This morning at 8:45, I saw and heard the dog barking at the dividing fence. I’m sure it was barking at one of next door’s many passings, if not their cats. The woman softly, yet firmly told it to hush. Then after a few more barks, she said, “Come on, Jelly Belly,” and it turned and ran inside.

I was like, fuck this shit! This dog may not be a problem like the Arizona dogs, but I’m sick of being forced to live with other people’s dogs and kids. They’re not my dogs/kids, so I shouldn’t have to be the one to hear them. That’s why I have none of my own; so I don’t have to hear them. Instead, I’m stuck having to deal with listening to everyone else’s, and it gets old. It really does. I better get used to it, though, because Sacramento’s no doubt going to be quite noisy. The warmth should be worth it, as long as we’re not next to what we had in Phoenix. We checked the satellite map and they appear to have rural places close enough to places he could work. The question is, would we be able to afford to rent something like that? Or would we be forced yet again to live wedged tightly in with others and their damn dogs and kids? The dogs down there are going to be kept outside 24/7 by most dog owners and that’s about 90% of the population.

After I heard the dog and they went back inside, I stomped around for a few minutes, hoping she’ll be like, well, you know, it’s awfully soon for me to start racking up complaints here, so maybe I’ll take the dog out in front.

I’m not only sick of dogs and kids, but I’m also sick of this home-all-the-time bullshit! Why can’t we ever be next to someone who works? And why can’t they come up with some real spyware? The kind that not only lets you see the basic design of a city or neighborhood but also detail, too. That way, if there was a place we were thinking of renting, we could see what the neighbors were up to and get to know things like if they had dogs, kids, and massive amounts of visitors.

So I did what I thought I was supposed to be able to stop doing in ’99, and I rearranged the sound machine to help ensure my sleep. I propped it up so that the sound shoots straight on my pillow, rather than upwards. I’ll never be able to sleep without both the fan and sound machine during the daytime. Never. And if I’m wrong about that, then certainly it’s years away from now.

She seems to be mostly a morning person. That’s when I hear more scattered little bumps and bangs, but nothing unusual for being attached to someone. She did laundry at just after 7:30 this morning but didn’t hang anything out. It would’ve gotten rained on anyway.

She also seems to go to bed around 10:00 on weekdays and 11:30 on weekends, though I don’t know why she’d stay up later on weekends when every day is the weekend for her and every day is the weekday.

I’m a little apprehensive about what weekends may bring, along with Memorial Day, and what company may have to be my company, too.

We got a priority mail package delivered here in the name of Dorothy C. We’ve gotten mail for her before. I thought it was the last person in here, but then when we opened the package, which was mailed from Hawaii, we found a Mother’s Day card from her granddaughter. From what Beverly told me, no one who was in here before us was a grandmother, so we’re assuming it was whoever was in here before the last people. If you don’t know that your grandmother moved over what would be a year ago, then you deserve to have the package you sent her opened by someone else! At first Tom was paranoid about it because priority mail is marked as delivered. After I pointed out that the PO’s not going to kick down the door and demand to search the place for it, and that all he had to do if asked was say he brought it to the PO since the box was too big for a mailbox and since the PO doesn’t have cameras like banks to prove/disprove someone was there, we opened it and found souvenirs along with the card. The first thing we pulled out was a boring canvas with individual pockets for mail, bills and coupons. The second thing was a pair of wooden magnet sandals which was kind of cute, so we kept those. I didn’t expect anything too exciting for free, but they’re cool.

Tom thinks that out of every 500-600 sweepstakes entries, be it one-time entries or daily entries, I should hit something. We’ll soon see. If I don’t hit anything in 3-6 months, then I’m not going to bother doing all this work for nothing. For now, I have a sweepstakes system where I do all the daily sweeps until they expire, then I check out the new ones for the previous day. They don’t all come out at once. They come out throughout the day, so that’s why I wait until the next day. At midnight I’ll check yesterday’s sweeps after I do the daily ones. I wish there was a program that would sign me up for every sweepstake out there that I’m eligible for, and as often as each one allows entries.

I decided not to bother saving/spending $40 a month. I just want to get out of this duplex and then out of this state! Until then, I’ll mostly just get oils. Smells are my #1 thing right now anyway, and I’m now plenty used to not getting much in the way of dolls other than an occasional Barbie which would only take up more room when we pack to move.