I had - well I wrote the day the house burned down from the hotel I was staying in. I had all of that stuff on my JS journal - it's all gone - whoosh, buh-bye.
It was a Sunday morning. At the time, Anthony was living with me as well as Michael and of course my son from Friday to Monday. Things - concerning Anthony - were much better than. He hadn't copped the huge attitude and wasn't doing drugs, though I figure he was probably smoking the dope.
Anyway, I had rented a Rug Doctor the day before and was trying to get the carpets finished in my old house before the time frame for having that machine elapsed and I had to take it back to Fry's. I was busy getting the living room done, when Anthony came strolling out. Now, I may not remember everything to exact detail as I had written it that day.
Reason being because that day is basically a blur in my memory. I remember the things that happened - but it was such a mind-blowing event and the hugeness of what was going on - never thought I would ever have to go through something like that.
Anthony said to me: "Ben, there's smoke in your bedroom". I couldn't possibly fathom why there would be smoke in there. I walked back there and opened the door. The smoke was so thick, you could barely see anything in the room. I did not see any fire at that point, but it was obvious something bad was going on and I wanted everyone out of the house immediately. Told Anthony to get out, and then started banging on the bathroom door loudly and impatiently, yelling at Michael - who was in the shower, to get out, and get out NOW!! He didn't understand what was going on, I just kept banging and yelling to get out of the shower immediately - the house is on fire, get out.
The word fire got Michael moving to the point he only put on a pair of pants, burst open the bathroom door and I was basically pushing him down the hallway. This was an old mobile home, and if know the structure and composite of those things, they burn FAST when they catch on fire. You don't have time to do anything, just get out of it and save your life. Once I knew all the humans were out, I started looking for dogs. I couldn't find Comet and I couldn't find the Rottweiler I had just acquired, but I did find Coco, grabbed all 3 leashes, put her on one and then ran out of the house. Don't remember who I handed Coco to, but - I ran back in the house to see what was going on in the bedroom. Oh, I forgot, as soon as I walked in the bedroom and saw smoke, I immediately called 911 and demanded the fire department to get here NOW!!
When I got back to the bedroom, I had plans of saving a few things - things handed down from my ancestors that could not be replaced. No such thing ever happened. As soon as I started walking into the bedroom, one of the walls literally burst open with flames. The instant heat from that intense fire that had been building inside of the walls pushed me back down the hallway. If only I had had a little more time, I could have got a garden hose in there and probably have snuffed the fire before it got to that point. Everything I have written that occured up to this point happened VERY quickly.
I wasn't going to die for an old house that needed to be razed, anyway, or even the thought of losing the things that were so valuable to me, I was fortunate that even in that state of mind, reason took over and told me that trying to save things - and getting burned or killed while doing it - simply wasn't worth it.
It was the middle of July, it was over 110 degrees that day. I did another sweep for the dogs, couldn't find either of the other 2, gave up on it cause the house was filling with smoke, and went outside.
I want to note something before going on with this story. On a normal Sunday, my son and Michael were sharing a bed and would have been sleeping in that bed at that time of day. That bed was RIGHT where the fire burst out of the walls. IF my son and Michael had been sleeping, as they ALWAYS were on Sundays at that time of day, and IF they hadn't woken up in the smoke or the heat in the walls - they would have either died or had been seriously burned. It just so happened that my son left early to go with his mother to church and Michael apparently had wakened when my son left and decided to take a shower. I personally don't believe it chance, I'm a Believer and I know that God had intervened in this situation.
I went outside - had forgotten my shoes and had only a pair of pants on myself - and watched my house burn down. The fire department showed up, it took them a while (probably not very long, in my mind an eternity) to get all their gear on, get the hoses hooked up to the hydrant get in there and start putting out that fire. JUST before they went in, the Rottweiler appeared out of nowhere and started trying to bust down the big window in the living room in an attempt to get out. He was heaving his entire 130 pounds against that window - but we got in there and let him out before he could hurt himself. The smoke inside of there was deadly at that point, not to mention the intense heat, even though it was the front of the house and the fire was raging at the rear of the house.
I was standing out there, in the direct sunlight, as well as Michael and Anthony, for hours. The dogs were burning up - the water from the hoses fighting the fire was enough for them to drink.
Things started happening quickly. Phoenix Fire has their own volunteer resource of people who come out in such situations, assess the situation and figure out what needs to be done to help you out. In this case, the gave me the number for the Red Cross and told me they would help. I had no place for the dogs - the Humane Society came and took all of them away. I gave up one of the dogs - the Rottie - as I found out that he is a one-dog only type of animal. He doesn't like other dogs and will attempt to kill them. My other 2 dogs - Coco and Comet - were put up for 7 days I think it is. That is the limit they will take them. But, it's free, it takes that burden off of you and you don't have to lose your dogs if you can find a place that to live in that will take them.
