Well, here's a thrill for us...apparently our loan expires on Monday, and if we don't close on the house by then, we have to extend for 15 days, all for the low low price of $2250!

Are we having fun yet?

Did you hear all those bad words floating past you on the air today? Things like $#@$ and &^%@##(* and $%!^. That was the Spouse Thingy and I, when it got to be late enough in the day that it was apparent that we were not going to close on the house like we were supposed to. And we won't tomorrow either. We might close next week. Apparently no one can track down the person from one of 3 banks that needs to sign off on the whole deal.

Adding to that joy, when we got home from running errands, there was a Notice of Trustees Sale taped to the front door, so the Spouse Thingy got the joy of calling the landlord and letting her know in so many words, "Congrats! You've been foreclosed on!" Date of sale is Jan 20th, so we kind of need to close soon enough to be moved out by then.

Bad words, bad words, bad words...

...and the packing begins...

I hate this part of moving.

Meet Butters



Butters is the Boy's newly adopted puppy; he's a 10-11 month old Chihuahua/French Bulldog mix, and we finally got to meet him today.

The cats were not happy; they both got a good look at him and then tore upstairs to hide under the bed, and when Butters was gone Max showed his displeasure by barfing all over the kitchen floor. The Spouse Thingy and I, though, found him utterly adorable. He's cute, he listens to the Boy and follows him around, whines when he cant find him, and didn't seem to have a problem jumping up on my lap, curling up next to me, and licking my face.

Now, the Spouse Thingy loves dogs. If we thought Max could take it, we'd likely be getting one when we move into the new house.

Butters, unfortunately, has a problem with strange men and was very slow to warm up to him (but he did happily take treats!) and there was not as much petting as the Spouse Thingy would have liked. When Butters was distracted by Buddah coming downstairs to see if he was still there, he finally let the Spouse Thingy pick him up....but only for that minute.

Butters is definitely a rescue dog; the Boy got him from the shelter, and it's very apparently that he was abused before the shelter got him. He shirks away from the hands of men he doesn't know enough to trust, and at one point when the Boy was throwing a toy for Butters to chase his hand moved too fast and barely brushed Butters' cheek...and the poor puppy bowed down and cried out--he was terrified he was going to get hit. That damn near broke my heart. It still does...I choke up thinking about it.

Anyone who makes a dog feel that way deserves a huge kick to the nads, and I'd happily provide the service free of charge.

The Boy got Butters about 3 weeks ago; he'd gotten another dog a few weeks before, a Beagle named Molly, but the situation that put Molly up for adoption (owner went into assisted living and was not allowed to keep her there) changed, and her foremer owner really wanted her back. And the Boy, in site of wanting to be selfish and keep her, took her back, understanding it was better for Molly, and better for her Person, who is elderly and needed Molly.

And then came Butters. After watching them today it was pretty clear...Butters was supposed to be the Boy's dog all along. They were meant for each other. Butters never has to worry about being hit again and the Boy has the patience to teach him that he doesn't have to be afraid. He has friends and roommates that will treat Butters well...and now we have a grandpuppy to spoil.

Well hell yeah. Don't think for one minute that Santa isn't leaving Butters a couple of spiffy things for Christmas.

But look at that face...if it doesn't make you say Awwwwwww then you're a meaniehead ;)

You know it's too cold in the house when you wake up with two kitties--who normally won't sleep on the same bed--plastered up against you so hard that you have two kitty sized numb spots on one side of your body.

Yes, I will be nice and turn the heat up a couple more degrees tonight.

I admit, I was a little cold last night, too, and I have a heated mattress pad...

File this under WTF? =or= Why do I have such freaky dreams???

Max wanted to go to the bookstore. So of course, I loaded him into the car and took him to Borders, where we shopped for books on Cheetos, and then went to the cafe for a donut and iced tea.

I don't know why Buddah wasn't there.

