This is going to be quick cuz there’s not much to say at the moment. Just that I finished Italian 101 with a score of 82%, and am soon to begin Italian 102. Then it’ll be off to 201 and 202.

Jesse was down just a little while ago with a gas-powered weed whacker, whacking weeds along the sides here. Just when I was wondering if he’d been laid off again too, based on how quiet it’s been so far today. The weed whacker wouldn’t have woken me up had I been asleep, but debris flying against the sides of the place would have. Tom’s going to do the back with his electric one tomorrow.

Jesse says he’s not sure if he’s going to be called into work which will depend on when he blows on through with the bulldozer. I just wish he would do what he says he’s going to do when he says he’s going to do it!

Here’s the latest Jesse/dog scoop. Jesse left on the motorcycle at 11:30 yesterday and returned just moments later. I thought the dogs would be going crazy, but to my surprise, they shut up after just a few barks. Then he roared on back out about a half-hour later, and again I was pleasantly surprised with just a few barks. Then it was dead quiet all day until he returned at around 5. I wonder if someone could’ve been up there, like maybe the kid. Would you leave an 11-year-old alone that long? Yeah, I suppose you could. There still might be a difference in him leaving on the motorcycle versus the truck, too.

Anyway, when I got up at 5:30 this morning, I expected it to be to a tune of wild barking, but I haven’t heard a thing yet. I can’t believe they’d be quiet if he left this early and in the truck, so my guess is that he’s not working today. Tom will be able to tell for sure when he goes to mail the books later on. Yeah, the two single hardbacks didn’t sell, but the 27-lot of paperbacks did, so that’s good. Even though we only make a few bucks, it gets them out of the way.

Oh, shit. I hear barking now. I must’ve jinxed myself or something by mentioning it! I’m just glad the whistle’s on its way. At least it should be shipped out today anyway.

I just got up and softly called up to them, knowing that Tom’s such a heavy sleeper, quite unlike myself. I could just make out movement through the trees. My calling to them seemed to placate them a bit, but since I’m not in the mood right now to take responsibility for calming other people’s dogs, I just threw on the sound machine in here and turned the air cleaner up out by the rats.

Yesterday our rude, selfish prick of a landlord left at 8am, and on the motorcycle, as I figured would be the case. I was hoping he’d wait till between 11am - 1pm like he used to, but nope. So off the dogs went on their barking spree which I figured would last till noon at which time I thought Jesse would return, then head out again an hour or two later for a few hours, then maybe go out one more time for yet a few more hours. Instead, we didn’t hear him return till 5:00.

The dogs are definitely morning barkers as opposed to afternoon barkers. We occasionally hear them in the afternoons, but they seem to sleep the afternoons away for the most part. So when they started up after Jesse left, I opened the door and yelled at them to shut up, then Tom went out and whistled at them. Because the leaves haven’t fully grown back yet, he could see them come running toward the edge of the hill. After that, they were quiet, which convinces me all the more that all the barking is over not wanting to be left alone. I don’t know why they decided in November that that was when they no longer wanted to be left alone, but I’m 99% sure it’s not that there’s anything that’s been stirring them up.

Then Tom got a great idea I wish he’d told me about months ago, although I don’t know if it will help for sure. He told me that dog whistles, which people use to train dogs with, may control the barking. Especially if I’m right about it being a case of them not wanting to be left alone. If they bark and get whistled at in response, they may not feel so alone. I don’t know if things will ever be like they used to be around here, but this will give us an idea as to whether or not the debarker will work. The debarker has a money-back guarantee, but why shell out $80 for something that might very well not work? Yet if they can hear the whistle, they could hear the debarker. It’s supposed to be inaudible to humans. All we’d hear was a slight wind sound of the air actually being blown through the thing. This is good too, cuz then I can use it while Tom’s sleeping. The only thing is that it was under $10 so it’s not automatic like the one we want to get sometime in May. But if it will help stop the 5:30 - 9:00 weekday barking sprees, that’d be great, since obviously no one else is going to do a damn thing about it. So we’ll take responsibility for his dogs, and we’ll pay for it, too. The whistle should arrive next Thursday or Friday. We got it on eBay and it’s coming from SC.

If nothing we get works, then we’ll have to give Jesse an ultimatum. Either shut them up or lose us. Or maybe take a couple hundred off the rent.

We have 3 auctions ending on eBay in 8 hours. Two auctions with just a single hardcover book, and a 27-lot of paperbacks. Right now it’s not looking good at all. The lot may go, but the singles aren’t likely.

Yesterday wasn’t good, but better than the barking the day before was. For now, I’m enjoying the peace and quiet which will last until Jesse feels like going out which, given the weather, will probably be on the motorcycle and therefore without the dogs.

So much for thinking God had blessed me with a knack for learning languages to make up for all the curses He has lined up for me throughout my life. I’m still struggling with the grammar and I suppose that if I haven’t gotten it by now, then I’m not going to. Some things can be said several different ways and I’m not always able to figure out which is the proper way for each thing. That’s one of the problems with full immersion methods. It doesn’t teach you the rules of why things are a certain way. But Tom just found a site that explains Italian grammar, so hopefully it’ll help me. I have just one more lesson in the beginner course to go!

Still one of the most popular journals on MD which still amazes and stumps me. Who could all my readers possibly be? And why would they all be interested in what I have to say? Interesting. Real interesting. I’m flattered just as much as I am surprised.

Speaking of journals, I’m not going to sweat changing or dropping last names so much anymore. Remember, the media uses people’s names without their permission all the time. So why can’t we? Especially in something we’re not trying to sell like a book? Yet the media does sell newspapers, mostly of bullshit, and so if they can get away with it, then I’m not going to worry. If you’re someone I’m close to then yes, I will change or drop your last name as a courtesy to you. If anyone else may be reading this that I once knew and has a problem with something I may have to say, send me a subpoena. LOL

I think I should go back to motion running as opposed to stationary. Yes, stationery is easier on my joints, but it’s too easy to put off. I have to run before my shower because I get so sweaty, so it’s easier to stick to, and even more so because it’s something I do all at once. With the stationary running, I was running in scattered bursts, and it was too easy to laze out of the last set or two. I only switched for variety and due to the weather warming up, but I’ll just remember that nice refreshing shower that’s waiting for me at the end of my run. I hope to get an elliptical machine eventually. There’s no impact at all on the joints with those.

The oak trees are sprouting their new leaves, but nothing on those palm-like trees yet.

I don’t think I’m going to lose any more weight, but I’m ok with that because I’m comfortable where I am now. I can bend over to cut my toenails easily and get around plenty well enough. I would look better if I kept losing, but I’m sick of being hungry so much of the time. I need a break once or twice a week and to do what I did yesterday. I gained two pounds over the last couple of days, but it was totally worth it. We went to the mail place today, then to the store. I pigged out on Jelly Belly’s and parmesan breadsticks and it was sooo good! The pleasure was totally worth the punishment. So I’ll stay just under and above the 130-pound marker indefinitely.

