My Movers Might Be Wanted by the FBI

Sometimes summers last forever. This summer felt like it, a long marathon of hot days filled with work. We had gone to Florida on a short vacation what feels like a lifetime ago. So much happened. And so much of it has been, well, weird.

We sold Maggie and worked on the edits. Still working. The deadline is looming and we need to really knuckle down in these next 10 days. It’s weird that this book sold. It is even stranger that it’s so long and just keeps going.

We ran Sanctuary as a serial and released it into the world. It is strange that a book stuffed with Slavic mythology did so well. Slavic mythology is not well known and was long considered to be a barrier to readership.

We opened the store. ::slaps hand over the eye twitch:: Happy to report that we have cleared all of the refunds. There is only one order not in production and that’s because we are waiting on the customer’s response. While I tend to concentrate on refunds, my daughter reminded me that almost 2,000 orders have been filled without issues.

We bought a house. Never thought I would write that again. For personal, urgent, and deeply valid reasons, Kid 2 needed to relocate. We started the process of looking for the house on June 22nd and closed on the day Sanctuary came out. The new place is now painted, the floors upstairs are replaced and she is ready to move in.

Kid 2 almost fell prey to a moving scam. Certain things about the interaction with the movers she hired didn’t seem right, and when she called them to tell them that she would need to move the relocation date, the response was, “No problem.” Kid 2 has moved before. This set off all of the alarm bells, and so she did a deeper dive.

If you haven’t moved recently, changing the date is always a problem. The movers are booked in advance, and the availability of their trucks is limited.

I woke up to a text that said, “I think my movers might be wanted by the FBI.” Turns out they might be. They take people’s possessions and hold them for ransom until the customer pays exorbitant fees to get them back. If they don’t pay, the possessions are never returned. One woman lost 30 years worth of mementos of life with her now deceased husband. She was very grateful she brought his ashes with her rather than trust him to the movers. These people have no conscience. When the government shuts them down, they reopen under a different LLC.

There is a Facebook group dedicated to knocking them down. She forwarded the admin all of her details for his law enforcement file and called to cancel. When she’d made the original phone call, she went over everything in detail, with a list of the furniture, etc. and when she called about the cancellation, the response was, “So it’s just one room, right?” She told them that no, it was not right, that it was a 3 bedroom house and she had gone over the furniture list with the representative twice. “Oh, our software is old.” Sure, it is. You, by no means, planned to show up with a truck that was two sizes too small and then demand more money. Assholes.

Now the old house needs to be repainted and inspected before it can go on the market. We are going to take a beating, but it can’t be helped. At least the repairs will be cosmetic.

In the middle of all of this, baby kitten Noctis decided to have an intestinal blockage. Kid 1 had rescued Noctis. Well, Noctis kind of rescued himself. She stopped at a Dollar General – she wasn’t even suppose to make that stop – in the middle of a storm, and a hungry, rain-drenched black kitten crawled into her car. Noctis has since decided he is the king of everything, but he somehow ate something he wasn’t supposed to. I don’t know how, her house is pristine.

I woke up to a phone call. “Mom, my kitten is throwing up blood.”

“Vet. Take him now.”

“Already in the car.”

Our vet thought there was a linear GI obstruction, meaning the kitten had eaten a string and it got stuck. Baby Noctis, his X ray, and bloodwork went to Veterinary Emergency Group for surgery… And they decided not to do it. They took some ultrasound scans, and decided the blockage was partial and will resolve on its own. He spent two days under observation and is now home.

As Kid 1 was getting through the store customer service and being very worried about Noctis, she had a rough 3 days. Finally, once Noctis was home, she decided to take a long relaxing shower. When she emerged, she found one of her collectible dolls on the island, surrounded by other small dolls with a piece of paper on top of it.

Her sister had stopped by to retrieve her shoes. Just another moment of weirdness.

And then there was Covid. So we are up on our feet and moving around. Neither of us is running a temperature anymore and we are trying to do things, but we get so tired. I can’t even describe the fatigue. I carry on until about 2:00-3:00 pm in the afternoon and then I’m just done. Like standing is difficult kind of done. If I try to push through it, I get dizzy.

I am too tired to sit in a chair to play computer games. I am too tired to knit. Like what…

The Dragoncon is looming and the preparations for it need to be done. I was working on the postcards for Jeaniene Frost and us. I knocked hers out super fast. Since she sent all of the files and it was just the matter of putting them together. And then I got stuck on ours. Apparently, I really suck at book collages. After many attempts and working late into the evening, I finally put a version together and sent it to her.

Me: Maybe this one?

Phone rings.

Me: It’s the collage, isn’t it?

She: No, the collage is fine. Don’t take this the wrong way, but…

Me: Yes?

She: The way the QR code is sitting, it looks like a sinister turkey…

I laughed for like 5 minutes.

New postcard, a lot less turkey like.

Now I need to get somewhere with the totebags. We are doing a totebag giveaway with the purchase of our books. Need to finalize the design and put the order in.

We will do another schedule post tomorrow, since the first one didn’t get sent through the newsletter. We need to go back to Mailchimp, I think. Oy.

Well, onward and upward. Back to the editing I go.