Max was curled up on the table and I broke up the donut into tiny cat-sized bites, when a woman at the table next us announced "I hope my husband dies before I do. He has good insurance."

I got up, went over to her and ordered her to stand up. And she did, without asking why.

Then I curled both hands into fists, and punched her in the boobs. "You're mean and you suck," I told her.

After that, she sat down and I went back to my table and continued to feed Max donut pieces. He watched as a little girl walked past the table and to the counter, where she bought a giant Rice Krispie treat. She stopped at the table next to ours and asked the woman there "Would you like a bite?"

"There is no Santa Claus," the woman replied.

Max got up, jumped over to her table, hunched over her scone, and pooped on it.

Before he came back, he balanced at the edge of the table and leaned out to lick the little girl on the cheek.

"He says HE'S Santa!" she squealed. Max jumped back to our table as she ran off.

I think I asked Max if he really was Santa, but that's whan I woke up--because Max was knocking on my forehead with his furry little paw-fist.

Really...WTF?

You have the right to be stupid. As far as I know, there's no specific law forbidding innate stupidity, and the acting upon thereof. Freedom of speech and Freedom of Expression insure your right to open your mouth and let a whole lot of stupid fall out. Vast amounts of stupid. Those rights insure that you can extend your stupidity into how you name you children, even if you chose to saddle them with the weight of Nazi-embracing names.

I'll state it upront: it is my not so humble opinion that these people are stupid beyond belief. They named their kids Adolf Hitler Campbell, JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell, and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell.

Um, yeah. Stupid is not a strong enough word.

In my opinion, of course.

Little Adolf is turning 3, and the parents tried to purchase a cake from a ShopRite with his name on it. Like lots of parents do. Only in this case, the store refused, citing, "We believe the request to inscribe a birthday wish to Adolf Hitler is inappropriate."

I get that. And looking around online, LOTS of people get that and are cheering ShopRite.

While I think ShopRite is right, I also think ShopRite is wrong. I admit it, initially I was thinking "Hell yes! Go ShopRite!" But then I took the time to really consider what was happening...ShopRite has the right of refusal, but in doing so they gave a public voice to something insidious that shouldn't be given easy media access.

Look, those kids are going to be screwed over for the rest of their lives because of the names they've been burdened with. There's a good chance that once their peers learn to associate those names with the people that made them infamous, the kids are gong to get the crap kicked out of them on a regular basis. School will be torture. Even if they change their names when they hit 18, they'll suffer the damage for the rest of their lives.

But that's only part of it.

When their parents named their kids, they had to understand what they were doing. And by refusing to put the little boy's name on the cake, ShopRite then gave them a platform to spew their particular form of bigotry--and hell yes I think it's bigotry on a major scale--and gave them a public voice. People are talking about them. Most people are pointing and shaking their heads sadly, but some people are going to embrace their stupidities as righteousness...and that's sad.

If they'd just made the cake with no fuss, the parents would not have had a reason to raise a fuss and draw attention to their children, and to their racist, anti-Semitic views (of course it's anti-Semitic. What else could it be?)

The parents are claiming "it's just a name" but we all know better. Still...it brings to the center of attention someone who isn't old enough to defend or defy his parents.

The little boy is only 3 years old. Don't start dumping this on him yet. He's going to have enough to deal with when he's older. Don't give the parents a media platform. Don't give them what they obviously want. Save it for dealing with adults who deserve the outcry that results.

All right, looking back on what I just wrote... there's a whole lot of wrongness and very little right. One could easily argue that the store was more right than not because if you don't take a stand on a birthday cake, you might never take a stand.

I just keep coming back to two things; it's a little boy, and he has stupid parents.

They don't deserve the publicity. And here we are, giving it to them.

Sadness all the way around.

Because the blades to my hand mixer seem to have vanished into thin air (or quite possibly into the kitchen-drawer-version of What Happened To That One Sock That Was In The Dryer?) and I have a need for a mixer this weekend, I braved the Holy-Carp-Christmas-Is-In-Less-That-Two-Weeks Weekend shopping crowd.

