So I moved

Well, that happened, and it happened very fast.  From finding out my neighbors were cheerfully poisoning me for years to casually going to an open house to finding out about a thing called a bridge loan that could allow me to get a new place and move there and then sell my old place when it was not full of stuff and thus might sell for enough to not wipe out all of my emergency savings, it was not a long time.  

And I still had heard NOTHING from the management company of my home owners' association.  It seemed clear to me that like most times before, they were not going to protect my health or enforce their own rules or the laws of Vadnais Heights or the State of Minnesota.  

So I went forward.  The 5th house was the charm.  Made a full price offer less than 24 hours after seeing it.  Accepted less than 48 hours after that.  Cleared the inspection contingency.  Was locked in.  Told my neighbors.  (Had to print out a version to tape on the drug neighbors' door, since he blocked me after admitting they were playing the game to win by claiming the half-outdoor cats were his Emotional Support Animals.)

And that night, drug neighbor's wife came to tell me they were moving out.  

I had a moment of incandescent rage.  I was moving to a house I couldn't afford and paying on two houses and 3 loans simultaneously to escape them, and they were already leaving.  For real this time.  Not like in 2019 when they said they were moving.  Or 2020.  Or August.  Or September.  Or "this winter."  Soon.  That month.  October.  And I knew nothing about any of it because the terrible management company for my HOA does not know how to do basic communication.  Not even, "Thank you for letting us know; we're looking into it."  Just . . . nothing.  And hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt it was too late to back out on.

Drug neighbor's wife seemed confused and hurt, as they always do when they get called out for violating the HOA rules they signed onto when they moved here.  They have truly never seemed to understand that when you share a building, an entrance, and entryway, HVAC venting, a small community, the things you do affect that community.  And she confirmed that by saying, "I just don't understand why they [the HOA] think they can tell us what we can and cannot do in a home we own."  

And I didn't have the energy to try to explain what community means.  What it means that your actions impact your neighbors.  That there are things you can do to make that impact positive, and poisoning the air is not one of them.  That lying about your animals in a pet-free building when you know your neighbors have allergies is not one of them.  That her dad signed on to those rules when he bought that condo for her and let her live there rent free for 10 years with her daughter, even when the abusive boyfriend her dad was trying to rescue her from followed her there and immediately started breaking rules and laws and making me miserable.

I wanted to tell her that she is not even the actual homeowner, that she owns nothing.  That I do and they chased me out of the home I did own because they couldn't follow basic living in community rules.  That I didn't have someone paying for my housing for 10 years while I wrecked the place so bad he had to pay tens of thousands of dollars to gut the place and make it saleable once they left.  That I had just spent all the money I saved for the bathroom renovation of my dreams because I thought I was going to live there 15 more years, and I had to leave because they were threatening my health, livelihood, and life with their rule breaking.  That I COULD NOT afford what they were forcing me to, but I was doing it anyway because I thought I had no choice, and the HOA could have let the people who move in after them do the exact same thing to me.

I said I hoped they would find a place that would better meet their needs, and she said they had a place where they paid a pet fee for her cats and it was a standalone house with no close neighbors, and that sounds right for their needs.

And me?  I have a place on the ground floor, so my mom doesn't have to worry about me falling down the stairs (again) or my dad falling down the stairs when he visits next time.  I have a little more space and a bit more light.  I have quiet.  I have no shared entrance or HVAC venting.  There have not been pets here.  I have to pay more than double for this, and it is further away from work and my church and my church small groups.  And I don't know if it is worth it, but it is done.  And if the old place sells fast, I will not even be paying the 3 loans simultaneously for very long.

So I sit here surrounded by boxes and chaos and too many things to do, and I am stressed and anxious about finances and overwhelmed and prone to overdoing it to the point of making myself sick.  And I am thankful for all the blessings that allowed this all to happen, that I am away, that I have escaped and can make a new place for myself here and maybe be less sick and swollen and allergic all the time, that maybe I can breathe here no matter who my neighbors are or may be in the future.  

I am also very tired.  I think I will take a nice, quiet nap and be thankful for rest.  And maybe try to write something more focused on the fun and adventure and joy of bringing order to chaos after a little rest.

When "Enough" Sounds like "I Love You, Neighbor"

My neighbor knocked on the door today to tell me from across the hall that he convinced his doctor to give him a prescription for the combination of hydroxychloroquine (and Zithromax) that Fox News has been talking up based on anecdotal evidence and some really shady trials.    He wanted me to do the same because he is my neighbor, knows I'm in more than one high-risk group, and cares about me.  He also hasn't talked to many people in a while, so I let him talk about the benefits and the deep state medical conspiracy keeping this treatment away from people for a while.  Then I sincerely thanked him for being concerned for me and wished him well and went back to working from home.  And being very concerned. 

