Quick Oregon Trip – Day 3

I walked into the most backwards/retro bookkeeping system I’ve ever seen today. A double entry ledger system would have been more elegant than what my uncle concocted to keep his books. It’s the first of the month and so tenants are stopping in to pay. Most of them pay in cash and the remaining pay by card, half of which are on file, and half of which are called in. A very sweet chatty 80-something year old runs the office. The administrator in me was aghast at the pace of getting people through the office and that my cousin and his step-brother weren’t instantly instituting at least an Excel solution for keeping track of money. But, not my problem.

Today was less task oriented. After the office intro, we loaded the rental trailer with its contents, leaving a couple of things for the truck bed. Errands were next including lunch. Once back at the property my cousin intermittently dealt with tenants. Before he left for an appointment, he pulled out four photo albums of our grandparents for me to go through. The pictorial history, mid-50’s through the mid-70’s, was very interesting. I did not feature in my grandparent’s photo albums until I was 12. There are many generational reasons that they subsequently let go of, and it was a trip to see when I was ‘acknowledged’ enough to make the photo book.

My uncle’s wife was out and about a lot today. This is trying on my cousin. He is good at handling her. Kind. I have never met anyone less invested in the property they have lived on for decades. She doesn’t know what anything is, where it came from, or what it does. When she comes around she uses this lack of knowledge to pepper the object of her inquiry with unending questions about the, say, stack of pipe along the fence is: “What’s that? Who’s is it Who’s? What’s it for? Does it have to stay there? Where are you going to put it” etc… She’s funny too, and gets sideways humor. After she went inside for the day, I saw her watching us through her curtains, with binoculars, as my cousin put gas in his car! He just shrugged and said, “Yup, that’s mom.”

Another walk rounded out the day, and a second meal out. I retreated to my lodgings, played back gammon with my DH, and am SO ready to head home. I’ll pick up the trailer tomorrow morning and head out.