Maura's Illuminated Manuscript

Way back in May I got an escrow refund in the mail in the low five figures. Why? I didn't (Foreshadowing!) know, but gift horses. I put most of it in the bank.

Well, it's a good thing I did because yesterday I got mail yesterday from a a company in Texas asking for a slightly smaller amout back. That company processes mortgages on behalf of lenders, and they'd overpaid my property taxes, apparently thinking that the developers who built my house still owned it.

Yeah, I know that sounds fishy, but I called the county treasurer's office, as the letter from Texas encouraged me to do. The Texas company is legit, says the county, and the county has records of payments that are identical to what the Texas company sent.

The Texas company has not threatened legal action. I'm honestly not sure that they can, credibly. I'm loath to let go of that cash, natch, but how much trouble am I asking for if I don't? I have to wonder if the human who's surely responsible for that mistake has been fired yet.

Moral: real estate transactions are so complicated that even the pros get things wrong some times.

I got a request from Good Sister this morning for the document that granted me medical power of attorney. This was in 2014, years before GS sued for guardianship. Mom had some kind of falling out with Evil Sister and decided to transfer said power from ES to me in a fit of pique. Yeah, that was all too typical of Mom in her later years.

But why would GS even want this doc? Because her lawyer, to their credit, wants to make doubly sure that they can prove that I was my mother's child. (GS used the word "child", not "daughter". Grr.) I do have a little bit of anxiety about how I as a trans person will get treated by the courts in Florida these days.

Oh by the way, I only had the document in hardcopy form. Apple broke my preferred scanner app with their most recent major MacOS update. Le sigh. I appear to still have an app, but it doesn't know how to tell the scanner to feed documents, for starters, and how to cope with that and still scan a multi-page document isn't obvious.

I've wrestled Blender to the mat, but only after being gently told I was doing it wrong by a 3D printing shop. I have reason to believe my mistake may cost me more than I'd like. Ah well, it won't be repeated.

Speaking of expensive, the Norwegian, who as a serial entrepreneur knows about these things, has advised me to get some intellectual property protection if I can. That's not going to be quick, and the legal fees are eye-watering, even to somebody who just bought a house in Seattle. I'll do what I can, but I've already done myself a disfavor: I wrote about it on this here journal on Feb. 21. That basically makes patents impossible in several foreign countries, and it starts a one-year clock here in the US.

Meanwhile, back at the Devil Girl House, I promised the Wendling we'd go out to dinner tonight; I'm not sure I have the makings of anything he'd eat anyway. He wants to watch Pres. Biden's prime time speech, which airs at 1700 local time, our usual time for leaving for dinner. How could I refuse him?

I swear to Goddess, he has such passion for politics and current events that I think he'd do himself and the world a favor by making a career out of them. He spends much of his time telling me obscure historical factoids, often local ones known to no one else I know of. Autistics often change special interests from time to time, but the Wendling has been on his current one for over ten years. If anything it's getting more intense.

ATTN: all you Seattle-area people who like to party while surrounded by dykes

I've settled on a date & venue with the rest of the coven* for what La Fashionista has dubbed...

What: My Alimony Liberation Party.
When: Saturday, February 5th, at 7:00 PM, i.e. 2000 hours. [Edited to make it an hour earlier.]
Where: The Wildrose, 1021 E Pike St.
Why: My last direct deposit of alimony, or officially "maintenance" in Washington state, will happen on February 1st.
Who: You, silly!
What to wear: It's the lesbian bar in Seattle. They don't care, and neither do I.

Why so far in advance? Because I'm a maniac, that's why. Let the tackiness commence! Good thing Ex doesn't read this here Dreamwidth.



*The coven, if you'll recall, is La Fashionista, Tacoma Girl, and I. I did not choose that name.

I just got a letter from a collection agency for $502.96 for towing the '06 Prius that got totaled on Halloween of '16. I can't find any entries for it here, but a few months ago, I got a letter saying, "Claim your car in 24 hours or we sell it for parts." I got the letter after the 24 hours had elapsed, so shiyou ga nai. I figured that was the end of it.

Wrong. They're acting like I own the car. I believe that to be false, but I can't find the documentation that says so. Ex says to call the insurance agent, which I'll do on Monday. If I can't get satisfaction from them, I might be able to get the Washington Dept. of Licensing - our equivalent of the state DMV - to tell me who owns that car.

The ultimate goal: get out of paying that $500+.

Our hot shot lawyer A in Florida who's supposed to help us get Mom's house back from the reverse mortgage sharks? Just tested positive for COVID-19. Mind you, this is only a few months after his son died - I don't know how. A says he's doing research and will otherwise do his best for us despite not having a home office setup*, but mayunn, the United Sister Front will not be able or willing to make any demands of him for a few weeks.



*I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

The last thing that I wrote about my mom and her financial situation was that her guardian had sent bank statements to Good Sister for some CPA crunching. GS received the statements this past Saturday and has done a whole lot of crunching on them, producing a spreadsheet that she's shared with the United Sister Front, her guardianship lawyer K, and the fellow we hope will be the lawyer to get Mom's house back, A.

