Monday Meanderings - 1.8.2018

Spent a couple of days in a million dollar house last week. Oh, the house itself was not so hot. In fact, it was pretty run down. Among other things, it could have used a good cleaning, you couldn't use the fireplace, the TV was flaky, the WiFi was even more so, the heat in the bathroom wouldn't come on, the ice maker didn't, and it sure could have benefited from more wattage, light-wise.

But you know what they say about real estate. Location. Location. Location! This house is nestled in the dunes overlooking the Pacific Ocean near Monterey Bay, California, so that's why Steve, the owner, got to pay a cool million for one-third of a smallish run down triplex. Maybe it wasn't run down when Steve bought it, but we do know he paid a mill for his share; Jason looked it up on the tax records. We, of course, paid somewhat less than a million dollars for our brief usage of the house. Somewhat.

This year we had a hybrid Christmas, with some of the kids and grands coming to see us, and then we ended up going to be with the other set of kids and grands. Some years are like that. And Barb said, "If we are going to California, I want to go to the beach!" The No-Port-A dilemma has been hard on her. I keep reminding her that it's a lot worse for the people who live (or used to live) there, but this does not seem to appease her.

So I said "You and Julie work out the details and we'll go to the coast while we're there." and that's how we ended up staying in a million dollar house on a prime California beach.

See if I ever say that again!

To be honest, the house rental was not that bad, but then there's the Cleaning fee, and the Usage fee and the Non-usage fee, and a bunch of other fees, not to mention the taxes and such. But it was worth it when she got to say, "Now this is a beach."