Category Archives: Engineer

My life with Kurt, the epitome of engineer, he is the ultimate “left brained” king of spreadsheets. Aside from still wanting to play Dungeons and Dragons or some other role-playing game like Vampire he is mentally an 80-year-old curmudgeon who seems to be highly allergic to change of any kind. Oddly, we are a perfect match.

The Netflix Scrimmage

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Kurt started a Netflix account years ago, and when it was first started he encouraged me add movies to the list that I would like. I added movies that I had already seen, thought were funny, and wanted to share with Kurt like Twelve Chairs, Same Time Next Year, and In-Laws. I interspersed the movies I selected with the ones Kurt had already put on his list. I placed them every third or fourth movie. After a few weeks, I logged into our account again to see if there was anything else I might want to add and to see when I might get to see one of my movies. SOMEHOW, all of my movies were at the bottom of the list. I moved a couple of them near the top. I checked on them the next day. They were at the bottom AGAIN. I asked Kurt about it and he apparently didn’t realize that those were my picks. All he knew was that HE was not in the mood for those movies so down to the bottom they went. I stopped adding movies.

He is now on a Zombie movie kick and I’m tired of it. Every time he reads off the list of movies we have at home to choose from, I complain, so he tells me to add movies I want to see to the list. I’m not big on movies. If it were up to me we wouldn’t have a TV even though I like the History Channel and Food Network – I can live without them. So I don’t really know what to add. We have already been through all the George Carlin stand-up. A couple weeks ago I finally broke down and asked Kurt for the account name and password again and started looking for things that I think might be interesting. I started reading descriptions of various documentaries, many of which sounded interesting to me. “Don’t add that one,” he says, “I don’t want to watch that one.” Fine. I’ll add these – click click click “Don’t add nothing but a bunch of documentaries,” he says. I didn’t know he had all these rules – where are they written? *grumble* I give up!

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ER and 911 and Surgery! Oh my!

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Based on my blog posts from February first no one would ever suspect that my weekend wouldn’t go as I planned. Saturday was supposed to be the day I purchased and brought home a glider chair for the nursery. Sunday was supposed to be a day we spent with friends eating snack foods and watching the Super Bowl (mostly the commercials). It was going to be the first time we brought all the infants together and I was hoping to take a picture of the FIVE of them. That’s right four of us (one person had twins) were pregnant all due within weeks of each other. At a whopping four months, Sophia was going to be the oldest of the infants. I was going to have Kurt and Sophia wear the matching shirts I got them for Kurt’s birthday. It was a joke gift based on the commercial for the movie “Meet the Robinsons” from last years Super Bowl. It’s a shirt with a picture of the dinosaur on the front and the words, “I Have A Big Head…and Little Arms” on the back.

Instead, Saturday we went out for Mexican food for lunch then went shopping for the glider chair. That took a lot longer than I thought it would and the place didn’t even had the one we pick in stock, so driving around in two vehicles (one that can haul the kid in a car seat and the other that can fit a chair in it) had been a total waste of gas. We did purchase a chair, so that went well. We just won’t get to use it for a couple weeks.

Kurt went shopping for the ingredients needed to make something to take to the Super Bowl party the next day and brought home something to make for dinner that night. Kurt had been having back pains that alternated back and forth to stomach pains since after lunch. When we got home he tried to use a heat pad on his back, then tried an ice pack, all the while lecturing me on how to care for pains like the ones he has. He had similar pains to there about three or four times since July. This was the first time the heat it/ice it tricks weren’t working, but Kurt was still able to ingest two “cheese” injected bratwurst he bought for dinner. I put poor Sophia to bed at her usual time. She didn’t get much sleep since we were going from store to store all day. I rubbed Kurt’s back. It never really helps, but he requests it all the time. As I’m writing this I’m thinking about all the times he has asked if I can feel how tense that spot is on his back and my answer was always the same, “no”. It’s always the same spot just under his right shoulder blade. We both always attributed that pain to the way he sits at his computer at work all day long and the fact that he uses his right hand to use the mouse – of course that spot would hurt being all hunched over with his arm extended to the mouse all day long.