It’s almost 7am, so 2-3 more hours of barking, then the bulk of it should be done for the day. Ain’t God just great to me? All good things really do come to an end. I totally believe that. Every single place I’ve lived in that started off peaceful eventually got worse and worse. Some places turned noisy overnight, others slowly. So what are we going to have to do? Move every few months to a few years as each place gets too noisy? Is that all that’s in our cards as far as housing goes? To move to a place and just when we’re about to be grateful to finally have good neighbors, have them move out and bad ones move in? To start off with good neighbors that suddenly decide not to give a shit about others around them after a few months of being kind and considerate? Is that it?

It used to be so wonderful here despite the lack of space. I was just so amazed to finally be in such a quiet place, quieter than any other place I ever lived, including Maricopa at its quietest. But now it’s worse than the Oregon dump, excluding the car stereos. The barking isn’t as bad as the duplex was, obviously, because there, the dog was right outside our window. But these dogs here are closer than the canal dog was. And it’s made even worse by the layout of this place. In the Oregon dump, the front of the house wasn’t as bad since the barking was coming from the back. But here there is no front or back, so the barking is everywhere. Even in the bathroom with the door shut I can still hear it loud and clear. And knowing that the weekend is coming up doesn’t give me any peace of mind either because I know Jesse will be in and out all day Saturday and Sunday. It just may not start till 8am - noon as opposed to 5:30 am. I swear he’s only home just to sleep! Fortunately, I’ll be asleep by then, but it wouldn’t surprise me if there was some evening barking tonight too, like last Friday night. My guess is that that’s when he goes to a bar after working such long hours all week.

The last thing I want to do is return to the city where it could end up 10 times noisier if it wasn’t from the get-go. Yet all this shit has had me thinking about and missing being in a normal house. Images of those houses I saw on Craigslist are floating through my mind constantly. I’m sick of being cramped into tiny little cottages, duplexes, motel rooms, and trailers. I want a normal house that’s around 1000-1500 square feet. But it’s me that’s asking for it so that makes it too much to ask for. I also miss living in something that isn’t as old or older than I am. Oh, to have a modern house with at least two bedrooms and 1½ baths on a solid concrete foundation! It doesn’t freeze here too often, so houses don’t have to be raised. Tom says we’ll more than likely want to move closer to wherever he ends up working, but if he’s right about us being able to buy a house within a few years, then it would’ve been easier to just stay here until then. I like variety, but at the same time I’m SICK of moving!

But I’m also getting mighty sick of having my activities now have to revolve around when the dogs bark. I can’t do anything that requires a quiet background now like proofreading or resuming my Italian lessons, although I need a break from that for a while anyway. The spelling and vocabulary are still a piece of cake. But the grammar’s still driving me crazy, too.

I’m now 88% through the course and still with an 81% accuracy rate and still struggling with the damn grammar, too! Otherwise, I’m having fun with it.

Oh, and we’re less than an hour away from a good 3 to 4 hours of barking, too. I know I’ve said it before, but I gotta say it again: I can’t believe how selfish and rude so many people are! They’re definitely worse in the mornings. From 5:30 - 9:30, it was terrible yesterday. Guess they must’ve thought it was Monday, and like I told Tom who disagrees with me, it’s never going to get better. Not at this point.

And yes, I’ve begun looking on Craigslist. The only problem is that one, Tom needs a job first. Two, there are some reasons I would rather not move. For one, I’m sick of having to move every few months to a few years because people can’t shut up. Or shut their dogs up. Just sick of it! And while there may be bigger places with cheaper rents than this, it would be more expensive once the utilities that we don’t have to pay here get factored in, not to mention that it’d be much noisier, too. In this place, as small and as old as it is, people can’t drive by, we have major privacy, and the dogs are the only problem right now. They may be annoying enough of a problem, but they’re it as far as what’s going on around here that’s annoying right now. There are no car stereos, no wild kids, no sonic booms, no door-slamming, and so it’s not all 100% bad. Just half bad.

I just hope we’ll have the luxury of being able to weigh the pros and cons of moving for real and really sit down and decide what we want to do. I hate being locked into just one thing and that’s the case with us right now. I know we’re never going to have a quiet place to live. That’s obviously not in our cards or else we wouldn’t have been in nothing but noisy places for the last 4 houses, 1 duplex, and 12 apartments. It’s a curse that’s going to follow us everywhere we go. No doubt about it. We could move to a totally deserted planet, and there’d still be something.

Tom’s going to go around with the weed whacker and knock down some weeds around here so that when Jesse finally does get around to coming down here, which I’m sure will have to be when I’m asleep, he won’t have as much to do.

Now it’s off to do things I don’t need for it to be quiet to do. I’m still going to have the sound machine on to block the barking, but while I couldn’t study Italian with that going, I could work on my story. That is until I get to the proofreading part of it.

Well, I don’t want to get my hopes up and jump the gun, but Tom may have a point about this Monday confusion thing as far as the dogs are concerned because it was much quieter yesterday. They were going off around 6:00, then it was quiet all day as far as we could tell. Like I said, though, I’m not going to rest easy as I know some days will be bad and others will be more tolerable. I keep hoping the people on the other side of him will complain in addition to us, but that may only make him push them further toward us. Us he can just evict, them he can’t. Then again, Tom said they already did complain about him and that I was right there when he mentioned it, though I don’t remember this discussion. According to the satellite, they’re not much further from him than we are. I don’t know how thick their walls are or if they have dual-paned windows, but I’m sure they get an earful enough either way. I can’t tell grade but there doesn’t seem to be much more in the way of trees than we’ve got.

I’m now 82% through beginner Italian with an 81% accuracy rate. As usual, my spelling and vocabulary are fine. It’s the grammar I’m still struggling with.

I’m sitting here now just listening to the peace and quiet. And I’m enjoying every moment of it too because I know that in just a few hours it will be gone. Yeah, yesterday sucked dogwise. From right before 6am - 9am the dogs went crazy. That’s about when I crashed, and then Tom said there were just a few spatterings of barks from 2pm to right before I got up shortly after their last fit. I actually woke up sweating. Yeah, that’s the other of the two things I’m getting awfully sick of dealing with year after year living this far inland. Except for when it’s raining, I’m sick of the cold/warm fluctuations! I went to bed freezing. It was 34º out. But then it got up to 68º which meant it got just over 80º in here (I’m cold again now). The metal walls and roof of the trailer really makes this place retain heat like crazy. It’s to be 75º on Saturday so we’re going to have to get the cooler prepped soon and check the pads and all that. Hopefully, it won’t need new parts cuz that’s Jesse’s job. And the less I have to see of that rude, selfish asshole, the better.