The Red Cross showed up with a force of people and assessed the situation themselves. Yup, a total loss. Everything, including every piece of clothing for me, Michael and Anthony. Caleb had a few things there, but not that much. Do you need a hotel? YES. They set up a hotel for a couple of nights if I recall correctly, and then they gave me a debit card with $500 on it to buy food and buy new clothing.
They took the immediate pressure off of me - I was broke and I didn't have any money for hotels and food. I don't remember everything, to be honest. Maybe a few readers that were reading when I went through it will. I know that my dad basically saved me - he sent me 10 grand which I used for a myriad of purposes, including have the house removed from the property. My company has a fund for people going through an emergency and I received 5k from them as well. I think I stayed at hotels for at least a couple of weeks or something like that before finding an apartment and moving into it - with both dogs. No, it wasn't that long, less than 2 weeks. I found a place that would accept my dogs and lived there for 6 plus months while I was having a new house put on the property.
My co-workers - like all of them - gave me everything from gift cards - very generous gift cards at that - furniture - all kinds of stuff. I received a huge outpouring from the church I had been going to. Basically I was given a new lease on life - I was working a full time job and maybe would have been able to find a place, yes, but to replace everything without all the help I received? No.
It was both one of the worst and best times of my life. Bad - lost things that can never be replaced. Good - the huge outpouring of help from people - many people I didn't even know - restored my faith in the giving nature of the human race.
The after-effect? I can smell smoke when no-one else around can. What's that smell? I smell smoke. Everyone around me looks at me strange. Still to this day.
The month or so after the fire I had horrid nightmares. I would wake up in the middle of the night, sweating, even screaming. I remember going to the bathroom one night, opening the door and seeing flames. There were no flames there, but my eyes saw flames. I kept seeing fire everywhere. Counsellors told me this was normal and would probably last a month or so, and then would dissipate. It lasted longer than a month, but it did eventually dissipate and the horrific nightmares went away. The visions of flames everywhere also subsided and life slowly got back to normal.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Wednesday/Cut To The Chaste
Indeed.
I fully expected it.
No, really I did.
Mary left a letter on my computer desk right here.
She apologizes - profusely - admitted things got out of hand because I had "hurt my feelings" as she puts it (for what, I have no clue but I'll assess it to suing her for eviction).
Now, what kinda got to me was the little thing she put on there about her mother dying this morning.
I was unsure whether she was telling the truth - master manipulators will do anything to try and get you on their side - but she came in with tears in her eyes just a few moments ago, started talking to me about it, then she got 2 phone calls and they definitely sounded like the response a person would be giving in such a situation.
She goes further in the letter to say that she understands if I don't want to rent to her anymore - but she would like to stay - and if I wanted to rent out both rooms to her, she would give me $600 per month. When she came in, she stated she had been giving $200 per month towards her mother's assisted living.
So, that's that.
What do I do with such a letter and personal interaction? Umm, well, I tend to think of the past and what has occured all the way up to this point and put it into context. The past with her in here has both been good and horrific. It's been a roller coaster ride of ups and downs. I would say that the goods and the horrifics have been equally distributed in terms of time spent in either condition. What I'm not really liking is the way she addressed me in those emails and a few other things such as her dealings with Caleb - though she also profusely apologized to him and hasn't done anything since.
Anyway.
Tomorrow is my 45th birthday. I was going to take the day off for my birthday day, but there is too much work to do, and things are NOT looking good at our company. At least in the AZ division. I am NOT going to be the one who gets canned because I was adament about taking the exact day of my birthday off. Corporate gives the birthday holiday - but conditions it with scheduling it with your manager to do it when time permits. So, I asked for Friday off - but the other driver already asked to leave early. I then asked for Monday off - he said good - but we'll check Friday what's in the system. Cool. Maybe if that doesn't work I'll ask for next Friday - as I would rather do it in a 3 consecutive day off thing than anything else.
