Skip to main content

The Rumor Mill

The more contact with my siblings I have, the more rumors I hear bandied about and I am sick of it. According to the rumor mill, I've just found out that allegedly Jonathan and I forced my father to liquidate all his assets, including his car, and kept all the profits ourselves to fund our travels and happy lifestyle. Keep in mind I have little to no contact with my siblings so none of their ideas on my parents' circumstances is based on any sort of actual facts but all pieced together in their minds like some conspiracy theory based on bits of information they obtain when talking to Dad on the phone.

 
 

First, I really have no understanding why my siblings think our father has or had major assets to be liquidated in the first place. My parents had next to nothing (a little bit of savings) and in fact were at such a low income and asset ratio that they qualified for income sensitive housing here in VA. Second, my father sold his car long before they moved here to VA and it had nothing to do with me. He sold his car b/c he was no longer able to drive due to health issues (he was losing his vision and balance and unable to drive). The doctor suggested he use a bicycle to get around town, but he was not even able to do that without losing his balance and falling.

 
 

When Jonathan and I began to make arrangements for my parents to move here (at their request as they had come to the realization that they could no longer maintain their home and live independently in NM), we helped them review their finances and work out a budget for their moving expenses and living expenses here. Their meager savings were used to pay off their credit card balances, pay the moving expenses, and buy the furniture for their apartment here. They got next to nothing on their home sale because the home was one step from being condemned in disrepair and we sold it for quick sale as-is so we could get them moved up here before their health deteriorated further. What little they got also went toward relocation expenses.

 
 

Once here, their only source of income is my Dad's federal retirement pension and social security. That doesn't even begin to cover their living expenses, so Jonathan and I help them out with the shortfall. So there is and never was some large stash of assets to liquidate. My parents don't even have decent life insurance so when they die Jon and I will be on the hook to pay all of those expenses as well.

 
 

Second, it infuriates me that a whole group of people who have mostly had nothing but bad things to say about my father over my entire life, and who've never made an effort to look after his well-being in any way suddenly are concerning themselves with the details of his life and finances. They don't even seem to realize that if he did have money, if he passed away it goes to my mother. (And vice versa for her). It's only if both of them die, or when the last remaining spouse dies that all of their assets are split equally between all over their 9 children, assuming there are any assets remaining. So this group has no trouble spreading rumors about myself and my husband (who work hard to earn a comfortable living and pay for their own trips thank you very much) but can't be bothered to actually be involved in Dad's life and be active caregivers in anyway. I didn't see any of them volunteer to help my parents move near them or volunteer to support them financially for the rest of their life. Jon and I always knew that would be our role.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Board Game Review: Expeditions Gears of Corruption

L ast year I reviewed Expeditions and ranked it #1 among all Stonemaier games on account of the challenging intellectual puzzle it presents. This year I have played my way through the new expansion, Gears of Corruption , and I’m delighted to let you know that it makes the base game even better. That the expansion so cohesively builds on the base game should not be a surprise to anyone who closely examines the original box for Expeditions. All expansion components perfectly fit in that box including the 2 new mechs that nestle in the placeholder cubbies clearly made for them.  That can’t be coincidence. There might a few features rolled into Corruption of Gears that were developed as a result of consumer feedback on the base game (I’m looking at you, wild meeple), but my theory is that Stonemaier did a Lord of the Rings maneuver with this game and its expansions, designing the entire game with most of the additions integrated up front, and then breaking it into base + expansions fo...

Board Game Review: Expeditions

Expeditions is my favorite game in the Stonemaier Games portfolio to date. The game is a sequel to Scythe, and continues the narrative years in the future. It has taken everything I loved in Scythe and expanded on it, while chucking out everything I didn’t care for (the combat). Designed by Jamey Stegmaier, Expeditions brings us into an age when a meteorite has crash landed into Siberia and things begin to go sideways for all who encounter it. One team after another sets out to investigate the crash site and they are never heard from again. No one knows what happened to them. Now it’s our turn to find out what’s really going on, each of us leading a competing expedition team into Siberia to bring back desperately needed answers. During a game of Expeditions, all players are seated around the game board, which is made up of individually placed hex tiles laid out as shown above. At the bottom of the game board is an insert affectionately known as the base camp. The base camp holds ...

A Fortunate Trade, an Unexpected Pledge of Support, and a Win for Yin!

What follows is the true and unredacted account of my tour of duty as a command leader for the Yin Brotherhood. Map: 5p POK Kazadoom’s Notch Map generated on https://ti4-map-generator.derekpeterson.ca/ Factions: Yin, Yssaril, Nekro, Vuil’raith, Hacan. Round 1 objectives: Engineer a Marvel (R1-1); Push Boundaries (R1-2) Five experienced leaders gathered this weekend to prove themselves worthy. As the Yin, I found myself wedged between the Hacan (around the corner of a notch in the galaxy) and the Yssaril. Word had come down to the Blessed on Darien through our ambassadors and spies that both nearby factions were set on amassing larger fleets and armies, but to what end we were unsure. The Blessed discussed the matter at great length and decided our best defense was to rebuild our flagship the Van Hauge and to take control of as many planets as we could (more, at least, then our neighbors). That would allow us to stand firm in the face of any aggression. As a command leader, I...