Did my nails in periwinkle. It’s an interesting and unique color for nails, though not my favorite.

I checked and found that the triple-wide place I liked sold. I’m not surprised. That was a lot of house for not much money.

sighs I really think it’s kind of sad that 98% of my goals and dreams have been unachievable whether they were far out or perfectly reasonable. I still have to wonder why, too. Not getting things I want in life isn’t the only thing that makes me feel singled out and picked on from above, it’s all the problems I’ve had, some being rare and extreme. But I’ll beat the bastard above at his own game if I have to, and if none of the parks accept us in the end we’ll make the best of this place. This place may not be perfect and it may not be ours, but it’s not the worst place to be in. We may not be able to make it bigger but we could fix it up and make it beautiful. God can keep me from having first best, but He can’t keep me from fixing up second best.

Tom says he doubts not having any rent receipts would be an issue since we have a rental agreement. It’s the credit that could be an issue, and God would use scammers like the management company up in Oregon to keep us from getting a place, too. Like I said, though, this isn’t the worst place to be. Far from it. I will make the best of it.

Nane was in my blog and appeared to have picked up my messages on Facebook, but I haven’t heard from her yet today.

Downy Unstoppables rock! They not only make your clothes smell so nice, but the whole place smells nice, too.

Someone asked what my reasons were for keeping blogs about my life, past and present. No particular reason. It’s mostly for fun, though it’s also a way of sharing things with friends. I don’t just see them as journals but as a platform for my creativity as well. I like to be artistic in my styles and designs as well as just post what I write, and add pictures.

Am I going to post the way I was legally screwed and then jailed? I was also asked. Yes, I am! You bet I am going to do so without an ounce of shame. Why? Because what happened to me wasn’t my fault and was totally undeserved. I would probably still post it if I had deserved what I got because people do break the law and go to jail at times, but I have no qualms about sharing my experiences connected to that. I just don’t expect everyone to believe me since my perps were black and had kids, but that’s ok. As they say, as long as we know the truth that’s all that matters. I know what happened. I was there.

Have people tried to tell me I should dislike blacks? No, not really. Just a couple of people, though I always refused to believe that a color could render someone “bad.” I dislike the people who railroaded me because of their personalities and their behavior, not their color.

No news on Mary, though she is officially released and under supervision. It says she’s on felony probation, but I don’t know what all that entails and for how long she’ll be on it. I also don’t know if she’s on standard or intense probation. Really hope it’s not intense for her sake or else she may as well still be in prison.

Later...

I’m so pissed right now I could really shake the old biddy that was supposed to show Tom her place today, now almost yesterday. She ended up busy. How fucking rude, huh? Why did she make the appointment if she knew she was going to be busy? Unless an emergency came up I don’t want to do business with someone who’s unreliable. Tom said he’ll try again tomorrow, but if that doesn’t work then I don’t want to bother with this woman.

He was already in bed when I got up and so he left me an email. He said he knows I think the opposite but that he kinda gets the feeling there’s something really good waiting for us and that something’s trying to keep us from settling for second best. Well, I “kinda” get the feeling something’s trying to stop us altogether. First of all, unless you’re rich, life isn’t about first best. It’s about what you can get. It’s about taking what you can get and making the best of it. Secondly, when has first best ever presented itself to us? When it came close we didn’t have it for long. Lastly, we’d need at least 10K to keep from having to settle for second best and we’re probably half a year or more from having that amount while still having enough for the lot, food, gas and other things. Right now we have 4K.

Again, though, having the money to buy the place outright, whether it costs 3K or 30K isn’t the issue. The issue is getting the park to accept us. It makes no sense for them not to considering that we’ve paid more here than what the lots the homes are on rent for. But when does life ever make sense? All I know is that something up there has been obsessed with me being where I don’t want to be for most of my life. If God doesn’t want us in an adult community, He’ll find a way to stop us. If not by the park turning us down for not having perfect credit, maybe He’ll use the fact that we have no way to prove we’ve been paying anyone anything for some time now. Jesse’s wanted cash for a long time.

I’m not returning to the city mainstream, so maybe we are where we’re meant to be. There are worse things in life than renting someone else’s overpriced, tiny dump and having to listen to their dogs at times, right? So maybe it’s time to quit dreaming, unpack some boxes that I packed, and start making this place more livable – recarpet, repaint, etc. Maybe Jesse would even let us add another half-bath and a washer/dryer hookup though I don’t know where the hell we’d put them. And maybe someday there’ll be reliable Internet service out here.

I told Tom I think we should try two more things before we accept the fact that we may not be meant to move at all. We should first go for the gold. If he’s right and we’re meant to have “something good,” then let’s try for that 10K triple-wide and see if they’ll be willing to work with us. If not, let’s go for the 1000-dollar little dump in the park he described as cramped, because if we can’t get that, what can we get? Nothing at all! I know the frustration, sadness and anger that comes from struggling for what isn’t meant to be. I don’t want to go down that road again. I try for something and if it isn’t meant to be I move on. Period. If I focus all my energies on what’s not meant to be, I then miss out on what is meant to be.

Tom called this old lady (I guess her name is Harriet) who wants to move out of her place and into an apartment. The place is 780 square feet as opposed to this 500-square-footer but has two bedrooms and 1½ baths. Besides it possibly being too small, it’s not much newer than this. This is a 1966 trailer, hers is a 1975 manufactured home. Tom said she said it needed work but made it clear that she’d go lower than the 5K she’s asking for. As long as the space is sufficient and there are no real electrical or plumbing problems, old and ugly would be ok because we can make old and ugly look new and pretty.

Don’t know if it’s got a dishwasher or a washer and dryer. Don’t even know if it’s got an AC or a cooler, but it’s 50/50 where that one’s concerned. Harriet doesn’t have pictures of it online, but she gave Tom the exact address so he could check it out on Google Maps.

Too bad that when he stops by to check it out after work tomorrow he can’t expect an honest answer if he asks her how often her neighbors come and go and have company. And how often do the neighbor’s dogs bark when they let them out to shit?

If we choose to buy it, we could be out of here in a little over a month, but only if the park approves us. That’s going to be the real challenge; not finding a place we can afford. But I guess that will be a true test of how “meant to be” it is.

The only real thing Tom said that I didn’t like was that we’d have to coordinate the move with her moving out into an apartment. Coordinating with Jesse may be tough enough. He may or may not be nice enough to give us a few extra days if we need a little more than 30 days to move. He may jump on the projects that need to be done and list this place on Craigslist the instant we give him our 30-day notice, promising future tenants they can move in on a specific date.

Singlewides, expanded or not, usually go for 3K and not 5K, so hopefully it’s fully loaded with appliances and isn’t too shabby. Having 1½ baths would be better than 2 baths since all we need is an extra sink and toilet. I hate feeling like I have to take a dump when he’s in the shower! Also, if the rooms each have sufficient space, then the overall footage doesn’t matter.

