Up with the birds

I often keep an odd schedule, and the past 24 hours have been one of those days where I’ve been “up all night”.  I didn’t get up until about 6pm yesterday, and then I had my functional time (I use the term “functional” loosely) while it was dark and quiet outside.  Flippy hasn’t been feeling well and was in bed, so it was just me and the cats, enjoying silence, some tapioca pudding, and American Idol.  Around 7am I was sitting at my desk, noticing the sun coming up outside.  There was a cool breeze coming through the window, and I felt very peaceful.  Then I heard the chirping sounds of birds… quiet at first, but getting louder and so pretty!  I thought to myself that if every morning was this fabulous, I was going to start getting up at sunrise!  I was enjoying the sounds of the birds so much that I went to the window in the livingroom, so I could listen more closely and enjoy the view of the mountains… and I realized that the bird sounds were only on TV.  Bah, what a let-down!  All I could hear from outside was traffic (and I saw a few pigeons), but on the television there was a show called “Sunrise Earth”.  It seemed to just be scenery and a nature soundtrack, and I guess the high-pitched chirps carried to my desk while the rest of the sounds were too low to be noticeable.  It was nice, but it would have been nicer if I lived in that beautiful place on TV!  I’d better be careful what I wish for, as I’m sure the mortgage company would be happy to see me living in a meadow, sans even cardboard box, sooner rather than later. 

Speaking of the mortgage company, we have until Thursday to have some paperwork notarized and to send them 3 grand or the house will go up for auction on Friday.  The $3000 isn’t a mortgage payment, it’s the fee we need to pay for the “privilege” of having our mortgage reworked.  When the paperwork arrived a few days ago, we realized that our new payment will be $500 more than our old, atrocious payment, not the $200 that we thought.  It doesn’t really matter… we couldn’t afford the old payment, so we can’t afford a more expensive one.  Our only remaining option is for Flippy to declare bankruptcy, which will again delay foreclosure, and to hope that the intervention of a lawyer might encourage the mortgage company to offer a more reasonable payment.  Does anyone reading want to buy our house and then sell it back to us in a beautiful owner-financed deal?!  George Soros, are you out the there?  Oprah? 

Something interesting happened a month or so ago that I didn’t bother to blog about.  I didn’t want to get my hopes up by writing about this “something”, and to have you all reinforce my hopes about “something”,  because I knew that if it didn’t come to pass the disappointment would be worse.  Ultimately, it didn’t come to pass, so my instincts were unfortunately correct.  I was trying revese psychology on the universe and it didn’t work!  In any case, what happened was that the office manager position at our vet’s office opened up again.  This is a job I’ve applied for twice in the last couple of years, but I’ve always been rejected for the position with reasons like I’m “too nice” (ha!).  This time I found out about the job opening before the job was actually open, so I took my time and prepared a very personal application, rather than a more business-like one.  Since I’d last applied for the position I’d taken a couple of relevant classes to increase my chances of being hired, and I truly hoped that this would be a case of “third time’s a charm”.  I also hoped that we were finally going to have some good luck, because the job paid exactly the amount I’d need to get approved for a mortgage to buy our house.  Everything was falling into place, except that I didn’t get the job, again.  This time at least the vet decided to not hire anyone for the position, but it’s hard to not feel like the fates are out to get me.  I’ve heard through the grapevine that the vet is considering creating a new position, sort of an “office assistant” job, and that she is considering me for that.  However, rather than being a job which pays $70K like “office manager”, this new position would be $9-$10/hr.  A job with benefits, especially veterinary care benefits, is better than none, but the pay wouldn’t even cover half our mortgage payment, let alone all the other bills.  I make more than that in half the time in my contract position with the charity, so in some ways it seems like it might be two steps backwards.  No point worrying about the job until it exists, and until it’s offered to me, but it’s not going to be the solution that I’d dreamed of.  Now you see why I didn’t tell you about it?

If I had to summarize everything that’s going on, I think I’d say “tiring”.  Rather than each day being full of possibilities, it’s like each day is scary because something else might go wrong.  I can certainly think of many positive aspects to life, and we have it better than many people, but it’s not normal to have to live with the incessant sense of foreboding and disaster.  Nothing is fun, nothing is enjoyable, nothing can be bought or indulged in without guilt, and we panic about things like overdraft fees and over-the-limit fees and such daily.  I don’t know what it’s like to live in poverty, but I’m understanding how it is to be “poor”, and how it gets you into a pit keeps digging itself deeper.  As an example, we can’t afford to buy Flippy’s meds in 30 day doses anymore, so we tried to buy them in one week increments.  We then found out that if you buy 7 pills, it costs $10 per pill, whereas if you buy $30 pills, it’s only $8 per pill.  The less you can afford, the more you have to pay.  If you miss a credit card payment, you’ll get a late payment fee, and if the fee puts you over your credit limit, you’ll get another fee.  Then you have to come up with the payment you missed plus another $80 that you didn’t have in the first place, and if you don’t, you’ll get more of those fees every month.  All the while, your credit score goes down, down, down, and your interest rates go up, up, up.  I tried to get a “payday loan” for $250 last week, and I planned to repay it in 7 days, but the interest charge was going to be $89.  It doesn’t fucking stop…