Kurt had taken some Advil at least once that day, but that also wasn’t working. This seemed a lot worse than his usual. It bothered me that none of the usual stuff was working, but I still didn’t think it was something serious. I suggested that I could drive him to the ER. “No, no” he said, “you just put the baby to bed.” I told him the baby can recover from a lack of sleep.

We made it to the ER at about 10pm. I stayed in the waiting room trying to keep the baby quiet while Kurt went through triage. I walked around and found a quiet area. I looked up towards Kurt to see him holding a bag with brown stuff in it and asking, “Where should I put this”. Those bits of info didn’t fully connect in my brain until later. Kurt was still talking to the nurses at triage when someone from the back called his name. Kurt walked past me and I stayed in place nursing the baby to keep her quiet. I thought it would just be a few minutes an order for painkillers and we’d be out of there. My biggest concern at this point was – How am I going to get Kurt to make a follow-up appointment with our doctor after the ER just gives him painkillers without finding anything?

An hour and a half later I went up to triage to ask if I could go back to Kurt and see what’s going on. I made it to him just in time to watch him fill another bag with brown vomit. The had already done an EKG to make sure his heart was ok and an Ex-Ray to make sure his back was all in line and he didn’t have any broken ribs from sitting at a computer for eight hours a day at work or watching TV at home. Kurt was now waiting to be wheeled in for a CAT Scan. An hour later we were waiting for results which took another hour, then they tried an ultrasound. Kurtie had about six or seven very visible gallstones. They gave Kurt some painkillers and a referral to a surgeon. They told him he should see the surgeon within five to seven days. We got home around three in the morning.

Kurt was up every twenty minutes belching up stomach acid. The baby only slept for four hours and then was up for the day. Kurt stayed upstairs in the master bedroom for most of the day and I brought food and drinks to him. Sophia went down for a nap and I thought I’d take advantage of that time to get some sleep myself, but that wasn’t happening. I called a friend to help me out with the baby because her naps are usually pretty short – not the case on this day, but I had no way of knowing that. My friend and I chatted all day while I occasionally ran up to check on Kurt. He wasn’t looking well but with the painkillers, he seemed better than the previous night. Late in the afternoon that began to change the pain started getting worse and Kurt became nauseous and was throwing up. At one point he came downstairs and I told him he literally looked GREEN! He was only taking the minimum dosage of his painkillers and intended to take a higher dose when the time came. Laying in bed he seriously look like a corpse. His skin looked grey. At six I run upstairs when I heard him puking again. He was sitting on the bathroom floor and couldn’t get back up. I tried to help him, but he was in too much pain. I asked him if wanted me to call 911. Stubborn Kurtie was focused on making it back to the bed. Yelling out in pain, he forced himself to stand. I made him sit on the side of the bed closest to the bathroom, which wasn’t his usual side, while I ran to the other side and pushed pillows behind him to lean on. At that point it hurt for him to sit up and to lay flat. I told him I was going to call 911. “Yeah,” he said, “that’s probably a good idea.” Great, so glad I finally get your permission. *eye roll*

(to be continued…)

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Sophia’s Four-Month Birthday

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Sophia’s four-month birthday was on Friday (hence the Baby Squeezins: Diaper of the Month post). At four months, this kid has great control of her head now. She can lift it up to look around weather she’s on her back or stomach, but she absolutely refuses to use her arms while on her tummy to do the half push up (oh I hope she’s not going to be like her dad – more on this at the end of this post). If I hold her hands she can repeatedly push herself from a sitting to standing position and she can also stand for longer periods of time while just holding our fingers. A couple weeks ago I bought her the new set of rattles and within the last week she has figured out that if she can’t reach them with her hands she can use her feet to bring it up to her hands. On Monday I had her propped up with the Boppy pillow and a blanket behind her in such a way that she was sitting up straight. I’ve only seen her do this once, but she actually leaned forward to the point of bending herself in half to reach for a rattle and then she actually pushed herself back to the sitting position. She still has to be propped up to sit, but never the less I was impressed that she got herself back into that position.

