11 January 2006

Workin' hard for the money

I didn't update on Monday to tell you the rest of my patented HAPPY DANCE news. I got the ambulance job at the new place. The giant scratch down the length of the passenger side of my brand-new car (from sliding off the driveway into the ditch) was able to be buffed out for $30 instead of having to repaint the whole thing for $800. And of course, the house.

I ran into some folks in the hallway at work on Monday afternoon and just after hello they said, "Wow, you look really happy today." Maybe that happens regularly to other people, but I don't remember it ever happening to me. Generally people believe I'm pissed off at all points in time and I've even had a few tell me I'm kinda scary. I've been working on that, so maybe it's paying off. Or maybe the HAPPY DANCE gave me away.

For the new job, I had to drive 2 hours on Tuesday to leave pee with them (you have to take your drug test within 48 hours of being offered a job). I convinced them to do the rest of the physical/paperwork/everything else we could cram in then too, but I still have to go all the way back down on Thursday for them to read my TB test because they don't trust anyone else to do it. Thankfully, I talked them out of requiring my second TB test next week down there - requiring 2 more round trips, and I'm having it done at my doctor.

In case you were wondering, no, I'm not still doing the HAPPY DANCE. That ended Monday evening with a call from the woman (T) buying our place. She needs to move the closing back from 2/1 to 2/8 because she is having urgent (but not quite emergency) surgery on 1/31 and won't be out of the hospital. Yes, she told me all the details and it's for real, she may actually have to have it as an emergency surgery some time before the end of the month. Our closing on the new house isn't until 2/10 so that might not sound like a problem. But, for those of you who haven't done the house-buying thing, purchase contracts have contingencies where if something doesn't happen by a certain point, life is bad.

Our sales contingency was for our house here to be sold and done with by 2/1. T and I tried very hard to figure out another way to get everything done before her surgery, but the bank can't do it any earlier than 1/31, the money for their down payment isn't available until 2/1, she isn't out of the hospital until at least 2/3 (and even then will be drugged probably past the point of legal competence), the bank won't close on the weekend, and before you know it we were back at 2/8. So today I get to make a dozen phone calls to try and figure out if our sellers will accept the change, if our bank can handle the transfers in a timely enough manner for the money to be available by 2/10, and just how and whether this is going to work. Aack. If I had a stress dance, I'd be doing it.

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