Tom and I went to Burger King for his birthday and had fun laughing and joking about all kinds of things. It was as fun as a birthday could be for him in the midst of our current situation. Even the queen remembered him and sent a $48 check. As with the anniversary card, there was no note enclosed. No bragging about puzzles, kittens or calla lilies. At least he’s one year closer to retirement and one year closer to getting out of this screwy world! In 7 years he’ll get that $250 monthly check from AMEX. Going through a lot of shit tends to simplify your dreams/goals. We may be years away from this, but we just want a modest home where we don’t have to know what’s going on with our neighbors, with $100 extra a month for fun. That’s all we want. He said he’s pretty sure we’ll have that before he’s 55, but if worse comes to worst, we know we’ll have it then.

I’m on nights which is just fine with me. I like sleeping through whatever shit goes on around here in the daytime, though next door’s been up later. I think there’s always been someone up throughout the nights there; it’s just that now that they have their windows open a lot, I can hear voices and coughing as late as 2 AM when I go into the bathroom.

This afternoon I woke up to pee, and I can’t swear to it, but I thought I could hear the dog barking over the fan and sound machine. If it was, then there certainly is no threat of being woken up. If it was barking, then it was probably for the usual reasons; the cats, or wanting to be let in and being ignored.

We’re still not sure if we’re giving notice in August or September. It’ll depend on what we find and what they want up front. Some places cost just under a grand to get into and some cost just over. We won’t know for sure for 2-3 more weeks, though as I’ve always said, it wouldn’t surprise me if it was the latter of the two. At least there are now less than 100 days to go for sure either way.

Most of the big orange-red flowers in the back of the yard have died, but there’s a rose bush blooming by the dividing fence that’s so beautiful.

My oil order has yet to be upgraded to ‘on hold for check or money order’ and then to ‘in production, will ship soon’ so I hope tomorrow’s the day. This order is coming via UPS rather than USPS because it’s weightier. This should make it easier to track and to know when it’ll arrive. Unfortunately, though, I’ll probably be asleep when it does. I hope they’ll leave it by the door.