There is also the fact that when I set foot into a Ryan Homes office on July 3, 2007, I was given the hard-sale pitch, told I could effectively buy a condo with little or no money down, and that my debt wouldn’t be a problem, because a quick credit check showed that I could afford one up to, oh, $400,000. And if I acted now, they’d throw in several thousand dollars off the price. But I’d have to act soon, because the townhouses were going fast!

I walked out of that office without signing through sheer strength of will, knowing that I was being sold a load of goods and that I didn’t have to sign anything without thinking it over at length. I waited a year before buying my condo, paying down significant chunks of my debt in the meantime. When I finally did get a mortgage, I took advantage of the $7,500 home buying loan, which is a loan that I am paying back to the government each year on my 1040. A few months after I bought my condo, that loan became a credit.

Now the government is trying to work the housing market by making banks give money to people whose houses are underwater and who can’t make the mortgage payments. The article does not say whether it covers people who bought houses they could not afford with ARMs that they hoped would never take effect because they were trying to flip the house for a profit. It doesn’t say whether it covers people who didn’t care that they were buying a house they couldn’t afford, because they were betting on being able to get a better job, or something. All it says is that the big five banks are going to help homeowners who are about to be foreclosed on for whatever reason.

And you and I will ultimately be footing the bill for this.

My condo is currently underwater. It’s lost around 15% of its value, I think. I’m a little afraid to compare the current assessment with the original assessment. But I refinanced my mortgage last year and always had one that I could afford. I’ll never be a moocher. I’m just a stupid working stiff who thinks part of being a grownup is being responsible for your own actions, and waiting until you can afford the house that you bought. Go figure.

I’m on target to be finished by the end of May, so we’ll see what happens this summer.

Twenty-five years online. (Twenty-six, when you count in the year I spent BBSing myself before I started the BBS.) I believe that’s longer than the millennials have been alive.

More tomorrow.

Rahel Jaskow is looking for work.

Know anyone who needs an excellent editor, Hebrew –> English translator or entry-level technical writer? If you do, please send them my way! My Word skills are top-notch, I’m extremely computer-literate, experienced, and a fast learner and worker. Tight deadline? No problem. Have laptop (Windows 7, MS Office 2010), will travel. Excellent references. Discreet. And I bake really good sourdough bread, too!

I wrote and recorded my last-ever Shire Network News segment, and also put down another 1100 words in the novel.

That’s why there were no posts today.

Well, last week I decided to ask Sarah if Rebecca might want to see Beauty & the Beast with me, since I love musicals, and Ashman and Menken put out several great musicals for Disney (not to mention the off-Broadway smash, Little Shop of Horrors) until Ashman succumbed to AIDS a decade ago. Rebecca was just fine with hanging out with Aunt Meryl. She played with her DSI while I got a haircut, then we saw the movie and had dinner together, then home she went. And then I realized, hey, I’ve had alone time with big brother Jake, and alone time with second-oldest boy Nate, and now with Rebecca–but I couldn’t recall just having some Max and me time.

So today, we went to Laser Quest, where Aunt Meryl and her trusty flanker, Max, kicked butt. We played air hockey (he won). And then we went home and rented Cowboys and Aliens and had some dinner. So now all four have had some Aunt Meryl alone time, and Aunt Meryl got to see two movies she wanted to see, as well as play some laser tag. I love laser tag. It was called Photon in the 80s when I first started playing it, and I liked it so much I was on a team, and we flew to Dallas to learn from the people who invented it. I’d go back on a team in a heartbeat if they had them around here.

All this, and I went to services this morning, too. A good day. A very good day.

She was unusually affectionate today. I picked her up for a “hug” and she didn’t push away with her front paws (she usually hates being held, but will tolerate it for a brief time). And I started calculating her age, as her birthday is March 15th. She will be fifteen years old. This is that cat who I’ve seen near death twice. I did not think she’d outlive Tigger 2. He was healthy; she’s always been sickly. Obviously, I was wrong. I guess she has seven more lives to go. Meantime, Tig 3.0 will be four on February 18th. Yes, it’s been that long. Hey, I celebrated my third anniversary in this condo in September, and in a few weeks, will have been working at Job in Northern VA for five years, as a contractor and staffer.

You know, three of the five things I’ve mentioned in this post came about at least in part due to this blog. I got my condo partly as a result of my job, which I got via a tip from a friend who became one from reading my blog. And I found Tig 3.0 through the advice of a friend at work, who got two Maine Coon cats from Wendy’s Feline Friends and suggested I look there for a Maine Coon kitten. Blogs are amazing. I wonder what else lies in store for me via this blog?

Almost time for bed now. I feel better, but still not best.

Well, I have two more days this weekend, so all is not lost.

Plus, my mom is getting better, so that’s a good, good thing.