The smoke out there is a little scary. It seems worse lately yet there still aren’t any fires around here. Tom says it’s horrible in Rocklin. The moon had an eerie amber glow to it last night rather than the usual whitish-gray tones. I usually don’t smell the smoke with the cooler going which has a really good filter as opposed to the one we had in Phoenix, yet I awoke nervous in the middle of my sleep yesterday afternoon because I could smell it. I even got up to look out the window to make sure the haziness hadn’t worsened.

I wonder if my folks, who were always news junkies, are the least bit concerned over how we’re doing and whether or not the fires are affecting us. I guess they must not be or else they’d have written. Just why did they save us last fall anyway? It’s weird, alright. It’s like they don’t not care enough to want to see me dead, but they don’t care enough to stay in touch. I know it’s better this way, though, because it is very important to them (well, to her) that I be just like them, which I can never be. I can only be who I am. I think she’s come to realize that too, and to understand that sending little “Do Not Do or Discuss” lists won’t make me what she wants me to be. At last, she has learned to ignore rather than to try to change or control people - wow! I didn’t think she ever would. I mean, that is if I’m correct in assuming that that’s the reason I haven’t heard from her; because I said too many things in my letters she didn’t want to hear. I can’t think of any other reason and I don’t think I should waste my time trying to figure out just what makes those people tick. Even if I could figure them out, it wouldn’t change a thing.

On the other hand, they’re probably figuring they’re going to hear from me any day now. In my last letter to them which I sent from the motel, I told them I would contact them once we were settled, although it would be a while. But once we got to half a year with no word from them was when I decided to stop writing to those who don’t respond. That includes Paula as well. I sent the new address and phone number, so it’s up to her to call or not to call, although she could very well be in jail. You never know with her.

Yesterday we could hear some hammering and a saw whirring that was definitely coming from in back. It started early in the morning and I assumed Jesse was having the well worked on. He hasn’t been down to hook us back up to the well yet. But hammering and sawing? Why would you need to do that to fix a well or to drill a new one? Although I couldn’t see a thing through the trees, I just hope no one’s building a house back there! If I could hear hammering and saws, then I could certainly hear barking.

We were worried the refrigerator was broken. It failed to come on for a while. Apparently, something got shaken loose, but after Tom moved things around it was fine. That would’ve been the fourth refrigerator in less than a year and a half between the two that crapped out in Oregon, the leaky motel one, and this one!