Scary things [Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος]

Not catching up on comments just yet. Soon.

Something just exploded in southwest Baltimore, just as I started to write this. But I don't see smoke or hear sirens. (Maybe it was something that was supposed to blow up? I don't have a clue. I only know that it was house-shaking loud, and low-pitched.)

Missed rehearsal last night because I felt just dizzy enough to have second thoughts about driving. I wasn't completely sure it was bad enough to warrant staying home at the time, but it turned out to be the right call -- two hours later I was feeling worse and was really glad I wasn't trying to drive home.

Tomorrow I'm due in court to be yelled at for not paying a bill that I simply haven't had the money to pay. I'm nervous. I have no idea what can happen there, and whether the judge can make things worse than they are. It's not like I don't want to pay; I do owe the money and have no beef against the company. It's just that the only way I could have paid it by now would have been to let my electricity get cut off and my car insurance lapse, and I need both of those to have any chance of continuing to bring in the tiny amount of money I do earn. (As it is, I've already got the next cut-off notice from Baltimore Gas & Electric.)

This is one of those "money wouldn't solve all my problems but it would certainly solve some of them" things.

The fact that court is scheduled for earlier than I'm usually awake doesn't help.

I'm going to go lie down for a spell 'cause I'm feeling dizzy again and I do want to make it to tonight's rehearsal. Both bands have gigs coming up soon (The Homespun Ceilidh Band is playing at the Southern Maryland Celtic Festival this coming weekend, and Thrir Venstri Foetr is playing at Fairy Festival the following weekend) so missing either rehearsal is ungood, and missing both would be worse.

I suspect that my dizziness is allergy-related. My sinuses are doing uncomfortable things, my nose is doing occasionally-icky things, my lungs are congested enough for me to notice (not enough to go to an emergency room, but I bet I could measure it on my peak flow meter), and this all makes more sense when I look at my car and see how much pollen has collected on it.

At least the temperature is nice today.

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Luv, it seems like something explodes, catches fire, or crashes messily in Baltimore at least once a week. I started to be perturbed, then I remembered that in and about the Beltway is just as bad, if not worse -- there was a car on the Shady Grove overpass, smoking. White smoke. It was supposedly totally engulfed, but that's usually black or dark gray smoke, with a car. People worry me, sometimes. *shakes head*

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This morning's traffic report on WGMS was actually... entertaining.

First they had a tree shredder turned over someplace totally blocking the traffic. At least, I think they called it a tree shredder.

Then there was a car fire near Sha... *rereads Xi's note* Yeah. That.

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It usually just burns (Baltimore is quite flammable), and that's definitely more than once a week during fire season and not exactly rare the rest of the time. Messy crashes are less common than fires, and I rarely hear explosions too big to be guns or firecrackers.

Though there's a dip in Fulton Ave. that makes trash trucks sound a lot like they're exploding when they catch the light green and go over it too quickly. That took a little getting used to.

Something just exploded in southwest Baltimore, just as I started to write this.

This is the only thing I found by searching news.google.com:

http://www.yorkdispatch.com/Stories/0,1413,138~10023~2098554,00.html

I might have been awake then (08:00 yesterday) but I didn't hear that one. Then again, York is a good ways north of Baltimore, and I'm on the south side of town.

Not that I can do much logistically, but here's some Good Court Karma for tomorrow. (I've seen at least a hundred times more of the inside of courtrooms than I ever wished to, over the past three years; seems I should be able to send some of the good stuff to someone who needs it.) Who knows, the court may be able to steer you in a direction that generates income, bearing in mind all of the conditions and limitations on your time and physical state.

Thanks.

Disclaimer: On a given day in a given courtroom, a judge might do or say just about anything.

The most common outcome of a taken-to-court-for-a-debt scenario is the judge issues an order that you pay. This allows the creditor to garnish your paycheck if you had a steady job. If you had some real valuable assets and were just holding out you could be ordered to sell them and pay up, or else face jail time for contempt of court. They don't force people to pay more than they can afford such that their power goes off or they are unable to drive and thus unable to work at all - people will complain bitterly because they get garnished and it forces them to give up something they have come to regard as essential, like cable TV or eating out; but they don't put you on the street. You may end up being ordered to pay $5 a month forever or something.

You might want to be prepared to demonstrate that you really are unable to pay at this time by assembling and taking along your spreadsheets, records, etc.

Good luck!

I agree with all of this, at least in Illinois. Judges CAN do and say *anything* they please. You need documentation...make **SURE** that includes tax returns or documentation showing why you didn't file. If the judge does try to order some sort of payment (which I doubt, given your situation) you can just let them enter a judgment against you. The court has no way of enforcing these. It's entirely the obligation of the owed to collect hir due. They may want the judgment just so they can claim the debt against their tax liability (depends on who you owe.)

*HUGS* and good luck. Keep us posted.

Thanks for the tip. I'm putting together the info now, but unfortunately don't have a working print server at the moment. (Think the judge will be able to read a floppy?)

If I had an income to garnish, I'd have had the money to pay the bill by now. *sigh*

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Scary things

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