I’m just about ready to kiss pound #17 goodbye. Yeah, just when I thought I wouldn’t lose any more, down goes another pound. Since running in quick spread-out bursts, I haven’t done any straight 20-minute jogging in about a week. The slightest variation in routine can cause you to work different muscles, so I decided to jog today up and down the place just to see if the new routine was pulling me out of shape in other ways, but nope. If anything, I’m in better shape and the quick, stationary bursts of running are working even more muscles. Or the same ones harder. This is good to know cuz once it finally warms up, I’m not going to be able to run 20 minutes straight. We’re still having rain for the most part, but I’m hoping things are going to warm up soon. Not around here, but in town, the leaves are starting to bud on those that lost them.

Tom talked to Jesse for almost 5 minutes today and now we know why there’s been more barking. First, though, Jesse’s not only still okay with us having to split the rent, but he too, is on unemployment! We figured he was out of work.

He said he wasn’t aware that the dogs were going off whenever he leaves (we figured this, too), but that he’s been leaving them behind more lately because of the rain, and apparently, they’d like to go with him.

Another thing he says he’s trying to do is to breed them. My first thought was, oh, that’s just great. Just what we need around here; to triple the dog count. But Tom said he clearly said one litter, and we’re pretty sure he’s not going to keep the puppies. Usually, when you breed your dogs it’s to give puppies to friends and family members. Unfortunately, he didn’t say anything about getting rid of one of the parents after the dating game ends. Who knows, this might be an opportunity for us. I did say that if I was going to be forced to listen to barking wherever we go we might as well make some of it ours, and I did say that I wished I could have a pet that lived a hell of a lot longer than rats, so maybe we can see about getting one. It’d be easier to get one from him than to go to the pound, and this way, if it didn’t work out for some reason, we could give it back to him. I don’t know what kind of dogs these are. They’re not the same, whatever they are, but they’d be a good size. Not too little that you gotta worry about stepping on them, but not too big either.

He said that the female is older and that he thinks they haven’t bred yet because the male hasn’t quite gotten the hang of what to do yet. He said he caged them while she was in heat.

He also appears to be getting really sick of being home, asking if there was anything we needed done down here. That’s what I was afraid of. Not of him being a pest. He got that out of his system a while back. What worries me is what’s going to happen when he goes back to work. Tom thinks that for now, he’ll probably start taking them with him more often, but when he goes back to work, then what? Do we just have to sit and take it on and off all day?

Tom said he likes my idea of using the barking as sort of an ultimatum once he gets a job himself, as to whether or not we’re going to move. We both don’t think Jesse would want to give up good renters like us and risk getting a repeat of the last people he had in here. We can still get the stop-barking device, but I don’t know if it’ll work. I wonder if he’d let us use it up there.

Well, our problems don’t usually get fixed that easily, so my guess is things will be the same or eventually get worse until we figure out what to do next. For now, I’m glad Tom laid the foundation down for whatever has to come next to shut them up. All Jesse has to do is pull them indoors when he takes off, but for some reason, most people in the West simply won’t do that.

So I’ve gone from being hunted down by my “legal” stalkers, to being stuck in motels, to being murdered by my brother and uncle in my nightmares. Ugh! Not cool. Not cool at all.

The dream was amazingly vivid and detailed, and I remember just about all of it, too. For reasons my folks would never even consider, they bought back the first house they owned in Longmeadow, the one with the huge backyard where I lived during my first 13 or so years. They even furnished it much the way it had been in the 70s, only with modern electronics and appliances. My folks would really never buy it back, of course, because of the climate and the size of the house and the work the yard would bring. Even if they had money to hire someone else to maintain it, they wouldn’t need a 4-bedroom house.

Anyway, they bought the house back and had a little family reunion. One in which I would never care to join, much less without my husband, and even though it was summer. It started with just my folks, sister and myself. It was evening. I guess Tammy stayed indoors, but for some bizarre reason, my folks decided to watch TV out in the far reaches of the backyard while I laid sort of in the middle of it, sprawled out on my back with my iPod. I was by the farthest point of the fence that was once there surrounding the above-ground pool they had for a while.

At one point I turned off the iPod and called out, “Hey, it’s getting nippy out here. Shall we go in now?”

No answer.

So I called out “Hey” again. When I still didn’t receive an answer I thought I saw a glow coming from up a little hill where there was a small clearing in which my swings were kept. But when I went up there to check it out I could see that the glow was nothing more than the sliver of moonlight reflecting off the leaves of the trees.

So back down I went. It was now pitch black. The dim lights I thought were on before appeared to have been turned off inside the house. Suddenly, I felt a rush of movement behind me and then blacked out completely.

When I came to, I was on the living room couch. I slowly sat up and realized right away that I had a splitting headache. I stood up all confused and walked around the main floor calling out to the others, but no one answered. Then I went upstairs, first stopping at the drama queen’s room in front of the house. She had apparently fallen asleep. I thought it was a little weird since it was a bit early, she’d left her light on and the door open a few inches. Next, I peered into my parents’ room. They’d fallen asleep with the TV on, and as they always did in real life, had left the door open, so that wasn’t too odd other than the early hour.

Still confused and disoriented, I turned away from their door and ended up peering into the meanest, hateful icy light blue eyes ever. Once considered handsome in his younger days, time and age couldn’t hide the utter coldness of my now much older Uncle Ronnie’s familiar glare. I never knew the nature of his coldness in real life, but my dream self suddenly understood that he, along with my brother Larry who had also suddenly appeared, had killed my folks and Tammy.

And now they wanted to kill me.

My confusion turned to rage knowing that my disorientation would render me defenseless against these now older guys. Guys who still smoked and didn’t exercise. Guys who my fast, fit, stronger and younger self could now take easily enough under normal circumstances, especially Ronnie, who was pushing 70.

I alternated between cussing them out and asking what the hell they were doing and why, and then it also hit me that they thought they’d left me for dead when they snuck up behind me, bonked me on the head, and threw me on the couch.

Then Larry got hit with a pinch of guilt, saying he wasn’t sure he could “take care of his little sister.” He even suggested they just leave me be and agree to share the money with me. That’s when the ‘why’ hit me as well. They were killing everyone so they could sell the house and not have to share the money with anyone but themselves.

My uncle argued that I would certainly talk as the pain in my head grew worse and I was beginning to feel as if I might faint. He shoved me toward my old room, adjacent to the master bedroom, and told Larry, “Go downstairs. Little Jodi won’t be alive much longer, I assure you, and then we won’t have to worry. Just get the car started and wait for me.”

I was then pushed up against my little twin bed and smashed a second time over the head with some blunt object Ronnie had been holding. I fell onto the bed as he ran down the stairs and out the front door. I faintly heard the car drive off a few seconds later through the buzzing sound the blow had caused.

