Happy 33rd birthday to Aly, whatever you’re up to! 

Haven’t heard from her in about a week. I know she’s been having the health problems from hell. Sleeping better, but still has depression and a skin infection last I knew. 

It’s so cute how Romeo is always waiting for me when I get up, and begging for his breakfast. Sugar’s too weak and baby Hoodie doesn’t get it yet, but it’s so sweet how Romeo, this little critter, has come to love and depend on me. Then again, he’s anything but little for a rat. 

While Tom says it’s better than nothing, I don’t think he’s too thrilled over his 49-cent raise and I don’t blame him. 

Went running earlier and my quads are sore which means I really should give them some recovery time. I know I said I was going to drop to just 3 times a week since I’m not going to lose weight anyway with my thyroid thingy and inability to restrict my calories every day, but when the time and temperature are just so perfect, it’s hard not to take advantage of it. I love running in the middle of the night when there’s no traffic, and the 60s is a good temp to do it in, too. 

I hardly use my treadmill anymore because it’s so boring compared to outdoor running, but will need it during the rainy season and when I get up at the wrong times. Getting up at 8am in the summer will kind of suck because by the time I’m ready to run it will be too warm, and by the time it cools down I will be too tired. 

My worsening memory is getting alarming. I noticed it about 5 years ago, but when I had to look up the name of the drug they messed me up on, that was a bit worrisome. How could I forget it was Navane?! And how could it be used for ADHDers if it’s mostly used for schizophrenia, I wondered, but some people have assured me it was/is indeed used for ADHD as well. I guess that explains it, though I still say I never should’ve been given the crap. 

The landscapers drove me absolutely batty yesterday, and big park or not, I still don’t see why we’ve got to go through this shit nearly every single fucking day. The constant buzzing really makes being on days a bit of a drag. The traffic and car doors are enough. Besides, I thought they did the common area here on Fridays. Either way, I’m sure there’ll be something today. Maybe they’ll be blowing the streets or somebody will do some home improvement project that can be heard in here. 

I’m going to do some proofreading before 8am and save my story for later. With my story, I can just throw on the sound machine (though that doesn’t always drown out all the sounds), but when I proofread I use an electronic reader. 

Been seeing too many spiders in here at night, especially in the master bathroom, so we’re going to bomb this weekend. It’s summer here now anyway, so this is the time to do it. 

Although Tammy and Mark are still looking forward to escaping cold, boring Connecticut for cheaper, warmer Florida, boy are they cursed! I misunderstood her at first. She was saying that when they had the house appraised a few years ago they told them it was worth $350,000 but now it’s worth $260,000 and were in tears when they heard that. 

I was like, a quarter-million and they’re in tears? Also, they’re getting a waterfront apartment, which is probably pretty pricey, plus furniture before the place is even sold, so what am I missing? 

Well, it turns out that they’re in such huge debt that they’re basically going to leave CT with nothing. I thought the house was paid off, but it’s not. Then when Mark came down with heart problems, that caused him to miss a lot of work. Their home business suffered big time and so they lost a lot of money. They also spent many thousands on our parents once realizing that they too, had fallen into debt. 

I guess that between her disability and his retirement money, they don’t get much more than a couple of grand a month. My only concern would be if their business didn’t work out down in FL, but I think it will. Their biggest concern is if Mark’s heart gives out. They’re trying to set things up so that Tammy can make it on her own. It’s sad, but something we all have to think about when we get older. Growing old, feeble and helpless has always been my biggest fear. If I were single and knew I had kids to help me, then it wouldn’t seem as scary and depressing. But I have a husband to consider and no one to help us. Meaning that if I were told right now I had something terminal, I’d worry more for Tom than for me because he’s still relatively young at 56, and that’s a lot of time he’d be alone. No one wants to be alone all the time even if they’re not social butterflies with a zillion friends, but at his age, you just don’t meet people the way you do in your 20s. 

If my guess is correct, though, he’ll die first, but not till his 80s, and then I will kill myself because I wouldn’t want to be without him no matter what kind of money or help was around. 

While I’d never want to go back to being in my 20s again, a part of me misses how we tend to live more for the moment when we’re young, then we worry about the future when we get older. 

Anyway, Tammy and Mark aren’t going to buy a house or a condo because they don’t want to end up like our parents did in the end, but when she said the apartment she was looking to get was low-income (like what Sarah and Becky are looking into) my first thought was oh, no! You’re kidding! Does she want to live with welfare bums, college kids, and other loud obnoxious nightmares? But she said that it’s a very nice place that’s well-maintained, and a friend of hers also stayed there and liked it very much. Well, I hope it works out for her sake. After all, not everyone has a neighbor curse on them just because we did. All it takes, though, is one person to ruin the peace. It’s better than a pack of welfare bums, college animals, and large Mormon families, but Jesse was just one person and he drove us crazy. The older lady in the Oregon duplex was one person and she drove us crazy, too. Lastly, Andrea at the Vista Ventana apartment complex was one person and she drove me beyond crazy. Blacks and Mexicans would be the worst ones she could end up with. Blacks are the absolute meanest and potentially the most dangerous, too. The only thing that sets them apart from the Arabs is that the blacks were once treated badly. Where there’s 1 Mexican there’s 50. There are just way too many of them. If she’s got 20 Mexican grandkids upstairs visiting over her head…