Primo: I found all these old emails, which I have put in the recycling. My dad was angry that he had not advanced in his career. And he was angry that the union promoted people based on seniority and not competence.
Me: And how does one measure competence in academia? You have to define an objective measure. Look how much of a battle tenure is!
Primo: He thought it was unfair.
Me: You don't get to pick and choose when you are in a union.
Primo: He said academia was different from a factory floor and that incompetence should not be protected.
Me: Incompetence should not be protected anywhere, especially on a factory floor! And unions have no place in academia - it is not production work that can be easily measured.
Primo: My dad spent a lot of time on faculty development. He was really interested in the theory and the practice. They got this new department chair who assigned my dad to teach two sections of Shakespeare. My dad was upset about it.
Me: Why?
Primo: I guess he wanted to teach something else. So he wrote to the chair. The chair said he had looked at all the recent peer-reviewed journals and had not found anything my dad had written. And then he said maybe if my dad weren't so busy being Faculty Czar, he would have time for research.
Me: Ouch! Straight for the jugular!
Primo: But my dad was doing research!
Me: Yes, but he was doing organizational behavior research, not English literature research. You advance in academia by contributing to the field of knowledge in your field. Your dad's field was not org behavior.
Saturday, March 5, 2016
In which we learn that Ted has been financially irresponsible for decades
Primo: I found a bunch of correspondence between my parents and Ted from 20 years ago.
Me: Why am I not surprised?
Primo: My dad was really angry.
Me: Why?
Primo: This was in a "Ted" folder - printed out emails.
Me: They moved that stuff to Florida?
Primo: They had a metal file box of all their check registers since the 70s.
Me: Oh good grief.
Primo: So my dad kept track of stuff with Ted. He had co-signed for a credit card for Ted after Ted lost his job.
Me: Why?
Primo: Because Ted had really bad credit.
Me: Oh man. I would never dream of asking my parents to co-sign on a credit card. But then, I would never have bad credit. If you are middle class and well educated with a decent job and health insurance, you have no reason to have bad credit except financial mismanagement. You are living beyond your means. Even if you lose your job, you should not be plunged into penury. You don't live at your means, ever - you save in case you lose your job.
Primo: So my dad co-signed and then Ted and Ted'sWife had like a six thousand dollar bill at Dean and Delucca.
Me: How did your dad know? Wait? They were broke and had bad credit and thought that shopping at at a gourmet food store was a good idea?
Primo: You know Ted. He deserves the good stuff. He got the bills.
Me: Was he paying the bills? Because even though he was the co-signer, it wasn't his business how Ted spends his money.
Primo: Somehow, Ted got the credit limit raised from a thousand or two to six thousand.
Me: Without your dad's agreement?
Primo: Yes.
Me: OK I am on your dad's side on this. And you know that's a big deal. Ted is a jerk.
Primo: And he has not changed. He still lives beyond his means. Even back then, he was complaining about having to sell his frequent flier miles. He was that broke, but he was shopping at Dean and Delucca?
Me: Why am I not surprised?
Primo: My dad was really angry.
Me: Why?
Primo: This was in a "Ted" folder - printed out emails.
Me: They moved that stuff to Florida?
Primo: They had a metal file box of all their check registers since the 70s.
Me: Oh good grief.
Primo: So my dad kept track of stuff with Ted. He had co-signed for a credit card for Ted after Ted lost his job.
Me: Why?
Primo: Because Ted had really bad credit.
Me: Oh man. I would never dream of asking my parents to co-sign on a credit card. But then, I would never have bad credit. If you are middle class and well educated with a decent job and health insurance, you have no reason to have bad credit except financial mismanagement. You are living beyond your means. Even if you lose your job, you should not be plunged into penury. You don't live at your means, ever - you save in case you lose your job.
Primo: So my dad co-signed and then Ted and Ted'sWife had like a six thousand dollar bill at Dean and Delucca.
Me: How did your dad know? Wait? They were broke and had bad credit and thought that shopping at at a gourmet food store was a good idea?
Primo: You know Ted. He deserves the good stuff. He got the bills.