At Walmart.

Oy.

As I stood in line waiting to use the self checkout, I heard two women behind me discussing things in a fairly bad stage whisper.

"Look. She's getting someone a mixer for Christmas."

"Oh. That's like the worst present ever!"

I suppose in the frazzle of holiday shopping, trying to figure out how to buy gifts for 10 people when you can only afford gifts for 5, or just the stress of that many people in one store at a given time, might make a person not realize that other people are not necessarily gift shopping. I didn't say anything because, hey, nothing says Happy Holidays like judging what other people are buying.

(And come on, who amongst us has never looked into the junk food packed cart of someone seriously obese and harbored an unkind thought or two? Sure, they might be buying for a part, but what you see is a very large person and 320,955 calories. We all do it, even subconsciously.)

So I didn't say anything. Let them have their Shopping & Gawking Fun. It's a harmless past time while you're being slowly tortured by the unwashed masses all there to purchase really cheap crap at Low Low Prices. Later they can mock me while they have dinner, "OMG! U should have seen it! This old lady got her MOTHER a MIXER for Christmas!" (Well, who else would I be getting it for?) ((And no, my mother need not worry about getting an electric hand mixer for Christmas.)) (((She should worry about getting spoons. And bendy straws. Because I'm not very creative.)))

I scanned and paid for my shiny new mixer, and left.

But truly, I wanted to turn around and say "Nice isn't it? I'm donating it to Toys For Tots."

Okay, it was funnier in my head.

Ummm...if you email me with questions about a book I wrote over 7 years ago, asking about character motivation and the underlying subtexts, it's only fair to tell you upfront...I dunno. I only wrote the book, it's not like I read it....

Ya know, it feels a little bit like a bargain when you find out that the people who owned the house you're buying paid $200,000 more than you are...

Three weeks!

:::snoopy dance:::

:::blink:::

I bought a bottle of Benedryl last week and set it on my desk.

Tonight, I went to open it, and behold--someone has already opened it.

The cotton is still in it, but the seal has been ripped off.

Now, it might have been the Spouse Thingy, but he's not home, so I can't ask him.

Have I ever mentioned that I take it every night for sleep issues related to FMS?

I don't dare take anything out of that bottle.

It's gonna be a long night...

:::blink:::

Tis the season...

I felt my jacket--which was wadded up beside me on the booth seat--move before I saw the rather large and hairy hand that was (and not as stealthily as I presume its owner hoped) reaching into the inside pocket.

I glanced over when I felt the movement that should not have been, saw the awkwardly long fingers snaking into my pocket...and slammed by elbow into it.

With that, I heard two things:
Owwwwww!
and
What the FUCK are you doing?"

I looked up and there was a fairly tall, very pissed off middle aged man storming towards me from the direction of the restrooms. I didn't wet myself, but I wanted to. He looked ticked enough that snapping me in two would have been no problem for him.

Mouth open--I didn't know what the hell to say--I turned in my seat and saw to whom the rather large and hairy hand belonged to.

He couldn't have been more than 13.

I had just executed a very hard elbow strike onto the hand of a kid.

I was pretty sure in the moment that the middle aged Ticked Off Person was his dad, and I was about to become shreds of my former self.

Nope, bot gonna wet myself.

He barely looked at me, though. He brushed past my table and lit--verbally--on the kid. "What the hell? What the hell were you doing?"

Face red, tears now pooling in his eyes, the kid stammered "I don't know."

Dad looked at me.

"All I saw was a hand reaching into my jacket. I didn't stop to see who it was attached to."

Dad started to apologize, had the words "I'm sorry" formed, but the kid whined, "My hand is BROKEN!"

"Good." (The Dad, not me...I was keeping my mouth shut at that point. I'm not stupid. Exactly.)

"It HURTS."