Besides the extreme night/day temperature fluctuations, I’m sick of how almost everybody in the West refuses to allow their dogs indoors! These two things have got me thinking about a Florida retirement community more and more, but without a ton of money to move with, I’ll never again take a chance on moving long-distance. Not after nearly getting killed trying to get to Oregon, then coming even closer to doing just that here. I also wouldn’t want to go to a state Tom would be unhappy in. He says it doesn’t matter and that that’ll be our top priority if it means that much to me. Well, that’s really sweet, but it’s not possible. Besides, the humidity wouldn’t be all that good for me either. It may be good for my skin and hair, but that’s really about it. It’s just that people in the East typically get dogs as pets. Here they’re either for security reasons or for getting attention, and what better way to draw attention to yourself and your house than to get a dog you stick outside 24/7? Bad people may exist everywhere, but I’ve never seen such a degree of selfishness and insecurity in people anywhere else. I also think it’s cruel to the dogs. If they were wild dogs to begin with, that’d be one thing. But any animal born in captivity should stay that way and not be tossed outside like old trash.

I still don’t think we’ll ever own our own home anywhere. I think that Phoenix wouldn’t have been such a nightmare and that we wouldn’t have lost the Maricopa house if there was such a thing as home sweet home for us – oh, gosh, I’m crying now. Back in a minute…

Sorry ‘bout that. I just get so damn frustrated with wanting the simplest of things in life like a peaceful place to live and never being able to achieve them. And when I do it’s usually very short-lived. I just want an average house with average appliances, furniture and whatever else, where it’s just Tom and I. Not Tom, myself, the neighbor’s dogs, and maybe even their music and kids too, depending on whether or not we’re in the city. But if I’ve lived in noisy places basically all my adult life, why would that ever change? And if he’s been broke almost all his life and me almost all my adult life, why would that change either? The thought of rental-hopping in poverty the rest of our lives really makes me very sad and just totally saps my zest for life. And even though we’re not officially “poor” at the moment. We’re actually ok. Barely. But ok. That’s how it usually is for us. We’re either broke or just making it. We’re almost never comfortable, but that’s mostly our fault for getting too extravagant of a house in Maricopa and spending too much money in Oregon. He did, after all, have some good-paying jobs. So much for counting on divine guidance, too!

Like I said, this is the West. So I have to wonder if barking wouldn’t be just as much of a problem in a retirement community whether we could afford a house there or not. It sure would defeat the purpose of living in a retirement community if they were just going to leave dogs outside to bark around the clock. And people definitely do things that make no sense. Dogs defeat the purpose of living in the woods in seclusion too, I suppose, but then again, I’m the only one bothered by the fucking things. They rarely bark when Jesse’s here. It’s when he’s out that they’re a problem, and he’s never home anymore. He’s in and out on weekends and appears to be gone about 12 hours a day during the week, which makes us think he’s working in Reno. That would be where there’d be more construction jobs too, which means a two-hour drive to and from work – ugh!

Even Tom’s not bothered by the barking having grown up in the West. I guess I was born and raised on the wrong side of the country! Yet I still can’t believe that most people wouldn’t find the dogs just as annoying as I do. If they were 400 or more feet away, then no, but they’re barely half that distance. We all have our differences as to what we find annoying and what we don’t, but I just wish I could make myself not be bothered by them! I’m not bothered by the frogs that go off when it rains and they’re just as loud. Different types of sounds don’t bother me as much, but the day we can pick and choose what sounds do/don’t annoy us will be the day we can choose what genders we’re attracted to. Or what music we like or colors or foods. I tried to brainwash myself by telling myself that the noise would make the quiet times seem all the more special, but that was a bust. I’ve spent so many years in noisy places that a million years of peace could never be taken for granted. There are worse problems in life, I also tried telling myself. True. But this is bad enough. It makes no sense to compare problems. A problem is a problem.

Tom still insists that the dogs will get better and that Mondays will just be a little confusing for them, but I disagree. Totally. I think some days will be better than others (mostly the ones I’m sleeping through), but it’s not going to get better. If anything it’s going to get worse. Remember, Jesse wants to add yet a third dog to the scene. And the puppies that he’s eventually going to give away or sell are going to be a nightmare while they’re here. That’s like half a dozen dogs I’ll have to listen to!

I wish I could know if Tom was right about the debarker working. I still don’t think it will no matter what because yes, the West is riddled with barking dogs, but this isn’t just “bad luck” that’s been following me every place I’ve lived since 1992, it’s a curse. So whatever’s cursing me with this shit isn’t going to let any debarker get in its way. But I’ve got to try something, and the thing does have a money-back guarantee.

God, who’d have ever thought our own landlord would drive at least one of us crazy?! I’m not sure what’s worse, the barking or the engine gunning, although there hasn’t been much of the latter lately. Does everybody have a noisy landlord (those that live with them)? I wanted to make one more attempt to really spell it out bluntly for the guy and ask that the dogs be moved to the other side of the house, but you know paranoid Tom. He wants to wait until we have leverage, which could be months or years away. The more time that goes on, the more I doubt he’d do anything anyway. He already knows the dogs bark when he’s gone. If he gave a damn he’d have done something about it now that he’s aware of the situation. So I was wrong in hoping he’d want to work with us since we’re the ones paying him, and he runs the risk of losing good renters for bad ones. Guess he doesn’t mind taking that risk, though. After all, aren’t those who ride motorcycles risk-takers? Besides, he’d just get Maryann to do his dirty work for him. He’d still have to deal with it if they turned out to be a problem, but she’d be the one to have to meet and screen them.

I’m so torn between staying and moving, but right now we’re stuck here and we may be for months or even years like I said before unless we want to go from bad to worse and move to a dumpy old studio apartment. No thanks!

I miss living in a real home. A real, solid home. But that hasn’t been the case since we left Arizona. Since then it’s been nothing but RVs, motels, duplexes, a cottage-like house, more motels, and now this trailer. And I’m even sicker of having shit for space. I miss so many things like having a full-size washer/dryer readily hooked up. I miss having an extra half-bath. I miss dishwashers and garbage disposals. I miss having a normal cooling system that runs through vents and has a thermostat. I miss having an extra bedroom for the computers. I only want a couch, chair, TV, the rats, some collectibles, and whatever exercise equipment we may one day get in the living room. Even the way we have to hang the bathroom towels gets old! We have to hang them on a rack that hangs on the bathroom door. I’d prefer two separate racks for each towel, but there’s no room for that with the way this bathroom is laid out.

But no house that’s around 1000-1500 square feet and even has just a washer/dryer hookup is going to be under a grand in this state. Plus we’d have to pay utilities, plus there’d be tons more dogs and a whole lot more to listen to. I’d hate to give up this privacy and I love the way people can’t drive by. So despite all the barking, which is really the only problem right now with the rest being just minor nuisances, I’m not sure that having more space, appliances, counter space, plugs and other gadgets would be worth the noise and costs. Even if he got a great job right now and we could afford something better that was bigger and newer and just nicer all around, well, quiet or not, what if he got laid off? What if he got fired? He’s only been fired once, but if it can happen once, can’t it happen twice? Maybe some other place would also decide he’s not religious enough to work for them. Or maybe he’d be too white, too old, or just not sociable enough and too damn quiet. Even if the expenses were just a couple more hundred bucks a month, we’d probably be screwed. That’s all it would’ve taken to screw us here. Just a couple more hundred a month in expenses and the unemployment and stuff we’ve pawned and sold would never have cut it.