Me: Was he paying the bills? Because even though he was the co-signer, it wasn't his business how Ted spends his money.
Primo: Somehow, Ted got the credit limit raised from a thousand or two to six thousand.
Me: Without your dad's agreement?
Primo: Yes.
Me: OK I am on your dad's side on this. And you know that's a big deal. Ted is a jerk.
Primo: And he has not changed. He still lives beyond his means. Even back then, he was complaining about having to sell his frequent flier miles. He was that broke, but he was shopping at Dean and Delucca?
Friday, March 4, 2016
In which Primo decides to take a long driving trip alone to visit Doris' aunt and drop Sly and Doris' ashes in the same cemetery where Nancy is buried
Which is a huge relief to me because I do not want Sly and Doris' ashes in my house.
It's creepy.
And he says he will have more time to sort out the papers, which means he is not bringing them back here tomorrow.
Still doesn't mean he won't be bringing them here at the end of the driving trip.
I have to come up with a plan.
It's creepy.
And he says he will have more time to sort out the papers, which means he is not bringing them back here tomorrow.
Still doesn't mean he won't be bringing them here at the end of the driving trip.
I have to come up with a plan.
In which Primo is talking about bringing boxes of Sly and Doris' junk home with him because he cannot bear to throw it away and I am shuddering at the idea of even more junk in my house
You know one of my biggest dislikes about Sly and Doris' house was that it was full of junk.
You know one of my biggest dislikes about Primo's and my house is that it is full of junk.
It is not full of my junk. I do not accumulate. I shed. I want to travel light. I don't want to have a lot of stuff.
Primo, on the other hand, is convinced that someday, we will need two boxes of souvenir glasses from the microbrewery tour.
Yes, he has been on that tour many times since he moved here and he takes out of town friends and keeps their souvenir glasses.
Those glasses, my friends, have resided in the basement, along with his older stepdaughter's college tuition receipts (she is in her mid 30s, married, with two children, and long graduated from college), his phone bills from 1997, his employee manual from when he worked at Apple in 1992 (when the stock was worth nothing), and Halloween masks he used in college.
I did convince him to get rid of his college textbooks before we moved into the house by using the arguments that
1. There were poor students in Africa who need calculus, physics, and chemistry textbooks and
2. Nothing has changed in calculus 101, physics 101, or chemistry 101 and if he really had to look something up, he could look it up online.
But Primo is a collector. He likes having stuff. His office is getting smaller and smaller because he keeps stacking up more stuff on the floor and against the walls.
He had finally - finally, after seven years in this house - pulled some boxes from the basement into the finished area of the basement so he could sort through them. This was something he had promised to do before we even moved into the house, but it is a promise he had not kept, which I think makes him perfect to be a politician because frankly I think most politicians are scummy liars (but I really don't want Primo to lie down with those dogs and get those fleas).
Anyhow, he was about to go through the boxes and start getting rid of stuff.
That was the weekend that Sly fell on Doris and broke her knees.
The boxes have not been touched.
(I have already gotten rid of a bunch of stuff and I did it without his permission, but I think I am on solid ground to throw away junk mail and coupons from before the turn of the century.)
So Primo is at Sly and Doris' cleaning out the last of the junk and he has found more boxes of papers he did not know about - his dad was thinking about applying for a grant to study African American perspectives on literary criticism or something like that (Sly's PhD was on secondary English poets of the 19th century) and his mom had all of Nancy's medical records and the correspondence with the docs and hospitals and authorities and the little I saw of that was truly heartbreaking.
And there are a ton of family photos.
Primo has a small album of family photos that is somewhere at the bottom of a drawer somewhere. He showed them to me once. They are not something he really treasures.
The family photos are in boxes, loose. Not organized, not in albums, not labeled.
There is piano sheet music and choral music.
Primo does not want to throw any of this stuff away.
I do not want any of it.
How do I keep that stuff out of our house?
You know one of my biggest dislikes about Primo's and my house is that it is full of junk.
It is not full of my junk. I do not accumulate. I shed. I want to travel light. I don't want to have a lot of stuff.
Primo, on the other hand, is convinced that someday, we will need two boxes of souvenir glasses from the microbrewery tour.
