I had a work trip to Florida that Peggy and I are turning into a pleasure trip after the work responsibilities are over. Who schedules a work trip for the week between Christmas and New Year’s?

This guy.

We had some folks we needed to meet with in West Palm Beach. One of them is leaving the country for a month on January 2. I wanted to get the meeting done before he left, so here we are.

We had the meeting this morning and it was productive. We will be glad that we met because it will move us into the next phase of the relationship while he is gone and we will be ready to roll when he returns. Pushed everything forward by a month. Blah, blah…

Now we get to play! We played golf today, and tomorrow we will spend the day at the beach and/or pool. My vote is for the pool — the water in the Atlantic is too cold to enjoy, but the air temperature is nice. I have a feeling tomorrow’s compromise will be to walk on the beach and then hang out at the pool. Negotiations are tough business.

Then we are leaving on Saturday morning for Tampa. The stars aligned for Peggy and I to do something we have never done together. My life-long team, the New Orleans Saints, are playing the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday in Tampa, then LSU is playing in the Whatever-New-Year’s-Day-Bowl-is-in-Orlando game on Monday. I bought tickets to the bowl game, but my friend Don already had tickets for the Saints game that he is letting us have.

I have written several times about my group of childhood friends and how we still get together. Don is the retired Air Force Colonel and lives in Tampa. He also has the greatest job in the world as the Executive Officer of Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla. If you don’t know what Gasparilla is, picture Mardi Gras on boats as a parade of pirate boats “invade” the city. Don was a logistics officer in the Air Force, so he is the perfect guy to plan the invasion and make sure everything comes off safe and fun for everyone.

Don has season tickets for the Buccaneers (he’s a Saints fan, but when in Rome…) that he cannot use because there is a New Year’s Ball as part of his Gasparilla responsibilities, so he is giving them to Peggy and me to use. We are spending the night at Don and Kathy’s house Saturday night, so we are really looking forward to the rest of the journey.

Now, where are we eating tonight?

That escalated quickly.

I run a business that depends on doctors. Doctors are fairly notorious for taking time off around the holidays, so our business tends to have a predictable lull each December. I have been in San Antonio wrapping things up for the year and getting ready to spend the rest of the time before Christmas at home in Baton Rouge.

Not so fast, my friend…

A family has been to see our house several times and late last week while I was at home they made an offer. The offer was too low to consider so I just rejected it and did not counter. Another couple has also shown interest so I felt pretty comfortable rejecting the lowball offer.

The original family came back with a second offer that was a little higher so I countered with the asking price — I am very comfortable that the price we have on the house is the market price for our area, and I am really not willing to sell for less. Meanwhile, the second prospect continued to visit the house without making an offer. My realtor told the first family’s realtor about the other interested couple, and so on, and so on.

So, on Wednesday I get a full-price offer from the original folks with one stipulation. They need to close on January 9 because they have to be out of the house they are selling by January 11.

Uh-oh.

Peggy and I have been working with a realtor and looking at houses whenever she comes to San Antonio (and I have been seeing several homes while here by myself), but we were not looking seriously yet because we had no offers on our home in Baton Rouge. The house has barely been on the market for six weeks. Now we have to close on the new house in San Antonio in less than four weeks?!

I accepted the offer. Then I called Peggy and told her to get to San Antonio as quickly as possible. I also called the realtor and asked him to remove from consideration any home that was currently occupied. There is no way we can ask someone to be out of a house in time for us to close and move in. I know someone just did that to us, but Peggy’s a ninja. I don’t expect anyone else to be able to do what she can do.

I also asked the realtor to hook us up with someone who could get the financing done and closed in that period of time. The mortgage company almost screwed up the deal when we bought our house in Baton Rouge, so I am a little sensitive on that subject. He assured me that as soon as we found a house that he had someone who could get everything done and closed in two weeks, even with the holidays coming up. I don’t believe him, but even if he is wrong by 50% we can still close in time.

Peggy got to San Antonio on Thursday night and we spent all day Friday and Saturday looking at prospective homes. On Saturday night we made an offer on a house. We continued looking at homes after church on Sunday. The owner countered late Sunday afternoon and then accepted our second offer.

As excited as we are to be getting this done so quickly, I really cannot get too excited until the mortgage company comes through. I had already put together the information the realtor told me to prepare to expedite the process. Now it’s in their corner.

Peggy and I went down to the San Antonio Riverwalk for a celebratory dinner. I will be staying in San Antonio this week to make sure the mortgage folks have everything they need. Peggy will be going home to start packing. I know it seems early, but we have a trip planned for the week between Christmas and New Year’s so she wants to get started.

So much for a lull before Christmas…

I had a follow-up visit with my ankle surgeon today in Baton Rouge, so I came home from San Antonio last night. As frequently happens here it was cold last week and beautiful and warm today. Caitie had some work to do in Baton Rouge today, so she brought the baby to spend the day with Peggy.

My visit with the doctor will be my last. The surgery was not successful. Despite rigorous physical therapy I do not have any more lateral stability in the ankle than I had before the surgery. I can walk and I do not have a lot of pain, but I cannot run and I cannot play any kind of sports. Very disappointing.

So, what do you do when life is disappointing? You take your granddaughter and go visit Mike the Tiger.

People were again viewing our home for sale, so we needed to get out of the house. Caitie had not seen the new tiger, so we decided to go over to campus and pay him a visit.

He has grown a lot since the last time I visited him, but he is still just a baby. And he was very interested in my baby. Perhaps as an hors d’oeuvre, perhaps because she is so beautiful. I spent some time talking to him about my ankle and he growled at the appropriate point in the story to let me know he understands. Then, as always, we took some pictures.

I am going to show a second picture to make sure you see what is lurking in the back of that cute baby photo. Here’s a little zoom for you:

Look at that good boy — he is so pretty! And he was definitely interested in what was going on. I told him that I appreciated the chat, and he wished me good luck with both the ankle and the sale of the house.

I can get on with the rest of the weekend now.