million miles an hour
Life here has seemed to be at about a million miles an hour this week.
The ordinary news is that I've finished all my grading for the semester and turned in grades for two of my three courses. In the third, Geometry, we gave them an ETS exam as part of the department's assessment, and it counts 5% of their grade. Scores from that are supposed to arrive tomorrow. Then it's just a little work to assign final grades and turn them in. That's the usual flurry of exams and the end of the semester, and it is usually stressful enough.
Meanwhile, last Sunday at 5:30, we got an eMail from my parents that we should "do whatever it takes" to buy the house at #16 Juniper Road that went on the market a couple of days after the Marathon. We'd been suggesting this for two weeks, but something finally convinced them. So, we called the realtor and asked to see the house as soon as possible, offering to be there in 15 minutes. She said "That's too quick. Give us 20 minutes." So we looked, and it was perfect. Good thing, because my parents had already decided.
So, we contacted lawyers and friendly real estate agents for advice on powers of attorney, inspections, bidding strategies, and so forth. On Tuesday, though, before any of those people got back to us, we got word that the sellers had received another offer, and a very good one at that. We had to respond immediately because the offer was to be presented that evening. I got permission from my parents to make a killer offer, full price and a large, non-refundable deposit.
We stayed up until almost midnight to learn that the offer had been accepted.
The next day, my parents had their bank wire us the funds for the deposit, but it didn't come. It didn't come Thursday, either. Their bank said they'd sent it. Ours said it wasn't there yet. Theirs had been debited; ours hadn't been credited. The sellers were talking about accepting the other offer instead. While I was giving and grading exams, I was getting cell phone calls every half hour or so.
Friday, the money showed up. Our best guess is that they used "electronic fund transfer," which posts at midnight, instead of "wire transfer" that posts immediately, and that they did it on Thursday when they felt like it instead of on Wednesday when they said they would. Anyway, much relief.
But then on Thursday evening my mother got sick with a throat infection. They took her off to the emergency room and kept her there until Saturday afternoon. Best guess there was that she had a minor sore throat, but in her relatively fragile condition both eating and drinking were annoying her throat, so she wasn't getting enough fluids. A combination of IV fluids and a few antibiotics seems to have made it all better.
The ordinary news is that I've finished all my grading for the semester and turned in grades for two of my three courses. In the third, Geometry, we gave them an ETS exam as part of the department's assessment, and it counts 5% of their grade. Scores from that are supposed to arrive tomorrow. Then it's just a little work to assign final grades and turn them in. That's the usual flurry of exams and the end of the semester, and it is usually stressful enough.
Meanwhile, last Sunday at 5:30, we got an eMail from my parents that we should "do whatever it takes" to buy the house at #16 Juniper Road that went on the market a couple of days after the Marathon. We'd been suggesting this for two weeks, but something finally convinced them. So, we called the realtor and asked to see the house as soon as possible, offering to be there in 15 minutes. She said "That's too quick. Give us 20 minutes." So we looked, and it was perfect. Good thing, because my parents had already decided.
So, we contacted lawyers and friendly real estate agents for advice on powers of attorney, inspections, bidding strategies, and so forth. On Tuesday, though, before any of those people got back to us, we got word that the sellers had received another offer, and a very good one at that. We had to respond immediately because the offer was to be presented that evening. I got permission from my parents to make a killer offer, full price and a large, non-refundable deposit.
We stayed up until almost midnight to learn that the offer had been accepted.
The next day, my parents had their bank wire us the funds for the deposit, but it didn't come. It didn't come Thursday, either. Their bank said they'd sent it. Ours said it wasn't there yet. Theirs had been debited; ours hadn't been credited. The sellers were talking about accepting the other offer instead. While I was giving and grading exams, I was getting cell phone calls every half hour or so.
Friday, the money showed up. Our best guess is that they used "electronic fund transfer," which posts at midnight, instead of "wire transfer" that posts immediately, and that they did it on Thursday when they felt like it instead of on Wednesday when they said they would. Anyway, much relief.
But then on Thursday evening my mother got sick with a throat infection. They took her off to the emergency room and kept her there until Saturday afternoon. Best guess there was that she had a minor sore throat, but in her relatively fragile condition both eating and drinking were annoying her throat, so she wasn't getting enough fluids. A combination of IV fluids and a few antibiotics seems to have made it all better.