hrj

The Procedural Deviations Abatement Team scored again in the munchies department. We got leftovers from the big mucky-mucks meeting: crab cakes, stuffed mushrooms, and flaky spinach puffs. At least this week I wasn't too stuffed to do my full workout afterwards.

Progress on the Big M creeps forward. I'll spare you all the metal whiplash I went through today. By the end of the day, the title company had decided that it wouldn't kill them to include the mortgage company's sentence in their standard power-of-attorney form and had drawn up the forms. And they claimed they'd e-mailed the forms and instructions to my mother ... who has not received them. I left multiple messages about this with the title company rep with no known effect. I guess she's decided I'd already filled my quota for having my phone calls returned today. At any rate, in the last 24 hours, we've advanced the process from "we don't know if we can do your PoA" to "we can do your PoA". If we can get the e-mail delivered successfully first thing in the morning, we haven't actually lost much time over getting it delivered tonight, since at best it's going to be overnighted to the title company to arrive Thursday at this point. I'm assuming that the mortgage company is also making arrangements for the closing documents to arrive.

Other than that, I've been pretty brain-dead today. As predicted, I wrestled with insomnia last night, although the talk-radio technique meant that I got right back to sleep each time I woke up. It's still not as good as a real night's sleep.

The ceremonial First Lawn Mowing of Spring happened after all. My neighbor across the street asked to borrow my mower and insisted on doing my front lawn as well in exchange. So while he was mowing, I finished cutting the suckers off the laurel tree, got half the fig suckers cut, and nearly finished weeding the north fence bed. I've pretty much finished all the pruning that's going to get done. Most of the roses are done and all the berries. The plum is clipped. I really should have gotten to the apple and almonds as well, but they'll have to wait for another year. Some of the laurel suckers were very tall and straight, so I've ended up with half a dozen 8-foot poles that I'm saving for as-yet-unknown projects. Next I move on to getting all the allegedly cleared beds weeded and analyzed for replacement plants. Then I work on putting in some more sections of brick pathway. I will do more yard work this year than last. I will.