Are you barfing kidding me?!

Recap: we "won" the appeal (meaning, we successfully defended the appeal, and also won our cross appeal). We suggested a $200 per month break in child support so that we wouldn't have to deal w/ the abatement process by which his child support obligation gets credited back to him when he visits here. It's a good deal for him because he's getting a $1200 per year break on child support. It's a good deal for us because so far, he has done the abatement incorrectly 100% of the time. Our recourse is to a) ignore it and let him claim ridiculous expenses - like mini bar in the hotel room, b) object to the abatement, and eventually pay a lawyer at $200 per hour to present to the court why we objected (a $50 error on the ex's part).

We gave them until Friday to give us an answer.

Last Thursday, the ex took my daughter out of state for the day. "What's the problem with that?" you might ask. Well...Thursday was the day we were supposed to bring Scooter home. So...she missed her flight. Even though he was back in Omaha 2 hours before her flight actually took off. He just ignored us completely. We couldn't easily re-arrange our schedule. It was a mess. We have a good case for a civil contempt of court, but again, we're left deciding if we want to spend a bunch of money for the sake of being right. I would have to fly back for that hearing, since it's a new lawsuit, so we'd have another flight to Omaha - the city I've been trying to leave for 2 years, now. Ugh. Tough decisions. Especially when we'd rather be spending our money on other stuff. $51,000 is enough to spend on anything.

So anyway, we didn't get an answer on Friday.

I flew back to Omaha and picked up Scooter on Saturday.

Today (Monday), we closed on our house. Hooray!!! It was supposed to happen on Friday, but things came up (see Thursday, above). Then, I get an email from the ol' lawyer. Instead of a $200 per month break on child support, they want $320. Yeah. They want their total child support payment to be 49% of their total child support obligation for the year. Um, no. The judge granted him 4 visits per year that he'd be allowed to get reimbursed for (I say reimbursed b/c technically, he's supposed to actually pay the child support that's due). So, no. I guess we're back to using the abatement process, paying the lawyer $400 to get back $100. At least with doing it this way, he actually has to do the visit to get any break on child support. The other way, he would have gotten the break either way.

I think we all could use a little distance from this. It's been heated. It's getting worse. I know I'll get slammed for this, but I think we should just back off (and document the crap out of our lives) for a while, and then in a year or so, really nail him. It's kind of how we won this thing in the first place. We just sat back and let him do his thing for years. Then, when we wanted to do something, all we had to do was point out his past actions, and we got what we wanted...

Interesting...

So either my web browser at work was updated/a patch was installed or google has made my blog admin site backwards compatible with the ancient browser we use at work. Either way, I can access the ol' blog again. Do you know what that means? I'll be writing more. Again. Or not. I guess we'll see.

It's a lot easier to spill your guts to the anonymous internet (even when I'm not anonymous to you) when there's a big, scary life event happening. But at this point, things are relatively settled. Kind of. Except days like today, when you email the ex for what should be a routine exchange surrounding pick up/drop off times and it turns into a full on battle of ridiculousness. I mean, it's not like Scooter isn't going to come home this week. Because she is. And if she doesn't come home when she's supposed to, he'll pay the difference.

Man, I just wish ONE interaction with that man wouldn't leave me shaking with stress and anger and helplessness. I just want to be able to interact with each other in a reasonable manner. You know...talk about stuff, each side being able to discuss and bring up points without being totally shut down and starting a fight. Ugh.

On an unrelated note, he owes over $2,000 in child support. I re-opened my child support enforcement case against him today. Again.

How many times does CSE have to knock on his door before he loses his job on the police force? I guess that's one way to get out of paying child support.

Away, away

I've had trouble keeping up with this thing since my browser at work is no longer supported by google. We're in the dark ages (yes, I work in IT; no, I cannot make decisions as to when we upgrade our software). It's too difficult (read: I'm too lazy) to actually think about, type, edit, publish a blog from home in the evenings. So I don't. I've tried composing blogs and saving them in my email so all I have to do is copy/paste when I get home, but alas, I have 4 unfinished blog entries in my email and no desire to finish/publish them.

