I went next door to Kim’s out of curiosity and asked if everything was ok. It was shortly after I’d gotten up at noon. It’s a good thing I did too, cuz she’s got a hive in front of her place too, and I asked if she wouldn’t mind us spraying it when we spray ours. She said that’d be fine, so I’ll have Tom check the eaves of both places, though I don’t imagine he could check her right side. That’s pretty much in the old lady’s yard next door. Anyway, the driveway was littered with half a dozen or so pieces of trash that may’ve blown in but are more likely to be hers. Also, she had like half a dozen black trash bags stacked up just beyond the gate. Has she just been too lazy to drag them to the dumpster? I’d say her place was a shed rather than a garage. There didn’t appear to ever have been a door large enough for a car, and it’s angled too far in back of our place for a car to drive through. Looking over at next door I realized she was going to have to deal with it too, if they set up a circus of any kind in the yard.

Anyway, she said that after spending hours trying to fix the toilet, the handyman fixed it in just two minutes.

I was up late last night but never saw the blue truck return. That is, until today. It’s now parked in front of a lighter-colored truck that was there when I got up. There’s got to be 6 vehicles over there right now. No barking or music yet, though I did see a black dog run into the yard, then turn around and dash back out. I do not like the idea of people bringing their dogs over every day, and obviously they’re going to be home all the time like all our neighbors always are.

When Tom got in he told me he saw an ambulance over there on his way to work, but couldn’t tell what was going on. Some kid probably panicked over being away from home for the first time, he says.

What I wonder is – who’s going to pay their expenses if they’re going to be home all the time? Are they all on disability or something?

We took pictures of ourselves standing next to the mannequin, and I swear I’ve aged 10 years in the last 5 years! Boy, do I look bad! And there’s no way I’m in the 120s. I’m definitely in the mid-130s. Oh well. As long as I don’t have one health problem after another I’ll be ok. I’d rather be fat, old and ugly 24/7 than sick, injured or depressed half the time. My only thing right now besides my ear, which has been somewhat better overall, is that I’m waiting on my two-week period to begin any minute. I don’t think it’s that my ear has gotten better so much as it’s a case of me building up a tolerance for it.

I hit a Kodak instant win and got a deck of customized playing cards. I chose a picture of Little Buddy wandering around the Maricopa house. Since it allowed multiple people per household, Tom played too, and won a mouse pad. I chose one of Ashley’s pictures for that.