The Bless Your Heart Trip

At the pleading bribing request of Mr. Partner, Marty Sunshine and my ulcer, I am going to Birmingham shortly. I knew this was coming. To be honest, like most trips, in the time leading up to my arrival, I am not quite sure while I am bothering. After all, I have boots on the ground. I have a property management company with questionable levels of competence. I have a few tenants and former tenants who have graciously helped me out in a bind here and there.

But back to my trip. I managed to e-mail Luigi I was coming around 10 p.m. my time one night. By 6:30 a.m. my time the next morning, it was Slick Willy who e-mailed me back, saying some platitude about how excited he was to meet me. Luigi also wrote some similar sentiment, but probably changed his mind when he and I talked later in the week and he got a general gist of why I was going out there.

I don't expect to see Ms. Angie or Mrs. Sherwood, neither of whose homes are in property management. Though I would love to see them, they don't cause me any grief. Besides, I have superstitious tendencies that suggest if I show up, all might change. And, to be fair, I can only understand about a third of what Ms. Angie says.

So, I now have Willy scrambling to make appointments with the tenants. That will eat up a couple of days. In there somewhere I have an appointment or two. I am meeting Kirby and Mrs. Kirby for dinner one night. I am also visiting with Carolsue, whom I adore. I believe Carolsue is also plotting for ways for us to get potentially arrested. She is good at that. I don't adore that part, but it is inevitable.

What I really want are some intangibles. What is my going on with my homes? Are my tenants happy and planning on staying another year or so? Is there any maintenance that needs to happen that Flunky, Luigi's maintenance dork, hasn't mentioned. What am I going to do about my vacant home where the mortgage company has called the loan due? And, what is going on with my eviction? (Yea, I have one of those, I haven't written much about it because it upsets me greatly, but it is always top of mind). All of these questions can be answered--and have been answered to one degree or another--but a little face time never hurts. And perhaps, I won't have to utter "Bless Your Heart" too many times.