Hi Everyone,

I’ve decided to post this today rather than Monday since I want to get it out and up before I revise it another ten thousand times.

What's happening in the life of "Last of the Fey" and "Duty Calls"?

Anesidora

Well, now I’ve lost three more. That’s four in four years, as a result I’m beginning to feel my own mortality.

July 06, 2013
Hi Everyone,

My life has recently reminded me of the movie “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.” If y’all hear screams coming from the area of central Oregon, please try to ignore them. I promise not to continue for more than a day or two; and do me the favor of at least pretending I’m not crying, okay?

Well... This “blog/ letter/ adventure/ disaster” started out a couple of weeks ago as a short explanation as to what was going on in my life and in the lives of three (or more) of the stories which are or will be posted here. After writing this (and re-re-re-writing it umpteen dozen times) I decided it was a little long to post as a blog so here ‘tis essentially as a short story which actually is anything but.

That’s correct this is NOT a story but more a compilation of information so all of you will know what’s going on.

Some of you might remember way back in May I asked if anyone had heard from Renae, well... this is a multiply convoluted continuation of that inquery. Among all the other trials and tribulations I’ve been going through I finally had another complexity added to the pile. Renae, by the way, was the person who was posting Teddi’s “Duty Calls”.

Apparently Renae and her husband made it back from their trip abroad in mid-May but they were badly injured in some sort of local accident (still unspecified, at least to myself or my company) a couple of days after returning. They died from their injuries within a few days and the first I and the business happened to learn anything about it was when some yayhoo walked into our Denver branch and tried to take over as well as fire the manager I had working there. Needless to say that went over like a lead balloon and the gentleman was removed from the premises by the police after being detained by the the business’ security team.

I was quickly notified of the non-event and at first I thought we were dealing with a crazy. Well, he returned a few days later with his attorney and a piece of paper which indicated it was a bill of sale to him of the company by Renae’s son through his attorney. At that time the gentleman was notified that I was the owner of seventy-two percent of the business and that he had likely been scammed.

Anyway, the end result was that I and two of my attorneys found it necessary to make a trip to Denver to explain things both to Renae’s offspring, their attorneys, and to the authorities. I was 72% owner and it’s soon to be 80% for reasons to be explained below. There is no real stock but Renae and I had agreements specifying the relative percentages of ownership and those were non-transferable without going through the company to make such transfers.

The son and daughter showed up for the meeting along with their attorney. Their and my legal beagles stepped into another room so they could do their lawyer speak with one another while the son and I looked daggers at each other. If I had known more about him at the time I probably would have been quite willing to challenge him to mud-pies at twenty paces.

Before long the lawyers returned to explain the facts of life to Renae’s son and daughter. The son had apparently talked the daughter into going along with all of whatever he had tried to do thus granting him the authority to be in charge, or so he thought. He was considerably less than pleased to learn that he was not the person in control nor the directing owner of a more or less thriving business. (It now has three offices so I guess that means it’s thriving - at least until I look at and sign off on payroll each week.) Since Renae was 28% owner that made him (8%) and his sister (20%) owners further sending him into the depths of rage. Apparently Renae didn’t think any more of him than I do. Remember, all this still has to be approved by the company, which essentially is me.

At that point the son, in front of no less than six witnesses including the attorneys, stormed out of the conference room and into the building lobby as he yelled back the threat that he would again sell his share of the business whereupon his attorney rushed to catch up to him in order to explain he could not do that having been quickly clued in by my attorneys one more time.

Eventually both his and one of my attorneys continued to explain to him, while standing in the lobby, that before he could own any part of the business, I had to sign off on the transfer of ownership from Renae to the two offspring. That was actually more or less a slam-dunk since Renae’s will specified two sevenths of her portion was to go to him and five sevenths to her daughter. Again any percentage which they each might own would be non-transferable so they couldn’t sell it to an outsider; which is what the son had tried to do and for an exorbitant price well beyond present market value.

Said outsider has since sued the son but that’s his problem, not mine. I hope the son didn’t spend the money, if he did then he has a real problem. Maybe I should say I hope he did spend the money... Vindictive? What do you mean vindictive?

Now, if he wants to sell his portion of the business (approximately 8%) he must first offer it to me at current market value which is quite a bit less than the amount he obtained from the stranger to whom he sold it. How the son can go around day after day with his face red from rage without having a stroke I have no idea. Must have something to do with relative youth and inexperience. He is somewhere near his forties, I think.