Yes, he has been on that tour many times since he moved here and he takes out of town friends and keeps their souvenir glasses.
Those glasses, my friends, have resided in the basement, along with his older stepdaughter's college tuition receipts (she is in her mid 30s, married, with two children, and long graduated from college), his phone bills from 1997, his employee manual from when he worked at Apple in 1992 (when the stock was worth nothing), and Halloween masks he used in college.
I did convince him to get rid of his college textbooks before we moved into the house by using the arguments that
1. There were poor students in Africa who need calculus, physics, and chemistry textbooks and
2. Nothing has changed in calculus 101, physics 101, or chemistry 101 and if he really had to look something up, he could look it up online.
But Primo is a collector. He likes having stuff. His office is getting smaller and smaller because he keeps stacking up more stuff on the floor and against the walls.
He had finally - finally, after seven years in this house - pulled some boxes from the basement into the finished area of the basement so he could sort through them. This was something he had promised to do before we even moved into the house, but it is a promise he had not kept, which I think makes him perfect to be a politician because frankly I think most politicians are scummy liars (but I really don't want Primo to lie down with those dogs and get those fleas).
Anyhow, he was about to go through the boxes and start getting rid of stuff.
That was the weekend that Sly fell on Doris and broke her knees.
The boxes have not been touched.
(I have already gotten rid of a bunch of stuff and I did it without his permission, but I think I am on solid ground to throw away junk mail and coupons from before the turn of the century.)
So Primo is at Sly and Doris' cleaning out the last of the junk and he has found more boxes of papers he did not know about - his dad was thinking about applying for a grant to study African American perspectives on literary criticism or something like that (Sly's PhD was on secondary English poets of the 19th century) and his mom had all of Nancy's medical records and the correspondence with the docs and hospitals and authorities and the little I saw of that was truly heartbreaking.
And there are a ton of family photos.
Primo has a small album of family photos that is somewhere at the bottom of a drawer somewhere. He showed them to me once. They are not something he really treasures.
The family photos are in boxes, loose. Not organized, not in albums, not labeled.
There is piano sheet music and choral music.
Primo does not want to throw any of this stuff away.
I do not want any of it.
How do I keep that stuff out of our house?
Thursday, March 3, 2016
In which Primo and I argue about where Sly and Doris' ashes are to reside because Lord knows I do not want them in my house
Primo: There are all these boxes of papers. And there are my mom and dad's ashes, of course.
Me: What?
Primo: I can't mail them - there are all kinds of rules. I don't know if they will fit into my checked bags.
Me: But - you're not going to bring them here, are you?
Primo: Why not?
Me: Because it's macabre.
Primo: Lots of people keep ashes in their homes.
Me: Not me. That is not what I would like.
Primo: Lots of people do it.
Me: Your parents moved from up north to Florida specifically to get away from the winter. Do you really think they want to spend winters in our house? It's freezing in here. Plus do you really think they want to be around me?
Primo: Don't you want to be around them? We can put them on the kitchen counter.
Me: Or in the bedroom!
Primo: On your side!
Me: A shrine. We can make a shrine with the ashes and a dildo.
Primo: And the naked photo. Too bad I've already shredded it.
Me: We have the photo they gave us for Christmas a few years ago. The one they gave us when they gave you the cast-iron cat. We could use that one.
Me: What?
Primo: I can't mail them - there are all kinds of rules. I don't know if they will fit into my checked bags.
Me: But - you're not going to bring them here, are you?
Primo: Why not?
Me: Because it's macabre.
Primo: Lots of people keep ashes in their homes.
Me: Not me. That is not what I would like.
Primo: Lots of people do it.
Me: Your parents moved from up north to Florida specifically to get away from the winter. Do you really think they want to spend winters in our house? It's freezing in here. Plus do you really think they want to be around me?
Primo: Don't you want to be around them? We can put them on the kitchen counter.
Me: Or in the bedroom!
Primo: On your side!
Me: A shrine. We can make a shrine with the ashes and a dildo.
Primo: And the naked photo. Too bad I've already shredded it.
