Friday was shitty, yesterday was better. Either way, I can’t believe it’s March and we’re still here, and I got falsely promised 9K by a huge company! But I’ve been places I didn’t want to be since I was 15 years old, and my life’s been full of false hope and promises, so I shouldn’t be too surprised. It’s ironic that he fine-tuned the horses right after we reapplied that spell, though, and stopped that cold from setting in. Too bad it hasn’t done a damn thing as of yet to get Rhino to pay up and I doubt it ever will at this point. The only problem with the horses is that while even I’m now surer than ever that yes, it can get us more than comfortable money-wise, is how long it may take to do it. I still worry we could be here for several more months and that alone makes me want to drop dead. This may not be jail or Valleyhead or a project, but it’s still no place to live either. If I’d known just how bad things would be down here, and if I’d finally learned that, for me, dreams are just dreams not meant to be made a reality, and if I’d known that the horse thing wasn’t a bust, after all, I’d have stayed up in that freeing dump until we could’ve saved more than enough to go to Nevada. But I’m also glad I did get to live out my dream of living in California, even if it’s nothing like I dreamt it to be.

The reason I was bummed out Friday was that it lost a couple of bucks. He made most of it back yesterday, and that’s when he realized he’s needed 3 ingredients all along – the computer’s picks, the expert’s picks, and his picks. The computer can’t predict every single horse in every single race, the experts make sure to keep the percentages low enough so people still want to bet in person at the tracks themselves, and Tom’s only human. However, he’s found that if all 3 agree when making predictions, then he’s more likely to profit. He said not to worry if we have losing days because that’s to be expected. I didn’t know this and thought we had to profit every day in order to succeed. He said that had he gone about things the way he used to, without those 3 ingredients, he’d have lost money today for sure. Up until yesterday, he was doing one track a day, today he did two, and tomorrow he’s going to do 4. Then he hopes to be able to bet more money to make more money.

He stood up till 1 AM to get himself used to the new hours coming up. He’ll be working 2 PM-10 PM and may still get overtime at times. They said he’d still get the 5% shift differential if they have him work days, which they might sometimes have him do. He’ll only be working with one nice quiet guy, instead of all those mean, rude assholes, so he’s happy about that, even though we’d both still prefer him not to have to work for anyone but us!

All in all, I still don’t know that we’ll ever get out of this room alive. He agrees there’s a possibility Tinkerbell has something to do with holding us back here since this is the last place she was, and so we both agreed to talk to her in our own way, even though I already have and urge her to let us go and to follow us out of here. We’re letting her know that the sooner we get out of here, the sooner we can get new rats for her to channel through.

At least we’re back in shorts and running the AC during the daytime while the Klammers are getting down to just 15º tonight!