Tuesday Sophia had her four-month check-up. She is thirteen pounds, thirteen ounces, and twenty-five inches tall/long. Poor baby received two shots in each leg plus one oral vaccine. Her tiny little left leg now has two welts. :( The shots on the right leg didn’t swell up like the left. The doctor said we can start her on solid food anytime. He said to start with a very thin consistency cereal first, specifically rice because it’s the one thing that doesn’t cause any kind of bad reactions. She has really been eyeballing our food for the last couple of weeks, so we’ll give sold foods a shot this weekend if I can make it to the store. The doctor said to stick to baby cereals for a while then alternate with fruits and vegetables. Try each new thing for a week before adding another new item, and no eggs or meats for a while.

four month vaccinations

On Tuesday I pulled out her doorway bouncy jump toy thing. As you can tell I have no idea what to call it, but I knew little Miss Kicks-a-lot would love it.

jumper toy thing

She doesn’t like the “stationary entertainer” *eye roll* that I pulled out of the garage on Wednesday very much, but she’ll tolerate the not-a-walker for a while. She figured out how to make the yellow squeaky (by her left arm in the picture) work and she was very pleased with herself. She hit it about three times before getting board and moving on to something else.

Sophia has been able to spin herself around in the crib since she was about two months old. More recently she learned to push herself away from the edge of her bassinet/playpen/crib with her legs while she is on her back. I’ve been placing her on her tummy after diaper changes to put her pants on and while I walk away to wash my hands for the past few weeks. On Wednesday I put her on her tummy to put on her pants as usual and she spit up. I rotated her in a way that her face wouldn’t be in the spit-up if she put her head back down, but I still positioned in a way that she can watch her crib mobile while I went to wash my hands. While I was gone I heard much fussing and screaming emitting from her general direction. After finishing I went back to see that she had her legs under her body in a crawling stance and her arms spread out flat on her mattress with her head down and up against the side of the crib. She had basically done a lower body half crawl with her face sliding through her spit-up. Her hair on that side was all wet – eeeww! :P Apparently when her father was a toddler he had an aversion to using his arms as well. His family lovingly dubbed baby Kurtie “Unicorn boy” because when he would trip or otherwise begin to fall he NEVER put his arms out to prevent his head from hitting the floor. The child had a permanent bruise in the middle of his forehead.

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Brought to you by the Letter C

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I was going to post about Sophia and her crying or maybe her cuteness, but after last night I just have to rant about our furnace. It’s been a month since the first time our furnace first started failing. It’s old and we have to keep resetting the circuit breaker. Kurt called someone to come fix it and the guy asked Kurt if he’s at all handy then told him to tighten or replace the circuit breaker. Last weekend Kurt tried to do just that but found that the main in the circuit breaker box, which as far as we know is supposed to shut off everything, only shuts off the lights. Neither one of up is up for a little electrical shock in just replacing the one breaker without the main turning them all off first, so we’re still dealing with the problem. Last night it cut out again and it was COLD!!!

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Friend, Old and New

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When Kurt was a baby, his mom made him a blanket from scraps of yarn. From the stories I’ve heard along with the fact that he still has this “blanket” in our closet I’d say that he has an unnatural attachment to it. It was crochet with red and blue flowers and there had apparently been another color made with an angora yarn which baby Kurt didn’t like – He chewed all of the angora flowers off and spit them out.

Toddler Kurt named his blanket “friend” and used it as his superhero cape. One time when young Kurtie was sick he had “friend” balled up next to him and Kurt’s mom came by to cover him up with another blanket. Young Kurtie protested, “No, you’ll cover his eyes”. Kurt’s mom looked down to see “friend” arranged in such a way that two previously flowered gaping holes were staring back at her.