I will say that the animals are all great (please, please, please just let me have that one thing).  They’re all still eating Wild Kitty or Harrison’s or something very good for them, because I know their health is tied to their diet and I don’t want to skimp.  I know some of them feel our stress, but others are just happy and cuddly and they make us laugh every day.  Flippy and I have stopped eating everything but oatmeal and yogurt, but the weight-loss will make us faster and sleeker so we can run away from the bill collectors, bwah ha ha…

This blog entry started on a fairly good-humoured note and then it deteriorated, sorry.  But, that’s what’s up.  Has anyone read any good books lately?  Have your pets done anything funny?  Hung any spammers by their toenails?  Entertain me with stories of your good times :)  Oh, I know what’s new for me and that I liked—I caught an episode of “Barking Mad” on Animal Planet and thought it was super.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 04/16 at 11:33 AM

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  1. So good to see you blog Leigh-Ann.  I love early mornings, birds chirping would be nice but a nice sunrise is wonderful to look at.  I like the quiet in the house and the smell of my coffee brewing.  No matter how I am feeling when I wake up, that will put a smile on my face.  I think about you guys every day, I do know how you feel… I try the angle of… if I don’t tell anyone about potential good news maybe then there will be good news… hasn’t worked yet… Hope to see you both soon… and I would love to hear good news…

    Ilona

    Posted by Ilona  on  04/16  at  09:08 PM

  2. Hi Leigh-Ann! We’s glad yur still here an still laffin at the insanity of life. I like early mornin birds, but Mom doesn’t cuz then I wanna see them an I jump on the dresser an she don’t want me up there.  She shouldn’t haf put her dresser unner the window. Duh. Keep laffin an efurryfing will werk out, I fink. Purrs!

    Posted by Victor Tabbycat  on  04/18  at  02:03 PM

  3. Hi Leigh-Ann. Sorry to hear how bad it is getting. If you were closer, we could offer you a field to live in and it has real birds chirping every morning. Mom loves to sit outside with a cup of tea and listen to them as the sun rises. Actually, she would rather be in bed sleeping but we nix that idea because we are ready to get up, get FED and face the day.

    We wouldn’t normally suggest this but Flippy needs to file for bankruptcy. If the bank sells at auction, they are only looking to cover their investment. Flippy will lose all of her equity and end up with nothing. And, if the bank can’t get a price to cover the outstanding mortgage, they will still come to Flippy for the difference.

    Posted by Roxie, Sammy & Andy  on  04/19  at  08:57 AM

  4. No worries about losing my equity, it was eaten up with the downturn in the market.  When we refinanced last time, we made sure that we left more than $50k of equity…and now, we’re upside down for about $100k.  If we could get someone to buy the house in a mortgage company accepted short-sale, we could lower our payments by A LOT and we could maybe get back on our feet.  Only, who has a spare $300k or so? 

    Maybe someone would like to buy our house as their token good deed to the animal rescue effort.  We have two foster babies for the weekend and I sure miss having them on a regular basis.  If we could get the house situation taken care of, we could get back to doing what we’re good at, and like doing, rescuing misfit bottle babies.

    I know that lots of people have it worse (I saw snippets of “Idol Gives Back”), but when you’re tired and sore and can’t even imagine what it would take to move and start all over again, it doesn’t even really matter how much worse other people have it.  We can’t even help them, unless we could help them by giving them some books or some Kool-Aid or some Kettlemania Popcorn (it was on sale for only 86 cents the last time I was at the store, so I bought a few extra boxes) or a couple of containers of yogurt.

    It’s just a constant foot race with the bills.  I know I grew up without having to worry about any of that and I didn’t expect life to be that easy forever, but I didn’t expect all of the problems to come at the same time and to include health problems with them.  Bah, ptooey.  Poor, poor, me.

    Posted by FlippyO  on  04/19  at  10:27 PM

  5. You can always stay here, with me, both of you with all your animals, too.

    If you move, or maybe when you move, if you need help doing it, maybe I could figure out a way to come down and help you do that.  Not fair, what you’re going through.

    Posted by Jody  on  05/17  at  09:18 AM

  6. I just dicovered your website! I googled the Happy House Animal Shelter to find out the status of those kittens that were found in the cement (so awful)recently and saw your weepaws.org page during the google search. I’ve been reading all your blogs and I think you are doing an amazing thing by taking care of the animals. Unfortunately I am not wealthy in terms of money but will make donations as much as I can. I’m sorry to hear things are so difficult with your home situation. It will get better, you’ll get that dream job and you’ll have a home without the added worry. Not sure if you have time to read a book but you may want to check out “Excuse Me, Your Life is Waiting” by Lynn Grabhorn. It’s been extremely helpful in my life recently and maybe it could offer some “hope” for you. All that you are doing will come back with many blessings! Take Care.

    Posted by jill  on  06/06  at  11:00 PM
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