CafeChatNoir

They really did.

I’ll fully admit, after dealing with that fairly awful woman last year, I was loaded for bear going in there today.  Told my grandmother before we went in to get her game face on because we were NOT going to leave without getting what we needed and that she should feel free to whack someone with her cane if necessary.  (That got her good and pumped up, and I’m still surprised she didn’t punch me in the face just to show she was ready to take on any branch employee.)

Went in, told them what we needed, filled out one more form and that was that.  CSR Dan was nice, helpful, polite, awesome, and pretty much a complete departure in attitude from the last person I dealt with at this branch.  As it turns out, Grandma did not have to physically be there, which is what I had suspected – seriously, what if she’d done the PoA years ago and broke a hip?  Not like I could drag her into the branch to enact it…

By the time we were done, my hands were pretty much shaking from relief.  I cannot tell you how much better I feel knowing that as things get worse for her (and unfortunately, they will), we can pick up the ball and run with it with a bare minimum of hassle.

It doesn’t seem like a lot in the big scheme of things, but just being able to take care of these two little accounts for her is going to make EVERYONE’S life so much easier.

(Oh, and Dan, if you’re reading this because you were wondering WTF kind of domain my email address comes from – I saw what you did there with the MM account.  I understand completely – and thanks again.)

But if you need a bodyguard for a little old lady, I’m your gal.

Yesterday at the market, she stopped for a minute, trying to get something out of her purse.  Of course, not in the most convenient place, but that’s life sometimes.  I turned to the person behind us to apologize and got a nasty comment about her stopping before I could even get “I’m sorry” out of my mouth.  This was the wrong thing to say to me.  The VERY wrong thing to say to me.  I might have said something along the lines of, “OH YEAH?  LET’S SEE HOW WELL YOU’RE DOING WHEN YOU’RE 87 AND LEGALLY BLIND AND HAVE A CANE, BITCH.”

Though she drives me insane in every way possible, there is no way in hell I am letting anyone go after her.

He can’t do that to our pledges!
Only we can do that to our pledges.

With all the practice I’ve had of late dealing with my grandmother and her various and sundry issues, you’d think I’d be a little less inept at this.  But not only am I as I still as inept as ever, I’m fairly certain that I’m actually WORSE at this now.  I’m still not very good at just keeping my mouth shut – when I do say something, it’s not only the wrong thing, it’s usually the VERY wrong thing.  I’m really not TRYING to piss her off, I swear, I’m just naturally very good at it.  It seems to be either silence or arguing and very little in between.  (Doubt that will change, as Sharyn is the person she actually likes to talk to, and I am the person that does her taxes.  I’m just happy she likes Sharyn and is nice to her.)

She apparently made comments to Sharyn that she was concerned that I would use the PoA to take away her house.  Wow, if I didn’t feel like a schmuck before, I sure did upon hearing that.  Thankfully saner heads that she trusts more than me prevailed and assured her that was NOT the point of doing the PoA.  (Entirely true.  I’ve long since abandoned any notion that she will be doing anything besides leaving this place feet first.)

So, I’m the anti-christ that wants to take her house away.  Probably why she wasn’t super thrilled to see me when I arrived.  So, that makes things a little more interesting to put it mildly.

However, cue the angels singing, we hauled up to Wells Fargo and had both PoA’s signed, notarized and witnessed.  And I can only thank Sharyn & DJ for that, because without their help, I don’t know how on God’s green earth I would have gotten that done.  (And the lovely lady with the notary stamp at WF, who was pleasant and kind to my grandmother despite her apparently having quite the reputation for being high maintenance.  “Oh, you’re THAT Mrs. H!”  *cringe*)

Tomorrow we take on Wachovia.  (Damn, why couldn’t they have been completely merged with WF by now?)  Get to go in and say, “You told my grandmother she needed to have a PoA from the trust to make me a signer on this account.  Here she is, here is the PoA ‘from the trust’ and here I am.  Now for the love of all that is good and holy, give me a pen.”  (Thankfully they screwed up the money market account and didn’t designate it as a trust account, so we don’t need anything special for me to be a signer on that other than her standing there saying “Do it, dammit!” – I shouldn’t be so grateful for their idiocy, but I am on that one instance.)

Why not do it all at Wachovia today?  Because I’ve yet to have anything better than a mediocre experience with them, and needed something to go right today.

Hopefully they’ll clue into the fact that once we make this happen, my grandmother will never have to set foot in the branch again for anything other than her lockbox, and it will go smoothly.  (She has a bit of a reputation for being high maintenance with that financial institution as well.  Yes, there is a bit of a pattern here.)

Think happy banking thoughts tomorrow.