Me: We have the photo they gave us for Christmas a few years ago. The one they gave us when they gave you the cast-iron cat. We could use that one.
In which I complain about something really petty so if you want to accuse me of being selfish and self centered, go ahead - you would be right
Primo had to change Sly and Doris' mailing address to our address. He couldn't just tell the PO to dump everything. There are still bills for the house and someone has to pay them and that someone is Primo, which is OK because that is part of the deal.
Have I ever told you how I feel about junk mail?
I hate it.
It took me a year to almost eliminate the junk mail we were getting once I married Primo. I never got that much because I have always been hyper vigilant and shut that stuff down right away. But Primo used to get a ton of it and I made it my mission to stop it. First, it's wasteful of paper and gas and postal office time and second, it's a stupid waste of time to sort through it.
Once Primo agreed that I could cut the junk mail off at the source - he is a super control freak and didn't like the idea of my making decisions about what mail we get and what mail we do not get so this took a few years of negotiating LORD HAVE MERCY YOU GUYS engineers make great husbands as far as fixing things around the house but trying to get them to change an existing process is almost IMPOSSIBLE. And for them to trust someone else to do something? Honestly.
It took me a year. A year of identifying the junk mail with Primo, then emailing the vendor (having to track down the source of the junk first) to say, "Take us off your list. No, really. No, we do not want your cheap nasty products. No, we do not want your nice products. If we do, we will find you, I promise."
And they would promise to take our names off the list but then they would send us more junk or something would happen to trigger a new Junk Mail event and it took for darn ever.
But today, we get hardly any junk mail.
Sly and Doris got a ton of junk mail. They got almost every catalog that existed. I guess the green pear people (bless Doris' heart for trying to send us pretty things) figured that anyone who would buy a green glass pear will buy just about anything and that's a mailing list name you can sell.
Their house always had piles of junk mail. Going through their mail was their morning activity.
I always thought that was an interesting approach - that two people who were so staunchly environmentalist who condemned waste in others were very happy to have pounds and pounds of wasteful mail coming to their house and were happy to run their A/C all the time instead of opening the windows.
But their house, their rules. Whatever.
But now. Now all their mail is coming to us.
All their mail.
Including their junk mail.
Again, they are reaching from the grave.
We are getting their junk mail and that is not even the worst part of it.
We are getting things like mailers from Crate and Barrel.
I like Crate and Barrel.
Did Sly and Doris actually get those catalogs? Did they order from Crate and Barrel?
How can it be that they had access to the Nice Things at Crate and Barrel that I would actually have liked -who can't use more cloth napkins? - but they sent us green glass pears instead?
I know I am a bitch.
But man. It wasn't even that they didn't know that there are nice things you can get for a person. They just didn't want to.
Have I ever told you how I feel about junk mail?
I hate it.
It took me a year to almost eliminate the junk mail we were getting once I married Primo. I never got that much because I have always been hyper vigilant and shut that stuff down right away. But Primo used to get a ton of it and I made it my mission to stop it. First, it's wasteful of paper and gas and postal office time and second, it's a stupid waste of time to sort through it.
Once Primo agreed that I could cut the junk mail off at the source - he is a super control freak and didn't like the idea of my making decisions about what mail we get and what mail we do not get so this took a few years of negotiating LORD HAVE MERCY YOU GUYS engineers make great husbands as far as fixing things around the house but trying to get them to change an existing process is almost IMPOSSIBLE. And for them to trust someone else to do something? Honestly.
It took me a year. A year of identifying the junk mail with Primo, then emailing the vendor (having to track down the source of the junk first) to say, "Take us off your list. No, really. No, we do not want your cheap nasty products. No, we do not want your nice products. If we do, we will find you, I promise."
And they would promise to take our names off the list but then they would send us more junk or something would happen to trigger a new Junk Mail event and it took for darn ever.
But today, we get hardly any junk mail.
Sly and Doris got a ton of junk mail. They got almost every catalog that existed. I guess the green pear people (bless Doris' heart for trying to send us pretty things) figured that anyone who would buy a green glass pear will buy just about anything and that's a mailing list name you can sell.
