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I woke up this morning to rain hitting the windows, just like I fell asleep to last night. I like the rain, I really do, and I like how much we can see it in this new house. I don't love the humidity that comes along with it, the way that we had so much rain here our first week that nothing dried. But generally, the rain is a balm.
What was shocking today was that there was a TORNADO warning for a town about 8 miles west of us. There was a lot of shocked discussion of that online, with some people asking whether this was normal and other people saying emphatically no, but it turns out that particular town (an old plantation town apparently, not that there's much there now), Kaumakani, does have them sometimes. But it's been 12 years since the last tornado warning in Hawaii.
My phrase for the day is "Kona Low". This is apparently an "extratropical cyclone" with a "cold core" which forms leeward of the islands.
It's what the storm that's hit us yesterday and today is: a strong storm coming from west of the island, rather than east (where most of our weather comes).
So I woke up at 7am this morning to my wrist buzzing, as I do. That's my Fitbit alarm.
But, I was still lying there 6 or 7 minutes later when it went off again, this time to notify me that my realtor was calling on my phone. I was impressed that the bluetooth worked given I leave my phone downstairs in my office. But, the bed is right above my desk, so that's that.
I walked downstairs, and called her right back, and learned there was good news on yesterdays possible closing traumas.
We'd heard from the plumbers who are doing the sewer work, and they were definitely on to do the work on Friday, finishing on Monday.
We'd heard from the city of Berkeley, and they were definitely going to inspect and verify compliance.
And we'd heard from the recorder's office that they're going to be recording titles for house but nothing else, or something similar. I don't remember exactly, it being 10 minutes after I'd woken up.
And after I talked to our realtor and hung up, my phone rang again, and this time it was one of my brothers, who's in the financial world. He told me that Santa Clara had gotten their act together and was doing recording via electonic means. it's good that they figured out a day late that they were a vital service, and they couldn't just let all contracts fail over the next weeks or months.
So, all indications suggested that the necessary services we needed to close the house would be available. We figured no problem.
At the time.
And speaking of COVID repercussions, I forget to write yesterday that we went to Costco after my working day. After hearing about bare shelves across the nation due to panic buying and hoarding (and herding), I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with whether we'd be able to feed ourselves here on this island. So, it'd been a week since we'd been to Costco, and I wanted to see how things were going.
About 1 in 10 people were indeed hoarding, mainly filling their cards with bottled water, but the other 9 in 10 were mocking them.
And the store wasn't too ravished. I don't think there's been any toilet paper available for sale on the island for a week or more, and we also noticed shortages of pasta, marinara sauce, rice, and (believe it or not) vienna sausages.
But we were able to buy a responsible amount to refill our freezer and put a bit in our fridge. We even got some tuna (albacore) which I've heard has been in short supply elsewhere. (I also saw peanut butter, another staple that people have been hoarding in other locales, but we didn't need any.)
In other words, just minor disruptions from a minority of bad actors.
OK, back to our sale of the Berkeley house.
My second call from our realtor today had less good news.
We gave our stager the OK to remove all of her furniture yesterday, I think. Maybe it was earlier, I'm not sure. She'd requested it, even though we could have held onto it for another week or two, so that she could stage another house.
But despite the OK, she didn't remove the furniture by the end of the day yesterday, and instead we heard today, now that the shelter-in-place order is in place for Berkeley, that she refuses to.
Now from my reading, she's technically correct about the fact that she shouldn't, because I don't think moving is on the list of essential services.
It should be. I mean, if you're getting ready to move into a house or apartment, that's pretty essential. I have to assume that it's just another thing the six counties didn't think of, such as how to deal with their recorders' offices, because they're all doing this all by the seat of their pants (or half-assedly if you prefer; I don't understand why all these sayings have to do with butts).
And it sounds like this wasn't even entirely about the order, but also genuine existential fear. Thanks, media. You're not fear-mongering to sell papers and/or clicks at all.
So, that's another problem, though I count it as a lesser one. I don't think it'll keep us from closing, it just might require some finangling if there's still a house full of her crap when we're done.
And I'm especially annoyed that she could have done this yesterday. It's not like the shelter-in-place order was a sudden surprise at midnight yesterday.
And now we get to deal with her negligence instead. Yes, this is unprecedented event, or rather an unprecedented reaction to an uncommon event, but I'm still not thrilled when a professional we're working with chooses to make life harder for us when she could have done otherwise.
But she probably made us a lot more money in sale price than she's potentially going to cost us in dealing with her crap.
I'm doing my best to plan for the next steps in our life as if we close and get our money within the next 2-3 weeks, because I don't see anything else to do.
So I've got a contract sitting around for a solar power setup here in Hawaii. It's good until the 31st, which is tighter than I'd hoped, (They showed up within a few days of my requesting a quote, when I expected a few weeks, and then they gave me a quote that was good for two and a half weeks, when I expected a month.) , but I've got my fingers crossed that it'll still be possible.
