Scot and the terrible rotten no good day

All right, if you are not in the mood to read about someone's bad day, skip this post!

Before I tell you about yesterday, let me say this: the most important thing, nay, the only important thing, is that no one was hurt.
OK, so a little back story: Jeff and I have the keys to the new house and are planning on spending all of June packing, moving and cleaning the old place. We are under lease until the end of July. We told our landlords that we would, of course, honor the lease, but since Jeff has been here over twelve years, if they wanted to spruce the place up, throw on a new coat of paint and get a jump on University students returning in the Fall, we would be happy to be out by the end of June.
Our Landlady, without giving us a for sure yes on the early out, said they'd like to look at the apartment to see what needed to be done. Could this happen next week?
Now, normally, I'd say, No, like every other landlord on planet Earth, you can wait until we vacate. But, because we want something from them, I'm being good.
However, this means spending this week moving AND getting the place in reasonable shape for a viewing. And I should tell you, Jeff has some weird landlord issues, which I believe stem from childhood poverty.
Anyway. So, yesterday, I got down to the basement in the morning. I have a huge plastic tub of books and whatnot. I sort through it, purging about half of it. Saying goodbye to some old friends. At the bottom of the tote (Which is the size of a small bathtub!) are several copies of "The Stranger" containing articles of mine. I fill the now empty space with pillows. Oh, also, I kept a couple of original "Polyester" scratch n sniff cards.
Upstairs, Jeff hasn't been so good about purging. I understand that sometimes it's hard to let go of things. And I don't press the issue. If we have to move a box of junk, so be it.
Jeff is going to duck out mid morning. There is a thrift shop he goes to that was having a blow out sale and needed some cheap jeans to garden in. I stay and continue to box up the kitchen and bring things downstairs.
He called at one point and said he'd run into an old friend at the thrift shop and was going to give her a ride home and probably stay for a cup of tea.
Well, the long and the short of it was that he was gone for over three hours. But, I couldn't deal with that. Our apartment seemed to be getting more chaotic not less.
Jeff finally gets home, we pack up the Volare. The big tote goes on top and off we go to the new place.
En route, our dog, Pullo, who has not been handling the change of routine very well, sees a dog while we are at a red light and just goes ballistic. He's on my lap in full snarl and thrash. And thank god I didn't have a tire iron handy.
We get the dog calmed down and hop on 99. A mile or so south of Downtown, we hear a crunch. We don't see anything. At the next opportunity, we pull over and YIKES, the big tote is gone. Victim of a broken bungee.
We loop back, terrified of what we'd find. We were able to spot it. Thank god it was far enough over to be out of traffic. We go through downtown and head back. There's no shoulder and it is much too close to an exit to safely stop. And really, nothing in that tub was worth risking a life for. Like I said, I'm just thankful no one was hurt.
And really, I hadn't looked in that box for a couple years. And I can't even remember all that I put in there except the articles and the scratch n sniff. Relics of the past.
But, part of me felt deflated. Like the remnants of a life I once had were dumped, nothing but litter.
But. Nothing to do about it. Just gotta go forward.

I'm back

(I am back. The interweb was down at home and I was dashing quickly to the library to check the email. Not fun when you are in escrow, but it's done now. We have a house.)

OK, not that I would ever do it. But after the last couple months I completely understand why people run away from their lives. Just fill a single bag, grab a little cash and head to the Greyhound Station. You stare straight at the tired old guy behind the counter. You are tempted to pile your money on the counter and say, "how far will this get me?" But you don't want to be remembered. So instead, you glance at the board to see what's leaving soonest. San Antonio. OK, new life begins in San Antonio.
On the bus you deliberately sit next to someone who doesn't look all that well. You're hoping he expires en route and you can lift his wallet and identity. This doesn't happen. Instead you hear stories about all the dry wall he's hung in his life and a daughter who only calls when she needs money. You forget the details moments after he says them. But the raspy quality of his voice stays with you.
The San Antonio you arrive in isn't actually today's San Antonio. It's the San Antonio of the 1950's. Which is important because you are able to get a tiny apartment and a job without showing i.d.
The landlady and the folks at the diner know you as "Joe" because it's the most generic name you could think of. You love the lunch rush because it gets busy and there's no time to think.
You hate getting a beer with the waitresses after your shift because all they can talk about is the customers they just served.
It doesn't take long before you wake up in the night and say: "Texas? In the 1950'? That's all you could come up with?"
And it hits you that although you went back in time, your body actually got older. And you're a sixty two year old guy living over a vacuum repair shop. You work right across the street making tuna melts and salads of ice berg lettuce.
You check your pockets. You still have the bus ticket dated fifty three years in the future. Maybe, if you hurry, it can be undone.

