Looming Anniversaries and Other Filthy Tales of Home Ownership

So, it’s been awhile again. I know. I get caught up in the machinations of life and working and crafting. That’s not an excuse. Just the way it goes. Where were we? Dear Fatherinlaw died in December and we put him next to Darlingmotherinlaw. So in all of this time, what my brain has actually been working on all of these rituals in life. There are rituals in every part of our lives. Built around all of these things that we must cope with. Birth, death, marriage, working…all of these things have these elaborate things/ceremonies that we all follow. And these are also the things that hold us together as humans, I suppose.

I own my house, now. Finally. It only took 3 years. Another ritual that ends with a giant bill in the mailbox. And now I sit amidst the craft horde, trying to decide what to do next. I thought I would get to this point and there would be some giant pointy arrow sign…blinking in some general direction of what is…should…could happen. Let me just tell you about that arrow. It points everywhere and nowhere all at the same time. And it stopped blinking a long time ago. It’s not helpful.

So I sit here. Looking around. Feeling trapped by where I landed with this man that abandoned me in the wilds of Dipshitville. I think about things. I think about this entire bit of life with him. How I used to tell him that he was wasting our time together on things that didn’t matter. Of course sometimes we didn’t see eye to eye on what mattered. Because what mattered is gone now.

So I think of that ritual of saying good bye to the things that matter to us. And to the security and the love that they offered. The ritual of blindly starting over in a land that is completely unfamiliar. The ritual of finding yourself in the all encompassing darkness. The ritual of moving forward when the map has suddenly become a guide to a place that no longer exists . You’ve seen that map. The one that shows you the roads before the apocalypse but doesn’t tell you where the zombies lie in wait.

I don’t know what the next step is. I’m drowning helplessly in trying to do this all on my own. I don’t know where to go. I have no idea what to do. Hell, I can’t even make myself supper most nights. It’s way too much commitment and energy. I’m just flailing. The answer may come. I don’t have a plan. My head is down. I keep putting one foot in front of the other.

I do know one thing. I am okay on my own. I don’t need anyone to take care of me. Fawn over me. Pay me fake compliments. I don’t need anyone to fight my battles. To defend me. I have stood on my size 7s. Planted firmly in the ground and not looking back. I’ll continue to do that.

So too much thinking? Prolly. But I’m still here.

Bittersweet Trips and Weird Ghosts and Echoes

It’s been a while, darling readers, I know. It’s been busy trying to stock the shop and keep it stocked. I’m always only half successful at that and then spent most of my time kicking myself for not working harder over the winter and swearing to myself that THIS winter will certainly be different. Hahahaha. 

So youngest daughter is finally getting married to the guy that she has been practically has long as her dad and I were together. She decided to do a destination wedding which has cleaned out what teeny bit of cushion I had. So here we are in Cancun. I am filled with all sorts of mixed feelings. In reality, I was afraid of the overwhelming stuff that was going to certainly come up and yell every moment of every day that the last time I was here was with Fix-it-guy. In fact we left the morning that Katrina hit. Which is a great story. Terrifying at the time. And damn lucky that we were on the last flight out.

So of course I had to leave in the middle of the night. I swear that is the only time planes leave the middle of fucking nowhere. And so being half exhausted and packing and repacking 10 times, I finally had what I thought was a good variety of clothes. It wasn’t. All the restaurants at this resort was casual dressy clothes for dinner and I only brought one hundreds that fits the bill. No capris at all. Just my one pair of jean shorts and 4 t-shirts and 3 tank tops. You can always order in, but that seems fucking pathetic. I brought 1 semi formal dress and the dress I brought for the wedding. One pair of super glitzy sandals. I guess I didn’t ask enough questions about what was appropriate. Sigh. Once again those fucking incomprehensible social norms just speed over me.

As I said, it has been a very mixed bag. I’m a simple girl. All the food is way over my paygrade. I’ve managed to find a few things that have not been awful. And a few things have been really good. We’ve discussed my food issues before. I’m not starving.

My room is amazing. Way too much for just me. The bed is huge. I have a private pool. I have a jacuzzi. I feel like a misrouted princess. It’s nice, but really makes me miss the Fix-it-guy. He would have adored this room. It is A. MAZE. ING. 

We had a catamaran trip today. It was amazing being on the boat in the sun and on the waves. I could seriously do that every day. I mean every one of them. It makes,you rethink every choice you have made in life. Funny how that works. I’m burnt to a crisp. And exhausted. Felt like a set of training wheels that have been raised too much. But you, know. That’s one of those things.  