Young Kurtie was also upset every time his mother decided “friend” needed a washing. Kurt would stand at the washer the whole time and then watch “friend” tumble in the drier. Kurt would then complain that “friend” had lost its smell and proceed to rub “friend” all over himself to get the smell back.

This year for Christmas, I unwrapped all of the presents for Sophia. A couple of her presents were specifically from Kurt and I was not privy to their contents. The first present I opened on Sophia’s behalf from him was a green and white striped onesie with blue lettering that read, “I (green heart shape) Mommy”. All together now, “aaawwwww, how sweet!” The second present was his old “friend”, which would have been a very nice sentiment if “friend” wasn’t a stringy thirty-five year old brown semi crochet mass of musty fermented Kurt spit with a few red and blue flowers left on it. EEEWW!! Get this hepatitis and e-coli ridden thing away from my baby!

Kurt’s mom had no idea that he had wrapped his old “friend” for Sophia let alone that he still had the musty old ball of yarn in his possession. When Kurt’s mom saw me open the gift of “friend” for Sophia, she dug through the Sophia gift pile for a specific box. I opened it when Sophia’s turn came around again. Inside I found three pictures of young Kurtie with his “friend”. “Friend” was originally a WHITE crochet blanket with burgundy red, dark blue, baby blue, white, bright pink, baby pink, lemon yellow, and pistachio green flowers and a baby blue cloth backing. Under the pictures and wrapped in tissue paper was a new “friend”. We dubbed it “Friend 2007”. We’ll see what kind of memories this one creates. ;-)

Friend 2007

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Icebox house, breastfeeding, and other clothing adventures

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Tuesday I woke up to a cold house. In the morning I blew it off as a cold snap outside that my furnace would soon compensate for, but a couple hours later it was still cold. Our house is a tri-level and each floor has its own temperature zone that varies about five to ten degrees from the floor below or above. I usually hang out on the third floor since it’s always the warmest. I went downstairs to try overriding the energy saver thermostat thing but nothing happened, and damn was it frickin’ cold down there! The thermostat read 60 degrees (Fahrenheit), but I really don’t think it was even that warm. Sophia was fussy all day and wouldn’t let me put her down anywhere because every surface was cold. She didn’t take any naps ans wouldn’t sleep even though she was wearing three layers and I was holding her. By two o’clock I had enough and had realized that I had not heard the furnace kick on once through the whole day.

I called Kurt at work a little ticked off because I thought he had programmed some funky cold temperature only comfortable to him and anyone used to living in a medieval castle. “How the hell do you change the temperature on this thing?” He gave me the instructions, but that was exactly what I had tried earlier. He asked me to check the circuit breaker. I was frustrated holding a phone in one hand and fussy monkey baby in the other, so I was too impatient to try and cipher the scrawl on the panel from twenty-seven years ago. “I have one thing to do and I’ll come right home.” He said. He’s so sweet (sometimes). In the mean time I wondered where we would stay if the furnace needed to be replaced, and oh god that would be another expense on a house we want to move out of soon!

It turned out to be the circuit breaker – the house warmed up, and Sophia slept all evening. Amazingly, I was still able to get her to bed at her usual 10pm that night. Unfortunately, morning wakeup came early on Wednesday. That’s ok, I can play zombie mom. It’s my own fault for staying up late to play with blog stuff. Actually, I got quite a bit done on Wednesday morning. I even had a shower by 9am. At ten I called a friend to explain some blog things to her (I helped her with a WordPress blog that I will more formally present once she has a little more to read – in the mean time if anyone in the Seattle are needs an event coordinator let me know ;-) ).