I hope the park people (those who run it and work there) won’t make up for the lack of sales and religious calls. I’d really hate for them to come to the door once a week to ask if we’re interested in a specific event at the clubhouse or for any other reason. But I also like how the place will be ours and I won’t have to answer to anyone if I’m busy or not in the mood.

I’m so excited about Mary being released from prison tomorrow! Well, today, where she is since it’s already the 29th there. I can just imagine how excited and nervous she must be! I can’t believe they made public the address she’ll be at, which is also in Florida. Do they want to get ex-prisoners killed or something? I don’t know whose house it could be, but it’s gorgeous. I checked it out by satellite and although it’s one of the few without pools, it looks like a beautiful house in a beautiful neighborhood. I thought she’d be going back to Arizona or maybe to North Carolina, though I don’t think she should return to her family. Her brother is one thing, but the rest of them seemed to be nothing but a bad influence on her.

I just worry and wonder what will become of her. I mean, how much of a life can the poor girl possibly have? Being in prison, even if you may not deserve to be, doesn’t exactly open up a lot of opportunities for you. She can’t just get a job or find housing wherever. The only other sucky thing to dampen the excitement of her release is knowing she’ll probably be on parole for the rest of her life, though I don’t know this for a fact. I haven’t talked to her in years, so this is just a guess. I hope not, though, because being on parole or probation isn’t much more than an extension of jail. Sure it’s better than actually being in jail, but you still feel like a child whose life doesn’t belong to you. You still don’t have much freedom. I would run if I knew I was looking at a lifetime of being told what to do and when to do it, though I don’t know where I would run to.

I wonder if she and her family want revenge on the judge who reneged on his end of the deal and didn’t let her go two years ago as promised in exchange for her testimony against the real monster. I don’t blame them for any ill feelings and wishes they may have. When it comes to the law and the courts you can’t trust a damn thing you’re told. Another job I couldn’t do is be a judge, though for very different reasons than why I couldn’t stand to be a hospice worker. I’d be in fear for my family and myself all the time. Whether most of them deserve it or not, you can’t just go around playing God with people’s lives and expect nothing to ever come of it. Sooner or later I would think I would sentence or lie to the wrong person. No thanks!

Later...

Despite the annoyances that go with living here (the slow, unreliable internet, the barking, the Jes pest), I’m getting close to calling off the move. I see old, familiar signs emerging of just what can happen when we try to fight fate. Before the move to Maricopa I had a bad feeling that although it made no sense, we’d be “punished” for moving to a better place. Then sure enough, all kinds of things went wrong with our brand-new house, and old enemies hunted me down and reached out to haunt me in ways that made the way they would torment me from just a few feet seem like nothing.

Now here we are with all these unexpected things coming up to delay us from becoming homeowners once again after 8 years. Tom is either too sick or too busy to even call to set up a lousy appointment to see if our scammers have fucked our credit up enough to throw us a curveball with that alone. We’re NOT paying our perps to get ahead in life, I told him. We were forced to do it down in Arizona; we’re not doing it here. We shouldn’t have to pay money we don’t owe to some con artists just to get something we want in life. Tom worked for the money to buy the place outright and to easily afford to rent the lots it’s on. THAT should be enough. Paying our perps is like a rape victim cleaning her rapist’s house so she can get a new car or something. It just ain’t right.

But again I ask myself, would we have lost two places if we were meant to have our own place, even if it ended up being a good thing in the end what with how cold Oregon was and how dangerous Maricopa was getting? Struggling for what isn’t meant to be can be a sure way to an unhappy life, so if all we’re going to do is get punished for just thinking about it, I’d rather just stay here. I hate to sink our money into dressing up someone else’s place, but I’ve really had it with all the delays and I’m ready to just call the whole thing off. These curveballs must be coming at us for a reason, right? IDK, maybe we already are where we’re meant to be, and maybe that’s all we’re good for is to be crammed into someone else’s old shitbox. Sure seems like something up there thinks this is all we deserve, but it’s better than jails, funny farms, hospitals, prisons, hotels, projects, or the streets.

A couple of hundred bucks won’t exactly put much of a dent in our savings, but we definitely need to get a REAL mattress. Airbeds are comfortable as hell but the first one lasted 4 months and the other one lasted 4 minutes. An inner wall let go in this last one too, and I did NOT overinflate it. Comfortable or not, it’s time to quit throwing money away on cheap crap. Foam breaks down, memory foam causes backaches and overheating, and so I checked out some coil mattresses on Amazon and Walmart. The coils may sag in time, but I would think it would take longer than foam. Especially when you’re not as heavy as most people.

Woke up with a sore throat today, but fortunately it went away after I ate and showered.

Life is still going well, Tom’s getting better, and our savings continue to grow. However, I feel stuck in life right now.

I worry there’s going to be all kinds of headaches to delay us from buying a place and just the thought of having to be here many more months to deal with the internet alone makes me want to scream. Since they weren’t going to give us the speed we were paying for anyway, we downgraded to a slower speed. So even when it’s reliable and not cutting out as much, it’s slower than molasses. Especially if I try to go online while he’s streaming live TV.

The raspberry ketones do seem to help with weight loss, though they’re not going to be much help for me because of my screwy schedule. I still have no idea why, but I don’t lose weight in my sleep when I’m on nights like I do when I’m on days. So once again, it’s something only those lucky enough to be “normal” can benefit from. They definitely do help curb the appetite, though, so if you can lose 1-3 pounds in your sleep every single night, you should be able to cut back on calories enough to lose weight. With me, though, every time my schedule flips to nights my weight basically resets itself and I put back what I lost when I was on days. That’s ok, though. I don’t mind being fat so long as I don’t get any fatter. I worry about that more than I worry about losing what I’ve got.

Still getting views from Molly’s residence, though I don’t know if it’s her or her mother.

Although I was tired all day yesterday, I accompanied Tom to Walmart. It had been a while since I’d gotten out so I needed to. After a week or two, I get cabin fever, homebody or not.

Got some more crackle polish. This one’s in Snow Blast, so now I have dark and light crackles. I white crackled over various colors a little while ago. My nails, especially on my left hand, are getting ferociously long but I still can’t bring myself to cut them. I keep thinking they’re going to break any minute now, but they never do.

I’m still worried about Tom. He’s not coughing much, but his lungs are still congested.

Exchanged messages with Nane. Well, she probably crashed right before I got up. She’s so sweet. She and I are really close. We may each have a guy we love the hell out of, but there is a definite bond we share.

Love the joke Andy told me – What did the tampon string say to the other?
Nothing. They were both stuck-up bitches.

Anyway, although life is going well overall, I was just sitting here thinking about Mom and wondering what’s going through her mind when she’s with it enough. I wonder about Tom and I too, and our future. I just wonder when the hell we’ll move or if there’ll be many more curveballs thrown at us along the way. I wonder a lot of things. I’m curious and analytical by nature. I take the things most people don’t even think about and I examine them in my mind from a million different angles.