Their house always had piles of junk mail. Going through their mail was their morning activity.
I always thought that was an interesting approach - that two people who were so staunchly environmentalist who condemned waste in others were very happy to have pounds and pounds of wasteful mail coming to their house and were happy to run their A/C all the time instead of opening the windows.
But their house, their rules. Whatever.
But now. Now all their mail is coming to us.
All their mail.
Including their junk mail.
Again, they are reaching from the grave.
We are getting their junk mail and that is not even the worst part of it.
We are getting things like mailers from Crate and Barrel.
I like Crate and Barrel.
Did Sly and Doris actually get those catalogs? Did they order from Crate and Barrel?
How can it be that they had access to the Nice Things at Crate and Barrel that I would actually have liked -who can't use more cloth napkins? - but they sent us green glass pears instead?
I know I am a bitch.
But man. It wasn't even that they didn't know that there are nice things you can get for a person. They just didn't want to.
Wednesday, March 2, 2016
In which Primo clarifies for me what his parents meant by "Dump 3 liquor boxes for each Monday's trash pick-up"
Primo scanned and sent this list to me.
I think it is fabulous. I think it is great. Caring people who are planning for their death - because we all die - and trying to figure out how to make life easier for the ones they will leave behind.
Primo: Except they never did anything on the list. Not one single thing.
Me: Not one?
Primo: Nope. They had time. My dad had time to watch porn on his computer. If he had time for that, he sure had time to take care of these things.
Me: Oh man! Dump three boxes of booze bottles every Monday?
Primo: No. My mom meant three boxes - three booze boxes - of papers from the spare room.
Me: Oh. But they still had that many liquor boxes that they could do that?
Primo: Yes.
Me: When did they make this list? As in, did they leave me off the jewelry list on purpose? Or was I not around yet?
Primo: I don't know. It was on paper. Let me look on the Mac.
Me: Oh you don't have to. Just curious.
Primo: It's from 2010! You were around!
Me: They hated me.
Primo: Yep. Stephanie was mentioned. [They badmouthed Stephanie all the time.] The other really bad thing about the date of the list is that it was five years ago! They did none of those things in 4 1/2 years!
I think it is fabulous. I think it is great. Caring people who are planning for their death - because we all die - and trying to figure out how to make life easier for the ones they will leave behind.
Primo: Except they never did anything on the list. Not one single thing.
Me: Not one?
Primo: Nope. They had time. My dad had time to watch porn on his computer. If he had time for that, he sure had time to take care of these things.
Me: Oh man! Dump three boxes of booze bottles every Monday?
Primo: No. My mom meant three boxes - three booze boxes - of papers from the spare room.
Me: Oh. But they still had that many liquor boxes that they could do that?
Primo: Yes.
Me: When did they make this list? As in, did they leave me off the jewelry list on purpose? Or was I not around yet?
Primo: I don't know. It was on paper. Let me look on the Mac.
Me: Oh you don't have to. Just curious.
Primo: It's from 2010! You were around!
Me: They hated me.
Primo: Yep. Stephanie was mentioned. [They badmouthed Stephanie all the time.] The other really bad thing about the date of the list is that it was five years ago! They did none of those things in 4 1/2 years!
Tuesday, March 1, 2016
In which Primo shows me the stuff he has brought from his mom and dad's and at least it is not boxes of family photos (with, of course, no photos of me because I was not part of the family)
Primo is packing to go back to Florida for a few days (settling an estate is a long, pain in the neck process), which means he is finally unpacking the big suitcase of stuff he brought back from Florida on his last trip.
He brought back for us
He brought back for us
- A giant container of ground black pepper, which shocked me because 1. I thought I had thrown away all the expired spices and 2. he is a super snob about pepper and has the fancy Magnum pepper grinder
- A Dyson vacuum cleaner attachment. He had bought a Dyson for his mom and dad and then bought one for us but his mom and dad's had attachments we lack, apparently. This is not something I have ever paid attention to.