I was still a little tired so I went back to sleep after a couple of hours and got up again after 8:00. As I came awake, I tried to recall and make note of whatever dreams I could remember. In one dream I was being fitted for prescription glasses. A young girl was about to place a pair on me and she said “smile” right before she went to put them on. I don’t know why I had to smile to get my glasses put on, but anyway, it appeared to be in a mall somewhere and it was nighttime. When I was done I waited for Tom to get the car and then he dropped me off at our house (at least I get to live in real houses in dreams) and went to run a quick errand before coming home himself. The house was dark and I started to go upstairs (yep, it had stairs) to the bathroom. Then I thought to myself, I’m too tired to go to the upstairs bathroom in the dark, I’ll use the downstairs one (wow, two bathrooms!). Why I couldn’t just turn on a light beats me. So when I woke up I was hoping it was a sign of good things to come, but then I remembered my dream self thinking that it was a rental, not a place we owned, that was just 300 dollars and 4 cents a month. Only a microscopic studio in Klamath Falls, Oregon would be that cheap!

Wow, I’ve been typing this on and off for an hour now. Time to get a bite to eat.

Ah, that was good. Roast beef, veggies, smashed potatoes. I just lit a stick of incense, too. The White Ginger, I think I grabbed. This is the one guilty pleasure that I allow myself these days. I decided to order from SOS to get more for the money rather than IG. The question is, should I get the debarker first or the incense? Well, I’m not getting anything before mid-April.

I have a new sweeping method. I’m just not winning like I used to and am beyond fed up with the comment/blog sweeps at OLS and with most of their prizes being for kids. So instead of combing through hundreds of sweeps a day to get to the few gems they have, I’m just going to take advantage of the Shazam feature there and do the dailies, weeklies and monthlies until my membership expires. In the meantime, the only newbies I’m doing there are in the ‘big prizes’ and ‘instant wins’ sections. Everything else I’m now doing at that other site. I still may not win, but the prizes are for adults and I don’t have to leave a fucking comment or review just to enter. Or say what I would pick if I won a few bucks of credit at some stupid store. The other site does have some essay and recipe contests, but you mostly fill and submit forms which is just the way I like it!

No classes for me tonight. I wanted to take a break and get some other things done around here. Besides, all hell is going to break loose in less than an hour. I can work on my story then, but not the Italian. With the Italian, I need it quiet in here. With my story, I can just throw on the sound machine and “hiss” the dogs out. It won’t kill me to miss a day of classes every now and then anyway to let past lessons sink in. My long-term memory and my eye for detail are still fantastic, but because I’m older now my ability to memorize isn’t quite as good, and sometimes it requires a few takes for things to really register. I still remember most of what I’ve learned, but I should take a break to review flashcards and study some of this whacky grammar.

I thought I hit a plateau of 130 pounds and that’s where I’d be staying so long as I didn’t get lazy or start eating like a pig, but I’m dropping again. After I first hit 129 for two days in a row, I spent two days at 131, then at 130 for over a week. Now I’m back to 129. No working out for me today, though. I woke up reminded that different workouts work different muscles and that I’m 43, not 23. That means that my hips feel like someone took a bat to them because I decided to take advantage of the cooler weather we had two days ago and run in motion as opposed to stationary. I would mix the two more often if it wasn’t so hot some of the time. I like motion running for getting it out of the way all at once, but scattered bursts of stationary running are definitely easier on my joints. I fail to remember at times that just because I’m in shape for running doesn’t mean my joints are!

Halfway through my day yesterday, which was the middle of the night, I was 50% through the beginner course with a 78% accuracy. The grammar is much harder than English and I had to redo (after I figured out how) the magnet exercises. I’m 58% done now with an 80% accuracy rate! The next lesson, plus the first part of the one after that is much easier and like learning languages should be for me - not that hard. My biggest weakness is my speech right now and my biggest strength is my spelling.

The dogs were going off right before 9am, right before I crashed. Tom, who got up at 10:00, said he only heard 5 minutes of barking in the afternoon when a hailstorm started. I know they’ll get bad again as soon as I get back on days and that thinking it was just an issue of the female being in heat was just wishful thinking, so I’m staying on nights as long as I can. There’s no way I could do the language program with them distracting me.

The two coats didn’t sell, but the other 3 complete fashions did better than expected and sold for $62 total. One’s going to Texas, the other to Ohio. One hasn’t been paid for yet so I can’t say where it’s going. Right now we have some books listed.

I am now currently 38% through the course with a 77% accuracy rate that could be a little higher had I known how to do the “magnet” test correctly in lesson one. I tried to redo it, but it wouldn’t let me. You can only review past lessons, but not redo them. So far I’ve done first nouns, negatives, adjectives, plurals, numbers, most of which I already knew, and careers, which completes Unit 1.

As fun as it is and as exciting as it is to learn, I have to remember not to overload my brain circuits with too much too fast, so I set a limit of 3 lessons a day.

As for those who review my writing, they agree the quality and grammar are good while the spelling, not surprisingly, is excellent. Yeah, I’ve always been a good speller.

The plurals and masculine/feminine tense thing drive me as batty as it does with Spanish. We describe a dog as brown or dogs as brown, but with Italian, you must pluralize descriptions if you have plural nouns that come first and it just seems like a stupid waste of time. So dogs aren’t brown, they’re browns.

There are two ways to say these and two ways to say this, and with just the last letter different in each word (questi, queste, questo, questa) it’s very easy to get confused. Same goes for words like girl, girls, boy and boys (bambina, bambine, bambino, bambini). No s’s or es’s allowed.

The more I get into it, the more I develop various strengths and weaknesses. Usually, the hardest thing to do when learning a language is to understand it being spoken, but that’s been fairly easy so far. I’m doing well with reading, listening, and with the magnet exercises which is where you drag and drop the words into a box to form a sentence after it’s spoken to you in your native language. It’s my writing and speech that are not doing so well.

I looked at their list of languages. They don’t have Hawaiian, but after I do the Italian, I thought I’d do the French in which I have a slight head start. Then I’ll do Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, then possibly Hindi and Icelandic, but I’m not sure about those two yet. That would be a dozen languages! Scary, huh? That 10-year-old back in 1975 who first heard Linda Ronstadt sing in Spanish and thought it was so beautiful that she just had to learn it will have come a long way. This ability really helps make up for the things I’ve been cursed with. It balances things out like my ear, my sleep problem and things like that. This is a definite gift from God. Just a true blessing to be able to do this as learning languages is said to be one of the hardest things a human being could ever do. I don’t expect my first non-European language to be too easy, though! I wish the grammar was the same in all languages. Then all we’d have to do was memorize the words, but I guess that kind of makes it all the more impressive if you can learn it.

I can’t believe all this is free! It’ll be interesting to see how complete it is. I can’t tell right now because as I said, there’s no jumping ahead. They do have a premium upgrade, but from what I read, I don’t want the 3 extra things you get with it, so it’s not worth the $30. Still not bad considering that most language programs are hundreds of dollars. I paid something like $120 for the Spanish books and records I got when I first moved out on my own. Anyway, you get feedback from certified tutors, but I already get enough feedback from native speakers, some of whom are certified tutors. You get MP3 downloads for when you’re away from your desk, but if I’m not at my desk, it’s cuz I’m busy doing something else. Lastly, you get live group tutoring sessions and you know I hate “classes” of any kind and that I do better when I teach myself which is what I prefer anyway so I can go at my own pace.

Just like it’s good to keep physically active, learning is a good way to keep the brain active, and believe me, learning 50-100 new words a day will do just that! I could enroll in more than one course at once but have decided to do one language at a time.

I’ve been neglecting my story and workouts since being directed to this site, but I’ll make sure I divvy up my time better starting tomorrow and get back to all my usual things. The only thing I cut back on is the sweeps. There are just too few good ones these days and too much competition. I do, however, make sure I enter the biggies and the instants. Instants are time-stamped so the number of entrants doesn’t affect the odds.

I slept till 7pm and Tom said it was quiet all day which doesn’t surprise me. Had I been up all day the dogs probably would’ve gone ballistic. It was cold and rainy so Jesse didn’t even go out on the motorcycle.

I dreamt that Tom was talking on the phone to someone about a potential job. Then I later listened to a message left by whoever he had spoken to earlier saying that she had an 18-year-old with two kids to consider as well. I then thought, oh great. There goes his chance of getting the job since people are hired based more on their personalities and personal lives rather than their qualifications.

I also dreamt that we were living somewhere in the mid-eastern part of the country. Tom said we should move up to New Jersey to be far enough below New York in order to avoid the crowds there, but high enough above the Florida crowds, and I insisted I didn’t want to move there because it was too cold.

Ok, I’m off to report to class!

After working all week, Jesse’s decided to spend Friday night out, leaving us to deal with the barking. Tom says he was surprised that they didn’t go crazy today what with all the activity around here. Yeah, I knew I was due to be woken up anytime now since it had been a while. And why is it always 4 hours into my sleep? Did I kill someone in their fourth hour of sleep in a previous life or something? God, I hate that number!

Anyway, I awoke to a fierce vibration around 11:00 and at first we couldn’t figure out what it was. We only knew it was a helicopter of some kind, and every time it would fly over it would hover nearby for a while. My first thought was that someone escaped from jail or prison or had just done something and they were hunting for them. Then I got hit with paranoia and worried my ex-tormenters were up to a few of their old tricks and it was us they were scouting out.

Then it flew on and Tom went to Goodwill to see if they had anything worth selling on eBay (they didn’t). Then I heard the helicopter return and hover in back. I got up and looked out the bathroom window and that’s when I saw linemen climbing the power tower up on the summit. It turns out that the helicopter was airlifting supplies and parts in for them to do whatever they were doing. I was amazed they didn’t cut the power, but Tom later told me that that tower doesn’t supply electricity here but to other towns. It was really frustrating because they kept coming and going every few minutes. I wasn’t sure they’d let me get back to sleep, but I was too tired to be functional in any way so I jammed an earplug in my good ear and that helped. It didn’t block the vibrant rumbling, but it blocked the non-vibrant sounds.

Breaking up my sleep ended up pushing my schedule ahead 4 hours and causing me to wake up immensely hungry. So hungry that I knew that having a little something wouldn’t cut it. It ended up taking 1100 calories to curb my hunger that’s how famished I was!

I love the language site and it’s really cool how people review my lessons and praise what I get right and correct what I screw up. At first I wasn’t keen on the idea of having to play review for others, but it only takes a minute and I appreciate the help I get in return so I help when they request it.

It took me a while to get the hang of how it works, but now that I’m familiar with it, it’s really amazing software! I wish I learned Spanish this way. It has a good variety of teaching techniques. You hear words, you match pictures to words, you type, you speak. Only my microphone isn’t working right now so I have to submit a blank audio file. I wish I could skip the spoken part altogether, but it won’t let you advance to the next lesson if you do. With this program, there’s no jumping around, no cutting corners, no cheating. If you feel the need to do that then you shouldn’t be learning languages anyway.

I can also save flashcards.

So now I’m a few dozen Italian words smarter. Yippee! I’ve completed the first 4 lessons of Unit 1’s beginner level. You put in your levels for the languages you know. You choose from beginner, intermediate, advanced, fluent and native. I consider my Spanish to be advanced. I don’t consider myself as fluent as a native. I had to laugh when Tom said I speak what Italian I’ve learned so far with a Spanish accent. Yeah, it’s hard to break that habit, alright. During the written part when I’d sometimes forget new words, my mind would automatically want to fill in the blanks in Spanish or apply Spanish pronunciation. Either way, if someone had told me as a kid, even in my early 20s, that I’d one day learn Italian while living in California and receiving help from Italians in Italy, some of which are real certified teachers, I’d have laughed my ass off!

Italian plurals are definitely harder than Spanish plurals. With Spanish, you usually just add an s or es to the ends of words, but with Italian, you practically change the whole word! Or at least the last part of it.

I thought the only European languages were English, Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese, but then Tom pointed out others like German. That’s right, it would be a European language considering where Germany is located. I can’t bring myself to learn any language I find ugly, and personally, I find German to be pretty ugly.

For random thoughts, I’m sick of some people having large families! It only adds to the population crisis, and drains more resources that are getting more scarce and precious by the minute, and well, kids aren’t something you “collect,” you know? So what’s wrong with just one or two if you’ve got to have them?

Well, I may be forever stuck around 130 pounds, but I’ve officially begun learning Italian! I posted a thread on OLS asking if anyone knew of any good sites that were free. The first response I got suggested going to the library. Then someone directed me to LiveMocha which seems promising. A little complicated till you get used to it but definitely promising. The only thing I don’t like is that it’s also a social network where you help each other learn, but you don’t have to utilize that part of it.

They don’t have a convenient way of letting you learn multiple languages at once, so I’ll just do the Italian. Then, since they don’t have Hawaiian, I’ll probably re-register and learn more French and then maybe tackle the Japanese.

Anyway, I’m excited to get on with my lessons!

Io sono grassa (I am fat).

Not as many flies today, though we still had some.

Tom’s feet are much better and he’s finally starting to lose weight. He thinks his feet were aggravated by lack of exercise and too much weight gain. He learned by accident that going meatless helps him to lose weight. He ran out of hotdogs and Bologna a few days ago and noticed a significant drop since then. As for myself, I could never give up meat. It wouldn’t do me any good anyway. For me, it’s all in the calories. I think I’m going to be forever stuck around 130 pounds without near-starvation in my upcoming menus, but oh well.

The dogs are continuing to be wonderfully quiet, and yes, Jesse does appear to have returned to work. His truck wasn’t up there when Tom came and went, and I know we wouldn’t have gone two days without hearing the motorcycle in weather such as we’ve had. So I guess it was a heat issue.