Had to turn all the fans off earlier as it’s going to be getting down into the mid-50s tonight. Still got the windows open, though.

Tammy left a message for me to call her at home in Connecticut. She and Mark drove back up from Florida. Mom’s not in the hospice. I guess it had something to do with her insurance as well as what she wanted, according to Tammy, who says mom’s out of it most of the time anyway. Nonetheless, she’s now in a nursing home and her prognosis is still not good. She still has that same infection and her kidneys are still messed up. I continue to have mixed emotions about the whole thing too, and well, I’m not going to get into that right now. I haven’t talked to Mom and I guess that’s not possible where she is. Tammy’s been in touch with her doctors and nurses, but that’s about it for now. Nothing more anyone can really do but try to keep her comfortable till the end.

Tom got to take the day off today thanks to a downed tree blocking the drive out toward the road. It was a good opportunity to catch up on his rest. He relapsed during the week and never got fully over his cold. I don’t hear him coughing as much, so I guess that’s a good sign.

Even though I slept about 10 hours, I crashed for a few more hours after I’d been up for a few hours. I was doing a massive cleanup within my photo files when all of a sudden I felt tired and dizzy. So I went to lie down but didn’t want to fall asleep due to having clothes in the washer, even though I did anyway. I was worried they’d be wrinkled, but they weren’t.

Our lone bamboo plant is sprouting a new stalk down by the roots, I was surprised to see. I’ve had this plant since Oregon.

All my cleaning, cooking and other chores are done, so now I’m free to write, write and write! I’ve got a lot to say too, most of which cannot go online. Just wondering if I should cut my nails off first. I keep waiting for them to break, but they won’t. Still curious, though, as to how long these damn things will grow if I don’t, so I guess I’ll put up with them a while longer even if typing with them isn’t always so easy.

I’m just about completely over my cold, but Tom isn’t completely over his, partly thanks to being overworked so much. He’s not just overworked, he’s overfucked, and I feel so bad for him. I’d be out there with him if I could be, hating my job and my coworkers, but I do get enough online shit and other things to help make up for it. Still, I really wish the incompetent idiots at work would stop fucking with him! I asked if they treat everyone like shit, just the white folks, or if he thinks they’re singling him out for some reason, and he said it varies. Gays and whites may have it the worst these days in the workplace, but stupidity from higher-ups affects everyone of every race, color, age and gender. The dental and vision insurance is just fine, but they’re now claiming our zip code for our regular health insurance was changed online and that’s why he hasn’t been able to make an appointment with a primary care doctor about my allergies. He’s pretty sure they just fucked up but doesn’t want to admit it for some reason. Tom’s doing some research cuz if this is the case he’ll have no choice but to file a police report in case of possible identity theft which I guess would force his employer to own up to their mistakes. But if it is identity theft, we need to know about it ASAP.

Identity theft is a scary thing. It’s a very real possibility that can happen to anyone, anywhere at any time, and the real Jane Doe or Joe Shmoe may not always be able to prove his or her real identity. To think that being thrown in jail for a letter I didn’t write may be nothing as opposed to someone posing as me who may commit a major crime that I end up taking the fall for is a really scary and frustrating thought. It could happen and there may be absolutely nothing I could do about it. God would put me in such a cruel, unfair and helpless situation, too. He doesn’t usually look out for me and my best interests, and well, be it due to people’s stupidity, hate, anger, greed or jealousy, I’m just sick of seeing us get screwed over in various ways and left totally defenseless. God always makes sure our perps are those that either have a hold on us or who remain elusive enough not to be able to track and fight. It just gets both old and scary to think of what people could have in mind for us or who could be using our identity that we know absolutely nothing about… yet.

Tom had to spend the day straightening the insurance account out and doing their job for them since they refused to own up to it and take any responsibility. He said something about not wanting certain medical records online and making an appointment for me next week to see if the claim goes through or not.

I asked if there was any risk of being fired or laid off and he says he doubts it, though a part of him wishes it would happen. I hate to see him have to work with such assholes, but he’s still white, he’s still older, and the economy still sucks. He couldn’t just swap one job for another. And even if he could he’d probably be just as cursed at the next job, just like I’ve been cursed with bad neighbors and barking in nearly every place I’ve lived in as an adult. The only good thing is knowing that if they laid or fired his ass right now, we could up and buy a place and have our monthly expenses be half of what they are here. It may have to be another old single-wide, but we’d be safe. Whatever’s up there would have to find something else to beat us over the head with cuz right now we’re anything but poor.

sighs Bad things really do happen to good people who have matured, grown and who try to do the right thing. Praying is often like talking to a wall, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned in life it’s that one doesn’t always have to ask for trouble to get trouble. After what we’ve been through in life with the poverty and getting legally railroaded, vindicated in the end or not, fears of the past returning to haunt us are always present.

I worry about our credit too, thanks to the scam of a property management company we rented from in Oregon. It’s common practice for rental agencies to claim a tenant that’s moved out left the place dirty or damaged and then to rip them out of their deposit, but did they really have to go so far as to ruin our credit too, by saying we owe them $200?! We left that house spotless. If it isn’t them trying to scam people, then the only thing I can think of is that the neighborhood kids vandalized the place once they saw it was vacant and we got blamed for it. So unless we pay our perps, just like we had to do down in Arizona, their spite and greed could hold up the move even more.

Again I have to wonder why and how some people can get so much shit they don’t deserve dished at them. If you fuck people over and then bad things happen to you, that’s understandable. That’s called karma. But what do you call being innocently victimized? And why is it that we always “happen” to not be able to fight back? It’s like God arranges it that way just to screw us all the more. Never has anyone done something to us that we could actually do anything about. Never. And that’s scary. It really is. To think that God’s using us as little pawns for people to take their hate, anger and greed out upon is really scary. But Tom and Jodi certainly could never screw anyone over themselves if they wanted to. Not that we would ever want to, but who could we possibly screw over in any way that would really hurt bad, and how? Who could we rip off? Whose credit could we ruin? Who could we get fired or set up and thrown in jail? Oh, we could piss them off by saying some things they wouldn’t want to hear, alright, but who could we really screw AND get away with it if we wanted to??? The answer is no one, so it’s a good thing we have no desire to be like that.

Like I said, though, trouble doesn’t always breed trouble. Sometimes just minding your own damn business and going about living your everyday life can bring trouble. Take Kim, Molly and her mother, for example. I am doing absolutely nothing to these people yet they refuse to leave me alone. Who would have ever thought I’d be stalked by 3 people, all of them women, and not one of them gay?

I was mistaken in saying my parents opened a trust fund. It’s actually a family trust that is supposed to speed things up upon their deaths by avoiding probate court and all that, but I realized something last night. It’s gonna take a helluva lot longer to get my inheritance than just 6 months, whatever it may be. The economy sucks (another thing God would do; have my folks go when the economy sucks) and their property isn’t going to sell for much, nor is it going to sell very fast. Hell, they might even auction it off in the end, who knows?

