Maura's Illuminated Manuscript

Good Sister is no longer, at least legally, the executor of my mother's will. As far as the courts are concerned, she's done. That means she doesn't have to periodically report to them anymore. (Yes, I just verified that.) She's relieved, and I have texted her mazel tov.

Does this mean that Mom's house has sold? Hell no. In fact, just the other day GS sent the other two of us a detailed list of the work in progress or planned to get the house ready for (mercifully quick, we hope) sale. Total cost: $16K. Even Niece E has pitched in, having refused our offer of compensation.

Now I have a mental image of my short, thin sister in a black, face-covering hood with a blood-stained ax. I'm sure she wanted to physically execute the will and a few people associated with it many times.

Woman #1: Good Sister was in LA visiting my filmmaker niece M1. She called to give me an update about the mom's house... which she can't really do anything about until she gets home tomorrow. In any case, the plan is to get a new real estate agent, make improvements the new agent suggests, and yank the place off the market for a couple of weeks*.

Oh, and for GS to legally finish with the estate? Does not require the sale of the house, says a better lawyer than she had before. In fact, this better lawyer told Good Sister not to waste money hiring a new one. Hurrah for Good Sister! And, I guess, the United Sister Front, since the money paying for this belongs to all of us.

Mental note: if I ever make it down to LA again, drop M1 a line and see if she wants to get something to eat.

Woman #2: Speaking of eats, Dancer wanted to have cheap eats, debrief me about Petting Zoo, and make (ahem) plans for the weekend. Done, and thoroughly enjoyed. There are many far worse ways to spend a Monday evening.



*Apparently that isn't long enough to "delist" the house. To do that it would have to be off the market for 90 days, which none of us want to do.

Good Sister texted* and then called to tell me that she has in her hot little email inbox a copy of the signed court order that will allow her to sell Mom's house. The lawyer finally came through. And the United Sister Front has, at least in theory, taken a giant step towards its inhertance.

It was supposed to take a week or two, she said. It ended up taking seven months. I told GS that she could be done with everything this calendar year, and she said she was hoping to be done with it in the next couple of months. It's the peak of house-hunting season in the US right now, and she's hoping to unload the place before the entire economy goes down the drain.

Good Sister said I should celebrate tonight. I don't need much encouragement.



*She texted a golf victory video. That must be her husband's influence.

So I spent an hour or so at a protest against Tesla (read: Elon Musk) at the Tesla dealership in central Seattle this morning. I'm glad they had a sign for me to wave because I didn't bring one of my own. There were a couple of hundred attendees; lots of hars honking in support, even one Tesla; no counter-protesters. Out of the couple hundred I was one of at least three trans people. Go us!

One of those trans people told me she'd looked into Tesla's financials. I'd heard that Tesla is the only one of Musk's businesses that makes money (except perhaps those dependent on goverment contracts), but here was the interesting thing: the only part of Tesla that's making money is service. Since Tesla is vertically integrated, a Tesla dealership is the only place you can get one serviced without voiding the warranty if at all. That sounds like an excellent opportunity for someone to hack a car.

But seriously, selling Teslas or Tesla stock is the best way to screw Musk. I need to look into whether I own any TSLA indirectly. Since the insiders have started dumping it, I'm betting that I don't, at least not anymore.

I rode my bike to the protest and back, stopping at PCC to stuff my messenger bag full of groceries on the way home (uphill, uff da). I felt so Seattle it hurt.

I have grand plans tonight. The Devil Girl shall ride again.

Edited to add: I just checked, and if I indirectly hold any TSLA, it isn't much. Never mind the other scummy companies I have an interest in.

Telecommunication #1, Friday: former co-worker M calling* and telling me to talk to my HR department to see if they'll let me work for them from Canada, and maybe even sponsor me.

Telecommunication #2, Saturday: my ex texted me to tell me to make plans for Canada. If you'll recall, Ex is Jewish and like many if not most American Jews she lost relatives in the Holocaust.

Telecommunication #3, Sunday: Good Sister called with what she called an update with no real news. Her lawyer is being kind of weird about getting us permission to sell Mom's house, telling GS not to call the court about it. My sister is a ball of frustration about to go super-critical. She's calling the court today, and has let her weird lawyer know that.

