Rant: Mortgage Blues

Warning - this is going to be a rant.  A big old rant.  There may be curse words.

About 10 years ago, we took out a small second mortgage on the house to fix the roof.  At the time, I set up an automatic withdrawal, twice a month (since we were both paid bi-weekly), and we've paid it faithfully - in fact, it's down under $3K at this point, so almost paid off.  I got a letter in the mail (with no special markings or anything - from someone I've never heard of) stating that my mortgage was being transferred to a business I've never dealt with. 

Now, first off - I was given no option in this transfer.  Ok, I understand that banks do this stuff all the time, but...  they also inform me that I'm going to need to re-do my automatic withdrawal.  Now, I know damned well that it's possible for them to transfer that info - my primary mortgage has been transferred at least twice, with no needed input from me.  So, now I'm on the hook for getting things reestablished (in the middle of trying to sell the house, move, everything else), with a vendor that I have no established contacts with, that expects me to send them the info through the mail.  Right.  That's not going to work for me.  So I am going to have to figure out a way to get this paid off and out of my hair...

Oh, and they want me to send them information on any other mortgage I may happen to have.  They can go spit for information on any other mortgage I may happen to have.  HBSC frankly has been one of my worst decisions, and if I had it to do all over again, I would not have done it with them. 

Autocorrect/Auto-da-fe

I've been fighting with my Kindle lately.  I know - fighting with inanimate objects is a sign of a disturbed mind.  Your point?  But the thing is... I didn't start this one. 

See, the thing is I love words.  More importantly, I love using the exact word - le mot juste.  Heck, I'll go so far as to use French to come up with just the right expression.  So it drives me bonkers when I type in a carefully considered screed, only to realize that for some unknown reason, my Kindle has autocorrected the word greedheads to the word Greenpeace.  No.  Greenpeace has absolutely nothing to do with the rising price of insulin, while the greedhead CEOs of pharmaceutical companies should be lined up against the wall and... never mind.  Let's just say my rant is less effective than it should have been because some machine is trying to correct my vocabulary. 

And ok - I can accept that greedhead might not be in the Kindle dictionary.  But in a comment about honey-mustard Pringles, I wrote the phrase "reek of self-regret".  Reek - perfectly good word, should be in any proper dictionary. Kindle changed it to "feel of self-regret".  No, damn it!  I said reek, I meant reek!  I can accept that perhaps I have an oversized vocabulary.  But why is Kindle trying to dumb my comments down? 

I know, I should just turn autocorrect off.  But it does come in handy - at times.  I just wish it would keep its opinions to itself. 

We Did It!

Thanks to you lovely readers, I finally hit my bucket list goal of 100 views on a single post here on my humble little blog.  I appreciate each and every one of you, and I'm incredibly grateful that you take the time to check in on my natterings.  Next goal, 150! 

I Don't Always Believe The Women

Why is this becoming a thing?  I've heard a number of people saying "If you always believe the women, then you have to believe yadayadayada..."  Why, as a female, or a Democrat, or hell, as a human being, am I expected to *always* believe a woman? 

I'm especially pissed at the people who are using the phrase as a weapon - the Republicans who are using it to score points, who are using the phrase the same way they would use "nanny nanny boo boo".  No.  I don't *always* believe the woman.  For example, no way do I believe Roy Moore's wife when she says her husband is absolutely beyond reproach and a hero to all Christians.  But let's stick to the topic at hand. 

I'll even go so far as to acknowledge that there have been some instances of false claims.  (The Duke University Lacrosse Team case bothered the hell out of me. So did the woman who claimed some man jumped her and carved up her face with a backwards B for Barack back in 2008.)  I don't always believe the women - I believe women who have a credible story.  I believe it when multiple women come forward about the same guy.  I might even go so far as to say I'll give the benefit of the doubt to women - just because so damned many men have lied. 

I also believe that women and men can experience the same event and come out of it with two vastly different interpretations of the truth.  A guy can think "I went in for a good-night kiss, she didn't say no, it was a pleasant exchange", while that same woman could be frozen in shock, distressed with the violation of her person, and unable to say anything.  Rashomon ain't just a movie, boys and girls... 

So, where do we go from here?  I honestly don't know - but rather than saying "I always believe the women", how about I'm willing to listen to the women?  It's a start.

These Dreams (Go On When I Close My Eyes)

Odd dreams last night - the first one was a really odd 90s inspired fantasy quest, somehow set in the Washington of my youth.  The antagonist showed up in Niessan's Mercantile, the big denouement was during the 24th of July celebration (I think the final Maguffin was hidden in the "go fish" booth ran by the local Lions group)... but for some reason, it was starring Alicia Silverstone in full "Clueless" mode, complete with sassy black girl sidekick (not Stacy Dash - even my subconscious doesn't want to give her the work).  It was tacky enough that I found myself thinking that my dream mind needed a script rewriter. 

I probably should not have challenged my brain, because after the mandatory bathroom break, I slipped back into bed and fell into an Escher painting of a nightmare.  I was somehow at work downtown, and the bottom floors of my building started to disintegrate - I could feel the drop as each one gave way.  I ran out onto the balcony, and could see buildings all over Portland morphing and disappearing, as the Willamette and Columbia both overflowed their banks and turned Portland into a version of Venice.  As my building disappeared, I jumped off the balcony onto the top of a bus heading East, as I knew I had to get home to Roger and Moose - but the bus ended up drowning on the Banfield, with me being the sole survivor (thank God for natural buoyancy...) 

