I should be in bed, but the refinance has me fit to be tied. No, we have not yet signed the damned thing, much less have money in our pocket to pay bills.

I've been promised that we'll sign on pain of death tomorrow, but the bank, of course, had yet another forgotten and newly remembered piece of paper that they had to have us sign before they could draw up papers. Mind you, they forgot and then remembered. If they'd given us a list from the get-go, this would have been done before we left for Florida because, yes, I am that anal-retentive when it comes to finding all the bits and bobs of papers.

The latest bit or bob requires Mike's boss to sign it and both of the appropriate parties were unavailable to do so. We're fully expecting a snow day tomorrow as we hit the last fucking day of precipitation before the sun shines all damned week, so they may not be at work tomorrow, which means this could drag on a week longer. We should have signed on December 30th -- we would have had money by January 3. I'd have had contractors out here and licking my boots to get our bid by now. I had an outfit all picked out and everything!

Mike said they must be out of money.

All I know is that World Bank is out a customer. As soon as we can unload this refinanced mortgage and move on, we will. I'm going to dump every penny we have into finishing that stupid garage, changing out the sink, the fan above the table, refacing the cabinets in the kitchen and front bathroom, and any other thing that will bring us a few bucks at the next refi.

Fuckerheads.
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Okay, thus endeth my sojourn to Scatology Land.

Now, on to fantasy land. (I might have spent to much time at Disney world.)

I have a fantasy to have one of those dryer closets. It's the holy grail of removing soapy liquid from all things and has a 7 cubic foot drum, plus racks for fine washables, sweaters, and stuff you wanna hang. Its damned door doesn't pop open every 15 minutes a dry cycle. It's made by Maytag, so it might actually dry a damp sock in the time it takes to wash three loads of clothing. Unlike my machine, which at this time, I have paid for twice. My machine might dry a half load of towels in 90 minutes. Can you say Piece of Crap? Thank you, I knew you could.

Mike wants a second more up-to-date computer to play on, however, and that is where the antlers of the Moose and Mrs. Moose tangle a tad. I could push hard for the dryer closet and get it, but then I'd feel bad because I could get something much more reasonable made by Maytag or Whirlpool that just wouldn't have the lingerie and sweater racks and hangers.

But damn, that dryer gives me the hots.

The idea of clean and dry clothes in a reasonable amount of time is enough to make any domestic goddess cream her jeans. It's taken me two days of personally tracking or bribing snow-bound child (home from school) to keep an eye on that current dryer load. And the damned thing still isn't dry.

A computer just can't dry clothes when there's three feet of snow on the ground. And we have a good computer, already.

Mike has this fantasy about that we'll play on the computers together. I don't think it has occurred to him that Russell's in school and will have no time. When Russell has time, Mike gears up at work, and about the time I'm interested will be when the entire house has been done the way we've discussed, much of which, he will be doing, thus giving him little time to play computer games at home.

I hate to be the reality check to a dreamy computer engineer, though, so for now, I'm enjoying his good behavior and bland begging.

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I'm dumbfounded at the magnitude of the tsunami damage and toll on human life. As soon as the refi check comes in, we will be donating. Mike simply told me how much he'd like us to donate, though he looked at me and said,"You can't send the whole thing to Unicef, OK?"

The man knows me.