I had an action-packed day!

I had planned to meet up with some coworkers in their jury room at 10:30 a.m. to decorate their jury room for a surprise wedding shower for another coworker. It was tricky and ingenious how we’d planned it; the guest of honor actually works in the courtroom whose jury room we were decorating, so it was nearly impossible to sneak the planning by her and yet somehow get her to go to the jury room at the right time, so we told her everyone was planning a surprise wedding shower for ME. And we told her to keep it hush-hush, and that she was to show up at 12:15p after leaving early at 10:30p to get her wedding license. Meanwhile, while she was at the County Registrar-Recorder’s Office in line to get her wedding license, a bunch of us collected in her jury room and decorated like mad, laid out the food, cake, presents, etc. to transform the dull space into a festive Hawaiian wedding (their wedding theme) party central. I’d bought all the decorations Tuesday after work and had white crepe wedding bells, metallic palm trees, a coconut monkey, silver Congrats banner, coconut shell bowls, butter mints individually wrapped in hibiscus print wrappers, wedding bell confetti, even an inflatable monkey and palm tree. The court reporter brought leis, food and cake, the clerk arranging this brought more food and went with the wedding couple to get the license so that she could keep an eye on their timing and sneakily be our double agent contact. They were shocked to say the least. The party was a raging success. There are photos forthcoming taken by other coworkers.

And here’s where it got complicated for me. Although I was supposed to be down there at 10:30a to decorate which from all signs seemed perfectly reasonable since we hadn’t been busy all week, right at 10:45a, as I was about to go down, a 16-count criminal molestation trial walked in our door. I couldn’t believe it. Now I was stuck and was going to have to pick a jury. Luckily, the defense attorney needed a little more time to talk to her client in lock-up, so my judge, also to free me up, excused the case until after lunch.

And THEN, as I was making my second attempt to leave, I got a call from my real estate agent. Some background: the bank financing our new home loan had been playing games with us and giving us an extremely hard time. It basically felt like it was stalling and trying to find a reason to reject us. We understood we’d have to submit the loan application fully documented in this economy. That’s fine. We gave copies of our paystubs, copies of verification of funds. A couple of weeks go by and we’re in Escrow at this point, but now the bank says they need more documentation. Two months of paystubs, three months’ worth of bank account statements for every bank account we have, verification of the current values of our cars (even though both our cars are paid off), current account statements of all our retirement plans. We keep clean records, so we provided all this stuff, shaking our heads at how intrusive these requests are. Apparently the bank’s digging around for collateral, looking for a reason to say we’re not good enough. And then last week, the bank’s final request: give them signed rental lease agreements showing that people are lined up to rent our current properties for our asking price, AND a photocopy of these renters’ deposit checks, AND proof that these checks were deposited into our bank accounts. WTF! We let our management company take care of these requests and he faxed the appropriate materials. How violating of our privacy! It seemed like we were going to miss our Escrow closing deadline before our loans would fund. We were in a 35-day Escrow, the last day of which is August 1.

Well, when my realtor called this morning, he said all the documents were received, written up, pushed through in record time and that we HAVE to be at the Escrow office that afternoon to sign the closing documents in order for the loan to fund by tomorrow to meet our Escrow closing deadline. “But I JUST got a huge trial and I can’t leave!” I wailed. It never fails; I hadn’t had much to do all week and now THIS today of all times. I said I’d see what I can do and call him back. And rushed down to decorate for the wedding shower after 3 failed attempts to get a hold of each of my 3 supervisors on the phone.

While I was down there in panic mode, late for the decorating and busting my butt to get it all done before the return of the guests of honor, freaking about needing to leave that afternoon but not being able to find a supervisor for permission, a coworker stepped up and volunteered to handle my trial mid-afternoon after her own hearing so that I could leave early. And then later, another coworker agreed to take over my courtroom immediately after lunch before the first coworker is available, so that I could leave even earlier than that. I was so touched!! As soon as the party was over at the close of lunch, I rushed off, but not before learning that my trial is going away; the defendant had decided to take a plea bargain! What are the odds on THIS kind of trial?!

Mr. W and I met at his house, dropped off my car, and we went to his bank to withdraw a cashier’s check for his portion of the down payment, and then went to my bank to do the same for my portion. We got to the Escrow office near our new house at exactly the time requested by the Escrow officer, a mere minute before our real estate agent himself showed up. We did a new incredibly efficient thing of “e-signing” our Escrow documents, signed off on the house stuff, and then Escrow said it needed proof of home insurance as the last thing before we’re done. Wait. I didn’t take out home insurance on the new house yet. I’d brought my insurance bills with me to work today, intending to call to cancel insurance on my current property, but wasn’t able to before all insanity broke loose. I remembered that coincidentally, my insurance company had called for me earlier as I was in front of the teller and I’d told her I couldn’t talk at the moment but would call back. I called back in the Escrow office and turned out they’d received a request from Escrow to send proof of insurance, so my insurance company and I, over the phone, set up the required insurance as Mr. W finished off the e-signing. By the time Escrow signing was done, my insurance was faxing the Escrow office our quote and new policy (at an incredible price, too!) for us to sign, and everything required was fulfilled perfectly and simultaneously. Escrow should close on time tomorrow, our loan fully funded. Even our agent was amazed.

WHEW!

But we still had a final inspection of the house to do. So Mr. W, myself, and the realtor did that after leaving the Escrow office. Everything was fine. I’m taking tomorrow off to pack so we can move over the weekend or at least at the beginning of the week. INSANE!!! And none too soon; our management company called Mr. W as we were doing our home inspection and said happily, “You need to get out! The renters want in ASAP!” Woohoo!