Today’s Tom’s mom’s 77th birthday. Is this the year she dies as I predicted years ago? I don’t feel it as strongly, but I didn’t predict her dying till around June or July. Nonetheless, I hope I’m wrong and that she still has a handful of years left.

Tom said that according to Mary, we were the only ones to send her a birthday card. How sad. Especially when you consider all the relatives she’s got, and it’s not like they all hate each other, either.

The monsoon storms are dying out and the temperature’s dropping. Can you believe it’s only 69 degrees out there now and it’s in the middle of the afternoon? That’s because the storms have switched from early evenings to early mornings, and today, it was an early afternoon storm. Not much thunder/lightning, and not much wind. Not the kind that knocks the power out. Lots of rain, though. Water was running down the wash like a river and was almost filled to the rim. Tom better forget about his plans to put concrete dams in, cuz it would’ve overflowed with a dam. I took a couple of pictures of it when it was filled with flowing water. There’s still water in it, but it’s gotten shallower. I can see the bottom. Ralston, which is a wash, was flowing with water, too. Anyone attempting to drive by there would’ve had to drive up on the land across the way from us, which they’ve been doing anyway. I just hope Tom won’t have any trouble getting home. Rain like this really chews up these dirt roads.

Although I’m still quite emotional, still anxious, stressed out, and fearful of jail, I felt a slight spark of hope today. I feel a little perkier than I have in days. Not because I think justice will be done and that they’ll dismiss the case and pay me for any money lost to this thing (they can’t give me the time back I’ve lost), and not because I’m sure I’ll beat a jail sentence, but because the jail vibe I had faded a little. It could be nothing more than a case of wishful thinking that caused it to fade, though. I can’t be sure. Even psychics can fool themselves into “feeling” things that aren’t going to be the case in reality simply because they don’t want it to be the case.

Tom, who was kind enough to offer to get through to the counselor, I guess by hitting 0 on their menu to talk to someone live, which I didn’t think to do at the time, got an appointment made for me. I’ll be seeing Helen S in Tempe on September 12th at 6:00. Hope that’s not too late for him. Helen’s secretary called and told me she just talked to Tom and got me the date. I was hoping to see someone before my pretrial conference on the 7th, but it may not make a difference, according to what Paul said when he called. He called to say we can enter my guilty plea on the 7th at my PTC, then I’ll have to go over to the probation department to fill out forms or do an interview. Meanwhile, the minimum time allowed between the PTC and sentencing is 30 days, but Paul said he may choose to stall it if he starts getting a bad feeling about it. He still feels I can beat a jail sentence and doesn’t mean to worry me, but if there’s something in the probation report that scares him, he can stall sentencing to try to get around it in my favor. If the report, for example, stated that I’ve made no voluntary attempts to get therapy, we can stall it to get the records from the therapist proving otherwise. Of course, there’s also the possibility that he’s full of shit and that he knows things I don’t know. Meaning, he may know right now that there’s a damn good chance I’m going to jail, but may not want to say so, nor do anything to try to stop that from happening.

Tom says he still thinks we can beat this thing. Yeah, we can beat it, but not without losing a lot more time and money, or a loss of my freedom.

The second therapist I left a message with called today saying she doesn’t have Monday hours. I let her know I was already hooked up with someone else.

Today’s the day I call Sharon, and while I did that, I explained to her the status of the case.

Later...

I thought Tom was on his way home. What the fuck’s taking him so long? Let me guess, it must be something gone wrong with the car. Or maybe the roads are still bad, but they weren’t bad enough to stop the renter from cruising up and down Meadow Green on its motorcycle. I’m starting to think that yes, new renters moved into the vacant house and that’s where the music was coming from. From the house furthest from us. At least Mr. Motorcycle looked white.

Later...

Tom got in a little after 6:00, saying the roads were pretty bad. He said a lot of them were closed. I told him what Paul told me, letting him know I didn’t know if he knew more than he was telling me. Tom said he wouldn’t know it if I were going to end up in jail, cuz most of that’s going to depend on how I present myself.

And the fact that I’m a woman, and the individual judge and their feelings towards my case, and God, etc.

Of course, there’s always the possibility of receiving a deferred jail sentence, where they set a date for Dec. 1st for me to go to jail unless I do everything required of me. Then if I do everything I’m supposed to do, they could extend that deferred sentence to April 1st, etc.

The cow mouse, with the black and white markings, is riddled with tumors big time. She has tons of them on her side, distorting her shape. I doubt she’ll live very long at all.