Happy Birthday, Daddy

Dear Daddy,

When I was a little girl, and we got the Daily News on Sundays, I always used to notice the bits in the classified where people wished their loved ones a "Happy Birthday In Heaven".

I don't know if there's an afterlife, but if there is, I hope that someone is there to make you a chocolate birthday cake and that there's full fat ice cream on the side and that you get to eat as much of it as you want.

I hope there's candles for you to blow out, someone who loves you to sing "Happy Birthday", and a chance for you to clown around and say "Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking...."

I love you, Daddy. I miss you.
Happy birthday!

Love,
L

Going In Circles, Looking For A Path Out

I thought we would have no problem with our home equity re-fi, until I told the loan officer about the mold/mildew thing. The reason that we need to get a loan, so we can have the money to deal with it.

Thing is, it won't pass appraisal with the mold/mildew/ We can't fix things without the money via the loan, via the appraisal.

So I said thanks, I guess this won't work, hung up, called the Man and cried.

And then I plucked up my courage and went to the huge commercial bank that ate our smaller commercial bank, talked to a loan officer and talked to a mortgage officer.

He thinks we may be able to get an external appraisal only if we just re-finance and pay off our credit card debt w/o cash out. No guarantee, but he's trying for it.

And ironically, my FICO score has gone up since all of this started. No idea why, but it's one small ray of light.

I do have one last resort. The Man has money in the bank, money left from Nanay. Plenty to take care of the mold and mildew situation.

We'd pass the appraisal then and be able to get the loan. But it's his money and I don't want to touch it. Don't want to ask him to do so.

But if this doesn't work out, that's what I'm going to do.
Because it's either than or call my brother.
And I will not, will NOT do that!

Score: 1 Victory, 1 No Decision

Shortly after I emailed the condo association president about where to send the mold report, she forwarded my name to the general manager. I sent him the mold report AND the tree report.

Three days later, we got the word that the tree will come down.
!!!!!!!

Of course, the Man has to go to an association meeting this week so they can discuss it--and hopefully the roots under our patio will be included. As I said to the Man, the roots belong to the tree, the tree is common element therefore THEY are responsible. If it had been up to us, the roots would've been gone long ago, but that really would have effected the tree.....

Then they sent one of the maintenance flunkies AND the maintenance manager to look at the walls, and they talked a lot about furniture, condensation on windows (windows are fine) and other such. Still haven't heard back from them.

No matter. We are about to have the mold in JR's room treated, the windowsill fixed and the whole room repainted with a very moisture/mold resistant paint. And we will do the same for our bedroom and downstairs.
We are going to redo our home equity loan. Much lower rate, include our credit card debt and my car loan and end up with a payment smaller than the current loan, PLUS some cash to pay for all the home work. The Man is dark about this, as always. I am happy and it is going to be a big stress reliever!

But if they don't do anything about the crawlspace, if they try to foist it off on us, I am going to stir up some trouble for them by letting others in our neighborhood know about this.

And then we will see what we will see.................

Not Moving--Yet

Found a house I loved and got turned down for the mortgage.

But that's okay for now. In fact, having figured out WHY we got rejected I think we'll be able to try again and get a mortgage. I do want to get pre-approved for one. But right now the housing inventory in our area is small, and most of the houses are either too expensive or wrong for us for one reason or another.

Looking at houses, mainly just on the web, has shown me that a lot of people have plenty of money, but awful taste. And it's give me a list of what I do and don't want:

Meanwhile,we are dealing with our current home.
Or rather, I am and the Man is being a right bastard about what I am asking him to do. But one of two bookcases I really want out of the living room is GONE and I know he's working towards the second one. But he goes through his stuff book by book, so it's agonizingly slow....

We have mold problems. Mold on the wall in our living, dining room under the window and on the sill to the point where the sill is rusting away. The same in our bedroom. A little of the same in JR's room.

Our contractor could have just come in, surveyed things, and come up with a big, expensive construction project. Instead, he proved what a fine man he is (thank you, "Angie's List") by suggesting that we get a home energy auditor to figure out what was going on before we made any plans.

I found an auditor (also via "Angie's List),and she came last week. Wonderful lady. South African I think, judging by her accent. Really knew her stuff.

What she discovered is that down in the 3 foot high crawlspace beneath our building the rain floods in and just stays there. There is no moisture barrier. There is no ventilation. The water just builds up, then wicks up the walls and into our living room, and when it hits cold wall space it starts making mold. The same thing upstairs in our bedrooms.

The good news is that this means that this is the condo's responsibility. The bad news is that this is the condo's responsibility. 

I  have sent them the report. They are sending staff out to see what is going on. Now I hope that they have the sense to take care of this quickly and quietly.  We are willing to foot the bill for cleaning the mold and repainting and won't take them to court. Not if we don't have to.

I also sent both the landscaping director AND the general manager, a report on the silver maple tree in our back yard. The tree is dying--has been for years-- leans over the house and did major damage during a storm last summer. And it has made our brick patio humpy and bumpy and unusable.

They should take the tree down just because it is dying and dangerous. Now we've added on a comment in the report that says backyard drainage is part of the moisture issue.

All I can do now is wait. And hope.

Thought For the Day

When there's a bad smell in your car (girls said it smelled like cat or fish food, I feared I had something dead in my engine), do a REALLY thorough clean out before you take it to the garage.
I have a dread of "mommy car" along with "mommy purse", but the girls aren't in my car as much as they were and I try to keep things as neat as possible. Garden tools are in the trunk all summer and there are other things that stay a while. But mostly, I empty things out. Or so I thought.

