I mentioned last week that we have our house up for sale.
Wait, you don't remember that. OK just go back to a picture included in last weeks letter.



I didn't think I could make it more obvious.

Well, anyway, the house is for sale. We didn't plan on selling yet, we have more projects to do. The thing is that we ran across a great opportunity we want to try to get.  The other place is a townhouse with nearly twice the floor space, 3 bedrooms, nearly as much storage space as this house but inside, not underneath accessible only from the back yard. It also has a decent view across the sea and of the mainland. All this for the same as we paid for our current house. (It is an estate sale and the family doesn't live near here so they want to unload it. We won't even need to get a new mortgage, we'll just roll the one we have over to the new property. The Strata fees will be offset by a reduction in insurance, water, trash, and other fees we're paying now. Essentially, we'll get a lot better place for the same $$$ per month. It'll be a sweet deal if we can pull it off.

Annnyway…
Saturday we had an open house. This is a tricky thing because now we have cats. Cats mean cleaning each room, removing the fur balls from under all the furniture. Sweeping, swiffering, AND sticky rolling the floors to get all the cat hair up. Severely vacuuming the rugs to get all the cat hair out (hey Marsha, did you know this rug is green?) and as we finish each room closing the door to prevent recontamination from wandering cats.

In the middle of all of this we ran out to Save-On-Foods. They tend to be a bit more expensive than where we usually shop, except for once a year when they do their Caselot Sale. You can get some really great deals. With winter coming on it also seems like a good time to lay in a dozen cans of cream of mushroom soup, canned tomatoes, cereal, and tuna. With the pantry stocked up with canned goods and the freezer full of produce we're ready for winter. (OK, OK, I can hear all you Minnesotans laughing. Yes we do get winter here. It's when the lawn grows more slowly and they take the watering restrictions off. Still winter is winter and we need to prepare for it.)

We were running around Save-On-Foods filling the cart when my phone rang. It was my boss. There was a significant issue at Pacific Shores. Could I run up there? Of course I said yes. That's part  of being in IT. Always there, whenever needed. The other side of it was last Friday when I wanted to take the afternoon off, "no prob' ". We're flexible in this business.

Unfortunately this would be leaving Marsha in the lurch. She would have to bundle up the cats and get out of the house without my help. Bummer. But it was what it was. However, this lead to a very funny incident. I had told Marsha and she understood. However, when we were in the cat food aisle (Friskies Temptations were also on sale) she started razzing me: "I can't believe you're leaving me". She kept saying this while I was talking about how to take care of the cats. What Marsha hadn't noticed was that another customer had come into in the aisle behind her. The lady could overhear what Marsha was saying and soon she started giving me the stink-eye. She thought I'd just asked Marsha for a divorce in the cat food aisle. I mean what kind of a jerk would do that? Well, in her eyes I was that kind. I waited until we were a couple aisles away before I told Marsha and we both had a good laugh.

As it turned out I was able to fix what I needed to fix at Pacific Shores fairly quickly and get back to the house by 1:20. Martin, one our realtors, showed up at 2:00 and we were able to get out without too much effort. We hung out in the car at the ocean for a couple of hours while the cats hid underneath the seats. Just before 4:00 we hit Dairy Queen Drive-Through and then headed home. We did ask the cats if they wanted a salmon or tuna flavoured blizzard but they were both quiet so they did not get a treat. As it turned out there were exactly zero (none) visitors to the open house anyway. Maybe better luck next week.

Yes, Labour Day is a holiday in Canada too.  Hope everyone is enjoying their day.

Douglas Aalseth
geoduck@me.com