I suddenly sat up on the edge of the bed, perhaps by some sort of reflex. I stared into the gloomy hall, but everything was so hazy and now my head was in excruciating pain. I didn’t hold out any hope, though. I knew I only had a matter of seconds to go before I died. I felt sad and defeated and my final thoughts were of Tom. I wondered how he’d take the news back in Cali of my murder, and thought of how lonely he’d be living his last 30-40 years alone. I realized I wouldn’t get to say goodbye and that we’d never again be able to do the things we loved to do together, nor would I ever again be able to enjoy things I liked to do on my own.

I woke up after just 4 hours of sleep right as I fell back on the bed for the last time. Then I ended up wanting to kill them myself for real cuz I couldn’t fall back asleep! I ended up laying there for a few hours, then once I got up, ate and showered, I felt a little more alive.

Speaking of my folks, who are still alive and well as far as I know, I’ve decided to send them several sheets of pictures at once, rather than 1-2 at a time. This way I won’t lose track of what’s already been sent. I’m not going to send anything till it gets close to Dad’s 78th birthday, though, in early April.

As for the sister, sure, I sometimes miss her. I miss the good times, the laughs, the chatter, and the big badass drama queen who was never afraid to speak her mind even if it meant being brutally honest (so at least we have one thing in common). But then I remind myself that that brutal, badass drama queen, defended the husband who abused her and her daughter when her sister informed him of just what she’d like to do to him for it, then gave him our whereabouts so the cops could pay us a visit, thus resulting in the discovery of the bench warrant and me losing an awful lot of time, money and freedom. I won’t bother getting into the physical and emotional toll it all ended up taking on me. And my husband. She couldn’t have known about the warrant any more than we could, but what kind of normal, sane, reasonable, logical person defends the wrong person like that? I still wonder about this. I just don’t get how the hell she could turn on me like she did. I wasn’t the one abusing her!

While I was still freaked out by the realness of the dream – it really did seem incredibly real – Tom was assuring me that we’d never separate for days or thousands of miles. He got that one right! I remember how depressed I felt when we thought he was going to have to go on that overnight business trip up in Oregon. It felt like he was leaving for weeks, and I tried to tell myself to get a grip. I’d lived alone nearly a decade, after all, before we met. But he felt the same way and so we were glad he got to get out of it.

Jessie said she can’t use the anti-barking device against the neighbor’s dogs because the 8’ wall between them would interfere with the frequency. I asked if it could be put on her roof. I worry about it working for us with the curve of the mountain, distance and trees, but Tom’s sure it will. We just may have to plant it partway up the mountain where the stand of trees starts so that it’s closer to their level.

Tom says he’s going to mention the dogs to Jesse if he’s not rushed off the phone when he goes to call about splitting the rent again. This I have to see to believe, but I have a feeling Jesse will say there’s nothing he can do about it, which would really mean there’s nothing he will do about it. Dogs can be left indoors while their owners work full-time, which he obviously does not, so they don’t have to be outside. If the purpose of them is to protect the place, since I don’t see any other purpose in getting dogs just to store outdoors all the time, wouldn’t it be better to do it from the inside anyway? Outside, burglars could just move out of reach of the dogs unless they were on runners that surrounded the entire place, but on the inside, there’d be no way to tell exactly where they were.

They haven’t been too bad the last couple of days, but this is because I’m still on nights and trying to keep it that way.

Damn, why don’t I just have a toilet for an office chair! I can’t stop pissing!

Yes! Emilie has a bid! That was much faster than anticipated. She also has 40 views and 11 watchers.

I got the incense I won yesterday along with some surprise goodies he threw in. Another shiny, glittery cone burner, not that I need one since I don’t do cones. A bag of Polo cones I didn’t like at all, plus 3 roll-on perfumes. Lucky You is strange, Curve is so-so, but Carolina Herrera is beautiful. It smells like gardenias.

I got slight vibes for work for Tom within the first two weeks of March. Something about the 12th and 14th, only the 14th is on a Saturday. Hmm… guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

I won 6 writing contests on Kiwibox! So that brought a nice 1200 points.

So Tom agrees with me that the barking seems to be much more of an issue when I happen to be up and about. Good, so I’m not going crazy after all with this assumption. The question I’ve been asking for the last 17 years, though, is why me? Just like I had to ask why God would whip my ass with the sickos in Phoenix, why has He been using every damn dog I live close enough to hear as a weapon of annoyance against me??? Something sure seems to be anyway. If He’s “cursed” me with barking, why would He punish me with other people’s dogs driving me crazy like this and for so long???

I’ve thought about it and I’ve thought about it, and the only thing I can come up with is that when I was really little, I would take my frustrations out on one of the puppies we had at the time. But a child that age can’t inflict much harm, so the “torture” basically involved tossing it up in the middle of my parents’ bed and letting it fall onto it, although I do vaguely remember my mother saying something about me breaking its leg. I don’t remember actually doing anything to the dog and this could be a made-up story told to me or me not remembering correctly. If I did do any of this, I was too young to know any better much less remember.

I admit it. I often took my anger out on this dog as well as some of our pet rodents, even pulling the tail off a gerbil once that my sister said I supposedly asked to be taped back on.

Or maybe these were just stories told to me by my gaslighting family because I honestly don’t remember either of these incidents. I hope they’re not true!

But if there is a grain of truth to any of this and if this is why I’m being “paid back” by every neighbor’s dog over the last 17 years, why now? Why would it start when I was 26? And why would it still be going on today? And why isn’t 17 years of payback more than enough?

Or is it because I was noisy myself when I was young, often annoying neighbors when I lived in apartments with my loud music or running around? And if this is it, once again, how many more years until I’m “compensated” for being a nuisance?

I guess I can never know for sure why I “coincidentally,” as much as the West truly is full of barking dogs left outside all the time, get hit with this shit everywhere I go. If it is the way I treated animals as a child, then maybe God should’ve blessed that child with a mommy who was nicer to her. After all, verbal, emotional, or physical abuse is usually what drives children to abuse animals, other children, etc., and she may not have been directly responsible for my actions, but I think she helped influence them more than most people may want to ever admit. Including her.

Whatever the reason for the curse, it’s undeniably aimed at me. Two mornings ago they started barking at 7:00. A half-hour later I was going to bed thinking it was a good thing Tom doesn’t mind barking as much as I do cuz he’s in for one hell of a noisy day! Yet when he got up a few hours later, he said it was quiet all day. I know they would’ve gone on and on all day had I just been getting up.

Then just yesterday, all was quiet until I got up to pee around noon. The instant my ass hit the toilet seat the motorcycle started up, followed by barking. I then went back to bed where the fan and sound machine drowns it all out. When I got up in the evening, I asked Tom how bad it had been and he said, “They stopped the instant you closed the bedroom door.”

Gee, how ironic!

So I’m staying on nights as long as possible when I’m safe from this curse and able to get a lot more peace. Although, it does mean being woken up by the fucking motorcycle. That thing is just soooooo loud and there’s just no way to drown it out completely. I guess I could keep turning the sound machine up, but I still don’t know if that’d override the bassy rumbling it makes. Either way, there’s always something. Barking dogs when I’m on days, roaring motorcycles waking me up when I’m on nights, trying to sleep during the day.

