This morning's mediator and respective lawyers pow wow is over.
It went well. TGSTBXW apologized to my L for going ballistic and emailing him last week when she misread his corrections to the document and assumed he was suddenly asking for more $. She had already apologized to me for same last week.
Give and take. Went well. Before the meeting started, I asked my lawyer for a code word: whenever he wanted me to agree and not argue or opine, he was to simply say, "Gardener, I suggest..." It worked out fine. I was very calm, relieved, and actually quite content throughout.
TGSTBXW and her L still think I have the "benefit" of living in the house after she offered to (kick me out and) move back in. Me: "On 12/02/08 I lived in my home as I had for 11 years. On 12/04/08 I lived in my home as I had for 11 years. What happened in that one day interim? TGSTBXW left. Now tell me what I did wrong."
It's as good an agreement as it could be short of going through $$Litigation$$ in court. My L, and to her credit, mediocre Mediator straightened everything out. TGSTBXW's young lawyer was out of her league and outgunned by my lawyer, fortunately. He's not Irish, but he has Irish diplomacy down pat: Telling someone to go to Hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip!
Curiously, at the very end of the meeting, TGSTBXW shows me i Phone photos of new Granddaughter. I have not seen her since she was 2 weeks old during my October visit. Since StepD cut off all contact with me, I've not been included in email photos.
12 pictures. Four months old now. Plump, happy, and beautiful! Gardener cried. (What else is new?)
Loss. Just needless loss all around.
D is Next Tuesday, Feb. 09. Finally.
By agreement, I had broker lower asking price of house this afternoon.
Onward. And eventually upward.
Gardener
"My soul, be satisfied with flowers, With fruit, with weeds even; but gather them In the one garden you may call your own." Cyrano deBergerac
