Somewhere, There’s a Silver Lining…
June 13th, 2009
“Shine On”
Taken November 10, 2007 with Canon PowerShot A550
My new
lawyer
told me,
“Now, when you
go down
there, and they
ask you for your
work number, for God’s sake don’t give it to them!”It was a wicked week. Ups, downs, and a few upside-downs, to boot.
On the “up” side, the Lily-Dawg has her new home. As I write this, I imagine she is either paddling in the creek or lazing on/tearing through the back field of “her” farm, located down the line toward Teeny-Tiny Town…
It’s possible, too, that she’s slobbering into the wind with her head stuck out the passenger window of her new owner’s car. The new owner, you see, prefers dogs to people, and the older dogs are spoiled right rotten. Lily, at 10, is now the second of what The Dog Lady considers to be her “older kids”. And the “older kids” get the Extra Special Treatment, which includes rides in the car. Every time The Dog Lady gets into the car.
The Dog Lady came to my work to get her. Kyla tearfully brought Lily
over, introduced her to her new Mom, and ran her through her groovy-cool set of “gimme the treat” tricks. The Dog Lady was especially tickled with Lily’s high-five. And then, she promptly renamed the dog “Lillers” and removed the leash, saying, “Now, let’s get rid of this nasty ol’ thing, eh?”, to which Lily Lillers readily agreed, very much approving of the disgust with which The Dog Lady threw the thing into the trunk – most likely never to be retrieved again.
When she went to let her into the car, though, the Other Older Kid told her to piss off. Lily Lillers was unperturbed, however, and simply called shotgun.
It was unbelievably excruciating to watch Ky wipe the tears away as best she could, and turn her back on the dog to walk away. Lily Lillers had a hard time at first, too, trying to scramble over The Dog Lady to get out the window and back to her kid. She settled down quite happily again, though, as soon as Ky disappeared around the building. That somehow made me feel worse.
And Sheikh the cat, who went from avoiding the dog to stalking the dog… to shooing the dog away from her own water dish so he could drink first… to doing this really hilarious “duck-down walk” while following the dog around very closely, making it necessary to continuously bob his head so as not to get hit with her tail… to sleeping beside the dog… is moping around, demanding to know where his dog is…
I kind of miss her myself. All her F-ing hair is still here, however, so I expect I’ll get over that.
Eventually. Meantime, I’ll just keep picturing Lillers The Lily-Dawg slobbering into the wind with her “laughy-face” on….
One of the “downs” of the past week was the mysteriousness going on at the J.O.B…. what with secret meetings, and the near-completion of several construction projects, and confusing replies to the “what’s going on?” questions… which all ended up being boiled down to most of the staff being laid off in a couple of weeks’ time, when a form of automation process kicks in… no more dancing in the parking lot. Sigh…* Those remaining will be trapped (trapped, I say!) behind glass.
No one’s saying yet, who’s staying vs. who’s going, but some have already put their notice in (thankfully for me, because the fewer there are when the axe falls, the better my chances of avoiding it, I think).
I’ve continued to apply for jobs in my New Weird Field as they come up over the last eight months, but generally don’t even get an interview. There are too many people in administration et al, who have been laid off, but at least have actual working experience, applying for the same jobs, I think. When I do land an interview, it invariably goes very well, but again…. I have no “real” experience in any of the fields I have accreditation in.
So, I’ve begun to apply for other “crap pay” jobs. And I’ll be crying on Louie’s shoulder over it all, mooching for more hours, just as soon as…
As soon as…
As soon as…
(Yeah, this is a hard one… the “upside-down” part…)
Just as soon as I go talk to the mortgage holder of the house that’s not supposed to be mine, because my “legal” papers, once translated to plain english only stipulate that The Sire agrees not to try and get money out of me for the place.
Worse, the mortgage holder is a credit union; the only type of banking institution that can legally suck my wages away whether I can afford it or not. Which I can not.
My new lawyer told me, “Now, when you go down there, and they ask you for your work number, for God’s sake don’t give it to them! Hopefully, they won’t find out where you work until you can get the place cleaned up enough to live in. It doesn’t look like you can afford both places…”
When I morosely pointed out that in a couple of weeks, I may not have a work number to not give to them, he jumped on it, very pleased, apparently.
“Good! You won’t be lying when you tell them that you’re looking for employment. With luck, they won’t foreclose before you can get things straightened out.”
I asked him if there was any way at all out of this, other than taking over the house….
“Weeeeellllll….. you could do what The Sire’s doing, and just ignore it altogether – they may not look for you if they can find him…. but when they foreclose, it will affect your credit something awful.”
“So, that’s a ‘no’, then, huh…?”
“You could claim bankruptcy…”
And worse…. if all goes well, and I take over the payments, get caught up on the defaulted payments and overdue taxes and insurance (I have no real certainty that he has defaulted, or is behind in the insurance or taxes, but Mr. Lawyer and I both agree that my imaginary certainty is probably right on the money), and then sink a shitload (more likely two shitloads. Three even.) of money into fixing the place up to sell, I can’t sell it without his signature, or a court-order.
And worser, even…. if I do all of that successfully (read: when pigs fly and other miracles), he can legally walk right back in and take the house out from under me, simply by beginning to make the payments himself, again.
You see, the part in my “legal” papers that states that I give up all rights to the house, its contents, and any or all income or profit from its sale, is already in plain english and means sort of, almost, not-quite-exactly that. The house is “ours”. Or the house is “his”. It ain’t mine, even if I’m stuck paying for it. The only way around that is another court-order.
And, hopefully, that will be the silver lining I’m looking for… followed shortly thereafter by the sale of the F-ing money pit.
Random Song-for-the-Day: “Rock and Roll Song” – Valdy
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