Is something trying to keep us from the added protection and good fortune that having a horseshoe over our door can bring? It’s sure starting to feel that way! First I got outbid, and now, thanks to Pay Pal screwing up, the one we bought was sent to Carmichael. We only lost 85¢, but it really sucks that no matter how many times we delete the fucking Carmichael and Klamath addresses from Pay Pal’s account info, they keep using it! I checked with the Stickman, and fortunately, he did send the incense I won to Auburn. Of course, if the damn seller had checked their messages more often, they’d have caught our request to change the address, so now I don’t know what’s going to happen at this point.

Glinda has 13 watchers now and one of the coins got a bid. I wish I could be around for the exciting conclusion tomorrow afternoon, but no, I have to be cursed with a sleep disorder which means I’ll be asleep at that time. I’m on nights now. The good in it is that it means less barking to have to deal with.

Tom was telling me about someone with a sleep disorder that killed them and that makes mine seem like a blessing in comparison as hard as it is to live with. I forgot to write about this long ago, but back up in Oregon, Tom not only worked with a guy whose mother had the same kind of sleep disorder I do (how could she raise a child with it?) but this guy’s wife was killed by hers. She had this disorder that would cause her to spontaneously fall asleep at any given time. I said, “Wow, how can anyone do that?” and Tom said, “Well, it’s hard to understand just like people don’t understand yours.” Anyway, a doctor gave her a medication that they assured her would keep her from falling asleep at the wheel, yet one day she was driving, fell asleep, her car drifted off the side of the road, and she died.

Why do people put so much faith in doctors, lawyers, cops and religious leaders? So many of them are so damn incompetent, corrupt and even downright insane!

Anyway, I wonder if Dr. Donoghue had that (that shrink I saw at his home back in the late 80s). He would often fall asleep in his plush chair as I was talking. I didn’t think I was that boring! I wrote it off as being old and ill. Perhaps even a side effect of a medication. He died shortly after I started seeing him.

Anyway, all but 3 of our 9 items have watchers as of right now, and 4 have bids. I’d say there’s going to be at least somewhat of a fight for the doll in the end. If she sells for $50, I’ll have gotten what I paid for her, excluding shipping. She’s gotten 117 views so far whereas a couple of his coins only have two.

I had a really scary dream last night about those you-know-whats that tormented me for 7 years. First, though, I had been commenting to Tom on how I always have win dreams right before I win something good, and dreams or vibes about an upcoming change. But since I hadn’t had any win/job dreams, I was worried that meant that change was not in the near future for us. But then I dreamt that someone was asking me if he was still working at the warehouse and I said, “No, he got a job at…” Then I woke up before I could say where. I hope this is a good sign!

And I hope this next dream is anything but a bad sign! It’s worse than my usual two nightmares (being stuck in motels or dealing with giant spiders that can fly). Yup, it was them. In the dream, a cop came to arrest me. I guess the pig woke me up (they usually did), but what was odd about it was my calm demeanor. My dream self knew it was Joely and Jerry up to their old tricks. I knew they either twisted something I wrote online in their favor or that someone did something to them and they decided I should pay for it. Well, I’d be anything but calm if they decided to ever fuck with me again! And I would seriously hope that no one would want to spite someone that bad that they’d risk their own safety and even their lives just to do it, cuz I swear round two wouldn’t end as round one did! Not even close. I’m not going to get into what I’d do. I’ll only say they’d have to be utterly suicidal to seek me out after all these years. Really suicidal. And stupid!

Back to the dream. The cop waited for me to dress in the doorway to the bedroom which didn’t look anything like this one. Yet it seemed to take me forever just to get dressed. I struggled to pull my panties on (which was weird since that’s the one thing I always sleep in) yet I just couldn’t get them up my legs. Then I became embarrassed when the cop was not only watching me struggle to pull them up, but my period was starting too, which kind of made for a rather ugly site. When I finally got them on, the cop turned to talk to Tom for a minute and I lay down on the bed and started to fall asleep. I then shook myself awake an instant later and thought to myself, you can’t go to bed now! What are you, crazy? You need to get up and get moving and deal with this shit.

I rose from the bed and then began the struggle to get on a pair of royal blue sweatpants I haven’t owned in years, and then I woke up.

I know I’m just being paranoid, but remembering how obsessed they were with me still worries me to this day. I’ve lived in the fear that they’ll one day find me and start the same old cycle of shit all over again. No, it still wouldn’t end the same way because I’ve learned a lot about the law and wouldn’t answer their court calls, but saying I’d kill them if they came to my door may be a lot easier said than done. Like they themselves would be the ones to come to my door? What kind of death-wishing nutjob would dare do such a thing? Chances are almost guaranteed that I’d never be able to find them. I’ll bet I couldn’t find them right now. Hell, if I screwed someone over the way they screwed me just once, you bet I’d be hiding really well! And no matter how low I managed to fly below the radar, I’d still be looking over my shoulder every step of the way.

I tell myself, calm down. You haven’t done anything wrong. But I know that one doesn’t necessarily have to do anything, or much of anything, when it comes to minorities and the state of Arizona. They hated me for being Jewish. They hated me for complaining about the noise and harassment they were dishing upon us. They took my journal excerpts and twisted them in their favor. They, or someone else they were fucking with, sent them a threatening letter that their corrupt pig pal thrust into my hands during interrogation so as to get my prints on them. Then I was shown more “evidence” I’d never seen or heard of just minutes prior to sentencing. Now I may not have gotten a life sentence for some murder I never committed, but I still got shit on bad enough as I’m sure most would agree. And when you’re prone to having dream premonitions, dreams like this can be rather unnerving. I know not all my dreams come true, but with technology as advanced as it is today, it wouldn’t be hard to set someone up, especially with the help of a cop who could find me in a heartbeat. He could trace my whereabouts through mine or Tom’s social, or our ISP at social networking or other sites I’m a member of. All he has to do is claim it’s police business and the site managers and or owners would hand over our ISP, thus leading to our address, no questions asked. But to dump my online life would be letting them take even more from me and so I won’t do it. I would rather put myself at risk than let them win some more.

I keep thinking about this girl who once told me that the kind of obsession and hatred they harbored toward me doesn’t exactly die easy and that they’d be just as obsessed with me in 5 years as they would be in 10 as they would be in 20, but Tom said that the passage of time means a lot in my favor.

Still, I wonder about the strange emails I sometimes get. I guess they could just be new scams. Most scams are the same old, same old, but there are some new twists that I sometimes wonder about. The only difference is that I’m the big one to delete and ignore them as soon as I see what it is, for I know no one can make me read anything I don’t want to read. I don’t need to run crying to the police like a child runs to his mother whenever someone does something he doesn’t like. I know words can never hurt me and that until and if someone actually harms me or abuses me again through the legal system, I am okay.

