bleeding sinuses

This is kinda icky but it's so weird,  I want to share. 

... 

Two days ago, I had the first nosebleed I ever had as an adult. I was at work so I stuffed tissue up my nostril and put on a face mask to cover it for the rest of my shift. 

Just now, I sniffed and felt like there was a glob of mucus in my throat and went into the bathroom and spit out a huge glob of congealed blood.  

Now my mouth and throat taste like iron. I find this very disturbing but MonsterMustDie says I'm over-reacting. 

Winter Solstice 2023

MonsterMustDie had his first oncologist appointment in the afternoon. We waited 45 minutes for a 5 minute visit. The doctor came in, gave us a limp handshake, and simply said he was ordering a PET scan and he would see him again in three weeks if the scan was done and he had results to look at. His cancer is rated at Gleason 8 and PSA level 7.  

We had friends and neighbors at the house for Winter Solstice in the evening. Michael and Marcia could not come because Michael's back in chemo for #5-leukemia. 

Bob & Karen came and were a huge help in layout and cleanup for the gathering. 

My brother Jeffery and sister-in-law Robyn came all the way from Charlottesville, Virginia to be with us that night. They stayed at the Adams Inn on my recommendation and we had breakfast with them this morning before they headed back home. 

When we got home and were coming in, the PET lab called and set up his appointment for the afternoon of January 3. It was good to get that on the schedule and be one step closer to dealing with this health crisis in whatever way we need to. 

I worked the afternoon at the dress shop. I almost forgot to go. I lost track of the days and my schedule. I made it back home from work by 6:33pm to find MonsterMustDie already in bed for the night.  

life

Yesterday, MonsterMustDie announced to friends on Facebook that he has prostate cancer. We know nothing yet about his condition other than the first basic diagnosis.  He has his first appointment with an oncologist on Thursday. 

I work early Thursday morning.  After work,  I'm planning to go with him to his appointment in the afternoon. 

That evening is our Winter Solstice party,  which I would have never planned if he had told me when his appointment was. He forgot or got the week wrong,  so he didn't tell me the date until this weekend after invitations had already gone out. 

My hope is the party will be a distraction from our troubles and that everything doesn't go down in flames. 

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Sight of the day is a man wearing a t-shirt with a grey & black flag on the front saying "Live Free" and the words on back say "The final variant is communism".
I have no idea what that means.  

still working it out

There was some progress made with my ongoing troubles at my condo in Atlanta. On Friday, December 1, I met with a Senior Banker and transferred all but $0.69 from my original account into an entirely new account. The old account is still active, frozen, and I am told that my property manager/realtor can make payments to that frozen account but no one can make any withdrawals from it while it is frozen. I hope that solves the problem. 

The other good news is that the last withdrawal by him of $2,486.00 was successfully caught and blocked after all, according to my bank. 

I am still worried about what he is going to do to me at tax time if he claims I made a lot more money than I did. I am afraid he can put anything he likes on my W9 for my condo. I know nothing about what companies can or can’t do with tax forms. 

I probably need an attorney. 

I definitely need a new property manager. 

Troubles continue

This week, my husband, who is more interested in engaging with conflicts than I am, sent the realtor who is the property manager at my condo a nastygram.
Here is his empty response:

Please let me know if you were able to access the owner portal and see the reports. 

 In case you were not able to access the portal, I've attached a year-to-date report showing all inflows and outflows and balances after each transaction. 

You will recall our phone call when I explained that you were holding the former tenant('s) security deposit of $1,700 which you sent to me electronically on Aug 18, 2023 so that I could send it back to him. My accounting department inadvertently sent these funds back to you $1,650 on August 24 and I explained that we would take the funds back so we could refund the former tenant's security deposit, which we did. Unfortunately, the accounting department sent the funds back to your account again on Sept 18 for $2,051 so we took the same funds back so we could pay your former tenant his security deposit refund. All of those transactions are on the attached report. When we spoke, I apologized for this happening twice and if I could explain - we manage 225 properties and yours was the only one where the owner held the security deposit so our accounting team was unfamiliar with a process to refund a tenant security deposit when we were not holding the funds. 

This will not happen again as the new tenant security deposit we are holding. I sent $2,486.00 to your account on Nov 22nd and the next payment you should expect will be around December 9-11th for $1,350 rent less $135 management fee or $1,215. You can expect this same amount around the same time each month. 