It's not really (or at least just) that this treatment hasn't been proven to be safe and effective for treating this illness that concerned me.  It's not just that people desperate for a cure will buy things (possibly from the internet or the black market due to pharmacy shortages) that will kill them.  It's the further scarcity that could happen that has me most concerned. 1  2

He assured me that it's readily available and cheap because that's what Fox News told him, so it shouldn't be a problem for the Lupus and Rheumatoid Arthritis (and Malaria) patients who need it to have it.  However, the anecdotes I've been reading online have been from Lupus, autoimmune diseases, and Rheumatoid Arthritis patients who can't get their prescriptions refilled right now or in the possible future due to a shortage.

Yesterday the FDA and the Department of Health and Human Services said the drugs could be stockpiled in the Strategic National Stockpile and could “be distributed and prescribed by doctors to hospitalized teen and adult patients with Covid-19, as appropriate, when a clinical trial is not available or feasible.”

I am not sure where my healthy but elderly neighbor falls in that wording, but he didn't get his from that stockpile, just from an unethical or worn-down-by-badgering doctor.  All I could think of after he got done proudly telling me how far he had to go to find a pharmacy that had any of these drugs he doesn't need that other people do need, is, "I wonder if this will cause a shortage that will cost people's lives."

If all of these healthy people convince their doctors to give them this thing they don't need, will there be enough of this thing for the people who do need it right now, people who are dying right now?  

Isn't this just another variety of hoarding?  Another way we are selfish and think about what we tthink we need to do to make sure we have enough no matter what even if we take what someone else needs away?  Like the people buying the groceries that WIC-dependent people have to buy when they could buy something else or make do with what they have already hoarded?  Like the people who bought 8 months of toilet paper in a panic, leaving none left for people who have none?

Maybe I'm overreacting.  Maybe the supply chain has fixed itself since those articles I came across the last couple weeks.  Maybe there is plenty to go around like my neighbor said Fox News told him.  Just like toilet paper still missing weeks later from empty shelves. 

Maybe people won't have to miss work and paychecks they are still lucky enough to have due to pain and debilitation. 

Maybe they won't have flare-ups that cause them to go to the hospital and be exposed to this illness when they are already immuno-compromised. 

Maybe people in hard-hit areas won't die because of those 5 doses my neighbor hoarded. 

Maybe my elderly diabetic father won't die because of those 5 doses my neighbor hoarded.  Or my immuno-compromised niece.  Or one of my other neighbors on this planet. 

Maybe hoarding what we don't need now against possible need later will have no consequences in this case. 

But maybe it will. 

And if it will, doesn't that mean I have a moral responsibility to my neighbors and my community to prevent that if I can?

So I am not going to talk to my doctor.  She would not be on board with this anyway because she is kind and compassionate and ethical. 

I just hope that if I do catch this illness and am in the hospital on a ventilator (if one is even available) dying, that there is enough of this scarce, potentially-lifesaving option available for me because it hasn't all been swallowed up by people who are well but incapable of foreseeing the consequences their hoarding can have for their neighbors.  Or their grandfathers.  Or their relatives with cancer.  Or that middle-aged lady with asthma and a sketchy immune system across the hall.

Maybe I'm overreacting, but just in case I'm not, let's all take a deep breath and say ENOUGH hoarding.  

If you bought too much toilet paper and don't need it, you can always give it to someone else, but prescriptions legally don't work that way.  Let's leave the medication in the hands of the professionals to make sure it's there for people who need it when they need it (including maybe you or someone you love) and not sitting in the cabinets of healthy people who just want to feel like they have some control in this currently scarier world we're all in together right now.

Let's love our neighbors by saying ENOUGH.

The week before the layoff: Tuesday

I wonder if this is the last Tuesday I will take this route to work past the half-dead, half-alive tree and the marsh.  Will this be the last Tuesday I do work at this desk surrounded by this three-sided view of clouds watching this plant shiver as heavy machinery moves the floor?  Will this be the last Tuesday I go to this store and then that store and get gas at this gas station and then go home? 

I pray it will be the last Tuesday I ever have to do research on hip surgery (while contemplating potential job and insurance loss). 

Will tomorrow be the day that everything falls apart for me like it did for my cube-neighbor today?  He was one of our managers, an irreplaceable expert.  But they did tell us that this lay-off had nothing to do with how good we are.  It is a thing of cold, hard numbers, HR and finance, not our bosses or those who work with us and give us performance bonuses. 

