“Remember, there’s positive to negative,” Tom assured me, pointing out the positives when we discussed the very real possibility of not getting out of here as soon as we’d like.

Yesterday went from being a sad day to a frustrating and worrisome day. I have a feeling the guinea pigs aren’t getting out of here anytime soon and neither are we. Petco wouldn’t take them, saying they had fungus on their butts, something we were totally unaware of. I think the guy got the wrong idea when he saw I’d snipped some tangled fur on Rockefeller’s butt when I was giving him a bath, and the dumb cock automatically assumed he had skin issues. They’ve never appeared to be unhealthy. Blitz gets a touch of scurvy every now and then but that’s it. So dumb cock gives us addresses and numbers to a couple of shelters in Sacramento and I call just to get the automated-message runaround.

Then there’s the contradicting info. Petco said never to give them baths. Online it recommends weekly baths.

I’m afraid that not being able to get rid of the pigs yesterday was just the start of many delays to come. I swear it’s like the more I want to get out of a place, the longer I’m stuck in it! But I learned a long time ago that you just can’t fight fate, so if this is where I’m truly meant to be, there won’t be much I can do about it. Yet he assures me that if anything delays the move, we can get the sleep pod, remodel this place, get a lot more money for it, and therefore have many more options as to where we could go. Yeah, but I’m not going to spend year after year struggling to move either. That’s just fucking ridiculous. Life is about settling anyway so it’s not like we could just go anywhere we want. If we’re going to have that much trouble getting out of here we may as well just accept it and make the absolute best of this place as we possibly can and keep in mind that there are millions out there who would love to live here, noisy or not. He thinks things may be delayed by only about a month or less. I don’t know if we should bother at times, though. Yes, California is expensive but it’s one of the few states that help supplement people, especially when they’re older, even if you’re white and you’re from here. Not bad for a country whose growing increasingly uncaring of those who are white, Jewish, or gay.

I was excited by the thought of getting a dog in the future. I know some people prefer to keep them in crates overnight but I think thought as long as it was kept away from the bedroom when I was asleep, it would be fine roaming the rest of the house, but after all the frustration I’ve gone through with these fucking pigs I totally regret getting, I think I’m done with pets for good. I know it isn’t the pigs’ fault, but I’ve had enough of the hassles, the smells, and the expense they bring. Now they’re costing us even more money since we had to order more supplies for them.

He did fill out a form with the SPCA and they will try to get any unhealthy animals they can healthy enough for adoption. Only the animals that are really bad off get put down. However, thanks to COVID-19, which I fear may be one of many things to hold back the move, there can be a 2-4-week delay in setting up an appointment to surrender them. You can’t just walk in whenever you want to surrender or adopt. Well, we were supposed to put the house on the market around the second week of March, so partly thanks to them, that’s not likely to happen.

I also emailed a couple of places but I don’t expect to hear back from them.

Why can’t we ever just do something? Why is it that we can’t decide to do a particular thing and then simply up and do it? Why do there always have to be problems, setbacks, and delays? Really makes me feel like giving up and just saying, “fuck it.” Let’s just keep the pigs for the rest of their lives and stay here for the rest of ours even though I hate the noise and the winter. Besides, we could have gone to a warmer place but not necessarily a quiet place. We’ve got good neighbors for now and have doctors I’m used to, are younger than me, and that I should be able to see for many years to come unless they move. So yeah, I don’t know if I want to move anymore. I mean I would have loved to live in a tropical climate and a place that was at least a little quieter and a lot cheaper but is it really worth all the hassle to get there just to find that it’s not all I hoped it to be?

As I said, I’m not going to fight tooth and nail to try to get out of here. But delays are a very real possibility. We can’t leave without being vaccinated either. Also, just like this is a hot spot for skunks, it’s also one for termites, and I don’t mean the kind disguised as humans that live in Florida. This place has had them before as have many places around here, and you can’t just spray them away. The house needs to be tented. So those are just two of many obstacles no doubt waiting to keep us trapped here.

So we may as well just plan to remodel the place for us. Also, I’ve been wanting a sleep pod for ages now. It’s definitely not as easy as it sounds to move. I know we’re not the only ones who have gone through this even though I feel like it at times. But yeah, I get that people can’t just up and move long distance unless they have a job lined up for them, have a lot of money, or they’re retired. Retired with sufficient funds, of course. Then there’s also the fact that manufactured homes don’t have the value of regular homes. But a new or upgraded manufactured home in Cali can be worth more than a standard home in a cheap state.

If we remain low income as we should be for most of this year, Cali will replace the windows for next to nothing. Plus, we’d be eligible for all kinds of rebates and discounts on other upgrades as well.

I do like how you have to have insurance in this state and that it has Death with Dignity. Yes, foreigners and non-whites will always come first and foremost here but the rest of us do still get some benefits, too.

sighs I don’t know what to do at this point but he wants to carry on with our plans even if there are some delays. Yeah, I guess that’s all we can do. He’s positive we won’t be stuck with the pigs forever and that someone will eventually take them. Then I just have to hope we get vaccinated by the end of March as they’re talking about now, and that there’s nothing wrong with the house when they do their inspection. Also, we can get a place that although not perfect, is at least somewhat preferable to this.

Made a video appointment for next week with Dr. A, although I may be onto something with the magnesium. I’m not sure yet and I still don’t want to jump the gun and get all excited but yesterday was the third time I felt on edge, took the magnesium, and felt better. So I have more coming with this morning’s Walmart delivery. Unfortunately, they’re orange-flavored, but I prefer gummies to pills. These are huge capsules that are hard to swallow but he has no problem with them and he can have the few that are left over in the bottle for when he gets leg cramps.

Am I having imaginary PMS today or is it just because I’m tired that I’m so hungry today? I’ve been up for about 8 hours, had about a thousand 1000 calories of food and I’m still hungry.

Slept shitty last night, waking up a million times along the way, so I’m tired today. Of course I had to have dreams of poverty and moving delays and all that.

What was weird was the dream I had through the eyes of a gay man who was eventually murdered by his lover and featured in a crime documentary. I didn’t see the actual murder but just his last moments. It was weird dreaming through the eyes of someone else. Pretty sure there’s a show about a woman who saw real-life murders in her dreams and assisted the police or something like that.

I only saw this part where the guy was arguing with his much tougher boyfriend. Then the weaker guy pulled some plant out of a large vase and transferred it to a small vase and said, “You can have everything else. Everything.”

Then the weaker guy was visiting some people (not sure if he snuck out of his house) who were discussing calling the police on some woman that they believed was intimately involved with her son. The other person argued against it because the son was over 18.

Then it was nighttime and the gay guy was back home and in bed. The room was pitch black and as he lay there on his side, he could just barely make out the bedroom door slowly being pushed open by his lover, and that’s when the dream ended and also where I assume he was soon killed. I believe it was by strangulation. Makes me wonder if it was just a dream or if I was really seeing the final moments of a murder victim. If so, was it in another dimension?