I should’ve known how today would start. I went to sleep with some bad thoughts swirling around my head because of some mail I got yesterday, and spent some time trying to stamp them down, put a positive on ’em, and get some much-needed sleep. Because of it, I tried to sleep in a bit, messing with the schedule I had set up for my day. I made a great one last week and was trying to get back to it.

Well, woke up to find a bank error alarm on my phone and had to spend some time sorting that mess out. Then my dogs were going haywire out in the yard because of another dog (and my hairy boy almost broke my magnolia tree again with his chain, which made my heart almost stop–it’s just a twig right now and will take a lot of time to get stronger, but he’ll probably break my ankle one day with the chain because he sees a damned squirrel or other dog if he gets it wrapped around me). Hell, he basically topped the salvia plant next to the tree. Stupid soft ground after a week of rain made the metal barrier poles almost useless against that happy dog.

Said rain and sogginess (and the squirrels who got to feast thanks to washed-away repellent) finally destroyed my corn bed for good. I’m gonna have to go down there, pull the destroyed stalks out, and replace ’em with stakes for the beans as best I can. That made me mad because it was working okay til the damn rain wouldn’t let up, but the squirrels, and probably some bigger creatures, tore those things up bad. I think I’m either gonna have to figure out how to make a huge greenhouse for corn alone, or give it up altogether. I was looking forward to what would be coming out the most.

It also makes me mad that I’m just gonna have to go a little harsher with the squirrels. Might have to kill the buggers after all. Need to figure out how to shoot dad’s old pellet gun, because my bb’s just scare ’em a bit. I’m mad about that, but I’m madder that I’m trying to do good work and make a garden thrive and they took advantage of the rain and fucked it up badly.

That’s the stuff I can see. Now to the things I can’t.

But mostly it was yesterday and the mail I got. The county can’t get it’s info straight and is asking for taxes on a house I already sold–my dad’s house–and had hauled away. Because records still show it in his name (and mine for some reason), they assume it’s still there and has been. I’m mad because they’re asking for money for a house that’s been hauled off two years ago, and I don’t have that kind of money. I already had one financial crap-fest this morning, I don’t need to add hundreds more dollars to the problem.

Hopefully, I can get info on what I need to do to prove the house moved before the 2020 tax season. They know that it’s not there NOW, thanks to the last appraisal of my property (in February), but they’ll maintain there is no proof it wasn’t there in 2020. That’s what they did back in October, but I’d hoped with time the problems had been figured out. And I’m pissed. And I hope I can get someone on the line who can tell me what documentation I can try to get to help this along and get it resolved. And I hope it doesn’t involve trying to find the home movers (or call the people I traded it in to) and see if they can find a two and a half year old moving permit to prove they came out to move the house that day, because what if they can’t? My file has been totally screwed up somehow in the past few years, and I have so much dread that one day things are gonna REALLY get bad.

I’m afraid this will drag out for months and the fees and payment will just get bigger and bigger. And then they’ll screw it up and I’ll get charged again NEXT year. That I can’t stand. And I hate it because I hate that goddamn house and want to get rid of it forever. I hate it because it makes me remember my dad’s slow death from cancer and hate, and then his ending. The place was paid off, true, but falling apart, and why he didn’t make an effort to transfer title to me first I don’t know. He’d done it to his truck when he was getting worse.

But I guess he figured I’d be good living in a house where the electricity started going out in different parts and the A/C only worked in half of it, as long as I didn’t have to pay for it. Hell no.

The title is the trouble, and has been since day one. For some reason, it’s still in my name, despite being sold off (multiple times over if the rumor’s to be believed, probably to some company that’ll gut the hell out of it and flip it–which is good because it needs it). That’s probably what the county is basing it off of, and the fact that the renewed title was sent to me in 2020 because we couldn’t find the other. But the house had been long gone. Just some weird errors all around (the perils of being a first time homebuyer–and seller–without help).

I just hate having to explain things, over and over again, without resolution, because it keeps that wound open. It keeps those worst memories open and I just want to bury them. But the goddamn county has to make me dig them up and pick it fresh, and I’m a simmering pot of grief and anger all over again. It takes a lot to calmly explain and keep my cool, and sometimes I’m not very successful.

I’m an inch away from taking dad’s urn off the mantle and bringing it with me if they insist on speaking with him (I’m sure his death certificate’s been everywhere by now, and I might have just one more copy at best). Sometimes people’s situations fall between the cracks, and some common sense would tell you “hey, your paperwork is off, and we can fix this quick,” but nope.

I’m hoping in the next hour I can get some helpful advice–over the phone, though if I get my docs together, I’ll be more than happy to go to the office–that will make the rest of my day better. I mean, I had a not very productive but rather good day yesterday. I’m hoping it gets better today and within a week, it’s all good. I want to go into June with a clean slate, healthy eating, exercise, and days and days of writing and gardening, in good and bad weather.

I just want this crap with the old house and dad’s name to be over with already. It’s like a curse that’s been hanging over my head, and it’s exhausting to think about. I’m trying to remember better things, dammit, and this just isn’t helping.

Well, writing about it is a bit. Maybe some of that anger will be tamped down enough to make a pleasant conversation that actually gets me somewhere. And a cup of coffee may take care of the rest. I have to hope.