How nice (and a bit surprising) it was to hear from Christiane again. We’ve been talking about various climates and how we both want to live in a tropical climate someday.

I must’ve jinxed myself when I wrote how glad I was that the troll hasn’t been playing peeping Tom on me or pestering me, cuz she was in my blog last night. :( The fact that she landed on a post that starts off welcoming Aly back to MO (remember, Aly’s the root of her obsession) leads me to believe she jumped in from Facebook. I’m not surprised. The nutjob creates new FB accounts faster than we can block them. So for the sake of protecting my friends who she can link to through their comments on my posts, it’s back to friends of friends on Facebook instead of public. I’m not saying she’s going to go back to pestering my friends. But she’s done it many times before so I didn’t think it would hurt to take precautions. I’m not changing settings on any other site, though. Anonymous comments on my blog and Ask are still allowed.

Tom saw a fire that looked like the mountainside was ablaze on his way home from work yesterday. Fortunately, it’s not too close (though it is somewhat close) and we shouldn’t be in danger but man does this place reek of smoke! It’s been that way since last night when the winds picked up. I just hope to hell they get the damn thing under control before it can spread any further! Not even incense is masking the damn smokiness. I haven’t had any nightmares signaling impending danger ahead, so hopefully we’ll be ok.

Tom and I didn’t “go home” last night in my dreams but we did go cruising.

Finally busted a nail when housecleaning yesterday, so I cut that, plus the one next to it that had a snag in it. I almost hacked them all off but decided to wait.

Later...

I can see him. I can see my dad as clearly as if he were here in this room with me even though I haven’t seen him since 1997. The tanned, weathered skin from the Florida sun sprinkled with age spots. The rings and bracelets he regularly wore. His warm smile, gray hair, and the hazel eyes I myself once had till the damn things went green on me in my early 20s.

It still blows my mind at times to know I can never see him again. Never hear his voice. Never receive any cards or notes from him, even though he was like most people and not into writing. I’ll never call him up to share good news with him or cry on his shoulder when times get tough. He is forever gone until and if we meet again in the afterlife that may or may not exist. None of us can know for sure till our own time comes.

The smoke has cleared so I’m assuming either the wind has shifted or they got the fire under control. I’m just glad, whatever the reason.

I chatted with most of my usual online buddies today and hung my wind chimes back up. I kind of missed hearing them, and if we’re not gonna get out of here for a few months since we’re not willing to settle, why miss out on hearing them? Maybe it will help “jinx” speeding up the process a bit, though I’m not really sure we can take them with us. There are several of them and they can get kind of loud. If our next neighbor’s going to be an arm’s length away, they may not appreciate them very much. I don’t know that the park even allows them. Come to think of it I don’t remember seeing them hanging anywhere in any of the places we’ve seen either on or offline. So if we can’t take them we might as well leave them here for the next people to enjoy when the dogs aren’t barking.