To There and Back Again

The last ten days have been full of highs and lows, gnashing of teeth and general rejoicing. I'm ready for a nervous breakdown, but I just don't have the time to schedule one right now.

The weekend trip to the Central Coast was interesting. First, the traffic was horrible; stop and crawl from my house in Pasadena all the way up to Santa Barbara. It took me over three hours to go just 100 miles. When I got to Santa Barbara, there was a temporary road sign flashing, "U.S. 101 closed ahead at 246. Take Highway 1 as detour." Since I couldn't remember which highway 246 was (it's the exit to Lompoc), I stopped to check out the situation and to get a bite to eat.

It seems there was a gentleman who had barricaded himself in his home. He was armed and his home was near enough to the freeway that Highway Patrol decided to close it down from the Lompoc turnoff all the way to Orcutt, which is just south of Santa Maria. I decided not to rush my lunch.

I headed off north, and by the time I got to the Lompoc turnoff, Caltrans and the CHP were busy breaking down cone barriers. Another temporary sign flashed on the shoulder: "101 OPEN." I let out a sigh of relief and hit the gas.

By the time I got into my motel room, it was after 6 in the evening. I called Kittie and David around 7 p.m. (Kittie's working late, as it's tax season) and let them know I was just going unwind, get some rest, and I would see them tomorrow.

Saturday, I dropped in on David, who was home working on one of his VW bugs. There was a car show the next day, and he was prepping. We hung out a while. He checked the fluids in my car, since I  had had a weird episode on the highway where it seemed the car lost power, but the engine was still running.

At two o'clock I headed out to Vena's place. She had an old friend with her, a guy named Richard, who was drinking in earnest when I arrived. We sat and chatted for a while, and Vena and I got on our  favorite subject—deceased spouses—and Richard seemed to resent being left out of the conversation.

Kittie was spending the day at work, of course, and about four o'clock she called, having gotten off of work, and suggested she and David join us and we could all go to dinner. Vena was adamant that she wanted Japanese. Richard kept grousing, wanting to go to more of a steakhouse.

It dawned on me that he was shooting for a nice meal for which someone else was going to pay. When David and Kittie arrived, it became clear to Kittie at once what was going on. Vena and Richard were going in David and Kittie's car. On the ride to the restaurant, Kittie made it clear that everyone was paying for their own dinner. Richard ended up getting a bowl of Udon noodles and scarfing up his share of the appetizers Kittie and I ordered.

After dinner, I headed back to the motel and settled in for the evening.

The next day, at 2 p.m., a get-together was planned for Sandy Beck's house in San Luis Obispo. This was a chance to say goodbye to my friends on the Central Coast. It was not everyone I knew, but it was a chance to bid farewell. It was quite cathartic for me, and made the move seem more real.

Jeff and Sandy before the Christmas tree
that has been up since 2013.

Over the weekend, I started getting e-mails from Realtor Jan about questions the buyers had put forth about the HOA. I answered what I could, but the sticking point seemed to be a document referred to as the Reserve Study, which basically lists what maintenance the HOA expects to do on the complex and when, and how they plan to pay for it.

I'd never heard of this, and we obviously didn't have one, which is a tiny bit illegal, but Jan assured me that it is something many small HOAs don't do, even though they should. She never saw this as being a sticking point on a sale before. So there was back-and-forth e-mails (all having to go through the Realtors, of course), and Jan at one point said something about having the back-up contingency offer and all of a sudden I saw the sale falling through.

All kinds of crap flashed before my eyes: The contingency falls through, we have to put the house back on the market, I end up getting $40,000 less than I thought. At some point, I run out of money and end up in a shopping cart on the streets.

Yes, I freaked out behind this good. I stopped packing. I stopped scheduling things (like the movers) until I knew exactly where this was going. Then, on Friday, Jan e-mailed with the news that the buyers had signed off on their contingencies, and escrow was on.

I spent the weekend sort of puttering-packing. All of the organized packing has been done. Now is when I go through drawers for a final time and pack the stuff of toss it.

So today I'm scheduling the next two weeks, right after I finish this entry.

I so so so so so so so so want this whole thing to be over with now.

Yeah, I know; give it a couple weeks.