was only in retrospect I sort of noticed the names were different. I was paying more attention to the dates referred to for the contract I was to sign, since there were two, years apart.

                               Totally superfluous columbine pic

We had already arranged with the title company for a notary to stop at this house this afternoon so Steve and I could sign the 5 tons of paperwork that goes with selling a house. Only in blue, of course, because nobody could fake that with a color copier, right? We were given a window of time within which it would be set up. So most of our realtor's call was to inform us we should go through with our signing this afternoon. If the latest LLC in the buying chain didn't get around to signing the transfer documents, our realtor and the title company connection would be sure that they were not authorized to buy the house. That firm stand would keep us for having to continue payments on the system without having any benefits or control of what happens with it in the future. But sign now, so our side of the documents could get Fed-Exed down to AZ in time for the scheduled signing Monday.

                  Totally superfluous red honeysuckle bush blooms

Meanwhile as I was scouring emails to be alert and ready for any new developments, I got a weird one from the solar company, telling us not to do something which totally perplexed me. It started "Voided. Action Needed." Say what? It wasn't a request to e-sign anything. Those are simple to run through. Was it a refusal by a buyer to take over the solar, something our realtor warned about? What kind of action is needed and by whom and when? Jargon jargon jargon. I forwarded it to our realtor, but haven't heard back. Meanwhile the solar company followed that up with a request to answer a "satisfaction level" survey, between 1 to 5 stars. 

How do I come back with "What the heck are you talking about?"

Our scheduled appointment with the notary was in a window between 11 AM and 2 PM. We were already in that window with no contact from him when the alarms about possible glitches started sounding. Steve overheard just enough of my side of the conversation to get worried, so I handed the phone to him so he could question the realtor. We still hadn't seen nor heard from the notary as the end of the window approached, so Steve went for a nap. By the time our supposed window closed, I contacted via email the woman from the title company who'd set it up letting her know that so far he was a no-show. She emailed back that he'd told her he'd "personally spoken to the sellers letting us know he was going to be here at 2:30."

My reaction to that? "Oh, so we have a C.Y.A. Fibber! Good to know."

            Totally superfluous new cherries forming after petal drop

At 2:30 he finally did call, informing me his last appointment had run extra long, and he was just getting in his car up in North Branch and should arrive in 20 minutes. That turned into about ten after 3, when I woke Steve to come out and sign stuff. We signed, he notarized, explained what a couple lines of legalize meant when we had to say either it was a true or false statement about the transaction, and left a little after 4. On his way out, finishing packing all the pages together, I asked him when the local Fed EX closed.

He hoped it wasn't yet.

Does Fed EX rush documents across the country on weekends so they can arrive in time for our scheduled closing? Or will this also "gang aft agley"? I guess we'll find out Monday.

Bingo!

I've played Bingo since I was a little kid, one of the ways I learned numbers and (5) letters. Growing up on a resort, it was one of the evening entertainments for guests after a presumably long day fishing. (Not catching, necessarily, just fishing.) My parents also offered evenings of canasta, also a good way for a kid to learn numbers before school.

Of course I never won anything, at either kind of game, whether I won or not. Same for my older brother. We were there mostly so our folks could keep an eye on us before bed. We were absolutely not allowed to win. That was reserved for the paying guests. At the time I found it totally unfair, though I found later that it had done a fairly good job of killing my competitive streak in playing games. After all, what was the point? And even if either of us had won, prizes tended to be things like fishing lures. 

Big whoop.... yawn.

I rarely played Bingo over the years since, and even when I did I never won. So where was the fun? (And as for canasta, I promptly forgot the rules. There were other card games.)

Tonight Steve and I went out to dinner at a Muddy Cow restaurant with a friend of his and a couple of his nearly grown sons. It turned out to be Bingo night there. We had finished eating, so did we want to play? Steve had talked about it in the car on the trip down, and we'd decided that, like much of his world, it would depend on how his back was doing. He said it was doing fine, so he paid the buy-in fee for two sets of cards, three each for ten different games. Winning any of the first 9 meant getting a pot of $75, or if there were more winners at the same time, splitting the pot. The final game was Cover-All with a pot of $1,000.