The only other thing I’ll say about these sick twists in this entry is this: Joely, Jerry, if you’re reading this somehow, and if you dare walk back into my life be it in person or through the law, you WILL be sorry. You can take that as a threat, you can take it as a warning, you can cry racism, you can bash me in print, but you will NOT, under any circumstances ruin or seize control of my life as you did from March of 1996 till June of 2003. I will NEVER again be your victim for to try to victimize me yet again would only be victimizing your own selves. Would I be worth it?

I was going to update on Kiwi every 50 pages I wrote in Word since that’s the most I can paste in, but then I decided to post by the month. I rarely have more than 50 pages a month of journaling set on the Verdana font at point 10 like I use in my word processor anyway. I have 23 pages so far this month. I just posted the rest of January and will post February’s entries in a week.

We had a few days of sunshine, but now the rain’s back. It’s raining right now as a matter of fact. I love the sound of it, but I’m also ready for summer! Amazingly enough and even though it’s now 4 AM, the heat hasn’t come on. The cloud coverage helps keep it warmer. Oops, I jinxed it! It just came on. Oh well. That was still quite a long time and will certainly save us on propane.

Nothing heavy as far as barking goes, but I’m sure that’ll change when I get back on days.

I don’t think I’m going to lose more weight from the looks of it. I stopped losing a while back. I could continue on if I ate under 1000 calories day after day, week after week, but I just can’t do that. Or I don’t want to lose more weight bad enough to be that hungry. So I guess I’m going to remain 22 pounds overweight at 132 pounds. This is pretty much as low as I’ve been able to go for the last 6 years or so.

I returned to running in quick segments, rather than all together. This way I don’t get all sweaty and it’s easier on my joints.

My God, how did this entry get to be so long?! About 3 pages of text. Guess I had to get the nightmare off my chest. As always, it feels good to vent.

Later…

And the eBay results are in! The doll only got the one bid, despite all the watchers. I’m pretty sure most of the watchers have dolls of their own they want to sell but want to watch others that are selling to see what price to set them at.

The shoes and 3 different toys we had up didn’t sell, but all the coins went as did the books. They’re going all over the country – New Hampshire, Georgia, Missouri, Washington, and then Glinda will get to stay in Cali. She’s going to a place called Acampo. It’s down in the Stockton area.

Earlier we put up the Emilie doll, plus a red beaded cocktail dress with red strappy heels. Almost instantly, the fashion got a bid! There are 2 watchers on the fashion and 4 on the doll which is already up to 25 views.

No more nightmares about the freeloaders. I realize that I’ll probably have scattered nightmares pertaining to them for the rest of my life as that’s the kind of thing that can really leave a person scarred, along with things like my childhood and what happened at the motel. Meanwhile, I know that had they actually planned to pull another fast one on me when I had the dream, they’d have already tried. A pig would’ve come by with some story or I’d have gotten a summons. Even if they did, though, I know not to acknowledge pigs and I know how to ignore a summons. As I learned the hard way, as long as I don’t play into the hands of sickos like these, the safer I’ll be. But it’s easy to walk into certain traps before you gain experience and knowledge enough to know better and that’s what happened to me. What you don’t know really can hurt you and people will gladly take advantage of it, too.

Got a letter from Mary. It was very short and she didn’t say when her trial date was, but I guess it’s still on for March. All she basically had to say was to hang in there.

She’s right in that Tom is a HUGE blessing. He’s the only one who’s truly loved and accepted me as I am, but boy have we been anything but blessed for the most part. I have to laugh when I remember someone saying that “hopefully the happy newlyweds will be blessed” back in ’94.

Blessed? Blessed?! Yeah, God blessed us all alright. Financial problems, neighbor problems, sex problems, fertility problems, and of course we lost our home and two properties. The sex problems may’ve been a normal part of aging and the fertility problems turned out to be a good thing, but we were anything but blessed overall. And when I think of the future, I believe we’ll continue to struggle financially and that we’ll never have a home of our own. I used to wish and hope that we’d be compensated for all our tough times, but I’m still waiting and it hasn’t happened yet.

Tom, on the other hand, thinks that the economy going to hell is just as much of a favor for us in the end because housing prices have come down so far. He believes we’ll be able to buy a home in a retirement community when he’s 55 (he’ll be 52 in June). I hope he’s right, but like I said, it’s hard to keep up the faith after all the years of BS, know what I mean? I don’t mean to sound so sad and negative; I’m just going by our track record. He agrees that while there are no guarantees in life, things do look like they’re going to line up and fall into place nicely for us when he happens to be retirement community age, plus getting his $200 a month AMEX pension in a few years. Also, our credit will be sparkling clean by then. If an unexpected win came up before then or he unexpectedly got a damn good-paying job, we may buy rural land somewhere, but that’s not as likely. Besides, I think I may like a retirement community better. Okay, so they’d be tooth houses, as I call them, but there wouldn’t be sonic booms, gunshots, loose dogs, dogs left outside barking all the time, or screaming kids. As for whether or not we’ll get a bigger place to rent in the meantime is unknown. It’d have to be a hell of a deal because while I hate being cramped in here and would like an extra room, an extra half-bath, mail delivered to the house, regular trash service, a dishwasher, a washer/dryer hookup, and a cooler with a thermostat, I don’t want to trade in seclusion, barking and motorcycles for little to no privacy, 20 dogs instead of 2, then take back on the car stereos and wild kids, as well as utility bills. Here we only pay for propane, plus the phone and internet package. Lastly, the rent is lower than in most other places, though rents are dropping, too.

If I could somehow magically know – if I were that psychic – that yes, we’d be cramped in here for a few years, but would own a place of our own after that, man, I’d go ballistic with joy! I’d be crying such tears of happiness that I’d be practically blind for days. I wouldn’t sleep for days either cuz I’d be so excited. But in the end, there are no guarantees, like I said before. Maybe we’ll always be poor and renting old little dumps from others. Or maybe a meteorite will crash into our heads. Or maybe we really will “go home” someday. What state, if we do, is unknown. We may either stay in NorCal, drop down to the SoCal desert, or maybe even hit NV or Florida.

For now, I’m just glad we’re not as broke as we were in the motel and that things aren’t nearly as stressful. Man, had this happened then we’d be totally doomed! It’s scary to think just how many times we’ve barely skirted disaster. Like we’re being teased with our survival or something.

I said to Tom that I’d hate to not get another chance to do things right now that we’ve smartened up about money, and as he pointed out, we kind of did. We did, after all, quit spending before he got laid off, which helped get us through the times when his paychecks were less as they started cutting his hours.

Tom’s read contradicting reports on the extra $25 we’re supposed to get. One report says an extra $25 a week, and another says an extra $25 a month. So who knows which one it will be and when it will start?

As for the dogs, Tom said Jesse took off on the motorcycle around 10:00 and that they only barked for 5 minutes after he left, but that was it during the 4 hours he was gone. Gee, someone must’ve been asleep at that time! I know if I’d been up it would’ve been a lot more than just 5 minutes. I heard the 6:00 fit for a few minutes, but that was it since I didn’t get up till late in the afternoon.

I got outbid on the horseshoe, so Tom used the credit toward a buy-it-now here in Cali selling a couple for a buck. The only problem is that Tom accidentally had it sent to Carmichael, not realizing our last two addresses were still in our account. He contacted the seller about it, so hopefully they haven’t shipped them yet.

In better eBay news, the doll has a bid! She and the books do, but nothing else yet. They’ve still got a few days to go so hopefully the other things will get bids and Glinda will get some competition with additional bids.

When I took some face shots of the dolls I was amazed at the clarity and just how good this camera is! So I went and deleted a bunch of old doll pictures from my files taken with old cameras and will re-shoot them soon with this one.

We’re both back to dieting after getting our fudge fix out of the way yesterday. He’s having nothing but Slim Fast shakes and is hungry as hell. And tired. I’m 132 pounds and have decided I’m going to make sure I get into the 120s, for once and for all, within a week.

My ear and teeth are bothering me today and I’m not any closer to being insured than I was months ago. I still don’t think I’m going to get insurance till I’m 65. Most jobs don’t offer insurance these days and the few that still do want a fortune for it. The only good news is that Tom’s research says they’ll extend the unemployment till January of next year. He doesn’t think it’s remotely possible that he’d not be able to get work by then. We’d have to be beyond cursed or this country would really have to go to hell for that to happen, that’s for sure! I just hope the horseshoes, assuming we get them, helps bring us some luck. The one in Oregon sure seemed to.

To my surprise, there were only two quick barking sprees today. I was surprised because it was the sunniest it’s been in days. It got up to 80º in here. I thought Jesse would want to roar out on the motorcycle the first chance he got, but we never even heard that today. He was out for a while at 6:00 (to bring his kid home?) but that’s the only barking fit I heard. The other one was around 10:00 before I got up. Tom said it sounded further away and wasn’t sure if it was Jesse’s dogs.

I was thinking of my mother and how she brought up the subject of me working and didn’t admit to getting the letter I sent explaining my sleep disorder after I said I already did explain it in the letter and didn’t they get it? It was Dad who finally admitted they got it. What was she going to do, keep me thinking they never got it? It’s things like this that make me wary of keeping in touch. It also cancels out the occasional times I wish I was there to help out however I could. They have plenty of others who could help them anyway. Still, I wonder if I’m doing the right thing by keeping in touch. I guess I’ll just keep my letters to a minimum and I’ll let them do the calling, which I don’t expect to be very often. If she gets too judgmental or pushy I can always ignore her. Unless I’m stuck living with a pack of freeloaders who won’t let me ignore them, ignoring people I clash with has always worked for me. That’s why I’m still not in touch with Larry or Tammy.

I deleted the ‘Random Ramblings’ journal on Kiwi. I decided to just use Kiwi as a place to back up stuff rather than for day-to-day journaling. I can usually put 50 pages worth of text in one entry, so every 50 pages I accumulate in my word processor, I’ll throw in as an entry. So about every 6 weeks, I’ll do an entry. The thing is I’m just not into the social scene lately and would prefer to do my day-to-day journaling at MD which isn’t a social site. So I’ll just use Kiwi as a backup and for other fun stuff. I still love all the colors and the fun games there. And the prizes, of course.

Just one outburst from the dogs around 5:00, but nothing else because it’s been raining like crazy the last few days, keeping it nice and quiet for the most part. I think Jesse’s being home helps, too. Like I said, it’s gotten to the point where as long as he’s not home, those dogs will never stop barking. They’d bark round the clock day after day if he took off for days (I’d kill them for damn sure!). I really hope they won’t be so bad when the weather warms up, but if they are, I hope we’ll have the stop-barking device in place by then.

Jessie sent a message. She’s just as pissed at the way this country continues to let all the fucking foreigners come over and hog all the jobs. Just be glad you still have your job, I told her, and a home of your own.

I think it’s rained more in the last couple of months than in all the time since I’ve been out west! As soon as the sun set, the frogs were croaking up a storm.

I got some perfume samples in the mail today, a coupon for a free bottle of Dr. Pepper, which is so-so, and the mind-teaser cube and CD I expected from Kiwi. They also enclosed a bar of soap that smells like lavender which was nice of them. Lastly, a couple of cards that I can fill out my username on and give to people for them to sign up. If they do, I get 200 extra points. Well, I don’t know anyone to give them to, so perhaps I’ll stuff them in no-postage-necessary envelopes!

I dropped 5 pounds in 3 days but took the day off today. I’m stuffed right now. Not a feeling I like much better than being hungry. I wish I could always be neither. Then losing weight would be a cinch!

The Glinda doll has 9 watchers and it’s hard to believe that at least one of them isn’t seriously considering bidding, but we’ll see. This is a lot more watchers than the last dolls had, and much sooner, too.

I awoke at 134 pounds today and am aiming for 133 pounds tomorrow. That is if I can keep food out of my mouth for the rest of the day and night.

After a wonderfully bark-free day yesterday, the dogs have finally started back up. I’m just glad they waited till late afternoon as opposed to early morning and that they haven’t been going non-stop.

Yesterday turned out to be one of the worst barking days ever. It totally sucked! Jesse didn’t come back on the motorcycle till 4:00, so the dogs just took an unusually long break in between barking fits and it wasn’t a case of him returning while I had the headphones on. They don’t normally go more than 10-15 minutes without barking, but because they’d already been at it for hours they were probably tired.

He actually roared back around 4:00, then turned around and left in the truck and we had to deal with yet another barking spree, this one for 4 hours! So we ended up having to listen to this shit on and off for 12 hours! I almost felt like we were back in the city again. We didn’t have to listen to stereos, slamming doors or screaming kids, but the only way I could stand it was to drown them out with the sound machine or blasting music. There was no hope of getting the peace and quiet we came here for till he finally came back for good and by then I was almost ready to crash.

I called up there a couple of times just to make sure no one was home as we suspected and that they weren’t just sitting around and letting them go crazy, but no, no one was home.

I wish he’d get a roommate that was always home! Better yet I wish he’d come down here! I’d really like to have a word with him about this shit. It’s weird that after spending 4 months hoping he wouldn’t come down and bug me or wake me up, I’m now wishing he would come down here. And it’s also weird that except for Kim, I spent so many years living for the moment when our neighbors would take off, and now it’s the other way around. I dread it when he leaves!

Today it’s been quiet so far, but I can’t deal with this shit much longer. If I don’t lose it first and kill them, then we need to either let him know what’s going on or hope to have an extra $80 real soon to get that anti-barking device. I had told Tom I was worried that the device wouldn’t work, but he said that if it can detect barking down here, then the dogs could hear the frequency it puts out up there, which I guess is something that’s supposed to annoy them as much as fingernails scraping against a chalkboard annoys people.

I swear, though, you can run, but you can’t hide from the barking if you live in the West! Or if you’re Tom & Jodi S.

Tom removed the chicken wire I had wrapped around the rat’s cage. They’re definitely too big to get out of it, so there was no point in keeping it there and having its ends poke me and snag my clothes.

I had $1.75 in auction credit that I won many months ago, and so I bid $1.50 on an old used horseshoe to put above the door for good luck. The one we had in Oregon sure kept us from disaster. It didn’t keep us from being annoyed with all the noise in the area, but it kept bad things from happening, so hopefully I’ll win this one and it will keep us safe. It still has a few days to go.

We’re also listing 9 things today. A basic Tonner doll, a board game, a Superman action figure, a trio of books by the same author, some coins, a talking interactive figure from the Ice Age movie, a pair of shoes, and something else I’m forgetting. If this Tonner doll sells – and I can’t believe it wouldn’t at just $29, lousy economy or not – then we’ll list about 6 others.

Yesterday I only had a 60-calorie yogurt and one TV dinner. I had Marie Callender’s beef tips, potatoes and green beans that was on sale. Not eating for so long really makes your food seem tastier. Even the green beans were good!

Today I got up at 9:00, had yogurt at 2:00, and will have my one and only meal of the day at 6:00 which will be chicken nuggets. Knowing I have that to look forward to helps.

I dropped back down two pounds to 135 pounds, and hope to be 133 tomorrow. Maybe I’ll do this for a few days each week. I haven’t decided yet. I just want to get into the 120s once and for all!

The stimulus plan they just passed says we’re going to be getting an extra $25 a week, but who knows when it’ll actually kick in?

Later…

I’m listening to quite a frogfest going on out there right now. If only I could see dogs the way I see frogs! The frogs croaking up a storm isn’t the least bit annoying to me. Today we were compensated for yesterday’s barking, though, so that’s nice. I never heard a single bark all day. I wish it could be like this every day!

We ended up with 9 listings on eBay, 3 of which are coins. We couldn’t list the watch just yet because it needs a battery, but we’ve listed the doll (Glinda), the action figure, the Ice Age toy, the board game, a trilogy of books, and the shoes. In less than 3 hours the doll had 4 watchers, but we’ve learned not to get our hopes up by watchers. Nothing matters unless someone actually makes a bid!

The pain is gone. That’s the pain I sometimes get for a few days in my lower right side. I still don’t know if it’s some sort of cyst on my ovary that flares up every so often, or if it’s the start of a UT infection. All I know is that cranberry juice helps it and that’s what you’re supposed to drink when a UT infection comes on. If it’s that, though, then why does it always occur about 10 days after my period?

I not only got cran-strawberry juice yesterday at the store but also pineapple soda, something I’ve never had before.

I’ve been up for 7 hours and haven’t eaten yet. I’m trying to go all day without eating because I slacked off my diet and gained a pound a day for 6 days. This means I’m 137 pounds. Yikes!

The dogs didn’t end up being too bad yesterday. Just a couple of quick barking sprees. Today, however, was awful. Jesse obviously left in the truck and they went on a two-hour barking spree at that point. Then he came back and went out on the motorcycle. They barked right after he left, but he must’ve returned rather fast and while I had the headphones on because the barking didn’t go on much after that.

If only – if only – these dogs didn’t exist! The place would be dead quiet all the time if only someone would shoot the fuckers! Then again, I’d rather get the stop-barking thing as soon as we can afford it because if someone killed these dogs, he’d just go out and get two more to throw outside all the time. He doesn’t care about those around him, only that his place is “protected.” I just worry that the de-barker won’t work well or at all.

Fortunately, Jesse hasn’t left yet today, so it’s still quiet. Someone must’ve come to see him earlier, though, cuz there were fresh tracks in the mud at the start of the drive that we could see when we went out earlier.

When I awoke at 6:00, I reached over, turned the sound machine off, and could clearly hear that it was raining. Then as it started getting light, I could then clearly see that the rain had turned to snow! Not funny. Not funny at all. Tom sure thought it was, though. It was coming down pretty hard too, in big fat flakes. We got a half-inch or so, maybe less. Fortunately, though, the dusting didn’t last long.

I took some pictures for my folks and Mary, plus some other ones later on after the snow melted. Fire season was already in and so the mountainside was brown when I took the first set of pictures shortly after we moved here, and so I wanted “winter pics” with the grassy areas all green and the leaves thinned, allowing for a better view of the far-off distance.

Sure enough, Jesse just left so now the dogs will be barking for who knows how many hours.

We picked up the mail, then went to the drug store for some incense. They have roll-on oil perfumes for $6 that are awesome, but I didn’t get any of those. We’re too broke to get too many unnecessary things.

Yahoo radio is back to limiting the monthly usage so now I’m experimenting with AOL’s radio. I love and hate it. I hate being only able to skip songs 5 times per hour per station, and I hate the commercials, but it’s opened me up to a whole new variety of music. The custom radio stations like what I used to have with Yahoo can really be limited as far as what they play.

I decided not to bother with a dream journal. A lot of the dreams are just too vague or too complicated to put into words very well, and by the time I’m awake enough to write, I can no longer remember much anyway.

I spoke to my folks this afternoon with the dogs going on and off in the background. They said they couldn’t hear the static that would intermittently come on the line.

Although both of them were on the line, Dad did most of the talking. Unless I’m reading her incorrectly, I sensed a hesitancy, even something else – anger? Resentment? – coming from my mother.

We talked about the weather, the economy, and things like that. Dad has to have cataract surgery soon. They spend most of the week going to doctors and the weekend at the store.

They just have one poodle now and no other animals. Everyone is well, they also say.

They commented on the pictures, and at one point Mom suggested I find work. I said, “I thought I explained in my last letter why that’s not so easy.” At first I wondered if maybe they didn’t get the letter I sent explaining it to them, but Dad said they did, even though Mom asked me to explain. At first I thought to myself, “Explain? I don’t think so! I don’t owe anyone any explanations. I am who I am and I know what’s going on with me and Tom knows too, and that’s all that matters.” But then I said, “Aw, give her a break. This is something that’s hard to comprehend without having experienced it firsthand. Even you wouldn’t get it if you didn’t have it and someone else was trying to explain it to you. It’s complicated.”

And so I sent a copy of an online article to them, along with some rat/mice pics. This is the best I can do, though, so if they still don’t get it – sorry! I tried.

Yesterday and the day before the dogs were wonderfully quiet. Never heard a thing. Yet when Tom was out combing through the shed he said he was almost sure they had been indoors because it sounded like they were running all of a sudden right before they started barking, as if Jesse let them out and then they ran to the edge of the hill when they heard him rummaging around. Whatever the case may be, they drove me crazy barking on and off for about 5 hours.

Another strange Stacey coincidence. Her picture is gone from the property management site. Hmmm…interesting. Could this be because of me? As was the case with disappearing from Facebook, this is a bit extreme, isn’t it? Could my message have gotten her in trouble or freaked her out that bad? I can’t believe I could be that scary any more than I can believe it got her in trouble, but I’ll never know. It’s still weird, alright.

