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Oregon has impressed me with this storm.

Hello everyone! I just wanted to explain my absence of late. I have been trapped in the absurd land of “GotNoInternet”. Being accustomed to actually having internet, this has been upsetting.

This isn’t a result of our poor planning, nor is it a result of not being able to pay. It’s a result of other people’s lack of planning. The people who built the the house we are renting. The house that was just built this year.

When you build a house you should make it internet accessible. (Also, as a side note, it should be accessible for mail delivery, but more on that subject later.)

We moved to our new home. Our new home is literally new. We are the first people to ever live here. It’s set back a bit from the road behind another house and I had to teach my GPS where it is.

A few days before we moved, we called Ziply (Frontier) because we used their internet at our previous house, and overall were happy with the service. They informed us they didn’t have internet service in our new area yet.

As much as we didn’t want to move our services to the rather poorly regarded Comcast (Xfinity), we needed internet. All of us use internet every day, including one college student whose school is completely online at present.

Our roommate reluctantly called Comcast and was given a “case number” to refer to for our case, and assured they would contact him in the next few days for an appointment. Days ticked by with no call from them.

Since he was working, I decided to call Comcast to find out why there were no calls from them; I was informed they “have no record of any call to them”.

Can someone please tell me what the number we were given was about? Of course not! Someone took our order and failed to enter it. Or they lied completely. Asking did no good.

We then set up an actual appointment for them to come out. This was in early October, and they had nothing open until the 22nd when, they assured us, we would finally have internet. We waited patiently.

Finally the day arrived! The excitement in the air was palpable after using a hotspot for weeks anytime we needed internet. We greeted the arrival of the Comcast installer joyfully. And then, he said, “I can’t install for you because there are no lines to this house. We have to dig a trench and bury a line.”

After a good scream into a pillow, I started looking for something that would work for the meantime. I thought about Verizon. We get excellent cell reception here so I figured perhaps there was a way to purchase a more permanent hotspot. An unlimited data hotspot.

I contacted Verizon and sure enough, they had a device called a global modem, which we ordered on our unlimited data cell phone plan. It was set to arrive on Tuesday. Of this week. 10/27/2020 I believe.

On Tuesday FedEx delivered our modem. I gleefully unpacked the small receiver and when plugged in to a computer it was fast and fairly reliable. We did have trouble with it cutting out when moved so we decided it might be best to keep it plugged in to my desktop computer. After all, the desktop stays in one place.

Here begins another little diversion. I had received a newer graphics card for my desktop computer and I needed to install that. It turned out that it didn’t have the proper cables, so I had to find a place to get the cables. I called around and really couldn’t find cables until I contacted one particularly good shop in my area. I will highlight the shop because I was very impressed with the guy and his operation.

We brought the computer in and he rapidly found a cable to suit our needs. We came in later in the day when the shop was very busy, so he did a test that the computer could now get a picture on a monitor, which was the problem we had presented. When we we got home the computer wouldn’t boot up. I called him and we walked through a couple of potential fixes involving changing the boot order in the BIOS. None managed to find the boot disk so we decided to bring it in again the next day, but earlier, before it got too busy.

Fast forward to the next day, when we headed back into town. We brought the computer in and Josh got it working by creating a new path to the boot disk. We headed home and set it up, and yippee! It worked !

For two days we happily use our internet….

And on the second day I got a disturbing text message from Verizon. It stated that we were about to run out of high speed data. This made no sense to me at all. I didn’t understand how our unlimited data plan could be running out of data. I called Verizon.

Verizon told me that, yes, I still have unlimited data but now that we’ve run through the rather pitiful 15 gigs of high speed data, all of our subsequent data will be very slow. As in 600kbps. I asked if there was anything else I could do with my phone to provide us with what we needed, which was high speed Internet for three people. They told me what I actually needed was a jet pack, which I guess is freestanding and allows for up to five devices to be connected.

I packed up the Global Modem and headed out for the Verizon store in Cornelius, the next town over, happy to be heading for a solution to the problem.

The young man, Adam, who was working the counter, informed me that I would get 30 gigs of high-speed internet with the jet pack. He told me I would get four days before I got an automated message rather than two and that unfortunately, they did not have anything that would do what I needed.