Things you Don’t think about until you are in a sea of significant others and you are the lone single person. You ate not an octopus and it is really annoying to have to ask others to put sunscreen on you. You Don’t have anyone to share little moments with. You are just there trying to not look conspicuous. You have no one to eat dinner with. Or lunch. Or breakfast. And you Don’t want people to feel sorry for you  because truthfully, at some point, you have to make your peace with being in this place in life. And being introduced as Fixitguy’s widow is just awkward and weird for everyone. So welcome to my life. Lol.

So the big disaster of the weekend has been that I packed 10 balls of yarn to work on hats for the shop and no crochet hooks. I made a trip to Wal-Mart and found the only fucking one in the universe without crochet hooks. I may make one more try tomorrow. At least the plane trip home may not be a total wash. 

So tomorrow is the wedding. We will not have Fixitguy. Which will seem all sorts of strange. It also continues to feed that feeling inside of me that I just don’t belong in these places anymore. I am an echo among the ghosts of my old life.  I try to keep one foot there but the balance is off and I just feel dizzy. 

I have this feeling of needing to make decisions and I am overwhelmed with all the decisions feeling wrong. I am stuck in place and the world swirls around me. I wish I could find a place to be stuck that didn’t feel so stuck. It will come, I suppose. 

In the meantime, here is a picture of my little private pool. It doesn’t even look real.

And this is my view from my little veranda.

This is my frustration about workplace social constructs and forced social interactions with coworkers….

As you all know, dear readers, occasionally social constructs throw me for a loop. Now, I will admit that I am already in my yearly fuckitall slump which really doesn’t help matters much. And truthfully, no one can win when I am in this mood. It’s been steadily going downhill at my job. First there was a huge change in my actual position. I’ve somewhat recovered from that. Then there is the general August through October malaise that does its bloody best to kill me and usually just incapacitates me for huge blocks of endless time. I hate this. I really do. But I haven’t found a more reasonable way to deal with it.

So, we are somewhat recovered from my job being realigned. But now there is lots of complaining and stressing from my coworkers about this restructure. One co worker has to pretend to be more interested in people. One co worker has to figure out how not to be overwhelmed. The other co worker….well, frankly she just needs to figure out what to do about her husband. I guess I feel penalized. I don’t talk to them for hours everyday, waste an hour eating lunch and talking. And truthfully, they could save an hour every week by simply not trying to save my soul or trying to convince me to go to church. Seriously, have they not met the soulless one that I am? I must not be conveying that well enough. Not that I need to go to church. They spend an hour every morning recreating the sermons from 2 different churches. So that’s enough God for me, thanks.

I don’t understand how these double standards work in my office. I try desperately to get it, but it’s above my pay grade, I guess. The first double standard seems to be that I am never allowed to question anything that they do. However, OfficeBully seems compelled to ask me about everything that is different from how she would do it. Now, if I were to go to her and question how she completed a task, I would be met with THAT tone. You know the one. The one that says “you are the stupidest person I ever met and I can’t believe you have the balls to question me.” And I want to come back with….

So, yes this is my day. Every day.

Now, Overwhelmed Coworker is also the supervisor. So, you absolutely cannot complain about OfficeBully and CluelessWife because they are all friends. And OverwhelmedSupervisor cannot do conflict. AT ALL. So she can’t tell her friends that there is a problem with their behaviour because not only does she not see it, but she also can’t deal with the fall out. So I sit and spin my wheels. Trying to avoid all of them.

But today I was accused of saying something that was just blunt truth but it was called something else and  a weird comment from OfficeBully last week came to the top of my brain and I went….oh! But to OverwhelmedSupervisor, I just shrugged it off and said “whatever”. Because suddenly it all seemed to just make sense. And this is not my first rodeo with office social constructs. I’m learning how to do them a little. I feel like the writing is quickly appearing on the wall for this job. Nothing fits me anymore. And with no money to take time off….sigh.

So last week what set me off is now being referred to in polite company as “The Chick-fil-a incident”. See we have to go to a different town an hour drive away for staff meetings. We always stop for lunch on these days. I always get told that I need to pick because I’m so picky. I get tired of hearing that shit. So that day I just said…do whatever, I’m not eating. They decided on Chick-fil-a. I do not like Chick-fil-a and I wasn’t particularly hungry anyway. So I got a cherry coke and paid attention to my phone while they talked and ate. Fine. A few hours after we arrived back and our home office, I went and got myself something to eat. You should have heard the comments. “Why did you go get food? We just ate.” “No, you ate, I did not.” OfficeBully, thinking she is in rare form “you chose not to eat, not our problem.” So, with this comment, I am thinking, so you already decided that whether or not I ate was not on your radar. And yet, you are now hassling me about it. What. The. Actual. Fuck. guys. How do you even cope with that fucked up logic? Because basically, you are adult enough to choose not to eat when we eat, but not adult enough to go get something later. How is this any of OfficeBully’s business?

