Sign Ze Paypahs!

From yesterday --

It's supposed to happen today. But the day is not over and it hasn't happened yet.

So I thought I'd go to YouTube and listen to Sign Ze Papahs. Cheech and Chong. You know, that sketch is not funny. But the bro used to say "Sign ze papahs" in a German accent for the entirety of my childhood. It was always funny when he said it. But I was wrong.

As refreshment for my mood center, I watched Guinea Pig Bridge. It never disappoints. 55 seconds of happiness.

And then it happened, at 4:59. Hats off to my sister, our real estate attorney, the ancestral beings and anyone else who made this happen in a way that will not come back to haunt me. I feel like I can see my future in front of me finally.

Thank you to all who have listened, comforted, assisted in any way. I do not care if I see a penny from this transaction. Just want distance and clarity. Here's the building, with my pop in it, on a sunny day.

Family Divorce

For happy news, please feel free to read a different post!

It has been unmercifully hot for the past week. In the third week of March the temperature in the aku room hit 120. My geraniums are well-watered but can't take the scorching. For the past few weeks, whenever I had a spare moment, and often when I did not, I was summoned by my family. There was confusing paperwork to look through. Copies to be made, decisions to consider. Several times in the past month I have bolted from work because there was family stuff to do. Or because I was so flipped out about it. Mrguy and I spoke to our estate attorney about any risk involved with selling the building. She asked a simple question: "What do you want mrguy's year to be like"? That was chilling. I don't want to feel the way I do right now, and certainly not if he's gone. But what about in-between? What am I putting him through with all the distress?

Urgent text messages have rained down upon us during my workday, telling us to look at important emails. When you find the email, it is marked up with highlights and fonts that change in the middle of words, looking like the digital equivalent of a ransom note. My sister, of course, was unaware of the font changes, but it's super distressing to be told to examine something and to have it be so illegible.

I have spoken to my siblings for hours on end this past week. We had two different two-hour meetings on Wednesday. Then the buyer came back with a reduced offer because of some bullshit excuse saying they had to retrofit the building. Our lawyer looked at the law and it says no such thing. It says that people have to file a letter before some time next year. And we know the buyer plans to flip the building right away so there is no way they're doing that work.

We came away from the second two-hour meeting deciding to go ahead and sell. Mrguy was super pissed. I feel trapped between my family and my family. I used the nuclear option and told my family to shove it. I cannot continue to live at this level of intensity any more and I want out of the family partnership. Take it. I want to be free, and to never have to deal with my sister again. Evvvvvver. I spoke to our lawyer to see if she could do the deed.

Then my sister pulled a rabbit out of a hat. Yes, reduced price. But they are going to take responsibility for the uncleared loans forever. I am weighing my options. I still want to have nothing to do with my sister. 

I have a dysfunctional family. And a toxic relationship with my sister. She's the head of the family and summons us for family meetings whenever we are together. Why did I hate family  "vacation?" Because we'd spend 2 hours a day discussing mom's medications or real estate. No meeting or phone call is fewer than 2 hours. It's always urgent. When I don't do things her way she gets mad or wears me down. This week felt like a trip back to the years 2015 through 2025 when I was the point person for my mom. The PTSD is real, people.

I don't know how this will pan out. My stomach is still in knots. Mrguy feels slightly guilty about yesterday when he was super pissed after a lifetime of my family's bullshit. He's on steroids, which kinda intensified his feelings. That helped me pull the trigger that I've wanted to pull for a long time.

More when I know it.

This is my desktop image from when I came home on Friday. The list of text messages didn't even fit on the screen.

March 2026 Vortex of Power

I was enjoying my first duty-free weekend, when my family upended it again. Welcome to my life.

I am the holder of around ten boxes of my parents' paperwork related to everything from bank statements to tax statements to medical bills, to calendars, to everything related to a piece of property we're trying to sell. In a different state, my sister is dealing with our mom's estate and the real estate deal. This piece of property was my dad's life work. It belonged to my mom, had an unbreakable 75-year lease, and they intended for it to continue to pass down through the family after my mom died.

Out of the blue comes an offer. They do a title search and it turns out that there are two "outstanding" loans. I have all of the documents to prove that they've been paid off. My parents never filed the paperwork to make it official. Not sure why. They tried to get the official documents from the lenders, as my dad's correspondence shows, but he couldn't get it. In one case he had been paying the people who had the promissory note, and finally paid it off. The bank confirmed this in a letter, and the bank asked the people to fork over the promissory note so that we could clear title, but the individuals who held the note did not provide it to my dad. Similar story with the other loan. Paid off, and didn't get the note.

I have been looking through the documents for weeks. And spending time at work to make pdfs. Last week I was so beyond frustrated with this whole situation, and I was asked to look again. I made a weekend of it, researching and collecting and then spending five hours scanning. I found a document that my mom scribbled on, giving the order of the lenders over a 20-year loan. None of the bank documents listed the address of the property, so if she hadn't jotted it down I would not have understood what I was looking at. 

This week our real estate attorney came over to double-check my work, at my request. He agrees that the docs are not there, but that the two loans were definitely paid off. I thought I was done!! argh.

This is the kind of stuff that has occupied some of my weekends. The requests for my time and effort from family are urgent and unexpected. I had hoped that this weekend would be free. And now we have a family meeting with lawyer tomorrow. 

My schpilkes have returned.

The Trees

So I'm obsessed with this house. Where do I start?

I could never afford this house, but I fantasize about it. It has gorgeous architecture, a beautiful swimming pool, privacy, and...every horizontal surface is piled high with bizarre crap. If this is your house, I'm sorry I'm capping on it but you need to get help.

The listing first appeared on Zillow a few weeks ago, with tiny photos. Even those and the description made me alternately drool and ask myself rude questions.

This house was originally listed for over four million clams. Yes, it's sitting on 60 acres and it has gorgeous bones, and the pool and a koi pond. Did I mention that? Or the Japanese garden? But when you look at the photos and notice that there seems to be a parrot aviary with parrots in it, and then you see the splotches on the walls and furniture (meaning you're going to need to do some bioremediation) and then you want to know more about the history of the place so you start reading the real estate agent's writeup and realize that you are not only buying a house on 60 acres, but you're essentially buying an old man also...

Yup. The guy wants you to let him live in the house until he dies. So for 4mil clams you don't even get to *touch* the house. You have to let the man live in his current squalor and perhaps even acquire more of the things he loves:

1. Armor and armaments (both Western and Japanese)
2. Statues in the shape of birds
3. Actual birds (that may or may not have run of the house)
4. Zebra striped accoutrements
5. Actual zebras (Read the fine print, Fool. You are buying an old man AND his zebra)
6. Statues in the shape of horses
7. Mini horses (see #5). OK it's just one mini horse and just one zebra, but that is one more old man, little horse and actual zebra than I've ever seen in a house listing.
8. Ship models. Among the bronze statues of animals and Hindu deities and armor and swords are multiple, large ship models, some housed in vitrines as large as a man.

Only some of this was apparent in the original house listing on Zillow. But now I have located a different listing with larger photos and a more elaborate description that indicates that in addition to categories 1-8, above, plus a swan or two (raising the bird count to a minimum of 4) there is a 100 gallon gas tank for the tractor and other vehicles that come with the property. Holy cow.

My favorite quote from the listing:
"Use of the property is only limited by your imagination."

after the guy selling it is done with it and your 4 million clams, I say.

Dude nobody will buy this house with you and your mammals and farm equipment and fire hazard gasoline tank in it.

I suggest that readers of mrsguy scrutinize every photograph in this listing while it's still up.

tinyurl.com/29x48p2w

Enjoy!