Otherwise, you may entertain your mechanics and embarrass yourself when they discover a potato, probably there since you did latkes in December, has rolled under the driver's seat, is wedged there and is rotting!

Easily remedied, but never to be forgotten...........

I Need A Happy Place

Just about 25 years ago I moved in with the Man. He'd been living in a studio apartment, and we found a one bedroom apartment in the same building. I had 2-3 bookcases. He had 3 or 4. Things fit in just fine.

But it was a high rise building. City girl that I was and am, I'd never lived higher than the 5th floor and in small apartment buildings. I hated the long waits for the elevators. I hated false fire alarms at night. I hated living so high above the trees.

A friend lived in a neighborhood full of low townhouses. It was built during WWII, so the materials varied. Hills and trees added to the lessening of a cookie cutter feel. It felt homey to me--and as a matter of fact, a great-aunt of mine lived in the neighborhood when it was first built.

The friend was about to move out and wanted to rent her unit. The Man and I went to see it and liked it. But we realized that our bookcases wouldn't fit into it easily. But we did find a two bedroom unit in the same community and moved there.

We had a lovely bay window that the cats loved. We had trees and woods around us. It was quiet and peaceful. But already the bookcases were beginning to take over--we had to create a wall with them that made the living/dining area seem smaller. And the second bedroom filled with the Man's books. More and more books.

When SC was born, I gave up the effort of even trying to get him to clear out the second bedroom. She slept in her portacrib in our bedroom. Truthfully, she slept mostly with me, but at some point we needed a real crib.

Right down the street we found a three bedroom unit. It was 2 floors. It needed a lot of updating, but it backed to the woods and looked into a tree. There was space and light. And we bought it.

We moved in stages because of the Man's books primarily. He had over 40 boxes and was shocked at how many he had. But he did nothing about it. And he kept buying books.

That was nearly 18 years ago. That was before JR came along, needing her own room. The room that the Man had taken over for his books.

For several years, JR didn't really have a room. Her crib was in the 3rd bedroom and she slept in it until she was nearly 4, surrounded by bookcases and boxes.

Finally, the Man had to move his stuff out. Some went to a storage unit, which we have had ever since. The rest went into bookcases.

Bookcases in our living/dining room. Bookcases in our bedroom.  Bookcases anywhere there was space to put them.

And more books on the floor, more books in boxes. Even on the shelves, books are piled sideways and backwards.

The Man has thousands of books. He will never read most of them. They are primarily non-fiction on everything from sex in the USSR to the history of the pencil. Really!

And have I mentioned the DVDs--and the videotapes he still has? Or the closet in JR's room filled with boxes containing unconstructed models?

I finally had an epiphany recently. I should have no guilt over the fact that the Man has no "man cave", no room of his own.

He is using the entire goddamn downstairs of our house as his room. Aside from the kitchen, the sofa and the kitchen table, it's all his stuff.

Which is why I started looking for a house this winter. Our area is expensive, and we don't want to move from it, and our house needs some major work. Condos in our neighborhood are popular, and three bedrooms rare though, so I think we can sell it, even if it had to be in "as-is" condition and we got less for it.

Know that I love our house. It has the kitchen we planned and constructed step by step, the kitchen I adore.  The bathroom the Man renovated while I was pregnant with JR.  The windows where first Puffin and Spooky, then Bart and Bella, and now Bella and Molly sunbathe and bird watch.  Nanay's rose bush and my other plants outside. The rooms my girls have grown up in.

 The place of Hanukkah parties and visits by our families and of 17 1/2 years of mostly happy memories.

But I'm 51 years old and I'm tired of living like this. We  need a dining room with space for the table and no bookcases. A living room that looks like a grown up living room.

I want a bedroom where I can see the walls instead of bookcases.

I want a house where I can invite my in-laws over and have room for them and to not have to spend weeks clearing things out first.

Above all, I need a place where there is a basement for the Man's boxes and for his tools, and a room for his bookcases. A place where he can put his stuff out of the way of the rest of us and where we don't have to talk about it any more.Where I don't have to nag him about it and he doesn't have to be angry with me.

If I could have that and not move, I'd stay where we are forever.
But it just isn't happening................ 

My Mom Is A REAL Heroine

Dear Robin Roberts,

I am glad that you have been able to return to "Good Morning America" six months after being diagnosed with MDS. I wish you well in your recovery.

But you are a very lucky person.

You are young enough to have been able to have a bone marrow transplant. You have money to pay for everything you need. You had millions of people praying for you, supporting you.

My mom has MDS. She's 80--no chance of a transplant. She's had round after round of chemo, which seem to be keeping things at bay, but that's pretty much all that can be done.

She's done it mostly on her own. I went with her for the first round, but I'm 250 miles away. Her son lives nearby, but virtually never visits.

And my dad, her partner of 50 years, is gone.

She's there, mostly alone, fighting this disease.

She has an aide now,but that's because she broke her leg in the summer and has had to recover from that as well. Before that she wouldn't have accepted any help.

There's no chef to cook for her. There's no constant presence at her side. There's no limousines to drive her to and from her treatments--just cabs and the city's unreliable Access A Ride.

No one is cheering for her. No one is splashing her in the media as a heroine the way they are doing for you.

But she is a REAL heroine. All the folks out there, quietly going through things like this are heroes and heroines.

You're just a media figure.

Sincerely,
The Heroine's Proud Daughter.