And I guess the second thing that got on my nerves was listening to the Liverpool game midweek. I listen on a radio app. Most people know that I rarely miss a chance to at least hear my lads play if I can’t watch. They use radio apps to listen to music, so why does it matter that I choose to listen to a game. There’s that word again. Choose. So, I cursed when they missed a goal. The comment was made “Just ignore her, she’s listening to a game instead of working like she’s supposed to.” Now, I can work and listen to a game just like they can work and listen to music.

So again with the double standards. I know that my nerves are on top of my skin and that I am just more annoyed than usual with everyone and everything. But I am just completely intolerant at this stage in the game. So dear readers, do I walk away like nothing happened? Or should it look more like this?

It’s anniversary time again! Or how I bail the sea with teacups.

Yes, dear readers. Anniversary #2 is looming ever closer and I am, as usual, a complete fuckall mess. Barely coping. All of my nerves are on top of my skin. Everything feels like a cock up. I just put my head down and try to move somewhat forward. Even though I am obviously bailing the sea with teacups. There have been far too many changes this summer and this, as you know, just knocks me off kilter and makes me in general feel awful.

What is going right? Wee Geek has moved to San Diego and is doing really well. He’s in a therapeutic setting right now and this is great for him. He still struggles with the depression, but the sunshine is doing him lots of good and this makes me happy. Him too. I wish that he would have come home, but this is working, so I’m not going to fuck with it until it’s not working. Which is really hard. I don’t like him being so far from home. It’s not ideal for me. But it’s not about me.

We had a major shift in my day job. It is taking every ounce of self control that I have to stay planted in my seat because I am still kicking myself for leaving my last day job. At least financially. Atmosphere wise it was completely toxic and unhealthy for everyone. In that way I am completely glad to be out of that. It hasn’t changed much. But things would probably be drastically different if I was still there. But I don’t know. The powers that be really had issues with me and I think that would not have changed much. I don’t know how many of the issues were caused by my former boss, however.

So shift in day job. I’m having to take on a combined role. That I hate. And already, the plan for the combined role in theory is so that we can advocate for families better, but apparently I have already fucked that up. So a new rule has been added to my list.

1. Stay in your cube.
2. When in doubt, see Rule #1.
3. Only advocate for families in theory. Actual practice of advocacy is frowned upon.

I get lots of flack at my day job. Because I don’t socialise. Because I’m not actually a people person. Because I just don’t quite fit (damn that autism puzzle piece thing). But these girls have a way of making me feel as if I am always wrong and shaming me for that not quite fit. I am always left with this idea that they are barely tolerating me. They are all buddies. I feel that gap. I truly do. And it’s not that I want this great friendship with my coworkers. I don’t. But I always have this third wheel feeling. Which most of the time, I ignore it. Other times it feels like a giant hole in the office. You know, the one where the air is heavy with some kind of tension that you are trying to interpret whether it’s real or imagined. I never know if it’s coming from me or them. And that is the hard part. This new role has me running in place trying to figure out what my job is. There is also this underlying hint of sarcasm about my participation in office “outings”. I go occasionally. More for them than me. But I go. And then I get comments about not having to participate. Sigh. Damned if I do. Damned if I don’t.

So. Anniversaries. Fix-it-guy will be gone 2 years tomorrow. We all have our coping mechanisms. I don’t know how healthy mine are, but I move forward. I spend more time crafting than normal lately. But I also have more shows than normal to get ready for. I spend more time binge watching tv. Prolly  not healthy, either. My friends check on me non stop during this week. I nod and pretend to be keeping my shit together when it really looks like scientist visiting week in the monkey cage. The house grows ever nearer to being in my name. Except this bit of things is moving more at the speed of evolution than in any reasonable time frame. I’m less in “burst into tears” mode than I was last year. But I still miss that big tall goofy guy like crazy.

What did coping look like this year? Bonus daughter #2 got engaged and is getting married in October. In Cancun. Bonus daughter #1 is crazy busy with her store. Me, I am still just dwaddling back here. A step sideways. A step backward. A step the other sideways. I feel like all I have done for 2 years is wait. Wait for lawyers. Wait for decisions by other people. Wait for something to happen or not happen. Wait. Wait. Wait. Fucking Wait. And let’s not forget the frustration. Jesus jumping crimany on a pogo stick has there been frustration. I think I’m ahead and I’m really in another state following a completely different set of instructions for assembling Ikea furniture when I’m really trying to set the time on the VCR.

And can we talk about that eclipse for a second. I had special goggles and a viewer box and was really excited for something different in my little mundane world in the darkness of this week from hell. Of course, I had to reprimanded for wasting too much time on it. I get so tired of other people micro managing my time. Jobs. Who needs them? This whole last 2 years has been like watching someone that looks like you win the lottery and take your dream vacation, while you are chained to a tree with a very short leash inside a doghouse with no windows.