Thank you, Adam, for knowing your stuff and telling me the truth. I appreciate that.

I came home disappointed and not sure what to do. We still had no reliable, fast Internet, and it really kind of felt like we were out of ideas.

I happened to see our neighbor out in his yard. Our driveway runs along the side of his yard because our house is behind his. He was digging, and the thought crossed my mind that, while it’s an off chance, maybe our landlord came to some sort of a deal with him in which he would dig the trench for the cable company to lay the line in. While I didn’t think it was likely, I thought I might as well ask because I’d never met this particular neighbor before and it usually is good to meet your neighbors.

It turns out he was planting some trees which is wonderful because I like trees. He also informed me that he has Ziply Internet. Yes, the house directly in front of us has Ziply! He showed me the line that goes right into the house directly from the pole by the end of the driveway. It is, in fact, not an underground cable, but instead is an above ground fiber optic cable from the pole to his house. So I decided it would probably be a good idea to call Ziply again.

I called Ziply and had a very extensive conversation with the sales representative, in which I told him about everything that we have been dealing with. Everything including the fact that we don’t have any cable or other line to provide service to our house. He cheerfully informed me that it is not needed because it is a different set of lines or infrastructure from that used by Comcast. He asked if we would like to have it installed and of course we said yes. They were able to get someone out today between one and five.

The installer arrived about three-ish, maybe a little later, and immediately said he had to go outside and look for a connection.

This was when we started to lose it. We already knew there was no connection. There’s no connection in the house and there’s no connection outside of the house.

We already knew that because we had that discussion with the Comcast guy. And after all the discussion I had with the sales representative about this issue, they should’ve known also that there was no connection inside or outside of our house.

The installer informed us that there’s already an order in for the other unit in our house, which is a side by side duplex. He said he would go around and draw a map or something, so he could put it in another order. At this point we were just done with this crap, but might as well let the guy go and put in the order because somehow we have to have Internet. He claimed that the order should be filled within a few days. I kind of doubt that given that it’s been more than a few days since we weren’t able to get service from Comcast. At this point we don’t believe anybody about anything.

So this is my sad story, although I promised you I would mention the mailbox thing, so here goes.

It would seem that when a house is built, it’s up to the builder to speak with the post office and have the post office OK where they’re going to put the mailbox. When I first heard that I thought it sounded rather silly, but in retrospect it makes sense. They have a route that goes through the neighborhood. That route has to be set to be as efficient as possible. Our house is set back behind another house, and apparently our route is a walking route. This would mean that the letter carrier would have to traipse back to our house and then back down the driveway again. It makes sense that they might want us to have our mailboxes, for example, at the end of our driveway.

I had no idea that this was a requirement, but then again I’m not the person building a house. If I was I would have looked into things that need to have taken care of when you build a house. If the builder had done their job correctly, there would already be Internet service and a properly placed mailbox at this house. Instead, we had to discover that our mail wasn’t being delivered because we were expecting a ballot and knew when it was mailed out. It occurred to me that perhaps we weren’t getting mail because the house was new and it wasn’t registered with the post office. That was close. They had our address but they didn’t have a proper mailbox to put our mail into. There are mailboxes on the front of the building but those were not put where are the post office wanted them located.

If I ever build a house, I will do better than this. That being said, I will continue the search for internet and I will win eventually. And I will be back ASAP.

Just still working on life.

Hey everyone, despite possible evidence to the contrary,  I’m not actually dead or even missing.  Just a bit stressed and overwhelmed.  Anyhow i’ll be working on my novel this month as part of NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, which, of course, is November.  For more information, see  NaNoWriMo    For a brief intro – November is National Novel Writing Month, a month in which writers come together, virtually or in person, to inspire one another in their quest to write their novel.

The Goal?  30 Days.  50,000 Words.

I’ve done it before.  I want to do it again.

If you’re a writer you might enjoy it and hate it and fear it.  if you sign up, look for me – katydid62 on NaNoWriMo!

Happy writing, happy reading.

 

 

So we left with questions about support payments and shares of the 401K account.  The attorney told us that the judge would likely insist that I get support. He was adamant that in a long-term marriage, and especially since I am presently unemployed, the judge would be unlikely to allow any other option.

