Updates

I guess I forgot about this blog for a while. It was also down for a bit, but it’s back.

I’m sitting here typing this during work as a substitute teacher. It’s about the only job I can handle, and I can’t handle it that many days per week.

My mother’s estate distribution is over. We are bleeding money very slowly, the more I work the less we bleed. We managed to put something in savings, but not that much. Various mistakes we made, and a huge mistake the State of Tennessee made, cost us lots of money. But we have 2 cars, fully paid for, and are completely out of debt at the moment.

Suzanne has been here, well, it will be 10 years on the 29th of this month; we will have been married for 10 years as of the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Things are better but not good. That is, our relationship is better, but our earning potential has not improved, and you know how finances put a stress on any relationship. On top of that, she is not a US Citizen, and y’all know what crap ICE has been pulling lately. She is very scared they will jail her and/or send her back to the Great White North. They *shouldn’t*, but there are lots of people ICE has picked up during this administration that they shouldn’t have.

We moved back in November to a nice apartment in Morristown. We were supposed to get Section 8 to help us pay for it, but, after we signed the lease, they refused to do so, saying that we weren’t approved for a 2-bedroom. I’m sorry, but I called every landlord in a 3-county area from the list they gave us, and this was the only APARTMENT available at the time. The apartment management was shocked, but they can’t offer us a discount. I don’t know how long we can stay here (see: bleeding money) but we’re trying. It also features a floor and a half, with 6 steps up from the living room and kitchen to the floor with the bedrooms and bath, and the longer we are here, the harder it is for us to get up and down those stairs, worse for Suzanne than for me.

We have been almost completely isolated from our spiritual community. We have tried to connect to people, and it works for times of need but not continuous (i.e., we got people to help us do some fixing up of the apartment, but no actual fellowship outside of that).

I’ve continued to attend Larry Kirby’s twice-yearly housefilks, but again, we will likely run out of gas money soon. We are scheduled to attend GAFilk in January (in Atlanta). Suzanne says we will find the money for gas and hotel room, but it will probably be our last con unless and until someone decides to ask me to be a filk guest at a con which can afford to pay our expenses. And since that hasn’t happened yet (I’ve been active in the filk community since 1982), I am not going to forecast that possibility as real.

So I guess things are going along. I’m going to be 74 in December. I’m not sure I ever expected to make it this far. Heck, I was never of the opinion that I would outlive my parents, but here we are, and Suzanne, at 58, has already outlived her parents.

I welcome contact. From anybody except scammers. About all the new contacts I get these days are from people wanting to sell me crypto, set me up for a romance scam, or offer me a “special opportunity”. If you care, call. In the meantime, after 5 pretty good years, I’m back to survival mode, and Suzanne is stuck with me unless she chooses otherwise.

MM/BB

Moss