For those who don’t follow me on Twitter (and for heaven’s sake, why NOT? I alternately bore you and stress you!), here is a recap of what happened:

Paul’s Mother: *dies*

Paul’s sister Beth: Awesome, I’ll keep living in the Mother’s 3-bedroom house, but now I don’t have to pay her rent anymore! Also, I’ll keep her 2-year-old Camry, because in addition to having my roommates kick me out, I never bought a car!

(A year goes by.)

Paul: Hey, Beth, the lawyer says it’s time to figure out how to divide the estate!

Beth: Okay! How about I keep the house but you take out a mortgage with me to pay for the repairs?

Swistle: *reads appraisal* *realizes repairs will FAR EXCEED value of house* *panics*

Paul: Wait. How about you keep the house and the car and I keep the stocks and cash? My half will be much less, but I’d like you to have what you need.

Beth: But it would be beneficial for me to keep the house and also the stocks and also the cash, plus have you paying for half the repairs on the house, even though those repairs will cost more than the value of the house. You’ll get half the selling price of the house, but we won’t sell it until I die! Plus, you can get a really good rate on a mortgage right now!

Paul: We’re not co-owning the house. Either you take it as part of your half of the estate, or we sell it.

Beth: Okay, fine, I’ll pay the taxes, because I’m sure that’s your issue with co-owning the house, and we’ll co-own the house, and you’ll pay half the repairs but get no benefit. Also, I’ll keep the stocks, because those would be beneficial for me in my retirement. Also, don’t worry, we’ll use the cash from the estate to pay to make the house better for me, so you can wait to take out that mortgage!

Swistle: *panics*

Paul: I realize it would be beneficial for you to have half the stocks AND live in the house I’m half-paying for, but that’s would not be in ANY WAY “beneficial” for ME, dumbass.

Swistle: *realizes sister-in-law is out of her head, and that a lawyer will probably need to be involved*

Beth: Okay! I’m suddenly and inexplicably being reasonable! I’ll take the house and the car as my half!

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Paul’s interpretation of these inexplicable events: She wasn’t DELIBERATELY cheesing us, she just hadn’t thought it through! But now she has!

Swistle’s interpretation: She is THIRTY-FOUR. She is able to comprehend these things. So either this is a trap (eg., she found gold buried in the back yard, or discovered the crazily low appraisal (($25,000 for house and property)) was dramatically wrong), or there is something unpleasant coming (eg., it will turn out she still thinks she gets the estate cash to repair the house and/or that we’ll pay for future repairs), or she vented to someone who said to her “ARE YOU NUTS??,” or she’s had a stroke, or she thought there was no harm in TRYING to get the entire inheritance but backed off as soon as Paul showed backbone.

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In any case, it’s not over until the estate is settled. I’m not counting ANY chickens.

I hope all you U.S. peeps managed to vote yesterday without me personally reminding you to do it, because I forgot. I mean, I forgot to remind, not I forgot to vote. I have trouble working up the oomph to do a non-presidential election, so I’m glad Paul is gung-ho about it. My mom came over to watch the kids, and we voted and then went out to dinner.

This was a nice way to do it because then we could go off to dinner feeling all happy and dutiful to have voted, and I felt relieved to be done with the worst part, which is the long walk past the line of candidates and campaigners. I don’t know what to do with my EYES. I don’t want them to TALK to me, and I don’t want them to read anything into my eye contact or lack thereof. This time I tried a new strategy, which was to smile hugely at everyone. That worked pretty well.

So we voted, and I lingered a bit in the voting booth so it wouldn’t look like I was treating this responsibility lightly, and then we went to a restaurant we’ve been to twice before, and we ordered exactly what we ordered on the two previous occasions. We got a chip dip that is probably cheese soup with a huge chunk of Velveeta melted into it and spicy sausage bits sprinkled on top, and then Paul got the chicken tacos and I got the fish. The fish looks HORRIBLE, and in fact the first time I ordered it I was dismayed—until I started eating it. It’s just haddock with stir-fried zucchini and bell peppers and onions piled on it, so it shouldn’t be anything special but it’s SO GOOD. And with the dip, which is HEARTY and PLENTIFUL, I only have room for half the fish, so I have the other half for lunch the next day (though then I feel the absence of the dip and wish for more).

Where was I? Oh yes! Voting! Did you? Or do you feel deadened to the election process, as I often do until I’m walking to the booth with my ballot and hearing stately patriotic music playing in my head?

