July 8, 2009. Western Head, N.S. Documents.

I was the only one laughing, but the scene seemed to me hilarious, so I started to laugh out loud. No one else saw the humor so no one laughed, except me, and I was convulsed with laughter. Not even Ken laughed. This was the scene taking place in an office of an attorney in Liverpool. In this small office were five people: one lawyer, two administrative ladies and Ken and me. We were there to sign and have notarized lots of papers. We are purchasing a condo in Jackson but we will not be able to attend settlement, so we asked for Christina have power of attorney for us. The mortgage company insists on original signatures on the loan documents, so today at noon, they e mailed all the documents, which consisted of 74 pages to sign and initial. 11 must be notarized. Now in Canada, this is not as easy as in the U.S. Only lawyers can be notaries, so we had to find an attorney in town and get the papers completed. It took two competent ladies and one attorney to figure out the papers. I thought it was ridiculous, so I started laughing. But I soon straightened up and got serious and we did complete the signing. It took us two hours.

Getting these papers to us here has not been easy. I started asking three weeks ago, after the loan was approved, but as most mortgage companies work only to the deadlines of tomorrow, it took Susan, our agent in Jackson to explain to them that over night courier service does not work from Nova Scotia. On Monday they promised them to us on Tuesday morning, then perhaps first thing Wednesday. Finally they arrived at two o'clock, just in time to get the papers signed and notarized and drive to the courier service in Bridgewater. They pick up until one o'clock here in Liverpool, but we missed that deadline. By three o'clock it was clear to me we would not meet the four o'clock deadline in Bridgewater. So now our plan is to drive the package to the courier service first thing in the morning, and hope it arrives in time for the settlement on the fifteenth. Nothing is easy here. Everything takes four times the time it does at home. But for the life of me, I do not know why it takes four days or more to deliver an over-night package. It is a mystery.

Another mystery is that the attorney we met today was not the person I thought he was. I thought the attorney was the head of the firm, but it turns out that he is a new partner and I don't even know his name. Now I am wondering if I called him Mr Conrad during this whole ordeal. I'll never know.