I think I left off on the epic Tuesday...
So, after receiving the frantic call from our builder, emailing my dad about my unbelievable situation, and doing some more research on Google that managed to calm me down enough about the mortgage situation to realize that we still had a ton of stuff to do that day. I told my husband that if there wasn't anything else he needed me there for I was going to head over to the apartment to start cleaning. This was at noon. The details are all a little fuzzy to me now, but basically I cleaned our apartment until it was shining for 5 hours. This included vacuuming Asian beetles out of our garden room which we never used except for storage, sticking my head in the oven Sylvia Plath style and inhaling oven cleaner fumes for about 30 minutes (unwillingly - although I was tempted to just lie down and give up at that point,) getting the stains and odor out of the carpet, and scrubbing virtually even little nick out of the floors... by myself. To be fair, my husband did pack the remaining couple of boxes of random crap and I think scrubbed the toilet and shower. That was it. Meanwhile, he was criticizing me for cleaning "so well" and kept telling me to stop because we were "running out of time." I knew this, but I also refused to be charged $15/mark on the floor or whatever other asinine fines they could have stuck to us. Despite having a killer headache from all the different cleaner fumes, dehydration, and stress. When I was finished that place was cleaner than when we moved in. I definitely never cleaned it that well while we lived there.
Lets just infer how furious I was about my solo cleaning job - that resulted in us not owing the apartment complex a dime. Because the inspector could tell "how well we took care of it while we lived there." Nothing like a little deodorizing carpet powder and some elbow grease to create great illusions of cleanliness. That was also incredibly justifying to me... because there were definitely things they could have charged us for. Take that husband! Ha! (He did...)
Well, after he finally returned home after the inspection - I high tailed it out of there to go check on the dogs since they'd been cooped up for about 6 hours - we had a bit of an argument... and ended up not leaving for our vacation because we desperately needed to rest. We also had not packed a thing. We called the hotel and arranged to pay for that night and check in the next morning/early afternoon. Well, that would have required us actually getting up early and getting on the road. I don't think we left until after noon between sleeping, packing, putting a dog gate in the car to protect our luggage. That took my husband about an hour and half to complete while I packed everything else.
We finally got on the road and the dogs settled in decently for the first couple of hours. However, we eventually had to stop. The first stop went fine and we were able to take them out for a brief walk. The second was not so great. We pulled off at some sketchy exit in south Georgia and pulled into a Days Inn with a gas station so he could get gas while I walked the dogs. Well, as soon as I had the dogs leashed and out of the car - which was no easy feat considering how long they'd been cooped up at this point - the lady of a certain cheap hotel owner stereotypical persuasion who worked at the hotel came out and told us that "This is private property and you have to leave. You cannot walk your dogs here. There is a visitor center [which was not evident to us...] down the street for walking dogs. This is private property, you have to leave."
You should have seen my face. I gave her the combination of "you have to be shitting me, what's your problem b*tch, and I'll cut you if you turn your back... go ahead and test me" look. I think I scared her. I think she told me it was private property again. I proceeded to try to get the dogs back in the car - while making sure to give them lots of love and attention and to let them lick me in the face just because I knew it bothered her so damn much. After all, dogs are to be eaten, not to ride in cars like humans! (Well, that's what I imagined going through her head from the look she was giving me anyway...) She also treated me like I was trash for having pets, which trust me did not help the situation. I really would have decked her after the couple of days I had had, but decided it was not worth the misdemeanor charge I'm sure she would have filed. While spending the rest of the day in some jail cell in south Georgia might be some people's idea of fun, it was not mine. So we went to the BP across the street, walked the dogs for about 20-25 minutes and went on our way. Somewhere in there we stopped at a McDonald's drive thru (big mistake with the dogs in the car.) They managed to mess up my order - I got a 3 piece chicken selects and they instead gave me this giant chicken ranch heart attack in a bite sandwich. I could barely eat it due to the pound of mayonnaise smothering the remains of some poor hormone injected super chicken breast. I couldn't exchange it though or we would have lost the dogs for sure. They also made my iced coffee so sweet I couldn't drink it. Suffice it to say, after my husband being discriminated at the McDonald's in Missouri earlier this summer, I'm done with good old Mickey D's for a few years... even if I do respect their business model.
Good news is that when we finally made it down to Amelia Island we had a nice 2 days. It rained a bit the first day which actually made it cool and cleared out the crowds which was fantastic. We had a nice sea food dinner too. The puppies loved the beach and made friends with a family staying at our hotel. They hate the ocean though - and most water not in their bowls. It completely freaks them out. (Thank God. It's one of the few tools in our arsenal that actually makes them behave.) The beach wasn't quite as fun as it should have been because we were so worried about the mortgage situation. We found out that the bank actually had been closed and that basically no one including the Feds had any idea what was going on, where our escrowed money was, or where we should send our payment. And, the contractor had made sure to threaten us with liens on our house that would result in foreclosure if we couldn't pay before we left. So as much as we tried to relax and enjoy ourselves, there was a cloud over our mini-vacation.
Well, we managed to get back to Atlanta without much of a hitch. Turns out Dublin, GA is the only reasonable stop south of Atlanta and north of Savannah. Good to know. I try to avoid roadside sketchiness as much as possible.
Well, that's about the end of the story for now.... The additional part that made this time period so awful was that we were put into a bad situation with our dogs. Turns out, litter mates - especially those of the same gender - should NEVER be kept together. We found this out after our once peaceful puppies entered attack mode against each other. There have been instances where I've walked into a room and thought I was entering Michael Vick's basement. They fight so badly when we're around... for attention, for dominance, and over toys. It has really complicated things. We've made some real progress with mitigating the aggression which is good or we would definitely have had to re-home one of them and couldn't find a home upon our first try at contacting family and friends. We also didn't want to return it to the adoption center because they obviously don't know what the hell they're doing even though we were given a recommendation so strong you would have thought this place deserved a Nobel Peace Prize for its work.
This is why I don't trust other people's recommendations and always do my own research. Not that I don't ever take them into consideration, but every time I simply follow someone else's advice it completely screws me over. I do love the puppies though and look forward to the training they're going to get this fall. They are sweet and it's nice to have company when my husband is traveling. I also think they're young enough that we should be able to train them and everything will be fine. They've actually gotten back to being able to take walks together which is so nice - and saves me about an hour every day! It just broke my heart when I thought we would have to give one up though because I really do love them... even when the urinate on my bed while I'm standing right next to them... or on the couch to assert dominance because I petted one instead of the other first. Actually, not those times. Or when they attack my giant stuffed Eeyore (which I've put up high and they jumped up and managed to get this morning anyway.) You don't mess with Eeyore. Which they learned after a strong talking to and shunning this morning. Apparently I still hold some power in my crazy household. Nothing like being a disenfranchised Alpha. Maybe there's a support group other there somewhere. Or maybe I'll win the lottery and can pay Cesar Milan to train them.
See, there's always a simple solution.
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