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Happy New Year! Here's to hoping this year is kinder than the past several have been.
Happy New Year!
Our new tradition seems to be:
(1) Impus Major throws a massive New Year's Eve party and a couple of people spend the night.
(2) Since one of those people is a Very Sweet Young Woman Whom GothBard Adores, GothBard offers her the privilege of staying in the studio. With a twin bed, great insulation, its own thermostat, and its own quarter bath, it seems like an ideal place for a young woman to stay. [tirade[(And don't get me started on bathrooms being divided into "quarters" when only three of the four primary fixtures are counted: Toilet only -or- toilet and sink = quarter bath. Toilet, sink, and shower = half bath. Toilet, sink, shower, and bathtub = full bath. So I count three ratings, so what's with the "four"? If the sink counts, then we should have 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, and full bathrooms. But it never does!) [/tirade]
(3) Nefret is nearly 19 and set in her habits. At 6:00 am she MUST be let into the studio or she yowls loudly. If she's let into the studio and finds an intruder there, she yowls loudly. So because we have a young woman sleeping in the studio, we have Nefret waking up everyone in the house until 8:00 am with two hours of incessant yowling, then waking up the young woman because I finally put her our. After about 15 minutes I bring her back in and she shuts up.
I honestly think the young woman would be happier sleeping in the living room...
I JUST NEED A LITTLE [Genorisity] IN THE COMING [Happy New Year 1997!!!]Sorry, I have only [Ginormity] in [Middling Yew Deer 1487].
YOU CAN MAKE ME [bigger and better than ever!!]?? YOU WANNA MAKE ME A [Big Shot]?! [What's your offer?] I"M SURE WE CAN [Let's make a deal!] AND COME TO AN [edible arrangements]!
HAPPY NEW YEAR
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HAPPY 1857 EVERYBODY!
Nah, I don't use edibles, so there's no need for any arrangements.YOU CAN MAKE ME [bigger and better than ever!!]?? YOU WANNA MAKE ME A [Big Shot]?! [What's your offer?] I"M SURE WE CAN [Let's make a deal!] AND COME TO AN [edible arrangements]!I JUST NEED A LITTLE [Genorisity] IN THE COMING [Happy New Year 1997!!!]Sorry, I have only [Ginormity] in [Middling Yew Deer 1487].
Did zomeone zay un Oedipal arrangement?
*strokes chin*
Nah, I don't use edibles, so there's no need for any arrangements.YOU CAN MAKE ME [bigger and better than ever!!]?? YOU WANNA MAKE ME A [Big Shot]?! [What's your offer?] I"M SURE WE CAN [Let's make a deal!] AND COME TO AN [edible arrangements]!I JUST NEED A LITTLE [Genorisity] IN THE COMING [Happy New Year 1997!!!]Sorry, I have only [Ginormity] in [Middling Yew Deer 1487].Did zomeone zay un Oedipal arrangement?
*strokes chin*
Yeah. Your mom did. Then she asked me for a cigar.
Nah, I don't use edibles, so there's no need for any arrangements.YOU CAN MAKE ME [bigger and better than ever!!]?? YOU WANNA MAKE ME A [Big Shot]?! [What's your offer?] I"M SURE WE CAN [Let's make a deal!] AND COME TO AN [edible arrangements]!I JUST NEED A LITTLE [Genorisity] IN THE COMING [Happy New Year 1997!!!]Sorry, I have only [Ginormity] in [Middling Yew Deer 1487].
BOOOOOOOOOOOOO
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Are you saying "Boo" or "Boo-urns"?
edibles work for me but only once in a few months. Then my body is like "oh yeah i remember how that toxin works let me purge it from your system"
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edibles work for me but only once in a few months. Then my body is like "oh yeah i remember how that toxin works let me purge it from your system"
Kull wahad! You learn to convert the spice!
girls?
girls?
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Speaking of mothers, my mother got her first piece of posthumous "junk" mail yesterday, and it was a doozy: Apparently her insurance company got the notification about her death and whoever entered the data put in her death date as her birthday.
So imagine my surprise getting a birthday card for my mother in December (her birthday is in June) that said, "Congratulations on your big day, and every day after that!".
We were laughing SO hard...
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So imagine my surprise getting a birthday card for my mother in December (her birthday is in June) that said, "Congratulations on your big day, and every day after that!".
We were laughing SO hard...
Well, it was definitely a big day for her. Though I am not sure if congratulations is the word I'd use, but what do I know, I am not a native English speaker...
Why are they congratulating her every day after that, though? Have they expected her to raise and haunt you all?
Ok, maybe your older brother does deserve a little bit of haunting...
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If you found a hole gnawed in your holy robes, it might be its fault.
If you found a hole gnawed in your holy robes, it might be its fault.
like these little guys
Finally helping my dad with the plumbing issue I mentioned a couple of weeks ago today. The amount of mud we are dealing with sucks, but I will say that dealing with a leak when it's 65°F is much nicer than the single digit or below zero temperatures that I'm used to trying to fix leaks in.
Today (December 4, 2026) marks the 65th anniversary of Erwin Schrödinger's death. Or does it... he had a closed casket funeral, so we can't really be sure.
