Had to work on my birthday and all day yesterday making shirts because Kristin's hand is still swollen. It bit. Bad. I just get so behind in doing my work whenever she is out. The books are 3 months behind and I have some new designs that are supposed to be up already and tons of calls to make, emails to answer. I don't know what to do. I think I need to hire someone who can come in whenever she is out to. A sub. Any suggestions?
My husband surprised me on my birthday which is hard to do. I haven't had any time alone for over two years so after presenting me the perfect robe (soft, sexy, warm with little black polka dots all over it...how does he do it?), some new biking gear and a large Irish Oatmeal vegan cake he began the THERE's MORE game... On the third round of asking if I thought I had gotten enough presents he presented me with an envelope. In it a trip this weekend to SF all by myself. Alone. Unencumbered. Childless. He had even made all the arrangements there with my friends. What a man, eh?
I am a bit worried about leaving all alone to fend for himself with Ava because when I went up to Seattle he managed to drop her on her head a couple of times and she is going through an 'I hate Daddy' phase but perhaps this time together will bond them.
What will I do? I can't think straight. I started pulling together some samples to bring with me to stores. Jim told me that I was not allowed to work. What will I do? Socialize? God. I don't even remember how to properly. I barely talk to people these days. All cursory and harried. The only people I have real conversations with is my old neighbor and only because she calls me on a daily basis to find out what is going on.
My sister and my friend Julie (who saw me open my legs and give birth to my daughter in a pool of bloody poop...normally I would have said shit but I am trying to consciously work on my language as Ava is quickly picking EVERY little word up and tossing it back in my face faster than I can catch and recover) both told me horrific little credit stories yesterday. Ready?

My sister is about to make an offer on a house. She is a single gal. A writer and doesn't have much of an income. She has worked diligently on maintaining a top notch credit rating. She had a squeaky clean record of over 800. Her mortgage broker calls yesterday and tells her that her rating had dropped to below 600. Apparently some panties she purchased over 6 months ago destroyed her entire life. Get this. She is buying herelf some panties and Victoria's Secret encourages her to reactivate her credit account to get a nice discount. When they reactivate it they don't keep the address on her file but replace it with the one on her Driver's License which is the address of my mom's unoccupied house in Florida.
We visit maybe once ever couple of years. The post office there refuses to forward any mail and doesn't return any of it. It just sits there in limbo until someone picks it up. (I have lost more than a few checks and my husband had to have his W-2 reissued because they wouldn't forward it.) The Alachua Florida post office is truly the worst post office in the entire US of A. I promise. I could tell you horror stories of what we had to deal with when we stayed in Alachua (we ran out of $ in SF so retreated to FL to regain our footing before moving to Portland.) Not only is it a totally corrupt little town run by rich, southern white men (our power bill was over $200 during a month when we ran only the stove and the washer dryer), the houses running through the town are all tract housing, cinder blocks, rectangular and my mom's house (she bought it after her divorce) sits directly across from a newly forming sink hole.
Anyway, to continue, Victoria's Secret turned it over to a collection agency because they never received any return mail and the collection agency refuses to remove the seriously overdue delinquency. The only thing they will do is show it as paid. She cried and pleaded and begged but what she got was hung up on and yelled at for not taking care of her responsibility. So now my sister cannot buy this house as the interest rate she would qualify for would make her monthly payments too high for her salary.
Julie's story with the Bank of America:

Sorry for the unsolicited advice, but if anyone has a

credit card with Bank of America, you might want to

read this.



I just had a terrible (and costly) experience with

them.  Two years ago I paid off and *thought* I had

closed my credit card account with them, and came to

discover yesterday that they never closed my credit

card account, let it accrue hundreds of dollars in

interest and late fees, and sold the account to a

collection agency.  It was then sold 3 other times to

different collection agencies, and by the time I

tracked it down (which took hours) I had accrued

almost $500 in interest.  And in order to fix my

credit, I had to pay it off.  



I never received ANYTHING in the mail about this (and

unfortunately, kept no records that I had closed the

account).  



And the kicker is that the last collection agent I

spoke with told me that B of A - and I quote - "does

this all the time".



B of A won't do anything about it because they sold

the account, and claim they don't even have records of

it anymore.  The collection agencies won't do anything

about it because they say they don't have any details

about the account activity before they bought it.  The

account just exists in some limbo land and no one will

take responsibility for it.





WOW!