Will versus Won't

This last week of January—and of my thirties—has been a slow one; so we're gonna have to turn a whole lotta nothin' into something worth reading.

Here goes!

Where There's a Will...

I got a call Tuesday afternoon from my cousin Jenna, who was out in Tucson with her mom (my Aunt Jill) and our Aunt Joan to deal with the residual matters of my Uncle Ralph's recent passing.

Jenna, Jill, and Joan were at a lawyer's office and needed emails and home addresses for me and Kelly, because apparently we're jointly inheriting the 33% of his estate that would have otherwise come to our father if he were still alive.

This was certainly news to me, and I knew it would be equally so to Kelly and our mom as well... But on the other hand, when my paternal grandfather passed away back in 2005, we learned that he had explicitly had his will written to direct a per stirpes distribution of his estate—such that Kelly and jointly received our father's share in his absence.

Jenna and I kept the call brief since they were literally sitting in the lawyer's office. But after we hung up, I called my mom and Kelly to relay the news—along with my assumption (and we all know what happens when we assume) that Ralph had adopted a similar approach.

At that moment, this hypothesis seemed as sensible to me as any other—though I suppose I should have realized how heavy that revelation would be for Kelly and my mom to unpack...

Like most humans on this planet, they tend to use their emotions to inform their logic—whereas I usually operate in reverse (leading with logic and then deciding how I should feel according to whatever conclusion I draw).

This often manifests in... interesting ways. Sometimes I'll go crusading over something that Kelly and my mom don't seem to understand at all, and sometimes they'll take years (or even decades) to recover from something that I processed and moved past far more quickly.

The "loss" of our Uncle Ralph ~30 years ago is definitely one of those instances: I made my peace with it a long time ago—in large part by acknowledging that no amount of my dwelling on it would change anything—and so, my phone call from Jenna was more of a peculiarity to me than it was the abrupt tearing off of a bandage on an old wound.

So, thanks to my premature assumption, Kelly spent several hours that evening contemplating the impact of this seemingly new development on the opinions she's held of our uncle for all these years.

And then... Jenna texted me to ask if we could all conference-call later so she could bring me and Kelly up to speed at the same time.

So, it was only then that we were brought back to reality—where our uncle had in fact not bothered to write a will in any capacity whatsoever... and so Kelly and I were literally only receiving a share of his estate in accordance with Arizona state law.

All things considered, we had a very nice call (barring the subject matter, of course) with Jenna, Aunt Jill, and Aunt Joan.

I asked if there was some legal process through which I could sign my share over to Jill and Joan—not so much in an "I don't even want whatever little bit of money this guy might still have that his grimy ex-wife didn't steal" sense, bur rather an "I've had no relationship with Ralph for almost a lifetime now, and so I don't feel particularly entitled to any portion of his estate, regardless of what the law might say" sense.

But Jill insisted that Ralph had lives in AZ long enough to know how the law worked there... and if he really hadn't wanted me and Kelly to inherit anything from him, he could just as easily have written some sort of will conveying that.

Moreover, Jill and Jenna were also both quick to point out that this would ordinarily have come to our dad, were he still alive—the unspoken implication being that it would have then one day trickled down to me and Kelly anyway. And having it framed in that way did serve to soften my opposition to the matter.

At any rate, the little bit that Ralph's bitch of an ex-wife didn't manage to abscond with when she took everything in the divorce is tied up in a plot of undeveloped land, and Arizona law specifies that nobody can make any changes to the deed for six months after the previous owner's death.

So, we've got awhile to wait before the property is even eligible to be listed on an MLS; and then we'll have to wait for a buyer; and then the realtor and the lawyers and the government will swoop in to skim their cuts off the top.

Who even knows how things will turn out by the end?

In the meantime, speaking of lawyers' cuts, check out this malarkey...

Where do I even begin with this?!

First off, Kelly is married to Steve, and Aunt Jill is married to Uncle Terry; so, by my count, two of your mizzes should be missuses.

Second, if you insist on justifying your text against both the left and the right margins, just put in the effort to learn how to typeset your work in LaTeX and let the typesetting engine handle the heavy lifting for you so that your document doesn't look like some shitty newspaper layout from 1847.

Third, what the actual fuck are you doing for people to justify $350 per hour? Apparently, on top of being a lawyer, Ronald Zack must also be a doctor, a pilot, an astrophysicist, a Congressman, and a high-end call girl.

And finally, since you clearly type your contracts up in Microsoft Office '97, I hope for your sake that you know about the pinball game hidden in Word back in the day...

But wait; there's more!

We get a repeat of the "Bill rates are modified sentence" just in case we missed it the first time...

...and, most importantly, "smaller expense items" are thrown in 100% free of charge!

For all that fanfare though, their secretary couldn't even be bothered to acknowledge my email when I sent back the signed paperwork.

But that's lawyers for you; right?

Can't live with 'em, can't live probably would get along fine without 'em.

<shrug>

Will He or Won't He?

Most of you know that I give no crap to which party's parasites happen to be sitting on Capitol Hill at any given time...

You'll recall, for example, that neither Athennia nor I voted back in November—nor have we ever, nor will we ever.

But one of the many promises Donald Trump made in the hopes of getting the libertarian vote was a promise to pardon Ross Ulbricht—a guy around my age who was serving multiple life sentences in prison because he dared to code an online marketplace back in 2011 where people were free to buy and sell whatever they wished, without an unwanted chaperone unilaterally deciding what they may or may not sell, purchase, own, or ingest.

I refused to believe Trump until the moment I saw deed become congruent with word; but, as of Wednesday the 22^nd, Ross received his promised pardon and is officially a free man!

Will She or Won't She?

On Saturday, Kenny, Nina, and Taaro came to pick Riley up and take her back to their neighborhood so she could spend the afternoon and evening with Taaro.

She didn't want to take her coat along, but we all insisted since it was below freezing and Kenny was planning on stopping to go for a walk on the way back.

He later told us that she had lasted about 27 minutes... without her coat on.

Meanwhile, Athennia and I went over to my parents' house and had chicken tacos for dinner with them and Kelly's family.

Then we drove into the city and parked illegally while we picked Riley up at Nina's place.

Won't She, or Won't She?

The rest of the month has been largely uneventful. I think the only thing really worth mentioning from this past week was from Wednesday evening...

Riley asked us during dinner whether she could try to make plans to sleep over at her friend Kassie's on Friday night, or to try to have Kassie come here.

As always, Athennia and I both shrugged and said it was fine with us; but Kassie's mom Noelle usually has some cockamamie excuse why it's not okay on her end.

And sure enough, Riley came into our bedroom a few hours later with the verdict:

They know that; huh?

Nice of them to have such a high opinion of their daughter.

Finally, Athennia treated to Qdoba for dinner last night—with surprise shamrock shakes from McDonald's when she stopped there to pick up Riley's meal on the way.

And of course, it wouldn't be the end of the month without cat pics. This time we'll put it to a soundtrack.

Ready? Go!

Penny!

Penny!

Penny! Penny! Penny in the beh-eh-eh-ed!