On the other hand, it not only seems awfully hard to think that even if they owed considerable money all I would get is a few grand for two luxury cars, a luxury condo, and a store, but it also seems hard to believe that everything that’s to be liquidated is to be given to me no matter how “ok” others may be doing.

Later...

As for the trio of trolls, it’s the same old shit. Kim’s just trying to make trouble for me on Ask and in her attempts to turn Aly against me, Molly is still lurking about though leaving for the group home soon, and Mommy Dearest is still blaming others for her darling daughter’s big mouth.

Apparently, that wasn’t Molly who spent 45 minutes in my blog between yesterday and the day before, but her mother. Her mother saw the part where I mentioned the group home and went and blasted Aly’s friend Regina for it since she couldn’t get ahold of Aly directly. Poor Regina, though Regina’s finally smartened up where Molly and her equally demented family are concerned, especially after Aly enlightened Regina on more of her experiences with Molly. Aly assured her that trying to reason with Molly or her mother would be a complete waste of time.

I told Aly I would watch what I said from now on, though I still worry she’s going to Kim with things I don’t want her going to the skitzo with.

Funny how I don’t even have to say Molly’s name for Judy to know who “troll #1” is. Typical enabler making excuses! Instead of blaming others, she should be blaming HER DAUGHTER for opening her mouth in the first place.

There was a Stafford Springs, CT visitor on my list last night with Cox Communications. That used to be Kim’s info when we were “friends” and she’d visit me regularly. I asked Aly if she was sure she really did move, and she said she thought that might be a relative. She did ask Kim, though, why she’s bothering to follow me after she claims she doesn’t care about me or want anything to do with me, and she keeps insisting she isn’t, but neither of us believes her at all.

Yesterday I changed my Twitter handle when Adonis found me, figuring others could find me too, and sure enough, someone asked why I changed the name on Ask. Today someone asked why I went private on FB. Aly and I both suspect these “questions” came from Kim. Obviously, it’s someone who’s following all my regular accounts, though I’m not very regular at all on Twitter. Today it was to ask me to please open MD back up after I made that private and MO for just friends. That could’ve been Kim or even Andy, wanting to read old entries but without being tracked. Could’ve even been Maliheh for all I know. Then again, as much as I doubt it, maybe it’s no one I know at all. I reopened MD, but I won’t be updating that or MO regularly, so that’ll frustrate Kim if it is her, LOL. She’ll either have to wait till it’s updated or risk forgetting to disable cookies and check me out on LJ instead. Or have her “sources” check for her if she’s too stupid to disable cookies.

But why does Judy check up on me??? Does she find me that interesting? Is she curious as to what I may say about Molly and maybe even hoping to file her bullshit suit against me? Is she worried about what her daughter and her big mouth may be telling people?

Never thought I’d come to like LJ so much, though I wish I had more control over background pics. Did they recently add other features that I like, or were they there all along and I just didn’t notice?

Aly knows she has every reason not to bother with Kim, but still finds it hard to completely let go. She says she’s always had problems letting go of past friendships. Really? I would’ve thought she’d totally respect one’s wishes that said they didn’t want anything to do with her. I know I try to be respectful of those who don’t want to bother with me. The only one that was hard to let go of was Nane, but she wasn’t just a friend. It just goes to show once again that I don’t always know someone as well as I think I do. I highly doubt it, but maybe it’s her that’s been trolling me on Ask. Maybe it’s Andy or Maliheh. Hell, maybe it’s my goddamn sister or nieces! Yeah, I’d love to be able to track Ask, but I do like the mystery and the fun of guessing, too.

Nane was sick on her birthday. She seems to be sick a lot lately. She said she slept for over 24 hours. Wow!

Later...

No word all week on Mom. If I had to guess she’s been moved to the hospice. Tyrant or not it’s still kinda sad. I’d be both sad and scared, but like Tom said, hopefully she’s so far out of her mind by now that she doesn’t know what the hell’s going on. Maybe she’s too busy asking the nurses for a beer or something like that to know where she is. If she is, why not honor that request and give her the beer? She’s going to die soon anyway. I just wonder when and if I’ll be able to talk to her before she does and if she’ll know who I am. I still don’t even know how badly the stroke has affected her left side.

What a job those hospice workers have! I don’t know that I could do it and remain that “professionally detached.” How could you not feel bad for those people? It may be a fact of life that we all gotta go someday, but still, what do you say upon greeting new arrivals, welcome to the Pearly Gates? That’s kind of what it must be like, the Pearly Gates before the Pearly Gates.

Although they don’t understand senility, it sure does seem to run in my family and it seems to affect women worse. My dad wasn’t out of it when he died, but one of my grandfathers was kind of out of it (the other one died of a heart attack so it’s hard to say what he would’ve been like when he got old), both grandmothers were very out of it, and now mom’s pretty out of it. I guess I’ll be a little out of in the end too, and personally, I hope to hell I am. Better to be as out of as possible when you’re about to die. I was very much with it when we sure thought we were both going to die last fall, and I can truly say that having a sound and conscious mind is no way to go! So I hope that when my own time comes it either comes too fast for me to know what the hell hit me or I’m completely out of my mind.

It seems each generation is beating the last by 5 years since 3 of my grandparents made it to 75 and my parents made it to 80. That means that Tom has to make it to 93 in order for me to have a chance to make it to 85, cuz when he dies, I die.

The raspberry ketones do seem to be helping me to curb my appetite, fill me up faster and lose weight, but a lot of things “seem” to work at first. There’s no way to know how long or how much effect it will have on me after just a few days. But that’s why I only got a month’s supply.

We got a turkey baster to suck up water from the cookie sheet under the leaky pipe in the bathroom. I had to tip the tray to get it out from under there, spilling the water all over and defeating the purpose of having it there, so this makes it much easier. How much longer are we going to have to deal with shit like this, though??? Seriously, I feel like we’re never going to move! I just want to get out of here and on with our lives! I want more space. I want a place that isn’t so damn old. I want a fast, reliable Internet connection.

LJ posts to Facebook just fine but only to my wall and not the newsfeed unless I post it manually. That’s okay because I don’t want old entries posting to FB, just current ones. I figure that if people want to read about my life in the 80s or 90s, they can go do so on their own.

Not much to say today. I still have faint remnants of a cold, but I’m 98% better.

Troll #1 was back in my LJ blog again today. What happened to the group home?

Although I just want to laze around, I’ve got to work out and do some cleaning as well as a load of laundry.

Still not sure if I want to keep just LJ public or all 3 of my blogs. I’m doing a test now to see if I can get LJ to automatically post to FB. I can manually post it there, but now I want to see if it will post on its own. For some reason, things would post to Twitter without any problems, but posting to FB can be hit or miss.