He also informed us that our legal plan, the cost of which was deducted weekly from the ex’s paycheck, covered all kinds of things,  but not divorce costs.  (So you may be wondering, as I was, why he has been paying for it all this time.) To retain him would cost about $2000 or more although we had already completed and filed the paperwork.  So, there was that….

Again the ride home was long and quiet, even though the drive was only about 10 minutes.  We felt dejected and afraid that we would not be able to complete it at all.  How would we afford to pay that fee?  How would we manage all of this?

Remember this?

“Not one to be held down for long, I started working on a contingency plan. If you asked friends who know me well, you’d discover that one of my catchphrases is, “I’ll figure something out!”. So I started my figuring process.”

I commenced the figuring process once again.  I searched and finally discovered a ProSe divorce service who said they could prepare the QDRO for a reasonable price.  We managed to see the helper quickly since she was going to be there the next day for a few hours.  As we headed there we weren’t sure what would happen, since this process had been full of surprises, but we packed our hopes into the truck and held our breath.

We sat in the lobby of a converted house for a few minutes and then were greeted by Lovette, the woman who we were to meet with.  Lovette told us she had been doing pro-se divorces for 20 years and had inherited the business from her mother, who also spent many years doing it.  She told us she has never had a QDRO rejected so we feel pretty confident about this.  Well, we do NOW.  But then?  Another story… so here goes!

We came into her office and gave her our gadzillions of pages of forms for the divorce along with telling her our story.  She looked them over and talked about the process, and then —

We mentioned the A and B issue, with me being the petitioner and the ex being the respondent.  She looked at the original filing, which I completed while not living in the state of Wisconsin.  And she gave us a shocker!  She said that the filing should have been blocked because I can’t file a court action in a state I don’t live in.  She said she would check but that she thought that I had to be living in the state at the time of the filing, and that we would have to file again with him being the petitioner.  I looked at the form, and while it asked if I had lived in the state in the last 6 months and the county in the last month, it didn’t say “If you answer no to any of the above questions, you may not file at this time” or anything of that sort.  I was puzzled.  Why would it not warn me on the form?  Or at the very least, why would no one at the courthouse have rejected the petition?

We talked about possible alternative plans, and left feeling discouraged and confused, fearful that we would have to dismiss the current case if it was invalid, then wait a month to file again, followed by the requisite waiting period in Wisconsin of at least 120 days before the action could be completed.  This was not what we wanted.

We went home unsure and discouraged but continued to plan as if we could still follow through on the date we had been given.  The next day she called to let us know she had checked and we could go ahead.  The petition was valid because one of us did live in Wisconsin and in Milwaukee county at the time of filing.  What a relief!

And that is the story to date.  We wait until January 31st when we once again appear at the courthouse, this time with an actual court date.  Or, at least, I sure HOPE so!

I left you with us hanging our heads in shame after being scolded by the wicked witch of the 7th floor  of the Milwaukee County courthouse.

Not one to be held down for long, I started working on a contingency plan. If you asked friends who know me well, you’d discover that one of my catchphrases is, “I’ll figure something out!”. So I started my figuring process.

My first thought was that company that the ex works for offers a legal plan, for which payment is deducted from each paycheck. Surely this should be a good resource for us to consult!  We searched and found one of the plan lawyers with an office nearby, and called to set an appointment. We offered to drop off our materials so they had them before the appointment, and the receptionist who answered the phone concurred with that idea, so we headed over to drop off our paperwork and to set a time to meet with the attorney.  The receptionist was setting the appointment,  but then allowed us to speak with the attorney briefly.

We offered him our mess of paperwork, which he didn’t want to deal with, and I can’t blame him for that. However he was able to look up our case. Remember our old friend CCAP?  Yup, this was when I remembered our old friend CCAP too.  He gave us some details about our case and then glanced through some of the paperwork.

A familiar subject arose: maintenance, or the lack of a request thereof…  Who knew so many people would want me to ask for money I don’t want. 

I was surprised by the push to ask for maintenance.  I’d always gotten the impression that it was hard to get, and that you had to fight to get it if you wanted it, unless the spouse was very wealthy and you had never worked or gotten an education because of the marriage. (Think traditional marital roles, or a “trophy wife” situation, for examples.)

TIP: you may be eligible for maintenance even if you think you aren’t.  If you need it, even temporarily, they will encourage you to take it. If you don’t want it, they might try to get you to take it anyhow.  

