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.

New Experience for Moose

One of the things I've been worried about with the upcoming trip is how Moose is going to handle it.  He's not good with change in the best of times (I know, I know - neither is his mama), and he fears long car rides, because when he was a pup, every time he went for a ride, his mama changed.  That kind of thing can put a fear on a boy... Plus, he's going to be dealing with a lot more people than he normally sees, and he already has a history of freaking out every time Uncle Ron comes into the room  Also, I have pain meds for him, but he really resists them (no matter what I hide them in, he finds a way to spit it out - it's like there's a little spring on the back of his throat that kicks in once the peanut butter or pill pocket or whatever is gone.)

So... I decided that since I live in the land of legal weed, and I've been wanting to see the effects anyway, Moose could be my test subject.  (I would feel guilty about this, but check out the rest of the story.)  Daniel picked me up a bottle of Fairwinds Tincture Companion (it's bacon flavored CBD oil).  I was worried about his recent rejection of meds, and trying to figure out how to get him to take it, but the minute Daniel brought in the box, Moose started sniffing it like it was a BarkBox, wagging his tail hard enough to set off a small cyclone in the living room, and then he started licking the box.  I opened it up, got out the bottle (with the boy jonesing hard all the while), put a couple of drops in my hand, and he licked it up out of my hand - and kept licking, and licking, and licking...  It said on the website that it might take a couple of hours to kick in, but Moose is currently as mellow as I've seen him.  I was wondering about the munchies, but he seems content to just lay in Mama's lap and contemplate the universe.  I think this might work!

Birth Control - It's Not Just For Sluts

I've been sitting here getting angrier and angrier about the Trump administration's framing of the birth control debate as being about the "religious liberty" of the employer.  This is an attack on women, pure and simple. It's not even an attack on sexuality in general (although God knows there's plenty of other attacks on any non-missionary form of sexuality). No, this is an attempt to control women, through limiting their ability to control their own bodies.

Birth control makes it possible to work outside the home for millions of women - we can control (love that word) our pregnancies, planning them for when it's convenient or financially feasible. We can mitigate our risk of the unexpected.  But more importantly, birth control can help regulate our bodies. I know lots of women who are on birth control not because of frequent sex, but because it helps to keep them on a regular cycle, knowing when they're going to have to deal with blood and pain (I know, guys don't want to think about that part, but if you're going to be bloody and doubled over with cramps, it's good to know exactly when it's going to happen and be able to plan for it.) 

Then there's me. At a comfortably married 52, I should be beyond having to worry about this, right?  But I take a birth control pill daily to keep myself alive - my Megace is the only thing between me and uncontrollable, constant bleeding due to Hank the Tumor.  Should my employer (well, ex-employer, current insurance provider) really be allowed to say "I don't like people having sex, so Deci doesn't get life-saving meds"? Because that's where we're headed. It's not about sex... it's about control. 

Respect for my country, vs respect for the anthem

I have tremendous respect for the ideals of my country.  I took an oath to defend her, and I took that oath seriously - in fact, my mother and my husband both took an oath as well.  We are one patriotic family if you look at it - mom and I both served our country in the civil service until we retired, Roger is a veteran... ok, Moose hasn't done much but then again, he's German. 

But I don't get what relationship standing for the National Anthem before a football (or baseball, or whatever) game has with my respect for my country.  It's a sporting event, not a war - regardless of who wins or loses, it has nothing to do with supporting unity or justice or democracy. In my opinion, forcing a show of patriotism before a game demeans our base principles far more than taking a knee in protest ever could - true loyalty demands more than just putting down your nachos and putting a grease-stained hand over your heart for two minutes. 

Loyalty and patriotism should be a deliberate, personal choice - something you work at, something you strive for.  Not something you think about briefly in the middle of a stadium, not something that you make a show of because you don't want to lose your job, and absolutely not something that is forced upon you by some bloviating jerk tweeting at 3:00 in the morning.  Someone exercising their first amendment right, thoughtfully and with precision and grace, is much more what *I* worked for and believe in than someone attempting to apply authoritarian pressure. 

To sum up... the last two words of our national anthem really aren't and should never be "Play ball".

A Lexiphiliac's Lament

I enjoy words. When I'm listening to music, I pay more attention to the lyrics than the guitar line.  I generally enjoy the book more than the movie.  I like common words, obscure words, esoteric words - I've been a wordsmith in one form or another all my life.  Which is why my Kindle's autocorrect drives me bananas!

It's not just the curse words - I don't expect the Aunt Propers who generate the dictionary for the application to really know how to spell shitgibbon properly (although you've got to admit, it's been in common use a heck of a lot more since January 20th).  But I'll be typing merrily along in a minor Facebook feud, get ready to hit send and realize that Autocorrect has changed twit to twist.  Now, admittedly, the idiot I was talking to is both a twit and a twist, but I know what I was trying to say!

Then there's dealing with Hank.  Ok, so myxoid uterine leiomyosarcoma is not something that comes up often, but I shouldn't have to continue to say "Yes, that's what I meant" every single time.  Or if I want to be a little formal or arcane in my typing - it recognizes twerking (a truly loathsome neologism), but not grandiloquent or loquacious.  When my vocabulary is more extensive than the machine I'm using, there's a basic issue here.  And I'm pretty sure it's not with me.

Lovely Evening - sort of food review

Today was bad.  Moose hit a new low in terms of growing older and not able to do things he used to do, I was dealing with caffeine withdrawal, with the attendant headache and general blah that comes, traffic sucked... just a general bummer of a day.  But then...

