It was a bit of a long haul, but Cindy is finally home from the hospital. She’s doing well after the surgery. She needs to have her bandages changed daily which shouldn’t be a problem since I did this for a few months after her big surgery a few years ago. I’m a bit rusty, so we asked to have a home-care nurse come by a couple of times to go through it with me and change her bandages.

Other than that, the kids and I are starting to settle in at our new digs. Serena has been great considering that we’ve invaded her home. So far so good.

Yesterday, I finalized the order for our new double-wide and made the down payment. Its now official. Hopefully, our new home will be up and ready sooner, rather than later.

Cindy went into the hospital yesterday for minor surgery. She apparently had an abscess (sp?) in her stomach which may have been the result of a previous surgery from a couple of years ago.

Doctors at Cheshire Medical discovered this abscess about 3 weeks ago. She saw one doctor who put her on antibiotics and sent her home.

She saw another doctor a week later who thought the first doctor was an idiot for only putting her on antibiotics. This new doctor tried to drain the abscess, failed, took her off antibiotics and referred her to a surgeon.

The surgeon saw her, and put her back on antibiotics and told her to come back to see him in a week.

A week later, the surgeon cut open Cindy’s stomach (I believe he did it in the waiting room or something. . . very outpatienty), drained some of the abscess and kept her on antibiotics.

A week after that, her entire stomach was clearly infected, and the abscess was still painfully large. She had been on antibiotics for 3 weeks (off and on) and had seen 2 doctors and a surgeon. Since we are now in Northfield, MA, our friend with whom we are living took her to Greenfield Hospital (which is nearby).

Here, the doctor was disgusted by what he saw and said this should never have been allowed to get as bad as it has gotten. He immediately put Cindy in the hospital so she could get some powerful IV antibiotics. He scheduled a surgery (in an actual operating room, no less) for the next day so he could completely and thoroughly drain the infected abscess.

Cindy is being kept in the hospital over the weekend to keep her on IV antibiotics and to make sure everything went okay. She got out of surgery yesterday around 6 or 7 pm. She was drugged up, but I think she’s doing okay. I’m heading out to see her now. I’ll keep everyone posted on how it’s going.

Here we are, currently homeless. The closing for our house was Friday, Aug 12. We managed to get everything out of the house and yard just in time for the 1:00 closing (thats not actually true – we had a pile of junk that we had to get rid of, even after the closing).

The closing itself was a bit of a cluster. The closing agent spoke really really fast, but she had a nice sense of humor, and tried to lighten things up while we were going through the piles of paperwork. The buyers realtor looked and acted like she had a stick up her butt. She scowled throughout the proceedings and was really pushy with her demands. Our agent was very pretty. Strawberry blonde, slim figure, sweet smile. . . but I digress. . .

During the closing, a few things were incorrect in the documentation, and a document or two got lost in the shuffle. The closing agent’s “gofer” was running around like mad, making phone calls, finding lost paperwork, and re-printing edited paperwork. What should have taken about 30 minutes took an hour and 30 minutes.

Finally, after all of the revisions had been made, and all the paperwork had been signed (I was signing paperwork in my sleep for the next few days), our house was officially sold, our mortgage and 2nd mortgage were paid, the agents all got their commissions, and the measly sum that was left over was given to us in the form of a check. A very. . . small. . . check.

And now we are living in a friend’s apartment just south of the border (Mass). We have our new double-wide manufactured home almost ordered and it will be delivered and set up in mid-October. Its not so bad here. There is plenty of space, and since its on the fourth floor, we get plenty of excercise going UP and DOWN the 3 flights of stairs.

So thats about it. The tough half of the moving process is completed. I’ll let you know how it goes.

I cannot believe this crap!

For weeks we have been looking into the purchase of a manufactured home in a small mobile home park here. One of our concerns with moving into a trailer park (besides the whole “trailer trash” rep that comes with it) was our pets. Many Parks don’t like dogs or cats or rabbits or humpty-back-camels, or whatever. . .

. . . so we ask the Lady about our pets — 1 dog, 3 cats. The lady says “No problem”

A couple of weeks go by. We pick out a home we like, we pick out the designs, rugs, wall-coverings, toilet seats. .. everything. All the while, the lady we are working with knows full well how many cats and dogs we have. We talk about how much we appreciate the park, and how much we like being able to bring our pets along. She agrees. Its a nice park with loose restrictions.