If it weren’t for Nane, I’d probably shut down on FB altogether. I’m sick of people tagging me in photos I’m not even in (what’s the point of that?) and sending me other requests and shit I’ve told them a thousand times I’m not interested in.

Molly spent 41 minutes in my LJ blog from her relative’s place in Brownsville. So that pretty much tells me that she either was going to the MD one from home because she didn’t want to appear on my MO tracker, or she was disabling cookies at home. It could also be that her mother blocked MO on her computer, but this proves what I figured; that she’s been following me all along. If she could be interested in what I have to say on Ask, why not my blog, too? Now that she knows LJ is tracker-ready, it will be interesting to see if she continues to go there. Or at least in a way that appears on my tracker. After what I went through with Kim, she’s welcome to follow me all she wants. I totally prefer her to Kim any day and find her a welcoming refreshing breath of fresh air. Like I said, for someone who’s usually a good judge of character I had NO idea Kim was crazier than Molly on Molly’s craziest of days. Maybe not quite as mean as to wish someone’s cancer would kill them or to express what they’d like to do to their parents in their sleep, but definitely not quite as crazy or quite as shitty with lying.

Still recovering from my cold, and yes, it was definitely a cold given how long it lasted and the symptoms I had that I don’t usually get with just allergies. My nose and ears are still stuffy. Not sure the air cleaner’s helping much because I awoke several times on account of my nose being blocked. At least it quit having to potty. That was so damn annoying with the way it would run every so often. Oddly enough, my mouth was also dry even though I haven’t taken any cold or allergy pills since the day before yesterday.

Was finally able to get on the treadmill, but only for 10 minutes. My energy levels still aren’t very high. I’m relaxing for a while before tackling some cleaning.

Started the raspberry ketones, but only one pill instead of the two pills it recommends to see how my body takes to it. No nausea, but I might be just slightly jittery. I can’t really tell if it’s that or if it’s just because I’m still sick.

The email mystery has been solved. The one where Tom would receive things I’ve sent in the past with what I currently sent. Well, what the Mac’s email program apparently does is it groups emails together with the same subject title.

I forgot to mention that I befriended Wissal on Facebook the other day and told her “I know your secret” like she told me on MD, LOL. She was a little shocked at first, but I told her not to worry about it. I just thought it was funny if I surprised her and I guess I did!

Whether or not certain people are ugly or beautiful is a subjective matter, same as what foods are good and bad. So does it matter to me whether or not someone supports or understands how I feel on certain issues? Well, yes and no. Sure it’s nice to have those I’m close to get where I’m coming from. But it really doesn’t matter in the end who thinks what because nothing they could possibly think could change the facts or how I feel. So I guess what it all comes down to is how I feel and that I be honest with myself and do what’s best for me.

I don’t know what the hell’s going on with the move, but I do know I’m so fucking sick of all these goddamn plumbing problems! God am I ever sick of it and living like a fucking bum! The fucking pipe under the bathroom sink is leaking again but we are NOT going to deal with HIS problems anymore. I just threw a pan under the pipe, though we have to sop it up with an old towel before we empty it because it’s such a tight fit between the floor and pipe that it sloshes out when we try to pull the pan out. The wood is rotting in so much of the place, too.

As I’ve said before, it really pisses the shit out of me that we’ve had to live like this for so long. I have nothing against those who have it better in life, especially if they’ve worked hard and deserve what they’ve got. It’s those that work hard to be rewarded with this kind of bummery that pisses me off.

Whatever’s up there could allow us to get moved and let Tom have steady work until he retires while we do our best to be as smart as we can about our money in which case we’d never have to struggle again in our lives. But would it be that kind to us to let us have the security we deserve? I doubt it, but if all my inheritance will do is buy us the things on our list that we want for the new place, wherever it is and whenever we end up living in it, fine. That’ll be good enough for me since I know not to expect too much out of life anyway. I have been blessed for nearly two decades now with the most important part of life and that’s love. I am also healthy for the most part, too.

Trying to decide whether or not I want to make LJ my only public blog. It pretty much has all the features I like (I can insert pictures, trackers, and backdate old entries I’m posting from the 80s on up), so I might make my other two blogs friends only/private and just use those as a backup. Haven’t decided yet. It also appears that I can search the blog after all. There’s no “whisper” feature on LJ, but it’s cool how I can add moods, locations and what I’m currently listening to on my last.fm radio station. The only thing I can’t do on LJ is change backgrounds. Hmm… decisions, decisions. Should I keep all 3 public or go with just LJ?

I’m worried about my friend Eileen right now and her husband. They have plenty of friends and family around who would never let them be homeless, which is good to know, but I worry because not only did their business go under and cause them to be living off of savings for the last 6 months, but Eileen’s husband was hit by a car while riding his bike. He ended up with broken ribs, ringing in the ear, and a disc in his spine pushing on the sciatic nerve. For these things to happen to them definitely goes beyond just “bad luck.” I mean, that is a definite, definite curse. shakes head sadly Again I have to wonder why such bad things happen to such good people as Eileen and her husband. I told her to let me know if she needs help and she said it brought tears to her eyes that I would offer. Hey, she helped us and that’s what friends are for.

No news on Mom yet so I guess nothing’s changed with her and she hasn’t been moved to the hospice just yet. So I don’t know what’s going on at the moment, though I guess Tammy will call me from whatever state she’s in as soon as something changes. Like I said, despite the past problems we’ve had it’s hard not to think about her and hope she isn’t suffering. At least not too much anyway. I never wanted any pain or punishment to befall my mother, but if those who believe karma gets us in the afterlife for the things we didn’t pay for here are correct, then she’s got some hard times ahead of her once her earthly life is over, cuz she sure as hell never paid for the things she did to her kids here. Perhaps just with a touch of guilt or regret at times, though I don’t think she realizes all she’s done wrong. Some abusive mothers really don’t consider themselves abusive at all and instead, they believe they were good mothers. I think she’s aware of some of her mistakes, though, because my mother isn’t crazy or stupid.

The air cleaners they make these days are so quiet and lightweight compared to the one we got in Phoenix that we ditched not too long ago. This one has an ionizer but I only use that when I’m awake cuz it has a bright blue light that comes on when it’s active and I like sleeping in total darkness.

Still too soon to say how the raspberry ketones, if at all, are going to affect me. Since I didn’t puke or get too jittery, I’m going to take the second pill after I’ve been up for 10 hours cuz that’s when my hunger tends to be worse. I told Aira about it and she’s going to check it out on Amazon. It does seem to be curbing my hunger somewhat and filling me up faster when I do eat, but I need to give it more time to see how it really does.

Happy birthday to my buddy, Nane! Well, it’s not her birthday yet here in the US, but she’s 52 and still hot as hell.