I had no expectations of winning, and it was looking well into the games that my losing streak at Bingo was continuing. Each game we all had 3 cards to play on one strip of paper. Often a number which was called appeared in two of the cards, though of course not in a way which filled in something for a Bingo on my cards. There were games I was familiar with, and some new to me, requiring unusual patterns  with interesting names. About halfway through the game I actually got a Bingo! All by myself, not one to share. Steve got his buy-in fee returned, a tip was left, and I wound up with gas money for the night.

A couple games later, Steve got a Bingo! Unfortunately, his was shared. He also took out a tip  for the staff running the game. Some time between my win and his, we were the only two left at our table. His back was rapidly worsening, but he was determined to stay till the very end and give us our chance to win a grand. The game lasted a long time, being a cover-all, and it was fun between the numbers to exchange updates on how full our cards were getting, watching ordinary but meaningless bingos mount up on our cards. I was so into the fun when that last game started I whispered "Bingo" after the first number was called. Steve was the only person within earshot, but we both got a chuckle. Even with the pain he was in by the time we left, he had a blast. And I managed to end my forever-losing streak.

In the morning he goes to see a new pain doc. We have no idea whether, after everything that has been tried, there is any thing more than can be done to bring some good results. Neither of us is as optimistic of a "win" then as we had tonight.s

This Aurora... Sigh....

Much of the planet got to see the fantastic auroras on the 11th/12th. Photos have been rolling in, to news stations, weather sites, friends and relatives around the world, and SpaceWeather.com. The latter has a fabulous photo gallery you can browse through, including information on where they are from.  Some photos include foregrounds to show just how unusual the locations are, like one with a cactus foreground from Los Vegas, or pyramids (not from Vegas). Palm trees under red skies are common.

Sadly, they were very unimpressive from our spot in MN, wisps of the palest green moving slowly enough that they might as well have been clouds. But people with the latest smartphones were out showing their pictures just taken (from just over that tree there) which were loaded with color, not just green but some reds as well. I also heard stories from a neighbor who'd just gotten home from work who'd seen cars pulled over along the highways and idiots stepping suddenly from between cars without looking for traffic and nearly getting hit. (You know, because even idiots like a good show and if they've survived this long with those bad habits, they must be invulnerable, right?)

While I was the only one out on the street in front looking for better views, all three of us stepped out from the back door, since our backyard is one of the darkest spots in town, and watched them for a bit, so we could say we'd seen them. While we were mostly disappointed, it was the location where my son and I viewed what was my second most spectacular aurora light show in my life.

It was in the very early 90s, shortly after moving in. The color was an amazing, a brilliant green that covered the entire sky. Unlike this recent one, it came in ribbons and waves, not standing still but dancing wildly over the sky, now waves, now curtains, now crossing the entire view and heading back again, serpentine all the way. It was so ferociously active that I thought it must be making a roar, though we couldn't hear it. I tried calling nearby family, but nobody was answering their phones that late.

As spectacular as that was, the best aurora ever comes from my early teenage years, when we lived in Park Rapids, up in the north country. I was in the band, and thus attended sporting events for the school. Indoor events we had spots on the bleachers, outdoors we marched on the field in a variety of formations during halftime. This night was just before Homecoming, when tradition required a huge bonfire and burning an effigy of the opposing team. I'd never been to one before, had no expectations, and initially was just glad I had a reason to get out of the house. The band director required it, or I wouldn't have been allowed to attend. 

After lots of rah-rah stuff, speeches on how we were going to clobber their team, school song by the band, the rest was party, i.e., lighting the fire. As if it were made to order, by the time the flames reached the top of the pile and the effigy, the sky opened up with matching pink/red auroras. I mean the whole sky, not a stripe or two here and there. Somebody turned a mirror upside down on top of the flames, as if the sky agreed with our purpose and celebrated along with us.