- A silver cake server from his mom and dad's silver. He had wanted to keep the silver but I said I do not care if we have silver and if he does keep it, he will be the one polishing it. I had enough of that when I was a kid. I no longer polish silver. I would have liked it to sell, but whatever. So he sent most of the set to Ted and Ted'sWife in an attempt to get them to quit bitching about the Good Bracelet. So far, no luck - Ted wanted to know why Primo had sent silver. "Thank you I guess" he said. Jerk.
Primo: In the last two versions of my parents' will, there was a $25,000 bequest for each Ted and Jack.
Me: So?
Primo: But it's not in this will.
Me: Nope.
Primo: I feel bad for them.
Me: Yeah, but you are not the one who wrote the will.
Primo: Nope.
Me: And you cannot give them that money. You can't.
Primo: I know.
Monday, February 29, 2016
In which there is still still no response from Ted
"The longer it takes to hear from him, the worse I know he is going to be," Primo says.
Our hairdresser thinks we need to kick Ted to the curb.
Our hairdresser thinks we need to kick Ted to the curb.
Sunday, February 28, 2016
In which Primo tells me about the Demise List and when I tell him I had not heard of it and would have blogged about it had I known, he promises to get it to me right away, which is one of the many reasons I love that man
Primo: Yeah, so I found the Demise List and my parents didn't--
Me: The WHAT?
Primo: The Demise List.
Me: What is that?
Primo: My parents had a list of things they wanted to deal with - things like update the will --
Me: They had a list?
Primo: I thought I had told you about it!
Me: NO! I would have blogged about it.
Primo: I will get it to you. They did not do one single thing on the list before they died. Not one.
Me: The WHAT?
Primo: The Demise List.
Me: What is that?
Primo: My parents had a list of things they wanted to deal with - things like update the will --
Me: They had a list?
Primo: I thought I had told you about it!
Me: NO! I would have blogged about it.
Primo: I will get it to you. They did not do one single thing on the list before they died. Not one.
Saturday, February 27, 2016
Friday, February 26, 2016
In which Primo, against spousal advice, sends an email to Ted with a detailed accounting of what he has done and of the money in the estate
Ted has no legal right to this information because he is not named in the will.
He has no moral right to it because he has been a complete jerk to Primo.
Primo answers Ted's snark with calm and logic, both of which are wasted on Ted.
He sends Ted a spreadsheet with a detailed accounting of all the investment funds.
He explains that he will not set up the trusts for the grandkids until after the beginning of the year - the accountant's advice is to delay so Primo does not have to file multiple tax returns this year.
He hits "Send" and then we wait.
"He is going to criticize how the money is invested," he says.
"He is going to be angry that I am waiting to set up the trust," he says.
"He does not like that I am paying the realtor six percent," he says.
What do I say?
What do you think?
What would you say?
Yes.
That is what I say.
He has no moral right to it because he has been a complete jerk to Primo.
Primo answers Ted's snark with calm and logic, both of which are wasted on Ted.
He sends Ted a spreadsheet with a detailed accounting of all the investment funds.
He explains that he will not set up the trusts for the grandkids until after the beginning of the year - the accountant's advice is to delay so Primo does not have to file multiple tax returns this year.
He hits "Send" and then we wait.
"He is going to criticize how the money is invested," he says.
"He is going to be angry that I am waiting to set up the trust," he says.
"He does not like that I am paying the realtor six percent," he says.
What do I say?
What do you think?
What would you say?
Yes.
That is what I say.
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
In which I convince Primo to ask the lawyer a question about something he is not ready to act on, something that makes Primo nuts because he does not start doing research until he is ready to move. I do research and then decide if I am going to do something with the information. We are total opposites on this.
Primo: I am whiny.
Me: I know.
Primo: I despond.
Me: Ted is a jerk.
Primo: Why does he have to be such an asshole?
Me: I don't know.
Primo: I dread dealing with him.
Me: Would you do something for me?
[Actually, it was more of, "Yes let's get busy but before we do, there are conditions and one of them is that you need to cut off all contact with Ted because he is poison."]
Primo: Maybe.
Me: Would you send an email to the lawyer and ask him two questions?
Primo: What questions?
