Call Lowes, Ask for Hal in Lighting...

The other day, I made a strange discovery.  I looked up the sale price of my first home on the assessor’s website because I couldn’t remember what we had sold it for.  (Don’t ask me why the sale price from 15 years ago was important information because I have no good reason other than I couldn’t remember and my brain cannot handle not knowing stuff…you can’t imagine how awful my life was pre-Google or “P.G.” as I refer to it.)  When I got to the site, it gave me the information I was looking for, but it also said that my home was bought and sold by not my first husband and I, but by my first husband and HIS CURRENT WIFE.  Um. No.  I then checked our next home…same thing.  Now, I don’t have a problem with his current wife—we actually get along pretty well—but I would have been irked if it was anybody’s name on the record other than my own.

I called a friend of mine who works for a title company.  I didn’t think she would be able to tell me what happened, but I knew she could point me in the right direction.  She agreed it was weird and advised me to call the Treasurer’s office.  I didn’t realize the can of worms I was opening.  Here is what followed:

 

1.        I called the Treasurer’s office and got K who informed me that they don’t handle that--I needed to talk to the auditor’s office—she transferred my call.

2.        The woman in the auditor’s office was CLUELESS and didn’t know how to even get on the assessors site to see the record (she literally told me she didn’t think she could access the site, so I offered to send her a link to this public site.)  Once she did, she kept spewing back information about the current owners.  CLUELESS I tell ya.  She told me to call the assessor’s office and hung up.   Apparently my amazement at her incompetency came through the phone and was not appreciated.

3.        I called the assessor’s office and got B.  B was funny—I liked him.  He felt bad that I had been shuffled but told me they don’t have any control over the data on their site (?!?) so I should call the recording department and maybe info services.  He gave me the direct line for info services and transferred my call to recording.

4.        S in recording sighed loudly and said no, they don’t do this--I needed the assessors department.  I told her I had already been there and what B had told me.  She told me B was wrong and good luck with Info Services.  Gee thanks.

5.        The lady at the Info services department didn’t have an answer either, but she took my name to ask her manager and said she would get back to me.  (3 days later, she has not.)  She also said she was pretty sure I needed the title company.

 

I would like to point out that I manage an office in a customer service industry.  Maybe this makes me hyper aware of the service I receive, but I can tell you that if any of my customers were ever shuffled around the bank the way I was shuffled around the county building, I would be appalled/furious.  Be helpful!  Take ownership!  FIX IT!  Sheesh! 

I’m just bummed my name wasn’t missing from the records back when the house payment was due.  When the mortgage company called, I could have told them “I don’t handle this, call the assessor’s office.”  Click. 

I’m now too grouchy to deal with this anymore.   

On a better note, I am continuing to run.  I don’t have a schedule, I pretty much do it whenever I can fit it in, and for the most part I have moved from a morning runner to an evening runner.  Morning, outdoor runs are still my favorite, but it requires me to drag my sleepy butt out of bed and that’s just not happening lately.  I am using my treadmill in the garage way more often than I planned to during our beautiful August and I think I may regret that when it’s raining sideways in November and I no longer have the option of running outside without drowning.

 

I did something new this week with my iFit on the treadmill and it just has me tickled.  iFit holds weekly competitions where you can log on and join a 5k or 10k.  The competitions are all over the US, and this week it was in Cheyenne, Wyoming.  You sign up for the race and it loads into your schedule as the next map to run.  You have a week to run it and it shows you on the map where the leader and the average runner are at any given time.  (i.e.  10 minutes into the run, there is a green dot showing where the fastest runner was at 10 minutes, where the average runner was at 10 minutes, and where you are in relation to those two at 10 minutes—even if the others had run the day before—does that make sense?).  You also have the option of running with a “street view” but then you can’t see the other dots for comparison.  When you are done with the race, you can go to a results page which posts how many people have run the race so far, their times, and your stats compared to theirs.  This changes throughout the week as other runners compete and then at the end of the week, they have a final tally.  I love it, and look forward to running a new 5k each week to prepare for the live races I will be doing in the upcoming months!

Funny Stuff...

I have a funny family.  My husband has a dry, sarcastic, very smart humor that has made me laugh since the day I met him 22 years ago.  I can recognize funny, but I don't usually have funny stuff coming out of me...unless it's completely by accident.  The writing is on the wall--our kids are going to be funny too. Our annual vacation is the one time a year when we get to have all 6 of us hang out together 24/7, and after everyone gets into relaxed, vacation mode, we laugh the entire time.  I look forward to that all year.  This year, I put an app on my phone so I could note the "funnies" as they happened.  I have to share with you:

**Our first night in Fremont, there was a VERY intoxicated Santa with a nasty beard doing a funky dance on the "dance floor".  He was feeling pretty good, and my children were watching with varying stages of shock, disgust, and a little bit of pity on their faces.  My husband leaned over to me and said, "Everyone says you're not supposed to smoke, drink, or do drugs, but look at Santa--he looks pretty good for 80 years old."  "Yeah, too bad he's 40."  Ba-dum-bum.  That was my one good response all week.

**When waiting for two of our kids to arrive via zipline, my daughters and I were standing near the arrival spot which just happened to be near a photo-op booth containing 2 Chippendales-ish men doing their best to charm every woman walking by.  My boy-crazy16 year old contained herself longer than I imagined before busting out with, "A man in a bow-tie, no shirt, and cuffs...that's my type."  Lord.  We're in trouble.