I don’t know what this next year will bring. Pray for lots of Liverpool wins because that makes me crazy happy. Pray for things to start feeling a little more like I can breathe. I want to get the website back up and running. Get some sales. Get. Out. Of. This. Place. Whatever the fuck that looks like.

So, darling love of my life. While I feel like my heart weighs more than a herd of elephants and is threatening to break apart and wash me away in the flood of grief, I still love you more than all the fishies in the all the oceans. More than all the squids and octopussies in the sea. And more than all the sea monkeys, too. My life has a gigantic 6 foot 2 hole that no one can fill and I miss you like absolute crazy. Nothing is as good or fun without you. I cry every time I hear that song. And that one. And yes, that one, too. I want to have you back in the worst way.

Keep Calm and Beat the Hell Out of Them With Your Big Stick

Well, readers, I know you are dying to know the fine details of the last of the house saga. And I REALLY want to tell you all about it. However, it’s not over yet. There are no clear timelines for it to be over and Bright and Shiny Lawyer avoids all mention of putting an expiration date on just how the fuck long is this stupid shit going to take? The house is paid off. The Bank of Asshatery received the money. The funds are gone from my bank account. They have sent the lien release and the mortgage pay off release. And yet, I still do not own my husband’s house. And remember that $1500 in taxes and house insurance that I paid into a no balance escrow account? I get to do that again, except to the tune of $2000 to the county assessor and the insurance company because someone has decided at the B of A that I actually paid them back for something that they already paid that they didn’t. Where the hell that is coming from I have no fucking idea. Oops, sorry, the money tree that grows out of my ass sometimes just sprouted a new branch and it poked me.

As most of you are familiar, I am once again drowning in the eddies of the water that has filled the 7 concentric rings of Dante’s hell right here in little ole Dipshitville, Indiana. I thought I was having bright spots. I took Wee Geek to see the Damned in Indy and we met with Captain Sensible. Talked with him for a bit and got pictures and autographs. Can I just say how utterly lovely he is as a person and human in general? I had made these little dolls of him and Dave Vanian. Aren’t they too fucking adorable for words? He is definitely the personality of the group. I fell hopelessly in love with him. Even though he’s a Crystal Palace fan. Poor man.

Wee Geek had an awesome time. I made the decision to do the meet and greet in Detroit on Saturday and my word was I disappointed. Supposedly the band moved the meet and greet up to 430 instead of 6. No one showed according to staff. They claimed the band promised to do meet and greet afterward. Which was fine. This did not happen.  I spent 3 hours on the phone with Live Nation and was basically told too bad so sad. Not our problem. I talked with the manager of the venue and was told that I was completely wrong about the entire event. That they aren’t responsible for the band or the money or anything. They are just the venue. So I have given up all hope of being able to get anything to rectify the situation at all. And now I think Dave Vanian is a pompous asshat. Which is prolly the worst possible ending to this story.

In this era of excitement not to be blamed for anything, we no longer take responsibility. For. Anything. Never mind that we disappointed our fans or anything. Who the fuck cares? They are only the ones who put you there. I’m a little bitter after being passed around by lots of people who don’t want to take responsibility for anything in the universe.

The upside of the whole Detroit thing was that I got to spend the entire day with a girlfriend that I haven’t been able to see for a lot of years. It’s been so long that we didn’t even know when the last time was that we’d seen each other face to face. She’s having a crappy divorce. As if any of them are good. But hers is particularly awful.

In other news, I opted for leaving town for the market season this year and I’m going to a bigger market in another town. I hate to do this. Because I really want to support my little corner of hell that I have made home, but they have to support me. And that was pretty much the bottom line of all of it. It was the deciding factor. It’s hard to make a go off it in small business. Harder when you have a teeny little niche like I do. I keep kicking myself for not doing more over the winter. I should be more prepared. But I’m not and it is what it is. I have to live with it and do the best I can. This is what happens when you are trying to work a full time job and run your own business, too.

I also am trying to figure out where I am going to get the money to pay for traveling to bonus daughter’s wedding. I hope this market season is gang busters. Because it has to be. I am tired of feeling like I am stuck in some non-creative hole. I really want to make a good go of this and have it be something. So I just keep taking everything in stride. Doing as much as I can when I can and saying hail Mary’s that the rest will fall into place. I think it will. It just takes a little courage and a lot of perseverance. I’m excited to see where I can go with it. And I have a lot of support.

