In which the hospital sends Primo another bill for his mom's care, even though she has been dead for FIFTY ONE WEEKS

Yes. That happened. Primo got a bill for something with his mom.

Not an overdue bill. Not a second or third or fourth request.

A first-time bill.

Doris died almost exactly 51 weeks ago.

Do you think the hospital could have gotten their crap together by now? Or Medicare? Maybe the hospital sent the claim to Medicare and it took Medicare this long to make a decision.

People. We have an estate to settle. WE WANT TO BE DONE.

Primo cannot close the estate until the bills are paid. Honestly.

Thank you again Sly for giving Primo the honor of being the executor of this estate.

Readers, heed this. Primo did not think it would be this much work to settle the estate. He is super conscientious and responsible (hello adult children of alcoholics! super responsible people who will take care of everyone around them so they make fabulous customer service employees for a business with angry, hostile customers) and did not want lawyer fees to eat up the estate, even though none of it went to him.

It is a ton of work. If you are an executor, make sure

1. that you can be paid the fee
2. that you dump it off on a lawyer if possible because do you really want to spend hundreds of hours dealing with crap that your parents should have dealt with?

Primo and I were at my mom's last week and we talked about all of this stuff with her. My mom, who is a very healthy 73 years old and who has a good 20 years in her yet (I hope), has already written a financial POA for me, a medical POA for my sister, and has been throwing out old stuff in her house, things like sewing patterns from the 1970s that she is not going to use again. She even finally gave away my dad's clothes - he died 18 years ago.

We talked about what she wanted when she can't take care of herself anymore. She didn't get angry or insulted. She didn't refuse to talk about it.

I hope you guys have parents like my mom, who are rational, and who care about minimizing the mess they might leave behind, and not parents like Sly and Doris, who clearly did not give a sh@t about how much work they were causing for Primo.

In which the guy who dumped me right before the prom comments on the facebook post of an apparently mutual friend and I wonder what to do

as I have not spoken to Ken since high school.

I have stalked him, but not spoken to him. Or written to him. Or seen anything written by him.

But it appears he is also a friend of my friend Slim from high school and I commented on something Slim posted this morning and then Ken did and I got the alert that someone else had posted and I wondered what should I do?

Y'all - this is a real-time post. I am writing this on August 23. Should I say, "Hey!" to Ken? "Hey! How you doing? Do you remember that you dumped me right before the prom?"

Asking.

PS Please tell me I am not the only one who googles old boyfriends. I just want to know how the story ends!

In which my mom, my aunt, and my uncle are mean to Primo

Hahaha! NOT REALLY!

Primo and I went to visit my mother for Mothers Day. We were there for five days? Something like that. He. Was. Amazing.

Seriously.

Primo is so, so sweet to my mother. He listens to her - she is worse than I am about adding extraneous details to a story. He washes the dishes her way. He stops using the Hand Towel for dishes and switches to the Dish Towel without argument when she points out his error.

He grilled vegetables for her. He grilled salmon for her. He made her omelettes. He is the sweetest man in the world to my mother.

He was also very kind to my aunt and uncle and listened to my uncle's many, many stories about escaping from the Russians in WWII. (My uncle was born in Prussia and his dad was in WWII on the Other Side.) Of course, my uncle's stories are fascinating, but they might not be as interesting to Primo as they are to someone who has known her uncle since she was nine.

Me: You are so wonderful to my mom. Thank you.

Primo: It's easy. Your family is always really nice to me.

Me: My family loves you.

Primo: My parents always treated you so well.

.......

.......

.......

Primo and me: HAHAHAHAHA!!!!

In which my mom knows that Primo is the one who took the booze back downstairs after we excavated

"That's my son in law," she said. "The bottles are lined up neatly with the clear liquids on the left and the opaque liquids on the right."

The three bottles bunched up at the far end were placed there my mom, not Primo. Just in case it's not obvious.

In which Primo thought that just because there was no chocolate in my mom's kitchen, there was no chocolate in her house

He didn't know that you just have to go into the basement and into the closet containing the Christmas wreaths, the candles, and the canned goods, and look in every single Tupperware container - beans, flour, sugar, crackers, marshmallows, grains - until you find the one on the very bottom shelf that has chocolate chips.

My mother never has been able to hide chocolate for me. I know how to do a Proper Search.

