I know its cliche but appliance really do rally together to conspire against their owners. Either that or they are like a multitude of fickle, jealous Bedouin wives; pay too much attention to one and soon none of them are doing what you want.
First was the water heater.
Taking a shower one winter morning, I noticed midway through lathering up my shampoo, that the water was slightly cooler than normal. A few moments later, it was cool. A moment after that, it was downright freezing.
Don't get me wrong, cold showers have their place. It's an age-old practice I'm sure, and probably more effective for men than women, but still, its an old standby. However, I had not just gotten home from a hot date with Antonio Banderas or Hugh Jackman with less-than-satisfying results, so I personally was not in need of this particular cure. I was, in fact, newly awake from my warm bed and pleasant sleep, and just waking up. I didn't need this.
I recoiled from the icy jets of water, nearly downing the shower curtain in my attempt to escape frostbite, turned off the shower, and grabbed a towel. It was Sunday Morning. No plumber in the Northern Hemisphere was going to be willing to come to my rescue. I took a chance and called Bob.
Bob did some work for me during the HUD and Short Sale debacle involving the apparently illegal and possibly disastrous rainwater collection system, and he seemed trustworthy enough and he was freelance, so you never know. I called and left a message, suggesting that I could pay cash if he could come today.
A half hour later I got a call from Bob's wife. She informed me that he was out with their grandson, hunting, but that she had called him and told him he needed to come to my aid because "that poor dear has no hot water and its so cold!". God bless insistent wives and obedient husbands.
In late afternoon, Bob showed up with his 10 year old grandson, moved the rifles out of the cab of his truck and grabbed his tool belt. I took from the lack of animal carcass strapped to the work-van that the hunt had been unsuccessful; unless they were hunting snipe.
Upon inspection of my defunct water heater, Bob discovered that the heating element had burned out. An easy fix. I'm pretty sure that the grandson did more work than Bob, and definitely more leg work. God Bless Child Labor too.
I paid him cash. He was happy.
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
PoF stands for Plenty of Freaks
So recently I took the advice, or rather, the dare, of a friend and coworker and signed up on a couple of dating sites. Granted, I know what I want, I'm picky, and I'm pretty much content with my life. I'm not even sure I WANT a man, so why bother with the effort to FIND one?
I guess I decided that I would sign up and see. You never know what life will drop in your lap.
First of all, PoF. This is supposed to be short for Plenty of Fish, but I can assure you that it is more appropriately short for Plenty of Freaks, because let me tell you.
No really, I'm going to tell you.
Gentlemen, Might I suggest first and foremost that you take a picture of yourself happy. No one wants to give a second thought about some glum looking Eeyore type brooding in the basement. I have a few other suggestions too. A picture that is in focus is always a plus. If I can't discern your features from the pixelated mass of color in your profile, I'm just going to assume you're hiding something. Maybe you're a lot like Quasimodo (who had a heart of gold, no doubt, and with the right lighting and angle, he probably could have gotten a date).
Also, subject matter.
If you pose with your car, well that's fine, now I know who comes first in your life. The same is true with your bike, your gun, or any other inanimate object. Posing with pets is fine. Cute kittens and puppies? Hey I'm probably going to favorite that shit because who doesn't love cute kittens and puppies? Horses? Dude, you took classes on this didn't you? All women love horses. Heck I might choose "Meet" just to meet the friggin horse!
Posing with alcohol is also a very very bad idea. Hey I love to have a beer or a good scotch as much as the next girl...ok most girls don't do that, but saying I love it as much as the next guy sort of puts me in the wrong category. Posing with beer: not terrible but not the greatest idea. Posing with a bottle of tequila: I'm looking for a friend here, not an AA partner.
Why would you take a half naked picture of yourself sprawled on your bed? Maybe you can pull this off if you're some GQ model, but most guys I know, even the really good looking ones, can't do this. Its even worse if you're laying all sexy-like on your side and you can see the tighty-whities in the distance and the giant pile of unwashed clothes in the corner, and you have bed hair. Women can pull this off, but when they do, they're usually sluts. What sort of message should I take from a half naked man in a bed?
A profile picture followed by 23 pictures of every individual head-to toe tattoo. You have ink. Great. I'm sure its gorgeous. I myself would like to get a tattoo some day, when I'm ready. If I like you and you have ink that is not normally visible, let me discover that shit on my own!!! Its like giving away a scene in a movie!! *kiss kiss* ....."ooo what's this one of? Nice! I never would have known it was there!" Knowing the general layout of the land is one thing. Getting a detailed google-earth view is quite another
Never ever I repeat, EVER take a picture of yourself in a public bathroom with the urinal clearly visible in the background. What are you thinking? I will now associate you with bodily fluids. The bad kind... Ok I don't really want my first associations with a man to be bodily fluids of any kind. Call me old fashioned.