Arrived at the condo this morning and rang the bell to get the garage door opened.

Now, mind you, from where she was standing and the way the light was, I was completely silhouetted so it didn’t surprise me that she thought I was Sharyn until I was a bit closer. (We’re about the same height and build.)

She started with, “Oh, lordy, I don’t even know where to begin!” and then realized it was me. And in a decidedly flat and disappointed tone said, “Oh, it’s you.”

That just says it all…

Be prepared for multiple bizarre posts at weird hours – when you’re in a situation where you’re spending the majority of daylight hours holding your tongue, you have to spew it all somewhere at some point. God bless the internet for giving me the ability to do that. :)

First, deciding to take the later flight in and get a hotel and just tell my grandmother, “I will be there at 10AM on Tuesday” has been one of the smartest things I’ve ever done. I’m more disappointed in myself that I didn’t fugue it out until the 4th trip in 16 months. No getting up at the crack of dawn and dealing with rush hour traffic or insane cab drivers to the metro, no rushing through baggage claim or worrying about the long line at the rental car counter. I’ve been able to take the travel day at my leisure, I can definitely say it’s already a better outcome, as I am chilled out and relaxed and ready to take on tomorrow.

Second, I am still quite spot on with Virginia time – the bar at the hotel closes at 11PM. And I have found a lovely new beer – Kilt Lifter. It’s an amber, but drinks more like a honey-ale., but I can say, it does have a bit of a kick to it. The bartender advised me to figure out a way to take some home with me.

The North Airport Hilton Garden Inn is a typical airport hotel, but they’re also really new, so I’m happy to throw the business their way. Lovely server for dinner, and a bartender that didn’t bat an eye when I looked up and saw the 6 game suspension for Brashear and yelled, “What the HELL???” (While in the dining room – thankfully it was nearly empty.) He only said, “Oh, so you’re a hockey fan?” (Seriously, my one real hate of air travel is the lack of news over issues that I care about. ESPN, if you haven’t done so already, you need to start working with the airlines. Or I need to find a different airline.)

So far, this has been a nice little wakeup call that I don’t necessarily hate traveling as long as at least SOME of it is on my terms. And being able to make the boots on ground day all on my terms seems to have made a very nice difference – and getting that at the beginning of the trip may very well get the rest of it off on a decent note.

Here’s to separating travel days from family days.

From CNN: Five clues that you are addicted to Facebook

One day recently, Cynthia Newton’s 12-year-old daughter asked her for help with homework, but Newton didn’t want to help her, because she was too busy on Facebook. So her daughter went upstairs to her room and sent an e-mail asking her for help, but Newton didn’t see the e-mail, because, well, she was too busy on Facebook.

Yes, it’s Facebook’s fault that she seems to have abandoned parenting.

I’ve been on Facebook for about 6 months now. It’s got some great timewasters (Poker, anyone?) and yes, it can be used as a tool for avoiding real life. But it’s also been a great way to reconnect with old friends – a wonderful friend I haven’t seen in near 20 years found me on Fb and it’s been terrific to be able to catch up with her. I honestly don’t know how we would have found each other had it not been for Facebook.

Sure, I doubt that anyone really has a desperate need to know what I’m doing at any given point in the day – but Facebook Mobile was a nice little sanity saver when I was stuck in AZ at Christmas. There’s a lot to be said for being able to toss out an “I’m losing my mind” status update and get some quick support from friends. (And comments that the mind had long since gone as well.) I like being able to know what my friends are up to and how they’re doing and to be able to toss them a quick note if they need bucking up.

Facebook is also much more interactive than a regular blog, so sure, it can consume some more time than other websites. (Also why my blog feeds into the Facebook notes – not everyone knows I have a blog.) It’s a great all-in-one place for thoughts, notes, pictures and whatnot.

But, if you’re “addicted to Facebook”, it’s not Facebook’s fault. If Facebook didn’t exist, people would find other ways to avoid real life – trust me, people avoided real life and real problems long before the internet existed.  If you spend an ungodly amount of time doing anything, you need to take a quick step back and look at why you’re doing it.

This particular excerpt really bugged me:

“One of my clients met up with an old boyfriend on Facebook. They started spending hours and hours into the night talking to each other on Facebook. She made some really inappropriate comments about how unhappy she was in her marriage,” Pile said. “Her cousin saw the comments and told her parents, and the parents told the husband, and now they’re in the process of getting divorced.”

Guess what? Those two were going to get divorced eventually anyway. Using Facebook didn’t cause the divorce – it just brought the underlying problems in that particular relationship to light.

Sometimes, a little avoidance of the real world isn’t the worst thing in the world. But you can’t blame Facebook for building a killer app that enables you to do it. Suck it up and face your fears and address your issues.