So here's a quick (or long) recap of the past 6 or 8 months.
Dec: the ex finished up his appeal brief and submitted it to the court.
Jan: we finished up our answer/cross appeal brief and submitted it to the court. The cross appeal was about the fairness of the child support portion of the ruling. Basically, as it stood, the ex would get 100% abatement of child support for 2 months in the summer (that's ok. we said actually suggested that). But...he would also be able to abate up to 100% of hotel and airfare costs he incurs in ANY month he comes to Portland to visit. Essentially last year, he abated every month except 2, one of which he tried to abate. We thought that was unfair.
Feb: the ex finished up his reply brief, thus ending the brief portion of the appeals process. One sentence read, "Again, appellant would be happy to pay his full child support obligation, if Appellee's request for removal is overturned..." To me, it sounds like blackmail.
Mar: we waited with baited breath to see the court call schedule - there was also a chance that they could just rule w/o hearing oral arguments.
April: we made it to the proposed call - meaning we would be presenting oral arguments in June, unless they ruled w/o argument.
May: waiting, waiting.
June: School got out. We desperately tried to find a house to put an offer in on before Scooter had to leave. We put one in, but we ended up pulling out of negotiations. Ben took Scooter back to Omaha on the same day (coincidentally) as oral arguments. The lawyer called all giddy with excitement over how arguments went. 99% of the time was spent discussing our cross appeal.
July: We put in an offer on a house, but it was rejected. We were dejected. I stalked the appeals court website for an opinion. We got one. We won. Big time. Our cross appeal was remanded (meaning the trial court has to fix it), and we successfully defended the actual appeal. We put another offer in a house. It was accepted. Bubba and I went to summer camp with Scooter, my mom and all the cousins. My sister, Ami, stayed the whole time with us. It was so great to see everyone. So great.
August: It's just started, but already, we had the hearing w/ the trial judge. The visits that the ex can get reimbursed for is capped at 4 per year. He still has the 2 months in the summer, so effectively his child support obligation is about 50% of what it would be if we were in Omaha. But to be honest, in mediation (back in November 2010), I offered that he wouldn't have to pay ANY child support if he'd just agree to settle out of court, and he said no, so I'm still better off that we could have been (minus the $51,000 we've spent on the lawyer - so far). We'll close on the house on the 21st. Scooter comes home in less than 2 weeks. Things are definitely looking up for us in Oregon.

Beauty in the Dark

My husband is a triple threat. "Sing, Dance Act?" you ask. No (well...not in front of an audience, anyway). It's more like: Write, photograph, fill in other desirable talent here. He can write music, wrestle, cook, clean, etc etc etc. His "day job" involves editing medical text. He has a part time job writing movie reviews. His new business is aspiring photographer. No, he probably won't do your wedding. He likely will not have you pose for high school photos, either (although he and I have been known to take each other's fake senior portraits on vacation as a joke). He will create some art that you could hang in your home or small business or gallery as a conversation piece.

His brand of artistry captures not just what you can see with the naked eye. You see, he takes photographs at night. He does day shots as well, but I like his night shots best. They take a long time to set up and shoot. His exposures last 30 seconds or more. All of which would bore me to tears if I were out with him. But he does it alone. In the dark. These painstaking trips in the dark often yield one photo. Don't get me wrong, he'll take a few. But with each exposure lasting so long, you have to wait for a while to see if what you are shooting is good. Or if you need to make an adjustment. And it's all a test of your fortitude in 30 degree weather, which for me, makes it all the more impressive. So I'll gladly go camping with him over the next few years and sleep quietly in a tent with the kids while he's out capturing the sky.

 

Curious? Check out his flickr page.

 

 

Generous? Send his flickr page to someone looking to spruce up that spare bedroom with a print.

Judo, Chop!

