I hope those animals aren’t on their way over, even though she rarely has company on weekends. It’s just that she’s got sun tea sitting out there and the only other time I saw her make that was right before they came over. I’m sure they’ll be back at some point, though, before we can get out of here. I would just prefer it to be while he’s working so that only one of us has to deal with it.

Meanwhile, I haven’t been up even 4 hours and already it’s been a shitty day. Next door was out gabbing their asses off this morning and I couldn’t even take a dump in peace. I heard one of them yell out, “Sadie, get away from that fence!” at one point.

On our way back from the store where we picked up an oil burner that was overpriced yet just beautiful with flowers and butterflies.

I finally decided to take a crack at his mother, and I swear to God that if she doesn’t help us I will give her a hell of a piece of my mind and I won’t care if it screws me out of my birthday and Christmas money! I’ll be like most people and I’ll gladly spite myself to spite her. I didn’t specifically ask her for help, but I explained the situation, why it’s so hard to get good jobs here, and said that I sincerely hope she’d consider helping us after all Tom’s done for her in the past. We’re also going to return the checks and explain that we simply can’t cash them because we don’t have an account here.

People just can’t die when you need them to. Assuming his shit of a mother doesn’t spite us out of it, I wouldn’t be surprised if his inheritance came at a time when we weren’t so needy. On the other hand, we’ll always be needy, so her death will be a blessing to us at any time.

Tom says not to jump the gun by assuming Sacramento will be noisy, but that’s common sense, noise-cursed or not. That’d be like my saying that I wasn’t going to assume it snows in Japan just because others say it does when I’ve never been there to see so for myself. Any warm climate is going to be noisy. Unless it’s a resort or a retirement community with noise regulations or ordinances of whatever kind, no warm place is going to be peaceful. Dogs are going to be left out to bark all day and all night, kids are going to practically live outdoors, basketball games are going to be a regular thing, people are going to blast music more often outdoors, etc.

I couldn’t get to sleep till nearly 1:00 last night because of the fat bitch next door. One thinks to themselves, how much disturbance can a 50-something-year-old lady be, yet I sometimes feel like we’ve got a college kid next to us!

I was close to falling asleep at 11:15 when her bright and obnoxious back light came on. I figured she was just letting the dog out for its final shit of the day. When the light was still on 15 minutes later I got up and peered out to see the dog lying on the patio. My first thought was that she was going to start leaving it out overnight as I had feared, but then she came out and barbecued. I never heard a thing, but between the stress of knowing they were there, and the light being on for an hour, it didn’t help me fall asleep at all. So because of this fat pig that always seems to have to eat, I’m tired today. I’d like to go to bed earlier tonight, but I’m not usually good at getting myself to do that, tired or not, and of course I doubt these people would let me in the first place. So much for breathing a sigh of relief at 10 PM and thinking that’s it for the day as far as the blimp and the dog are concerned. That’s so rude too, to take your dog out so close to others at that hour, even if you’re pretty sure it won’t bark. If we do get stuck here, I’m emailing Pam and letting her know what’s going on around here. Then we won’t move till we can go to Sacramento because I’m not going to “try” for the fourth time to get out of here. I’m not going to be teased with getting out of here like something up there seems to want to do to me. If it wants us here that bad, we’ll stay and we’ll figure out a way to deal with these people’s shit. If there’s no escape, there’s no escape, period. Tom still doesn’t think there’ll be a problem, but he’s never doubtful of anything. It’s not his nature to be. His nature is to believe things will always work out.

To make matters worse, the breakage curse is picking on the music computer. It’s almost as if something up there is saying, “I will not let you block out the noisy neighbors I want you to listen to year after year, nor will I allow you to be noisy back.” Well, headphones in the work computer can block them out, but I couldn’t give them a taste of their own medicine with its little wimpy speakers. Tom replaced the music computer’s cable, so maybe that’ll help it. He’s got backup drives and motherboards if they’re necessary, too.

I never thought I’d say this, but I wish it were winter at least from 6 PM-10 PM. No, make that till midnight. I’ve glanced out the window to see lights on next door that late, so this bitch obviously doesn’t need much sleep because no matter how late it goes to bed, it’s right back up again at 6 AM on the dot. Anyway, if it were winter the dog wouldn’t be outside so much (I’d hope not!), it’d be dark earlier, and no one would be hanging out barbecuing. I’m so sick of this place! Totally sick of it! Every other time I walk up to the sink and look out the window, the dog’s right there. Talk about an eyesore and a nerve twanger!

Why must life be so complicated for us? Why can’t we just live in peace? Why must we have one problem after another?