**We kept walking along, running into spaces where the air just smelled NASTY for a few feet or so, then it would go right back to normal.  My daughter made a comment and then one second later, my husband commented on these little spots of stink.  He nicknamed them "Shitghosts" because it was literally like walking through a smelly, nasty being for 2 seconds that would immediately disappear.  I am sorry to report that Vegas is full of Shitghosts.  I still love it.
**Our first night in town, we went out to dinner after sweating to death for about 5 hours.  Someone made a comment about how low-maintenance my son was--how he didn't ask for anything or have any major needs.  Without missing a beat, he leaned forward, put his chin on his hands and said, "Tell me I'm pretty."  He is.  We did.
**We were talking at dinner one night about how cool it would be if we could afford to take all 6 of us to a big show like Celine Dion, Bette Midler, or Elton John.  My oldest made a comment about how much she loved Elton John and how she loved that he was so flamboyant.  Our 15 year old says, "Wait, Elton John is gay?"  We all (including her younger brother) stared at her. 

**One of the highlights of our trip was visiting a good friend of mine that I have known since we were in middle school.  He has been nothing but welcoming of us whenever we come to Vegas, and while I have always loved him, I have come to adore his partner as well--they are good people through and through.  While visiting one day, he commented that he had used my (mom's) tanning lamp in high school and gotten a sunburn from it. (Backstory:  When I found this little gem in the 80's, I cleared out my walk-in closet, hung the lamp from a dowel, and made a comfy spot that my friends could use to come tan--sometimes they fell asleep.)  In response to his question, without even thinking about it, I asked him "Oh, were you in the closet?"  Then I kind of wanted to die for a second until he said, "Uh, yeah" and we all bust out laughing.  My dear friend, I adore you and everything you bring into our lives.  Never change.

On a side note:  my second-born got her drivers license today.  This makes me both terrified and elated.  On one hand:  someone to buy creamer after my bra is off for the day.  On the other hand:  the rest of the humans who now share the road with another one of my precious babies.  My kids are good drivers--trust me, if they weren't, I wouldn't set them free out there.  There are a lot of questionable people on the road who are not as careful, who spend more time looking at the phone in their hand than out the windshield (adults as well as kids--Quit texting while driving!!).  That makes me feel pretty helpless and 3 years after the oldest got her license, I assure you I never completely exhale until I know they are safely where they are supposed to be.  I swear it was only yesterday that they were begging me for dress up clothes and magic wands made from my wooden spoons.  Hug your babies and enjoy every minute of the kid chaos because soon it will be your turn to stand in line at the hardware store buying your teen her own key for the car. 

May you all enjoy a week without Shitghosts.

Vegas Baby!

As I mentioned earlier, we took the kids to a new vacation spot this year.  We have gone to Whistler BC for six of the past eight years and after getting rained on for a week straight last summer, we were all ready for some guaranteed sunshine.  We threatened taking them to Dino Town, then threw 'em a curveball and said we were renting an RV and driving around the US to see "Americana" (World's Largest Ball of Twine, anyone?).  My kids know me very well and saw through that one immediately...Mama Doesn't Camp.  Ever.  My husband and I go to Vegas at least once a year for classes (his--I shop) and felt like we knew the places that would be kid-appropriate while enjoying some sunshine in the desert. 

The day we arrived, it was 108 degrees.  Yikes.  We were spending the first night in Fremont because the condos we rented wouldn't be available until the following day and we wanted to show the kids the old-timey part of Vegas too.  We did not anticipate that Fremont had become as "colorful" as it has.  Wow.  We stopped and listened to a few outdoor concerts--some were pretty good, but it was the crowd that was an eye-opener for our sheltered, suburban kids.  You could easily pick out the people who were living on the streets with their demons and addictions--it was pretty sad.  We never felt scared, but it wasn't a place where we would let the kids wander without a parent.  We had been to a brewery with friends down there a few years before and took the kids there for dinner.  The food was great, the ambiance was relaxed with lots of tv's so we could catch up on the Olympics, and we were able to feed all 6 of us for less than $100.00.  Not an easy feat anywhere but especially in Vegas, so we went there for lunch the next day too.  Two of the kids did the zip-line under the big "screen"/ceiling, and we had a picture drawn of the four of them by a very talented guy in a booth.  Fremont was fun, but we were all ready to head to the strip the next day.

Our next location was beautiful--my husband had found the place on VRBO and it was a total score!  We had 2 adjoining penthouse suites in a building near the MGM Grand with full access to all of their amenities.  The MGM pools are amazing, and that was the kicker for us because our kids will spend hours in the water if we let them.  The next few days were filled with eating, swimming, shopping, and seeing the sights...oh, and more eating.  Wow.  We literally ate our way down the strip.  The kids loved looking at the different casinos, the shops in the Forum made our teen girls giddy (3-story H&M, anyone?) and it was so nice to be able to wear our summer clothes without carrying a sweatshirt along "just in case".  There was no just in case--even on the 2 cloudy days, it was 90 degrees.  We would be outside just long enough to get hot, then pop inside until we were cold.  I can't remember the last time I went a week without sleeves.  It was awesome.  The kids loved the Bellagio fountains--we sat through 6 of their shows.  My husband took one afternoon to do a "man-day" with our son and I took the girls to get their hair cut by a good friend of mine who works at the Christophe Salon in the MGM.  It was so cool to finally introduce my friend to our kids, and we all got great haircuts and had a nice visit to boot.  If you ever get the chance, you need to go here and ask for Campbell.  Best haircut you will ever have in your life--worth every penny.

I remember a few years back when the powers that be in PR tried to push Vegas as a place for families.  I scoffed--there was no way I was taking my kids to a place that had people handing out porn on the street corners.  Well, my kids are older now and I'm going to take that back.  While I probably wouldn't rush to take younger kids, it was the perfect spot to take teenagers for a week of fun and sun.  We are already talking about going back in two years, but my oldest will be 21 then and something tells me that could make for a very different vacation experience.  We'll see.