Wow, December 2nd already. We’re into the last month of the second decade of the millennium. It doesn’t seem like it was all that long ago when we were warned of impending doom when Y2K would cause everything to crash. Well, we got through it and now here we are, two decades later.

Donna and I have continued to whittle away at the task of preparing my step-dad’s house for sale. We went up to Menifee and had a charity called God’s Helping Hands take everything they could as a donation. They were very picky and left behind way more than we expected. My brother Eddie and his wife Rachel had already moved some of the larger pieces of furniture out and also cleaned many of the cabinets. This was much appreciated, but we were still left with way too much stuff for us to handle.

The answer was 1-800-Got-Junk. I set up an appointment for them to come to the house last Wednesday, survey what was left and give me an estimate for removal. We were running out of time as we expected to close escrow on Monday, December 2nd. On Tuesday while we were up in Menifee, I spent a full hour at the escrow office reviewing and signing a pile of documents. I really didn’t want to make the drive back up there on Wednesday when the Got Junk people were scheduled to come. My brother took on that task for me. They kept delaying their estimated time of arrival – it was raining and traffic was terrible.

Their estimate was quite a bit higher than I expected. Admittedly, we had more stuff left in the house than I anticipated. We went for it – they removed everything for a cost of $415 and were out of there around 7pm.

Speaking of rain, the weather changed drastically last week. Well, maybe not that drastic compared to many parts of the country, but it’s cooler and rained Tuesday night through Friday morning. The rain was quite heavy at times with gusty winds. I’m sure this spoiled many Thanksgiving plans for people – Thanksgiving is usually a very busy time here at Mission Bay RV Park with most sites occupied. Not so much this year – cancellations left a lot of open sites.

We spent Thanksgiving with Donna’s sister Sheila and her significant other, Dr. Jeff Sandler at Jeff’s house in La Jolla along with a friend of theirs and Jeff’s son and his family. Sheila prepared a 19-lb. turkey and we had a traditional Thanksgiving meal and watched NFL football.

Donna and I have been getting a little pickleball in, though not as much as we would like with all the travel we’ve been doing up and down the freeway. We’ve only been playing a couple of times per week. Donna’s keeping up with her strength training and bicycling.

The skies cleared up over the weekend, but the temperatures only reached the low 60s. It’s a little early for the rainy season to start – San Diego usually gets the majority of its rainfall in late December through February.

Friday night, after the rain stopped, the wind died down. We’ve had large tidal swings in the bay. The tide was high, the wind calm and the bay was glassy. I shot a nighttime photo looking east at the Bay Park neighborhood. The lights from the houses reflected off the dark, glassy bay water.

This morning, I learned that the closing is delayed. The buyer’s agent failed to update the sales agreement to reflect the latest changes and the settlement statement was incorrect. Grrr. Apparently, the agent put off updating the documents before giving them to the escrow company, then disappeared over the Thanksgiving weekend. It irritates me because the buyer insisted on a quick escrow and we’ve scrambled to close the deal.

As a seller, I was happy with a quick closing. Real estate transactions are never complete until escrow closes and, in my experience, the longer that’s delayed, the more issues tend to arise. As a buyer, I wouldn’t want to close this fast though. I would’ve wanted 30 to 45 days to allow me time for due diligence. This buyer was shooting for a 21-day close.

I’ll close again with a couple of dinner plates Donna prepared last week. First up Chicken Gabriella, which is a skillet dish with lots of onions, fresh sage, and lemon juice.

And Sylvie’s Chicken, another skillet dish made with a cut-up chicken and a yummy sauce. It took over an hour to cook, so Donna said she’ll just use chicken thighs next time to cut the cooking time in half.

*Just so you know, if you use this  link to shop on Amazon and decide to purchase anything, you pay the same price as usual and  I’ll earn a few pennies for the referral. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!