Now I wish again that I had maintained my goal of only achieving expectations.  Who knew that exceeding them would have the consequence of making me more attractive to a cut based on numbers?

Underwear thieves (no, really)

I am pretty certain someone swiped some of my underwear last time I did laundry.  I used to have a match between socks and underwear, and all of a sudden, it's way skewed.  This is the first time that's happened in over 13 years of shared laundry room life. It's hardly something to celebrate . . .

Once upon a time, I would have been intensely creeped out and offended and outraged.  Now I just feel sad.  I mean, if someone is so desperate that they can't afford to buy underwear and need to steal it, they're going to be ticked off when what they stole falls apart soon.  I am super-cheap, and I do not like to buy new clothes unless I have to.  That is some old underwear.  Steal from someone less cheap next time, underwear thief.

Also, ewwwww.  Had to get that out of my system . . .

Neighbors at work: some day this will make it into a story

The guy in the cubicle next door isn't used to being next door to anyone.  This has become apparent in the last month as he has been working out of this location four days a week.  It was okay when he was only working here one day, but now that he's here all the time, I find myself wishing there were a way to sound-proof his cubicle.

He can't do much about some of it.  He's in HR and has to call people and ask the same 6 ridiculous categories of questions.  I even find it somewhat entertaining sometimes (also horrifying) to hear all of the strange ways people self-destruct in phone interviews.  Do that many people seriously not know their own work history that they just filled out an application about?  Do they really think that the correct answer for "What are you going to college for" is "to keep my parents from bugging me"?

The things that make me slightly crazy are all of the weird noises he makes.  Seriously weird.  Of course, if I had to do the same conversations all the time as listed above, I'm not saying I wouldn't have cracked, too.  Still.  He sounds like he has a horse in his cubicle with him from all the weird, blowing, rubber-lipped sighs he does.  There are certain foods I wish he would avoid because he always does those loud, weird, startling hiccup-burps after eating them.  (Pardon me, but I'm laughing so hard right now remembering these things that just piss me off when they're happening that I kind of need my inhaler.)  Sometimes he will do random movie quotes.  I'm pretty sure he's on the phone for those.  Mostly sure.

I know more about how he got his stupid new cat than anyone should have to.  Except for my other next door neighbor who just escaped and transferred cubes partly because he couldn't stand being anywhere near this person.  The traitor.

My friend advised that when he's making noises, I should play Miss Slightly Dumb and Concerned and go around and ask him if everything's all right when he makes these weird noises.  It would only take a few seconds.  It's a good idea; I just don't think I could keep a straight face with all I've heard.  Too many times I have had to stop what I'm doing and bury my face in my arm to smother the slightly hysterical laughter he is causing me to deal with.  Sometimes, my voice recognition software ends up trying in vain to translate the stifled noises I'm trying to strangle before they erupt as full out belly laughing.  The poor guy has enough problems; he doesn't need me to acknowledge that I'm aware of them.  Mortification.

On that note, I guess my passive-aggressive dreams of going through my old Dilbert calendars and pinning relevant ones about bad cube manners/hygiene on his chair would not be a good idea.

Maybe I should just play deaf and bring my big, old noise-canceling headphones.  Nobody really calls me on the phone anyway.  Maybe when I'm not using my voice-recognition software, that would be the best solution.  Running away is always a good idea, right. :)  Any other suggestions?

O, the Neighbors Inside Are Frightful

Ah, last night brought back memories.  'Tis the season to be jolly, and some of my neighbors were being extremely jolly last night, though why this should involve so much cigarette smoke that you could see it in the hallway is beyond me . . . 

Anyway, back in college, it used to drive me crazy when the RD would do curfew checks to make sure we were all in our rooms by whenever we were supposed to be.  I always was because I was in bed before 10 most nights because I cannot function well on less than 9 hours of sleep and always seemed to have 8 'o'clock classes.  Unfortunately, I was a light sleeper, so even if she didn't open the door and look in, I would wake up as soon as she touched the doorknob.  This has always been irritatingly true.

I am paranoid since the last roommates I had refused to lock the door and got me robbed in broad daylight while one of them was actually in the apartment.  It's a good thing I am paranoid because if I weren't, I would have had several strange men wandering around in my 385 square feet being jolly.  Probably five or six of them tried my door by mistake, the last one at around 1 am.  (Quiet hours in our building are supposed to start at 10.)  Ho ho ho!

Do you have any amusingly grim holiday neighbor stories you'd like to share?