Just be sure to update your status when you’ve conquered them – I’ll hit the “Like” button.

Any dealings that involve my grandmother will send my blood pressure sky high.  I realize that sounds unkind, but we have a special relationship – we really don’t like each other at all, and are now forced to deal with each other much more than either of us would ever want.

Today I have been reassuring her that yes, someone WILL contact us should she die, and it’s not like she’ll be sitting dead on the couch for a week before someone discovers it (she has someone pop in multiple times a week) and even if that happened (which it won’t) the cat wouldn’t starve because it would eat her.  (She actually thought the cat comment was funny.  I wasn’t exactly joking.  The cat is not dumb.)  She has an odd obsession with the administrative details of death.  Actual death doesn’t bother her a bit, but the paperwork aspect puts her around the bend.  Granted, she is 87, so I understand that death is more of an issue now, but I can’t quite convince her that once she dies, none of this will be her problem anyway, so why worry?

So, the BP has been a bit on the high side so far today.  Then I had to go deal with Wachovia Bank – I will be lucky if I don’t stroke out before the night is over.

Last year when I was in Phoenix, I made the suggestion of being a signer on her accounts, as the finances were already frustrating her (legal blindness will do that) and might as well do it then rather than wait.  Figured that way whenever I needed to do something for her, I could.  (And I have, so it was a good idea.)  Now, her accounts are in a trust – of which SHE is the trustee – a POS document that seems to have only caused more grief than it has solved in my opinion, but everyone assures me, “Oh, it’s GREAT!”  I remain unconvinced.

Two of these accounts are held with Wells Fargo.  (Thankfully they are her main day-to-day accounts.)  We walked in, my grandmother said, “I want to make her a signer on my accounts.”  They said, “Here’s a pen.”  That was that.  I think the most challenging part was finding a Sharpie to make the signature line extra dark so she could see it.

For the other two accounts, we headed over to Wachovia, who held true to their former identity of First Union, aka, the FU bank.  As it is, they don’t like her that much because she is a high maintenance pain in the ass who doesn’t make them any money.  (True.)  They don’t much like me because I’ve not stuffed her in a nursing home.  While there are days I’d love to do that (at least she’d know someone will call me if she dies) simply being a high maintenance pain in the ass isn’t grounds for checking her into a home.  (Were that the case, most of my clients I had on help desk would have been committed.)  And frankly, if you’re working at a bank in Sun City, Arizona (one of God’s Waiting Rooms, thank you Del Webb) you simply have to know that there is going to be a percentage of your customers that are cranky elderly people who will do their best to drive you insane.

Well, no can do on being a signer, even with the trustee right in front of them.  Must have a Power of Attorney “from the trust”.  My grandmother had a meltdown/hissy fit about having to “get an expensive lawyer” and not much else could be done except hustle her out of there before she started using her cane as a weapon.  (I regret ever telling her to use the cane as a weapon if anyone gave her a hard time – there will come a day where she knocks me unconscious with it.)

After one midnight call too many from her of “I can’t read the Wachovia checkbook and I can’t tell if it’s been balanced” I broached the idea of going with the PoA (expensive lawyer be damned) so I could just take it over, get the mailing address changed, take the checkbooks (1 interest transaction per month – they cause SO much more grief than her day to day checkbook) and she doesn’t have to deal with it ever again.  And I don’t get any calls at midnight when she’s trying in vain to read her own handwriting in the check register.  I may have said something about having a lawyer friend that owed me a favor so it wouldn’t cost anything.  (In her world anything that costs anything is BAD.  I felt it was more important to get the docs done than to have her complaining about the cost and it never happening.)  But, she agreed that it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

Cue the angels singing.

So, I get the PoA’s drawn up.  One for her as an individual (good for me for getting info on bills and whatnot – I’ve already checked with her various vendors and they all said, “Yep, that will be fine!”) and one “from the trust” which she will sign as trustee.

I am making a special trip to Phoenix to make this happen, for two reasons:  First, I don’t know enough people there to make this easily happen remotely.  Second, when you’re asking someone to essentially give you the ability to loot all their assets, it’s really best done in person.  Because of this, and the issues we’ve had with good ol’ Wachovia, I took the blanks to the local WB branch to make sure they would be honored when signed – no sense in traveling 2000 miles for nothing.  It seemed like a very good idea.  A smart idea.  A proactive idea.