Pictures with your kids. That's nice, now I will know what your children look like when I STALK YOU AND KIDNAP THEM!! Really? Does their mother know your children are available for public viewing along with your location on Plenty of Freaks? If my ex pulled that, he'd be singing soprano. Oh, and I'd have full custody.
Pictures of you on your wedding day with your ex wife's face scribbled out or with your ex girlfriend.
Do I really need to explain why this is bad?
Posing with the carcass of the deer/other animal you just slaughtered. I respect responsible hunting. Love me some venison, but see above. Next time go with the kitty or the puppy.
Not everyone on dating sites are terrible, there are just a lot of people who are. I have been pleased to find out from my male counterparts that there are just as many sketchy females out there as males.
So here we are, delving into the waters of the unknown, filled with sharks, piranha, barracuda, jellyfish, octopi, squid, dolphins, angler fish, and sea turtles.
Thank God I'm a Pisces. At least I already know how to swim.
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
So You Wanna Stink Nice
In bright, antiseptic laboratories around the world, scientists bash their heads against shiny stainless steel counters. The age old frustration of developing a parfum, a cologne, an eau de toilette, that smells…irresistible.
Ok, first of all, why do things that are supposed to make you smell good, have French names? Were the French famed for smelling good, or smelling bad? Or both?
I’m sure someone knows, probably you, but I don't.
I do know a lot of useless tidbits, but that isn’t one of them. I was once told by a friend, that I knew more useless facts than anyone else they'd known. They didn’t know many people, but that’s not the point.
Maybe the French think that they invented the art of Stuff That Makes You Smell Nice, but I’m sure that somewhere in our darkest ancient history, some caveman rolled in Mammoth-poop and tried rubbing himself with flowers after the women of the tribe refused to do romantic cavewoman things with him, and held their noses. They might have pointed at him and said “unghungh mammo poo!” or something of the sort. My apologies to the Cavemen of advertising fame, for that stereotypical depiction. I was told by my Anthropology Professor at IPFW that we probably did not have clear diction at the time of the caveman; something to do with a thin plate of bone and a low roof of the mouth.
Back to the scientists and their aching, bruised foreheads. Untold amounts of money are spent in the pursuit of smelling wonderful. Men want women to think they smell nice and women want men to think they smell nice, and most of them want to smell like someone you’d hook up with, even if they deny it.
The desire to reproduce, the desire to mate, is one of the most basic of instincts. In fact, its one of the strongest. There are others that, in my opinion, are stronger.
The strongest instinct, as I see it, is the instinct of a mother to protect her young. No offense against fathers, but sorry guys, moms win. I hear some of you men out there complaining that you love your children just as much as their mother, and I’m sure you’re right, but let me just illustrate an example.
The juice in the fridge is little Betsy’s favorite. There’s only enough left for one more glass. Betsy’s mom looks in the fridge, sees that there's only one glass left, and has water instead because she doesn’t want to drink all of Betsy’s favorite juice. Either that, or she drinks it and does not rest until she goes to the store to replace it.
Betsy’s dad looks in the fridge, sees that there is only one class left, and drinks it because water doesn’t taste that good. Plus, he’s super thirsty because its so hot out, and he just got done mowing the lawn. Driving that lawn tractor really takes a lot out of you. Besides, he’ll go to the store later and get more. He sits down to watch a minute or two of Oprah and wakes up four hours later to little Betsy, home from school and asking for her favorite juice.
Mothers will give their child the last bit of food rather than eat it themselves. Mothers will turn on their closest friends, family members, or mate, if that individual threatens their young.
Mothers can lift entire 70s era cars off of their children. I make the distinction of 70s era cars because these days, its not much of a feat if your child is pinned beneath the monstrous weight of your neighbor’s SmartCar.
Mothers will sacrifice themselves to save their offspring.
Of course, in dealing with perfume, no one in their right mind would want to smell like the Everywoman’s Child. That's aiming just a little too high. Besides, mass havoc and chaos in the streets. Not good.
Aside from motherly protection, the next strongest desire is food.
Evolutionarily speaking, there’s plenty of time for mating. Contrary to what many teen males believe, you will not actually die if you don’t have sex. You will, however, die if you do not eat.
The drive for procreation is strong, but the drive for nourishment is stronger. If you need proof, have a man skip breakfast and lunch, then run around the local mall for three hours. Let him rest up a little, then send a naked woman up to him holding a fresh cheeseburger and fries. See what he reaches for first.
I passed a man on the street the other day who smelled like Froot Loops. My immediate reaction was to turn around and try to smell him again. I thought of it as though it were an actual option. I even rationalized what I might say to explain my actions.
“Excuse me sir, but I’m a trained olfactory detective and I believe I smelled a lethal poison on you. Just hold still while I check…”
Maybe not.
