Well, what a day was today. My car would not start this morning when I was on my way to class. Now, this was not a complete tragedy, in that I live 2 blocks from where I teach, however, it was 5 minutes until class and I’m a bit of a slow walker. Sooooo–I called the office manager so she could let my students into the classroom, walked to class, told the students (who were having a lab day to sculpt a clay bas-relief for a project) that they were on their own and proceeded to prepare to go home to call AAA to jump start my car. One of my students offered to help me out and actually took me home and jumped the car for me. Nice. Extra credit is all I’m saying.
I’ve had to jump the car about 3 times in the last couple of weeks. I thought that I was leaving my lights on and running down the battery, but it all makes perfect sense now. See, the dinger was not dinging–if I left my lights on or if the key was in the ignition, the dinger should ding until these situations were remedied. The silence of the dinger should have been my clue that the battery was on the way out. But I thought, oh, the dinger’s just broken….after all my little Saturn is 11 years old now. Who could blame it for having a broken dinger? But no, its dinger is as good as ever, it was just the battery that was kaput.
The girls and I hopped into the car and drove to Advance Auto Parts–nice people–where they tested the battery and answered the dinger question and proceeded to sell me a new battery and install it for free. All while the girls and I lounged in the car, them reading and me dealing with school work I had with me. A new battery–dinger re-engaged and bob’s-your-uncle—we were ready to roll.
Various and sundry other flies in the ointment continued throughout the day–as it was for other people today–must have been in the air—but perhaps the stickiest of the flies was the DEED ISSUE.
Most of you know that David and I are in the process of buying a house here in GA. Let me tell you buddy, they do thangs a little differtly here in JAW-JA. When you are looking for a house, first of all, they DO NOT list square footage of the homes on the MLS or the info sheets for houses. It is just NOT DONE here in GA. We asked our realtor (who hails from Knoxville, TN) why? She said she had no idea. No one had ever explained a reason for it–and this lady has been in the biz here in GA for many years. GA just doesn’t do it. Something else different than in TN–a lawyer ALWAYS handles the closing of a sale of property in GA. In TN, both times we bought and/or sold a house, the closing was handled by a title company. Oh, no. Not in GA. One or more attorneys must handle and preside over the closing. And this brings me to the sticky fly.
David and I learned today that our closing (scheduled for Friday at 1pm EST) may be delayed because the seller of the house we intend to buy has lost the DEED. You see, our intended is currently owned by a bank who acquired the property by foreclosing on the previous owners. This bank assigned power of attorney to a mortgage company who in turn farmed out the foreclosure paperwork to be executed and–this is crucial–to register the DEED–to a “management” company. So the real owner (BANK) was twice removed from the actual execution of the foreclosure transaction and subsequent registration of the new DEED. At least this is how I understand it. And now, the county agency where the DEED should have been registered after the foreclosure is saying that they have no record of the DEED in question, so as far as their records indicate, the house is still DEEDED to the foreclosed upon original owner. WHEW! And this is not good news for us, for the underwriter of our mortgage loan must be 110% sure that there is a clear DEED to the property possessed by the SELLER that can be legally transferred to the BUYER before he/she will approve the loan and issue the closing packet to be executed by the ATTORNEY presiding over our closing. SHEESH. Call me crazy, but I believe in TN we probably make sure that the SELLER has a clear DEED to the property before we attempt to sell said property.
So, we have jumped through all kinds of hoops, have all of our ducks in a row and are ready to buy a house, but unless the seller can clear all this up in 24 hours, we won’t close on time. Bummer, because I’ve already told my landlord I’ll be out by April 1. April Fools!
Hopefully it will all work out. When my realtor found all this out today, she started making calls and inquiries to see what could be done. “I’ll be in touch with you later to let you know how to proceed” she told me when we spoke on the phone. About 3 hours later, I got an email from her. “My best advice to you” she wrote, “is to pray without ceasing!” I love our realtor.
So pray without ceasing for us if you can, and if you can’t, at least think good and clear DEED thoughts until the last “i” is dotted and we can call the house ours.
I’m waiting for a call from David now before I call it a night. He of the infinite patience was in Gallatin tonight borrowing my dad’s van in order to haul some stuff to GA in anticipation of our move this weekend. I think he must have gotten snagged into some crazy shenanigans with my folks because he has been there for a few hours.
Tomorrow the girls and I will go to the health department here to have their immunization records transferred to a “Georgia Form 5870″ or some such because schools here will only accept this form in order for a child to begin school. Then, if this process does not take all day, we will be off to their new school to register them to start next week. They are all aflutter and nervous–I think they will be fine. At least this is what I keep telling myself.
Finally, I need to mention that David and I celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary last Friday. We had dinner at a fabulous restaurant in Athens called five and ten. Hugh Acheson is the chef there–the place has been written up in FOOD AND WINE and PEACH magazine and it was great. Not as wonderful as the most mundane dinner we had in France, but pretty damn good for GA. Our companions for the evening were one of my colleagues and her fiance. They recently became engaged and David and I wanted to take them out to celebrate—so we killed 2 birds with one stone, so to speak. It was a very enjoyable evening.
It is interesting to think that David and I were once engaged. It seems like we have always been together. That is both a blessing and a curse, I think. On the one hand, it is wonderful to be so close to someone and feel so comfortable, on the other hand comfort can sometimes be very close to taking for granted. I don’t ever want to take David for granted. I want to always remember what a gift it is to have him around. Yes, he annoys me sometimes. I’m sure that he’d like to bean me with a baseball bat at times when I annoy him. We have our differences. We struggle as our lives and relationship evolve. Through it all, though, he is the one person that loves me in a way that I have never know before. Without exception and with a capacity for understanding and acceptance that surpasses my comprehension. He is brave and honorable and kind. He makes me laugh, even when I don’t want to. He lifts me up when I am feeling low and he knows how to hold me down to the earth when I feel like I’m going to fly away and be lost forever. I love him. This, I hope he knows.
I hope you all know that I wish you a wonderful rest of the week. With no dead batteries, defective dingers, or lost deeds. 