My friend and I went out to lunch a couple hours later and I woke up my napping baby to go from the car to the restaurant. I didn’t think it was a big deal since she usually goes back to sleep easily when I’m carrying/holding her. Sophia was great up until my food arrived and she decided she was hungry as well. Up until this point, I haven’t even attempted feeding her in public. I usually take her to the car if I need to feed her; it just seems more private that way. What’s odd is that before having a baby I had no problem flashing my little booblets around. Somehow feeding my baby seems like a private thing almost like going to the bathroom but a lot less disgusting. It’s either that or it’s because my previous booblets seemed harmless where as my new super-sized milk producing machines could put an eye out. I don’t know. Either way I haven’t mastered the technique necessary for private feeding and I made this my first attempt. It didn’t go well. I think I managed the privacy part well, but apparently, Sophia can’t find my nipple in the dark. I took the shrieking monster and my baby-blanket-covered-self outside to the car while my friend had my food boxed up for me (thank you). Sophia stopped screaming the minute I left the restaurant. I don’t know if it was the cold air, she liked that I was walking, or if the busy favorite lunch spot was just too loud for her to concentrate on eating. She happily ate in the quiet car and fell asleep.

I drove to a park, finished my lunch and then went to the store. I went to the store to buy a Christmas gift (which I did get), but I also bought a cute Christmas-y red suit for Sophia. She now has two Christmas outfits. Later in the day I found out Kurt almost bought the same outfit when he stopped at the same store after work. :P She has him so wrapped around her little finger. The day I posted the photo on this Wordless Wednesday he came home and told me he didn’t get any work done because he spent the whole day staring at her.

When Sophia and I got home, I fed her again while she made coffee percolating sounds in her pants. Time to change the baby – OHMYGOD – she shit herself up to her nipples – literally! Usually when she has a blowout, I’m able to roll her onesie up in a way that no poop touches her face as I pull it over her head – no such luck this time. Thankfully her onesie jumped on that bomb and contained the bulk of it. I didn’t notice right away but apparently my clothes weren’t spared from all of the fallout, and now for our unscheduled baby bath accompanied by blood curdling screams. For the first month or so of her life Sophia screamed bloody murder if you changed her diaper, but didn’t mind baths at all – that’s not the case now. Now it’s the reverse for both.

I got her dressed, re-dressed myself and fed her again. She fell asleep just before dad got home, and was completely out for four hours! I took a little nap too because I knew there would be little sleep for me later! I’m new, but I’m not completely daft.

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Death before alcohol

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I’ve been having a craving to try my hand at making bread pudding. I have a recipe that calls for brandy. Not having any brandy on hand I went to the grocery store yesterday. In Washington state beer and wine are sold at grocery stores whereas hard liquor is sold at liquor stores. There wasn’t any at the store I usually do my shopping at so I went to one that I know has a much bigger selection. I thought since brandy is derived from wine that it would be in a grocery store, but no I have to do a separate trip to the liquor store. I didn’t go. Why? Because on the door of every store is a sticker that says, “must be 21″. Yes, I’m well over 21, but Sophia isn’t. I can’t just leave her in the car even if it’s “just for a second”. I don’t know if I would be allowed in with her or not, but didn’t want to make a separate trip and pull her out of the car just to find out I either need to send Kurt after work or go by myself after Kurt gets home. I just don’t feel like – gawd I’m not myself after having a kid – I don’t feel like testing the limits. Alcohol laws are so fucked up!

Today on the news they said a judge ruled that a fourteen year old Jehovah’s Witness boy with leukemia could refuse a blood transfusion that could save his life.

Mount Vernon boy dies after refusing blood transfusion
NEWS UPDATE Nov, 29, 2007

SEATTLE — A few hours after a Mount Vernon judge ruled that a 14-year-old Jehovah’s Witness sick with leukemia had the right to refuse a blood transfusion, even though that refusal might kill him, the boy died in a Seattle hospital.

