The RV is now here and Tom’s gone out to get us a treat. Some ice cream. This little thing makes Dennis’ trailer seem like it was a big, new Winnebago, but it’s better than going up in the truck with just a U-Haul.

Dave and Miss Perfect had me worried for a while that they’d set us back by delaying us from getting the RV today because they were a half-hour late. They said they moved signs or that signs were missing, causing them to get lost.

They’re at the casino now, and whether or not they’re going to return here today to get the turntable Tom’s selling them, I don’t know. Either way, he’ll make it a point to stop by there with it one last time before we leave. It’ll also be an opportunity for Ma to offer any money she may offer to help us, but I won’t hold my breath in that department.

The RV rode like a dream, Tom said, so that’s good.

Because Tom’s a poor judge of size, as usual, I saw that there isn’t going to be space for all the plants. One, if not two, will probably have to stay behind, and the rats will have to go up in the tank. Because I’m so sick of the starting-over game, I won’t get new plants in Oregon. I’m only starting over in ways that are necessary.

I don’t think I’m going to even have room for my big exercise ball. Every time I get into a new exercise routine, something comes up to interrupt it. Every time. This worries me at my age and height. I could easily end up in the 140s before there’s room for it. I said I accept the fact that I’ll never lose weight, but I’d really prefer not to gain it either. I don’t have a working metabolism, so I can’t afford to sit around for days, so I guess I’ll jog in place if I have to. Or maybe I’ll deflate the ball, since it’s so big, and just take the 4 days off that it’ll take to get there. Once we’re there, I’ll throw the plants outside and then get back into it.

The rats are probably going to be a nightmare to deal with at times. Tanking the other rats wasn’t such a big deal because those rats weren’t used to running around loose. These spoiled things, though, are total freedom junkies.

Again I was never more grateful to be childless. Trying to do this with a few kids in tow would’ve been a total nightmare. Sterility really is a blessing! I can totally see why so many mothers wish they hadn’t had kids.

I just wish it was March or April so it wouldn’t be so hot. I was hoping to beat the bee swarms too, but nope. I can hear them buzzing in the trees like crazy.

The guy came today with the big black ugly water tank, and 4 pressure tanks since this house already has one. The thing we thought was going to be for setting up a sign-in turned out to be an electrical box of some sort. What was funny was when this dust devil came and carried two of the boxes the tanks came in off onto the empty lot in front. They got blown a good 500’ or so. Anyway, it seems he not only did a good job, from the looks of it, but he didn’t leave trash behind either. Why should he have screwed up or left trash behind, though? He’s not working for us. It’s only those that work for us that have to fuck up and trash us.

All this work, loss and change over this one man’s evil doing! As I said, people just don’t often understand the magnitude of trouble their actions can cause others. As pissed as I am to have to be starting over yet again, and with less than we had in Phoenix, I’m excited. I just hope that once we get settled I’ll have a serene, non-adventurous life for a change, but it’s like something wants to keep things going and keep us constantly on the go! I don’t want to be bored out of my mind with absolutely nothing to do, but I want a solid, stable home to live in for more than just a few years. One that doesn’t include a life of dodging trouble from others and having to put up with neighbor’s music, animals and kids. I know we’re going to get neighbor chaos no matter where we go, though. I might get less in the way of barking dogs, but having been a kid in a cold climate, I know that cold weather doesn’t keep kids indoors at all. I was always out on weekends and after school. Always. I doubt the cold climate will curb car stereos that much either, though they probably won’t have it going for as long as they do here. In other words, when it’s freezing out, the neighbors aren’t going to want to stand and gab with their friends as they get ready to pull out with the stereo going like they do here. Countless times the freeloaders and people across the street in Phoenix would follow their company out to their cars, then they’d put the music on and gab for several minutes before pulling out. It’s like what’s the point of wasting the gas? To deliberately irk your neighbors? Because you’re that desperate for attention?

Anyway, although they could conceivably build within 125’ of the house on the long sides Tom doesn’t think they will. I say 125’ since we’ll be about 100’ from the edge and because they probably have a rule against building within 25’ of the edge there too, but either way, he thinks they’ll want to be closer to the street where there’ll be fewer trees to cut down. We, on the other hand, are willing to weed through the trees to get to the center of the property. So if he’s right, only kids and dogs could get within 100’ of the house when they’re out playing, but we’ll hopefully, hopefully, have fences to keep them off our land.

We’ll probably still get a tent since they’re cheaper and quicker to set up, but instead of building a room with a bath, we just may build a garage that happens to have a bath in it and use that as our room, since we’ll want a garage anyway until we build enough to move into.

Even though we’re looking forward to this, as hectic as it’ll be, and even though we think life will be better for us there, I still have to ask myself why. Why is God having this done to us? And what will he do to us to continue to “keep things going” once the house is done? We’re a few years or more from the answer so I suppose I shouldn’t worry about what the next problem or change will be till then.

Later…

At about 9:00, an hour before Tom’s usual bedtime, we opened a lot of the windows. This cooled the place down quicker and saved us a few hours of having to run the AC. It’s beautiful out there now and down to a comfy temp in here. In fact, come morning it may be chilly in here, so I’ll shut some windows before I crash which will probably be around 2:00.

Tom and I were joking earlier about playing a fun little game on the road like pretending we’re on the run and we’re going to hide out in the forest on a huge mountain! As long as we don’t ever have to run for real, we can play all the games we want.

The more we discussed it, the more we both agreed that starting with a garage would be best. We need one anyway, so why not use that as a room in which to live in addition to the tent and RV? We looked at a do-it-yourself steel shed-like garage that was 10’ wide by 20’ long. We’d cut a tiny corner in back and turn that into a bathroom while we lived in the rest of it. Then, when it came time to move out, we could put up a wall in the middle and have one half be a garage while the other was a workshop or a storage room of some kind. This will all cost around $1600 but would be worth it.

We’re going to get a 1-year permit to live in the RV, and since it doesn’t cost anything to park it on your land, we may not sell it like we thought we would, but use it as a backup instead. We’ve got plenty of time to decide that, though. Whatever the backup ends up to be, that’ll probably be what gets parked in the garage while the truck or whatever we’re using regularly, gets parked outside. I like the idea of a windowless garage because then any potential troublemakers can’t tell if someone’s home or not.

Because we agree we don’t quite need 2100 square feet, we were thinking of maybe making the upper floor smaller. We’d have 4 rooms downstairs, and 2 upstairs with a deck opening off of one of them.

I think we should get a gun for each floor eventually. If I was downstairs and he was outside when an armed intruder happened to come by, I wouldn’t want to have to take the time to run upstairs for a gun, so that would be why I’d want one down there. Why I’d want one upstairs would be for if he were working days when I was asleep when someone broke in that was armed. I wouldn’t want to be boxed in up there with no defense. I’d only go after unarmed people with my fists unless there were too many of them. Either way, I know the odds of animal or people attacks are quite low, but guns would still be nice to have along with mace. Better to be safe than sorry. I just didn’t want to get one here, God forbid the freeloaders should finally fuck with someone who shot them dead, only to end up being the one accused.