We had a huge storm today. It was like a monsoon in winter, only without the thunder and lightning! We had winds of nearly 100 MPH that were whipping the rain against the door despite the roof that sticks way out over the walkway. It was as if someone stood outside hosing the door down. Water seeped in under the door a few inches and the doormats were strewn all over the place outside. The wind was howling so loud that Tom thought animals were fighting when he got up. I don’t see how the housekeepers could’ve worked.

Tom said that the people at work said they’d never seen anything like it, and I guess the storm was even worse there. He said parts of the warehouse were leaking and there were trees everywhere. It really added to the stress of what’s fast becoming a job he hates about as much as his last one. He said the people are not only stupid idiots that make the job harder for him, but abusive to him as well, cussing him out and calling him names. I hate to see him have to put up with it, and I don’t have to bother mentioning just what I’d like to do to these people, but he has no choice at the moment but to live with it. I just worry about him being fired because we know we can’t count on unemployment. I worry about that and the truck and wonder if we’re ever going to settle in somewhere. I feel like we’ve been getting nowhere the whole time we’ve been here! If he could just have a decent job where we’re both insured and a peaceful place to live that’d make life so much easier! Why are the simplest things so hard for us to get???

To make matters worse, there’s definitely not going to be a second shift. I figured as much with the way they’ve been talking and not doing. Sometimes I wonder if he’s become as cursed with jobs as I am with noise. He’s never worked with such mean people before.

Speaking of noise, despite the storm that raged on for over 6 hours, I had to deal with another day of the end room coming and going, blasting the TV, and gabbing on the cell phone right outside our door, but if they don’t leave tomorrow, I’ll just have them tossed. I’ve already complained and they said they’d let them go if they didn’t settle down. They’ve been quieter, though still annoying at times. When I heard her say on the phone that she was homeless, then something about problems with appliances, which I guess are in the apartment she’s supposed to go to tomorrow, I worried that she may not leave tomorrow. She sure will if she’s a problem tomorrow!

Satish, who was here after the second power outage when I thought the heater was broken, said not to hesitate to complain about anyone who’s noisy because they’d rather lose them than have their good guests driven out by them. I guess a woman got kicked out on the other side for door-slamming a few days ago. I remember that too, but thought it was coming from somewhere downstairs. I remember wondering if someone “botted” their door to slam every few minutes. People will do anything to make a racket. Even if it means getting kicked out of place.

I told Satish about the TV and ATV I won and that we planned to get a trailer. He said he was still definitely going to buy a house and that we could rent the one he’s in now, but doesn’t know when. Since there was no guarantee we’d have the same number, we swapped emails so he could see where we were when the time came for him to buy the new house.

Except for the lack of space, I totally look forward to being in a trailer rather than staying here, if we can’t just go straight to a house. Even if we could, though, we both agree that a trailer would be a good thing to have anyway. It would be a great place to experiment with some soundproofing material, too. Even if we did, by some miracle, end up in a quiet place like a retirement community someday, I still wouldn’t want anyone complaining about my own noise like when I blast my stereo.

A woman named Nancy called from the ATV place in Stamford, Connecticut, and left a message. She said she got the paperwork back and had a question, but didn’t ask it in the message. She’d left for the day when Tom called back, but let her know on her machine that he’d call back on Monday. Tom’s going to try for a cash equivalent, but we don’t expect to get it. She probably just wants to know which dealership we’d prefer to go through.