I swear

I swear, once we have the keys in hand, I will be better about posting.

Morphing

I've been thinking a lot lately about change and transformation. About how we shed and don different roles throughout our lives.
I suspect -- or I guess more accurately I should say, I hope -- that my very final role in life will be a colorful local eccentric. Kind of a wizzened cross between Linda Hunt, Truman Capote and Oscar Wilde. A kindly old uncle given to long winded anecdotes and occasional inappropriate public behavior (both exacerbated by drink.) I'll probably carry a walking stick. Often greatly loved, sometimes merely tolerated.
But here's the thing, I have at least one, and probably two or three personas to go through before getting there. And I haven't a clue what they are.
If it's clear to everyone but me, and you know the answer, please let me know!

Jinx'd

It's my fault. I should never have let Jeff play around on the Sherman-Williams website. See, it's kinda cool. You can load a jpeg of a room on there and then change the color of the walls and trim to your heart's delight.
And of course, I'd mentally put my hive of bees out back and established my puppet workshop in the basement.
We might as well have hung signs around our necks saying "Kick Us!"
Here's the delio: we were --no, we ARE -- in escrow. The house inspection (400 clams thank you very much) passed with flying colors. We talked with an agent about home owner's insurance. We patted ourselves on the back for getting it done by the end of April so that we'd get the tax credit. We figured out a way around the FHA requirement of mandatory connection to the public sewer system. All that was require was the inspection of the septic tank and we (and Sherwin Williams) would be good to go.
The way is was phrased to us was "The septic tank has reached the end of its life." As if the tank were lying in a dimly lit room, propped up on pillows, surrounded by loved ones.
Now, here's what I just don't get: the connection fee to the local sewer --not the pipes, not the labor, just the privilege of connecting to a service that will then bill you monthly -- is $16,000.
To be this close and have it yanked away. It feels like a taunting.
I feel like I've been run over by a cartoon steam roller and am now an eighth of an inch thick.
Weeks of stress and sleepless nights and it's square one again.
Ah well. I suppose the good thing about being run over by a cartoon steam roller, instead of the real thing, is that all it takes is a bicycle pump to be back in shape.

It will be the death of me!

OK. I'm going to proceed with our real estate saga until you beg me to stop.
So, we are in escrow. Earnest money plunked down. Four hundred clams spent on the inspection.
Went to Jonah's wedding on Thursday, told everyone that it looked like we were getting this house. In fact, it's almost all we talked about.
Friday morning, call from Liz. FHA doesn't like septic tanks when you can be connected to the sewer system. In fact, they would need it done by closing....have I mentioned that we've already put a hefty chunk of earnest money down?
It's tens of thousands of dollars to connect to the sewer system. To make it worse, Liz called while I was reading "Beekeeping for Dummies." She said, there were still some angles to work, and that somehow we would make it work.
I curled up in a ball. Wept.
We could not have one more thing snatched form us. And even if we got out of this deal, we'd never make the April 30th deadline for the big Tax Credit.
Long story short. We (I hope, I think) found a way around it. If you can show the bank that it would be a hardship to put connect to the sewer they can waive the requirement.
So, Liz was having a bid put in to find out how much it would cost. And FHA has a guideline (Which I wish was a rule, but no, it's just a guideline) that if the cost is greater than 3% of the house, it could be a hardship.
So, I think we have dodged that bullet. For now. But, it's caused another night of poor quality sleep. And it has me terrified that there is another bomb lurking to sink our dream.
And, today I'm feeling like I'll never have the head space to write again.
Ohhh! This all must end sooooon!

The State of the day

Me: You know, I'm going to feel so much better if I can get even a little bit of writing done.
Low Level Nagging Stress Headache: Umm. No. Not gonna happen.