I was talking with the boss today and he showed me the numbers so far this month for each of the 5 stores we operate in AZ. It was quite alarming. One store hasn't sold ANYTHING. The store in Tucson - which "usually" would have had at least 100k in sales by now, has NOTHING as well. It's a large store with it's own salesman. Our store has done 45k - which isn't too bad considering the economy, the size of our store and the number of employees, and the main branch has only done 245k - which is QUITE low for that store. The first thing I'm thinking is more layoffs. Who will survive? The store in the west valley - I'm predicting it will be closed by year's end, probably a lot sooner. Look, I'm just hanging onto whatever hope I have here that I will survive any rounds of layoffs and will be able to continue to have a job with this company, because it's VERY slim pickins in the job pool market right now for any industry, even trucking. I'm very concerned, I'll put it that way. But - I also expected this. The gurus have been saying all along - at least some of them - that 2009 will be worse than 2008 and don't expect any turnarounds until sometime in 2010. I see 7,000 more layoffs announced on top of all the layoffs already announced this month nationwide - it's getty scary.
When a company like Caterpillar announces over 21,000 positions will be cut - what kind of panic does that send through it's force of employees? People will start assessing their position in the company and whether it's completely expendable - and then start losing sleep. I'll bet the sleeping pill companies are loving this stuff - I can just imagine that their sales are skyrocketing as I can only imagine doctors handing out thousands - hundreds of thousands - millions of presctiptions for the stuff.
How did I get started on that subject again? It's pressing on me, that's all I can say about it. It's "warm" today - in the mid 80's. Crazy. It's almost warm enough in here to turn on the AC for a couple of hours - but I will probably just go outside and water plants instead. It's getting close to 4:00pm, so it will start cooling back down in a couple of hours or less. I have plenty of watering to do out there on the east side of the house - the stuff in the plastic pots have to be watered daily in any kind of warmer temps - they just dry out and the plants - suffer.
My dad sent me a little birthday gift - nothing much and I have come to realize that the money he gave me last year and the year before - is pretty much gone. He had sold his house and gave me a chunk of change, but also donated a bunch of it to - I don't remember what he said, but either a church or a charitable organization. I'm happy to have received anything. I have that bonus coming on next paycheck and Ken is paying me $200 at the end of this week. For now, I am staying afloat.
Anyway, I have a lot on my mind and I'm going to go visit my little plant paradise and spend some quality time out there.
C'ya later.
ben
I fully expected it.
No, really I did.
Mary left a letter on my computer desk right here.
She apologizes - profusely - admitted things got out of hand because I had "hurt my feelings" as she puts it (for what, I have no clue but I'll assess it to suing her for eviction).
Now, what kinda got to me was the little thing she put on there about her mother dying this morning.
I was unsure whether she was telling the truth - master manipulators will do anything to try and get you on their side - but she came in with tears in her eyes just a few moments ago, started talking to me about it, then she got 2 phone calls and they definitely sounded like the response a person would be giving in such a situation.
She goes further in the letter to say that she understands if I don't want to rent to her anymore - but she would like to stay - and if I wanted to rent out both rooms to her, she would give me $600 per month. When she came in, she stated she had been giving $200 per month towards her mother's assisted living.
So, that's that.
What do I do with such a letter and personal interaction? Umm, well, I tend to think of the past and what has occured all the way up to this point and put it into context. The past with her in here has both been good and horrific. It's been a roller coaster ride of ups and downs. I would say that the goods and the horrifics have been equally distributed in terms of time spent in either condition. What I'm not really liking is the way she addressed me in those emails and a few other things such as her dealings with Caleb - though she also profusely apologized to him and hasn't done anything since.
Anyway.
Tomorrow is my 45th birthday. I was going to take the day off for my birthday day, but there is too much work to do, and things are NOT looking good at our company. At least in the AZ division. I am NOT going to be the one who gets canned because I was adament about taking the exact day of my birthday off. Corporate gives the birthday holiday - but conditions it with scheduling it with your manager to do it when time permits. So, I asked for Friday off - but the other driver already asked to leave early. I then asked for Monday off - he said good - but we'll check Friday what's in the system. Cool. Maybe if that doesn't work I'll ask for next Friday - as I would rather do it in a 3 consecutive day off thing than anything else.
I was talking with the boss today and he showed me the numbers so far this month for each of the 5 stores we operate in AZ. It was quite alarming. One store hasn't sold ANYTHING. The store in Tucson - which "usually" would have had at least 100k in sales by now, has NOTHING as well. It's a large store with it's own salesman. Our store has done 45k - which isn't too bad considering the economy, the size of our store and the number of employees, and the main branch has only done 245k - which is QUITE low for that store. The first thing I'm thinking is more layoffs. Who will survive? The store in the west valley - I'm predicting it will be closed by year's end, probably a lot sooner. Look, I'm just hanging onto whatever hope I have here that I will survive any rounds of layoffs and will be able to continue to have a job with this company, because it's VERY slim pickins in the job pool market right now for any industry, even trucking. I'm very concerned, I'll put it that way. But - I also expected this. The gurus have been saying all along - at least some of them - that 2009 will be worse than 2008 and don't expect any turnarounds until sometime in 2010. I see 7,000 more layoffs announced on top of all the layoffs already announced this month nationwide - it's getty scary.
