Tom woke up with a bad belly, something he seems to have a lot lately, even when he doesn’t overeat. Should I be worried about this? I hope there’s nothing going on, yet it seems that while God was quick to answer most of my prayers from October till we left the motel, nothing listens to me here. Not for the most part, anyway. I’ve prayed for him to not be so run down by his job, to find a better job, for the horses to take off, for me to start winning again, for me not to have to live with ear pain nearly every day, which we now suspect could be an elevation thing. Right now we’re close in elevation to Phoenix, so I’m hoping it will get better in time. Meanwhile, after Memorial Day, we hope he finds a job before they even think of letting him go because things are getting really slow at work lately. We don’t care at this point if it doesn’t pay more. We just want the security and the benefits, although if he’s able to work closer to home, it’ll seem like a better-paying job even if it’s not. He’s now paying $200 a month in just gas! If God isn’t supposed to make any mistakes, then why do Arabs exist???

As for the horses, he hasn’t even had time to work on them, and I haven’t won shit. Because I haven’t been winning much, and because gas is outrageous, we cut the mail runs back to just once a week. So if he comes back with no wins or win-notices this Saturday, I’m going to seriously consider hanging up sweeping for a while and just get into writing more often. It isn’t every day we get to live in a place this quiet, so I ought to take advantage of it while it lasts. I doubt I could bring myself to quit sweeping altogether, though. I just wouldn’t bother entering dailies every day unless they were instants or for huge prizes. Instead, I’d just make sure everything got entered at least once, then leave the rest to fate.

The rats are gone now. Tom left that decision up to me, and well, I got sick of trying to get them to be what they could never be; sociable, friendly rats who want to interact with us other than to get food from us. It seems bad rats stay bad and good rats stay good. There’s no changing them or knowing exactly what you’re getting till you get them home. When we can turn an aggressive control freak like my mother into a mellow, sensitive soul, then we can change rats’ personalities. It really sucks that they turned out to be the way they were, and it sucks all the more that I can never have my Tinkerbell again. Someday we’ll try again and we’ll keep whatever we get at that point, and call it meant to be.

I dumped them in the ditch down past the shed. I first made sure no one was out and about at Jesse’s place, but it’s so hard to see through the trees anyway. There are only a few places where if you stand in just the right spot you can see through. I once saw someone standing on a deck up there, but only through this one little gap. Nonetheless, my flip-flops seemed to echo off the hillside as I walked them down to the edge of the ditch. I then dumped them out of the pail I had them in and shooed them downward. I thought they may actually like it better in the wild since they never cared for people, figuring they could survive on the plant life as well as the ditch water in what’s not a harsh climate, but Tom thinks that cats will get them within a week. Oh well. Whatever happens is going to happen. They were not only not friendly with us, but they fought like hell with each other all night long, and even that got old.

Speaking of my mom and dad, it’s now been half a year since I’ve heard from them, so yes, this has to mean one thing and one thing only; while they may be ok with my writing to them, they don’t wish to write to me or to keep in touch in any way. If there was something wrong, someone would’ve told me. Therefore, I’ve put the package I had intended to send them on hold for now. The big test will come next month. If they don’t contact us around our anniversary and his birthday, then I’ll know I can pretty much count on not hearing from them again. Again, I hate to bother with those who don’t want to bother with me, although I’d be totally lying if I said I wasn’t gladder than not that they’ve chosen to ignore me. I don’t get why they’d help get us out of the jam we were in just to go on ignoring me, but we’ll always be grateful just the same. Despite our gratitude, however, their saving us doesn’t detract from the fact that they’re just not the type of people I care to associate with. They still are who they are and they’ve still done the things they’ve done. People just don’t literally “forgive and forget.” At least not like we may sometimes wish we could! If you want to literally forgive and forget someone who’s wronged you, really wronged you, then you better hope for a case of clear-cut amnesia, cuz that’s just about what it would take!

Jesse hasn’t returned to finish the roof or cut up the fallen tree. I just hope that when he does, he does so when I’m awake!

I stopped the Claritin for now since all it seems to do is mess up my sleep. It doesn’t always snuff my appetite or help my ear anyway.

I’m still at 142 and my body’s fighting against losing any more weight big time by being stuck a lot. I’m trying to make up for it with water loss by drinking the tea, but I think it’s pretty safe to say that this is as low as I’ll go. You know cutting back hasn’t cut it for me once I got over 35. I’d have to practically starve to get off anymore and that’s no fun way to live.

Ashley has new shoes on their way from Massachusetts. Pink slides I got on eBay for just $17 total, including shipping. I’ve now got $43 in spending money, and of course, the tax rebate is just a couple of weeks away. After we get that, we’ll get a new mailbox here in Auburn.

Paula can expect her package to arrive right around the 30th, her 41st birthday. She’s another one I wonder if I’ll ever hear from again. She’s probably been calling our old number. I made sure to give her our new one, so maybe she’ll call soon enough.

I was going to call Jessie this weekend, but since I’m still sort of on nights, I’ll do it next weekend instead.

The weather’s been cooler and we’re in for some rain over the next few days. He got the same room-darkening shades that stick on that I had in the Klam dump for the two side windows in the living room that are single-paned. The new double-paned window that Jesse recently installed didn’t need them, but the old ones sure did for really hot days. Tom aimed his temperature-telling gadget on it when it was near 100º and it was 130º!