I overheard him to say, “okay, I want twenty million for my share.” Once again the attorneys explained to him that his “share” was worth something of the order of three hundred thousand present market value. He reiterated his intent to sell and the price he wanted. At that point I accepted his offer to sell but noted I would do so at present market value plus five percent and only after the next quarterly statement as I presently did not have sufficient funds to make that purchase. I will, in fact, have those funds a little sooner than that because of the mutual insurance policies Renae and I had on each other for the good of the business. That means I can buy him out by the second week of August and have sufficient funds left over to also buy out the daughter’s interests.

The attorneys as well as three of my employees plus the daughter were present in the lobby when I accepted his offer to sell so there were plenty of witnesses. He had refused to return to the conference room so the ‘dirty laundry’ was being washed in the public location of the lobby of a multiple business building and as a result it had attracted some attention.

He again reiterated “twenty million” whereupon my attorney pulled out the ownership agreement which was checked by their attorney who once again pulled the son’s legs out from under him. He could not rescind his offer to sell as it had been accepted by me and witnessed. I wasn’t about to let that troublemaker off the hook. He tried but I wasn’t going to let him get away to pull some other underhanded trick down the road. His offer to sell his portion has been accepted but the value he would receive was approximately three hundred thou. less applicable taxes as I pointed out.

At that point he began screaming again, this time to the effect that there were no taxes due on his inheritance whereupon his own attorney stipulated that his share of the business might have been tax free but the income he derived from the business or from the sale of his portion was capital gains (apparently this varies state to state???). Anyway, he will soon be out of my hair and I fully intend to dilute him with plenty of soap and hot water. Now there is only 20% which will be outstanding and which is to be held by the daughter. She has been much more reasonable. In fact she has asked if there is anything she can do to help and would prefer to retain her portion of the business and try to contribute to its running. I hope she makes a provision in her will that none of her part of the business goes to her brother in the event of her death. I certainly don’t need more drama.

Anyway, the loss of Renae is the second person of long acquaintance whom I’ve lost in recent years. Teddi was the first. There have been others over the years but they seem to be piling up faster and faster more recently.

NEXT.

As to the stories created by Teddi...

Renae saw fit to bequeath all of Teddi’s stories to me. Rolls eyes, and wonders what the son intends to do about that since he was “pissed” that anyone (other than himself, obviously) inherited anything from Renae and her husband.

I’m beginning to wonder if I have a sign on my back that says something to the effect, “fools and idiots flock here.”

Anyway, why is inheriting the stories a problem for me?

I still have a branch of the small business to keep track of until the person I selected as full time manager for the north western branch is able to get up to speed. Granted it hasn’t been that difficult for me to handle but other circumstances have recently arisen which are demanding much more (almost all) of my time and at odd hours.

Both the Denver branch and the one in D.C. have competent managers but I have been handling the western branch up until a month ago. Once the person I have selected has had time to come up to speed (probably another few weeks) I will need only to review reports from the three branches and make empirical decisions which are more involved than the normal day-to-day running of the business. That is something I can do using the Internet (I hope, since I’m not into trans-oceanic commuting. More explanation about that below).

‘My’ business here is only a 100 pound gorilla. The 1200 pound (or approximately 550 kgm) gorilla sitting on my lap arises from my interests in Europe.

Family (in-laws) have a rather “large” business complex over there which has branches located in at least twenty-six countries world wide and with... uhm - lots and lots of businesses and investments involved. They have just lost two of their senior administrative officers (two separate business branches) due to natural deaths. One of these was a brother-in-law of whom I was rather fond. I will miss his levity. The second one was an uncle whom I also liked but didn’t know all that well. We exchanged Xmas cards and had a friendly relationship in that we were never cut throat over my transition.

