I really ought to be in bed...

My mother called around 8 tonight, all upset because my grandmother's lawyer had apparently told her that I had "said something" about the fact that we're disagreeing about the interpretation of my grandmother's will. According to my mother, I shouldn't have said anything because now she "looks like a fool".

It was the usual long, drawn-out argument, which I tried to get out of on multiple occasions because my dinner was getting cold, but she wouldn't let me off the phone. Apparently I'm an ungrateful, bitter, hateful little child...

Ungrateful? Perhaps. After all, every time I have to interact with her I need a bottle of Maalox afterwards. I'm not grateful for that.

Bitter? Only about my ex-husband. *grin*

Hateful? Hardly. I hate what she does, and the way that she behaves towards me, but that's not the same thing at all.

Child? Yeah, right. 37 years old, and I'm still a child. Sure.

And she expects my unthinking respect.

Oh, and she went on at length about how offended and upset she is that I have people in my life whom I consider to be equivalent to family. According to her, the only family I have are her and my father. Then again, this is the woman who referred to my ex-in-laws as "those strangers you insist on living with instead of living with me".

Anyway, she arranged an appointment with the lawyer for 8 o'clock in the morning. Here it is, ten after 3 and I'm still at the computer... as if I could sleep anyway. I really wish she'd given me a little notice; when I said so, she said, "Well, that's the only time I could see him, because he leaves at 4 every day and I have to work." (Oh, yeah, apparently she thinks that the way you get a job in IT these days is still to get dressed up and go from office to office, dropping off unsolicited resumes, because she sees people coming into her office for interviews.)

Well, I should probably try to get some sleep, otherwise I'll bowl like crap tomorrow night. (Tomorrow is Wednesday, isn't it?)

Or maybe I'll just stay up all night, and take a nap after the meeting with the lawyer. Whatever.

God.........

6:30 comes awfully early in the morning when you've gone to bed at 5.

Sunrise was pretty, though.

Well, that's almost over and done with...

In the immortal words of former Democratic Party presidential nominee Dr. Howard Dean:

YYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

*deep breath*

I got to the lawyer's office around quarter to eight this morning, feeling oddly wide-awake for only having gotten 75 minutes of sleep last night and despite not taking the time to stop at Starbucks on my way to the subway. (I was worried about missing the bus at Victoria Park station.) My mother was already there, but nobody bothered to mention this until the lawyer came out of his office after I'd been sitting there for ten minutes. We went through the probate documents, and he explained all about how we should go to the bank and have my grandmother's chequing account and GIC transferred into the estate account, from which we could pay for the funeral (or, more accurately, reimburse my mother for the cost of the funeral) and pay out the other bequests. It seems there's a slight catch in that my grandmother also owned some Canadian Tire shares which are in a revolving account; dividends are automatically used to buy more shares. He's looking into what needs to be done to deal with those. Since my RRSP agent has also made stock market transactions for me in the past, I offered to have her handle them once he figures out what, exactly, can or should be done.

It turned out that the condo is not quite worth what the lawyer had originally estimated; my mother had a printed flyer from the management company listing the same units for slightly less, though not too much less. It also seems - at least, according to my mother - that I had misconstrued something she said a few weeks ago. Or, at least, she's changed her tune, or maybe she misunderstood me - anything's possible. In any case, she's now saying that she's willing to pay me half of the difference between the cash I'd be receiving and the value of the condo, so that after the bequests and expenses are paid out, the remainder of the estate would be divided evenly between us. I honestly don't remember her ever making any offer like that - in fact, I remember her getting extremely upset at the idea because it proved in her eyes that I was more concerned with getting my hands on the money than with her happiness.

Since this meets the spirit of my grandmother's intentions, if not the exact letter of the will, I feel this is acceptable.

Naturally, though, my mother felt the need to get a few digs at my expense. Apparently I'm not allowed to make her look foolish, but she's allowed to tell my grandmother's lawyer that I'm less of a person for being awake on a 2pm-to-6am schedule. And naturally, when I pointed out that I spend a good chunk of that time working, albeit on non-paying volunteer activities, she just said, "Come along - he doesn't want to hear about your Trekkie stuff." (FWIW, he gave me a rather sympathetic look on a number of occasions throughout the meeting.)

The digs continued all the way downtown to the bank on the streetcar - everything from criticism of my toque (ie. it's not the one she gave me for Christmas, which has what appears to be a motorcycle gang logo on it, but rather, the plain blue and yellow one that my ex-husband knitted for me ten years ago) to the fact that I'm not literally out pounding the pavement every day looking for some job, any job, just so that she doesn't have to bear the shame of having an unemployed son. (I don't think she knows what headhunters are for or what Workopolis and Monster are.) And again, there was no point in defending myself, because every time I tried, I'd get half a sentence out and she'd be off on her next tirade. I got a nasty look from the woman sitting in front of us because I got frustrated and used the word "fuck" at one point. (I really think her hearing's going, but there's no point in raising my voice because then she'll just hiss at me to keep it down so that people around us don't hear.)

Anyway, we eventually arrived at the bank around 10:45. My mother was concerned that the person she'd previously talked to would not be there, and she refused outright to deal with anyone else. (Okay, fine, this guy had met both of us before, but the files are available to anyone in that department...) Fortunately, he was there, and available, so we went through the documents, signed a bunch of papers, and he transferred the chequing account and the GIC into the estate account and drew up a draft to reimburse my mother for the expense of the funeral. (Which was, for the record, about $3K less than she had told me on the phone. My mother loves to exaggerate. She's such a drama queen. It's probably where I get it.) I was all ready to go, but my mother was worried about walking around in the financial district with a bank draft for $4K in her purse, so I had to walk with her to her bank, three blocks south. (If she knew how much money bicycle couriers routinely have on their person - albeit not in cash, but probably a good chunk of it is in easily negotiable forms - she'd likely plotz on the spot.)

So, now, apart from the issue of the Canadian Tire stocks, and my mother coming up with the money to meet the terms of the will (about $21K, I figure), the only outstanding thing is to pay out the other bequests, which the lawyer advised us to do by cheque because replacing a lost cheque is much simpler than replacing a lost draft. For some reason, my mother didn't want to do that today, so we're going to have to go in again next week to write the cheques, and then we'll send them by registered mail. Besides, the banker never said anything about us getting temporary counter cheques for this purpose - perhaps they can't be used in this case, I don't know - but he placed an order for cheques for us, which wouldn't arrive for a few days anyway. Personally, I'd rather have done that today to get it overwith - after all, two of the people named in the will could die tomorrow, and maybe they'd like to take a nice Florida vacation or something with the money - but whatever. At least the ball's rolling.

In other news - what's with this weather? Today's forecast was for sunny skies and temps in the 1-3C range - and while I've been sitting here composing this entry, it's started and stopped snowing.

Now, I have to decide whether I want to take a nap, or just stay up, read the paper and engage in my normal afternoon activities before I go to bowling tonight. Or continue to sit here and deal with the 40 emails that have arrived so far today. Well, at least I know I'll sleep well tonight if I stay up...