*deep breath*
OK, so, there’s been a lot going on. Let’s do this.
So, it turns out that working from home for an extended period of time in a tiny apartment is tough. Tough on me and tough on Nicole. The only reasonable work space for me is right in the middle of the living room which is a cramped space and it is certainly cramping for Nicole.
Given that no one is likely to be working in an office any time soon (or, ffs, they shouldn’t be), we started looking at larger apartments that weren’t as centrally located. This place is a great jumping off point for taking advantage of the city, but there’s naught to take advantage of these days, so it doesn’t make a lot of sense for us right. But then, we had a brainstorm: “Would it make more sense to buy a house?”
With the largely-remote nature of work extending into the foreseeable future, we had the opportunity to look outside of town. It turns out that this city is expensive to live in, but there are places within an hour of town that are more affordable and awfully nice. We battened down the hatches, paid some loans off, learned that paying off loans is dumb if you’re trying to work on your credit score, and got ourselves ready to meet with the bank to get a loan. We made an appointment and then…
…I was furloughed the day before the meeting.
That changed things a bit. At least we’d paid down some cards so we were able to get by, but it did put buying a house on hold and put us in an awkward position with regards to renewing our lease. Fortunately, I got an interview almost immediately. I wound up getting five interviews and a verbal offer, so things looked good, but somewhere between the verbal and the written, something changed and that fell through.
This put us in an unfortunate position. The unemployment office here won’t answer their phone, so cash flow was becoming problematic. We were, however, fortunate. My old job decided that they were ready to bring me back so I restarted there this Monday. Phew. So, we got lucky. After a little recovery time, we should be OK and should be able to get moving again shortly.
In other news, my boy is getting old. At some point in July, he seemed to be having trouble with his vision. This came to a head when I pulled out his favorite toy, the red laser. The sound of me picking up the laser always gets his attention, and this time was no different. But, when I turned the light on and started moving it around, he couldn’t see it at all. He just looked up at me and meowed, and I started crying because, damn, my cat couldn’t play with his favorite toy anymore. He’s not 100% blind, but it’s pretty close. We have to take care to not to move stuff around to much, but otherwise, he’s not terribly inconvenienced. He jumps up on the cat tree and on the bed like it’s no big thing. Sure, he runs into door sometimes, but otherwise, he’s doing OK.
Anything else? Not a lot, I mean, when you’re unemployed, you kind of go to ground and try to conserve energy and resources. My secondary gig is still going, and that’s a lot of fun even if it isn’t terribly financially rewarding. The political landscape isn’t helping, nor is the ongoing pandemic and, I feel for everyone in California because it’s smoky here. Oh, and hurricanes and…jeez, this has been a bad year.
Oh, and I’m pretty allergy prone, so with all the crud in the air, I’ve had post-nasal drip and a dryish-cough for some time now. Since my immune system is being kept locked down, the consensus was that I probably ought to get myself tested for COVID. So…I did. The negative result didn’t surprise me, but I did feel a little bit of relief.
Anyway, that’s where I am now. I didn’t want to say anything until a couple of balls in the air landed. Fortunately, they landed relatively gracefully and without breakage. Thanks for all the concern and sorry for being vague last week, but, well, y’all know me. “Vague” is sort of my thing.
-RK