Re-Cued

This used to be a disc jockey's best friend.

Radio peeps will get the reference immediately (well, the ones older than 30); for those of you left wondering about the title and the pic – here’s the explanation (and how it relates to today’s post comes a bit later).  Back before everything went digital, radio jingles and commercials were recorded on these continuous loop cartridges, or “carts.”  The cart would be recorded with the ad AND a silent tone that told the cart when to stop once it played, essentially “re-cueing” itself to start all over again.

We’ve been re-cued.

Back in May I wrote about how we had a shitload of stuff going down.  Besides running the ice cream parlor for another year (that’s 17 now), we were also in the process of selling the business AND building a home on our retirement property in Warren.  The way things were supposed to play out, by now we’d have a buyer for the store and our home would be close to completion, and we’d be moving soon to start a new chapter in our lives.

Instead, we’re starting over from last year.

We did not sell the store…yet.  We’re pretty much back to where we were six months ago, except we have fewer folks interested and we’ve lost those six months (and a few dollars in legal fees).  We had a number of interested parties, and one in particular that had a keen interest, but...well, because of confidentiality rules and all, I can’t talk about it.  But nothing happened, essentially.

And that’s what happened with the new modular house…nothing.  Almost nothing, anyway.  While I can talk about this, I really don’t want to, as I still have a bad taste in my mouth.  We had drawings back in May and a schedule that tied in with our general contractor (doing work on the land, prep for the house, etc.), our solar contractor (to put rooftop solar system in place once the house was set), and the bank (which was to finance the whole shootin’ match for a bit until we sold the business to pay it all off).

What should have happened was blueprints, approval of same, loan, build, deliver, finish, solar, move in.  What did happen was…delay, delay, problem, delay, delay.  And all during the delay was the worst level of communication (or non-communication, if you will) that we’ve encountered in a professional capacity.  By August we had no faith that this project was EVER to be completed, and we’d missed all of our available windows for the contractor and the bank (the solar folks were behind so they didn’t mind the fact that we weren’t ready for them.  Or so they said.).

So we cancelled the house.  Given the fact that back in May I was already saying (in this blog) that “…deadlines come and go,” I shouldn’t be surprised that this fell apart.  Also, given that we didn’t sell the business and most likely will be running the store for at least part of 2018, I’m kinda glad this project is on hold for now.

We will build, but with a different company.  We’re doing some research now as to who and what, but we do know that the WHEN won’t be until we sell the store.  We’re moving forward with the sale – we’ve expanded our outreach (where we’re advertising it) and even though fall is the slow season for businesses like ours, we’re hopeful we’ll find a buyer.

It’s amazing that I can even use that word, “hopeful.”  September was a rough month for us – we ended our season a week early (ran out of ice cream sooner than we thought), but that was OK as we were near exhaustion and running on fumes.  THAT caught up with us – Mona got a horrible cold, as did I, and mine turned into bronchitis, so our annual clean up of the store once closed has been on hold for most of the month (we just got back into cleaning up last Friday).  We were also dealing with cutting our house contract (we lawyered up again, and he did the job), and wrapping up our dealings with the potential store buyer (and technically the lawyering is still going on a bit – one last piece of paper needed to say “sayonara” for good).

And the rest of the world seemed like it’s been re-cued, too.  We are still battling to keep the ACA from being overturned.  We’re still working in Pennsylvania and Michigan (and elsewhere) to make online gaming legal.  We’re still fighting for justice in so many damn places.  It can be terribly depressing to have to start over personally when so many other aspects of life are also ostensibly on hold, not progressing…stalled….stuck.

Nevertheless, we’re hitting “play” again.  The show must go on.