In which I discover not one but TWO! TWO! empty containers of marshmallow fluff at my mom's house - a product that WAS NOT IN OUR HOUSE WHEN I WAS A KID

In which Primo and I agree that he will run for office again while I wail and gnash my teeth but he gives me a rock-solid argument of 1. we can afford for him not to work for another few months and 2. wouldn't it be nice for him to have just a few months of his life to do something without his parents' drunken breath down his back

And he did inherit some money, albeit against Sly's wishes.

So yeah.

We are back in the political game.

In which Keith's former tenant leaves the keys in the mailbox but it's too late - the lease said she was to turn them in by midnight April 30, which is not the same as midnight May 2

Keith's former tenant refused to leave the keys with him when she moved out on Saturday night April 30. She left them with a note saying she would return them once she got her deposit back, which is not how the lease worked. You don't return the keys when you move out? That's $35 from your deposit.

Because the new tenants were moving in the next day, Keith re-keyed the locks first thing Sunday morning.

On Monday night, the former tenant dropped two of the three keys off in Keith's mailbox, along with a note that she would return the last one when she got the deposit back.

This woman clearly does not understand the concepts of

1. New tenants and
2. A contract.

In which Primo and I go to my (second? third? once removed?) cousin's wedding and the leftovers are fabulous

The cousin I met at my great-uncle's funeral - Amber - got married and she invited Primo and me.

It was fun and fabulous and my great-aunt, who is 94 years old, looked elegant and lovely and she was as sharp as a tack.

We got to meet other cousins. We had a ton of fun.

As we were leaving, I noticed there were untouched pieces of wedding cake on our table. I joked with my dad's cousin Jim (who is Amber's uncle) that I should wrap the cake and take it home - that that is The Way of Our People.

He rushed to get me some paper napkins.

I had been joking, but after he went through all that effort, I had to take the cake.

I did!

I wrapped it and brought it home and put something on facebook about how My People Do Not Waste.

To which my cousin, Amber, replied, "Hey! WE HAD TO-GO CONTAINERS FOR THE CAKE!"

I. Love. My. People.

In which Keith and I clean his duplex and discover that even though a place might look clean on the surface at 9:30 p.m., in the light of day and with a bottle of 409 in my hand for a Seek and Destroy mission, a place is actually filthy

On Sunday, I spent a few hours helping Keith, who had been cleaning since 3 a.m., clean. The place had looked OK the night before, but in the light of day, it was clear that it needed work. The stove was nasty; the spills in the cupboard had not been wiped out; the windows were smeary; there was hair - waist-long hair in the drain in the kitchen sink; the walls near the switchplates were filthy; there was sticky stuff on the wood floor; etc, etc.

If you rent, please follow this advice:

1. If you do not own the window, do not put stickers on it
2. Just because you don't own the stove is not a reason to leave a thick layer of dirty grease on it
3. It doesn't count as vacuuming the carpet if you leave corn kernels under the radiator in the living room, bedroom, and kitchen
4. If you do not own the property, do not let your toddler eat in the living room or the bedroom or have crayons without supervision.

Honestly. Tacky.


Things my friends have added to the list:

• My mom could add, do not paint the bedroom black and keep fighting chickens in it.
• Do not ignore the leaking roof until the floor delaminates.

In which Betsy moves out without leaving the keys and so what? Keith and I say - it just gets charged against her deposit

I just talked to Keith. Betsy left last night in a rage. She did not leave the keys, as required by the lease. Instead, she left a note saying, "I return the keys when I get the deposit."

The lease clearly states that the keys must be returned upon moveout or there is a $35 charge against the deposit.

"I couldn't sleep," Keith said. "So at 3 a.m., I rekeyed the lock. She won't be able to get back in."

"So it doesn't matter if she returns the key. And you can charge her for it."

"Yep. And I've been cleaning since then."

"There's not seven hours worth of cleaning!" I said.

He groaned. "I was cleaning the sinks and the tub and the drains are all backed up with their hair."

"Oh gross," I said.

Oh - and she did not leave a new mailing address. Just a phone number.

In which my friend's tenant screams and calls 911 because my friend and I are documenting the state of the duplex that she is moving out of and I understand why my landlords never raised my rent

You guys, I am wiped out. I got to bed late last night and then I couldn't sleep because I was full of eels.

Of adrenaline.

I was helping our neighbor manage the moveout of his upstairs tenant (it was April 30 yesterday) and she - we will call her Betsy - was so, so ugly.

Background: Our neighbor is in his 50s. He has no education beyond high school and has not worked much since high school because he was diagnosed with MS back then. He lives on disability and on the income he gets from renting the upper unit of the house he inherited when his parents died. He is not financially or legally sophisticated and doesn't really have anyone in his life to help him with that sort of thing, so Primo and I do what we can. He is our friend.

This tenant moved in two years ago. Keith rented to her against my advice - she had been evicted from her previous apartment and had filed for bankruptcy, but he was desperate: the tenant before this Betsy, moved out with only one month's notice instead of the two required by the lease.

Keith did not have as much time to find a replacement, so he panicked. He also refunded the tenant's full deposit, which, by law, he had no need to do, as she had broken the terms of the lease. But the tenant and her mother screamed at Keith and he got stressed and gave it back to them on the spot as she was moving out of the place that she had left dirty.

I found out about it and told Keith that if he wanted, I would stand next to him when he had to deal with his tenant and be the bad guy.

Now we are here, with Betsy. She gave notice two months ago. I helped Keith show the duplex to the couple who will be renting it starting today. When we looked at it six weeks ago, it was filthy. Betsy has three children, including a toddler whom the teenage daughter is apparently in charge of caring for. I understand that Betsy must be exhausted from going to work and taking care of three kids with no help, but the place was a pigsty: mildew in the bathtub, dirty sink, filthy walls, stained, ripped carpet (that Keith had installed just four years ago), filthy windows, dirty stovetop.

Dirty.

A dirty, dirty house.

It would take hours to clean and it would be gross and what to do about the carpet?

I told Keith I would help him. I also said, "Let's do a walkthrough with Betsy when she moves out so she understands what you will be fixing and charging against her deposit."

Yesterday during the day, he tried to talk to her to set a time for a walkthrough. She refused to talk to him.

He and I agreed that fine, we would do one without her at 11:00 today, Sunday.

He called me at 9:000 last night.

"Can you come over?" he asked. "She is screaming at me, asking why the f* you have to be involved in the walkthrough."

I put on my shoes and my coat and walked over. I introduced myself to Betsy, who was fuming as she stood next to the wall.

"The purpose of this walkthrough," I explained, "is to document the condition of the duplex. It is not to make a decision about the deposit."

"Yeah well he never did a walkthrough when I moved in!" she said.

"I know," I said. "That's why we're doing one now. He is improving how he does things."

"The place was a mess when I moved in," she said.

"Did you document that?" I asked.

I had tried that argument with my landlady years ago when she told me, during our walkthrough, that I needed to clean the windows.

"They were dirty when I moved in," I replied.

She shrugged and said, "They need to be clean when you move out."

I started making notes on the moveout form Keith had found online while he took photos.

Betsy was yelling. "It was a mess when I moved in!"

I shrugged. First, I didn't believe her, because I have the photos Keith took of the duplex two years ago when the former renter was still in the property. I had posted an ad for him on craigslist and had used those photos. The place was fine. It was clean.

Keith and I looked at the bedroom. "It's a lot cleaner than it was six weeks ago," I said, "but these walls still need to be cleaned and the windows are still dirty."

"IT WAS LIKE THAT WHEN I MOVED IN!" she yelled. "I'm going to call the police!"

I shrugged. "Go ahead."

Honestly. THE POLICE?

I should have asked her, "Have you ever considered using the strategy of being nice to people to get what you want instead of being hostile? You might get better results."

I heard her talking: "My landlord is trying to screw me out of my deposit!"

I rolled my eyes and kept making notes. It was like Betsy had gone to the Ted Drunk School of Negotiation.

The good news was that the place really was a lot better. She had even cleaned the carpet, which is not something she had to do and is something that a landlord in this state cannot charge against a deposit.

She waited about ten minutes, grudgingly agreeing with me when I asked, "Would you agree that this switchplate is dirty? But that the toilet and the sink are clean?"

"I forgot to clean that," she said.

"This oven hood is dirty," I said, "and so are the drip pans."

"Yeah well you should have seen them when I moved in," she snapped.

I shrugged. "We are documenting the current state."

When the police didn't show up - I KNOW I AM SHOCKED, she stomped out.

Keith and I finished in peace. We completed the form. He signed and made copies. I thought I was going to get out of seeing Betsy again, but she returned, her truck empty.

I handed her the forms and explained the major findings.

"I'm not signing this!" she said. "I don't agree with it! You have to show me the photos!"

I shrugged again. Seriously. I am used to dealing with Ted. Even one degree removed, dealing with Ted inoculates you against idiocy.

"Suit yourself," I said. "And you of course are welcome to take your own photos. May I suggest when you move into your new place that you document the move-in state."

She threw the papers to the floor in disgust. Keith shrugged. I shrugged.

