It's so much easier to write posts when things are going wrong. The bathroom plumbing situation is (hopefully) taken care of and the contractors have been finished for a couple of weeks. Their departure hit home that we finally own a home: before it had felt more like an apartment with contractors and subs coming and going all the time. We even lost our last roommate a week ago. After about a month of visiting, Trey (my parents' dog) packed up his bags and took the long drive to Utah with my mom.
My parents sold their house in about a week and did remarkably well given they bought the house about 18 months prior and we are in a housing "downturn." My mom ending up closing things out on this end (with a little help from her progeny) and only hit one bump in the road: she left her planner at Ducky's Car Wash in San Carlos after having my dad's old car detailed for sale. She left Ducky's around 6:15 (15 minutes after it closed) and returned around 6:20-6:25 when she realized she had left her planner. No one was around when she returned. The planner had ~$400 cash, credit cards, checks, driver's license, etc. Candace and I arrived shortly after and looked in the windows, but the planner was not on the counter. My mom left a message that night and called early the next morning. The manager immediately went on the defensive and also lied about a worker's schedule. My mom went to Ducky's where she talked to the employee who had been working the night prior and the manager. After the employee threatened to call the police on my mom (yes, you read that right) for accusing the employee of stealing the planner (a crime I'm not familiar with), my mom called the police and had them come to Ducky's. The San Carlos police were not very helpful.
Late that night, my mom got a call from Barbara, a neighbor who lives in San Carlos, saying that the Atherton police had found her planner. The Atherton police had stopped a car near our old house with two men who said they had found the planner by the Albertson's (across the street from Ducky's) and were returning it (sans cash and some gift cards.) The officer took the planner, but couldn't contact my mom because her driver's license wasn't up-to-date. The only number they could find was from a check that Barbara had written my mom.
Props to the Atherton police; they solve crimes for current and former residents whether the crime occurred in Atherton or not. A-town!
