The Lowdown

Things have been rather depressing around the RNS Seattle Station. With our dog Jake getting sick and then passing last week, I thought the end of January was going to be a rough week. Then I got an unwelcome phone call.

It was the Analog landlord.

Yes, the Kid and company still have to rent due to the ungodly housing costs here in the Seattle Metro area and I currently live in someone else’s house. Not the worst thing, I could still be living in an apartment and have to worry about some hussy nextdoor’s little firestarter child like I did before I met the Analog Wife.

Anyway, the landlord calls and says that he needs to sell the house to meet some other financial obligations he has. The wife and I are still at least six months from being able to buy, so we can’t close the deal just yet and he can’t wait. ‘Gotta be sold by April’ he says.

That was last Saturday afternoon.

So now we have a sick/dying dog and no place to live in 45 days. The wife just can’t believe our luck, all of it bad, all of it at the same time. I rationalize that it is better to get it out of the way early.

I spend the week hammering out my new schedule with my boss and looking for a new place to live that will accept our small zoo and dealing with the veterinarian and then the crematorium. I find a couple places and set up showings for places I would like to or wouldn’t mind living for this weekend.

‘Showings’ is code for an interview. Kind of like a job interview, but for housing. They look at you, your references, your history (job and credit) and decide the risk. Luckily for the wife and I, we’re pretty much perfect in those regards and we nail down a very cool place in a better neighborhood (our top choice of them all) on the first run. The house is 30% larger and I can have a dedicated Gun/Vault Room.

That was Saturday morning.

And that is about all of the good news. Unfortunately, there is a ton of bad news:

First up, I have to move my guns. I don’t “Hate” much, but that is one of the things on the list. I don’t even know if I have the engery to move all my ammo in one day. Next up, the money we’d saved for a down payment is now gone, and then some, knocking us back to possibly another 18 months before we can buy.

But the worst news is that I stand a very good chance of not being able to go to Boomershoot in April. February and March were supposed to be spent buying reloading equipment and components, finding a decent load and practicing at the 600 and 1000yd range I’d found two counties away. I was also supposed to be finishing up the fitting of the .22-250 into it’s new wood. But all of the money is now going to moving. If there is any chance I can go, I’m going, but things aren’t looking very good right now.

I also can’t go to the first Speedpins Match with Mr. Completely and Rivrdog in Portland as I’ll be in the middle of moving. Hell, I porbably won’t even have the funds to go shoot pins with Mr. C on Whidbey anytime soon and I know I won’t have the money to renew my membership at that range until after April.

But the wife is happy now. The landlord will be happy that we’ll be out in time for him to make his sale. The new landlord is happy that he’s got two reliable people in his ‘retirement fund’ house. And my boss is happy that she’s got 24 hour coverage with my new schedule.

Life just gets in the way of the fun, sometimes. I’ll be happy in May, reading David’s posts on how much fun Boomershoot was, I guess.

Yeah, I know, world’s smallest violin time for the Kid.