Get coffee… or wine, then sit down. I’m just sayin’.

There are jumbles everywhere in my life right now.

Jumbles of books… or chords… or books and chords.

Jumbles of pots and pans, mixed with folders and stacks of my ever shifting collection of greeting cards, some in plastic so they all slide off of each other toward some other pile, making an even more diverse Jumble.

Which is also called a Politically Correct Jumble.

I realized last night, talking to a few friends who were laughing at me asking me how packing was going, that I really have not been processing all that has happened in these last three weeks in, you know, real time.

I’m… delayed.

If not in my own mind, then certainly in sharing my happenings out loud, and there have been a few things that probably ought to be shared if only to assure the better part of the planet that I totally fit in as a… well… as a fellow lunatic.

And, also? Not to be competitive, but I may be one of the better lunatics. I know, I know, we’ll all get a participation trophy (don’t want any of us feeling less lunatic-acle than the next guy) but honestly? I think, if there was such a thing anymore as an MVP, I’d be a contender.

Okay, I’d win. I’d absolutely win. I just can’t say that out loud because all my advertisers might flee if I was anything other than deferential. Oh wait. I don’t have advertisers!

Okay. I can prove all of this.

With my lawyer.

Seriously.

My lawyer.

Allow me to break this down for you.

Four weeks ago, give or take (my lawyer will be far more definitive in his deposition), we put our house on the market.

And some people came in (too many if you ask me, but our realtor – who is named Jen – was all excited because it was way more traffic than she expected so early). And it really did seem like a long time, at the time, that it had been on the market. It felt like forever. But at one point JoHn was lamenting our predicament to a friend on the phone, and the friend was being all consoling and asked how long it had been on the market and John said a week and his friend struggled not to hang up the phone, instead choosing to use outrage-type words.

And that gave us something called perspective.

Jen stressed patience, which I think she usually has to stress after maybe six months but, apparently, my patience with home selling outstrips – to the negative – the national average.

So then we are on week two and we have two showings on the same day and one couple stayed far longer than they were going to and one couple arrived and then they stayed a lot longer (and they overlapped, which had me picturing Jen Vanna White-ing her way all over the house in, like, fast-forward mode). Also, they followed two other potential buyers the week before, and they were asking all sorts of follow-up questions and wanted to come back.

And then suddenly everyone was interested in what everyone else was doing and they each wanted to know if the other was bidding. They were very serious about knowing. It was like an imperative.

Jen handled it with great professionalism.

Wait. Let me augment that statement.

Jen did indeed handle all the potential buyers in a very professional manner. Then she put on her special magic gloves, and handled… me.

Because I don’t know what is the matter with me when it comes to selling my house.

I had so many questions, that’s why.

Should they all know about each other? Are they going to come back? Did she show them the photos of the gardens when they are blooming? Did she forget to tell them the floors are red birch and not oak, because that is a common mistake….

YES! I was a rapid-firing crazy human!

So then ‘The Family’ (we had code names for each potential buyer because, I think, all realtors secretly want to be spies)… anyway The Family wanted to know if we had an official offer because they needed just a day or so more because they were trying to make the floor plan work for them (which I didn’t understand because the floor plan was already working for us and how many jobs can one floor plan have before it is just incapable of functioning?).

And then the buyers known as ‘The Ones Lisa Thinks are Wicked Nice’ (I didn’t say realtors were as skilled as spies are at picking code names) visited over coffee and said they were going back to talk and make an offer.

And then suddenly numbers and stuff were being floated and offers were had that were definitely worth considering, though contingencies had to be analyzed. Contingencies? Oh those are things like, ‘We offer you oodles of money but the sale hinges on whether our father’s uncle’s neighbor’s dog bays in the correct key at the moon next month’. And you have no way of telling if the dog even has chops.

And then we got an offer that went something like this, “We love the house, we will pay for the house in cash, we don’t need to know anything else, and can you get out in two weeks?”

And I was all.. wait, what?

Because the idea of being in Maine sooner and just being able to focus on the wedding was kind of a big deal to me, which they might have known and so they created a great offer because that is what smart buyers do and so…

We asked for three weeks (because three weeks is a much more rational and reasonable time period to pack up a rather huge house, and an apartment and move to Maine).

And they said ‘deal!’ and we said ‘deal!’

And then Jen recommended her real estate lawyer to us.

Oh, I know, you forgot about the lawyer.

His name is Mark. Now…

I had not met Mark. Not corresponded with Mark. Mark had never even heard my name before. Ever.

So we hired Mark.

And then I had this dream.

And in the dream the buyers lived in a house full of money. And they walked around the house and sort of kicked up money in each room they entered. Some money was on the floor and some money was floating in the air all the time. I could not see their faces because they were always in shadow.

Also, the house was the one that Norman and Norma called home in Bates Motel.

And I woke up with a start at 2 a.m. (2:04 a.m. to be more precise for my impending deposition), thinking this deal was good… maybe too good. And I thought, ‘mafia scammers’.

Because what else would you think if you had that dream?

And I waited until about 7:30 a.m. (because one would not want to be rude) to make JoHn call my new Lawyer and put him on speaker phone so I could tell him that this offer smelled of mafia scammers.

Yes.

I told my new lawyer, who I’d never met, that I was worried that the potential buyers of my house were, perhaps, mafia. scammers.

Oh. And before that? I made sure, since I hadn’t yet passed him a dollar, he was working for me and there was confidentiality.

?

Because, apparently, lunatics (me) believe that tossing out accusations of mafia scamming  on a private conversation with my own lawyer, based on a dream, could be legally precarious.

The poor guy!

He had to spend the better part of a half hour talking me down with all kinds of lawyer words intended to make me comfortable that the buyers who were so excited to buy my house were not going to actually be able to steal my house and also make me swim with the fishes.

Fast forward two weeks from then.

I’m feeling a bit better.

I’ve actually met the buyers and they are, indeed, wicked nice. And they continue to be very excited about moving into the house and we close next week.

I am living with lots of Jumbles and am still a bit stunned as I go from packing boxes to move, packing boxes to donate… and then putting stamps on invitations for a welcoming lobster bake the night before the wedding and helping Mac choose from three different cake flavors and five different frostings and/or fillings for our upcoming cake face stuffing party (also called a ‘tasting’).

So.

All is well. Strange and slightly surreal, but generally trending in a positive direction.

Oh! And also?

The woman who is moving in was just promoted to the principal of an elementary school in a town nearby.

I know right?

That is exactly the type of fake profession I would choose to make someone feel totally at ease.

If I were a mafia scammer.

I’m just sayin’.

Thanks for readin.

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