On Friday, Ann and I headed over to Seattle to help wind down mom’s house and clean up what’s left (spoiler alert, still more to do …).

The house is pretty much ready to sell, though we still have some odds and ends to remove. We had though the house would hit the market this week, but it turns out that there is a title snag with one of the two parcels. One parcel was some land and the house, while the other parcel was just a piece of land. The land’s title wasn’t filed correctly, so we have to fix that (and of course everyone related to the title purchase and payments has died).

Among the items I brought home on this trip was a surprising collection of dad’s baby congratulations, cards, letters, and wester union cables, from 1933. Also in the mix were condolence letters from the death of my aunt Anita (apparently, my grandfather said Anita was shorthand for ‘little Ann’ (Ann was my grandmother’s name, which I thought was a sweet reference) when she was only 13 in 1944.

Some of the more surprising letters and postcards were from my great grandmother (Leonie Wurlitzer Eilers), who sent my father letters, whom she addressed as Master Karl E. Eilers, II. This rather weighty title for someone under 10 years old partly reflects the fact that Dad was named after his grandfather (and Leonie’s husband) of the same name.

Another surprise was that my grandfather wrote a letter to dad in 1971 a month before he passed. In the letter he discussed his prostate cancer and the pain of urination. He still had three weeks to go before he expected to be done with his treatment (unfortunately, he didn’t last much longer).

Roger Martin shared this pic with me from Facebook. Was this custom or production model (don’t have time to check it out right now).

So, this happened the other day ….

Per Ann’s FB post, “Today the girls went to Doggie Details Pet Grooming where Shana, as usual, did an AMAZING job on them. They were soft and pretty and smelled so nice for all of about an hour.

Lizzy proceeded to escaped David’s fence redesign (expanded while the dogs were being groomed). Then, Lizzy got into the Pasture where a cow pooped on her. David then chased her back into the yard where a pensive Betty Page excitedly attacked her before they both bolted through the doggie door, into the house and across the white couch.

Needless to say I had to disregard Shana’s warning about too frequent bathing and bath them for a second time today. We’ve also had to shampoo the sofa, clean the floors, clorox the entire bathroom, wash the slipcovers and finally we got ourselves cleaned up.

I think it goes without saying…..Lizzy is so grounded.

Before the pasture:

After the pasture: