We put up a 10-lot of Barbies on eBay and it’s going to run for a week. We didn’t get to the radio because the Barbie listing took longer than we expected. We’ll list the radio tomorrow.

We don’t expect to get a lot, though we sure do hope to get somewhat of a decent amount for this stuff, yet everyone wants something for nothing or very close to it. Especially on eBay!

It sure has been like old times around here this weekend - nice and quiet. I loved it! Like I said, it’s got a part of me wishing Jesse would quit working again. It sucks to know that as of tomorrow, it’s back to non-stop barking till Friday night.

I know my entries have been short and boring lately, but there’s just not much going on right now.

Wow, it froze last night! I miss summer!

Later…

Paula called the landline earlier, which was amazingly static-free for a change. I told her I just sent her a letter, and she says she wants to send me money to cover the shipping of the stuff she’d like to have that I’d also like to send her. I really appreciate her covering the shipping as broke as we are. When and if we win big I’ll not only get her favorite incense for her and ship it to her myself with whatever else, but it’d be really nice if I could surprise her with a plane ticket so she could come visit us if we could ever get settled into a home of our own!

She’s had stomach pains the doctors can’t figure out, and has lost her C-8. She’s not working. She’s paying full rent of $650 for a 2-bedroom on the 3rd floor of a triple-decker which she says is ok noise-wise, but because of arthritis in her legs, she wants to move so she doesn’t have to climb so many stairs. She only gets $750 a month in checks and $150 a month in food stamps. How she manages is beyond me! I know she’s driving (because she went to take Coco home in the end) and so she’s got car expenses, too.

Her oldest son, Robert, with whom she hasn’t had much contact, had a baby boy with this girl 4 months ago, and not surprisingly, DSS took it away because he was not only abusing it but the girlfriend was, too. Gee, why doesn’t this surprise me?

What did surprise me was Justin. I told her I tried to email her, but the message bounced back. She asked Justin what the address was and he shouted, “I don’t know! You made it!”

So I tried to talk her through how to send an email to me, but she can hardly even type. She had such a hard time trying to figure out how to type in the ‘at’ symbol. So after we talked a little more, she went to take Coco home and that’s when Justin surprised me by setting up a new email account for her, then he sent me an email to which I replied, but I haven’t heard back from Paula herself yet. I sent my journal and photo links, but Justin will probably have to help her with that, too.

Anyway, I expected Justin to sound much like Paula, but there wasn’t a trace of aggression or anger in his voice, not that Paula was or sounded angry herself. She actually laughed a lot, but sadness overtook her voice when she talked about the stuff she lost in that fire. Justin sounded calm and soft compared to Paula, and surprisingly intelligent, especially with computers. He wants to major in computers in college after he gets his GED. If he could do that without beating up some girl and fathering a child before he’s 25-30 and has a chance to live and to grow, that’d be great!

She has a dog now, too. A small terrier. It was annoying us both.

Anyway, she says she’s up till 2 AM these days, but I haven’t gotten a reply yet. It’s only midnight there so we’ll see.