I got to talk to Eileen today! We were going to chat on Friday, but then she emailed me and asked if I was available to chat at the moment. When I caught the email an hour later, I turned the ringer on.

After more than 3 decades it was nice to connect and hear each other’s voices as she said. We didn’t talk long, though, which was ok since I’m not big on phones anyway. I let her know, though, that as soon as I get Magic Jack installed, I’ll get the number to her.

We basically talked about our interests and what was going on in our lives. She and her husband are actually renting the place they’re in now. They have a 3-year lease. I guess they’re a little unsure of where they want to settle since they have their sons in MA and their daughter in CT.

She’s getting a mini pincher and looking forward to getting the girls hiking at the school she’s on the board of chairmen. Or trying to anyway. As we both agree, it’s hard to pull people away from their PCs these days. That’s one reason I make it a point to work out; not just because I’ll gain weight if I don’t and cuz I hate being out of shape, but because I do spend so much time sitting at my own PC.

She sounded so foreign after not hearing those northeastern accents for the last 18 years, LOL.

D and I agree the new Firefox is way cool with its skins and all that. I’ve got girly pink flowers on now, something I doubt my more tomboyish counterpart has herself.

I guess bad memories still get D down at times, not that I myself don’t know what that’s like. She said that knowing she’s got me to look forward to seeing someday really helps pull her out of those gloomy ruts, and it’s quite an honor to know I can help cheer her up like that. As I told her, though, all those people that harmed us are just a nasty memory. They can never hurt us again. They’re just nightmares like those spider nightmares I have (I told her about the one where the more I sprayed bug spray on them the more they’d just multiply instead of die, and sure enough, she got a kick out of it like I knew she would, LOL).

I myself feel I’ve been happier overall, not that I don’t still have my moments where I wish certain things had turned out differently or just hadn’t happened at all.

Anyway, she went to work not too long ago and will say hi on her break as she sometimes does.

I joined this site in the UK for writers that Paul recommended. Even though it’s UK-based, it’s open to other countries as well. It’s like Bookmania was, but runs much better. You can submit stories, journals, poems and things like that and see how people critique them. I’ll only be there for a couple of weeks because I’m not paying the $20 fee they ask for in order for you to stay on afterward. No one’s opinion is THAT valuable to me!

I guess story submission days are only Mondays and Fridays. I sent Paul a message there and asked him about it. It’s 3am there now, so I’m sure he’s asleep.

Jesse surprised me by not coming down here since it was sunny today and it’s been a few weeks since he’s been down, but I wasn’t surprised that he made a bit of a racket, though it wasn’t for long. Just the usual engine-gunning thing he loves to do. Barking and engine-gunning are pretty much the two main things we hear from him. He apparently didn’t work today and I don’t think he worked yesterday, since it was quiet when I went into the bathroom to pee at 5:30. I know he worked Monday, though, cuz the barking was pretty fierce when I was in there between 7:00 and 8:00.

Although they said the snow level was to be pretty low last night and maybe even reach us down here in the foothills, it never did snow, much to my delight.

It’s still weird to stand in the middle of this place and see tons of shit I won back in my sweeping days. From the car and shed outside the window to the furniture and electronics inside – the two iMacs, the color laser printer, the big screen hi-def TV, etc. Maybe someday this former sweeper turned turker can do it all again.

They extended our benefits throughout the year which is nice but would be even nicer if the job market picked up, even though it’s quite possible that Tom could retire in as little as 5 years if the cookie crumbles just right. Things are really starting to line up in our favor for a change.

Ok, off goes happy little me to start dinner, rich in love, cyberfriends and material things, but poor in money (not for long, though, if all goes as well as it has been going).

Later…

In reality, I don’t want to ever move long-distance again after the shit we went through the last two times we did. Even moving to Arizona myself could be a bit disastrous at times, but it definitely didn’t compare to the moves to Oregon and Cali.

Yet Florida still appeals to me in many ways. It would suck having to use air conditioning only and never evaporative coolers, but otherwise it might be fun and definitely warmer, especially in the winter.

I think that the desert is the best place to be for the spring and fall, this place is the best to be in the summer, Florida would be best for the winter, and of course Oregon and New England are best for absolutely nothing!

Just when I thought I was safe, a not-so-itsy-bitsy spider went climbing up the wall by my computer. Tom was like, calm down, we just bombed, it’d die soon enough. But it’s never soon enough for me!

I still can’t believe there are tarantulas in this area. Learning that did NOT make my day.

Well, I can take some solace in knowing that most people have more to fear at night than I do. Spiders are nocturnal, but so are rats and mice. And most people fear all three!