Papers signed. Is that it?

I said to my broker this morning, "So what's next?"
"Move."
"But I only signed my name about 50 times. Aren't there any more papers or notices solidifying the case that this whole thing is all my fault and nobody else's?"
"Nope. You just start moving in."


It's not as simple as all that. Seller can't move for another week. I haven't even given the landlord notice because you just never know what can happen.

Wow. Homeowner. MH. My poor little old brain has been working overtime. Not only are there the normal things to think about, it also has to contemplate such important thoughts such as, "Can Kitty walk on the asbestos flooring?" or "What color should I paint the kitchen cabinets?" When it ought to be pondering questions like, "How am I going to pay this f-ing mortgage?" and "Do I really NEED gas, electricity and water?"

First thing I did was call my brother. "You are talking to a HOMEOWNER," I bragged.
"Hey that's great MH. Are you done? My truck is in the shop and I'm tired of sitting around here."
"Good, I'll come pick you up and we can go to IKEA."
"Do you REALLY think this is a good time to be spending any money?"
"I'm only going to look!"
"Yeah right."

Later, on my way to play Scrabble I called my sister. "You are talking to a HOMEOWNER," I chirped.
"Oh, nothing, having a beer with Amber. I got off early today and I decided I wanted a beer so here I am, I don't care what anybody says."
"SISTER. I didn't ASK you what you were DOING. I SAID I'm a HOMEOWNER."
"Oh. Good. Did you work today?"
"No. I signed papers all day. And packed stuff up to MOVE."
"Oh. I have worked for almost 7 days STRAIGHT! I'm butt-ass tired, you know?"
Sigh.

SOME people were happy for me. Dang! I've spent my whole adult life acting like I give a crap when all of these assholes get houses, cars, babies, married, divorced, or operated on. Is it too much to ask to get a little bit of that back? I don't expect anyone to ACTUALLY CARE, just pretend as much. Sheesh!

Sister in town. My vacation.

As usual, I've been in a terrible rush most waking moments for the past couple of weeks.

Now I'm on a short little vacation, during which I've been able to catch my breath and take stock of it all.

Good thing my sister is visiting for a few days. Otherwise I'd probably let my whole apartment stay cluttered. As it stands, I scrubbed the guest room and the main bathroom in the eight hours available to me from the time I arrived home from work until the time I had to pick her up from the airport. The rest of the place was fairly disgusting. Sister is a clean freak, so she was particularly irked by my messiness. I don't have any food in my fridge or the cupboards, so we've been surviving on coffee, one restaurant meal per day, and alcohol. Sis refuses to pay for any food, since she is my GUEST, but she has no problem buying beer and wine. I'll happily drink whatever she buys and I just pay for our restaurant meal. I have also been cleaning in the morning before we set out on our daily adventures.

As for our adventures, our main focus appears to be finding ways for Sister to spend money on herself, seeing as how she has so damned much of it. Today we trudged around one of the local malls for several hours. Sister claimed that she was absolutely determined to start dressing her age (37), but when it came right down to it, she is just as steadfast as ever about wearing junior section clothes. I had a dickens of a time trying to get her to try on anything that covered her "pooch," as she calls it. She won't wear anything that she classifies as tight. Oh, no. Because she doesn't want people to see her "pooch." I said, "I'm going to be brutally honest with you because I think you need to hear it. Ready."

Ready. Deer in headlights look with a couple blinks.... Here comes...

"You aren't hiding your 'pooch.' Everybody can see it anyway because you insist on wearing t-shirts that are too short for you."

"I hate going shopping, and just when I decide I can do it, you try to make me feel bad about myself." Sister started to tear up and get all red-faced. "I don't want you to tell me anything, I just want you to agree with me."


By the end of the day, I felt like a turncoat. But a girl's gotta do what needs to be done in order to keep the peace. She'll be here for two more days!

In which MH goes nose to nose with rich uncle sam

I lost the last round. Next I will have figured out a way **not** to get cheated on my taxes. Everybody I know uses WAY more public resources than I ever use, but they still get truckloads of cash back, and within a week they've upgraded to the NEW Hummer. So happy for them, whatever.

I need to pay this off because there is too much of my dad's crazy nervous paranoia
in me, and soon I'll be telling everybody that if the IRS storms the house and takes me to IRS prison, somebody better take care of Kitty!

So all night I've been digging around boxes, rooting around closets. Finally found some stuff to get rid of. I'm not sure if I want to do eBay because the whole shipping thing screws over either the buyer or the seller. Oh well, I'm still thinking about that. My sister wants one of my Kramer sets. It's a beautiful pink rhinestone with netted gold tone. It comes with a choker, a bracelet and two earrings. I loaned it to her when she got married, and then I never saw it again. Then I had to make a trip "up north" for a funeral, and my eyes slingshot out of my head when I unexpectedly spotted the 60 yr old jewelry.... wrapped around the stick shift of her truck. The woman said, 'Whaaaaaat, they're fiiiiine MH, don't act like I don't know how to take care of shit." I know she can take care of her stuff. All of her jewelry is in a big huge jewelry box IN HER HOUSE. Mine.... I'm sick just thinking about it. I heroically saved my jewelry, but soon noticed that one of the precious pink gemstones were missing. Bitch!!!!!!!

I took the set home and looked for an extra one somewhere. No luck. Then when I was going through everything, I contemplated parting with the set. The value is less, true, since there isn't a pink rhinestone in the necklace. It's probably under the seat of my sister's truck. But I know my sis likes it, and wanted me to just let her keep it that day I went psycho MH on her. So I called her up. We struck a deal, and now I'll be able to pay uncle sam off, and she'll get her wedding jewelry back (even thought it's missing a rhinestone), and she has promised to keep it all in the jewelry box.

Plus I have a few other little odds and ends to get rid of. Hopefully I won't have to have anymore nightmares about MC Rove.