As Kurt pointed out while we watched the news tonight, this boy was basically granted the right to die for religious reasons, which is fine. It’s part of our freedom, but if this same boy sought to have a bottle of brandy for religious reasons, it would be denied. Much like the eighteen to twenty year olds that sign their life away to serve and protect this country, they’re old enough to die but not old enough to dull the pain. But unlike the military enlistees this fourteen year old can’t even legally have sex. If he had consensual sex with an adult that adult would be charged with statutory rape. But he can choose to opt out of medical treatment that could save his life at age fourteen.

Earlier Wednesday, Skagit County Superior Court Judge John Meyer denied a motion by the state to force the boy to have a blood transfusion. The judge said the eighth-grader knows “he’s basically giving himself a death sentence.”

Doctors diagnosed the boy with leukemia in early November and began treating him with chemotherapy at Children’s Hospital, but stopped a week ago because his blood count was too low, the Skagit Valley Herald reported. The boy refused the transfusion on religious grounds.

However, his birth parents, Lindberg Sr. and Rachel Wherry, who do not have custody and flew from Boise, Idaho, to be at the hearing, believed their son should have had the transfusion and suggested he had been unduly influenced by his legal guardian, his aunt Dianna Mincin, who is also a Jehovah’s Witness.

Mincin has declined to talk about the case.

The boy’s father told the P-I the ruling shocked him but after visiting his son later in the day Wednesday, he decided not to appeal. He said doctors told him Wednesday evening that the boy, unconscious since Tuesday, had likely suffered brain damage.

Several friends of Lindberg and of his parents attended Wednesday’s hearing, and some ran out crying when the judge announced his decision.

“Dennis does present himself as a very mature man. But he really is just a child trying to please the adults around him,” said Jan Curry, whose daughter, Morgan, is his friend.

With the transfusions and other treatment, the boy had been give a 70 percent chance of surviving the next five years, the judge said in court, based on what the boy’s doctors told him.

Still, the judge said his decision was based strictly on facts.

“I don’t believe Dennis’ decision is the result of any coercion. He is mature and understands the consequences of his decision,” Meyer said during Wednesday’s hearing. “I don’t think Dennis is trying to commit suicide. This isn’t something Dennis just came upon, and he believes with the transfusion he would be unclean and unworthy.”

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Dairy chicken eggs

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Today Kurt and I were talking about the reaction I had to the flu shot when Kurt announced that I must be allergic to eggs because the viruses used in the influenza vaccine are grown in hens’ eggs (as opposed to a cock’s eggs). I reminded him the only thing other than greasy foods I’ve EVER had a problem with is dairy to which he replied, “Well eggs are kind of dairy.” I’m not kidding, he really said that. I was so shocked I didn’t even have a come back other than, “What the fuck, since when have eggs been any kind of dairy?” I suppose that’s why he’s an engineer and not a farmer, but that ranks right up there with my supervisor that wasn’t sure if New Jersey was a state and my friend/coworker that didn’t know what time zone we live in. We’re right next to the PACIFIC ocean! There must be mercury in the water or something.

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Never ending chaos

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Friday night Kurt decided to clean the oven. Yep, that’s the exciting life of thirty-somethings with a seven-week-old baby. He’s had the instruction manual for using the self-cleaning mode out for about a week. And for a couple months, I’ve intended to clean the oven along with getting some of my cast iron pots degunked in the same million-degree process, but I just never got around to it. The self-cleaning mode takes about four hours and I wanted to pick a time when I wouldn’t be in the house. Well, Kurt turned it on and my cast iron never made it in. Damn it! And with in minutes the whole middle floor of our house was filled with smoke. *grumble* So we open the windows on the middle floor and watched movies while locked upstairs in the master bedroom. Four hours later the oven beeped to let us know it was done. It remained locked for the cool down period, which I think was another hour. Once the cool down period was over the oven beeped again, but remained locked and was displaying an error code. We hit the off button to stop the obnoxious beeping and referred to the manual for the error code. Call the service center. FUCK! And the beeping stated again. Hit the off button. Three minutes later more beeping. Damn it already! Unplug the stove and plug it back in again. Still locked, still has the error code and – beep beep beep. GODDAMNITALLTOHELL!