"Yeah, and it's gonna hurt you a lot more when you're paying me back for getting it fixed."

"But that's not FAIR!"

Dad put his hands on the table and leaned forward, gritting his teeth together. "It'd be FAIR if she called the cops."

The tears spilled over. "But I didn't really take anything."

(I did not point out that the only thing in that pocket was a cheap pen.)

((He would have been a disappointed thief.))

(((If the contents of my pocket had occurred to me 2 minutes before, none of this would have happened. It was a pen for freak's sake.)))

"But you tried to steal."

"But you won't let her call the police...?"

"Like hell I won't."

Now the kid was crying hard. No, I did not feel bad about that. Just because there was nothing worth more than a dollar in that pocket, that didn't excuse his intention--which was, apparently, to rip off the lady in the booth before Dad could get back from the restroom.

"I'm not calling the cops," I finally said. What good would it do if I did?

Um, yeah, he had his hand in my pocket and even though there wasn't anything much in that pocket, I whacked him as hard as I could with one of the strongest bones in my body, and now want him arrested. Toss him in with O.J. That'll learn him.

Dad let his breath out, as if he had been holding it for a long time, and sighed "Thank you," as he did.

The kid's hand was at that point very swollen, and a couple of different weird shades of red.

As Dad picked up their uneaten food and dropped it onto a tray he mumbled, "Come on, let's go get that looked at."

"You can't tell how it really happened!"

"I won't."

The kid sniffled his relief.

"You will."

He was made to apologize to me, to the staff at the counter, and to the other lone person watching in seeming disbelief.

I don't think junior is going to have the happiest of holidays. He's about to get a clear understanding of what it's like to have parents seriously disappointed in him.

Dad was crushed. Seriously crushed.

And my elbow hurts.

Brain Fried Friday Bullets

• When I got a jury duty notice a few weeks back, I didn't think anything about it; I don't mind serving.
  
• When Agent Kevin (real estate dood) scheduled out home inspections for today, I didn't think anything about it.
  
• I didn't think about anything...until I realized both were on the same day.
  
• However, last night when I checked in with the county court system, I got notice they did not need me, and my obligation is done for another year.
  
• I will not whine if I get another notice in the middle of the year, as I would like to serve.
  
• The inspections went well, other than finding out the house has roof rats.
  
• Home Inspector Dood was clued into this by finding car parts in the attic. And giant droppings. Oh joy.
  
• Otherwise, the house just needs basic maintenance.
  
• See following yard picture for exception...side yard is a WTF Do We Do With This? thing.
  
• Really...WTF do we do with all that ivy?
  
• If all goes well, we close before the end of the year.
  
• The cats will be so thrilled.
  

arrrrghhhhh...it's alive...alive!


Someday...73"...ohyeah..

Ummm...

We should all bow our heads in mourning, as Michele has decided to retire her most awesome blog. This bums me out mightily, as it was one of my near daily online highlights, and most of my blogroll is comprised of blogs I discovered through her weekend Meet & Greet. I totally understand that sometimes a blogger feels it's time to move on, but dang dooods*, this sucks.

If you've ever enjoyed playing the games at Michele's, please hop over and say goodbye, and wish her well.

* Thanks, Max, 'doooods' is now part of my vocabulary...

Kitty Christmas could be cheap this year...



...since apparently just a donut will make him happy.

Ya know, when you read in the newspaper that normal Friday trash pickup will be on Saturday, you should not then wake up to the sound of the trash collection truck thundering down your street at 6 a.m. on Friday morning.

(It might help if the paper you read that tidbit in was actually the newspaper for your little city and not the neighboring one, but still...)

I hope we don't generate much trash this week.

Both the Spouse Thingy and the Boy have to work today; ST doesn't have to leave until 7:30 so someone can be there to meet your anesthesia needs, and the Boy s working a double shift so someone is at Carino's to meet your waiter needs--and he took the extra shift so someone else wouldn't have to work today. We'll technically spend some time together today when we wander over that way for dinner, but chances are the Boy will be our server and not able to sit down and eat with us.