I obviously forgot I was dealing with Wachovia.  Now first, let me say that the lady that I talked to at my local branch about it was VERY nice and was as helpful as she could be considering that Wachovia apparently doesn’t think being proactive is a good idea.  I asked that they look at the PoA and the way her accounts were titled so I would know that they worked, because if I made a special trip to PHX to have these signed and then discovered that they wouldn’t honor it, I would be curled up in the fetal position in the lobby crying.  (Yes, I used those words.  It got the point across.  The gentleman behind me was laughing a lot – he had obviously gone through this song and dance with an elderly relative at some point.  Or, I am simply hilarious.)

Well, first, one of the accounts isn’t even in the trust!  Nope, the money market account they convinced her to open last year is in her plain-jane name only. (Because yes, this woman needed yet another check register to keep track of – whoever sold her on that account owes me several rounds at the local bar and an opportunity to smack them around.)

For the other account, she couldn’t tell me for sure if the PoA would be honored or not.  The legal department doesn’t review unsigned documents.  Nor will they speak directly with customers.  (This mystifies me, I would think it would be in their interest to be able to tell someone that a particular document WON’T be sufficient BEFORE someone goes to the trouble of getting it signed, notarized and witnessed.  The document is going go have to be reviewed one way or another as it is.)  She *thinks* it will work, but we will have to make an in-person trip to her branch after it’s signed to enact it, and then I guess we’ll find out one way or another.  (Cue grandma braining someone with a cane if it doesn’t.)

However – she did say that we could just make it a “non-trust” account and I could immediately be made a signer on it should the PoA not be sufficient.  WTF?  SERIOUSLY???  This option couldn’t be brought forward when we were there last year?  There were a few moments before my grandmother freaked out where they could have said, “Well, here’s another option…”

So, great, I get to go to PHX, AND make a trip to the bank I hate to boot, AND not throw a stapler at anyone while there while ALSO keeping my grandmother from assaulting anyone.  Which also begs the question – had my grandmother done the PoA’s 5 years ago and said, “Just put them away for when all hell breaks loose” and she broke a hip and I had to invoke it – would Wachovia turn me away because I couldn’t present my grandmother at the branch?  Would I have to get her on videoconference from the hospital?  Isn’t the whole point of a Power of Attorney that you DON’T have to have the principal front and center with you giving you permission to do what needs to be done?  Perhaps I missed that day in my business law class.

I have a very bad feeling my return flight will have to be rescheduled as I either have documents re-written or I’m bailing my grandmother out of jail for assault with a mobility aid.

For all the wrong reasons.  (The faithful might want to keep their distance from me today to avoid lightning strikes.)

I’ve been to maybe 3 Easter services in my life, at least 1 when I was dating a Catholic.  Nice service, but I expected it to be in Latin and was somewhat disappointed.  (Much to the amusement of my ex, as he couldn’t fathom why I would care either way.)  Not real big on organized religion and my faith in general is somewhat shaky these days, so short of founding my own religion (there will be keggers as fundraisers,) it might be a while before I find myself in a church on Easter.

Over the years, it’s just become a nice family holiday food-fest, made nicer as it’s just immediate family, no weird cousins or in-laws or any other relatives to deal with.  Just OUR traditions that we’ve developed over the years and no one to look at us like we’ve lost our mind.  Mimosas!!  (It’s one of 3 days where I break my “don’t drink during daylight” rule – the others being Christmas Day and the Kentucky Derby.)  Hashbrown casserole (cheese & potatoes), egg casserole (cheese, egg & bacon), bacon, ham & swiss puffs (new this year, and yes, I do like cheese, why do you ask?) and of course, chocolate.  (I hid an Easter basket for my brother.  Yes, I need children or nieces/nephews, I know.)  A nice, relaxed afternoon of kicking back and eating our favorite bad-for-us foods and watching NHL hockey.  (The hockey part is relatively new, thanks NBC for the Sunday broadcast, even if your commentators kind of suck.)

For those that might raise an eyebrow at the culinary carb-fest on what is a pretty holy day focusing a fair amount on Jesus taking the big hit for the team – here’s how I look at it:  If you’ve been dead for three days and come wandering out, a mimosa and noshes might very well be just what the doctor ordered.  Perhaps a bit like leaving a glass of wine for Elijah – we have an extra plate of brunch casseroles available.  (I warned the faithful – the lightning may strike any moment.)  So, if Jesus happens to show up on my doorstep, he will be well fed.  (Though if he’s actually Jewish, we’re a little screwed, as none of what I have is kosher.  Though I wouldn’t tell anyone if he decided to make an exception based on being dead for 3 days.  But I can whip up a nice cheese omelet on no notice.  Eggs & dairy are kosher, right?)

In short, I love family holidays where it’s not about appeasing anyone, just being family – and this is right up at the top with Thanksgiving for me.  Yes, I have a micro-family, but it’s still MY family and it’s a great day.

Happy Easter and Passover, all.  Here’s to spending it the way you want to.