In the end, I walked on, but if we had been on a date, I would have been paying more attention to how to sit closer so as to better smell him, than Iwould be paying attention to the fact that he shaves his unibrow, or the booger hanging out of his left nostril.
Then again, maybe the scientists already know this and they’re just tired of test subjects eating each other.
Ok, first of all, why do things that are supposed to make you smell good, have French names? Were the French famed for smelling good, or smelling bad? Or both?
I’m sure someone knows, probably you, but I don't.
I do know a lot of useless tidbits, but that isn’t one of them. I was once told by a friend, that I knew more useless facts than anyone else they'd known. They didn’t know many people, but that’s not the point.
Maybe the French think that they invented the art of Stuff That Makes You Smell Nice, but I’m sure that somewhere in our darkest ancient history, some caveman rolled in Mammoth-poop and tried rubbing himself with flowers after the women of the tribe refused to do romantic cavewoman things with him, and held their noses. They might have pointed at him and said “unghungh mammo poo!” or something of the sort. My apologies to the Cavemen of advertising fame, for that stereotypical depiction. I was told by my Anthropology Professor at IPFW that we probably did not have clear diction at the time of the caveman; something to do with a thin plate of bone and a low roof of the mouth.
Back to the scientists and their aching, bruised foreheads. Untold amounts of money are spent in the pursuit of smelling wonderful. Men want women to think they smell nice and women want men to think they smell nice, and most of them want to smell like someone you’d hook up with, even if they deny it.
The desire to reproduce, the desire to mate, is one of the most basic of instincts. In fact, its one of the strongest. There are others that, in my opinion, are stronger.
The strongest instinct, as I see it, is the instinct of a mother to protect her young. No offense against fathers, but sorry guys, moms win. I hear some of you men out there complaining that you love your children just as much as their mother, and I’m sure you’re right, but let me just illustrate an example.
The juice in the fridge is little Betsy’s favorite. There’s only enough left for one more glass. Betsy’s mom looks in the fridge, sees that there's only one glass left, and has water instead because she doesn’t want to drink all of Betsy’s favorite juice. Either that, or she drinks it and does not rest until she goes to the store to replace it.
Betsy’s dad looks in the fridge, sees that there is only one class left, and drinks it because water doesn’t taste that good. Plus, he’s super thirsty because its so hot out, and he just got done mowing the lawn. Driving that lawn tractor really takes a lot out of you. Besides, he’ll go to the store later and get more. He sits down to watch a minute or two of Oprah and wakes up four hours later to little Betsy, home from school and asking for her favorite juice.
Mothers will give their child the last bit of food rather than eat it themselves. Mothers will turn on their closest friends, family members, or mate, if that individual threatens their young.
Mothers can lift entire 70s era cars off of their children. I make the distinction of 70s era cars because these days, its not much of a feat if your child is pinned beneath the monstrous weight of your neighbor’s SmartCar.
Mothers will sacrifice themselves to save their offspring.
Of course, in dealing with perfume, no one in their right mind would want to smell like the Everywoman’s Child. That's aiming just a little too high. Besides, mass havoc and chaos in the streets. Not good.
Aside from motherly protection, the next strongest desire is food.
Evolutionarily speaking, there’s plenty of time for mating. Contrary to what many teen males believe, you will not actually die if you don’t have sex. You will, however, die if you do not eat.
The drive for procreation is strong, but the drive for nourishment is stronger. If you need proof, have a man skip breakfast and lunch, then run around the local mall for three hours. Let him rest up a little, then send a naked woman up to him holding a fresh cheeseburger and fries. See what he reaches for first.
I passed a man on the street the other day who smelled like Froot Loops. My immediate reaction was to turn around and try to smell him again. I thought of it as though it were an actual option. I even rationalized what I might say to explain my actions.
“Excuse me sir, but I’m a trained olfactory detective and I believe I smelled a lethal poison on you. Just hold still while I check…”
Maybe not.
In the end, I walked on, but if we had been on a date, I would have been paying more attention to how to sit closer so as to better smell him, than Iwould be paying attention to the fact that he shaves his unibrow, or the booger hanging out of his left nostril.
Then again, maybe the scientists already know this and they’re just tired of test subjects eating each other.
Housewarming Gift From Hell
Nothing says Welcome Home like a Type II ankle sprain that keeps you on crutches for a month. But sometimes that’s what the Universe shows up with at your house warming party.
The ink was still drying on the HUD when disaster struck.
I’ve always been a sort of do-it-yourselfer. My friends find it mildly annoying. My mother sighs, but is secretly proud (come on, where do you think I learned it?). My boyfriend finds it obnoxious.
As I troop about the house, putting things away, I remind myself now and again to drink some water, maybe eat something, but mostly I’m just unpacking.