By the open bathroom window earlier this afternoon I could hear hammering at the freeloaders’ place, so I guess they did move and now it’s just a matter of time before we have to deal with whatever replaces them. Tom says he thinks it was coming from one of the places next to them, so we’ll see. I do see a light on back there now which I wouldn’t think would be on if it were empty, so who knows for sure? I’m just glad there hasn’t been any shooting and that the dogs haven’t been roaming around loose. This is why I think they moved at some point. I just can’t believe they’d quit their shit out of the goodness of their hearts. They wouldn’t have given us any shit in the first place if they gave a damn about others.

Out of curiosity, I check Facebook every now and then to see if any new names pop up I’m familiar with or if any that disappeared have reappeared. I don’t know if it means anything but there are two new James Ss in Phoenix, one with the middle initial of M, which appears to be Stacey’s James’ middle initial.

Interesting. Hmm… do they want something from me?

Jesse couldn’t have returned to work today. It was too quiet. The longer he stays out, though, the quieter it will be and the sooner we’ll have the extra money for the debarker.

The only thing that doesn’t fit with him being home is the lack of motorcycle activity. Why wouldn’t he have gone out on the motorcycle at least once if he wasn’t working today? The weather was gorgeous. And why no 6:00 barking which is when he seems to bring the kid home? And if he still intends to bulldoze down here, why wouldn’t he have taken advantage of the free time and good weather we had today? Tom thinks he did work when I just asked him his opinion. Well, I hope he’s right cuz if so, then those dogs caught on unbelievably fast this time around! He’s also pretty sure the chaos was mostly over the female being in heat. Well, Harley man up there better fix that bitch good as soon as she drops! And yes, I’d still like one of the puppies. At least I’m pretty sure I would. With Tom having had his own dogs, he would know how to care for it. I only lived with dogs as a kid and they were my parents’ dogs. Those were poodles.

I wish Tom could get a job! Not just for more money and insurance (although I wouldn’t count on the insurance), but because I miss having the house to myself at times! Even those who get along with who they live with like to have space at times, you know? But month after month he’s always been right there. That’s the only part that may get old when he finally does retire. I get up, he’s here. I shower, he’s here. I work out, he’s here. I work on the computer, he’s here. I eat, he’s here. I go to sleep, he’s here. Yet if he’s gone this long without being able to find anything, I doubt he’s going to anytime soon. Thank God the unemployment was extended!

We’ve been invaded by flies, having to kill over half a dozen a day. A while back there was this foul odor in the bathroom. I thought it was coming from the pipes or something as it had a very septic-like smell to it. Now we’re thinking a mouse died somewhere under the bathroom near an opening and that’s the reason for all the flies. We may have to bomb since there’s no way to tell exactly where they’re coming from.

The last round of incense I won is on its way. This time I chose Angel, Hugo Boss and Magnolia, as opposed to Chocolate, Brown Sugar and Fast Cash. It’ll be interesting to see what other goodies he throws in.

Last night’s dream was strange, but it was a house dream, so strange or not I hope that’s a good sign! It seemed to be on some land somewhere as opposed to a retirement community, and about as big as our last house in Arizona. But what was strange was that there were not only houses kind of close by, but we were renting it out first because we couldn’t yet move into it ourselves for some reason. I just remember telling the people not to poke too many holes in the walls with decorations, and no kids were allowed to be around either. LOL

Again I woke up at the same weight. Maybe that’s because I made myself exercise after all yesterday.

Jesse came down today with his boy in an old dumpy car we’d never seen before to give us notices the power company left about them turning the power off Saturday night. So that was scheduled maintenance work that they did. But why the notices now and not before they turned it off?

He said he should be returning to work tomorrow, and I said something about the dogs letting us know this. Then he said, “Yeah, they’ll bark,” and I’m thinking, gee, you may as well add that you don’t give a shit whether we like it or not. But instead, he said he “tries” to keep them quiet. How can you leave them outdoors, take off, then say you try to keep them quiet? It’s obvious to me that between the barking and our ignored requests to be called before coming down for non-emergencies, the guy’s just a typical self-centered person who couldn’t care less about others.

Tom assures me they’ll settle into the routine of Jesse being gone during the daytime, but I don’t know about that. If it does, it’s not going to happen overnight. After all, he did work in November and December as far as we could tell and it was bad the whole time. The female being in heat may’ve been part of the problem, but either way, I’m sure it will be quite a circus until we either get the debarker or move if it doesn’t work and he refuses to move them in back or inside the house altogether.

God, I wish we could just move to a retirement community! NOW!

I’m not sure why he’s got his kid here for a few hours each day, but I guess maybe the mother works late or something.

We listed a handful of doll fashions on eBay yesterday. Two coats, a bodysuit and jeans outfit, a gold pant, vest and jacket set, and a ballroom gown. So far they’ve all got watchers but no bids.

There’s nothing like the sight and sound of the power coming on. Especially after you went without it for 7 hours. It went out at 10:00 last night. When it didn’t come back on in 15 minutes, we called up to Jesse and woke him up (haha). He said he had power which was a little disheartening. Especially when we could see that the mansion on the hill had lights on and our breakers hadn’t appeared to be tripped in any way. This made us think something happened where the electricity splits between our place and his which could mean that something broke that may not be quick and easy to fix. But then when Jesse got up and we called him back a little later, he said that no, he didn’t have power and could see that the neighbors above him didn’t have any either, so he called the power company.

From there on out, all we could do was wait. Tom fell asleep shortly after verifying that it wasn’t just us, but I lay around bored for a while. My iPod was dead so I couldn’t listen to music. I was about to fall asleep when I realized that if the power came on after I fell asleep, the place would be alive and jumping as things tried to play catch up and I would be woken up to the sounds of the heater, the water tank, the water dispenser, the refrigerator, and the lights coming on, so I made sure the bedroom light switch was off. Then I ran the sound machine on batteries. It was 63º when I crashed.

It was still dark when I woke up to pee and then could see by the clock radio that was flashing that the power was back on, so that made me happy. Then I fell back asleep till noon when Tom said he woke up cold right before 5:00 which was when the power came back on. It had gotten down to 58º in here.

I had been worried about our food spoiling, especially the dairy products, and the auctions getting fouled up, and my sleep too, although Tom does have an inverter that would’ve allowed us to get online for a half-hour if need be. We have 3 days to get the stuff shipped out from the time they pay, we just wouldn’t have been able to answer any questions we may’ve gotten too easily. Anyway, Tom laughed and said, “That’s what you do.” He pointed to the rat and said, “He begs, you worry.”

We are now officially out of the desperate zone after making nearly $300 to date in eBay sales! We were certainly semi-desperate anyway. Another doll is going to Tennessee, and that’s Angelina. Just when we thought Tyler wouldn’t sell, someone in New Mexico grabbed her at the very last minute. The teal dress is going to New York, the blue dress to North Carolina, and the red dress is dropping down to San Diego.