Me: Ask him if you can hire him to deal with Ted and have the fees charged only to Ted'sSon's share of the estate and ask him if once you have the kids' trusts set up if you can resign only from Ted'sSon's trust but still remain as trustee for Michael, Maria, and Pia.
Primo: Maybe.
Me: You don't have to act on the information. But wouldn't it be useful to know what is possible?
Primo: Yes, it would.
Me: Good.
Me: I know.
Primo: I despond.
Me: Ted is a jerk.
Primo: Why does he have to be such an asshole?
Me: I don't know.
Primo: I dread dealing with him.
Me: Would you do something for me?
[Actually, it was more of, "Yes let's get busy but before we do, there are conditions and one of them is that you need to cut off all contact with Ted because he is poison."]
Primo: Maybe.
Me: Would you send an email to the lawyer and ask him two questions?
Primo: What questions?
Me: Ask him if you can hire him to deal with Ted and have the fees charged only to Ted'sSon's share of the estate and ask him if once you have the kids' trusts set up if you can resign only from Ted'sSon's trust but still remain as trustee for Michael, Maria, and Pia.
Primo: Maybe.
Me: You don't have to act on the information. But wouldn't it be useful to know what is possible?
Primo: Yes, it would.
Me: Good.
In which Ted implies again, after Primo put all of Doris' jewelry in a box and mailed it to him, that Primo is hiding the Good Bracelet and somehow cheating everyone
I present this email from Ted to Primo without comment. Almost every week, I find myself surprised that I am surprised at how much of a jerk he can be.
Primo is honest and ethical. He works hard. He has been busting his butt to take care of this estate and to do so in a financially responsible manner. He loves his nieces and nephews and wants them to get as much from the trust as possible. He will drive an extra hour to Orlando airport to save money on the airfare the trust is paying for. He has been eating the awful processed food in Sly and Doris' freezer instead of buying decent food, again so he can save the trust money.
For Ted to imply that Primo is acting in poor faith makes me want to fly to DC and punch Ted in the nose. I bet there would be a line.
Subject: Re: Dad's 82nd birthday
From: ted@verizon.net
CC: jack@gmail.com; ted'swife@verizon.net
To: primo@hotmail.com
Thanks, I guess, for the package you sent to our house—although I can’t for the life of me (and neither can Ted'sWife) understand why on earth you sent us all that stuff. We made it clear when last at Dad's that we were very happy with a few keepsakes. But in the interest of fond reminiscences, we’ll keep or properly re-designate some of those items. For example, we’ll send the costume jewelry to Maria and Pia in a few weeks; neither Ted'sWife, Ted'sSon, or I would wear any of that. The clock would have cost hundreds of dollars to repair to “minimum working condition,” so we sold it for parts for $15. I owe each of you a tuna sandwich next time we’re together. Several of the glass items arrived in splinters and have been tossed or recycled.
Primo is honest and ethical. He works hard. He has been busting his butt to take care of this estate and to do so in a financially responsible manner. He loves his nieces and nephews and wants them to get as much from the trust as possible. He will drive an extra hour to Orlando airport to save money on the airfare the trust is paying for. He has been eating the awful processed food in Sly and Doris' freezer instead of buying decent food, again so he can save the trust money.
For Ted to imply that Primo is acting in poor faith makes me want to fly to DC and punch Ted in the nose. I bet there would be a line.
Subject: Re: Dad's 82nd birthday
From: ted@verizon.net
CC: jack@gmail.com; ted'swife@verizon.net
To: primo@hotmail.com
Thanks, I guess, for the package you sent to our house—although I can’t for the life of me (and neither can Ted'sWife) understand why on earth you sent us all that stuff. We made it clear when last at Dad's that we were very happy with a few keepsakes. But in the interest of fond reminiscences, we’ll keep or properly re-designate some of those items. For example, we’ll send the costume jewelry to Maria and Pia in a few weeks; neither Ted'sWife, Ted'sSon, or I would wear any of that. The clock would have cost hundreds of dollars to repair to “minimum working condition,” so we sold it for parts for $15. I owe each of you a tuna sandwich next time we’re together. Several of the glass items arrived in splinters and have been tossed or recycled.
