I just went over and asked Bev, like Tom and I would’ve done yesterday if she’d have come by, to ask about the washer and dryer in her garage, and it’s a damn good thing I did, too. It turned out to be a rather educational visit.

First of all, the reason she moved is that she married her ex. The one that knocked her teeth out. They own a house that will be paid off in 12 years (if they’re still together by then). That’s why her daughter was in town with all 6 grandkids for those two thunderous days, in which she said she admitted we must’ve heard quite well. She says she thinks all duplexes should have garages between them. Me too! Especially out here where they seem to be just one story, unlike back east where they’re two stories. Well, three, counting the cellar.

The washer and dryer belong to her daughter who I assume is really her daughter-in-law who I also assume moved out of town, which would explain why the animals stopped coming around every month and why they stayed there for two days. She said we should’ve come around earlier because she Goodwilled a lot of things. Oh well. Once again, there are never any breaks dealt to Tom and Jodi.

She wanted to leave her drapes behind but was told to get them down or else they’d charge her to take them down themselves, so now I know not to leave the shower curtain here. I also now know to have Tom get the smoke detector and the doorbell hooked back up the instant we give notice, and I’ll have to pull the foil out of the bedroom window by mom and daughter because that’s when they’ll start showing the place. Bev said she got a letter in the mail right after she gave notice, saying they would be sending people to look at the place. That silver car and dark handicapped van were actually people checking the place out. The silver car belonged to the young chick that gave me bad vibes. Bev said she was a hippie with virtually every part of her body pierced. The good news is that it’s going to the old lady in the van, whom Bev thinks is by herself. Good, now let’s just hope she has no grandkids under 12!!!

I’ll get these dolls packed right before we give notice, too. Knowing how mothers tend to be these days (if any show up to see the place with little kids), it’s going to be our responsibility to see that it doesn’t get into things.

As for the rat; I’ll have to put him in the wire cage and put him in the closet, making sure to keep one side open so they can see into the closet. If I kept both doors shut, they may want to take a peek and open the wrong side.

It takes a lot of stress off me to know the place is going to an old lady. Hopefully, she isn’t into blasting bassy stereos! It’s probably only because we’re almost out of here. I’ll bet if we were looking at staying here indefinitely, the hippie mama would’ve gotten it.

She said it didn’t cost her much to get in here and that they were basically like, “Come on in, honey.” Whatever. She is paid up till the 1st, so that’ll leave us with two months of what will hopefully be a nice, quiet little old lady with not much company since I’m sure she’ll be home all the time. Of course, I don’t know what “old” is as far as Bev is concerned. The older the better. That way, if she has kids who have kids of their own, they’d be more likely to be older.

I still wouldn’t want to stay here, even if he got a job close by, because I still don’t like being attached to others, and having next door so close. Being next to a house may up the odds of being with dogs, but some dogs aren’t left out 24/7 here, and they wouldn’t be attached to us.

She does have carpet over there, after all (she had told me she didn’t). It’s hideously ugly. It’s not sculpted, but it’s two-toned with shades of booger green and yellow-green. Tom would hate it, too. Perhaps that throw rug came from her bedroom. You can’t see into the bedroom from the doorway, so who knows?

Apparently, there was a leak at one time along the top corner of the dividing wall.

Shit! It’s almost May and it’s snowing! There are some rain and hail mixed in, too.

Anyway, when Bev’s bass and grandkids weren’t going bump and bang, she was cool. All in all and in the end, she was a good neighbor compared to others we’ve had to live with in the past.

We talked about how much worse the winters are in the east and how we’d be snowbound and often go over the allotted snow days from school and have to make it up at the end of the year. It’s bad enough here too, and I can’t wait till the day we get to California! I know it’ll be noisier, but by distancing ourselves from areas where they’re all huddled in close, we should be ok. Especially if we can have some trees around us, or better yet, walls of hedges.

She also said that when her husband was getting the drapes down, he gouged his hand with the screwdriver so badly that they had to race him off for a tetanus shot. Meanwhile, she’s still cleaning. I take it she’s either going very slowly, or the place was seriously trashed.