Today (December 4, 2026) marks the 65th anniversary of Erwin Schrödinger's death. Or does it... he had a closed casket funeral, so we can't really be sure.
You mean January?
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Today (December 4, 2026) marks the 65th anniversary of Erwin Schrödinger's death. Or does it... he had a closed casket funeral, so we can't really be sure.You mean January?
Maybe January, maybe a dead cat. You only know when you open the box.
Today (December 4, 2026) marks the 65th anniversary of Erwin Schrödinger's death. Or does it... he had a closed casket funeral, so we can't really be sure.You mean January?
Yes.
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Ugh. Teacher in-service day.
Don't wanna.
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I was hoping that you were just on suuuuper slow internet and it took a month to post.
Ugh. Teacher in-service day.
Don't wanna.
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Ugh. Teacher in-service day.
Don't wanna.
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Ugh. Teacher in-service day.
Don't wanna.
It's "teacher in-service day," not "servicing teacher day".
Irony's a b***h.
As I've mentioned, trying to get repair work done on your house in the Bay Area is an exercise in "should I file a lawsuit"-level frustration. From our realtor-recommended plumber whose work was so bad it had to all be torn out and replaced a few years later, to our friendly neighborhood handyman who used scrap screws he found in his tool bag instead of bothering to go to the hardware store a few blocks away, to two separate contractors who used electrical tape for wiring connections, to the infamous Jeff, Ruiner of Bathroom Remodels Forever, over 80% of the people we've hired to do work on the house have been so incompetent that their work failed within 2-5 years of them completing it.
Perhaps even more aggravating were the contractors who did good work, but whose hardware betrayed us. We did a lot of research on windows before having Pella windows installed throughout the house. The contractors did a fine job. The Pella window hardware started falling apart within 3 years, and the kids broke one of their "unbreakable" windows with a Nerf gun. Then we learned that the whole, "Your serial number ensures you can always get a replacement window," is really, "You can pay us $300 just to inspect the damaged window, then pay us to manufacture a replacement, then pay us $400/hour to do the repairs. Oh? You would rather do it yourself? Nope. We won't allow that." The studio is our emergency shelter, but the Cozy heater installed in 2008 started having pilot issues by 2013, and at this point we have a variable power supply hooked up to manually operate the gas valve. I won't say that the people who put in our Thermador range were particularly competent, but it's been the worst lemon of a range I've ever encountered; I'd rather have a $400 Hotpoint than this $6000 lemon.
And so we get to Friday, when GothBard was decrying the fact that our house looks awful. The outside paint is over 25 years old. The inside plaster is cracked in every room. The kitchen still has 1970s corporate-style ceiling panels and the wall behind the range is ripped-up drywall. And we won't hire anyone to repair any of it because of the incompetence we've encountered and we don't have the time to do it ourselves, so we're forced to live with it in spite of having plenty of money to pay someone to fix it if we could be sure they'd do a decent job.
And after her tirade, the roof we had replaced in 2017 seems to have started leaking. Yet another incompetent contractor.
*SIGH*
Well, f***. Talk about being damned by good news.
I'm meeting with my mother's California accountant tomorrow to go over the tax implications of the inheritance. I figured the money outside of the trust was only a few thousand dollars so I was letting Elder Brother do whatever because what's the worst that'll happen? A fine? A delay in inheritance? So I asked him to send me a summary of her accounts.
Um... I was ridiculously wrong. Turns out she had massive amounts of liquid cash just sitting there outside of the trust. Like, life-changing, "Pay off everything except the mortgage, get the house redone, and then buy a new car," kind of cash. And brother hasn't even bothered to talk to a lawyer about what he's supposed to be doing about it all. He figures that since the will is uncontested, he can just cut us checks and we're done.
If I can't get him to lawyer up this is going to get appalling.
EDIT: And yeah, I already knew the minute I set up a trust for my kids that if we ever started accumulating cash, all of it had to go into the trust just to avoid this kind of situation, so... um... "Woo hoo!" for cash, but I'm terrified that we may lose a significant chunk of it thanks to brother's stupidity.
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Like, life-changing, "Pay off everything except the mortgage, get the house redone, and then buy a new car," kind of cash.
We're end doing Knives Out, aren't we?
Like, life-changing, "Pay off everything except the mortgage, get the house redone, and then buy a new car," kind of cash.
We're end doing Knives Out, aren't we?
In slow motion. Mired in molasses.
I mean, I understand that bureaucracy is slow, and death bureaucracy is even slower. But as far as I can tell, in the last month my brother got my mother cremated (using her money to pay for it), got her death certificate (again using her money), notified all the banks, and they all just said, "OK. Where do you want the sacks of cash?"
So he *should* have lawyered up, gone to court, gotten approval to dispense any cash at all, and from what I've been able to read he's not actually allowed to pay anyone until the estate is settled. So we haven't even gotten started and he's broken the law. And at some point some bureaucrat will notice and lock down everything until he apologizes, pays a fine, and does everything correctly.
So, my observations and expectations:
(1) Both brothers are financially well-off and don't need any immediate cash, so they're not inclined to actually *do* anything about the estate.