 

 

Fighting Bank of America or How to Become the Owner of Your Husband’s House

Dearest readers, here we are again. The drama with the Bank of Asshat-ery may almost be at a close. A quick catch up. When Fix-it-guy died August 24, 2015, we owed $4711.90 on our house. You will also remember that Incompetent Dumbass Lawyer told me not to make any  payments on the house. I dutifully did this, because he’s the expert, he should know the thing that I am supposed to do, right? Oh dear reader, you are obviously just as deluded as I am about experts. So Fast forward 19 months and a new Bright and Shiny Lawyer. We had our settlement conference with the Bank of Asshat-ery’s lawyer.

So, it must be a rule that you must send your most cunty lawyer to do a job. She is dumpy looking and self important. Actually looked as if she might have just rolled out of bed. She wasted 15 minutes complaining about having to drive an hour to my county because our county doesn’t allow these sort of things to happen over the phone. Once in a conference room she proceeds to hand me a Harry Potter novel of paperwork to “assume the mortgage”. Now, dear reader, we have made it abundantly clear that I have no intention in the universe of assuming the mortgage. I have wanted to pay it off since the beginning. That has always been the plan. To finish what Fix-it-guy started. And Bright and Shiny Lawyer told Cunty Faced Lawyer this. Cunty Faced Lawyer gave the longest most audible sigh and then asked me if I even had the money to pay it off. I damn sure do, bitch, let me write you a Nightmare Before Christmas check. What was that amount again?

Then I find out it’s a process. Bright and Shiny Lawyer encourages Cunty Faced Lawyer to call the bank for a payoff amount which is somewhere hovering between 2 times more than the original and 3 times more than the original. They think I should pay for their foreclosure attorney. And here’s another kicker, I get to pay for the imaginary escrow balance that consists of the taxes that aren’t due until April and the house insurance that isn’t due until August. So I’m fine. Let’s walk over to my bank and transfer the money since you only take certified funds. No, it’s a process, they will email the actual payoff amount on Monday. So Monday comes and so does an email from Bright and Shiny Lawyer, somehow the amount of the payoff has jumped almost $2000 dollars from the amount quoted on Friday. What the fuck changed? No one knows. But we are now very solidly closer to the 3 times amount than the 2 times amount.

On Wednesday I trudge down to the bank. My heart is breaking. I feel like I can’t breathe and I’m trapped in a cyclone of hell. I do meaningless things all morning because my brain needs some repetitive thing that I have to concentrate on slightly to feel calm. Nothing works. I am in tears. To the bank I go.

And the bank teller hassles me about my name on my account. This is a 20 minute process and I am barely hanging on with my fingernails to the edge of sanity that is suddenly asking me if I really care about hanging on to it. I do not. Finally they decide that this transaction can be made. Another 10 minutes to figure out the paperwork. And then some hassle over where the physical address is. For. An. Electronic. Transaction. I’m pretty sure that I don’t have to provide any other person/entity with their own address when completing a transaction. I asked the girl to please not fuck with me today and just do the damned transaction. My fingernails are slipping and I can no longer promise that I will remain calm for the ride we are on.

Finally the transaction is processed and I’m presented with a receipt. Oh joy. I bop to the post office to mail off complaint against Incompetent Dumbass Lawyer with the state and then on to Bright and Shiny Lawyer’s office to give him receipt of payoff.

I go home exhausted and in a flood of tears again. I do not real relieved to have this done. I feel apprehensive and awful. It feels like I’ve chipped off the last bit of Fix-it-guy. I feel like he will be gone and he is already starting to feel like less than a picture. The memories of his voice are gone and I can no longer imagine his gentle kisses or the way he held me. It is the last thing in my life with his name on it. It feels wrong and awful and horrible to change it. I know that I have to. But it feels bad. Everyone assures me that it was always my house too. But see, I never wanted to own a house. That was his dream. And I feel as if I am still living it. Without real purpose. Now that he’s gone. That dream was beautiful with him. Unpurposeful and surreal without him. I am starting to feel like an episode of “Legion”. Minus the Pink Floyd references.

Despite my exhaustion, I did not sleep a wink that night. I lay there in the bed staring at the ceiling. Flipping channels. Trying to figure out what happens next. Because there are still more bits of this to do. Just fragments of things to settle. I have no more energy for these fights. I am angry and don’t know who to be angry at. I can’t be pissed at Fix-It-Guy. He obviously never planned to die. So my anger get directed askew at  the Bank of Asshat-ery, Life in General, Incompetent Dumbass Lawyer and the Universe as a whole. I wish I had fireballs or some other cool super power to throw at all of these things. But, no. I do not.

Dear Reader, a cautionary tale is to be found in all of this. Do not choose Bank of America as your mortgage company. I don’t care how many sparkles they put on their unicorns. I don’t care what the incentives are. Stay the hell away from them. They are a bunch of insensitive greedy bastards.