Found a new restaurant on GrubHub (Alameda Brewhouse).  I order their soup and a Reuben, Roger ordered a Salmon BLT.  Everything we got was incredibly good tasting - the Whiskey Crab Bisque was rich and thick, the Reuben was thick enough to remind me of east coast delis, with bacon sauerkraut and housemade potato chips that were crunchy and salty and perfect.  Roger's sandwich was good enough that he had a hard time saving a little for Moose, and considering that it had two out of three of Moose's perfect foods (salmon and bacon), it's a good thing he managed to. Everything was perfect, even the sourdough bread that came with the soup.  But mostly, it was just that everything was comforting.  It was a spiky kind of day, and the food just sort of smoothed out the edges and made the world livable again.  You can't ask for more than that from a meal.

Some days...

So, I'm sitting here, watching Rachel Maddow, when my mouse suddenly dies.  It's one of those battery powered ones, and I tend to go through a couple of batteries a month, but it never gives a warning - the pointer just disappears.  No big, it just needs a new battery, but...

As I'm installing the new battery, the screw comes loose from my eyeglass earpiece.  Now, I'm blind enough that even installing a battery can be iffy without my glasses, but Roger was good enough to grab the mini-screwdriver for me, and fortunately the screw was still there, just unthreaded, so no big, except...

I've mentioned my issues with my bladder, right?  I'll be sitting there, perfectly fine, and then all the sudden, if I don't pee in the next two seconds, it's going to be overflow time.  And of course, I can't stand up quickly, because the same muscles that need to tighten one way to stand up, need to tighten in the opposite direction to keep my bladder from doing an "Ok, everybody out of the pool!" Still, no big, there's a reason why I've got extra towels and a Swiffer handy, but then...

I get back from my mad dash to the restroom... and my glasses fall off the table, onto the floor.  I think the universe realized it had pushed its luck as far as it could, though - the glasses remained intact. 

Frankly, I'm thinking it might be an early night.

Hamburger Helper?

When Mom was here, we made up a batch of meat mix - portioned it out, made a couple of meatloafs, some homemade meatballs... even portioned up some larger sized balls for cabbage rolls.  Of course, that was being way too optimistic for Roger and I - expecting us to unfreeze the balls *and* have cabbage on hand at the same time?  Never going to happen. 

So, we finally broke down and reformed the balls into a meatloaf for Sunday dinner tonight.  Oddly enough, the minute that the fridge was opened and the thawed meat mix came out, *someone* was off my lap like a shot, and in supervision position in the kitchen doorway. He wanted to make sure that Dad shaped the meat correctly, apparently (or that no stray meat got away.)  He's thoughtful like that.

Memory Well: Summertime A&W

Roger's hometown has an actual A&W stand, with the carhop service and picnic tables down by the creek.  They send out specials on Facebook, and today's brought on a wave of nostalgia to Roger, Daniel and I.

I miss having an actual A&W around - the combo KFC/Taco Bell/A&W is an abomination and doesn't count.  Aunt Sherri worked at the one in St George when I was a teen-ager, and I used to love to visit her at work - get a Mama Bear and a Root beer Float in one of their classic glass mugs.  When you get the root beer float just right, you get the ice crystals forming around the edge of the ice-cream, where it's half ice cream, half root beer and all delicious...  And the foot long Coney Dogs.  I have no idea what was in the coney sauce, but I still crave it, 30 years later. 

And the statuary from 70s fast food places - Mama Bear, Papa Bear from A&W, JB's Big Boy, the huge rotating bucket of chicken on top of the pole at KFC...  I miss tacky architecture.  We do have the Brown Jug on Sandy (a strip club where the whole building is shaped like a jug of moonshine), but for the most part, we just don't have odes to bad taste anymore.  Although the Portland Building does resemble a really tacky box of chocolate, so that's something...

New Computer Blues

Old Faithful was finally giving up the ghost - it was a good workhorse computer, but it was having problems restarting and the battery would no longer charge, so it's being relegated to another room as a backup spare, and we brought in the "new hotness".  Essentially the same computer, just 3 or 4 years newer (the HP Envy 17", if anyone is interested.) 

There are a few superficial differences - rather than Beats audio, it's Bang and Olufsen (sounds the same to these ears), the power cord is on the left side rather than the right, I'm going to have to convince the new hotness that no, Microsoft Edge is not my preferred browser no matter how much Gates is bribing you to think so... but the main issue is my monitor.

See, I don't really use my laptop as a laptop.  I use it as a component for the DeciPrise 5000 - I've got a separate keyboard/trackball/monitor that I hook in because I hate trying to type on a chicklet array or mouse around using my finger, and my eyes are bad enough that I *need* a 27" monitor and sometimes that's not enough.  I've got it all set up on a roll around table that is the perfect height for my comfy armchair - it's probably an ergonomic monster for anyone else, but for someone who is online pretty much 18 hours out of the day, it works really well.  Especially since when I was still working from home, I could just unplug my home laptop, plug in my work laptop and keep going... Until...

The new hotness only has two dongle slots (I know, they've got a technical name, but they're dongle slots) and no VGA slot.  There's an HDMI slot, but my monitor is not set for HDMI because I've had it just about as long as the "old busted" laptop.  I've got an adapter ordered and coming in, but for the next couple of days, I'm going to be squinting.  A lot.  So please be patient about any misspellings - I can't really tell the difference between letters, and I'm going to be relying on touch typing a lot.