Mom's House

We had a great estate sale about a month ago at Mom's house. Amazingly, only a few small items didn't sell. We had a couple of investors make bids on buying the house, but not surprisingly, their offers were low. My siblings and I want to be rid of the house (note: did it quit being a "home" when Mom died?), but we also don't want to just wash our hands of it and allow someone else to make all the profit.

About 12 days ago, we noticed that the tile in the utility room was buckling and there was a nice "bubble" forming in the adjacent kitchen tile. Oh, no. Water had leaked from the now-sold washing machine and we had a problem...because the tile from the kitchen wrapped through the breakfast nook, around a bar, and throughout the den. Nothing to do but replace it. But Mom was in good hands with Allstate (nothing like the good hands that comfort her now!) and the financial hit wasn't onerous. In fact, it's probably a blessing that now this house will have something new in it to help it sell.

When the rooms had been cleared of furniture, the obligatory bumps, bruises, scrapes, marks, and bomb craters of 46 years were exposed. Dad had Parkinson's, and sadly there are a couple of dents in the walls where he had fallen hard. But my siblings and I had long since decided that we weren't going to put a lot of time and effort into sprucing the place up. However, the longer I looked at those walls, the more of a punch to the gut the neat freak in me was taking. Finally, I could take it no more. Last night, I had Carole pick out the color and we bought some paint, man! And today, while the tile crew was ripping out the old tile, I was slathering "Sesame" on the walls of the living room, cackling like a hyena.

At my age, painting hurts. Hey, anything hurts. But on the ectasy scale, the joy of covering up scars and blemishes ranks right up there with O.J. going to prison. Tomorrow (Saturday), Carole and I plan to return and paint until we're silly.

I just hope the prospective buyers didn't want "Guacamole" instead of "Sesame".