Of course, being a kid back then, as indelible as the visual impression still is, I have no clue who won Homecoming that year.

It doesn't Get Much More FUBAR!

When you move you forward your mail, right? We did that and started getting our mail in MN. Then... we quit getting it. The forwarding system has worked for decades or longer, perfectly well. It followed us when we moved, It followed us north in the summer and back south in the fall when we were snowbirds. Recently the paperwork changed, going online was not so much a service as a requirement, and postal staff were prohibited from assisting us, until eventually you even had to pay to change your address. In short, it became annoying, but still functioned. Mostly.

Now it's broken.

I got this weird notice a few days back, telling me that per my request - supposedly - mail was being sent back to Arizona. Steve didn't get one. It was so weird and things were so chaotic still, that I mentally filed it under a mistake, nonsense.

WTF? What request? But mail we'd been expecting just wasn't arriving. Steve needs a replacement bank card.  His new handicap hanger for parking. I need a SS replacement card. A check or two. And a driver's license. And... and... and by now who knows what else? At least most of my bills are announced online and paid online.

With the sale of the house even more documents are likely to get into dead letter hell. Hell for us anyway, even if not for them.

A call to our realtor on an different topic this evening brought up the fact that she had a couple pieces of our mail recently delivered to the old house. One from Steve's bank, another from an auction company which owes me two checks, though this one should be small. She informed us they had been addressed to the northern address but forwarded back to the old one, dropped through the door mail slot, and handed over to her by another realtor doing a showing. She'd been planning to send them up, but when I expressed frustration with missing mail, let me know that first she'd head back over to see what else might have accumulated since then. In order to avoid a repeat of the endless travel circle, we requested she address the new fuller envelope to my son, the permanent resident we're living with who hasn't forwarded mail to my knowledge since he finished military training decades ago. It should get here without being diverted yet again. Maybe more we're waiting for will be there and some problems will be solved.

Meanwhile, tomorrow morning we'll head to the post office. At least in tiny towns they'll actually talk to you rather than pushing you ASAP through the line. I'm hoping we can get ideas of how to actually get our mail and KEEP getting it. Especially since we'll be changing our address one more time in a month or two, hopefully for good. We will need to know it won't be reversed on us through whatever kind of mischief.

For Wild Weather, A Lightning Map

I'm a person who orients myself mentally in relation to where I am on a map. I've driven most of the state, and good bits of other states when traveling. I don't do GPS, I'm a map person all the way.

I also love to follow weather. I love following the changing shapes and colors of weather radar maps, especially when I can watch movements of weather systems and work to figure out my personal chances of experiencing rain or snow at any given time. Where I live right now is a spot where radar is often wrong about where precipitation is falling, often claiming it's overhead when it's not. This happens to be the high spot of the county I'm in, which has the effect of parting weather systems so they pass to the side. We still get weather, but often watch it go around, no matter in which direction it's traveling. 

Of course climate change is showing effects. The last couple years were pretty dry here, and now this spring is pretty wet, not in a bad way, at least not yet this spring, but nourishing the ground without damaging what sits on it.

Much of the country is not so lucky. There's more heat to our south, so more energy, resulting in record numbers of tornadoes the past few weeks. We're still cool enough here to avoid those, so far. Heat is coming, of course. We're not immune here. In a practical sense, it's a good thing we have so little severe summer weather. But from my personal point of view, I happen to love a good thunderstorm, with lots of lightning all around, or at least as long as I can watch it from shelter. I had a screen porch added to the west side of the house after it was built, not only to keep mosquitoes out, but to allow a view of storms rolling in... or mostly passing by.

I recently got introduced to a new kind of map online which is a great indicator of the severity of storms on this planet. Mine opens with our state in the center, probably because the internet knows where our wifi router is. The map can be persuaded to move to other areas, even crossing oceans. It shows lightning strikes in real time.