What. Ever.

I came home and did more research on tenant law in the state.

She doesn't have a leg to stand on. The burden of proof is on her.

UPDATE
I just read this for the first time since writing it on May 1 and realized I sure shrug a lot.

In which Laverne looms next to the looming clay cat our neighbor got for us

For Ask A Manager Weekend Free For All Readers - this is the Looming Kitty I refer to in my comment.

In which Primo agrees to get rid of the nasty shaving cream he brought from his dad's bathroom but thinks that maybe poor homeless men might want it to which I say Just because you are homeless does not mean you have bad taste

I convinced Primo to get rid of the rest of the Barbasol, which he brought back from Florida, I guess in the carload of stuff that also included a reel to reel tape player and his parents' ashes, both of which are still in our house. That was Thanksgiving, this is the end of April. I will leave the (sad) math to you.

However, last weekend, he did throw out the 15" stack of newspapers dating back to 2011 that had been stacked in the back of his office, so I will take it. Little by little. There is only so much a person can do when a person is in a partnership and not a dictatorship.

(Speaking of dictatorships - I do not like to venture into politics here because I do not want to talk about politics with anyone, even people I agree with, but Donald Trump scares me. I have never worried for my country before like this. I hope my worry will be for naught.)

Primo agreed to get rid of the Barbasol. It went like this:

Primo: I guess I should get rid of this shaving cream, huh?

Me: Please do.

Primo: It seems wasteful.

Me: It is so nasty. It makes me gag.

Primo: There is still a can and a half!

Me: So?

Primo: Maybe we can give it to charity? Not the half can, of course.

Me: No. I don't think charity accepts half-used personal grooming items.

Primo: But the full can.

Me: I really don't think anyone wants to use that stuff! It's nasty!

But - there it is - on the kitchen counter, waiting to be put in the bin downstairs where we accumulate the stuff for Goodwill and for the homeless shelter.

So I took a photo and uploaded it here and as I was doing so, I saw this other photo of shaving cream that I took around Thanksgiving. Did I post about that here? Or was it just on facebook?

The conversation about the FOUR CANS OF SHAVING CREAM living on the bathroom counter went something like this. I don't remember the details, but I have known Primo long enough to know how it would go.

Me: Do we need to have all four cans on the counter? Do we need to have any? Could we aim for a reduction in the number?

Primo: I don't want to waste any!

Me: Then don't.

Primo: But when I am in a hurry, I don't want to take the time to get the last little bit out of the ones that are almost empty.

Me: Could they at least live in the cupboard?

Primo: There's room for them here.

Me: Not the point.

In which hell freezes over, which is more appropriate than you know

It is April IRL.

And it is cold.

Which is so unfair. Because in the northern hemisphere, we should not have to be cold in April.

We had a beautiful day on Monday. We actually OPENED THE WINDOWS.

If you live up north, you know what a big deal an open window is.

If you are in the south, you are thinking, "What? You mean there are times when you would not be able to open a window?"

(I am not talking to the people who use their AC all the time. I am talking to people like me who like open windows and attic fans rather than AC. I have almost never used my AC, even when I was in the south. I used it only when my mom came to visit.)

It is cold. We still have flannel sheets on our bed. We have a space heater in our room. It is a Thursday morning - it is April 28 - and I am working at home, sitting in the kitchen, with the heat cranked up to 70 and wearing the fluffy pink robe my sister got me for Christmas a few years ago.

Primo is home, of course. He is no longer traveling to Florida thank goodness. I would like him to be At Work, but I remind myself that if I had to make the tradeoff between his having a job and Sly and Doris still being alive (and not magically converting into loving, nice people), his not having a job is a reasonable sacrifice to make.

Anyhow. He is home. I think the cat is out of the bag now that Primo is ultra liberal. That is important information for this story.

Primo: It's cold!

Me: I know!

Primo: It's not fair!

Me: I know.

Primo: I want to do some chores outside but it's too cold! They are not going to be able to take photos outside at the wedding on Sunday!

Me: Nope.

Primo: I hope they didn't think that was actually a possibility when they chose May 1 as a wedding date.

Me: I hope so too.

Primo: I want global warming!

Me: WHAT?

Primo: I WANT GLOBAL WARMING!

Me: Who are you and what have you done with my ultra liberal husband?

Primo: I just think that if it's happening that we should get some of the benefits here.

Me [type type type]

Primo: Hey! You can't write about that!

Me: I'm putting it in my blog, not on facebook.

Primo: Oh, OK. I can't have that information out in public.