I had a long chat with GS from the bus this morning (Thanks, AirPods!) wherein I learned all sorts of stuff about the situation, pleasant and otherwise. It's complicated. I'll try to summarize:

• The spreadsheet is a portrait of advancing dementia painted in numbers. Mom's credit card bills ballooned as early as '13; GS pointed out plenty of evidence that much of that activity was fraud.
• Before we put Mom in guardianship, she liquidated some of her retirement plans to pay credit card bills. This was long a low-level fear of mine, but now it's been confirmed; Mom really is that addled, and has been for some time. This may be the answer to where she's been getting money to pay for "psychics". That makes it all the more important for us to get the house back if we can.
• The guardian didn't send the statements for '18, so GS has requested those via K. GS suspects the guardian of attempting to cover his butt.

On the subject of the guardian, I was relieved not to hear GS talking about (completely) replacing him. She doesn't want his (whole) job, but she's making plans to talk to K in person to look into becoming "co-guardian". She may want to involve me in keeping tabs on Mom, but a) I'm not sure I'd be that useful, and b) I don't want the job any more than GS does. I may be of more use to them both, however, in securing Mom's internet access. Getting rid of Mom's internet access is definitely on the table. GS wants to lock down Mom's spending tighter, which I'm a-OK with no matter how much Mom doesn't like it.

GS is genuinely heartbroken that Mom is letting scammers feed her delusions. She even asked K, "Is this how you would want your mother to go through life?" To tell you the truth, I don't care what's going on in Mom's head anymore. As I told GS this morning, we don't control that. GS didn't want to hear it, but I'm willing to let that slide for now. All three members of the United Sister Front have concluded independently that the veneer of education & civilization that Mom fought to maintain throughout her adult life is peeling off, revealing the nasty hillbilly she always was at heart. Why, no, I didn't lock this post.

And what of the third member of the USF, Evil Sister? She helped us find A, but she says she wants no part of guardianship; GS doesn't think ES could handle the aggro anyway. Sheeut, I'm not sure I can, but I'll try if I have to. The other two of us are ambivalent enough about it ourselves that we don't hold it against her. ES only left Florida in '17, and still has one minor child and a husband who travels a lot, so we're willing to cut her a lot of slack.

Oh, and what of the reverse mortgage, the end of which was supposed to be the rationale for all this in the first place? GS has restarted discussions with A. Some of the value of the house may be recoverable, but that means we'll have to pay back the remainder.

I had an appointment with Dr. Faceknife this afternoon. I'm not sure why he wanted it because I could have told him over the wires that all's well. If I have any complaints about my chin reduction, it's that I chickened out and told him to take it too easy, which is hardly his problem, but given the current state of the rest of my face, even that decision is defensible.

Which brings me to "current state". Sure, I'd love to get rid of those ridges above my eyeballs that jump out at me from every photograph as well as many glances in the mirror. But the wad of cash from this year's tax return is awaiting a phone call from Good Sister saying, essentially, "I need n thousand dollars now to get Mom's house back from the reverse mortgage." GS has petitioned the court to get access to Mom's bark records so we can find out where, if anywhere, the money went. That's when we can go back to the hotshot lawyer that Evil Sister found and maybe get some hot, hot legal action.

Suing a company of borderline scammers could be a lot more expensive than suing my poor, demented mother, and even that wasn't cheap. However, if I remember correctly, GS said that the fellow she'd spoken to would work for a percentage of funds recovered, which is fine with me as long as we get most of it back. Note: I won't be surprised or particularly disappointed if I never see a nickel. I fully expect that if we get that house back, its value will get spent on my mother's medical or long-term care. (Mom has LTC insurance, but I have no idea how good it is.)

So yeah, either Dr. Faceknife or a certain lawyer in my hometown will be getting my money.

Good Sister just informed the rest of the United Sister Front that my mom has filed a petition with the court trying to get her financial independence restored. She's going to get re-evaluated, but our lawyer has a) sent the original committee's reports to the new evaluator, and b) informed the new evaluator that Mom, contrary to what she said, actually attended the hearing in which she was placed in guardianship. Our lawyer says, again, there's "no chance" of restoration.

It bears repeating: my mother can't remember going to the hearing where the court placed her in guardianship. To quote Evil Sister and myself, wow. She's still slipping further away, and as nasty as ever. I don't envy this new evaluator; he too gets to tell her that she's lost her marbles, and she won't take that well.

ES expressed the worry, and not for the first time, that Mom can still drive legally. But as GS points out, since Florida is packed with geezers who vote, it's more difficult than elsewhere to take away their driving privileges. The tiny piece of good news there is that judging from what I've seen and heard, Mom is much more likely to get lost than pull a bonehead move while driving.

Good Sister just texted the other two us to say, "Done." My mother's finances are now in the hands of a third-party guardian. She still has control over her:

• Social interactions. She never did want many, and she's been so nasty to so many people that they're getting harder for her.
• Voting. If Mom's become Trump trash I don't want to know, but neither am I that worried about it, and there's likely nothing I can do about it anyway.
• Driving. This isn't great: she keeps getting lost in my hometown, where she's lived nearly my whole life. She's fallen asleep at the wheel on an all-day drive. The judge gave her this because she hasn't been in wreck lately, and there's no doctor's recommendation. I asked GS if we can revisit this, but it's out of our hands: her guardian & doctor decide.

Now begins, I hope, asset recovery: the reverse mortgage that Mom put on her house, etc. I don't envy the guardian, but I'm sure he's seen this sort of thing before. I just hope that money is there if and when Mom needs it.

I told Good Sister that I owe her crazy expensive dinner at the very least. She really has borne the brunt of Mom's dementia with considerable grace, strength, and competence.