After twelve hours, my boyfriend is staring at me like it’s making him tired just watching me.
“Heeeeey”, he says, in that gently cheerful tone you use on a horse or a dog that’s overly worked-up, “you want to sit down and watch tv with me?”
“No,” I manage to breathe from behind a teetering stack of games. I’m headed to the basement with them. I catch Aggravation on the edge of the doorframe as it attempts a daring getaway. The basement really isn’t the sort of place Aggravation wants to be. He’s used to being in the hall closet where he can be played often.
I guess he never paid attention to his name.
Hours pass. My five year old has managed to put himself to bed. My boyfriend has managed to do the same. The house is quiet but for the pitter patter of my size eleven feet going up and down the basement stairs.
Three steps up from the bottom, a stair is missing the last 2 inches of its length. I’ve been cautious of it, but that was before midnight. Now, the sleepiness of the world is oozing down through the tree branches and squeezing under doors.
I take a box in my arms and pad down the stairs…all but three of them.
I gave those last few a miss.
Somewhere between “what the…” and “oh my God am I alive?” my toes missed that last bit of stair number three. I’m not sure how I managed to keep from mashing my head on the cement floor of the basement, but I think it involved hurling the box from my arms, because it was wedged on top of the washing machine across the room from where I lay motionless.
I had images in my head of my foot sticking out the wrong way.
Feet, unlike hats, should never be worn at a roguish angle.
I lay there for a moment and then looked down. The foot was still attached. I tried to move it and was able to, but only while the Canadian Brass marched up and down my spinal cord from my ankle to my brain and back again. They invited the New York Ballet as well, and I think maybe the Royal Philharmonic.
I remembered that my cell phone was up all twelve stairs, and that my son and my boyfriend are heavy sleepers.
I wondered if I could yell loud enough to wake one or both of them. I thought maybe I would try getting up first. It worked, but not well.
I managed to get up the stairs and over to the couch, where I sat down and put my foot up.
I closed my eyes and tried to fix it with the Force, or maybe I was just tired and resting my eyes. Either way, it still hurt when I opened them.
I stood up, and noted that the Canadian Brass, New York Ballet, and the Royal Philharmonic have now been joined by Insane Clown Posse. They are playing Havergal Brian's Symphony No. 1. This,if you are not a music nerd, is the piece requiring the largest orchestra ever. It requires 190 instrument players, plus a vocal choir of 600.
I decide it might be time to go to bed.
I lay there a moment and say to my boyfriend, who is asleep, that I fell down the basement stairs and hurt my ankle. He asks if I put ice on it.
I say no.
He asks if I have taken something for the pain.
I say no.
I try to convey that it really hurts.
“well if it were me, I’d put ice on it and take something for the swelling.”
I stifle the urge to either cry or punch him or both, and instead say “I know, but it hurts too much to walk.
After a few minutes, he says, rather put-out, “well I guess I better get up and get them for you or you probably won’t talk to me again.”
Well, yes.
Luckily, I’m in too much pain to hit him with the cricket bat he keeps by his side of the bed to bash the ghosts with.
There's no ice, so it’s a bag of peas, a glass of water, and an anti-inflammatory.
After that, the blissful sleep of the new home owner.
Until morning.
The ink was still drying on the HUD when disaster struck.
I’ve always been a sort of do-it-yourselfer. My friends find it mildly annoying. My mother sighs, but is secretly proud (come on, where do you think I learned it?). My boyfriend finds it obnoxious.
As I troop about the house, putting things away, I remind myself now and again to drink some water, maybe eat something, but mostly I’m just unpacking.
After twelve hours, my boyfriend is staring at me like it’s making him tired just watching me.
“Heeeeey”, he says, in that gently cheerful tone you use on a horse or a dog that’s overly worked-up, “you want to sit down and watch tv with me?”
“No,” I manage to breathe from behind a teetering stack of games. I’m headed to the basement with them. I catch Aggravation on the edge of the doorframe as it attempts a daring getaway. The basement really isn’t the sort of place Aggravation wants to be. He’s used to being in the hall closet where he can be played often.
I guess he never paid attention to his name.
Hours pass. My five year old has managed to put himself to bed. My boyfriend has managed to do the same. The house is quiet but for the pitter patter of my size eleven feet going up and down the basement stairs.
Three steps up from the bottom, a stair is missing the last 2 inches of its length. I’ve been cautious of it, but that was before midnight. Now, the sleepiness of the world is oozing down through the tree branches and squeezing under doors.
I take a box in my arms and pad down the stairs…all but three of them.
I gave those last few a miss.
Somewhere between “what the…” and “oh my God am I alive?” my toes missed that last bit of stair number three. I’m not sure how I managed to keep from mashing my head on the cement floor of the basement, but I think it involved hurling the box from my arms, because it was wedged on top of the washing machine across the room from where I lay motionless.