 Please let me know if you have any other questions about the statement.

xxxxx

After reading the idiot email he sent, I responded with this today. I haven't heard any response yet.

xxxxx, 

 Your Portal documents do not agree with my banking statements. Also, the Portal documents appear to be changing. I’m looking at my bank statements. 

When you first started managing my condo on June 01, 2023
Your monthly management fee should be $135.00.
You retain a constant $400.00 in Required Reserves.
We refunded the previous tenant $1700 from my checking account on August 21, 2023.
Repairs on the condo were $295.00.
(my tenant)pays $1,350.00 rent each month.
(my tenant)also paid a $540 move-in fee that included a pet deposit.
By now, I should have been getting $1,215.00 each month. Simple as that.

 
HERE’S WHAT MY BANK SHOWS:
06- 15-23 xxxxx Real Estate + $860.00
07- 15-23 xxxxx Real Estate + $1260.00
08- 21-23 xxxxx Real Estate - $1700.00

08- 25-23 xxxxx Real Estate + $1565.00
08- 29-23 xxxxx Real Estate - $1565.00
09- 13-23 xxxxx Real Estate + $2051.00
09- 18-23 xxxxx Real Estate - $2051.00
The $2,486.00, sent on October 23, was immediately removed by you from my account, just like every other payment you’ve put in.

TROUBLES

I believe my current property manager is a con artist. I had a discussion with him on Wednesday about the lack of funds in my shrinking bank account. He said he would put in 2 months payment and figure the rest out after he got back from Thanksgiving holiday. He said he had no idea why his bank was sucking everything back out of my account, like it was a mindless machine. After that discussion, I put a payment block on his company on my account Wednesday after he put money into it. Today, he sucked the last payment out by changing his company name to access my bank account. Now, I’ve had to completely freeze my bank account and I will have to close it to protect my money and open a new account. I need to find a new property manager for the condo. Meanwhile, the contract he has is for 12 months so I may be stuck with him and without any income for a year. I don’t think this affects the current tenant. They are still paying this realtor, who is keeping all of their money, every month but I am getting none the rent money. I need some referrence/financial advice/help with the condo I own in Atlanta. I might need an Atlanta attorney. I might need a new property manager in Atlanta if I can get out of my contract with my current realtor. Rental on the property has been my main source on income since we moved to North Carolina, until recently. I had to change realtor for managing the condo when the previous Real Estate company, stopped handling small individual properties like mine. She recommended the current manager of my condo. The condo has not made any money for me since this guy took control of it on June 1, 2023. It has only cost me money - $250 each month in Condo Association fees + payments to contractors for improvements + special assessments on the building + property taxes. I get monthly distribution emails saying that I’ve been paid and but when I look at my bank statement, every payment is sucked back out of my account in full a couple of days later and not replaced. The nice little emails made me feel like money was going in. It wasn’t. Wednesday was a frustrating day that all started with me trying to get health insurance and going to Healthcare.gov to see if I qualify for anything. Then I checked my bank account to calculate incomes to apply for healthcare and see that my bank account is shrinking every month. I have to cancel my doctors appointments next week because I can’t get insurance and a lot of medical services seem to insist on it. They don’t want to see me if I’m self-paying. I can’t apply for healthcare if I don’t honestly know what my monthly income is when I fill out online forms. I can’t count on the condo rent and I can’t discount it either. I need to cancel all of my subscriptions to everything and try to stop bleeding so much money from my savings. The most frustrating part of that is that Adobe software will charge me $109.98 to end my monthly subscription to all of my work apps. I thought when I had to update my Adobe software it would be a simple pay-by-the-month fee that I could easily drop or pick up again if I wasn’t working with a particular software package. Leaving them effectively ends all of my work possibilities in graphics or photography. So, since I’m not actively working, I suppose I am going to have to go out of graphics and photography altogether now. I can’t keep paying for my own tools. I am almost certain he will file a W9 claiming I made money on the condo this year when the condo has only been costing me a lot of money in HOA fees, property taxes, and maintenance fees. I don’t know what to do or what I can do about any of this. I have no words.

cold & wet

Today,  everything is dark, wet, and (finally) cold outside.  I would not be taking a single step outdoors if I didn't have to work tonight.  MonsterMustDie is working today until 5pm.I start work in the dress shop at 5pm, so we will not see each other today. 

We started watching Devil's Hour on Amazon last night, based on the recommendation of friends, and it's quite good with attention to detail in dialog and art direction. 

