As some of you know I have this house in Montauk New York that I rent out every summer.  dave and I share the expenses and income from it but I do all the work.

Not that I’m patting myself on the back because as you know that’s the last thing I would do.

My niece Laura Rose and her husband Mark went out there a few months ago and told me it really needed some fixing up.

“What?” said I to myself “Mark is just finicky because he has a snow house he rents and he’s thinks he knows stuff”

Montauk has become a happinin’ place. I’ve rented it for the last few years to the same group of young people.

The renter from last year called a few months ago and said she and her friends wanted to rent it again this year so I wasn’t worried.

I had asked the maid who cleaned it at the end of the season what the condition was and she said it looked ok to her so I returned their security and didn’t give it another thought.

About a week ago the renter let me know that they no longer wanted to rent the house.

This was not good.

It meant that the house had to be shown to strangers who might be a little more picky that a bunch of drunk 20 somethings.

I started thinking that I might have to give some credence to what Laura and Mark said about the condition of the house.

So I jumped into action.

I remembered Laura saying that some of the rugs needed to be replaced, many of the curtains were down, there was a sweatshirt used to keep the sun out of one of the bedrooms and the place looked like it needed a little TLC.

I realized that I’d need some muscle.  I myself am weak as a fish. In fact I’m having a cocktail right now and I can barely lift the glass.

I therefore requested the aid of my sister and brother in law.

True they are 81 and 84 but they’re practically hill folk in the strength department.  And if I was going to have to lift beds to put down new rugs well we’d need strength.

I also decided that bringing Debbie would be counter productive so I hired top grade dog trainers to care for at home.

It was my super’s son who I knew would use the time to train her to be a the obedient show dog I thought I was getting when I got her from the ASPCA.

Here they are training her.

So we go out there.

The beds were all pushed against the wall so they could make room for the 10,000 blow up beds they’d need.

Forget any curtains and there were wires hanging from the ceiling in the front hall where they had pulled off the smoke alarm. I guess it needed a new battery and that was too much for them to handle.

There were missing lamps and at least one night table was in pieces.

Plus we had no wifi because someone stole the router.

So we had to buy new stuff, lift the beds for the new rugs and move all the furniture where it belonged.

So I got my staff moving.

At one point they said something about wanting naps but I didn’t have a year to fix the place up so I told them they’d get plenty of sleep when they got home.

Unfortunately I didn’t take before pictures but here are a few after shots.

If you want to hire my staff I’m sure they’re available but if you let them they’ll take a lot of breaks.

Here’s the bummer about getting old. You forget things. I was talking to Julie this morning and I couldn’t remember someone’s name or the name of a show I was watching.

It’s been bothering me even though my shrink says it’s normal and I’m only as batty as any other 75 year old person.

Just in case she’s wrong I have been watching Jeopardy every night and doing the New York Times crossword puzzles every day.

I ace the Monday and Tuesday but we shall not speak of Friday or Saturday.

All this in an effort to stretch my brain because I am anxious about this.

The this morning while talking to Julie I had an epiphany. Remember when I used to have a lot of those? Now they’re few and far between.

But here it is….

I’m not a surgeon or an astrophysicist.  Who cares what I say?

With Julie’s approval I’ve decided to chill.

From now on if I can’t think of a word I’ll just insert any word I do think of.

I’m in kind of a hurry now because I have to walk my couch and then I have an appointment with my lipstick.