I had images in my head of my foot sticking out the wrong way.
Feet, unlike hats, should never be worn at a roguish angle.
I lay there for a moment and then looked down. The foot was still attached. I tried to move it and was able to, but only while the Canadian Brass marched up and down my spinal cord from my ankle to my brain and back again. They invited the New York Ballet as well, and I think maybe the Royal Philharmonic.
I remembered that my cell phone was up all twelve stairs, and that my son and my boyfriend are heavy sleepers.
I wondered if I could yell loud enough to wake one or both of them. I thought maybe I would try getting up first. It worked, but not well.
I managed to get up the stairs and over to the couch, where I sat down and put my foot up.
I closed my eyes and tried to fix it with the Force, or maybe I was just tired and resting my eyes. Either way, it still hurt when I opened them.
I stood up, and noted that the Canadian Brass, New York Ballet, and the Royal Philharmonic have now been joined by Insane Clown Posse. They are playing Havergal Brian's Symphony No. 1. This,if you are not a music nerd, is the piece requiring the largest orchestra ever. It requires 190 instrument players, plus a vocal choir of 600.
I decide it might be time to go to bed.
I lay there a moment and say to my boyfriend, who is asleep, that I fell down the basement stairs and hurt my ankle. He asks if I put ice on it.
I say no.
He asks if I have taken something for the pain.
I say no.
I try to convey that it really hurts.
“well if it were me, I’d put ice on it and take something for the swelling.”
I stifle the urge to either cry or punch him or both, and instead say “I know, but it hurts too much to walk.
After a few minutes, he says, rather put-out, “well I guess I better get up and get them for you or you probably won’t talk to me again.”
Well, yes.
Luckily, I’m in too much pain to hit him with the cricket bat he keeps by his side of the bed to bash the ghosts with.
There's no ice, so it’s a bag of peas, a glass of water, and an anti-inflammatory.
After that, the blissful sleep of the new home owner.
Until morning.
WTF is a HUD Anyway??
No one really knows what a HUD is, but we at least know that it’s an oversized piece of paper. This is called Legal Size paper by people who work in offices, even though the Court doesn’t use Legal Size any more. In fact, the only people who really still use Legal Size paper are real estate attorneys and banks. They’re a stubborn bunch.
As I was saying, a HUD is an oversized piece of paper with lots of columns which are filled with cryptic terminology and monetary figures in pt. 9 font size. Bankers really like to argue about the numbers and whose column they belong in.
On MY HUD there is a $40.00 charge and no onereally knows what it’s for, but no one wants to be responsible for having it in their column.
It’s the Hot Potato of the HUD world, this $40.00.
I’m thinking that it’s something I’ve already paid for, and I say so, but the settlement attorney assures me that just because I happen to be the receptionist at his office, doesn’t mean I’m supposed to be taking part in purchasing my home. That’s what professionals are for. Don’t I know that?
The settlement attorney is doing this as a favor. By the time it’s over, my happy home purchase will have been such a pain in the ass, he’s wishing he’d charged me double.
So, my lender says the bank which id selling the property is responsible for the $40.00, and the bank selling the property says my lender is responsible for the $40.00. Apparently, it’s a deal breaker and no one will budge. I offer to havethe $40.00 put in my own column.
I’m told that I must come from Jupiter. What was I thinking? Finally, I say “just put the damn forty bucks in the lender’s column and I’ll just pay them $40.00.” This is agreed to, reluctantly, by my attorney.
Before ever reaching this point, however, I had to have my house inspected for multiple lurking catastrophes; structural soundness, termites, wiring, the works.
Everything goes blissfully well until the cistern is inspected.
I could literally hear the screech of mental tires stopping when we got to this point.
See, cisterns are not that common.
A cistern is a tank into which the rainwater from your gutters is deposited. From there, it goes through a filtration system in the basement, and then up to your faucet.
The inspector tells my bank and my bank has a heart attack. My bank tells the underwriter and the underwriter has a massive brain aneurism.
I am told that this is a problem, and my closing attorney tells the seller (a bank, since this is a Short Sale) and the selling bank has some sort of seizure and threatens to pull the plug on the whole deal and just go ahead and foreclose on the property like they were about to anyway.
A week goes by, and the parties all recover in the mental ICU.
Someone in the County is called, and I’m told there has to be a raised lip with a locking lid installed on the cistern, instead of covering it with a metal slab and a cinder block.
I’m ok with this, its what I would have done anyway. This is accomplished and the property is inspected again. This time, the inspector says I have to have some kind of fancy UV light installed in the filtration system.
The inspector tells my bank and my bank has a heart attack. My bank tells the underwriter and the underwriter has a massive brain aneurism.