The dog situation here is never going to improve on its own, so here’s what I’ve tentatively decided to do about it. Sometime in May, we should be able to get the debarker. If that doesn’t work from down here, we’ll ask Jesse to put it up by his place. If that fails to work, or he says no, then we’ll look into moving as soon as we can afford to. I figure noise is noise, so if we’re going to have to listen to it anyway until and if we can get into a retirement community, why not do it in a bigger, newer place that just might have room for a full-size washer and dryer?

Meanwhile, do I still want a dog of our own even though it sucks that we don’t have an enclosed yard for it? Yes, I do. If I’ve got to listen to the barking everywhere we go, why not have some of it be our own for a change? And like I said before, it would be nice to have a pet that lived longer than two years, even though we don’t know for sure that we’ll even get offered one.

It’s not that I dislike Jesse’s dogs, it’s that I don’t like him leaving them outside 24/7 and annoying me when he leaves. When he’s here they rarely bark. It’s when he goes out that they can be a problem, and like everyone in the world but us, he’s in and out a lot lately. He’s gone from always being home to hardly ever being home.

Tom’s going to be paying the pawnshop $70 to extend his Mac and TV for another few months, but I don’t think he’s going to get them back. I think he’s just paying $70 so that they can sell them for over a grand. I hope I’m wrong, though!

I ended up being the same weight I woke up at yesterday, but tomorrow I’ll definitely be up because I’m being naughty and lazy today and am getting watery as I do before my period. I just don’t have the energy to work out today and I need a break from the dieting every now and then. So I’ll just deal with the two pounds or so it’ll set me back to.

Right now I’m pissed at Tom for lying to Jesse – or starting to until I came out and contradicted him –by saying “no” when he asked if the dogs ever barked all day. All had been fine until then as Jesse had obviously done something to lessen it when Tom first mentioned it to him over the phone, but now things are back to the way they have been with the on-and-off barking sprees, some lasting too long for comfort. Now that Tom’s made me look like a complete idiot, I can’t say anything about it now and be believed. Now he’s got Jesse all confused by not telling the truth as to the extent of the barking.

Why is he so kissy-ass when it comes to neighbors?! It really frustrates me! And when am I going to learn to do things my way and stop giving in to him? I wanted to slip Jesse a note months ago and I stupidly let him talk me out of it. Now, though, if I try to tell Jesse it’s bad again, he’s not going to know who to believe. Sure, there’s still a chance he may not have given a damn anyway. He may’ve very well come out and said, “It’s my place, my dogs, so if you don’t like it, leave,” but Tom playing things down shoots any chance of him caring enough to do something now.

My first thought was to hell with getting a puppy if we’re offered one! I spend so much time trying not to have to listen to other people’s dogs, so why would I want to listen to my own? On the other hand, if I just let it bark and bark and bark right outside here, it’d make other dogs seem like nothing. Hey, why not? No one would mind. How could they when they’re all doing the same thing; letting their dogs bark.

I should’ve known better than to sweat my schedule over Jesse and that “tomorrow” really means weeks or even months from now because he hasn’t been down with the bulldozer.

We had some warmer weather, but it’s going to rain again soon.

Still nothing in the way of wins, but this really comes as no surprise when 80% of the prizes are for kids. Freddie, a regular on OLS that everyone loves who is in a wheelchair and a computer wizard who helps anyone who needs it, sent me a link to another sweeps site. Although I didn’t like the layout as much and it didn’t have a Shazam feature to open multiple sweeps at once, it looks very promising. Most of the prizes are for adults, and if things don’t change by November when my subscription expires at OLS, I am not renewing. As Freddie said, the MODS think it’s funny as hell posting 5 pages a day of blog sweeps, but a lot of members don’t think it is and so they’re not renewing their subscriptions. Well, I know I’m not renewing mine if things don’t change, and I doubt they’d be this way this long if they cared enough to change things. Until Brent, who everybody hates, starts giving a damn about his members, he’s just going to keep losing them. When the money starts dwindling, then maybe he’ll care. All I know is that I didn’t join OLS for designer burp cloths, I didn’t join to leave comments or reviews, and I didn’t join for “friends” either. They’re not MySpace, Facebook or Kiwibox! Yet they’re fast becoming little more than a social site for moms. This other site is just a sweep site for all. They do have forums, offers and ads because it’s free, but it’s still a lot like the old OLS, the one I happily joined 4 years ago. So unless it too, changes at any point, I’ll be going over there at the end of the year. I don’t need a Shazam feature so much anymore since I quit wasting my time doing tons and tons of dailies.

I just talked to Tom and he said they were talking about two different things. He said Jesse was asking if they barked all day during the last week. I thought he meant before that. Either way, we’re not escaping the barking curse anytime soon, so we may as well get our own and join the club.

Now I’m even more pissed at myself for fucking up my diet today. I had around 1600 calories so I’ll be up tomorrow, even though I exercised, and even if it’s only by half a pound. Why am I so damn hungry some days?! I want so badly to try to puke up what I just ate, but Tom is always here!

Later…

The cure for the 600 extra calories I mentioned having in my last entry was to run a total of an hour. I usually do 20-30 minutes a day. But after getting carried away, I decided that rather than sit around and mope about it, I’d do an additional half-hour run and I did. My feet were a little hot, red and sore afterward, but I just rubbed lotion into them and then they were fine. I actually got more protests from my hips, but they’re fine now too, sitting down, resting comfortably. So that was about a 3-mile run altogether today, maybe a little more, and about a 600-cal burn.

Jesse came back on the motorcycle around 7:00 and I haven’t heard anything since. The last fit they took, which was the only one that was really annoying because it lasted more than just a few seconds, was because some other dog went off and stirred them up. I just worry that it’s going to be bad again.

Anyway, Angelina now has two bids, but Tyler still doesn’t have any. We’ll just have to see what happens in 19 hours when it ends.

Still no bids for the Tyler doll, but everything else has bids. Little red doll dresses are quite popular on eBay!

Well, this may be a good thing, but nothing’s guaranteed yet. Right after I got up (I’m glad he waited till then) Jesse bulldozed the drive. The rains have created ruts in the steeper areas and so he’s smoothing things out. Yeah, I figured that with him still out of work and the weather warming up and drying things out he’d have a hard time sitting still, but at least there hasn’t been any wild engine gunning, as tame as that was compared to how bad the dogs had gotten.

So he came down to let us know he’d be bulldozing and weeding around our place since weeds are a fire hazard around here in the summer. This is going to take a few days, so I wish my schedule wasn’t quite where it’s at right now. I wish I were getting up early in the morning, but instead I’ve been getting up late in the morning.

Sure enough, he’s also going to have to touch up the porch roof because it leaks in some spots. I don’t think he’ll be doing that anytime soon, since the rains should be pretty much done till the fall.

I thanked him for whatever it was he did to calm the dogs down, saying it’s been great the last week, so I guess Mr. Harley Man is smarter than I gave him credit for and he did “get it” when Tom mentioned the increase in barking over the last few months. When Jesse went to ask if they were barking all day when he was out, it was like Tom wanted to play it down, but I told him the truth and that sometimes they would, but reminded him that it’s been great lately.

