sugar for the lemonade

Our plan was to head off to Tri Cities early this morning.  But before we went we needed to pick up some things at the new house.  Please refer to the last line of yesterday's post.  And what did go wrong is that we were, once again, locked out of the house.  Before we left yesterday we thoroughly tested the various keys.  Yes, this one works on both of the back door locks.  Let's test again.  Yes, it works fine.  So off we had gone.  But this morning when we returned, we could not get the back door open and, even though we had the front door key, we had cautiously locked the front storm door FROM THE INSIDE.  No dice.  All the windows were now locked, having seen from yesterday's emergency entrance, how easy it had been to get in through an unlocked window.  We were completely locked out.

So we just got back in the car and headed off to do some serious shopping, hoping that the designated "handyman" could get in to the house later in the afternoon.

The drive to Kenniwick is absolutely beauiful.  Gently rolling hills, now green with the early wheat stalks, will turn golden in a few months.  Vineyards and wineries are dotted along the way.  But mostly it's farmland, sheep and goats grazing on lovely farmland.  But soon the shopping malls come into view and we are on our way to buy great looking sugar for the lemonade Alex is determined to make, and to contribute to the resurgence of the US economy.  First stop was Target® for things like a DustBuster®, waste baskets, cleaning materials (including heavy duty rubber gloves and masks to keep mouse whatever out of our lungs).  Next, we went to Lowes for more of the same plus a mop, broom, kitchen trash basket, etc.  And what could go wrong?  Lowe's would not accept a check.  Not the ATM.  A check.  I stepped outside and called the bank fraud group and asked what the heck was going on?  They said that the issue of the debit cart fraud was in no way connected with the check refusal.  More digging turned up a problem between my bank and Lowes.  A tiff?  Who knows.  I finally said to Alex that we need to get out of there, get back to WW, add up the damages and rethink how we're going to complete these chores.

She had called the "handy man" earlier and hoped to meet with him this evening to get into the house and unload all the sugar we bought for the lemonade.  We got home, had a bit of lunch, and around 5 she left and went over to the house to meet Greg and try to get in.  If she is successful, she'll unload all the goodies we bought.  If she's not, I think we just have to put a brick through the back door window and deal with that.

On the schedule for tomorrow is a complete scrub-down of the kitchen with every kind of disinfectant we can find.  The shelf paper we bought will go down.  Then the boxes of china, silver and glassware gets unpacked and put in their places. After that job we'll tackle the second bedroom that is to be used as Alex's office, and the other bedroom that will be her, uh, bedroom.  And that will be about it.  Perhaps a nice out to dinner tomorrow evening at one of WW's good restaurants.  Or perhaps just a nice bowl of soup and an early sleep time.  We'll see how it goes.

I'll take photos of the interior of the house tomorrow so you can see what kind of lemonade she is trying to makie.  I just talkede with her and the handy man was able to get her into the house after all.  She's unloading the goodies we bought today and will be home for dinner soon.  I'm sure she'll have lots to day about meeting him and his take on the condition of the place and what he can do to address her various concerns.