We kept the stove unplugged for the night and called the service number in the morning. They’re only open on weekdays. Bastards! After a weekend of cooked meals that required us to plug the stove in and hit the off button every three minutes to control the incessant senseless beeping and eating out with an infant (she’s actually really good if the timing is right) I called the service number on Monday. I went through the press one for Spanish phone maze down to press three for repairs I was directed to a live person who then asked me not what the problem was but what is my name, address, zip code, and phone number. Damn data collection crap. Now I’m probably going to get calls about winning a point one percent discount on a plasma tv after answering a “short” survey that winds up eating into an hour and a half of my life. The woman finally asks me what the problem is. I give her the error code that the stove is giving me and so she asks for the model and serial number. I had the manual with me so I told her the model is one of the these two – and rattled them both off to her. To make a long story somewhat shorter, a general, “it’s one of these two” just wasn’t good enough. I found myself on my hands and knees on a kitchen floor that hasn’t been cleaned in an amount of time I don’t want to discuss and reading numbers from inside the drawer under the oven. The only light side I can see about the whole situation is, at least I wasn’t nine months pregnant.

After all that the woman at the service place asks for the error code again. “hhmm, did you try unplugging it?”
“Yep”
“Well I guess we’ll have to send someone out there. The soonest I can do is next Wednesday.”
“NEXT WEEK? How much will it cost?”
“$55″
“And that’s just to have the technician come out?”
“Yes”
“I’m going to have to think about that” CLICK

Since my cast iron pots weren’t trapped inside I didn’t have to think about Jack Shit! Waiting until the day before Thanksgiving for a technician to come out just to look at it is wholly unacceptable. “Just use your microwave” you might say. I don’t own one. Anything that can turn the outside of something into molten lava yet still be completely frozen in the middle is evil. As a side note I also don’t usually eat things that come in packages with “microwavable” on the label. Cause if something needs a package and can’t be identified without a picture and or map – It ain’t food.

Monday afternoon I got home from my “Living with baby” group and Kurt and I went shopping for a new stove. We figured it might be a good selling point for when we put out house on the market. We also bought a new dishwasher to replace the twnty-year-old suds producing hot water consuming semi sanitizing dish-holding unit. I should be getting the stove today. YAY! The dishwasher we have to wait on because we are going to have them install it for us. I’m sure it would be easy enough for us to install ourselves, but when the sales person asked if we wanted it installed Kurt pondered, “hhmm do I want to deal with the hassle of installing it?” “No” I corrected him “Do I want to deal with the hassle of you installing it?” Ask me sometime about the bathroom that we couldn’t use for two years. He finally finished it July of this year and it’s gorgeous, but TWO YEARS under construction!

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Papers are in order

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A couple weeks before Sophia was born Kurt and I went to see a lawyer about ensuring paternity rights, drawing up our wills, and creating a trust for our spawn in the event Kurt and I die of spontaneous combustion or we go out on a date without the kid and develop a severe case of road rage and the S.W.A.T. team is required to take us out Bonnie and Clyde style. Anyway, we signed our wills on Wednesday and none of you gets anything so even ask. Although I may allocate a boot to the head to a few special people, one of them being my ex. Sit down this might be a long story.

My ex and I have been legally divorced for NINE YEARS. We parted as friends and didn’t use lawyers for our divorce. We were stupid and thought that because we were parting on good terms we wouldn’t need them at all. Stupid stupid stupid! We agreed on everything as far as who would keep what and who pays which bills. We filled out one of those “do it yourself” divorce packets, filed it with the court, and $130 in filing fees later that was it. The problem is that we had and STILL have a house together. In the divorce decree the house and all the bills associated with it are his, but no where in those do it yourself papers did they have a place for me to write in a deadline for when my name should be removed from the title or the LOANS. We removed each others names from the credit cards we kept and have since sold all the vehicles that were owned by us jointly, but the house, the fucking house is still in my name.