I am told that this is a problem, and my closing attorney tells the seller and the selling bank has some sort of seizure and threatens to pull the plug on the whole deal and just go ahead and foreclose on the property like they were about to anyway.
I fork up $500.00 of my hard earned cash, and have the UV light thing installed.
Now,here is the catch.
I achieved homeownership by way of a USDA Rural Development Loan, which is not a FHA loan, or something like that, so it only has to be approved through the underwriter and USDA, and FHA is not required to ok it for mortgage insurance because I can…oh I don’t know, some technical crap like that, but basically, its more lenient through a USDA Loan.
The house is also under Short Sale; in this case, the owner hasn’t been paying the mortgage so his bank is threatening to foreclose, but they are trying to sell it for less than what it was appraised for during the peak of the housing bubble.
So the selling bank is being about as patient as a horny virginal groom waiting for his new bride to brush her teeth and come to bed already.
So the proposal is submitted again to the USDA, who promptly informs us that they are now OUT OF MONEY for the USDA Loan, but that they will have more in about two weeks.
My bank tells the underwriter and the underwriter has a massive brain aneurism. I am told that this is a problem, and my closing attorney tells the seller and the selling bank has some sort of seizure and threatens to pull the plug on the whole deal and just go ahead and foreclose on the property like they were about to anyway.
Sound familiar?
So we decide, since my credit is good, to try an FHA loan anyway, since they are fast. It goes through with flying colors. People are popping champagne corks, and everyone gets into town to meet for the settlement, when literally in the eleventh hour, the FHA people send an email with some archaic regulation about freaking cisterns, stating that I have to work some sort of extra cash into escrow to pay for maintenance or some crap like that.
My bank tells the underwriter and the underwriter has a massive brain aneurism. I am told that this is a problem, and my closing attorney tells the seller and the selling bank…yeah you get the picture.
We start looking into how to accomplish all this escrow stuff, which requires the HUD tobe revised, which creates more Hot Potatoes that no one wants in their column of .004 size font.
At this time, the 3 month contract of sale on the house expires and we have to resubmit it.
The seller’s bank starts to threaten the whole foreclosure crap again, and my realtor, the most awesome woman on the planet, by the way, gets her bulldog attitude ramped up, and goes after the seller’s bank like they’re raw chicken.
My attorney gets out his voodoo dolls, works some kind of mojo that they teach you in law school, and between the two of them, they convince the selling bank to sign an extension to the Contract of Sale before going ahead and foreclosing on the property like they were about to anyway.
Time passes. Enough time that the USDA proudly announces that they have funding for my loan again.
We scrap the FHA application and resubmit the USDA Loan one.
The Settlement date is set.
After 4 months of constant struggle and pains in the asses of all involved, me, the attorney, the seller, and my real estate agent meet.
Papers are signed and dated, keys are given, and I pay $40.00 for something listed in a font so small that I can’t even read it.
God Bless America.
As I was saying, a HUD is an oversized piece of paper with lots of columns which are filled with cryptic terminology and monetary figures in pt. 9 font size. Bankers really like to argue about the numbers and whose column they belong in.
On MY HUD there is a $40.00 charge and no onereally knows what it’s for, but no one wants to be responsible for having it in their column.
It’s the Hot Potato of the HUD world, this $40.00.
I’m thinking that it’s something I’ve already paid for, and I say so, but the settlement attorney assures me that just because I happen to be the receptionist at his office, doesn’t mean I’m supposed to be taking part in purchasing my home. That’s what professionals are for. Don’t I know that?
The settlement attorney is doing this as a favor. By the time it’s over, my happy home purchase will have been such a pain in the ass, he’s wishing he’d charged me double.
So, my lender says the bank which id selling the property is responsible for the $40.00, and the bank selling the property says my lender is responsible for the $40.00. Apparently, it’s a deal breaker and no one will budge. I offer to havethe $40.00 put in my own column.
I’m told that I must come from Jupiter. What was I thinking? Finally, I say “just put the damn forty bucks in the lender’s column and I’ll just pay them $40.00.” This is agreed to, reluctantly, by my attorney.
Before ever reaching this point, however, I had to have my house inspected for multiple lurking catastrophes; structural soundness, termites, wiring, the works.
Everything goes blissfully well until the cistern is inspected.
I could literally hear the screech of mental tires stopping when we got to this point.
See, cisterns are not that common.
A cistern is a tank into which the rainwater from your gutters is deposited. From there, it goes through a filtration system in the basement, and then up to your faucet.
The inspector tells my bank and my bank has a heart attack. My bank tells the underwriter and the underwriter has a massive brain aneurism.
I am told that this is a problem, and my closing attorney tells the seller (a bank, since this is a Short Sale) and the selling bank has some sort of seizure and threatens to pull the plug on the whole deal and just go ahead and foreclose on the property like they were about to anyway.