I was so sick the last couple of days that for a minute I started to think just maybe I am in for a substantial inheritance after all and now God’s going to kill me so I can’t collect. Nah, I knew I wasn’t going to die or anything like that. I just felt like shit. We’ve both come to agree that it probably wasn’t just allergies and that I did catch his cold after all. I sure as hell hope it wasn’t allergies, cuz if it was, then my allergies have reached a whole new and scary level. My allergies have included mostly sneezing with some nasal congestion. But the last two times my nose ran like a faucet every so often that I even had to sleep with tissues jammed in underneath my nose. The last time I had the runs and a sore throat. Not much in the way of a cough, but I did have a wave of nausea for a minute there and feared I might throw up. I feel like someone karate-chopped me between the shoulder blades and took a bat to my ribs.

I slept on and off for 14 hours. I crashed at 7pm and woke up a few hours later. I fell back asleep around 3am after blowing my nose so raw it felt like someone lit an incense stick and dabbed the outer edges of my nose with it. Then I got up at 7am right before Tom left for work. Then I dozed on and off till 11am. I still feel weak and out of it and my head is still clogged up with congestion big time.

The spells worked to make Tom’s cold only last for two days and then he was fine with just a little cough. However, the spells I’ve done to try to influence my own self to get better have done me no good at all. This is the fourth day I haven’t worked out.

I’m just sick of being sick and always having to have one problem after another! Even dental and ear pain was easier to deal with because they didn’t interfere with my life like it does when I have to stop and sneeze like crazy or blow my nose. Now that my teeth are better, my allergies take over. If I got them under control somehow, something else would be a problem. But we do need to get them under control. I looked back through my journal and starting on April 30th is when they started to become a regular problem. Tom and I agree it’s gotten to be too much. I can’t go more than a week or two without an attack.

Tom’s calling doctors today from work and will be bringing home an air cleaner. It does seem to be worse since I stopped using our old, small air cleaner you plug into the wall once the rat died. Plus, the windows are open and the cooler’s on, so I figured an air cleaner wouldn’t do much good, but from what I read, that’s not a good thing. The healthiest thing would be keeping the windows shut and running an AC if you have one. But I don’t know that we’ll ever have a place with an AC as long as we’re in this area, and I still suspect it’s something inside, particularly in the bedroom. I did also read that bedrooms do tend to be the most problematic area due to dust mites. Tom sprayed Lysol all over the bed, carpet and drapes, but I doubt it’ll do me much good. I need whatever that prescription snot spray was that I used to take down in Arizona. The only sucky thing is that you can’t wait till an attack starts to snort up. You have to do it regularly. It’s preventative medicine.

Really hope we don’t have to return to a cold climate to stop these attacks. I have no idea where we’d go. I looked up the best and worst cities for allergies but found nothing but contradictions. Some say Sacramento is great, others say it’s lousy.

I looked up self-help tips online and tried a nasal wash that didn’t seem to help much. That consists of the same mixture of salt and baking soda I rinse my mouth with to keep cavities away.

Anyway, I still feel run down as hell. Just a few hours of moving about and my energy is totally depleted no matter how well I eat or how much caffeine I pump myself with. I haven’t even started the raspberry ketone pills yet. I want to wait till I’m 100% better. That way if I do have any side effects I won’t blame it on the wrong thing.

I have more to say, including some bad news, but I’m just too out of it to get to it now.

Tom and I are feeling a little better today. He’s going to come home early from work if he has to. They’re starting second shift today which might cut back on all the OT he’s been doing, though he will probably have to work Saturday. The money was nice but it’s been really hard on him.

My allergies were horrible yesterday. I didn’t have so much in the way of sneezing as I did a stuffy, runny nose, but this is really getting old. I started marking the attacks on the calendar to see how frequent they are, but it seems like they’re about once a week. Too much to deal with using just over-the-counter remedies which only make my mouth dry and me drowsy. It’s time to start taking care of myself and making dental and allergy appointments (I’ll delay the eyes for now) and quit waiting on a move that either isn’t going to happen or that isn’t going to happen anytime soon.

Last night I kept waking up feeling like cotton balls had been jammed into my mouth. The congestion was so bad I had to keep sitting up to blow my nose. My nose is a little better today but my ears are still clogged up.

It was nice hearing from Irene. She hasn’t forgotten me, she said, just been busy. She’s had her own issues to deal with and soon will be vacationing right next door in Italy.

It was also nice to learn that Troll #1 is finally moving into a group home and away from her enablers. I know the name of the place too, so if there is any trouble from there, maybe they’ll do something about it, unlike her parents.

Tom started looking up what legal documents he could find pertaining to my parents, and now just mom, out of curiosity. Most of the recent stuff is just her getting things in just her name now that dad’s gone. What was surprising was learning that the beautiful brand new doublewide manufactured home they had right on the ocean was only worth 100K. That doesn’t seem like much even for the late 80s. The home was gorgeous, the view was to die for, and the 55+ park they were in was gorgeous as hell. They seemed to have a lot of amenities there, too. So 100K for all that seems a bit low. 100K was what our place in Maricopa was worth.

Also, they set up a family trust fund in 1992, but they don’t make those records public, so we couldn’t find out anything about it.

IDK, though, maybe my parents were never really rich but just really comfortable instead. Looking back on it now, they would’ve seemed rich as hell in the eyes of the poor person that I was living like a bum in the slums. I was struggling even in the nicer places, so when you can’t even fucking eat, of course they’re going to seem rich to you.

Same with the houses they had in Longmeadow. Of course those would seem like multimillion-dollar mansions to one living in an apartment. But it was really just an upper-class neighborhood that any comfortable family could afford.

Mom probably inherited about 100K from her parents, then when she and dad sold the house in MA, that would’ve kept them comfortable for a while along with the little boutique mom had and then the store at the flea market. They’ve always loved to sell things and were just total retail kind of people. But I don’t think they were ever rich as in having millions. I think they were just comfortable in the many thousands and most of that is gone now with all the spending they did and then their medical bills.

Later...

Writing isn’t only fun for me, and it isn’t just about being creative, but writing is also my therapy. My journal is my sounding board while my readers are just an afterthought, not that I don’t appreciate them and any feedback they may have to offer. I do! But I won’t deny I’m selfish when it comes to writing. I won’t mention certain things a friend may not want mentioned, but otherwise my writing is about me first and others second.

Every time I think I’m getting better, off I go on another sneezing fit. My whole head feels like it’s in a vice. I don’t mind the runs as they only get the extra weight off. But to have to stop and sneeze or blow my nose every so often is getting beyond old. Why do I have the runs anyway? Is it from the Claritin or just my sinuses draining and upsetting my tummy?

No calls yet regarding Mom, but Tammy seems to call in the evenings her time. Where Dad’s official cause of death last February was heart failure, I guess hers will be kidney infection due to autoimmune system failure. The kidneys, as most of us know, filter out the blood’s impurities, but when they don’t work right, our blood basically becomes poisonous and damages vital organs.