It went on from there, but the basic takeaway here?  Don't challenge my dream brain - it's got unrevealed depths of oddness.

I Was A 14-Year-Old Girl

This has been a really hard season for me.  Listening to these old white men doubting and twisting and "But she..."ing and flat out stating that trying to have sex with a 14-year-old girl is more qualifying for the United States Senate than being a Democrat... 

But it's helping me to forgive myself for things that happened when I was a child.  It's helping me to realize that I didn't do a damn thing to entice Jake to lay down next to me on the floor and press his hard penis against my back.  Laying there, frozen in fear, was the most I could have done.  It's not my fault I didn't say anything to anyone for far too long 

More, it's not my fault that I took a ride from the roller skating dude when I was 14.  I wasn't "leading him on", I wasn't being a tease - I was a 14-year-old girl who didn't have a clue.  No, he didn't rape me, because I freaked out and started crying when he put his hand on my breasts - but I had somehow managed to work it around in my head to where I felt like it was my fault for being in the car in the first place.  Until I could hear it in the language of the news - another 14-year-old girl, groomed by some sick 32-year-old sleaze (heck, it was even the same year - 1979) - I couldn't realize how it was *not my fault*. Hell, I even found myself slipping into the "well, he stopped when she said no" briefly before I realized - she should never have been in that position.  He should never had put her in that position.  Fuck that, he should never have put ME in that position. 

So, what would I offer from all this?  I don't know.  I'm just realizing how sick I've been.  I just know that every time I lance this damn boil, it gets a little smaller... but I am really tired of lancing it.

It's quiet. Too quiet.

Roger went back to work today, and after two weeks of having people around all the time, I'm back to my usual hermitage.  Part of me is luxuriating in the ability to watch MSNBC completely guiltlessly, but I have to admit, part of me misses the companionship.

It's odd - the older I get, the more introverted I am.  In my twenties, I avoided my own company so assiduously that there were nights when I only hit my apartment long enough to change clothes.  But then again, back in my twenties, I didn't really know or much like myself, so it's not really surprising that I avoided me as much as possible. 

Eventually, I grew into my skin and was ok with occasional solitude - and of course, that's when I fell in love with Roger, and didn't have to be alone anymore (funny how that works - almost as if I had to become a person I could love before someone else could love me.) 

Then, of course, Hank came into my life, and with him came pretty much enforced solitude - teleworking is great for getting things done, but it does leave you out in the cold a lot, and then retirement took even that thin fiber lifeline away.  Oddly enough, I'm comfortable with solitude now... but I know it's not healthy for me.  It's good that I'm going to be re-integrating with the family - but I'm going to enjoy the next couple of months alone while I have it.

Thoughts on today's massacre

Nearly 5% of a community was wiped out - another 5% maimed - because we can't, as a society, decide that no - some people should not be allowed to have guns.  A man who was dishonorably discharged (after serving a year in lockup) because of domestic violence - how on earth did this man get hands on even a cap gun, let alone a weapon of mass destruction (because yes, that's what this was.  I don't care if you want to argue that it was only a semi-automatic - if you can kill and maim 10% of a community, it's mass destruction.) There is no "well-ordered militia" that this man should ever have been a part of.

I'm starting to have my doubts about the second amendment as it is - we have a well-ordered militia at this point (heck, we have 4 of them).  Maybe we need to re-examine whether or not this is a vestigial amendment - the Constitution's appendix, initially harmless, but currently inflamed and killing us off.

Moving Forward - oh, god, what have I done?

We met with Kerin yesterday, and by the end of the hour, she had me convinced that we needed to re-do Roger's bathroom and completely renovate our kitchen in order to sell the house.  Admittedly, I've got the world's smallest kitchen, but I still prefer my solution of advertise the house via Grub-Hub and tap into the population that has delivery places on speed-dial and don't care about the kitchen.  We'll see how it goes...

I'm still recovering from the plague that I picked up in Utah - coughing up a lung every hour, more mucus produced than any body should be able to hold, sounding like Lauren Bacall on a bender - so just talking managed to exhaust me, but as long as my primary capacity in all this is going to be to write the checks, I think we'll still get through it with our sanity intact.

Blogging November, Day 2 - Notes from the Road

Admittedly, the view was worth the drive

I'm trying to write at least something every day - we'll see how long this lasts.  But here are some things I learned, spending 28 hours on the road:

Oregon rest areas are amazing - clean, well-lit, set up for handicapped people with wide stalls and plumbing that makes logistical sense.  Dead Man's Lake even went so far as to make sure that the automated water in the sinks is a lovely temperature, just right for hand cleansing.  Utah rest stops...  trust me, use the restroom at the Maverick. 

The days go a lot quicker when you listen to the 70s station than when you listen to MSNBC on Sirius.  One of the days we were traveling was Mueller Monday - it was fascinating, but I never want to hear about Manafort's rugs again. 

The second day afterwards, your body will feel worse than during the actual traveling.  (Or that may just be another function of the plague I picked up in Utah - I had forgotten that small children are disease vectors par excellance.)

Going from over 6K feet above sea level down to 52 feet above sea level, your ears pop.  A lot.  Chew gum.

Contrast and Compare

Just a quick one today - There's a number of contrasts between my current life and where I'm heading, but this one seemed like a quick and dirty way to show the absolute differences.  This is a picture of my current back yard.  It's lovely, but a bit of a pocket Venus:

This is going to be my back yard.  All 30 acres of it.

Yes, there's a rusted out old truck in there somewhere.

Both of these pictures were taken from the back porch.  It's going to be a bit of an adjustment.