A week goes by, and the parties all recover in the mental ICU.
Someone in the County is called, and I’m told there has to be a raised lip with a locking lid installed on the cistern, instead of covering it with a metal slab and a cinder block.
I’m ok with this, its what I would have done anyway. This is accomplished and the property is inspected again. This time, the inspector says I have to have some kind of fancy UV light installed in the filtration system.
The inspector tells my bank and my bank has a heart attack. My bank tells the underwriter and the underwriter has a massive brain aneurism.
I am told that this is a problem, and my closing attorney tells the seller and the selling bank has some sort of seizure and threatens to pull the plug on the whole deal and just go ahead and foreclose on the property like they were about to anyway.
I fork up $500.00 of my hard earned cash, and have the UV light thing installed.
Now,here is the catch.
I achieved homeownership by way of a USDA Rural Development Loan, which is not a FHA loan, or something like that, so it only has to be approved through the underwriter and USDA, and FHA is not required to ok it for mortgage insurance because I can…oh I don’t know, some technical crap like that, but basically, its more lenient through a USDA Loan.
The house is also under Short Sale; in this case, the owner hasn’t been paying the mortgage so his bank is threatening to foreclose, but they are trying to sell it for less than what it was appraised for during the peak of the housing bubble.
So the selling bank is being about as patient as a horny virginal groom waiting for his new bride to brush her teeth and come to bed already.
So the proposal is submitted again to the USDA, who promptly informs us that they are now OUT OF MONEY for the USDA Loan, but that they will have more in about two weeks.
My bank tells the underwriter and the underwriter has a massive brain aneurism. I am told that this is a problem, and my closing attorney tells the seller and the selling bank has some sort of seizure and threatens to pull the plug on the whole deal and just go ahead and foreclose on the property like they were about to anyway.
Sound familiar?
So we decide, since my credit is good, to try an FHA loan anyway, since they are fast. It goes through with flying colors. People are popping champagne corks, and everyone gets into town to meet for the settlement, when literally in the eleventh hour, the FHA people send an email with some archaic regulation about freaking cisterns, stating that I have to work some sort of extra cash into escrow to pay for maintenance or some crap like that.
My bank tells the underwriter and the underwriter has a massive brain aneurism. I am told that this is a problem, and my closing attorney tells the seller and the selling bank…yeah you get the picture.
We start looking into how to accomplish all this escrow stuff, which requires the HUD tobe revised, which creates more Hot Potatoes that no one wants in their column of .004 size font.
At this time, the 3 month contract of sale on the house expires and we have to resubmit it.
The seller’s bank starts to threaten the whole foreclosure crap again, and my realtor, the most awesome woman on the planet, by the way, gets her bulldog attitude ramped up, and goes after the seller’s bank like they’re raw chicken.
My attorney gets out his voodoo dolls, works some kind of mojo that they teach you in law school, and between the two of them, they convince the selling bank to sign an extension to the Contract of Sale before going ahead and foreclosing on the property like they were about to anyway.
Time passes. Enough time that the USDA proudly announces that they have funding for my loan again.
We scrap the FHA application and resubmit the USDA Loan one.
The Settlement date is set.
After 4 months of constant struggle and pains in the asses of all involved, me, the attorney, the seller, and my real estate agent meet.
Papers are signed and dated, keys are given, and I pay $40.00 for something listed in a font so small that I can’t even read it.
God Bless America.
The Wobbewy, or Is Chinese Delivery Really Worth It?
You think you live in a decent neighborhood. You think that maybe there are just some rowdy kids around and the old guy in the next building who always pulls the fire alarm. You think that maybe it’s just your imagination and no one really tried to siphon gas out of your car and left marks where they pried the gas-cap cover open.
You think.
I had decided not to think much that evening, and just to order Chinese food. The Boyfriend and I put our order in and waited.
We watched a little tv while we waited.
After about an hour, I called. I reached someone whose native language was assuredly not English, and tried to ask about our food. I was passed off in a flurry of something vaguely Asian sounding, to another man, to whom English was at least his third language, but maybe not second.
“Ohhhh, you dwiva get wob!” I wasn’t entirely sure what he was saying but it sounded suspiciously like “Your driver got robbed.” My apologies to Asian people who are living in the US, for this slightly stereotypical description. My mother was afraid that if I left this part in, I might offend. I tried to let her know that I didn’t think you’d be offended, I mean I’m sure in American-owned restaurants in Asian countries, similar problems occur. Except in those cases, the American owners are probably too busy complaining that “you’d think this country would learn English! Jeez!” to notice the irony.
I asked again, about the status of the driver, and was given a sketchy description of an innocent Oriental food driver being viciously attacked and beaten to death on my doorstep.
“Oh my God! Is he ok??” I could feel the blood draining from my face. Lo Mein was definitely not worth this!