And I've talked with a financial advisor to help us with our funds when we get them.
So: forward. Hopefully we'll indeed be going forward in 2-3 weeks.
What was shocking today was that there was a TORNADO warning for a town about 8 miles west of us. There was a lot of shocked discussion of that online, with some people asking whether this was normal and other people saying emphatically no, but it turns out that particular town (an old plantation town apparently, not that there's much there now), Kaumakani, does have them sometimes. But it's been 12 years since the last tornado warning in Hawaii.
My phrase for the day is "Kona Low". This is apparently an "extratropical cyclone" with a "cold core" which forms leeward of the islands.
It's what the storm that's hit us yesterday and today is: a strong storm coming from west of the island, rather than east (where most of our weather comes).
So I woke up at 7am this morning to my wrist buzzing, as I do. That's my Fitbit alarm.
But, I was still lying there 6 or 7 minutes later when it went off again, this time to notify me that my realtor was calling on my phone. I was impressed that the bluetooth worked given I leave my phone downstairs in my office. But, the bed is right above my desk, so that's that.
I walked downstairs, and called her right back, and learned there was good news on yesterdays possible closing traumas.
We'd heard from the plumbers who are doing the sewer work, and they were definitely on to do the work on Friday, finishing on Monday.
We'd heard from the city of Berkeley, and they were definitely going to inspect and verify compliance.
And we'd heard from the recorder's office that they're going to be recording titles for house but nothing else, or something similar. I don't remember exactly, it being 10 minutes after I'd woken up.
And after I talked to our realtor and hung up, my phone rang again, and this time it was one of my brothers, who's in the financial world. He told me that Santa Clara had gotten their act together and was doing recording via electonic means. it's good that they figured out a day late that they were a vital service, and they couldn't just let all contracts fail over the next weeks or months.
So, all indications suggested that the necessary services we needed to close the house would be available. We figured no problem.
At the time.
And speaking of COVID repercussions, I forget to write yesterday that we went to Costco after my working day. After hearing about bare shelves across the nation due to panic buying and hoarding (and herding), I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with whether we'd be able to feed ourselves here on this island. So, it'd been a week since we'd been to Costco, and I wanted to see how things were going.
About 1 in 10 people were indeed hoarding, mainly filling their cards with bottled water, but the other 9 in 10 were mocking them.
And the store wasn't too ravished. I don't think there's been any toilet paper available for sale on the island for a week or more, and we also noticed shortages of pasta, marinara sauce, rice, and (believe it or not) vienna sausages.
But we were able to buy a responsible amount to refill our freezer and put a bit in our fridge. We even got some tuna (albacore) which I've heard has been in short supply elsewhere. (I also saw peanut butter, another staple that people have been hoarding in other locales, but we didn't need any.)
In other words, just minor disruptions from a minority of bad actors.
OK, back to our sale of the Berkeley house.
My second call from our realtor today had less good news.
We gave our stager the OK to remove all of her furniture yesterday, I think. Maybe it was earlier, I'm not sure. She'd requested it, even though we could have held onto it for another week or two, so that she could stage another house.
But despite the OK, she didn't remove the furniture by the end of the day yesterday, and instead we heard today, now that the shelter-in-place order is in place for Berkeley, that she refuses to.
Now from my reading, she's technically correct about the fact that she shouldn't, because I don't think moving is on the list of essential services.
It should be. I mean, if you're getting ready to move into a house or apartment, that's pretty essential. I have to assume that it's just another thing the six counties didn't think of, such as how to deal with their recorders' offices, because they're all doing this all by the seat of their pants (or half-assedly if you prefer; I don't understand why all these sayings have to do with butts).
And it sounds like this wasn't even entirely about the order, but also genuine existential fear. Thanks, media. You're not fear-mongering to sell papers and/or clicks at all.
So, that's another problem, though I count it as a lesser one. I don't think it'll keep us from closing, it just might require some finangling if there's still a house full of her crap when we're done.
And I'm especially annoyed that she could have done this yesterday. It's not like the shelter-in-place order was a sudden surprise at midnight yesterday.
And now we get to deal with her negligence instead. Yes, this is unprecedented event, or rather an unprecedented reaction to an uncommon event, but I'm still not thrilled when a professional we're working with chooses to make life harder for us when she could have done otherwise.
But she probably made us a lot more money in sale price than she's potentially going to cost us in dealing with her crap.
I'm doing my best to plan for the next steps in our life as if we close and get our money within the next 2-3 weeks, because I don't see anything else to do.
So I've got a contract sitting around for a solar power setup here in Hawaii. It's good until the 31st, which is tighter than I'd hoped, (They showed up within a few days of my requesting a quote, when I expected a few weeks, and then they gave me a quote that was good for two and a half weeks, when I expected a month.) , but I've got my fingers crossed that it'll still be possible.
And I've talked with a financial advisor to help us with our funds when we get them.
So: forward. Hopefully we'll indeed be going forward in 2-3 weeks.