Pre-weekend update

I'm going away this weekend for Memorial Day and won't be back until Tuesday, so here is a quick update:

1. Yesterday (Tuesday the 20th), Clara went home. RK was there, and she said to Clara that she thinks that if the house gets a bid, we should just take it (in an effort to move past all this). (Hm... so it's "we" now even though it was just one person who put the house up for sale?) Our family members steadfastly believe that it is a beautiful house and that we should not take less than what it's worth. Clara and I agree. RK also mentioned that she is thinking of going back to Korea and could possibly just leave the building to me and Clara.

(I believe absolutely nothing that comes out of RK's mouth, so I refuse to react to the latter part of their conversation.)

2. Today (Wednesday the 21st), Clara received a phone call from a broker at the real estate agency that RK is using. (It's not the same guy whom we met at the open house.) Apparently, someone made a bid on our house on Monday, but RK did not tell us. The broker only called Clara because RK was not answering his phone calls. That means that when RK tried convincing Clara that we should just accept a bid yesterday (Tuesday), she already knew of an existing bid but did not tell us about it. The bid is actually lower. (The house is set at $1.29 million, but the buyers bid $1.05 million.)

Clara spoke with RK right after the conversation with the broker. RK claimed that she did not tell us about the bid because it was lower than what we (well... she) was asking, so she didn't bother mentioning it. The broker called Clara back, and the buyers bid $1.1 million but Clara and I are not interested.

(We emailed the brokers to let them know we will be out of town until Tuesday. Also, we ALL [Clara and I + our lawyers + RK + RK's lawyer] are meeting on Wednesday morning in New York, so even if we were not going away for the weekend, I would not feel comfortable AT ALL about any of these bids until we outlined exactly what was going to happen to the trust if the house were sold.)

3. A bit different: one of the customers at the cleaners (shares first name with Clemens from the Yankees, and the last name is a homophone of the sound that a train makes) keeps claiming that he is going to sue us. He claims that he contacted a lawyer and that we (Clara and I) were supposed to appear on court today. He claims that he sent paperwork from his lawyer to us and also received confirmation that we received it. Clara and I went to the post office the day after the fire (Monday 3/10) to forward correspondence to the house, and we received nothing from him or any lawyer (though we do receive bills and everything, so the forwarding works). He also said that he filed something with the Chamber of Commerce in the town where the building is located, but the Chamber of Commerce has no record of it.

Today, Clara saw him at our manager's store, and she spoke with this customer because he happened to be there. He was "nice" and told Clara that he was going to cancel the court appearance at which we were supposed to appear. (WTF?) Basically he's full of horse manure, but I just want to make note of this just in case it winds up being something later. He claimed that this court appearance was supposed to be in White Plains which makes no sense since it's a local issue. (Then again, it's imaginary.) Clara asked nicely whom this customer contacted, and he said it was the "Commissioner of Insurance" (again... WTF?). When Clara asked nicely for a name, he stuttered, "Eric." Clara asked, "Eric what?" Customer: "Eric-something, I forget his last name."

So that's a quick update of what's up. We'll be back on Tuesday to deal with all this.