Last night was poorer quality sleep than I’m used to these days. At 12:30 there was Inexplicable Crying from Elizabeth, the kind where she isn’t wailing but just low-grade crying that doesn’t stop and she won’t answer questions about what’s wrong. I lay down with her for awhile but that didn’t help either, so finally I took her up to our room. Then she stopped crying and went right to sleep, while I lay awake thinking about how my sister-in-law responded that no, she wants to jointly own the house with us AND take half the cash inheritance “for her financial stability,” and she says the good news is we can get a really great deal on a home equity loan to pour money into the money pit.

You will be glad to know that Paul’s comment to me was “Screw that!,” but it still means continuing to deal with this. (We’re going to say, “Okay, then, let’s sell the house as-is, because LIKE BLELL we’re going to have ANOTHER mortgage to pay off, and this one on a house SOMEONE ELSE lives in, and for repairs that will not increase the value of the house by as much as they cost.”) (This will not go over well, I suspect, to someone who would even think to make such a suggestion to begin with.) (And in any case now we have to deal with real estate and Waiting For the House to Maybe Sell, and also with Prying the Sister-in-Law Out of It and so forth.) (Groan.)

So anyway I lay awake for quite awhile, thinking thoughts such as, “Oh, you’d rather do it that way, would you? Wouldn’t we ALL prefer to have someone else pay half our mortgage!!” and “Don’t you realize that if we decline your Awesome Plan you will need to pay RENT elsewhere, and that if you add up those years of rent payments you will get a number that EXPONENTIALLY EXCEEDS the piddling cash inheritance?” and feeling angry at the tone of her email and many of her word choices. And then I fell asleep, and at 4:30 I heard William call out. I went in, and he said he had a really bad headache, and he indicated one temple. I said “Just on one side?” and immediately started the Fret Process (have I heard Something Bad about headaches that are only on one side? or that start at night? or in children this age?). I got him up and gave him some acetaminophen, and this involved going downstairs to see if we had another box of it, but we didn’t, but I was sure we did, so then I went back upstairs to root around in the upstairs bathroom some more, and then finally gave him the liquid kind and put him back to bed. And then I just stayed up, because I was wide awake and would have to get up in an hour anyway. It was a good decision: Henry called out at 5:00, saying he “NEEDA PEE!!”

We have sent our first email to my sister-in-law, suggesting she keep the house (and the car, which it turns out she and Paul already arranged for her to keep) as her share of the inheritance and we keep the cash/stocks as our share. WE SHALL SEE. I did manage to talk Paul out of fixing the roof for her, but he is still being family-weirdness about the whole thing. I was reduced to saying that it is NORMAL for a grown adult to have to pay for housing, and so if she has to get a home equity loan (i.e., a MORTGAGE) to pay for repairs on her house, that will be part of a NORMAL LIFE that includes paying either rent or mortgage, and her mortgage payment will be VASTLY lower than OURS—and he STILL was acting weird about it, like maybe she shouldn’t have to make either housing payments or car payments or ANYTHING? I don’t know.

And if she declines the house, the next step is to say, “Okay, then, let’s sell it.” Maybe some contractor will buy it and do that thing where they fix it up fast with odds and ends of tile and flooring and cover everything with a thick coat of paint in Rental Cream. But I hope it doesn’t come to this, because the thought of trying to EXTRICATE the sister-in-law from the house gives me a headache.

I went to Target today for some therapy. I’ve been a bit of an emotional mess the last few days, and also my jaw is getting sore from the clenching. So it was good timing for a successful/fun Target trip:

This is the crowning glory, so I should really leave it for last but I can’t wait. I’ve been wanting this John Derian print ever since I first saw it for $24.99. Then I saw it for $17.48 and didn’t buy it. Then I saw it for $12.48 and didn’t buy it. Today I saw it for $6.24 and I BOUGHT IT.

This is the crowning glory as far as Elizabeth is concerned: rainbow-sparkle Hello Kitty shoes. These weren’t even on clearance, but they were on sale for $10 down from $14.99. I can’t even explain why I bought them. Oh, of course I can: (1) rainbow (2) sparkle (3) Hello Kitty.

For Henry, a new dinosaur shirt, not on sale but only $5.00, and my policy on dinosaur shirts is “Buy them.” And pants on clearance 50% off, $5.00.

I did not want a little pot of lip balm for $3.44 when I could get something very similar for a dollar. But for $.84, yes I will try antioxidants/E/aloe/chamomile/mint, thank you.

Boring but satisfying: $2.54 tape refill for my chicken, marked down to $.63.

Not a huge clearance, but I have trouble resisting girl stuff: pink patent leather shoes, $6.98 down from $9.99.

Four new hand towels, $.98 each down from $3.99 each.

My favorite shower gel, $2.50 down from $5.00.

Not even on sale, but I’m hoping these foot supporty thingies will help my shins to hurt less when I walk/jog. I have arches that totally flatten when I stand up, and these supports have low, medium, and high snap-ins so you (or rather _I_) can choose the one that feels best.