Welcome to this shiny little corner of hell, come in and help me redecorate

So, dear readers, it’s getting to be a bumpy ride here in the Land of the Not Quite Right. As some long time readers will remember Fixitguy died in August 2015. Yes, it’s really been that long. Trust me, no amount of flailing makes that go away. So, in that time I have been keeping my nose down and moving forward with one step right in the front of the other. Even when that moving forward seemed pointless, still I persisted.

Just a recap of things in general. We are THIS far past his death and my house still sits in limbo like some sort of Victorian ghost in the middle of Neverwhere. Of course the biggest problem with all of this has been LazyLawyer who told me not to pay on the house so I wouldn’t have to pay credit card bills and in recent months has been on the “Fuck it, just let them foreclose on it” boat. Which is in no way helpful to me because I still need to have someplace to live. He has done nothing to lift my opinions of solicitors in general. So, I hired a new attorney who has taken me on as a personal crusade. The bad guy in this little melodrama is Bank of America (to be known as the Bank of Asshat-ery for the remainder of my dealings with them).

Now Bank of Asshat-ery has done everything in their power to be as non-accommodating and non-apologetic about Fixitguy’s death as anyone could be. Within days of being notified of his death the calls began to harass me about making payments. This whole thin seems bizarre to me as the loan was in his name, so technically I have no legal liability to pay this loan, but the Bank of Asshat-ery says that I do because well….they said so, of course. Within months of his death, they put in some sort of paperwork to expedite foreclosure which LazyLawyer told me to ignore. Just a formality. All part of the game, he said. Within a few short months of that they started sending the little Asian guy to my door to take my picture and hand me a little yellow envelope. The harassment is unbelievable. I finally had to take my phone number off of their books to get them to stop calling me. There were days that they called 10 times a day. I, of course, was blindly following LazyLawyer’s very bad legal advice. Which in the end looks as if I will be made to pay double what FixItGuy owed when he died. Isn’t life wonderful?

Around Thanksgiving, I took the reins in my own hands, since LazyLawyer seemed incompetent to and called the bank myself asking for a pay off amount. By the time I received the documents, the deadline had passed. When I called to inform them, they told me that was too bad and now I owed another $1500.

New lawyer who is bright and shiny in a way that I hope stuns the Bank of Asshat-ery into severely underestimating him and making them do something really stupid is working with the Bank of Asshat-ery to come to an agreement on how this is going to get paid off. They offered to let me assume the loan at the new payment point of double almost triple what we owed 18 months ago. He told them that I was willing to write a check immediately and sign a non-disclosure. They vetoed that. The Bank of Asshat-ery are a bunch of greedy fuckers who have no empathy for anyone that does not contribute to their pocket books. I am desperate to write a check for them. I have been pleading for them to just let me write them a check. I am more than willing to write a check to them. I just don’t think it’s fair that I should have to write one for almost triple the amount that the Fixitguy owed. I also think it’s hideously unfair that I have had to empty out his retirement account to make this possible. Lots of things about this situation seem grossly unfair, but some are just plain more unfair than other things. I don’t know how this is going to go with the Bank. I have faith. I don’t know where that will get me, but a girl’s gotta hang on to whatever she can.

 

No one has time for drama, especially not me!

Dear darling readers, it’s been a couple of weeks filled with crap and drama. The most annoying of which is Fixitguy’s family. His sister and father are such selfish, self-serving asshats that it literally defies my ability to process it. I became my brother-in-law’s guardian last year and Asshat father-in-law decided to fight me on it. On the grounds that I’m weird and different and I’m proud of it. Wow. He is ridiculous and I’m glad the judge had the good sense to shut him down.

Today it’s an entirely new drama. Because of IdiotLawyer’s advice my house is now in foreclosure and apparently a notice was in the paper. AFIL has nothing else to do but read the paper. I believe he’s one of their 25 subscribers. So he and SIL commiserate and SIL starts texting BonusDaughters1&2 to find out why I’m not taking care of Fixitguy’s business. They tell her it’s taken care of. Next thing I know she is texting another friend saying her dad is getting a lawyer to “take the house away”. I have no idea what he is thinking or how he thinks he can accomplish this. But I told SIL that both of them need to mind their own fucking business. She replies that it was in the paper and so it’s everyone’s business. I point out that she lives in New Mexico, so still not hers. I am just so exhausted of the take take take from this family. I am taking care of the brother/son that neither of them can be bothered with. AFIL calls FIL periodically to ask why there is no headstone on Fixitguy or his mother. I just feel like they should have called and asked if I needed help rather than commiserating with each other and stirring up shit. I mean, really. So now I just have this cartoon in my head of vultures in Christian suits banging each other over their asshat heads with bibles. AFIL is such a great Christian and knows the only true way to believe, but this is how he behaves toward his daughter in law who stepped in to help out with his insane child. Yep, dear readers, the insanity runs deep and hard in that family. It is enough to make me want to go live in a mildly furnished cave with cable and space for a craft business, so if you hear of anything, let me know.