Telecommunication #4, Sunday: I texted the director of Lambert House asking if they'd sent out their 1099s yet; I can't file my taxes until I've seen it. He responded with a thumbs-up tapback. What does that even mean?

The thing is, the Canadians aren't going to do squat for trans Americans unless their lives are directly threatened, and maybe not even then. Sure, I'll talk to HR and update my go bag, but really? That's about it.



*We're Xers. We talk on the phone.

I used most of my tax refund to pay off my sewer connection charge. That means I saved $1200 spread over eight years, which could easily have been a wash due to inflation. However, non-payment of that bill is one less thing that can go wrong now. And if anybody ever needs to sell the Devil Girl House, that's one less thing standing in the way. Go me, I think. I occasionally act like an adult.

I fulfilled a promise to seelenschwester and went to the Mercury in the full Devil Girl outfit, including the murderous boots. (I'd meant to wear it for either Christmas or New Year's, but I was sick for both.) It took a while for the night to get rolling and I was crashing by 2330, but I did get to see A and bond over "Cars" by Gary Numan. I also got to show Dancer the glory that is the Devil Girl.

And another good part of the Merc outing: I didn't see Temptress's trash boyfriend. I didn't see her either, unfortunately, but it's still a win.

The Social Security Administration says it owed Mom some money, so it sent my sisters and me each a check for five hundred and some dollars. I don't have any plans to spend it immediately, but it's definitely nice to have. What's odd is that I got SSA's letter of explanation, but Good Sister hadn't as of yesterday. She found out through me.

Speaking of money, I found out the other day that I paid just shy of $42K in mortgage interest last year. Most of that is tax-deductible. Maybe I'll be able to use the refund to pay off the sewer connection charge, which by the way is an example of how it's expensive to be poor: if you pay it off in one lump sum, you save $1000.

Good Goddess, I sound like a pod person. I promise to return to queer dating and kink ASAP.

Good Sister has received the death certificate with the cause of death, and is forwarding it along to company that manages Mom's retirement money.

How do I spell relief? GS. If she ever wants anybody whacked, I guess I have to do it, don't I? But if that were ever going to happen, it probably would have happened by now, given the epic frustrations she's faced as Mom's guardian. And in that case the bums would have had it coming.

Good Sister just called, right before her bedtime. It's always exciting.

Good: My mother's investments with a certain financial institution don't have to go through probate, unlike her other assets. They just get disbursed to us heirs. Uh, gosh, I sure could use a cash infusion right about now.

Bad: Unlike Evil Sister, I've received no notification. There are two likely reasons: I don't have an account with this institution, and they might have used my previous address. GS recommends that I bug them over the phone, and warns me that'll be time-consuming.

Unknown: Do they have the correct name for me? I don't know, but it's possible. If Mom (or Good Sister) used even my old address, I was using my current name a couple of years before I even moved into the old Devil Girl Pad.

Also unknown: how much money we're talking about. Known: Good Sister just sent me a photo of the letter that Evil Sister got. The amount is in the high four figures, if I understand it correctly, i.e. it's to be divided by three. Nothing to sneeze at, certainly.

There was a Skinny Puppy show on Tuesday night. Damn near everyone went, which really would have been the only attraction for me: I've never been a Skinny Puppy fan. I've been astounded by everyone's tales of discovering SP in their youth. I do miss the nuclear social reaction, though.

Last night was Ladytron, which I admit to wanting to see. Indeed, I'd gotten in line for someone else's freed-up ticket. But then I saw that Kimberly Dietemann, local techno maven who's had some hard times in recent years, was in line right behind me. I thought to myself, a) it's a work night, b) Kimberly is probably a bigger fan than I am, especially of their more recent stuff, and c) what I would have spent on Ladytron plus the latex dinner I'm skipping tonight might, just might, cover the cost of one of the two items for my house that I've bought in the last month.

I... kind of hate myself a little for being an adult.

It occurs to me that no one is going to want to go out this weekend when I'll be out & about. But hey, Tacoma Girl and I have made plans for lower Fremont on Friday.

The Vampire Masquerade Ball is coming, yes. Also Fremont Solstice and Pride next month. I shall have my revenge on the universe. And at some time I shall again invite people over to my dynamite crib.