While we'd prefer he could take 20 minutes to sit with us, it doesn't really matter. We have a lot to be thankful for this year. We're all relatively healthy, family seems to be doing well, we have our insane kitties, and after so many years of military housing and places that "will be ok for a year or two" we're finally reaching the stretch that will give us Home.

Or, as Max would put it, "the place I'm going to DIE."

Happy Thanksgiving, Peoples.

WooHoo.

They accepted--without any counters to it--our offer on the house. Tomorrow we go sign some paperwork, and next week the inspections and stuff begins... We probably won't be in the house before Christmas, but for sure right after the start of the year. That suits us just fine.

So, yay! Barring any complications, we're getting our first house!

Nope, no score to report since I blew the game at just over 31 million points...



I got the proof copy for Max's newest book today, and it looks pretty good. A few typos that were missed, even after going over the manuscripts dozens of times, as well as the galley, but I'm not about to pull it and redo the whole thing over a couple of typos.

There are even paw-drawn illustrations.

You know how hard it is to get a cat to sit down and draw roughly 100 pictures? It's a lot like getting a 3rd grader to sit down and do his math homework when all his friends are outside playing in his yard.

Oh, don't be a doubter. Max's name is on the book, you know...

It's not up at Amazon or the other online bookstores yet, but I've ordered a box and Max is taking direct pre-orders now. We should have the shipment in about a week, maybe a week and a half because of Thanksgiving.

In other news, we're still waiting to see if the offer we made on the second house has been accepted. I hate waiting. I'm immature that way.

Still playing...

I don't have any writing to work on.
Max's book is at the printer.
No editing to do.
So this is what I'm doing while I wait to hear about the house:



I don't know how many hours it's taken to get this far.
It's definitely my high score so far.
And the game's not over yet.
Now that I've shown my score...I'm going to totally blow it...

One hurdle down, who knows how many more to go.

Countrywide approved us for a loan we don't need and don't want, but at least that means they will now look at our offer. We made a really good offer, the only hitch might be that we asked for 3% of the purchase price back at closing to go towards closing costs.

We should hear by tomorrow, late afternoon, if not then by Monday.

Then the fun begins...

Buying a house should be a lot easier than it is. Holy carp. We looked at several houses yesterday, including one that would require the purchase of a riding lawnmower because it was like a freaking park, and then went back to the very first house we'd seen.

Wow. The house grew some appeal when we were looking at other things. Perfect size, not a big yard but enough to have to mow, on a quiet court with a 3 car garage. The price was lowered this week, which made it that much more appealing. We looked around carefully, went to see another house, and then went back again. It felt like it would fit us quite nicely.

So we wrote up an offer.

Then we found out the mortgage is held by Countrywide. And Countrywide, no matter who the lender you're going to use is, preapproved for a billion dollars or not, requires you to get preapproved through them if you're trying to buy one of their foreclosures.

Doesn't matter if you tell them there's no way in hell you're getting a loan through them. If you don't at least apply for a loan, they won't even look at your offer. You're free to use whatever lender you want...after you apply with them.

Cripes.

So now we wait some more to see if Countrywide will offer us a loan we don't even want just so we have a shot at a house we do want.

Whole thing should be illegal.

We should know tomorrow about their preapproval (don't see why not...) and hopefully whether or not they accept our offer in Friday. When they do, our offer on the first house will be officially withdrawn. I feel bad about that--not because we won't get that particular house--but because the people trying to sell it have been totally hosed by their lender and will likely wind up in foreclosure because of a clerical error.

Can't make that our problem, though...

If we get this house there will be some fun places for the kitties to climb, I'll have my very own office, and if we want later we can screen in the back porch so Max and Buddah can go outside.

Of course it's all about the cats.

Sheesh, did you think we were buying a house for us?