Got an envelope from Mary at the new PO Box. Enclosed with a quick note, thanking me for the beautiful stationery I’ve been sending, she sent 5 pictures. One of her aunt, one of her uncle, one of her uncle, brother and cousin, and two of her son. I’m sending them back as she asked me to.

The storms have cleared up. Don’t know when or if they’ll be back.

Yesterday I worked on recording songs on and off from 4 PM-11 PM. Some I felt were suitable on the first shot and others I had to do a few takes. Tom’s going to listen to them when he can and tell me which ones he thinks I ought to redo, etc. I really am just an average, ordinary singer, though I guess that beats being a shitty one. I’m no Linda Ronstadt, nor am I a Sally, the girl whose tape Andy found when searching Stevie Nicks’ trash in the mid-90s in Paradise Valley. She was pitiful!

Later…

Clouds rolled in about an hour ago, followed by some thunder and a light drizzle. Throughout it all, the prairie dogs and rabbits have been out front. We may have baby bunnies soon. I saw a couple of them screwing.

Later…

We had a major storm come through. It was incredible! It lasted for a good 4 hours, too. The storms are really making up for lost time.

It’s beautiful out there right now and I had the windows open and the AC off, but the air reeks of horseshit now. I really wanted to enjoy the beautiful breeze too, so it’s a real bummer. Like I said, it depends on the direction of the wind, but it really spoils things. It’s the thing I hate most about this town. As soon as I shut the windows, even if it gets 5°-10° cooler outside, it’ll gradually warm up in here without the AC. Things in here generate heat. The dishwasher, computers, and lights. I have to shut the place up, though. I can’t be gagging on shit all night. I would’ve liked to keep the AC off all night to save money, but you know God never likes to see us save money. And if we do get money, there’s always a problem attached to it. Like the $5 winning scratch ticket we got that just won’t scratch off all the way. There are some code numbers on the bottom that needs to be scratched off but because they won’t come off, we’ll have to send it to the lottery office. Why win big anyway, I told Tom, God would just send someone to come and steal the money away from us by conning us somehow.

Anyway, the sky got really dark then it haled a bit and rained really hard. It was very windy, too. Both the wash and the road were running with water for quite a while. I got some good shots of the water and a rainbow. Even in back we had a lot of water. The water overflowed the back wash’s banks. I’ll send pictures to Mary little by little and email them to the other Mary.

The running water was loud but so cool! It sounded like a real brook or river was just outside! The only thing to spoil the effect was the barking dogs. They were everywhere! We could hear barking coming from all directions. It was like we were boxed in by them. A few humongous dogs even had to run through our land, of course. Next door’s dogs started to as well, but they called them right back. They were out sightseeing after the storm hit, too. There were a couple of storms. The big one hit around 5:00 and the little one hit around 9:00. We only lost power a few times for a second during the storms, but then the power was turned off for about 10 minutes at 10:30, obviously to fix whatever had been damaged. Our phone’s been out for hours too, and it still is.

Tom didn’t go to work tonight. I worry that he’d get stuck and he worries about leaving me here with no phone, which is silly. I’ve got no one to call and I don’t have to go online. And of course, the pigs are the last ones I’d call on in an emergency. They could never be trusted. The sight of them makes me sick to my stomach.

Sure enough, I got a reply from Sherrie at the mannequin company asking which Decter I was referring to, so I gave her the model number of the one I want and asked if they shipped to individuals if she came with her wig and stand, and if not, what do they cost? Also, what does it cost to ship to Arizona? My guess is that they will ship to individuals, she does come with the wig and stand, and the shipping cost will be $30. We’ll see. I should have an answer tomorrow or the next day.