I’m enjoying the last few hours of my Yahoo customized radio station which is going away. All good things really do come to an end. It’s kind of sad. Like losing an old friend. But my new “sweeping friend,” since I mostly have the radio on when I’m sweeping, will be a commercial-riddled, limited-skip radio that CBS will own until and if we ever have $13 a month for Rhapsody.

Bianca at Kiwi was nice enough to let me know that they’d send another mind teaser cube (better packaged this time), my CD, plus a little something extra for being patient. This is nice to know. I’d hate to have had nearly 15,000 points wasted.

As for our eBay plans, we’re going to list everything we think could possibly sell on eBay towards the end of next week after he’s had a chance to go through the crap in the shed. We agree that calling stores about the Tonners probably wouldn’t be a good idea with the economy being the way it is, so we’re going to list them as basics or nudes and then maybe list the outfits separately in case the outfits are the reason Tyler and Angelina didn’t sell.

I still worry that whatever’s up there that doesn’t want us having extra money isn’t going to let this new Tonner plan succeed, but we’ll see. The Apple keyboard sold for more than we expected. We expected $20, not $42. It’s on its way to D.C.

We have a new plan for the dogs, too. All was nice and peaceful till he zoomed out around 2:00, then sure enough, they barked in spurts till he came back. I don’t know exactly when that was since I crashed before he returned, but it couldn’t have been before 4:00.

I’m thinking it’s the puppy grown up to be no good, so to speak. When we first got here, one of the dogs was just a puppy. The last tenant’s shit probably prompted him to get another dog for security purposes. They didn’t just steal his motorcycle, they broke into his house and stole his gun.

Different dogs have different personalities, of course, and some bark more than others. Sure enough, and just as our shit luck would have it, the puppy obviously turned out to be quite a barker as clearly one of them is way worse than the other, and this didn’t start till a few months ago. So no, it’s not a case of which vehicle he leaves in. All he has to do is just leave, period, and off they go.

It used to be that one of those devices that emits a high-pitched sound that annoys dogs when they bark and shuts them up could only be used if there was nothing between you and the dogs. It had to be a straight shot with no trees or hills in the way. And you had to run outside with the remote every time they started barking to work the device manually.

Yesterday, however, Tom found a device that you mount outdoors, and as long as you’re within a certain distance, it doesn’t matter what’s in the way. As long as the device can hear the barking, the dogs can hear the frequency being put out. And you no longer need to run outside to operate it because now it has an automatic setting.

I thought we’d be too far and that the dogs were around 250’ away but when Tom checked, it looks more like it’s 150’ away. No wonder the fucking things are so obnoxious! At least to me, they are anyway. Tom’s more used to it having grown up in the west where it’s customary to throw your dogs outside 24/7. You really have to get up into the 400s footage-wise, if you’re like me, for it not to be so annoying.

The catch is that it’s $80 and it could be months before we have extra money. At first I insisted that Jesse should be the one to pay for it. After all, it’s his dogs we’re disciplining. But that’s just the problem. He wouldn’t want them disciplined. Remember? Their job is to protect the place (even though the likelihood of anyone coming by with bad intentions is next to nil) and to hell with anyone who may have to be stuck having to deal with all the racket.

So as long as whatever’s been cursing me with barking since 1992 doesn’t interfere, this looks pretty promising. We’d just have to keep it a secret and foot the expense ourselves. It may be worth it, though, in case we ever do decide to get our own dog someday. And we just might if all the rats in this state are going to suck. Also, if we get through this economy shit somehow, this isn’t the last place we’ll ever live where barking is an issue. Even if we end up in a retirement community, it’d be just our luck to end up next to someone who leaves their dogs outdoors at least a few hours each day like that nut at the duplex did, and I’m sure the front runners of the community wouldn’t do much about it other than maybe mention it to them. What could they do? Demand that they sell their house and get the hell out if they won’t get rid of the dog? All a retirement community would do would be to give us the convenience of city life without most of the city noise. We’d have regular trash and mail service and hopefully a place that was bigger and more modern. But car stereos and wild kids shouldn’t be an issue, and I would doubt they’d leave dogs outdoors around the clock. Car doors might be a bit annoying, depending on how often they have company.

Live the life you want, not the life you have. That’s no doubt what my folks wish they could do, but for different reasons than we wish we could. Dad had another heart attack! I received a letter yesterday from him. He said he was on his way to their flag store when he was hit with massive pain. He called Mom and she took him to the ER. He had to spend time in the hospital as they inserted a stent to open his arteries. The good news is that he’s now pain-free and feeling good. Still, he says the golden years “ain’t what they used to be.” Yeah, I know. That’s why I’m dreading growing old myself!

Thank God he didn’t get into an accident. I guess he pulled over when the pain hit and called Mom on a cell phone.

I was kind of surprised to learn they still have the store and haven’t been online in years because they didn’t use it enough and were tired of dealing with spam. They said the store keeps them active and that they’d retire when they can afford to. I can see where the store would keep them busy and fill their time. If you enjoy something, why not do it whether you can afford to quit or not, right?

They said I didn’t give them our number yet and that we could call them collect. As I told them, I wouldn’t call collect unless it was the emergency I hope we never face again. Besides, I thought they had a block on that. I’ll just try them directly from the landline after they’ve had time to read the letter I just wrote in which I also included pictures now that I know they can’t see them at Webshots (it was nice not to have to worry about size and quantity like I have to with Mary). I wanted to write first so we’d be more caught up on what’s going on with each other in advance so we wouldn’t have to spend as much time catching up the more expensive way. I told them the cell can’t be used indoors and that the landline has static at times, but that I’d call directly from that. I also let them know we usually keep the ringers off and that the landline has no voicemail, but they could leave messages on the cell.

He asked what the weather was like and said he hoped things were better for us, but as I had to tell him, Tom was still on unemployment and I was still dreaming of a legit home job that didn’t cost anything or require a schedule. I told them we had pawned and sold some things.

Sometimes I wish we could be there to cook and clean for them. My schedule, as I told them, would only permit me to help out at certain times, but Tom could be available when I couldn’t be, and he could drive them around when they got to the point where they couldn’t drive. I just wish I could help them like they helped us. But while we could certainly help out, we couldn’t work for them because they wouldn’t be able to afford to pay him and so he’d have to get work elsewhere. I still wouldn’t want to be in the mainstream while we were too young for a retirement community, and it would cost thousands of dollars to get there in the first place. We’d need internet access right away and a place to stay that wasn’t attached to anyone else that would allow rats. So it’s not an option, and I’m not sure Tom would like it there cuz of the humidity. I don’t like humidity either, but it’s got its good points, too. It sure is good for the skin and hair.

I got one of those sippy cups for kids so I can drink water while running.

Heard a couple of quick barking sprees yesterday and one today. It hit me that the people have to be able to hear the dogs that live on the other side of him because the dogs are at the side of his house. When I checked the satellite again, I saw that yes, they’d be clearly audible where they’re at.

