Good News, Bad News...Good News?

Let's see, should I start with the good news or the bad news? Let's start with the good news.--

Last week sometime Rach won a radio contest and got a holiday package as a prize. There were tickets for 4 to a Christmas event in Bellevue, Snowflake Lane or something like that. She planned to give that to Shirley, she gets into that stuff, they can take the boys. I think there's ice skating and whatnot. Then she also got tickets to the zoolights at the Point Defiance Zoo. And finally she got a $50 gift certificate for TJ Maxx. Neat package, not very useful ('cept the gift cert) but neat. Little did she know thought that when she won that package her name was put into a drawing for the grand prize that was to be given away this week. And she won that as well! That is a real good package. It's a hotel room in a swanky Seattle Hotel, the Alexis, and then tickets to view the fireworks and shmooze with the party on the observation deck in the Space Needle on New Year's Eve! I would love to go! I don't celebrate but just going up and enjoying the jazz and drinks, and being able to view the fireworks, some actually below the deck, they set some off the legs of the Space Needle! A photographer's dream!--

OK, so now for the bad news: Denny has a rental house down in a section of Tacoma called Lakewood. Not a great part of town. His dad bought it years ago as a major fixer-upper, made it inhabitable and rented it out. A couple years ago he wanted to open a restaurant so he worked out a deal with Denny so Denny now owns the Lakewood house, his dad bought a restaurant and then his dad lost the restaurant. So Denny has this house that was his dad's and his dad still does most of the dealings with it, since he's a property manager and lives nearby. Just recently they got new tenants, but soon after the renters moved in the house was broken into and some of their belongings were stolen. There was a couple weeks with no communication with the renters and then finally someone went by to do some work or something and found the renters had abandoned the house, thereby breaking their lease. So now the house has broken glass that needs to be fixed and no renters.--

So Denny's stuck having to fix the place again and find new renters so he can make his mortgage payments (which is another nightmare altogether, never go with GMAC mortgage!). Last night he's here visiting and his dad calls him: "a pipe in the Lakewood house in the attic broke and flooded the place. The fire dept (or water dept?) was called because water was leaking out the eaves. The place is totaled." Denny and Heather go this morning to meet with an insurance person. It's as bad as it possibly can be. Too bad it isn't a car, they would pay it off, total it and take possession of it. Here are a few pictures:--


So now for the ... good news? Once the contractors, etc have made their bids and the insurance pays off, Denny may end up with either some money in his pocket or some improvements to his home here where he lives. We'll just have to wait and see how it all plays out.--

One more note of good news. I was coerced by my mother to get Keith to a doctor to have his depression checked out and she found that he has very low vitamin D. She wants him to take 2000 i.u. daily. He may come out of this deep funk and start living again - another "wait and see how it all plays out."--

OK, so there was one more "good news". Better than the opposite.