The good news is that I passed Portuguese 102 with a 90%. The bad is that the cooler weather is ALREADY inviting more barking. I was hoping the peace would last another month or two, but nope. And as always, we’re the ones to have to deal with it. If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that rural is just as bad as the city when it comes to barking. Especially if you live in the West where most people don’t believe dogs belong indoors.

I’m wondering if Jesse left town late Sunday night. There were scattered barks every couple of hours beginning around 10pm which I would think would be unusual for when he’s home, then it got rather consistent at 4am on out until I crashed in the late morning. So if he didn’t leave Sunday night, then he left for work at 4:00. I can’t believe there’d be that much barking if he were there. Also, Brandy and the puppy were loose and came down here. This seemed to be part of what was stirring up Whiskey, who did most of the barking, as usual. We know he lets them loose when he’s home, but why he’s letting them loose when he’s not, beats me, unless it’s really a family member that let them loose. But either way, why complain that the renters let their dogs loose if you’re just going to do the same thing yourself? Our guess is that he trusts them more than he should and doesn’t realize they come down here. Whether they’re loose or not, though, they’re going to be a problem till next spring when the weather warms back up again, so I’m keeping the air cleaner turned up in the living room, the stove’s fan on in the kitchen, and music or the sound machine on in the bedroom. And of course I’ll also have to go back to being limited as to when I can do things that require a quiet background like studying languages. It really sucks to have to live this way since others won’t take responsibility for their own fucking dogs, but if we can’t get any peace in a stand-alone trailer that’s at least a couple hundred feet from the nearest neighbor, where CAN we get it? Do we really have to go to a place like Florida to escape this shit?

So the plan was to call Jesse and let him know the dogs were loose, just in case he either didn’t know or didn’t know just how far they travel. But when Tom went to leave for the store, planning to call when he came back, he heard voices up there. On his way back, he saw all 3 dogs tied up. The puppy barked at him, but the others didn’t. So someone was up there at some point, but we don’t know who. Tom didn’t see his truck at all, so I’m guessing he’s out of town and probably doesn’t know that whoever’s coming to check on things is turning Brandy and the puppy loose. We don’t mind them being loose because they move about quietly, but their taking off stirs Whiskey up because he doesn’t like being left alone. If we see them again down here we’ll call Jesse and try to see what’s going on.

Again I just don’t get why he doesn’t throw up a fence around his place. He certainly can afford it. That way he’d never have to tie the dogs up, but they’d never be loose either, which is against the law. Yes, there are leash laws even out in the country. Whatever the hell the case may be, though, I don’t need to be a dog expert to know that yesterday was no isolated incident. I know the dogs are going to be a regular problem again, not for days, nor for weeks, but for months. They obviously have cycles. Between whoever complained about them before we got here and the barking sprees they went on over the winter makes that obvious enough to see. I think it’s a combination of cooler temps and being left alone so much that stirs them up. We’ve warmed back up into the 90s and will be there for a few days, so maybe that’ll back it off a bit. As soon as it got cold enough at night to have to turn the fan off, shut the window and throw on something with sleeves, it got bad. But right now it’s nearly 2am and I’m sitting here in a g-string with the window open, the fan on, and it’s a dry, comfy 80º in here. I swear anything under 80º is too cold! Especially where the summers are so dry. But it’ll be cold, rainy and miserably noisy soon enough.

I know I should be glad we escaped the car stereos, the wild kids, and the constant coming and going of vehicles just a few feet away, but the thought of possibly having to scrape pennies to the tune of barking for another 30-40 years really makes me want to scream. I don’t get depressed easily. I get pissed. I get energyless. I get bored. But I can see where too many more years of this shit could certainly get me there.

Tom keeps saying I’m wrong. We will have money, we will own a home again, and barking won’t be an issue.

Is he naïve? Blind? Or just obsessed with disagreeing? I wish I COULD be wrong! But I think we’ll be poor all our lives, always renting old dumps to the tune of barking, and I don’t think his program will regularly generate money whether it’s a few bucks or a few hundred bucks. I think he’s just always been overly optimistic.

Looks like the drama queen is playing with me on FB. I suddenly get 2 friend requests from 2 newbies with strange Asian names, BOTH males, BOTH born in April, BOTH born in the 60s, BOTH have just one other friend, BOTH with Gmail accounts! Is that what Tammy meant when she said, “If only you knew what will be in your future?” There’s no other info on these people at all. I can’t even tell where they are. No state or country is listed for them, but I don’t know. Maybe it’s not connected to her. Or a certain black, Jew-hating psycho that once tormented me and ruled my life. If it is, though, then what’s the point? I have a public profile, so you don’t have to be “a friend” to see my shit.