Once again I question just how true of a friend Nane is. What’s the first thing she does when she gets back home from Switzerland? Posts pictures of her trip, of course. They’re lovely pictures, but I would think most people would first respond to messages left by their friends about their dying mother, even if that mother wasn’t always very nice. Sometimes I wonder if traveling is more important to her than anything else, including her own family and Askim. I guess some people are just like that. They’re quick to jump in with all kinds of comments when you’ve got something good to announce, but as soon as you announce an illness or a death they’re nowhere to be found.

I take that back. Nane just messaged me and we chatted a bit. As I told her, though, I don’t feel up to chatting much cuz I still feel sick, but don’t want to just lay around either as that gets boring.

On the bright side, she had fun in Switzerland, just above the Italian border, and said the trip was what she expected it to be. Why can’t things ever be what I expect them to be??? I expected to be out of here by now.

According to what I looked up online, it can take weeks or even years, with the average wait being 6 months when it comes to receiving an inheritance. At this point, if it’s just enough to cover the things we’ll want for the new house if we ever get to that house, that’ll be good enough for me and we’ll both appreciate it very much. I really think that’s all it will be, too. God would’ve killed us for damn sure last fall if He knew we were in for BIG bucks that went way beyond 10K. Especially if I’m right in suspecting we were meant to be poor most of our lives. I’d like to think we could get moved, start saving again, and that Tom will have a steady job till he retires, in which case we’d never have to be poor again between that, being smart with our money, the 401K and other retirement funds, but I know God wouldn’t let life be that easy for us. He loves to tear us down every few years or less and get a good laugh at watching us scramble to survive and then build ourselves back up again. That’s part of why I doubt it’ll be much more than 5K if even that.

If I thought there was any real chance it would be a substantial amount I’d be willing to stay here and listen to the barking which will worsen as it cools down, along with the engine gunning, hammering, sawing and bulldozing, because the more money one has, the more options they have as well. But I’m ok with just moving when we can. Although, if there are more delays that can’t be ruled as just “coincidences” I’m backing out altogether. You know I always get punished for trying to fight fate. Notice I’ve been sicker more often since we started seriously looking? It’s like I’m being punished for trying to get ahead and out of someone else’s place and into our own place. We both are.

When Tom decided he was too sick to go out park scouting today and needed another day of rest so he’d be able to work tomorrow I said, “Why is it that it’s getting more obvious to me that something up there doesn’t want us moving? Why don’t we just say ‘fuck it’ and get on with our lives in someone else’s tiny old dump like we’ve been doing for the last 4 years and 4 months now.”

“If anything, something’s trying to stop us from making a poor decision,” he said.

“That’ll be a first,” I said.

Tom went on to explain that worst-case scenario, the delay gains us another paycheck and pulls us into the range of what we want. As of yet, we’ve been looking at mostly single-wides, but now we’re entering the doublewide zone, which is more of what we want. Yes, I’d rather own a single-wide on a lot that rents for half this place, than rent this place for twice the cost, but I’d REALLY rather have sufficient space for once! We’ve been living in tiny places since 2005. Enough is enough already! Since nothing’s perfect, I’d rather go back to having more space than we need and complaining about how long it takes just to vacuum, than to have to cram 20 objects into each precious square foot of space we have here.

I don’t want to get my hopes up, though. Yes, I know the longer the move takes the more money we save, but nothing up there has ever prevented us from making poor judgment calls before. Unless Dad can step in and help guide us now that he’s gone, nothing else will care to do so if our common sense and research alone aren’t enough to do the trick.

Yesterday I got a call as I was coming out of the shower and saw it was from mom’s number. I called the number and got Mark, Tammy’s husband, who sounded like a very nice guy and not the usual, aggressive abuser Tammy used to go for (or that went for her). Anyway, he said she was tied up and so I told him who I was. He said it was a pleasure talking to me and would let her know I called.

Then I got a message from her asking that I call her at her condo. At first I rolled my eyes and thought, great, just great. Now she thinks we’re buddies and now she’s probably going to call me all the time. I also wondered what she could possibly have to tell me in just a day. Deciding it must be important if she was asking that I call her, I grabbed the number for the condo, scribbled it down, and punched in the number. She answered and broke down in tears as she told me she would be moving Mom to a hospice. Her immune system is so shot that she’s just going to keep on getting one infection after another no matter how hard they pump her with antibiotics. The treatment she had to fight the cancer she had years ago would’ve damaged her immune system to a degree, and when you’re 80 years old it’s just not easy to bounce back, but personally, I don’t think mom wants to and I don’t blame her. As we all understand, she’s been lonely, depressed and miserable since Dad died last February and has no desire to live. That, and the fact that we didn’t usually get along well, helps make this a bit easier on me. At 80 years of age, the world isn’t exactly full of opportunities, and so I don’t think she wants to get better enough to go home to an empty condo just to sit in front of the TV until she does die. My mother doesn’t believe in the afterlife, so she probably doesn’t think that dying is a way to be with Dad again so much as she sees it as a way to escape living without him. She and Dad were like Tom and I. One simply doesn’t want to live without the other.

Tammy and I both laughed at the funny memories and cried over the sadness of the situation. The senility part may be sad, but it’s also kind of funny. I wonder if she’s going to demand a Miller Light in her final moments or some other whacky request.

She’s very frail and still isn’t eating or drinking much. That alone tells me the end is near. I really thought, even though I couldn’t imagine it, that she might live a few more years in a nursing home, but they tell me she couldn’t have more than a month or two if even that.

As for me, I’m going through a ton of mixed emotions. I feel as sad as I would for anyone who was miserable both physically and mentally and knew they were going to die soon that wasn’t some kiddy molester or mass murderer. I feel guilty for all the times I wished she would drop dead, but Tom reminded me that this isn’t my fault and it still would’ve happened even if I’d wished her to live forever. I feel relieved to know her suffering will end soon enough and then I can be free to decide exactly what I want to do as far as other family members go, and know that it’s not going to come back to Mom and Dad and that I’ll have to hear all about it from them and know that most of what they were told was probably bullshit anyway, though I do wish my father could’ve lived all my life.

I’ve been flooded with random thoughts, both past and present, both happy and sad. One minute I’d be remembering how I nearly starved to death waiting for my food stamps to get to me when I first moved to Arizona. I felt bad for the me of 20 years ago that I couldn’t fucking eat while my parents lived like kings and queens. It brought out my hate for God and reminded me what an undeserving piece of shit He often seems to think I am, toying with my survival like that and like He did with both my husband and I less than a year ago. A part of me is surprised He didn’t see to it that they stopped both my disability checks and my food stamps and left me hungry and homeless when I first got to Arizona, but that would defeat the purpose of His “plan” for me. You can’t have fun cursing someone if you throw them into a situation that’ll kill them.

Then it would hit me that while I’m grateful to Tammy for helping out with Mom and keeping me up to date since I’m too far away and Larry couldn't care less, it’s kind of sad that a woman who was so abusive at times could have someone to help her in her final days while Tom and I won’t have anyone. Talk about undue karma!