They start as a tiny red dot, expanding to a small circle with a yellow center. Then they sit on the map for a while, until overlaid by another strike or bunch of strikes. I don't know how long it takes for them to go away, but since they stick around you can get a really good idea of how widespread the storm is. The change in shape/color draws the eye to the most recent strikes, and how fast they get replaced plus how wide the strikes spread out give you a good idea of the activity level in the storm you're tracking.

Mostly the map will show a narrow red/yellow band with very sparse activity. The recent tornado outbreaks in the central plains give a much wilder picture, with ball shaped clusters of strikes within a huge irregular pattern of them, or traveling rows of them, as if each strike prompted the next, prompting the next, even sometimes unceasing piles hitting over and over in the same locations. Around midnight this morning Tennessee was almost completely covered, extending into neighboring states, with such a level of activity it was like watching colored popcorn popping nonstop. Come back 5 minutes later, same thing. Thirty minutes later, still going strong with maybe a hint of directional movement or spread from where you first saw it. There is a tiny window inside the program that you can click on to animate it, allowing you to see the long term movement of storms you were watching.

I presume the morning news will have more weather damage reports similar to the last few days.

The map can be tricky to navigate, something that only gets worse if you leave a tab open and return after a few minutes to see what's changed. My built in mouse pad is oversensitive as a navigation tool, sending me wildly off in random directions and changing the map's size unpredictably. I quickly learned to navigate using only the keyboard arrows: up down left and right. If left alone while I'm using other tabs, when I return I might find it traveling by itself to places off the map completely, and have to close out and reopen to start over. Those are minor irritations, and may well be me and not the software... except it only happens here. I find it worth figuring out the workaround.

So if you want a fascinating new view of what's happening when wild weather is really happening, I recommend this source:  

https://www.lightningmaps.org/#m=oss;t=3;s=0;o=0;b=;ts=0;z=5;y=44.8403;x=-91.8018;d=2;dl=2;dc=0;

 

 

Offer And Counter Offer

We think we've sold the house!

It's been quite a journey, ups and downs, long waits , and finally quick action. It's a compromise, and there are still almost two weeks until the deal is final, money in the bank. 

It turns out we're not all that patient. We settled for less than we wanted, and settled again, and watched the calendar pages turn and deadlines approach. But it should be enough to pay for the new place outright, furnish it as needed, utility over luxury, and continue to live fairly comfortably for a dozen years. Of course, best laid plans....

Sitting on the house is costing us money. Utilities still have to be paid. This month the water bill went up, not from use, but because it's a desert and water rates went up... again. Use or no use. Period. Until ownership is transferred, utilities have to be kept on to prove they work. Insurance needs to be maintained. We're also paying something here in MN, because we're using water, gas and electricity, and my son's bills are higher while we stay. It's the thing to do. On top of that, there's an increase in gasoline over our regular usage level because we're filling the car tank almost weekly instead of once a month. Perhaps "filling" is a bit of an exaggeration, and "topping off" is more accurate. A nearby larger town is having gas wars so we take advantage when we're in it. We're also more conscious of our trips when the grocery store with best prices is more than the mile away we're used to.

It was a busy weekend in house viewings, our realtor informed us. The house was finally getting more appreciation for its "bones" than criticism for its lack of the latest high end decorating, at the now lower price. One person liked it but hadn't secured financing yet, and had to go talk to his money-man, an uncle. (I never had one of those. Did you? My relatives couldn't/wouldn't pop for a new house for me.) A real estate company put in the best solid offer in the end. The better offer financially also came with the fewest caveats and the shortest time span. Both would take it "as is" while a third party expressed interest but dithered about asking for improvements on our part before buying. It seems they "couldn't afford paint" among other things. 

The offer we accepted was both the highest and fastest, giving us 3 days to accept/reject, including a firm price even before inspection, no repairs needed, 5 days for them to come up with the standard  $2K escrow, (we only put $100 down in 2012 when we bought it) and closing on the 20th, in cash. That means financing is already secure on their end, not a suitcase of, say, $100 bills, in case that was your first mental image from watching too many TV crime shows. Being a realty company, they already know what is skin deep and what is changeable. We'd had one lower offer - the guarantee, just in case - who wanted to fix it up as a rental, and I have no idea if the offer we accepted is the same kind of plan or they are looking for a nice profit once the house is "prettier". I never presume they want to live there themselves.