Bubba and Ben wrestled the other night. Then, Scooter and Ben wrestled. Then, Bubba and Ben, then Scooter and Ben, then...you get the idea. It was difficult to keep it 1 on 1 rather than 2 on 1, which surely would have resulted in more injuries than what were sustained that night. Who was injured, you might ask? Me. I wasn't even involved, other than to keep the non-wrestling party busy. Bubba was sitting on my lap, squirming around to try to get into the action. At one point, he threw his body back against me and cracked me right on the chin with his head. It didn't phase him, but I have a blue bruise on the bottom of my chin. I never realized how often I sit at my desk with my chin on my hand until the day(s) after. Youch. Ben (actually, Ben's nose) usually takes the brunt of Bubba's errant body parts; I guess it was my turn.

 

It seems the mental abuse I've been inflicting upon myself for the past year is finally manifesting itself physically. Not only do I have a bruise on my chin a la Bubba, but I also have a skinned knee. I'd say this one is even worse than the one I got last year. I slipped on the curb on my way TO work (last time was the way home from work). Luckily, I did not ruin a pair of work pants this time, but man, my knee hurts. I suppose I've always kind of been a klutz. I remember my step mom making an off-hand comment about me in my "clumsy phase" except that phase started before I moved in with them in 6th grade, and I was still tripping through it when I moved out after high school. Because I like to think the best in people, I'll remember the comment being her way of trying to make me feel better about hitting my shin on the dishwasher and spilling my cereal all over the clean dishes. The trouble is, the only reason I don't do that, anymore is because I've quit eating cereal in the mornings. Either that, or I've quit emptying the dishwasher.

 

The appeal defense brief is due at the end of the month. If I've learned anything from the past 19 months, it's that lawyers are much like college students. They don't work on projects until moments before they're due. As such, I have not heard from my lawyer in weeks, and in order to save a buck (or $200), I have not contacted his office - even though I'm wondering about the objection I filed to the ex's child support abatement, and I'm starting to freak out about the appeal and what we're going to say. I will, though, keep trucking and wait to call until next week. By then, he'll at least have re-read the trial brief from a year ago...

Brother, can you spare a dime?

Way back in September, 2010, I moved here, and immediately (I believe I picked up my first penny in the parking lot of the hotel I was about to get a room in) began finding change on the ground. I thought to myself, "hey, wouldn't it be neat if I found a penny every day until Scooter comes out here?" I started to keep track. There were days at a time when I wouldn't find anything. Other days, I'd find a lot (on the windiest December day in 2010, I found a dollar bill on the ground). I kept an internal log for nearly a year, and in that time, found over $5.00. Way better than my goal of a penny per day. I began to think of Portland as this generous cash-cow city. I marveled at the fact that I would find so much money on my well-worn walk to and from work. Recession? What recession?! Well, this fall, the days between treasure-finding became more pronounced. I'd go 10 days, sometimes weeks between finding a penny.

Ben and I joked that it was the recession. Ground change lags as a recession indicator. Rather than dollar bills, I'd only find pennies. When those, too, became scarce, I'd start finding IOUs or coupons. Ha ha ha. Well...this week, I have found one penny. But it was the first one of the year. I have not found any coupons or IOU notes. What I have been starting to find is gently used items. I have not become so desperate as to pick any of them up, but who would have guessed that I would find 3 toothbrushes in 3 separate areas in one day? This morning, I found a nail file. I guess this week was bathroom week.

I wonder if I'll start finding kitchen utensils next week? I kind of need a new (or gently used) mixer...

Snowy day

Well, I guess I'll have to admit I was wrong. There was SNOW ON THE VALLEY FLOOR yesterday. It started snowing when we were eating breakfast. The soft, big flakes were falling outside of our kitchen window. It looked like our kitchen table was a "typical American family" set for a TV show, and outside our window, some grip was dumping flakes to make it look like snow. There was a light dusting on the grass. It was lovely. By the time we were done eating breakfast, the sun had come out and it had all melted. It did it again in the early afternoon. So beautiful. So short-lived.

The snow, then melt conditions in Portland meant that Mt. Hood was getting dumped on. 9 inches since 10 am yesterday, and it's still snowing. Yes, I've been stalking the Timberline webcams with the hope that I'll catch a glimpse of Scooter or Ben. It's still snowing up there. I can't wait for them to get home to tell me all about their day!