Blue

I don't know if it's grief, the prospect of the nightmare that the estate settlement is sure to be, or just a random case of the blues, but I'm feeling pretty down this morning.

It's probably the whole settlement thing. My grandmother named me Executor of her estate, bypassing my mother. She thought that would create checks and balances. But I don't have the emotional energy for this, and my mom's a freakin' lunatic.

A week before my grandmother died, she cleaned out the safe deposit box, while my grandmother was lying unconscious on her death bed.

The prospect of handing $$$$ to a lawyer to put her ass in place isn't exactly thrilling, and my original hope, which was simply to take all of my grandmother's paperwork to an estate lawyer has been complicated by her simply taking all of the documentation. Oh, yeah, and my attorney doesn't seem particularly interested in doing that anyway.

My cousin Cory sent me another name, and I'll give her a call today, but I'm only 2 days into this and I'm spent.

Dammit, I fix computers and tinker on cars. I love cats, my family, and NOT BEING BOTHERED.

Historically, people believed that some aspects of life were sufficiently complicated to leave to professionals. Most folks don't try to fix their own plumbing, repair the fuel-injection systems on their cars, or rewire the electrical box. You'd never try to represent yourself in a major legal battle, so why have we orphaned the estate lawyers? We still rely on them to plan, but so many folks believe they're qualified to settle their own estates that there aren't many estate lawyers left. Those that are left apparently charge a ton.

I'm holding out hope that this might resolve itself with minimal pain, but there's little chance of avoiding a row with my mother, particularly as I think some of the actions she's taken might be illegal. Did I mention that my mother is a lunatic? She holds grudges that go back to her childhood.