Another weekend with RQS (a short post)

 

It was the first weekend in New York after returning from our cruise, and I wasn't sure if my legs would hold up.  If I were sure of when I'd be meeting Maria to notarize my FBR paperwork, I'd have gone to RQS's house as Marian.  But, as is often the case with Maria, I couldn't count on her schedule to work as planned.  Since I'd possibly be driving to Maria's on Monday, I decided to present as Mario through the weekend for convenience.

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On Friday, I had a visit with the foot doctor, and that scotched the idea of me driving to RQS's place on Friday.  Instead, I planned to leave on Saturday morning.  But first, I had to stop at the bank and change my account relationship from "private banking" to "generic customer".  This would allow me to free up money I have in the bank, so it can be moved to my investment account at another institution.  Although the banker I dealt with made the change (or so he claimed), the private banking relationship still showed up on my account later on.  (It's something that may have to be fixed with another visit to the bank.)

Once done with the bank, I drove down to RQS's place.  There was virtually no traffic, and I made it to RQS's place in roughly an hour and a half.  Since I was up early that morning, I took a nap on arrival.  Sadly, one of our favorite places for dinner was closed (probably permanently)  so we were stuck with ordering a pizza for dinner.  Now, this is not much of an event, but the quality of person who does delivery these days leaves a lot to be desired.  In this case, the person was trying to deliver the pizza to an apartment across the street from RQS's place.  (We got that fixed.)  All too often, many of the last mile delivery services/personnel screws up delivery - the gig economy attracts the lowest skilled workers and pays them what they're worth - almost nothing.  One gets what one pays for.

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Sunday came, and we stayed in our Jammies all day.  The only reason I bothered showering was because I had to apply an ointment to my feet twice each day.  So, if I have to clean my feet, then I might as well clean the rest of me too.  (I certainly sound like an old geezer saying this.)  I did make it outside, only to do two things: (1) Make sure that there were no temporary no-parking signs on the street which would force me to leave early, and (2) to pick up a 12-pack of soda that I could drink on my next visit.

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Monday was a day of movement.  After showering and treating my feet, I loaded my car with my heavy suitcase (left at RQS's place following my cruise), then drove RQS to a donation center where she could drop off some stuff.

On my way home, I got a call from our co-op's site manager.  She needed copies of two months' of meeting minutes, so that she could be fully prepared for a lawsuit in which we were involved in landlord/tenant court. The woman affected by this dispute has been a problem to the co-op and its residents.  In April, she disrupted our yearly shareholders' meeting, and I wanted for the co-op to be rid of this person as soon as possible. (Where is the fictional Don Corleone when a friend needs a favor?😃) Although I couldn't get the paperwork to our site manager in a timely manner, it appears that we will be able to win our case by this time next week.   

 

 

The one time I can talk about a co-op board meeting

 

I could talk about going to the bank.  I could talk about the junk food I ate.  Instead, I will talk about the open shareholder meeting we had tonight.  And this is one of the few times I can talk about co-op business, as what I'm able to say tonight actually happened at tonight's meeting.

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Leaving for the board meeting at the local library, I made one mistake - running into the local pizzeria for a Chicken Parm Hero. (For those not familiar with NYC area sandwich terms, a "Hero" is an elongated sandwich roll. In other regions, it is known as a "Sub", "Hoagie" or "Wedge".)  I should have ordered pizza slices, as I was rushing to put food in my stomach before attending the board meeting.

Arriving at the local library shortly after 6, we reviewed business (which I won't recount here) for the next hour, until shareholders started to come in.  Just before 7, a woman we've been having trouble with  arrived.  The woman has serious mental issues, and probably should be institutionalized.  For the next half hour, people ambled in, but we only had 36% of the shareholder share represented.  So the meeting couldn't be official, only informational.  And then, the troublesome lady started to shout and disrupt our meeting.  She made a big deal about the contrasting color the outside walls of the laundry were painted.  She was shouting, and I ended up shouting back to her to stop shouting.  At this time, someone made sure the police were on call to remove her from the meeting.  Luckily, she left early, and her neighbors told the story of how they were being victimized by this woman on a daily basis.  (She even pushed one lady several times.)  Her neighbors had proof that this lady was harassing them, but the police have not yet done anything.  Maybe someone needs to get hurt before this sick person gets the help she needs, and gets her out of our way.

Eventually, we got to discussing the financial state of the co-op, and the need to continue with our current assessment.  (I won't go into the story of our former managing agent, our insurance, our mortgage holder, and going into special service handling.  I don't think I'm free to tell the story as I see it.)  Our shareholders didn't understand how a major bank could be treating a co-op like ours so poorly.  But then, we have a hard time understanding it too.  Although we think we're seeing the light at the end of the tunnel for our financial problems, it's going to be a rocky road for us until the end of the year.

Hopefully, the mentally ill lady will soon be evicted, and her shares reverted back to the co-op.  Only then, will the other residents in her building (as well as nearby businesses) will be free from her tyranny.  (BTW: One of the residents victimized by this woman handed the board a complete list of all the times this woman has caused them trouble.  Too bad this resident couldn't have known about this woman before she bought her apartment.)

A Co-Op shareholder meeting - I couldn't wait for it to end.

 

Well, this was another day that I couldn't spend any time as Marian.  By now, the look on my face probably mirrors the look on the picture above.  OK, it's not that weird, but I feel that way after the weekend I've had.

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Around 3:30 pm, I finally got around to doing 2 loads of laundry while I got showered and dressed for the 6 pm board meeting.  By 5:30, I was out the door and off to the shareholder meeting.  We have had a problem for the past several shareholder meetings - not enough people attending for us to have a quorum. And this year wouldn't be different.

At 7:45, our attorney called the meeting to order.  He noted that we didn't have a quorum, and that the old board would continue for another term.  And then, the "fun" began.  Due to financial problems we encountered last year and that we are working to resolve, we have a shortfall for which we will need to make an assessment of all shareholders to cover this shortage.  Understandably, people were upset.  They were even more upset that our bank hasn't been able to give us final totals for us to work with.  So, we are going with our attorney's estimate for what we will need to pay, and we then gave an estimate of what we expect to ding our shareholders to make things whole again.

The meeting ended at 8:30, and I was able to make it to the diner for a chef salad before they closed for the evening.  It was nice to go there again, as it is a place I only go when presenting as Mario.  Yes, I ended up eating too much today, but I'll watch my diet tomorrow.