Push comes to shove, I have been “requested” to return to Europe to be the full time administrator of one of those business branches until such time, presumably four to ten years, that they can decide who they would have leading each of them. (Oh fun and games). I haven’t been in Europe for a number of years much less used any of the languages I knew in conversation - forget business dealings. Pulling me into the whole mess???? Shows you how hard up they are for “family” members to staff the senior positions. I’ve also been sort of persona-non-grata with a couple of the branches of the family who now find that I’m the only family member with the necessary experience, even if a few years out of date, who could pull their chestnuts out of the fire without getting burned myself. What makes it more difficult is that much of the dealings are in a ‘man’s world’ and I am now a woman and have been for some years. I have been guiding that branch for the last ten weeks via Internet conferencing and they are learning that I can play just as deadly as any of the men I’m up against. One of the family members who had been dead set against me has now said to me privately that when it comes time for the confirmation vote he intends to vote in my favor. Will wonders never cease? Of course that might be because I saved his bacon to the tune of over a hundred mil.

At any rate, all of this has hit me at almost the same time so for the last three months I have begun doing all I can for everything while trying to include time for the stories. My voting authority over there totals 37% (two of the six business branches) although I only own just under 14% of the overall enterprise. What can I say? I initially invested really early, some fifty years ago, when the overall business complex was only a dream and originally consisted of two small factories. I then continued to plow all the profits I would have had payable to me back into the business plus my continued contributions, as I could afford them, each year from my stateside earnings which increased my shareholdings without me receiving any financial return back from them.

The twenty-one percent overall voting authority difference arises from a complex set of calculations derived from holding an additional voting authority of forty percent within the branch of the business I am currently administering. Don’t ask, I can’t even figure it out.

Forty percent of my voting privileges come from proxies for shares which are actually owned by six teenagers (European) of whom I have been given the dubious pleasure of training that they might learn to make “intelligent” decisions for the family businesses. Those decisions are to be “intelligent” for them, not necessarily for the businesses although I hope the two can be mutually inclusive. (What can I say? It’s every girl for herself in the long run. I am trying to get them to consider both aspects in their decision making processes.)

One of the girls has a pretty good head on her shoulders as does one of the boys. I think they will be future high level managers if they keep that up. There are no high level managers from outside family.

At the moment the family’s plan is that I shall travel to Italy sometime in November. (Fun, Fun.) I’ll probably wind up living near Lake Como but would prefer to be closer to Milano (where there is a set of offices out of which I can work). If the business owns a property down there somewhere then that would make things much easier for me - I am getting on in years you know so commuting isn’t high on my list of things to do anymore. To top it all off I need to remember how to be more cutthroat in business dealings since I haven’t done much of that since I was... considerably younger. Hell, I think I got my first lessons at cutthroat business dealings from Teddi. No, knives are not allowed in the meetings, but I’m discovering that fountain pens can be just as deadly when wielded in the proper manner.

So, somewhere in the midst of all this I must find time to eat, sleep and hopefully write some more??? The eating hasn’t been too bad since I can still be working while I’m eating but it’s a little difficult to work and sleep at the same time unless everyone else on this planet knows something I don’t. If you do, please don’t try explaining it to me now since at my age I’m more or less set in my ways. Besides, I kind of like being able to dream. (With my eyes closed and while on a nice bed.)

I promise not to abandon “Duty Calls”, nor “Last of the Fey” but at this point I can’t promise just when I can get things going again.

For those of you following Duty Calls... Heh, heh, heh, be ready for some twists and turns. “Road maps. Get your road maps here.” but please be careful to stay off the mountain roads in Italy. They can be treacherous in the winter.

As for Last of the Fey... well, the rest of the first book is Fey, not just Fae (there is a difference).

By the way.... Someone sent me a pm about “Tranquility - Forgotten Menace”... (at my own pm address - which was a surprise.) So at least one person has kept track of the fact that I have been doing much of the writing for the last chapters of Teddi’s story Duty Calls.

I now have all of the material which have been written for Tranquility vol. 2, which looks to be about half of the story plus a “lot” of notes for the remaining chapters, some outlines, a little text... I’ll try to get into that as well as the other two stories. For the time being I will be putting the rest of my own partially written stories (8) and some of Teddi’s (5) on the “back burner” as I try to complete the other three first. I must say, Forgotten Menace does look to be interesting but I’ll need to go back and read Tranquility - Sorcerer/ Sorceress first so I can keep the plot threads running properly. I hope everyone likes fireworks (multiple meanings here - at least I have learned that much).

God Bless you all and I’ll try to get back into the stories as quickly as I can.
There are a few chapters which haven’t been posted and I’ll try to ration them out in the meantime.

Anesidora