The Woman of La Mancha

Josh and Allie

The last long ride before the Michigander. I do hope I am ready even though I haven't ridden as far as half the mileage on the first day. But we have all day to ride with lots of stops. It isn't a race. And although I am no faster on this bike, I end up with less parts numb and sore. Tonight my friend and I will sort out the camping equipment as we are allowed to take only 2 bags total, which includes all the camping stuff. Where is my bike lock? I haven't seen it in a year. Did I leave it in a parking lot in Harbor Springs or is it buried 3 feet under in the garage?

I did bike by the new house intending to photograph the fields and woods surrounding it. But I found a young couple with identical twin toddlers on a stroll. Goody! Potential intelligence. They will be our across the street neighbors. What do they know about septic fields? Only that theirs works. What about radon? Theirs was borderline (a detector is in place and the results will be reported to us tomorrow). They gave me some insight about how the association works (only five houses) and what the noise levels are (very quiet). I asked about another neighbor seen by Steve walking 5 (!!!!) dogs. Are we going to hear them all night? Not all of the dogs are hers. She pet sits.

The lady said she was from La Mancha. I told her one of my twin nieces is currently working in La Mancha (Madrid). (And she also is Asian, or half Asian). They are teaching the twins to be trilingual; English, Spanish and ultimately Chinese (as that's where they were adopted from). I should have Hope bring her twins over (just 2 months younger) as she is teaching them English, Korean and Mandarin. I guess it could be done as Shanna's former roommate taught her kids to speak English, French and Mandarin. And some of my grandkids have trouble with just English. But they seemed friendly. Maybe after we return from Italy (need to be reviewing Italian!!!), I can learn to speak Spanish beyond the very little I know. Soon our seller appeared with his dog. I then violated the cardinal rule of buyer/seller  ie they shall never meet or at least talk about the sale. He said he never had a problem with the issue I am most concerned with.

Later we hammered a few issues out with our agent who was gone most of the weekend. I feel a bit better about some things though not looking forward to negotiations especially since they accepted a back-up offer and they can always say they will go with them if we complain too much. I assume these buyers would have the same concerns or at least their bank would.

As for our agent, he is the brother of Josh's best girl buddy growing up. He did an excellent job selling Josh's house last year although on the initial listing, he posted a very unflattering photo of Josh's house. I went ballistic. How hard is it to take a picture of a large stationary object? I took a better one and insisted my photo be used ASAP. It was.

So much construction now! We spent twice as long doing errands this afternoon because of it. I did get a few issues settled so that's good. But the next few months will be so full of things to do, it makes my head spin.