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After being released from the emergency room, I found a hotel for the night. I slept late -- checked out on time, but I was glad I found a hotel with noon checkout rather than 11 a.m. -- and then drove for 40 minutes to a Jewish Deli just outside of Charlotte.

[n.b., Savannah, GA hosts the oldest continuous Jewish congregation in the U.S., Mickve Israel, but doesn't have a single real Deli. I've been craving Matzoh ball soup for months. Finding out that there was a decent deli in Charlotte meant the world. For the record, there is an older synagogue in Rhode Island, but they fizzled out and reconstituted rather than existing continuously.]

They had Cel-Ray soda. The turkey reuben was made with a turkey pastrami. There was good old-fashioned cucumber salad to go with it. I got two quarts of Matzoh ball soup to go. They had sturgeon by the pound. Next time, I'm getting sturgeon. Or kippered salmon.

I was later than I'd hoped getting home, mostly because my GPS told me to keep left when I needed a right lane exit at the Talmadge bridge in Savannah, but it was otherwise uneventful. I took a break at the two hour mark. It was pretty good.

Today has mostly been spent in bed. I know I should exercise. I know I should write or open boxes or do anything, but I mostly slept. I had a little phone argument with Sis. She doesn't want to put in solar power because she felt it didn't do anything for them in CA. I pointed out that Dad would have gotten the tax credit; this time she will. I also pointed out that they were never without power in CA. We've already had 9 days sans electricity and with hurricane season and tornados on the rise, I think this is necessary. I'm also worried about what tariffs with Canada will do to the oil supply. Keep fingers crossed on this.

It's been rough emotionally for the past year. Mom died on a Saturday, but it was just before 29 February, so everything is offset by two days instead of just one.

Last year, on February 15, the Thursday before her death, a dear friend of hers, the only one who could come and whom Mom wanted to see, came to visit. She and her SO went in and talked with Mom in the morning and let me have a long walk that I desperately needed. They came back in the afternoon, but Mom was non-verbal. Still understanding what was going on. They asked about her time as a stewardess and she squeezed their hand when United was mentioned. They'd brought us a lovely coffee cake, too.

This year, on Thursday, the four of us are going out to dinner at a restaurant Mom liked. It's not exactly a year, but it feels like it because it's the Thursday again. They've been to visit family in Florida. On the way down, they stopped at Beaufort National Cemetery and found Mom and Dad's grave. We're a stop on the way back.
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Let's start with AAAARRRRRGGGGHHHH!

We called a plumber to take care of issues with the seal around our toilets. They came by on 15 November. It was supposed to be a $600 fix. Then, it went up to $1000 because more problems than we'd realized were found. Then, they said, pay us $300 for the little bit we were able to do, but we needed a more in depth estimate because things were bad.

The estimator came on 19 November, and there was so much moisture -- the house had been feeling a bit dank -- that we needed industrial drying fans and a fairly major overhaul of both bathrooms' plumbing. Apparently, there's the reason it's called a U-Bend in the UK; it's not supposed to look like the Gordian Knot. The previous owners in 'updating' the house had made major mistakes: different types of pipe jerry-rigged together, PVC and corrugated steel in the same sink trap doesn't work. The bathtub overflow/drain had been put in wrong and with gaskets that let water go directly under the house because they had DRILLED INTO THE PVC to 'attach it' in the crawl space. The three holes were each about the size of a quarter.

Industrial fans went in. We went into a hotel on 25 November. Our contractor came by the next day and accused the estimators of using too many fans to overcharge our insurance. He gave us a fair estimate, and, as we'd literally discovered only an hour earlier that the buyers had pulled out from our house, agreed to float the cost until the house sold. In the event, his estimate was reasonable and we'll be able to pay it, though things will be a might tight in the ter Brugghe household until we find new buyers.

The buyers pulling out should have meant that we got the Earnest Money they put up guaranteeing that they would not pull out after a certain date. We were on contingency and their buyers had pulled out. Originally they asked to work with us to buy the property with a later timeline, so pulling out entirely was a shock.

We don't get the Earnest Money. I think our Realtor has been leading us around by the nose. Sis really likes her because she helped when the family first got to Savannah and Dad liked her. I'm furious.

The original estimate for finishing the bathrooms was 13 December. When our contractor found out that Sis had surgery scheduled for yesterday, he put more workers on it. In taking up the floors to correct the issues we had, he discovered that some of the damp was because the prior owners -- who advertised the house with completely renovated bathrooms -- had not put in the flooring correctly. We picked and purchased new floor tile for that bathroom on Monday. Since Monday was Dad's birthday, we'd planned to go to the cemetery, but we ended up buying tile instead.

Anyway, more problems were found, but the contractor fixed them. He's kept images for our insurance, but we're not certain if the claim will be approved as these weren't problems from Helene or other natural disaster.

We've been told we can't sue the prior owners even though it was their shoddy work that created this problem. We can't sue the Inspector who didn't catch these issues either.

Sis had her rotator cuff surgery yesterday. The bathrooms weren't finished yesterday thanks to the extra problems being found, but we were able to leave the hotel today. [BTW -- 4, count them FOUR, fire alarms went off at the hotel in the night over the last three days. Not the most restful stay we've had.] She's recovering nicely. Her new shower floor looks nice. I can have a bath if I want. Our toilets won't leak. The dogs can come home on Saturday, per her doctor.

If I succeeded in embedding the image, you can see the pattern of my new floor tiles. It seemed appropriate that we found a NATO compass rose on Dad's birthday. He loved his time at NATO.
NATO Compass

HooBoy!

Nov. 19th, 2024 02:13 pm
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I was in Austin, TX over the weekend. I never want to drive there again. I had delays getting back, including a delay in Atlanta where they couldn't get enough fuel into the plane to get to Savannah, much less get back. We changed planes and took off an hour and a half later. Good times.

Also, I fell getting out of the hotel shower. I have bruising and may have given myself a touch of whiplash in the fall.

Last week, after noticing some things around the house, we had the plumbers in to fix a couple of minor issues.

They weren't minor. The estimator came today. We have to leave the house for a minimum of three weeks beginning Monday. Right now, one bathroom is completely unusable, and we're sharing the tiny one. There are industrial fans in both areas drying out the underfloor.

We think our insurance will cover most of the work, including needing to redo the guest bathroom (the one I've been using) entirely. It was advertised as "brand new" in the real estate listing. We're talking to lawyers. We may also need an electrician because one of the problems was ungrounded wiring right next to the leaky shower/bathtub.

AAAAARRRRGGGHHH!!!!!!!

ETA: Sis spoke with a lawyer yesterday. Our one recourse may be that -- as best she can tell -- they didn't bother with permits for the work. A deeper dive is being done.

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