Hypocrisy has never been on my list of things that I entertain easily and the hypocrisy that these two people represent makes me furious. The simple answer is that they do not have their own lives and must create drama in other people’s lives. It makes them feel important and accomplished. I normally just shake my head, but the stressors were great yesterday and my tolerance for them was non-existent. I am locked in an almost impossible situation and these two step right up as if on cue to add to the pile. The simple answer is for AFIL to write a check to help cover some of this stuff. But it’s WAY better to point out everyone’s fault in not taking care of these things and WAY easier than actually pretending he is a decent human being for five minutes. That is just too much to bear. I am glad that I have cut certain people out of my life since Fixitguy’s death.

Of course, our 15th anniversary would have been on Sunday the 5th. This fills me with overwhelming sadness. It is anniversary number 2. Which seems so crazy to me. Wee Geek and I were talking about missing him last night. It is just so odd to have this 6 foot 2 hole inside of me that only he can fill. I am forever asked about dating and my reply is always, “Boyfriend? God no. How do you take care of them? Do you have to feed them? Water them? Take them for walks? That sounds like way more responsibility than I am equipped to handle in my current state. Sorry. No.”

I am reading at a funeral today. My dear UFOconspiracybuddy asked me to read a poem at his mom’s funeral. So I’m off to do that today. Maybe some sort of clarity will magically jump into my head and make me feel more kindly toward the idiots in my life. I doubt it, but a girl can dream.

Now that everything is broken, who stole my fucking glue?

I know, I know. It’s been forever. Things in my world seem to stand absolutely fucking still or whirl around like a tornado on meth. I have started year 2. I’ve actually made it through a bunch of seconds. Good for me. I still don’t own my house. I’m still stranded in Dipshitville, Indiana. By a dead guy.

So the big things. I am still scurrying around trying to make the shop make money. The next month is full of website revamps, new merchandise, training Wee Geek to be an employee, and madly looking for conventions that get what I do.

Other big things. I fired my piece of shit lawyer who was some evil mix of incompetence, stupidity, and just plain laziness. The new lawyer tried to tell me that it was that he was not intrinsically motivated to complete things that require executive functioning skills. I do believe that’s lawyer speak for fucking lazy. So the new lawyer promises I will own my house in 90 days. I just have to trust him to do some negotiating and pay everything off. The old lawyer would shrug his shoulders and tell me to let the bank foreclose. Fuck that, I need somewhere to live, jackass! I do not know how this will actually pan out because my experience with lawyers is not good. Long time readers know that I can speak fairly expertly on this topic.

Wee Geek is having to make some decidedly huge changes in his life. I am looking forward to this. However, the last month has reared a heads up of ugly truths that we will have to deal with. I realised that life with the Fixitguy has made me somewhat complacently trustful of people which has done nothing but cost me money. So trust issues that I had forgotten have popped up once more. Also, Wee Geek has had to face some of his own demons. A brief stint in hospital has put him on track with some good meds that seem to be helping with the depression and closing off the huge black hole that threatens to eat his soul for a bite size snack. It has also put some intervention in his path. So we have him set up for some counseling that we hope will get him through this hiccup. It has also forced him to think very pointedly about what he wants to be when he grows up besides Mom’s Indentured Servant, which truthfully is his life for a little while, but one that I hope he can drag himself out of sooner rather than later. He had a job shadow through his vocational rehabilitation services that seems to actually be the one. I have always wanted him to do something with his art and this may be his shot. He shadowed a tattoo artist the other day and really felt like this would fit him. I think it will too. Plus it has gotten him drawing again. WIN! Insert happy dance here.

I discovered that every month has indeed got a 24th. I kinna skated by it in December because I went to visit the maternal unit for a week over Christmas and was super busy. Long time readers will be interested to know that I visited my brother over this time who has made a decidedly concerted and concentrated effort to be in my life since the Fixitguy left me alone on this earthly plane. We are more alike than different on some things and worlds apart on others. But I feel like he is accepting of me for the general wacky chick I am and that is a good thing. He needed a little diversity in his life. Lol.

I feel life gliding by. I fill my evenings with crafts and with Wee Geek moving back home somewhat permanently for the time being, the craft supply hoard must get itself under control somehow. What that actually means is that life without the Fixitguy, although occasionally floundery, is starting to merge into some new pattern that perhaps he was training me for over all these years. I realised today that February 5th would have been our 15th wedding anniversary. Sigh.