We bought the old 1930′s home as a fixer and intended to uumm fix it up. It wasn’t in bad shape when we bought it. There were a couple highly fixable oddities, but it was livable. Not the case anymore. While we were together, he upgraded all of the single pane windows. He also ripped out all of the cloth wiring, which meant insulating and adding sheetrock as well. It still needs the sheetrock, doors for the kitchen cabinets, siding on half the damn house, but that’s not what makes the place unlivable – oh nnnnooo. It’s the dry rot from not finishing some of the outdoor type projects, the dead 60 year-old tree next to the house that is so infested with termites that they spread to all the trees on the property and the house, and the transients he lets store all their crap all over the place and live there rent free. Now according to our divorce decree the house is his and he has been making all of the payments, so I really don’t care who lives there or what condition the house is in, but my name is still on the title and the loan. That means two things to me. If one of the many people or their kids get hurt in the house of perpetual construction or anywhere in the half acre landfill junkyard it sits on and they sue the owner of the house…that includes me! Also the three late payments to the house affect MY would-be pristine credit.

I’m ex military but he isn’t and we took out a VA loan. I think if he had been military it would have been as simple as dropping my name from the loan through VA. However, the actual loan is not through VA it’s been shuffled off to a mortgage company just like everyone else’s home loans. You may sign the papers at a local bank but they often sell it off to some other company, so the fact that it started out as VA is moot now. I’ve called VA and they tell me to do a “quitclaim deed” – oh hell no! That means I have no interest in the property, but I DO! As long as my name is on the loan and my credit is affected you had better believe I have a very real interest in that property. VA said that I need to go to the mortgage company to find out how to take my name off the loan. I call the mortgage company and they say that HE must refinance and qualify for a new loan, and here is where the big problem lies. How the fuck do you drag an unwilling adult to the mortgage company?! And the really big question how do you get a mortgage company to agree to give a loan to the person who has been making all of the house payments by himself for the last NINE years when he has no actual job? That’s right, legally, on paper, he has no job! He’s paid under the table for construction work.

So sell the house ye may say. Nay says he. We tried that route about two years ago. I brought out my real estate agent (I keep one in my pocket at all times). I gave her full warning about the property before I had her meet with my ex. We set up a day for her to come out and view the place for pictures and a value assessment, and afterwards she privately said to me, “You know what this is right? This is a practice house for the fire department”. I’m not kidding, that’s really what she said. Of course, before she said that she said she legally had to ask me, “Have there ever been any drug ‘cooked’ there?” I really have no idea, but I don’t think so. I was so ashamed to be associated with that property. She knew but I had to tell her anyway, “That is not how I live”. He has made that house THAT bad.

He found a sucker in one of his friends and we and came very close to selling. He wanted to make the purchase without agents and I reluctantly agreed, but he didn’t qualify for the loan. I should have seen that one coming, so that was it. My ex didn’t really want to sell for the price my real estate agent gave. He has put WAY too much money into that shit hole and for some fucked up reason he thinks he can get much more and actually gain a profit from the sale. Across the street from the house is a fourplex that sits on the exact same size lot. I was hoping that she could give a number that he would like by focusing on contractors wanting to build apartments, but the property just isn’t worth it when you factor in demolition of the house and such.

This whole ordeal is what finally ended my friendship with my ex. Actually, it ended when he called me a “stupid bitch”. So enter the lawyer stage left. When Kurt and I first talked to our lawyer about getting my name off this house, he made it seem like something definitely could be done and that it might not take much at all. After I sent him my divorce decree and we talked on Wednesday – he doesn’t seem so eager for the job. He said I would have to submit a revision to the divorce decree, but the way he said it sounded like that sort of thing isn’t approved often, or it would somehow be very difficult. I didn’t ask for details as to what had to happen to make that happen. He said he would look over the decree again to see if there might be another option.

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