Twitter? Hardly. Help? Please!

So, I signed up for my first Twitter account yesterday.  Figured it was time, there is now ZERO chance of anyone thinking I joined up just to be cool (wink).  I signed up, chose my moniker, followed a couple of friends, and made one small, silly little tweet (said "guess this would be #myfirsthashtag.").  Probably not too original, but also not offensive by any stretch.  I sign on this morning to find THIS dangling over my now-SUSPENDED account:

Hey Krista XXXXXXX,

Twitter has automated systems that find and remove multiple automated spam accounts in bulk. Unfortunately, it looks like this account, @XXXXXXX, got caught up in one of these spam groups by mistake.

We apologize for this inconvenience. It’s possible your account posted an update that appeared to be spam, so please be careful what you tweet or retweet. You might also want to review our help page for hacked or compromised accounts://support.twitter.com/entries/68916. You will need to change your behavior to continue using Twitter. Repeat violations of the Twitter Rules may result in the permanent suspension of your account.

And that's that.  No more Twitter for me, I guess, because I have done the idiot "CAPTCHA" thing a dozen times to "recover" my account, but each time my page comes back up with the "been suspended" banner and I still cannot use the account.  So blow up, Twitter.  You're mean.

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Feeling bitter.  Been seeing all the uproar about the handsome, wildly tattooed felon, Jeremy Meeks?  The one up on weapons and gang charges?  The scary guy with the Esquire face?   Well, thus far, women across the country have donated over 100,000 bucks to spring him (his bail is a million).  

ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS to spring a member of the Crips gang.  A guy with a rap sheet replete with charges from gun offenses to identity theft, grand theft of a person (that's a step down from robbery) to drug charges.  $100,000 dollars raised to spring a dangerous felon because he's easy on the eyes (and he is), but here we are, scared to death we're going to wind up homeless.  Yes, a little bitter.

Because that somehow inspires charity and giving more than this:

I don't understand.  All I know is this--the guy up there stole, lied, and poses a clear threat to people.  And Charlie?  None of those things, but if we can't find a place, we may lose him.  Which would break my heart, break hubby's, too.  And it would shatter our boy.  

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We have found another place.  It's smaller than this, and the neighborhood's a bit dodgier, but it's certainly good enough.  No yard, and I'll miss my gardening, but we really can't be picky right now.  Fact is, it's a roof, and it's not a terrible one.  The rent is only 100 a month more than here, and, while 1600 a month is steep, it's not steep for the DC area.  In fact, it's practically low-budget.  

The scary part?  100 dollar non-refundable application fee, and having to tender the deposit in advance.  If they turn us down (which they might, our credit is in the solidly "fair" category, despite no delinquencies, no late payments, no judgments, and a pristine rental history),  that's weeks with that money tied up and inaccessible, plus the hit to the credit score for the inquiry, and we're out the 100 bucks permanently.  We are NOT where we can afford this, so the risk is terrifying.

Sadly, we're almost certainly going to lose it unless we throw caution to the wind and post the deposit and application fee without having the money to move in.  We'll lose it like the little house in Old Town; this is going to get snapped up by someone else before we have the money in hand.  Right now, we have the money for the deposit.  In a week, we hope to have enough for the pet deposit and the truck.  Which still leaves us down 1850.  So here I go again--please.  Please, anything you can spare.  If you've ever said to yourself "I wish there was something I could do," you CAN.  Ten bucks would be something.  It would help us.  If every person who reads my blog in a month gave a few bucks, we'd be that much closer.  If every person who reads my blog SHARED our link?

You'd be saving us.  Quite literally.

So please.  Please help, please share.  

Just a note--we made our goal, the donation campaign has ended!

And here it is

So, the move we can't afford and don't know where we're going is screaming headlong toward us.  I'm packing, even though I don't know where we're going and I don't know how we'll pay for it.  Our dear friends J & C lent us a grand, and oh, I can't tell you how amazing that is or how grateful we are.  We thought we were good, because a relative stepped up and offered three thousand.

You read that correctly.  Three grand.  She offered, she wasn't asked.  She understood that it would take us a while to pay back.  She said that if you can't help family, what's the point?  I cried my eyes out in gratitude, felt part of this crushing weight lift.  It was the most amazing thing.

That was May 28th.  She said she'd have it to us the following Monday or Tuesday.  I last heard from her June 4th, and she was still very upbeat and reassuring.  Multiple Facebook messages, a post, plus text messages, and nothing.  Fifteen days of silence.  She's stopped even signing onto Facebook, and has not read even one of my messages since the 4th.  I don't want to believe that she's left us hanging, but I'm not sure what else to think.  In the meantime, the clock is ticking, and we're watching the few places we can get go to other people because we don't have the money to put down the deposit and rent.

And what if she does come through?  What if this is just a hiccup, and, because she knows we don't absolutely have to be out until the end of next month, she figures there's no huge rush?  What if she IS going to come through?  I want to believe that.  I love her, and I don't want to think that anything has gone wrong.  But the lack of communication is scary and I don't know what to think.  But what I DO know is this: we are running out of time, and every day that passes is another apartment or house that rents to someone else.

Plus my Mom offered up 800.  Again, that was weeks ago, and no show.  But my mom turns 80 next month, and sometimes she makes offers when she can't follow through because she really WANTS to be able to.  I love her, and I understand that. My Mom is almost 80.  Which makes me almost 50, and this is where I am.

At this point, my stomach is so bad that I am actually worried that the ulcer is going to go totally south.  I can't sleep more than a couple of hours, and I find myself gasping and sighing every time my mind goes there.  Which is often.  And our boy?  Oh, he is beyond panic-stricken.  He knows we may wind up far away from his friends at class.  He knows we may wind up in a place so tiny and so scary that our stuff all goes into storage and we wind up not being able to go outside for walks.  And he knows there's the very real risk of losing our dog.   Charlie.  Oh, man, just typing that has me crying.

And so, the crowd-funding page I set up back in May but never went live with?  Well, here it is.  I didn't go live with it because it looked like we were covered--between J&C and my relatives, plus what we can save, we'd have it.  But now we clearly don't have it, and we're not sure what to do other than this.  I mean, we are stuck, we have to be out.

So here's the page.  Anything helps.  Five bucks.  If every friend on facebook gave five bucks, we'd be okay.  We're not looking to get rich here, we're not looking to take advantage.  We're looking to survive, to have a place to land when this is over.  Anything helps.

We made our goal!  Donations disabled!



We made our goal!  Donations disabled!

This is embarrassing beyond words.  And the terror that my relative DOES mean to come through, but will see this on Facebook and withdraw the offer?   Indescribable.  But if we keep waiting, what if she can't come through?  What if something has happened and she's unable?  And we let all this time pass?  That's where I can't stop going--what if we just keep waiting and it turns out something's happened and she can't help?  Every day is a day closer to the deadline, and every day we wait is a day lost.

We didn't see this coming.  It's not an eviction, the landlord is giving us a glowing reference.  Says we're the "best" tenants he's ever had.  But he has to sell, and that means we have to go.  Being great tenants who always pay on time doesn't really count for anything in this situation.  Please help.  Please share.  And please, no mention on my Facebook wall.  Not yet, anyway.