We gave a counter offer of 3 days for them to come up with the escrow instead of 5. Or rather, our hard working realtor put that on the table, where it was verbally accepted. Last night she emailed us the contracts for our e-signatures, a surprisingly easy process we're getting used to, and we looked them over while clicking in all the right little pink boxes for initials or a full signature automatically filled in, depending on what was needed. At the end we just had to click a box which only appeared acknowledging we'd not missed any spots or we'd have to go back to see what we'd missed, telling us we'd completed the process. While I was trying to figure out what I still needed to do to send the forms back to our realtor, we got emails back letting us know they were received, and click here, here, or this other space to get or own copy of the contract as signed back in our email. I picked one and it began loading... and loading... and loading... all 30 pages! No wonder I'd missed one of the boxes the first time through.

In case you wonder, the contract itself isn't that long, but it includes copies of all the paperwork we'd filled out back when we hired our realtor, everything about the house, what kind(s) of pipes where, who has the solar contracts, who had the termite control contract, when X, Y, and Z were replaced or repaired, or in one case, not, and so forth. The "not" was for the gas fireplace. It was never used, and finally a couple years back did not light when the gas company did an appliance check once we returned from vacation before turning gas back on. It's "yellow tagged" so nobody will return gas to it before suitable repairs are made, whether a simple cleaning or a parts replacement. We left it unused, unfixed. It's declared in the forms so any buyer can't come back to us demanding a repair, unless they do it in the original offer. "As is" is a wonderful offer for us. The more months we wait, the sooner the extra expenses eat into our reserves.

The final part of the offer, the one possible bit of insecurity for us, is their actual signing, plus the final payment being due the 20th. If the final payment falls through, we get the $2K, and our house is back on the market. Start again. At least with a realty company giving an "as is, cash" offer, it's fairly likely to go through.

So the only hitch, once that goes through, is getting my SS card replacement in the mail. I was told when I went to their Minneapolis office that it would take "a week or two". I've been checking the mailbox religiously since the first week was over, more than 10 days ago. Until that card arrives, I can't make a photo copy for the park's management office so they can do our background checks and approve us to live in the park. 

Want to guess how patiently we'll be waiting for that, now?

Some Warnings For When Selling Your House

It's been an emotional roller coaster. First there was the long delay before legally evicting our "renter" after we left. Somehow we neglected to send official paperwork five months earlier when we decided to move and sell that they were required to be gone along with their stuff. (Who knew?) 

Consider that your first warning. Check your state's laws on the topic, and note the only qualification for needing the delay to kick them out post notification is they are a human who's been in residence. Doesn't even matter if they've paid. Things changed after covid.

So, we were already well behind how we'd planned for best market timing, early spring when the desert starts to bloom and temperatures are wonderful. We were also way behind in being able to repair and paint to give the best appearance to people walking in to look around. Just one example: the living room floor was painted concrete with a pair of expensive and beautiful area rugs on it with furniture either on or around the outside of those rugs. Those were packed very shortly before we moved out, but we had no real access to the floor to repaint it so it looked nice between then and when we left, naively thinking our renter was also about to leave on our schedule. With the fancy rugs removed, flaws in the paint for unknown reasons, like those four holes in a square pattern where no furniture had been during our 12 years there to put pressure and friction on the surface to pull off the paint, suddenly showed up. We never really had access to that bare, flawed surface to paint it before leaving. Furniture around the house hid developing flaws, and without furniture there was no way for us to remain: no chairs, no beds, etc. Even when we left the floor was cluttered with our renter's stuff, while our minds were cluttered with empty promises to us to remove it.