When a company like Caterpillar announces over 21,000 positions will be cut - what kind of panic does that send through it's force of employees? People will start assessing their position in the company and whether it's completely expendable - and then start losing sleep. I'll bet the sleeping pill companies are loving this stuff - I can just imagine that their sales are skyrocketing as I can only imagine doctors handing out thousands - hundreds of thousands - millions of presctiptions for the stuff.
How did I get started on that subject again? It's pressing on me, that's all I can say about it. It's "warm" today - in the mid 80's. Crazy. It's almost warm enough in here to turn on the AC for a couple of hours - but I will probably just go outside and water plants instead. It's getting close to 4:00pm, so it will start cooling back down in a couple of hours or less. I have plenty of watering to do out there on the east side of the house - the stuff in the plastic pots have to be watered daily in any kind of warmer temps - they just dry out and the plants - suffer.
My dad sent me a little birthday gift - nothing much and I have come to realize that the money he gave me last year and the year before - is pretty much gone. He had sold his house and gave me a chunk of change, but also donated a bunch of it to - I don't remember what he said, but either a church or a charitable organization. I'm happy to have received anything. I have that bonus coming on next paycheck and Ken is paying me $200 at the end of this week. For now, I am staying afloat.
Anyway, I have a lot on my mind and I'm going to go visit my little plant paradise and spend some quality time out there.
C'ya later.
ben
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Tuesday/Court
UN - believable.
The cacophony of lies spewing from Mary's mouth in the courtroom - just incredible. Too many to list. The thing that made my jaw drop is that she had taken pics of the work she had done - and included ALL the work I had done on the east side of the house - a thing which she had nothing to do with - as part of HER work!
Because Mary and I bantered back and forth for quite a while through email, there was a lot for the judge to take in. As Fin so aptly noted a while back, I don't envy that judge. I started from the beginning when she moved in and went all the way through until today. Mary started her lies - threw in some truth here and there - but was obviously getting emotional - erratic and confused. SHE confused the judge several times. The way she speaks and tries to explain things is VERY confusing. The judge sat back at one point, looked at Mary and said "I'm confused. I was with you all the up until" the point that she started going on a safari excursion of lies and make-belief. We travelled through Africa and probably parts of China in this incredible, made-up story of hers.
At the end of it - and darn it went on a long time - the judge found for me. My court costs and partial rent. She had was trying to convince the judge that she owed me NOTHING for the month of January, I was adament that she owes me the full amount for that month. The problem is, back in - October I think - I wrote her an email that - was ill-advised. The email was intended to show Mary how far off she was on her figures, and then I said something like, let's say that this is all true - and that I DID give you $200 for 2 months in rent concessions. The judge took that literally and gave her the extra couple of hundred in concessions.
Live and learn, is what I can say about this situation. I actually wouldn't be opposed to having someone living here doing some amount of work for a specified amount of rent off. But - it would all have to be very detailed and spelled out to the extreme on the rental agreement. Again, the reason I didn't include it on the rental agreement with Mary is because she said on the day she came over here, after I told her I had deleted that Craigslist ad with the offering, that she didn't want it anyway. Otherwise, I would have clearly spelled out on that agreement the terms of the "work for reduced rent" and there would have been no questioning it.
She denied in court - in a very animated fashion I might add - that I had said that I would only go $100 off. I told her that even though she said she didn't want it.
Now? $200 judgment and the writ of restitution can be issued in 5 days. Another $103 bucks to do that. I figure I will be forced to do so, unfortunately. The judge offered to her to pay me in court, right then and there, and that would satisify the judgement - but she said she didn't have any money.
Now, she's eventually going to come back here, undoubtedly, and then what? I have NO clue. What kind of stuff might she start? Or will she ask to stay? Or does she even understand that she has to leave? I am starting to understand now that it's the way she sees things that convalutes her thinking. I don't know what to think about her. I'm afraid things might get ugly - but that's just me. She's been acting very nice in the last few weeks. I have video surveillance on 24 hours a day, recording. If she comes in here - I will be standing right in front of it. Must find my mini-cassette recorder in case - just in case - she starts something.
Ahhh, found it. It's a small electronic gadget that gives me much comfort - the audible recording of anyone saying whatever.