If ever there was such a thing as a rat with an eating disorder, we got one!

I’m pissed off at Kiwi yet again. This one’s not their fault. Well, not totally. The mind teaser cube fell out of the envelope they mailed it in somewhere along the way. There was a tear in the middle of the envelope when we received it. But why they didn’t mail the damn thing in a bubble-lined envelope beats me. So now even more points have been wasted!

Tom just came in to say that something’s been stressing him out and upsetting his belly and he thinks it’s the idea of talking to Jesse about the dogs and the flooring. He thinks Jesse thought I was saying we’d give it to him. Like I told Tom, though, that’s definitely not the case. I made it clear to him that we wanted a discount on the rent if he was interested, and he agreed that if he was, we could discuss a discount.

As for the dogs, I agree that Jesse’s the sensitive type, like most guys. I can sense it and he can too, just from talking to him. But why should I sit and suffer the annoyance the dogs bring when they go off just because one’s sensitive and the other’s paranoid? “Well, you did go to jail once,” Tom pointed out, but as I myself pointed out, that was a totally different situation. This isn’t a pack of lazy freeloaders in a state that favors them. This is an individual we know. And sooner or later the economy is going to get better and Jesse’s going to return to work full-time in which case the barking will be a regular problem. Tom said he wanted to first concentrate on getting to where we didn’t have to pay some of the rent late and risk him hassling us if we brought up the dogs before then.

So I put my foot down and said that he could do what he wants as far as the flooring is concerned, but just as soon as we get caught up (if we live to get to that point) I’m either going to slip him a note like I should’ve months ago, or mention it to him if he comes down beforehand. I’m sick of giving in to him and dealing with noisy neighbors or their noisy dogs! It’s like he worries more about their sensitivity than my being annoyed. So he agreed this was an okay compromise. It better be okay cuz I’m not putting it off forever, and if we survive this shit long enough for him to get a job, I don’t think we’ll be able to move. Most rentals are outrageous and I still don’t know that I’d want to move even if we could afford it because most places are noisier than this. Yet it’s been noisy enough ever since late October or early November whenever Jesse’s taken off. I don’t think even the most sensitive of people would have a problem with the way I worded the letter I wanted to give him, and if they did, then they have a serious problem and they’re definitely not someone I’d want to live with or rent a place from. Also, and as I told Tom, we can’t let past experiences hold us back. If we suffer in silence, too afraid to speak up, then we let the blacks and Mexicans win. Well, I think they’ve won enough!

I want the peace we came here for. And I want it each and every day. Not just some days like has been the case for the last 4 months or so. I don’t mind a few barks a couple of times a day like we’ve had the last couple of days. But I’m sick of the 10-minute to 2-hour barking sprees that occur several times a day on the days that Jesse’s not around! No one should have to live with it either. Especially people out in the country. The reason we came here was to escape the city noise, so to have to sit and listen to dogs bark really defeats the whole purpose of coming out here. We escaped the car stereos, the slamming car doors, the screaming kids, and we were supposed to have escaped the barking dogs, too.

I saw this headline saying that forgiveness is good for the heart. LOL, I think I’ll keep the “bad” heart where some are concerned! Everybody has somebody they can’t forgive anyway. Andy can’t forgive me for a tape I know nothing about, I can’t forgive the queen bee down in Arizona for leaving us to survive or not to survive when we lost our land in Oregon, and I’m sure a certain little mooching off-brand could never forgive me for “stalking” her. Life is all about meeting people, dumping some, drifting from some, and then staying connected with some.

I ended up giving the peanuts to the rats. They hurt my teeth too much. What am I going to do when I’m not able to eat anything at all? I guess I’ll really lose more weight for sure! The peanuts were free and they are lousy diet food anyway, so it’s no big loss.

I think for now I’m going to just stick to running one mile a day which takes about 20 minutes at the pace I’m currently at. It may even be closer to a mile and a half. I added other exercises to the routine for my abs and arms.

I wish Tom would get a job! How many more months of this shit are we going to have to go through??? And how many more years do I have to wait for insurance??? I’m sick of him being here all the time, too. We get along fine as always, but he’s always here. When I’m up when he’s asleep I can get some alone time that way. It’s not that he smothers me or doesn’t give me any space. I just like having the place to myself at times, especially when I’m cleaning or redecorating. If only that damn program of his could’ve worked out better! That, or him retiring, would’ve made his being home all the time worth it. But currently, the program would take us a few years to get to where it could be our only job and we could afford insurance, not the few months he was hoping for. Whether or not it can be speeded up is unknown at this time. I still say we aren’t meant to have money. Period. And if we were, we’d have it by now.

I miss bits and pieces of my old life at times from both Oregon and Arizona when things were less stressful. I used to wake up each day and wonder, what will I win today? What surprises may come in the mail? And money and security weren’t such an issue. But now I get up and ask myself, what will go wrong today? Or what will we not be able to accomplish due to circumstances out of our control? What will get delayed?

Will we have a home and food to eat come March?

In last night’s dream, we were in what appeared to be a hotel rather than a motel because you had to get to the room from inside the building. The people next to us were noisy. I was worried about money. The only twist this time around was that we were having our mail delivered there. A guy handed us a piece of mail through a slot. I guess it was an invoice for a magazine I never ordered.

Maybe I should start a dream journal on Kiwi. I’ll start it on my word processor like with everything else but will post them there because Kiwi, unlike MD, lets me create multiple journals and this also serves as another backup besides Yahoo. Once I get a batch of dreams accumulated, maybe I’ll include them in my entries every so often on MD.

Speaking of Kiwi, they’re pissing me off again, saying they have no record of me putting in for another CD. So there goes another 10,700 points wasted. Them and their damn problems!

It’s cold and rainy again. Where we weren’t needing heat from around 10 AM to sometime after midnight, we’re back to needing it round the clock.

As for the dogs, I was up past noon yesterday, so of course they were noisy. Jesse took off right before 11:30 as he often does, but I had crashed before he got back which seems to usually be between 1:00-3:00. Will there ever be a place where Tom and Jodi don’t have to listen to other people’s dogs??? I made Tom promise to call Jesse on Monday about that and the flooring. I said, “Notice how there have been all kinds of delays with that now? Instead of bumping up our little chat because of this or because of that, let’s get it over with.”

Of course, it’s not his fault that he wasn’t home when he tried calling on Thursday when we paid the rest of the rent.

He said he would, but also that he thought about that and isn’t sure he can move them behind the house because of the people on the other side complaining about all the barking. I don’t remember this discussion, though he insists I was standing right there, but even if that’s the case, what does this mean? That we’ve got to be the ones to deal with the barking instead? I don’t think so! If he won’t do anything about it, then we’ll have to move yet again if we can ever afford to do so. If I gotta hear this shit anyway, I’d rather hear it in a 1000-square-foot place as opposed to 500.