(2) Elder Brother is lazy and won't consult a lawyer or do anything other than just hand us cash from the estate until he's stopped by a court.
(3) A court will eventually step in, seize everything, take 2-3 years to clear things up, and charge us 15% up front for being idiots.
And I really don't want to lose $10k of my inheritance because my brother's an idiot.
Well, now that the holidays are over and my lawyer is back, maybe things will change...
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edibles work for me but only once in a few months. Then my body is like "oh yeah i remember how that toxin works let me purge it from your system"Kull wahad! You learn to convert the spice!
Noms an entire bag of spice like its potato chips
"My eyes were blue before this ain't doing (#$()#*$)*(#$ "
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Bath yesterday was interrupted, and then repeatedly interrupted.
Bath today was interrupted by screaming "ahhh its a bird in the house ahhhhhhh"
facepalm.
"Oh no. a house wren. Ahhhhhh....."
Open the window. the bird flies away from me. Tell the bird Im opening the window. It lands on my head. Then lands on the christmas garland.
"A little to the right. The force fields open. a little more to the right...and there you go"
Mom **crazy something something bird whisperer....**
"Is it really that crazy when they're listening?"
And I had to explain to one person that the birds is fiction. I've been pecked in the head by an Emu. That poor thing would get a concussion trying to peck me, and he isn't remotely inclined)
This morning's "Brother as executor" fun: I finally convinced him to Google what he's supposed to be doing and he was like, "Uh oh. Isn't the lawyer supposed to be helping me with this?"
I didn't *quite* get frustrated enough to re-send him the lawyer's engagement letter that he signed that explicitly said, "I'm not going to be helping you with the non-trust stuff," but I was tempted.
Now I'm trying to get him to hire an attorney to help him through the Washington stuff.
The estate is big enough that $5,000 on lawyers to sort it out is money well-spent.
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Freehold, what have you been up to?
EDIT: Impus Major describes it as, "The most uniquely American thing I've ever seen."
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Freehold, what have you been up to?
EDIT: Impus Major describes it as, "The most uniquely American thing I've ever seen."
...to make no bones about it...
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I mean, if your brother's going to get in trouble anyway, how about sending some of that money my way? At least I'm not pretending to be your child and planning to off you for the inheritance like some people.Like, life-changing, "Pay off everything except the mortgage, get the house redone, and then buy a new car," kind of cash.
We're end doing Knives Out, aren't we?
In slow motion. Mired in molasses.
I mean, I understand that bureaucracy is slow, and death bureaucracy is even slower. But as far as I can tell, in the last month my brother got my mother cremated (using her money to pay for it), got her death certificate (again using her money), notified all the banks, and they all just said, "OK. Where do you want the sacks of cash?"
So he *should* have lawyered up, gone to court, gotten approval to dispense any cash at all, and from what I've been able to read he's not actually allowed to pay anyone until the estate is settled. So we haven't even gotten started and he's broken the law. And at some point some bureaucrat will notice and lock down everything until he apologizes, pays a fine, and does everything correctly.
So, my observations and expectations:
(1) Both brothers are financially well-off and don't need any immediate cash, so they're not inclined to actually *do* anything about the estate.
(2) Elder Brother is lazy and won't consult a lawyer or do anything other than just hand us cash from the estate until he's stopped by a court.
(3) A court will eventually step in, seize everything, take 2-3 years to clear things up, and charge us 15% up front for being idiots.And I really don't want to lose $10k of my inheritance because my brother's an idiot.
Well, now that the holidays are over and my lawyer is back, maybe things will change...
You stay away from my noble, handsome, intelligent, sexy, suave, loving father!!!!! He needs a cane to get around sometimes due to his age, sure...
Freehold, what have you been up to?
EDIT: Impus Major describes it as, "The most uniquely American thing I've ever seen."
I want the mcrib with extra rib, dammit!
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"Yeah...I don't speak 'mental breakdown' so you're gonna have to translate that for me."
Ha! It is my mother tongue, and I figure I might be able to muddle through a dozen dialects, including that odd one based on wallpaper designs. :/
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There are few things that depress me more than trying to do business with pure capitalists.
While I have received untold benefits throughout my lifetime (free room, board, and a college degree up until I was 24, being able to borrow from my inheritance to help buy a house in the Bay Area, being White), the fact stands that between 1996 and 2026 I was able to accumulate over $1 million in liquid assets without directly screwing anyone over. (So not counting the house or the inheritances or anything.)
And now dealing with my mother's estate, every single person advising us is just like my brothers. "Oh, if you decide to sell the house you should kick the tenants out first, because you'll get better money if they're not there. And don't even pay attention to their requests to buy the house; you'll only get top dollar if you put it on the marketplace."
Just a great big, "It doesn't matter that your tenants have been there for 10 years and raised their two children there; their lives are irrelevant when there's money to be made!"
Nope. I'm gonna sit here and care about my tenants. And use my 1/3 vote to advocate for them for all the good it does me. But four of the vilest words I know are, "It's only good business."
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Speaking of pure capitalism.
It seems that'll be eating fries for the next few days.
I finally succumbed to temptation and bought (cheap) air fryer...