I thought I’d do some writing and some proofreading while it’s still quiet, though I doubt it’ll be all that noisy today. Right now it’s a miserable 5º. I had to sleep with the heater going continuously. I totally hate this cold!!! It’s so miserably uncomfortable, unlike the hottest day I ever experienced in Arizona. What I don’t get is why Massachusetts is so much warmer. They’re going to be at 65º in a few days! That’s so backward. They’re supposed to be colder and snowier! Our highs have only been in the 20s, though it’s supposed to be back in the 40s this weekend.

The floors in here, especially in the kitchen and bathroom where there’s no carpet, are like an ice rink. I have slippers on over my socks right now. When the heater turns off, it drops two-tenths of a degree every 10 seconds or so.

Last year the canal dog would shut up for the most part when it was under 40º. This year it seems we need to get under 30º, but at least I’ll get a few days off. As for the one in front, I have to hear from it every time it’s let out to shit, but at least the cock that owns the thing goes right back inside once it’s done. It has to be up in the high 30s for it to want to lounge out front while the fucking dog barks its ass off at everything and nothing at all.

The wakeboard people still haven’t come through, not at all surprisingly. Like I told Tom a zillion times, I knew they were scammers by all the phone play we had to do and when they said to call them if we didn’t get the wakeboard before I had asked for a cash equivalent. I was like, call if we don’t get it? But why shouldn’t we if they just put it in the mail and send it to me? That was the biggest red flag right there. It’s because of the cruise. If we didn’t need the extra money right now we’d have gotten it a long time ago. After all, they did fulfill the runner-up’s prizes, according to the posts I read. So this means that we’ll probably be stuck having to take a train to the airport in Portland, rather than driving a rental car to the Sacramento airport. The good news is that he found a company that specifically goes after companies that don’t give the prizes they promised. According to what he read, we have one more step to do first and that’s to call them one last time after being told of a set time frame in which to expect the check, which we were given over a week ago. So he’ll let them bullshit us one more time, then contact this company. Better later than never, but I have a feeling they won’t be able to get them to pay up till after the cruise, and they may want to help themselves to a percentage of it, too.

I just wish we could get this damn cruise over with so we can get on with our lives! I’m still sorry I won it. It’s brought nothing but headaches so far, so I hope we’re greatly compensated with lots of fun and adventure come January. I know I’ll be looking forward to escaping winter for a week, though with my luck it’ll be in the 40s or 50s while we’re gone. That’s still worth escaping! Really, I wish I could snap my fingers and have it be January 7th, 2 PM ET. That’s about when we’ll be boarding the ship. Then when we come back we can either find out if we really are going to get rich and get to live where we want to without the threat of losing the place, or if we’re going to be back to square one – trying to figure out how and when we can escape this shitty state to go live with troublemakers in the warmth.

At least there’s one thing I can relax about and that’s that I know no giant spiders are going to be terrorizing me anytime soon!

Here comes the trash people. I feel bad for them having to work out in this bitter cold!