I never wanted to ask for it,  even if I had thought i was eligible for it, because it didn’t seem fair or right to me.  My ex isn’t some big corporate CEO or anything; he works in a warehouse and he struggles just to get by.  He works very hard doing 12 hours days and often taking overtime, all for a low rate of pay; to ask for a share of that seems unjustified.   I’m perfectly capable of working even though at present I’m unemployed; I am well-educated and competent, and I’m trying to be fair.  To me that didn’t seem fair at all, and still doesn’t.  I’m a grown adult woman, and I should be able to take care of myself.

On a somewhat amusing side note:  my ex asked me if he was a creep for having mixed feelings about giving me maintenance money.  He said he knew I did need it, but it would make it hard for him to make it if he had to give me half his already rather meager paycheck.  And I felt like a creep because they might try to force the matter and make me take the money.  How damn civil is that?  

Yes, a share of the retirement plan makes sense, because my work was usually part-time or contract work because I had to be available to deal with our children’s schooling issues, and later, to deal with caring for and managing the affairs of my parent’s as they aged and developed dementia.  If i had not been there to take care of those things, I would have been able to work full-time and build up my own retirement funds, but as it was, I have no retirement funds of my own and my social security will be very lowbecause of my work history (that is, if  those of my generation even get back the money we paid in, given current policies and plans).

I also struggled quite a bit with the idea of taking my share of this fund, because I felt that I had not earned the money.   Over time I came to see that had I not been married,  and fulfilling the role as the primary caretaker of our children, as well as the person who managed (however poorly) the household needs, and later as the caretaker of my aging parents, I would have earned my own retirement income.  It’s still uncomfortable for me. I have to keep reminding myself that the things I did within the marriage were important and worth compensation.  If payment had been made for what I did as the primary caretaker, it would likely have come up to more than what he earned.

Although as a housekeeper,  I’m sure I’d have been fired, here are some of the things I personally did:  I managed the bills (albeit, poorly, as there was never enough income to cover them); I attended a million and one school meetings for my children who had some special needs; I took the kids to appointments such as the doctor and dentist;  I checked and helped with homework (that, right there, is worth about a million dollars when you have kids with neurological issues, ADHD, etc.); I drove the kids to classes, to school, home from school as needed; I searched for options in schooling; I researched far and wide looking for help for them; I searched for places to live and set up appointments to view them; I filled out applications for rentals; I had to be available all the time if someone got sick at school and needed to be picked up because his job would not allow it for him; I took them Christmas shopping, clothes shopping; I arranged for birthday parties; I completed all family paperwork including his, because … remember about him and paperwork?; I set appointments for him as well as the kids and acted as a personal assistant to the whole family.  This is only a small fraction of my duties over the years, and I did still manage to get a college education, including a Master’s degree, and I did work much of the time on at least a part-time basis.  As a result of my education, I have student loan debt I’m not asking him to cover, and I have less consistent work history which has made it difficult for me in my current employment situation.

Another note for those who might criticize me for getting an education while he did not – I supported him in getting an education but he had trouble with the process, and short of doing the work for him to hand in, I did all I could to help him with it.  In fact, at times I came close doing his work for him.  I’m pretty good at the whole higher education thing, whereas he is not.  He is a very bright man and has great ideas and creativity but his neurological issues are different from mine, and made it harder for him to persist in school.  He chose to leave school before getting a degree, and to this day I truly wish he had continued so that he could work in a job that is fulfilling for him instead of one that he dreads many days.

So you spouses who set aside or minimize your careers to be the caretaker, the homemaker, the household manager, remember this: what you do in the marriage is worthwhile!  You made a sacrifice to take that role, and you should be compensated if the marriage is dissolved, because you helped your spouse to be able to develop their career, to keep their job, and to set aside savings for retirement.

TIP: This is a common problem for women in long-term relationships.  If your job didn’t take precedence, you may have little or no savings for retirement.  You are legally entitled to a share of retirement funds that have been earned and set aside during the course of the marriage, however you will have to complete a QDRO,  (or Qualified Domestic Relations Order).  Here is a link to some information about this:   More QDRO information

TO BE CONTINUED – since this is getting a bit lengthy!