“Yah they just take food an run away. Driva run to car.”
So apparently, no beatings, just hungry stoners. That’s a relief.
Hungry stoners are like the Appalachian Black Bear. People talk about how harmless and gentle they are, until you run into one in the woods at night while you’re carrying a fully loaded pizza. “Duuuuude….that pizza smells….amaaaazing…” Ten seconds later you wake up amid shredded cardboard and spilled bong water. Not pretty.
The man at Wang Chung’s Flaming Wok asks me if I would like my food re-delivered. I envision a shaking, terrified Oriental man looking nervously about before attempting to rush to my door.
“No thank you,” I tell him, and hang up.
It takes me a while to recover from the attack on my deliver driver, enough so that I don’t actually order anything to be delivered from my home for at least another week. My psyche is a quick healer, what can I say.
The second year in my apartment is…less that groovy. In addition to the pack of teens, covered in chapter 2, I read, in the paper, mind you, that there had been an attempted shooting in the building next to mine. I have a 5 year old. My psyche is NOT healing from this one.
Time to shop for houses in the country.
A Herd of Cattle, A Shrewdness of Apes, A Pace of Asses, A Scourge of Teenagers
After living in the apartment for about a year and a half, a small…what do you call a gathering of teenagers? It’s a murder of crows, a gaggle of geese, a flock of sheep, a herd of cattle, a shrewdness of apes, an exaltation of larks, a pace of asses, a scourge of mosquitoes… Yeah, we’ll stop with those last two. As I was saying.
A small pace of teenagers began to roost in regular fashion upon the steps leading down into the hallway in which the door to my apartment was located. At first it was just one or two. They would greet my son and I as we came home. I tried to be friendly yet slightly aloof. They’re like bees, you know. If you sort of blow on them as if to say “I’m not a flower, dumbass, I just smell like one,” (see section on perfume, why would you want to attract bees?), then they leave you alone, but if you swat at them they might sting. Or in this case, you might end up with sugar in your gas tank or something. Either way, they could see where I lived, so I wasn’t taking chances.
“Heeeeey maaaan,” would go the salute to my son, bleary pot-pink eyes to match, and sometimes accompanied by booze breath. “Hi!” my four year old would chime. For the sake of his childhood, I would muster a smile and try to put off an aura of “mess with my child and die."
Two became three and three became four, and four would multiply on the weekends to about seven. Usually drunk. One afternoon we came home to a young man, and I use the term lightly, passed out on the stairs. I guided my blissfully innocent child by the hand, but as we passed, he said loudly “look mommy that man is taking a nap!” with such glee that all I could do was say “why yes he is baby!” and try to keep him from noticing what appeared to be a wet spot under the guy’s crotch in the carpet of the landing. I guess it was the happiness of seeing what passed as an adult, doing something he did on a daily basis, I’m not sure, but the next time we saw him, I barely got my son out of earshot before he burst out with “Hi! Are you going to take a nap today?”
Children say wonderful things at not so wonderful times, or not so wonderful things but during wonderful times. My son has a small blue blanket which has been called the Blue Bee for as long as he could call it anything. He would also state that he needed things rather than wanted them. This would result in us in the store, walking casually around, him in the seat of the cart, when he would suddenly say “need boo bee! Need boo bee!” When you find yourself explaining that “boobie” is really blue bee, his blanket, to total strangers who are looking at you like you belong on some sort of list, mortifying is not really the word. It’s along the same lines of being in the bathroom stall and having your still-learning child shout something like “mommy are you going poopies?” or “boys have penises, girls have vaginas!” I was once congratulated by my son in a public restroom. “Good job mom! What a big poop!” I’m sure many fathers would have loved that, but most moms don’t.
Back to the teenagers.
So the scourge of teens, about seven of them, would get drunk or high or drunk and high, on the steps. For some reason, this caused not only their brains to cease functioning, but their legs as well. Even cats will use a litter box, and they’re animals. Teens apparently aren’t as evolved. Instead of going to use a toilet, they would simply pee under the stairs. They would also get drunk and vomit in the middle of the hall.
There was also a girl fight over a guy, which resulted in the police being called.
This might be the same group who stole, then returned, my birthday present, but that's another story.
Ok I'm too lazy to make it a whole other story so I'll just explain.
See, a friend of mine got me one of the Sandman volumes for my birthday. He wrapped it and left it in front of my door for me to find. I think he then left, hoping I would open the door, but I was asleep or watching a movie or something, because I never noticed. He texted me, and I went to the door and looked. Nothing. I told him so. I looked around some more, and found it. Someone had stolen it, opened it enough to see it was a book, apparently decided that books are not worth stealing, and ditched it under the stairs in the urine puddles.
Thankfully it doesn’t smell anymore.
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