The U-Haul left in the late afternoon after they had a barbecue. I never would’ve known they were barbecuing if Tom hadn’t told me. There was no music or noise from over there. All we could see was the smoke from the barbecue. Now that’s the way it should be! One shouldn’t have to know what their neighbors are up to unless they look and see. That was the quietest barbecue I ever lived next to! We can’t stop stereos from getting louder and louder, but we could at least stop people from living just a few feet away from us, thank God.

I got up at 8:00, and shortly after, we went to Circle K. They had a sale on peanuts and sunflower seeds, so I got two little bags of each. The sunflower seeds are all for the animals. Most of the peanuts are too, but I stole a few of those. I also got a candy bar, ice cream and my coffee. With all these extra calories, I’ll really have to work out! I’m eating the stuff slowly. I like to get treats on weekends. Dieting day after day drives a person crazy. You really need to give yourself a break once a week. I was 116 pounds yesterday. If I was 120 or close to it, I’d have been a bit harder on myself.

I miss Paula’s pestering weekend phone calls, but I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before she gets a phone and bugs me with it till she loses it again. I can’t believe she’s got a car and can drive. I’d think she’d be too stupid to learn to drive and too unfocused. She’s worse than I am at staying focused. How she managed to focus long enough to learn to drive is a mystery to me.

Later...

Last night we had a storm. Lots of dust, wind, rain, thunder, and bolts of lightning so bright it was like a flash popping on a camera. It’s so humid out now that it’s kept the temperature cooler than normal. Yesterday was 117°, but today it’s barely over 100° with all the moisture in the air.

I finally got fed up with Cybertrails and deleted it off my desktop. I’m sick of their hit-or-miss but mostly miss service. Why can’t people ever get what they pay for in life? Is it really too much to ask to be able to sit down, go online and stay online to do research, play games, etc.? Obviously, it is. And also, is there any such thing as a competent, reliable service, or are people even more stupid than I originally thought?

I forgot to mention a couple of other things about our trip to town. We cashed in $15 worth of winning scratch tickets and got a couple more bingo tickets. Before leaving the house I said I felt a slight win vibe. Upon getting into the car with the cards and placing my hands on them, I felt a positive spark from one of them. That was the one I played. It won $3 and came close to winning in like 3 or 4 different other spots. His ticket was worthless.

Tom’s really gotten the property looking nice. There are only a few odds and ends sitting around the land to be gathered up, but mostly, it’s now what I want – nothing but raw desert save for whatever we build or plant.

This would’ve gone over my head if Tom didn’t mention it, but usually, when you buy ice cream in Arizona, they give you something to put it in to help keep it from melting. Well, Cindy, I believe her name is; a tall, lanky, crooked-toothed middle-aged woman with a ponytail so thin a Barbie doll’s hand could take hold of it said, “You’re going to be in a cool car, right?” Now how did she know that? How did she know we lived way out here and not just a few minutes away where the ice cream couldn’t have time to melt? Tom said he could’ve mentioned where we live when we first came out here, but somehow I doubt that. The cashiers weren’t very talkative in the beginning. In fact, none of them are except for that slow guy who was obviously in some kind of accident (I haven’t seen him in a while). I think my getting arrested has something to do with it. Remember, this is a small town. Everyone knows everyone here. This town’s even smaller than Deerfield. Deerfield at least had police, even if only a dozen or so of them. Out here there are no police. That’s why the car that came the night I was hauled off to Florence said, “Pinal County Sheriff.” Not that I give a shit about who says what about me as long as people don’t disrupt my life, but I’m pretty sure this cop, Robles, I think his name was, knows all the people working there. He sure seemed to when he gassed up there and got us snacks for the road. One of the cashiers could have a friend or relative that’s a cop. I know one of the women who works there at night saw me sitting in the cruiser, so that’s where the gossip would’ve started. She’d have mentioned me to Robles, who would’ve told her about me, and she’d go running to tell the others. Even if she didn’t know our names, all you have to do is describe us and they’d know they were talking about us. We’re a very odd-looking couple. He looks a lot older than me than he really is, and we look different regardless of how old we look. The blacks; they’re a bit harder to get descriptive on. They all look the same. Unless one of them had a distinct tattoo, hair to the floor, or something that stood out, once you’ve seen one black, you’ve seen them all. Same with Mexicans, Indians and Orientals.

Knowing he’s not going to want sex today since we just did it yesterday, I’m going to go busy myself with doing a little journal indexing.

Later...

I was settled down with a book, but none other than the Mexicans themselves, have me distracted and pissed off. Those fucking, mother-fucking Mexicans and their fucking stereos! And damn you to hell, God, for having me fated to have to deal with this shit no matter where I go! Always it’s the fucking blacks and Mexicans that have to make a scene. Always it is them! The red pickup just went banging by the bedroom, disrupting my reading. They’ve been doing this twice a day now with these stereos he says can’t hold up to these roads. And so what if their stereo did break? All they’d do is fix it.

All I ever wanted out of life for the last decade was to not have to listen to other people’s noise within my own home. Now why is that just so damn much to ask for, huh?

Tom was trying to tell me it wouldn’t have woken me up or distracted me from my reading. He distracts me from reading, he says. But he lives with me, and yes it did distract me. I heard them long before they even came into view, and I will be woken up by stereos sooner or later.

I told Tom that unless we can build a wall that keeps it peaceful enough here, we’ll definitely need to move to Sun City or Sun Lakes when he’s 65. I know it’s only gonna get worse and worse each year here, and things are already going as vibed anyway. And as soon as these fucking Mexicans do go away, new ones will be banging by to disturb my peace. Tom says that by the time these people are 65, they’ll be blaring their stereos in Sun City or Sun Lakes, so it’ll defeat the purpose of us moving there. Yeah, I know each generation gets ruder and louder, and that eventually, everyone will be noisy from the day they’re born till the day they die, but I still think there’ll be some quiet white folks around when we’re older. And also, although he denies this, Sun City and Sun Lakes are more than predominantly white. Blacks and Mexicans can’t afford houses and I don’t see how the quiet white folks would tolerate such antics from them. There’s no way they’d put up with their shit. They just won’t tolerate the noise, the crowds, and the filthy litter that they trash their and others’ yards with, and they have more power in getting rid of these animals than we do living where anyone can live. You don’t carry on and make a scene in a retirement community. You just don’t.