Cat Fight!

Yowza!  That's a great way to get your adrenaline pumping in the wee hours of the morning.

Klink has been wandering outside for about 30 minutes.  Chloe has been very 'concerned' about Klink's wandering and keeps running into the study to get me.  I get up, we walk outside, I wave my arms frantically to get the outdoor lights to come on (motion sensors are slow to sense so I make it obvious there's something out there requiring light).  Klink lingers around and won't come in.  He's meowing but he won't come in.  The dog and cat go around to the side yard - and it's too dark so I don't.  And then there's a huge ruckus - howling, snarling, barking....I hear Chloe yelp and then Klink comes running - his tail all bushy.  Clearly, there was an altercation of some kind.

They don't call it the wild outdoors for nothing.

I've closed the back door up tight.  Klink is upstairs recuperating and poor J. was awakened to 'help' me.  Not much he could do at that point - just as I asked for his help, Klink bolted up the stairs.  J. will assess any injuries when he gets up - in two hours.  Poor man.  Sorry, honey -

News....news?  Let's see.  Happening around here lately:  B. told us he would likely be deployed in two weeks.  He's in a class to prepare him for deployment and 'combat'.  He calls it 'death by Powerpoint'.  He'd much rather get to the shooting range or drive something huge with weapons attached.  They call him and another guy into an office - and (literally) flip a coin - B. 'lost'.  So it's less likely he will be deployed next week.  [I think he won the toss but I don't torture him with that observation].  They still aren't allowing him to plan for vacation in July, so I think deployment is still pretty likely.

At least he gets another few weeks (months?) to drive his new truck.  There might be nothing worse than having purchased your first car 'on your own' only to have to leave it in a parking lot.

H. will move home this weekend!  I mentioned to J. that the County Fair is happening this week - and enticed him with thoughts of really bad food and watching the pig races (so, so, hysterically fun!) - and he reminded me that we have someone to move home.  Now I'm trying really, really hard to get my board prep wrapped up in time to leave at noon on Friday so we could go that day....we'll see.

We are working through the refinancing process having switched lenders.  Capital One wasn't so great and in the end, I was considering calling the underwriter an 'idiot' and their policies insanely stupid.  They wouldn't allow us to owe ANYONE more than 80% of the value of the house - and even with an appraisal better than we ever imagined, they wanted us to come up with $50K-ish to make the loan happen.  We passed.  Not that we couldn't if we had to - but we don't have to and we're not going to.  The last thing we need in this last calendar year of J.'s bank salary is to withdraw money that is pre-tax and increase our tax bill any more than it already is.  So we passed.  Then we called our current lender and they seem to be more reasonable.  So we're in the process with them.  It's a long and winding road.

They asked us to detail specific checks that are out of our account frequently.  The checks for our cleaning lady and our pool guy...as well as confirming what the $300 checks every other week are for. It's called 'savings' - moving money to our credit union which is why we do it - the account there isn't 'tied' or linked to our regular bank so withdrawing $ from there takes effort.  Wow - they really are getting into the fine details of our finances.

We comply 'cuz we want to refinance our mortgage....but holy crap - what a crock of stuff to respond to.  They also asked 'why do you have an alias'?  Um....'cuz I have a maiden name that I haven't used in over 23 years.

OK - it's after 5AM and it's time to get showered and dress.  Very, hugely grateful to my husband who took time last night to iron my outfit for today - I'm wearing crop pants, a billowy, light weight top (with a cotton tank underneath) and tennis shoes 'cuz we are doing site walks for facilities today.  Grateful it's not 107 like it was on Saturday - but still guarded 'cuz it will be long walks all over the place - me frantically keeping notes on a clipboard while my soon-to-be-former boss rattles off the list of things he wants done over the summer.

The summer of his leaving us.  We start our 10 hour days next week.  Fridays off hardly seems worth it....but we will survive.