So This is What Has Been Going On...

My friend Kellee came to NYC to visit me for a whirlwind trip in mid-September. The plan was to paint my apartment and try to get Kellee around to see some of NYC (she had never been here before). But we really only had about three days to do everything! Believe it or not, we actually managed to get the painting done, and while she maybe didn't get a chance to see everything she would have liked to in Manhattan, there was some amount of sight-seeing done as well as a couple of dinners out & about in the City. And now, I have to say, my apartment looks FABULOUS! Between the paint job, finally organizing some of the cluttered corners, having the Neighbors-from-Hell move out and New-Dream-of-a-Neighbor-Guy move in upstairs, my apartment is now actually a pleasant place to in which to live. I still wish I had a bedroom though, on the other hand, I'm happy enough not to have to pay the added maintenance and mortgage costs having a bedroom would bring. My housing costs are pretty reasonable by NYC standards. I will have to post some pictures of my refreshed place at some point.

Anyway, so I had a call recently from my father regarding this old, decrepit farmhouse he's buying. Apparently, he was "illegally" named trustee of the estate that he shares with my brother, sister and I. It turns out that my sister and I are actually co-trustees. This screws up all the logistics to him selling his condo and buying this disaster, I mean, property. So, I had to take a day off of work last month and go running out to the county courthouse in NJ to sign all this legal paperwork and have been shuffling paperwork regarding powers of attorneys and bridge loans, etc. back and forth via Fedex and Express Mail for the past week or so. I've probably signed away all my rights to any inheritance at this point. But, dammit! My 75 yro father is going to buy this falling-down piece o' crap. I also have to laugh at the irony of a bridge loan for over 500K being taken out in my name, when I can barely afford to pay the electric bill in my two-room studio apartment. But whatever.

Horrible thing happened here to my very good friend and manager at work. This was actually the day I was out of the office signing paperwork for my father. I get home from NJ, log into work and am checking email and I see an email from my former manager that just says, "Call Me!" So, of course my immediate thought is, I'm getting laid off and he wants me to call him so he can give me a heads up (because it is, after all, ALL about me!). Anyway, so I call and he says, hold on and I hear him get up and shut the door to his office, and I'm thinking, "oh shit!" He starts with, "I don't know how to tell you this but... " and then launches into the story of what happened to Lou (friend/manager). Apparently he went into the hospital over the weekend that had just passed because he hadn't been feeling well. He left a voice mail message for our department director to say that he had to go into the hospital, but that he expected to be back at work by that Wednesday. Well, the department director next gets a call on Monday afternoon from his family to say that things went very badly in the hospital. Somehow he had become septic and the infection had spread very fast throughout his entire body, causing all his organs to fail. He was in ICU on full life-support (as well as dialysis) and they didn't even know if he was going to make it. As of this weekend, this all happened four weeks ago. He's made some slow progress and was finally let out of ICU this past week, but they still don't know what kind of permanent damage might have been done (I know that he is still on dialysis). It's been a very surreal time, these past four weeks. I feel as if I've been kind of walking around in a sort of state of shock. In the meantime, work, which was crazy to begin with, has gotten even more so as we all try to pick up the pieces and cover work that would normally fall to Lou. So, it's been crazy-busy at work and emotionally taxing at the same time. All I've wanted to do at the end of each week is crawl home and have a beer and watch some silly movies or TV shows with the Pug draped across my lap. So, that's been the past month for me.

I've decided to take the entire Thanksgiving Week off to have some good quality relaxation time. It will be especially nice knowing that I don't have to travel anywhere!