As far as the now infamous bracelet Dad promised to Ted'sWife, I’ll leave that to Ted'sWife, who’s on business travel the next two weeks.
On the home sales front, beware of realtors eager to charge an (outrageous) “staging fee” to install furniture, etc. for a few weeks to help sell it. The spouse of the realtor that Ted'sWife's stepdad's children chose—over Ted'sWife's wishes—wants to hire his spouse to do that, for only $5,000. Gotta love Southern incest and chutzpah.
Primo, Ted'sWife is going to contact you directly about financial implications relating to Ted'sSon's outstanding student loans and continuing educational costs. Special education sure is special—especially how much it costs.
As Ted'sSon's guardians, and legally in the context of Dad’s (as Doris' survivor) trust, we are interested in an accounting of the trusts’s assets and the disposition and plans for those assets. Unless my legal and financial advisors are mistaken, we (and Jack) are entitled to that information and you are required to disclose it.
Lack of disclosure strikes me as bad practice for any family, irrespective of legal or ethical obligations.
Maybe we can discuss this sometime now that the vast majority of your good work on the estate since Dad’s passing almost 10 weeks ago is done.
Love,
Eldest Bro
cc: Ted'sWife
On Oct 13, 2015, at 1:04 PM, Ted Drunkwrote:
Thanks for the update Primo. Man, that’s a heckuva deal on the Subaru! Ted'sWife sold her mom’s 2011 Ford Fusion SE with 31,000 miles to our next-door neighbors for $11,500 (KBB had it at $10,386 for a private sale; cars.com had it at $9,475). We’re very fond of our neighbors and would have listed it for $12,000, so they got a bit of a break.I hope you got the real estate agent down to a 5% commission. Six-percenters get laughed out of the room these days. Ted'sWife and her sister were strong-armed by their stepdad's kids (because one of them lives locally) into choosing the realtors they preferred. At least they listened to my insistence that 5% is the max rate. But they did not listen very closely to Ted'sWife's other wishes, and the house is still on the market—for $339,000 but it’s only been 3 weeks.Dad’s birth date has been auspicious around here for awhile. Last year I had the pleasure of a weekend with 14 college freshman-year classmates on the Cape and some family time on the Vineyard.And yes we thought a lot about Dad and, of course, Doris on the Fourth. We were at a wedding Fri— pictures of which you can check out on Face the Book.Note that my iMac, my main desktop machine (24-inch, early 2009, 2.93 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo) definitely runs slower than before—despite my upping the RAM to 8 GB 1067 MHz DDR3) now that it’s running the latest OS (OS X El Capitan, Version 10.11). So Bob you may NOT want to upgrade from Yosemite . . . just sayin'cheers
On Oct 12, 2015, at 11:50 PM, Primowrote:
Ted, Jack,
In honor of Dad's birthday, I had an extremely productive day:
- I sold the Subaru (to the next-door neighbor) for $2900. Considering the damage to the right rear door and bumper and the lack of recent maintenance, this was a good deal but not a fire sale. It was a bonus that the deal closed just hours before the registration expires. (In Florida, I think it always expires on the owner's birthday.) The attached photo was taken just before the Subaru left the driveway at for the last time.
- I signed a contract with a real estate agent to list the house for $299,000. The agent is a good friend of Stephanie's friend. I met with two other agents and am comfortable with Agent, not only because of the family connection but because of his life story and his style of work. He will be taking personal responsibility for the majority of minor repairs and sprucing up. The house is now about 90% empty (vs. 80% last week). I have learned that the 80/20 rule applies to clearing out a house.
- I shipped another package to you and upgraded the memory in the iMac (which will be ready for you at the end of the month, Jack).
The house should be on the market within 7-10 days. Agent's goal is to have it listed even sooner, but I think that's a stretch.
I wish I had taken a photo before leaving the house (showing the emptiness of the great room), but I was in a rush. Stephanie gave me a ride to Daytona Beach because I had no car after selling the Subaru. I will return once more from October 27-31 to complete the process of emptying the house. That will be the last time I stay in the guest room.
I thought about Dad a lot today, and I'm sure that you two did as well.
Your little brother,
Primo
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