Six weeks later it finally went on the market. The wheels of justice grind slow. In our case, this also meant that snowbirds had mostly returned to their northern homes. Those down  for the spring bloom and likely some pickle ball or golf to help persuade them it should become an annual event had already canvassed the available market, and decided to buy or not. Either way, they were also back north.

There are still some buyers out there. The house gets showings every so often. Our hopes get raised, then... nobody is the right person. You know, the one who can actually picture living in a home that has no furniture, can't see the traffic flow, need somebody else's perfect plan to claim as their own. Just like on the TV shows where some other "expert" tells them how they "have to" decorate.

Our realtor tries to keep us encouraged, that someday the right buyer will come along. But we found our next perfect place, totally empty of furniture so it will have our own stamp on it, meet our needs, keep us comfortable. It also comes with a deadline to buy it. And every day that there's a showing in Arizona and no progress is another day or five closer to our deadline. That's our roller coaster.

She's done things for the house to help it look better, help people think it's an OK place to move into. When one potential buyer started measuring and pricing the cost of tearing out a couple walls, including an exterior one with a 4" drop to the continuation of the floor, she didn't say a word about how crazy an idea that was, how it was an invitation to falls, how much new support would have to go into the project just to make it look like some TV project. It didn't take more than a week for that person to figure how difficult and expensive - OK, let's go with "crazy" here - an idea that was. She backed out, citing too much stress.

I'm going with "too little budget to remake over half a house without bringing it down on her head."

We got feedback from people who didn't like the house and thought it was over priced. We dropped the price. We dropped it again, incidentally after another trip to our hopeful new place where we fell even more in love with it. Now feedback came back that people still didn't like the house but it was priced OK. Our roller coaster swung to "should we drop it more?" Even, "would we be crazy to ask if that initial severely lowball bid is still an offer?"

Our realtor suggested we hold of on any more dropping of price for a while. See what happens.  Then she added something surprising, saying there were other problems than price in that lowball offer. I'll quote her here:

"I don’t believe the offer for $205K was “real”. It’s sort of a long story, but I will try to make it short. These “investors” hand out “proof of funds” letters to literally just anyone. These “Pseudo Buyers” run around with realtors and put in offers on homes. The reason the contract said “and or nominee” on it was because the “Pseudo Buyer” tries to present it to this investment firm or tries to find someone who will buy it and then they “assign" the contract to the “real buyer”. Then the investment company will throw the “Pseudo Buyer” a bone and give them a few thousand dollars if they end up actually buying the home. If the “Pseudo Buyer” doesn't find a “nominee" they can assign the sale to, they simply cancel on the very last day of the inspection period. They drag out the inspection period as long as possible (to the very last day) and make you sweat bullets and then on the last day of the inspection period (day 10) they demand thousands of dollars for repairs. It’s awful. At that point sooo much time is wasted the Seller feels like a sitting duck and succumbs to their unreasonable demands. Unfortunately, I learned about these tactics the hard way. It was the worst I ever felt in 25 years of real estate and unfortunately my clients were both blind and trying to deal with this nonsense. Anytime you see “and or nominee” on a real estate contract it’s a huge red flag. Plus their letter said they have 3 million to spend, which equals mega hard core scammers. We don’t have time to waste on this type of thing….

"We need a “real” Buyer(s), sincere about your home that will actually close on it, so you get your money and can get into your amazing new place. :-)  Keep you posted."

 

She had more to say about possibilities to keep us from getting stuck in a worst possible outcome. But at least now we know what else to avoid, and have something to count on so we can move on in a timely manner. I never heard these kind of things from my father, himself a realtor for quite a few years. He never talked shop at home. I assumed a lot about selling a house and how easy it "should" be, and indeed, previous homes I've lived in after leaving the nest never ran into any of those problems. I'm just passing this along so you might remember things to avoid or plan ahead for if you decide to sell your home. 

At least, whatever comes, we have a place to crash in until all the dust settles. Which may not happen as needed if the mail system doesn't get more prompt about sending documents our way to replace the ones "somebody"   (ahem) packed up and left in storage 1800 miles away.