Then we meet the Lady’s “manager” to sign some paperwork. We’ll call this guy Bark Maldwin (not his real name). Bark is handsome, well-groomed and tan. When I say tan, I am talking TAN, the kind of tan that you don’t get in New England. He has the kind of tan that only those who winter in Florida can get. This fact will become important later.

Anyway, I notice as we are signing paperwork that there is a clause about Pets. I read it, and it basically says “Absolutely No Pets!” So I raise my left eyebrow and say “huh!?”

Bark and the Lady both assure me that it isn’t a problem. We can have our pets. I wipe my brow and sign everything, happy with the new house, the park, the lot, and the ability to keep my loving animals.

A week later I get a call from Bark Maldwin: “Hey, we have a problem with your animals. Park rules state that you can only have one pet. The main office won’t approve your Park application unless you get rid of all but one of your pets.” I say “Huh!? You said we could have our pets!”

Bark says, “Yeah, but my dad won’t approve your application unless you agree to only have one pet.”

His DAD!? This guy is about 35. . . he has to ask his dad for permission?

So, after failing to convince Bark Maldwin that he had essentially wasted 3 weeks of time that could have been spent applying to a different trailer park (you know, one that, say, ALLOWS pets), I go to the Better Business Bureau website and, after much research, I find the name of this company that owns the trailer park: Maldwin & Frump.

Maldwin? Hrm. I call the head office and ask about this trailer park. The woman seems at a loss. It seems Maldwin & Frump own thousands of trailer parks all over New England. I’ll have to be more specific than “the trailer park”. Wow! These guys are huge! I’ll bet both Mr. Maldwin and Mr. Frump are incredibly wealthy.

“So,” I say to the receptionist, “The Maldwin in Maldwin & Frump – that must be Bark Maldwin’s dad, hrm?”

“Yes” she says.

Now it all comes together! Bark Maldwin, child of wealth and privelidge, spending his winters in Florida (or in a tanning booth). Probably never went to college, or dropped out if he did, and got a juicy job from daddy. He’s not very good at his job, of course, which is why he isn’t allowed to make decisions about small, domesticated animals.

So, will he take it like a man? Will he say “Well, gee, I DID say you could have your pets. . . it would be wrong for us to deny them to you after you’ve put so much time and effort into this. . . and after all, they’re only indoor cats. Its not like you’re bringing a giraffe into the park. . . So i’ll bite the bullet and make this an exception.”

No, of course not. He has to make daddy happy. So instead he waffles and whines, explains that it isn’t his decision (even though he IS the manager of the park — he’s apparently one of those non-decision-making managers, doncha know), and leaves us out to dry. Verbal Contract? Never heard of it.

Oh yeah, while Bark is claiming repeatedly that the park rules state “Only one pet allowed” I recall distincly that the rules say “No Pets Allowed!” I point this out to him. He says “Oh, that must have been a different version of the rules.” I ask him that, since there are different versions of the rules, if he can make a version that allows for 1 dog and 3 cats. He declines: “I have to ask my dad.”

So now we wait for Bark to ask daddy if he can change the rules for us. I’m sure he won’t mention the verbal promise that both he and his lady agent made to us – Daddy might take away his vacation home in Florida if he did that!

Stay tuned. . .

Well, the move went pretty well. We got all of our big stuff put into storage. There is still some smaller items and lots of garbage that we have to move out of the house, but the big work is done.

Our closing is either Friday or Monday (we just got word that it may be pushed back till Monday the 15th. That gives us 5 days to a week to get the house cleaned up.

This is it, the final day. . . well, almost. . .

Our closing date is set for August 12 (Friday). We will be moving most of our stuff out tomorrow though. We have two storage units set aside, and we’ve already filled up one of them with some small stuff (boxes and boxes of junk). Tomorrow we will be renting a truck and moving all of the big stuff; couches, beds, bureaus, bookshelves, etc.

Where will will live? you ask. Well, we’ll be semi-homeless for a while, maybe up until mid October. But fortunately, we have a friend we’ll be living with. Her house is about a half hour away, but it won’t be too bad.

The kids come back from Vegas on the 15th. They knew when they left that they probably wouldn’t see the house again. They seemed okay with that, but we’ll see.

Thats it for now. I’ll let you know how the move went tomorrow!