This set of 4 bowls was only $1.99 to begin with, but it’s pleasing to get them for $.48: we have another set (the yellows/greens set) that we used as berry-picking/outdoors bowls last summer, but there are 7 of us and only 4 bowls, so it’s nice to have more.

Tonight I was out on my walk/jog (or as Erica puts it, my “wog”) and a woman getting her mail said, “I just have to tell you, I see you every day when I’m coming home from work, and I think, ‘I wish I had her determination.'”

Well, goodness. That’s pleasing, isn’t it?

It does take a certain determination to exercise FOR HEALTH, ANYWAY when the body isn’t responding with aesthetic changes, and in fact increases appetite considerably to compensate for the Worrying EXERTION. It takes a certain—and I am just going to come out with the word, even though it’s about myself—BRAVERY, to expose one’s not-aesthetically-perfect body to teenaged boys who drive by in cars yelling out the windows “YEAH, RUN FATTY RUN!!”—and to people who don’t yell it, but think it. It takes a certain deliberately-put-on-despite-not-feeling-it thickness of skin not to give up when it is made ABUNDANTLY CLEAR that it nauseates people to see fat people even WALKING ACROSS A ROOM—let alone EXERCISING, my GOD, the SWEAT and the JIGGLING, GROSS!!! Why don’t they just STARVE themselves like NORMAL people??? It does indeed take DETERMINATION to keep exercising when people are saying that if other people were being HONEST they’d be THIN. It takes a certain OOMPH to continue exercising when other people assume that if you’re fat, you never exercise and you don’t know how to eat right.

There is not a lot of positive feedback for people who exercise but do not as a result of it become thin and “fit.” The reaction at first is HIGHLY FAVORABLE (“Oh good, you’re finally working on that problem!”) but if the weight doesn’t come off, the reaction can be aptly described as “Um, points for trying, I guess?”—with the obvious assumption that the person must be eating fast food six times a day to counteract the fitness that would otherwise present itself in the form of an Awesome Bod.

I guess what I’m saying is two things:

1) I’m pissed that “rockin’ abs” is considered wayyyyy better than “determination.”

2) I’m nevertheless so pleased to get praised for “determination.”

This feels “too personal for internet,” but it seems SO ESSENTIAL for advice-giving purposes on the SIL/house situation. I’ve seen the appraisal on Paul’s mother’s house, and it’s $25,000. That’s in as-is condition and includes the land.

Oh, I am SO enjoying your input on the SIL/house situation. Each and every comment is like a soothing salve. A balm! Some sort of medicated ointment!

And it’s SO helpful to hear all the different angles laid out so clearly.

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Cat love continues:

He’s resting his head on her fluffy tail. Her back paws are getting all up in his grill, but he doesn’t mind.

Much different body language in this scene. Mouse’s body language communicates: “I should NOT have to share my favorite chair but DANGED if I’m going to be kept off of it.” Feather’s communicates oblivion of any political issues, but on the other hand she’s keeping her tail to herself. Possibly her paw pads are chilly.

Okay, I’ve been thinking. The house Paul owns with his sister is in very poor shape. VERY poor shape. When Paul went there for the funeral, he said he was advising his sister to move out for SAFETY, and he estimates nothing’s been repaired or maintained since his dad left his mom two decades ago. Let that sink in a minute. TWO DECADES. Furthermore, it’s in an area of the country with extremely low cost-of-living, and real estate prices are very low anyway there.

So let me run something by you: Would it be CRAZY to just GIVE his sister the house? On one hand, this is wildly unfair to us. On the other hand, it is ALSO wildly unfair to have her live there year after year, possibly driving the house’s condition even further into the ground, while sending us bill after bill for half the repairs (including, for starters, REPLACING THE ROOF), and then eventually we sell it and after taxes and agency fees get enough money to mayyyyyybe make up for the money we contributed to repairs.

If we give her the house, we can cut it loose: we don’t have to worry about taxes, or repairs, or insurance, or ANYTHING. She can live there without us having to be connected to it, and she can pay for the repairs herself. We never have to think about it again. And, Paul can stop thinking of me as a Heartless Money-Hungry Fritch for suggesting his sister NOT live there rent-free while we pay half for repairs.

If the two options were (A) sell the house and split the cost, or (B) give her the house, I would obviously not even be considering Option B. But instead the two options seem to be (A) grind my teeth to nubs with frustration as she lives there for free and we PAY money into an asset we may or may not ever see half of, IN ADDITION to paying to maintain our OWN house, or (B) give her the house.

Tell me what you think. This is a good time for frankness. Paul and I have been having tense email exchanges all day, and I suspect a decision will soon be made because neither one of us wants to talk about it any more than we have to.