There feels as if there have been many things that have happened. My UFOconspiracyfriend was hit by a car in downtown Dipshitville. Broke his arm in several places, but he is on the mend after a surgery. He is also bored our of his brain. Poor guy. I have not been a good friend with all of Wee Geek’s stuff, but we will soon be back on track with that as well. I have lots of crochet projects. I have orders for pink kitty cat hats and shark slippers which should keep me busy for a few weeks! So slowly things are happening with the shop.

So dear readers, watch out when crossing the road in Dipshitville, watch for updates to the shop, and cross your fingers for Wee Geek.

How to Survive Year 1…or the seemingly never ending morass of bullshit you must endure now that your spouse is gone

So, dear reader, we did it! We survived the first year! Congratulations. Pat yourself on the back, because obviously, no one else is around to do that for you! So…..now what?

You thought that things would be a lot different, didn’t you? Ha! Nope. You only survived because you don’t know how to not survive. You put your head down and put one foot in front of the other. Every. Fucking. Day. Because you had to. If you’re like me, you didn’t inherit a metric fuck-ton of money when your spouse died. You inherited an entirely new set of headaches that no amount of fuckitall is going to take away.

I thought that I would have my house paid off and I would be living somewhere else by now. Nope. My lawyer assures me he is working on it, but since he’s never in his office, and certainly doesn’t answer phone messages, I have no idea whether or not this is truthful or not. How hard can this be? The only thing in the estate was the house. But this has brought a completely new set of headaches. For one thing, I now owe more on the house than I did when Andrew died. Totally fair, right? No.

Also I can not change the name on my insurance account until the house is settled. Because God forbid what would happen if the whole thing burned down around my ears? Well, I know the answer to that. The insurance agency would issue a check that I could not cash in Andrew’s name to cover the contents of said house. Which brings us squarely into this week’s drama.

So, apparently the insurance company has been overcharging us for years. Thank you, Farmers. Not applying the correct discounts. So when I added the new car, apparently this brought this little black seed out into the light and they have been fixing it. One small refund check at a time. The bank said to sign his name and then mine and add “representative payee/personal representative”. Which I have dutifully done on every single check I have received. Until this week. Suddenly, the bank has decided that this is not their policy and that I have to get the check reissued. In my name. Sounds simple, right? Nope.  I call Farmers and talk to an agent who gives me a phone number to call. I call the number and get “virtual voting has ended”. Click. I call Farmers back. They give me 2 new numbers to call, one of which calls some black hole in outer space and never connects and the other, interestingly enough to Bank of America. Or at least, a class action lawsuit for them. Because apparently, they’ve  been overcharging people for years. So, I call Farmers back and get a girl who tells me that they just have to change the name on the billing account to me. This change should take 24-48 hours and I will get an email notifying me of this change before Friday. Email never appears. I call Farmers again. Different lady tells me that is not the case at all and that they can only issue the check to Andrew or to Andrew’s estate. Which does me no good. I call the bank and they tell me that they can’t cash the check because Andrew was never on my account. Grrr.

So this morning I went to the downtown branch of the back and cried. Playing the widow card with as much enthusiasm as having a whole hand of Aces at the Poker table. I have all the paperwork. I cry. I talk. I cry. The guy I’m talking to looks at paperwork. Looks at ID. Looks at paperwork. Goes and talks to someone. Comes back. Looks at paperwork. Says “follow me” and leads me to a teller who he tells to deposit this check. Sigh. WTAF. It never should have taken all of this effort a week after Andrew’s one year anniversary to do all of this. It’s insane. They should all be ashamed.

I know you thought I’d be living some kind of charmed carefree life by now. I’m not. Nothing has changed. I’m still barely making ends meets. Still working. Still trying to get Autiezombiegirl off the ground. Still barely surviving. Interestingly enough, I discovered the bottom of the depression barrel this week. Yeah….I’m in the basement of that, right now. But who wouldn’t be? Fuck. I can’t move on. Hell, I can’t even move until all of this crap is settled. So, I just sit. Spinning my wheels.

Bank of America sends me a little Asian guy every other day to hand me a yellow envelope that says “Please call immediately” and take my picture.

These are just a few of the things that I am still dealing with. A. Year. Later. In other news, I have also discovered that my heart is still absolutely broken. My tolerance for frustration is at zero. And I honestly think that I am heading straight to Applebee’s after  work and ordering drinks by color. Because I can. And because that’s how I adult. I feel like I have just put up with WAY too much this week. So, if you happen to be around…..

I’m disappointed. I really thought that things would be different in some small way outside of my husband being dead. It just all feels so….depressing. Sigh. You know me dear reader. I’ll get up and do it all over again tomorrow. But it is still overwhelming. And heartbreaking. And I hope that you don’t have to deal with this kind of bullshit if your spouse dies. Because it sucks. It really does. There are days that I just go home and go to bed because I cannot deal with even one more thing. I don’t know how to end this blog, today. So I will just end it with a period.