Oh, Snap!

Guess what I learned yesterday? If your house has been on the market for more than 6 months, it no longer shows "days on market" on trulia. I know this not because my house is still for sale (we sold it in May, sheesh! keep up, people!), but because a certain ex's old house is still for sale. They moved into their new house in July. Hooray for double mortgages! Not really. I lived that life for a long, long time, and to be honest, it totally sucks.

When breaking down the expenses of the past year, $38,000 in lawyers' fees was not the only thing sucking our savings dry. Mortgage + rent took a chunk of dough, as did flying back to Omaha twice per month for 9 months. Oh, yeah. We also paid for Scooter to fly out whenever she visited - plus our own tickets to accompany her. So when I feel a bit of joy at seeing the ex's house sit on the market, don't think poorly of me. Kharma's a bitch.

Besides, he still hasn't paid child support. I guess it's only 6 days into the month. And I already know he won't pay. He did, afterall, visit Scooter for 30 hours on the last weekend in September. I'm still waiting to see his affidavit and expense break out from that trip. I guess I should call the clerk of the court tomorrow. He's supposed to mail a copy of all of that to me, but you know how cops are with court orders. Oh, wait... So, yeah. I'll call the clerk of court tomorrow, and likely my lawyer after that. I miss that guy, anyway. We used to talk nearly daily, and through the course of sending him every email I've ever written and copies of all my journal entries, that guy knows me probably as well as my own husband does. It's weird to suddenly stop talking, even if I was paying him for the priviledge previously. Are lawyers kind of like phone sex operators that way? Maybe more like psychologists. I guess there's a reason why they're called counselors.

So anyway, I've been getting phone calls lately from the ex (and his taun-taun Vicky wife) because Scooter turns her phone off. She does it everyday. Now...one might think that this is her normal phone behavior, and I should encourage her to turn her phone on. Except for one thing. When she's not at my house, I can call anytime day or evening, and her phone is on. She may not always answer, but it's always on. The only time I've called and her phone was off was for a day or two after something happened that angered the ex (like...my expressing to his boss my desire that he follow a court order, or my explanation that I intend on following the court order, etc). This leads me to believe that Scooter is purposely turning her phone off in an attempt to avoid conversations with her dad.

I don't blame her. After she talks to him, she often times sounds sad, and asks me to hang out with her one on one for a while, "just to talk." We never talk about her phone calls, but usually fill the space with friends, school, homework, and weekend plans. On tap for this week? A quick trip to the coast followed by a bbq at the aunt and uncle's house. But first, a soccer game.