He hasn’t seen the renters’ dogs and wonders if they’ve moved. That’s what I sometimes wonder myself since I haven’t seen them and there hasn’t been any shooting, although I swear I sometimes hear a dog in back there that sounds like one of them. I’m just glad they stopped trespassing on this land!

Anyway, I asked if his female dog was pregnant yet and he said she is. Then I asked what he was going to do with the puppies and he said he was hoping for a brown one (the female’s mostly black, the male mostly brown), and that he may sell some but we could have one if we wanted.

At first I was a little alarmed at the idea of him having 3 dogs for fear of it being a real circus up there, but Tom feels certain it won’t be.

As for us getting one, well, I guess it’s up to fate at this point. Yes, I would like to have a pet that lived longer than 2-3 years like rats do, but not if it’s going to interfere with my sleep. I think we could probably work with it somehow. Like maybe we could put it outdoors when I’m asleep or when we’re out. I like that it’s a medium-sized dog. Not too big to be scary, but not so small you gotta worry about stepping on it.

Not much in the way of dreams last night. I deleted my ‘dream’ journal because I can’t always remember my dreams, and some are too hard to really describe. So I guess I’ll just write whatever dreams I do remember and that isn’t too vague to put into words.

I came home from some job in the late afternoon, again miraculously able to keep a schedule. The only bad thing was that it appeared to be an apartment in the middle of a strip of apartments that I was living in. I had a cat that greeted me as soon as I arrived. I was happy to see it and I thought about how I could get used to the routine I was currently living.

I keep thinking about this puppy thing. Yeah, the idea is kinda growing on me. Is there a baby doggy growing right now for us? Hmmm… Well, if we’re meant to have one, we will. I hope it works out! If the average dog lives 15 years, then I’d be 58 when it died. That’s a long time compared to rats! Also, if we ever went away somewhere, I would think Jesse would be ok with looking out for it. Then if we ever bought a house in a retirement community, we’d have to work something else out, but that’s quite a ways down the road and may never even happen. It still might be worth it if it’s a good pet that’s going to live quite a while.

I guess it’s likely that we’ll at least be offered one since it’s unlikely the dog would have just one puppy, and he didn’t seem to have anyone else in mind to give them to. These would be the perfect rats to break a dog in with since they’re too destructive to be allowed to run around loose anyway. It’s not like we could never have other rats if we wanted to, we’d just have to keep them separate from the dog. I would make sure I still gave these rats enough attention to let them know their mommy still loves them. Well, one of them anyway. Bendejo is still way less sociable than Puerco.

As for the barking, we’d not only still get that debarker device, but it would be less stressful with our own dog barking than someone else’s. It’s like with music. Most people would rather hear their own as opposed to someone else’s. With your own pets/music you know what’s going on and you have more control over the situation.

If we do get one, I suppose it will be months from now. According to my online research, dogs are usually pregnant for 60 days. Then I would think they’d need to nurse for at least another 60 days.

Not a whole lot going on right now. All I can say is that it’s been dead quiet save for a saw off in the distance that didn’t last long. Jesse’s truck wasn’t up there when Tom went to pick up the mail, so maybe he was out with the dogs.

I dreamt last night that the gays lost their appeal to have Prop Hate overturned (I hope that wasn’t a premonition!), then I was at some camp that my parents seemed to have sent me to near some beach, even though I was an adult. I was amazingly able to keep a schedule too, and was apparently having lots of fun at this place, despite the hordes of people and strict schedule and structured routine. To make it even more interesting, one of the camp counselors seemed to like me, although I wasn’t very attracted to her in return.

Then it was off to another dream I could do without. No, not my tormentors from Arizona, and no motels, but we were living in either a duplex or an apartment of some kind. I went to fetch something from a closet and was startled to find that there was a gateway leading to the adjacent unit in the very back of the closet. It was a very long, narrow space that stemmed from the back wall of the closet, but a thin person could easily squeeze through it if they wanted to. I was suddenly alarmed at the thought of someone from the other side coming through to our side, but then I looked and saw that there was a lock on the closet door. I just needed to be careful what I put in there, I told myself.

Once again discouraged by the lack of wins, I haven’t done much sweeping today, though I am on quite a roll with my current story.

Yesterday we never heard one single bark. Today, we heard a few barks after Jesse left on the motorcycle, but that’s it. They are getting better at not carrying on for too long, but I still wish we didn’t have to hear them at all. I’d settle for just once a week, though. When I went to hang towels right after Jesse left, I yelled up at them to be quiet and they stopped. Plus, Tom was out there rearranging the shed, so I think they felt less alone knowing people were close by.

Tom’s ankle is better today and the swelling in his feet went down after spending a couple of hours organizing things while I cleaned the living room, changed the rats’ cage, and did some laundry. It acted up a bit after he got off his feet, though. He may have problems with his feet, but at least he’s gone the longest without a cold since I’ve known him! Like over a year now.

He also dropped the doll off at the post office so it was a productive day. It’s nice to have the living room less cluttered now that our eBay endeavor is slowly winding down. All we really have left to sell at the moment is a few more fashions, some books, and maybe some turquoise.

The propane guy amazed us by coming today, so that’s one less thing to have to worry about for about 6-8 weeks.

It got warm enough to keep the heat off for the day, but not enough to open windows. The car is so shiny and clean after all the rain that’s been dumped on it.

Poor Tom is in pain right now. His feet are still mysteriously swollen, and when he was out running errands today he felt a pop at one point in one foot, and now he can hardly walk. We tried soaking his feet in warm water and massaging them after putting ice on them, but it hasn’t helped. He’s decided that come next Walmart run in about 10 days, he’ll try an over-the-counter water pill if it’s not better by then. He thinks it may have to do with varicose veins, a problem his dad had. I just hope it doesn’t hinder his getting a job should that opportunity ever arise!

In less than a week since my last drop to 130 pounds, I am now officially in the 120s! Barely, but I’m there. I woke up at 129.8. I’d say it’s definitely the change in exercise regimen that’s accelerated things. In a few weeks when we have extra money, I’ll dye my hair and take pics. So that’s 18 pounds down but at least 19 more to go!

All has been quiet so far today, but since I usually jinx myself when I write that, I don’t want to get into it much.

Let’s see…what else? I sort of missed posting daily entries on Kiwi and all the cool colors that go with that at their site, so I started back up with it. I figure that sometimes I’ll post there often and sometimes I won’t. It’ll depend on what’s going on.

We’ve been cleaning around here and trying to organize things. We don’t want to spend the $12 right now to take things to the dump while we’re this broke, so instead, he just took in some recyclables and got $9 for it. I just wish he wasn’t here so much! He’s always here and that makes it hard for me to concentrate on certain things and it gets old having him in the way when I’m trying to clean. In most rooms, it’s not an issue, but in this tiny place, there are only so many other places he can go to get out of my way.

He also called the propane company and they said they’ll be out tomorrow or the next day which really means the end of the week or beginning of next.

Sydney’s going to New York tomorrow.