The Saga Continues...

I spent so much of yesterday in transit or on the phone.

I gathered up all the info to back up my case, and left at 11:15 am to get to the courthouse (it took 2 buses) in hopes of getting one last chance to speak with the judge. When I got there, I found that there was not, in fact, going to be a hearing, or any chance to interact with humans at all (by the way, is it sad that the security guard at the courthouse knows me on sight?). The Court Clerk gave me the number for Legal Aid, and no other info - "I'm not a lawyer; I'm not allowed to give advice" - including whether there was a form or process by which to respond to the current situation (sigh).

It gets better. Legal Aid closed early because it's a holiday week, so no help there. I tried calling the attorney with whom I had spoken before, only to be told that (a) he was on vacation, and (b) he was unusually considerate in sending the notice when he did, as it is the practice of that law office to send it only 1 day before. Whee!

Meanwhile, I had been getting calls from my boss, who had indeed managed to get me an advance - even getting hold of the two regional officers who had to approve it, when they were on vacation! Hooray, Boss! Now, his office is at the extreme other end of the BART line from me, so we arranged for him to meet me at the station at that end.

So I finally admit defeat at the courthouse, and catch a bus back to my BART station, arriving at about 2:30 pm. Fortunately, I was just in time to catch a train, so it was only about 1.5 hours later that I arrived at my destination. (I wish I'd known that a trip to the courthouse would be a waste of time. Not only would I have been able to pick up my advance sooner, I'd have had my knitting with me instead of having to leave it at home because I wouldn't have been able to bring it into the courthouse. Oh, well. At least I have some good games on my Palm.)

So, mission accomplished, I got on the next train heading back home, and was back up here a little after 6. I walked around to the check-cashing place to cash the advance check, and then proceeded to pick up the things we needed. This quickly went from "just picking up a few essentials" to "we need some major grocery activity". I finally finished up at around 8, and called a taxi to take me home. By the time I got home, got everything put away, and dinner prepared and eaten, it was 9:30.

On a normal day, I'd be getting ready for bed at that hour. But last night, Honey looked over everything, and then instructed me in the writing of a letter to the judge that we could take to the courthouse - which we had to do right then, so that it would be considered filed on the same day. So I wrote (and rewrote), and typed it up on the computer, and made copies of everything that we wanted to attach as backup documentation. At midnight, all was ready, and I called another taxi to take me to the courthouse and back (there are NO buses that late at night). We ran over to the courthouse, dropped the envelope in the locked box provided for the purpose, and back home again.

I set up coffee for this morning and did all my other getting-ready-for-bed things, and finally sat down to relax with a little knitting at 1 am. I think it was somewhere around 2 am by the time I fell asleep.

Then this morning, Honey wakes me a little after 6 to mention that we should provide a copy to the complex manager as representative of the owners. So I made more copies and typed up a separate note to her, and dropped that at the office (they have a little drop-slot in the back for after-hours stuff. I used that even though they were open by then, because I just didn't want to deal with it any more.

My next such task is to write a similar letter to the state, with copies of everything, to see if I can get them to take a smaller chunk of my weekly paycheck. I'll work on that tomorrow, and get it in the mail on Saturday. If none of this works out in my favor, my next call is to someone who assists in filing bankruptcy, because that's the only other option I can think of.

Oh, and cross your fingers for me. I also bought tickets for last night's state lottery drawing, and tomorrow's multi-state lottery drawing. I haven't yet dared to check the one for last night, but I will soon.