I could say that I am switching gears and moving on to something else for today, but I can't. Court was intense. I had to find a lot of documents in a short period of time. I was ready, but still. Mary started speaking very fast - she was extremely agitated. The experience wasn't bad just because of the judge. He had a difficult task in attempting to sort out all of this mess and I can say that I was happy with the result. It ain't as much as I wanted, but just to get any judgement - $200.00 - was enough, especially with the check in the box near the bottom of the document we both received at the end stating that a Writ of Restitution will be issued after 5 days. That state does that to allow the person time to get their stuff and get out. I do NOT want to have to deal with Mary's stuff.
Okay, I'll try to do some gear shifting. I was over at Benita's blog yesterday and she was asking about the house fire. I understand that there are numerous new readers here and I would like to document that day and all that happened as much as memory serves. The day was more like a streak of light - it all happened fast and things came into play very quickly to help us out. The city of Phoenix definitely has a good plan for this kind of emergency.
Anyway, I bid you all well and maybe c'ya later.
ben
The cacophony of lies spewing from Mary's mouth in the courtroom - just incredible. Too many to list. The thing that made my jaw drop is that she had taken pics of the work she had done - and included ALL the work I had done on the east side of the house - a thing which she had nothing to do with - as part of HER work!
Because Mary and I bantered back and forth for quite a while through email, there was a lot for the judge to take in. As Fin so aptly noted a while back, I don't envy that judge. I started from the beginning when she moved in and went all the way through until today. Mary started her lies - threw in some truth here and there - but was obviously getting emotional - erratic and confused. SHE confused the judge several times. The way she speaks and tries to explain things is VERY confusing. The judge sat back at one point, looked at Mary and said "I'm confused. I was with you all the up until" the point that she started going on a safari excursion of lies and make-belief. We travelled through Africa and probably parts of China in this incredible, made-up story of hers.
At the end of it - and darn it went on a long time - the judge found for me. My court costs and partial rent. She had was trying to convince the judge that she owed me NOTHING for the month of January, I was adament that she owes me the full amount for that month. The problem is, back in - October I think - I wrote her an email that - was ill-advised. The email was intended to show Mary how far off she was on her figures, and then I said something like, let's say that this is all true - and that I DID give you $200 for 2 months in rent concessions. The judge took that literally and gave her the extra couple of hundred in concessions.
Live and learn, is what I can say about this situation. I actually wouldn't be opposed to having someone living here doing some amount of work for a specified amount of rent off. But - it would all have to be very detailed and spelled out to the extreme on the rental agreement. Again, the reason I didn't include it on the rental agreement with Mary is because she said on the day she came over here, after I told her I had deleted that Craigslist ad with the offering, that she didn't want it anyway. Otherwise, I would have clearly spelled out on that agreement the terms of the "work for reduced rent" and there would have been no questioning it.
She denied in court - in a very animated fashion I might add - that I had said that I would only go $100 off. I told her that even though she said she didn't want it.
Now? $200 judgment and the writ of restitution can be issued in 5 days. Another $103 bucks to do that. I figure I will be forced to do so, unfortunately. The judge offered to her to pay me in court, right then and there, and that would satisify the judgement - but she said she didn't have any money.
Now, she's eventually going to come back here, undoubtedly, and then what? I have NO clue. What kind of stuff might she start? Or will she ask to stay? Or does she even understand that she has to leave? I am starting to understand now that it's the way she sees things that convalutes her thinking. I don't know what to think about her. I'm afraid things might get ugly - but that's just me. She's been acting very nice in the last few weeks. I have video surveillance on 24 hours a day, recording. If she comes in here - I will be standing right in front of it. Must find my mini-cassette recorder in case - just in case - she starts something.
Ahhh, found it. It's a small electronic gadget that gives me much comfort - the audible recording of anyone saying whatever.
I could say that I am switching gears and moving on to something else for today, but I can't. Court was intense. I had to find a lot of documents in a short period of time. I was ready, but still. Mary started speaking very fast - she was extremely agitated. The experience wasn't bad just because of the judge. He had a difficult task in attempting to sort out all of this mess and I can say that I was happy with the result. It ain't as much as I wanted, but just to get any judgement - $200.00 - was enough, especially with the check in the box near the bottom of the document we both received at the end stating that a Writ of Restitution will be issued after 5 days. That state does that to allow the person time to get their stuff and get out. I do NOT want to have to deal with Mary's stuff.
Okay, I'll try to do some gear shifting. I was over at Benita's blog yesterday and she was asking about the house fire. I understand that there are numerous new readers here and I would like to document that day and all that happened as much as memory serves. The day was more like a streak of light - it all happened fast and things came into play very quickly to help us out. The city of Phoenix definitely has a good plan for this kind of emergency.
Anyway, I bid you all well and maybe c'ya later.
ben
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