Going to the Potluck

Just finished making a pot of Thai green curry, based loosely on the recipe I got from a friend. It is a recipe with little or no specific amounts but a list of general guidelines on how she makes her curry, which everyone loves. She makes curry the same way I make gazpacho or guacamole. You just figure out what the base is and eyeball or taste until it seems right. No two batches are alike. This is a day when I walk a couple of blocks down and up to the next neighborhood near us, which is a lot more multi-generational (younger) and hipper (still working) than the neighborhood we live in. I always have a great time at the annual potluck, whether I go there alone or with my husband joining me. I always walk, crockpot in arms, because it's so close. I wish I knew more of our neighbors. People in High Point keep to themselves and mind their own business. This one street is different because it has a lot of multigenerational households including the children and grandchildren of original residents. It has in tiny community of people who have known each other since childhood and that sense of community spreads to some of the newer families on their block as well. With a lot of younger people who have children, the parents will inevitably know each other through their children. A few blocks over in our neighborhood, the only people who know each other are the dog-walkers, and they don't get too personal or care to do anything outside their home. It's amazing how different things can be, so near each other.

sound

I wonder why it's so quiet here; not our house but the neigborhood itself - so much that I think if voices are raised indoors that someone outside could possibly hear them. Inside the house there are sounds of air vents, fans, electrical hums, creaks. It's not the cacophony of nocturnal noises that my grandparents, the Hardy's, house was but there is quite a symphony of sound in this old house.

In Rufus Hardy's house, there were constantly bangs and groans from things turning on or shutting down, compressors, motors, electrical hums, loud clocks, etc. The mechanics of older buildings are simple yet mysterious.

In Horace Crowe's house, the only sounds were TV or radio broadcasts. Even the old "baby-burner" furnace in the floor was silent because it relied on hot air rising to conduct the heat. Ceilings were high with open transoms above the doorways to help keep the building cooler at ground level in th summer. All of the noise in their dodgy, poor neighborhood came from outside the house, where there was always some sort of drama going on.

The washing machine is down again

Against all odds, a tech came by this morning to service the washing machine that has been stuck, locked shut, nonworking for over a week. Today's visit from Whirlpool was free but they can't get it running again until they get new parts, which they will have to order. $576.65 is the total for parts to keep our washing machine working because we need a new board and pressure switch. The board keeps going out on it - the one in it now was installed free last year when the original board was recalled. The most recent service call we had when it stopped working was last July. This is a machine I purchased when we got married in 2016. Makes me wonder about buying a new washer. Looking it up, it's a lot more expensive now for a new washer. Now, just the washer alone is $938. I can get a one with less features in steel that won't match for $698. However, most of them can be delivered by October 18 at the earliest, which is might be sooner than we can expect the new parts to come in. The next time it stops working, I believe the answer is to replace it entirely, possibly from a completely different manufacturer.

behold our gourds

MonsterMustDie has fallen in love with the variety of gourds and pumpkins this autumn. 

October plans

I'm trying to figure out if I can visit Atlanta at the end of October. I won't know absolutely if my requested time off at the dress shop will be granted until 1 or 2 weeks before.  That limits my ability to make hard plans on where I can stay or what I can do if I make the trip. I can't buy tickets to any events in advance. Friends can't plan for me as a house guest.  Reservations anywhere are completely out of the question.  

flat tire - it just blew

Out riding with K when she had a flat tire. As it turns out, there had been a low pressure warning for a while that both she and B had been ignoring.  Oops. 

Fortunately,  B came up quickly and saved us. He put on the spare and switched cars with K. He later got a good deal on two new tires - the one that blew and the one that had been about to go for a while. 

disturbed sleep

I woke up at about 4:00 AM this morning. Tried to be quiet walking into the kitchen to give Ellie Cat a snack and then heard MonsterMustDie walking around in the house. He immediately started making coffee. I suggested it was too early for coffee and he assured me he was not going to be able to go back to sleep, anyway. We both gave up on going back to bed and just stayed up. I was able to go back to bed at 6:00AM and I slept for a couple more hours before getting up at 8:20-ish and staying up for the day. Tonight's dinner was just kinda put together impromptu with what I had in the fridge. I cooked angel hair pasta, pan-roasted chicken, and a salad of bitter greens purchased at the Farmers Market on Saturday topped with leftover dressing from dinner at a Greek restaurant last week. MonsterMustDie took a sleep aid and went to bed around 8:00PM tonight.