Tammy said mom sent her love and I told her to call me as soon as she’s able to, though I can’t guarantee that I’ll be around to answer. I don’t know if Mom will have her own phone there or if mail can be sent there, but I doubt it. It’s a hospice, after all, not a nursing home, so I don’t even know if we’ll be able to talk. I hope so, though.

She said she has no online access at all and that the computer she brought down with her broke, so that’s why she hasn’t been able to leave any messages on Facebook. I guess she’ll be staying at the condo a little longer.

So on we went laughing and crying, and while I hate to admit it, I felt a surge of closeness to her for a minute there and wondered if maybe she does care and maybe she is sorry for the past. Maybe I’m judging her too harshly for the past and maybe she isn’t really out to screw me and maybe I should take it one day at a time instead of deciding for sure that I’m going to dump her or not dump her at such and such a time. I just don’t know right now.

I don’t know if I believe this one, though she did sound sincere. Supposedly, Larry really has been cut out of the will, which I suspect is due to his whoring around with child women and all that. No one wants any of mom’s money to go to some 21-year-old bimbo and the child she and my 58-year-old brother never should’ve created. She says Mark has spoken to him since she doesn’t even want to talk to him anymore. Also, they spent hours with Mom’s attorneys and are letting them handle it so that Larry, or some third cousin we never knew we had, can’t contest the will. The attorneys are the ones who will be liquidating Mom’s assets. Lastly, she says – and this is how she worded it – that it says I am to be provided for. She says she told the attorneys that she and Mark were doing ok while we’ve struggled, and that while it may not be much, I’m to have their share of the cash once everything is sold off. Again with the spark of mixed emotions! If this is true, that’s very sweet of her and Mark. But it was a reminder of how I’ve been God’s designated little family underdog for the most part, thanks to the mountains He’s thrown in front of me that He always knew I couldn’t possibly climb. It also reminded me of how twisted and unfair He is that He would allow a bitch like Tammy, who hasn’t been much better at motherhood than our own mother, to do pretty well most of her life. Gee, God, I’m sorry I wasn’t a bad enough person to “qualify” for an easier life.

What I didn’t tell her, more because I didn’t think it was an appropriate time than I didn’t want her to know, is that we’re doing the best ever and don’t intend to be trailer trash living in someone else’s trashy trailer for much longer. Oh, yes, God’s little underdoggies will prevail. I’m just glad He was kind enough not to burn this place down before we could leave it. Yeah, it gets a little scary this time of year every time the place starts smelling smoky cuz you can never know how close any of these forest fires may be or if it’s just the wind carrying the smoke from far away. One can’t see very far when they live in the woods, though there’s one section down the drive where you can see out to the main road.

Anyway, to get back on topic, where we were doing the worst ever last fall, now we’re doing the best ever. He’s made good money before. It’s just that we either spent it or it went to a very expensive house we never should’ve gotten. I just didn’t think it right to brag about how good we’re doing while our mother is dying.

Do I believe she and Mark are really forfeiting their share of the money to me? I don’t know. She seemed honest enough, but if it’s true that pretty much tells me what I suspected; that there isn’t much money. Even she said it may not be much and that dad had a lot of medical bills in the end. I figured most of the money would run out between mom’s overspending and their medical costs. I also knew God wouldn’t allow us a large lump sum of money, though what His “limit” is I’m not sure. I know up to 9k is “allowed” cuz that’s what I won a few years ago before the economy went to hell and the rise of Facebook made the competition insane. No more having to fill out forms. Now you can just “like” something with one click and the whole world’s entered to win the same lousy T-shirt. Anyway, Tammy said she didn’t know how much it would be, but if I had to guess I’d say around 5 to 10 grand. Either way, as soon as everything’s done and over with, Tom and I will be checking records.

She also guarantees that Larry won’t get anything and that he “doesn’t have a potty to pee in.”

Then how did he and his knocked-up child-woman get to Florida? And how are they living and how do they plan to feed the little bastard? Then again, who cares, right? As long as this stranger-child-woman and its offspring don’t get what isn’t theirs. That’s all that matters.

She asked me what else other than pictures would I want from her condo, saying mom had a teddy bear collection. I told her I didn’t want any of the material things and that anything on our list to buy when we move isn’t anything Mom would have, so she could keep everything in the condo. This works out well because Mom has some antiques she likes while I’m a modern freak. I hate antiques. I just wish I could live in modern places a little more often than I do, but the next place will probably be a '70s place (at least it’s a decade up from this '60s place) and probably about 720-1000 square feet.

sighs Again, I have such mixed emotions about everything. I try to tell myself to forget the past, that it can’t be changed, that Tammy didn’t know about the welfare bum’s warrant, but she did defend her abusive ex, she did turn on me, she did lie, and together they sicced the pigs on me which led to an even bigger nightmare that would last me nearly 3 years before I was vindicated. How do you just forget and forgive that and not think of that when you think of her, see her name, hear her voice??? It’s not just what happened in the past, it’s knowing what she could do in the future even if I’m not going to be dumb enough to let any abuser of hers have it by phone or mail like I was dumb enough to do before. That was her ammunition against me. As I learned, if we don’t give anyone the ammunition in the first place, they have less to beat us over the heads with.

If everyone who ever wronged me came to me with the most heartfelt apology, there would be just two people I could never forgive and she’s one of them. Right or wrong she didn’t just fail to return a few bucks she borrowed or drop and break my nice new mugs. Yet oddly enough, I did feel a strange tug of emotions when we cried together on the phone in between laughing at some of Mom’s ways. Tammy’s favorite color is purple. One time she went down for a visit with dark purple nail polish on. Naturally, mom scoffed at it and then Tammy asked what was so much better about her nail polish. Those shades of light pink, pale peach, nudes and tans that she used to wear were barely even visible, LOL.

She said the girls are all on their own which was a little surprising. I thought the youngest two still lived at home, and hey, we are living in the Big Kids Forever era where not many kids want to drive, work or venture out on their own.

Still don’t know what to make of Tammy herself, but I don’t doubt she’d turn on me if I dumped her. The Internet has made it very hard to avoid people unless you’re a hermit online like Tom. But most people have active online lives. I would literally have to shut down almost every account I use and come back under an alias to escape her cuz she’s not going to just let me go whether I told her off and stormed off in a rage, or I said nothing and all and just silently walked away. People just don’t like to let me ignore them when I want them to or handle rejection very well.

I was glad to at least hear Aly say that pulling away from Kim has been easier than she thought it would be. Kim hasn’t even noticed, but as I learned, she never was a true friend. She lives for herself and her delusions only. I’m glad she’s not being stalked and harassed. If I had to start over I wouldn’t take the confront-and-dump approach. I’d just fade away.

Aly’s been a great online support along with Andy, but I haven’t heard from Nane in a few days. I think she’s in Switzerland right now. Maliheh hasn’t appeared to have opened any emails I’ve sent her over the last week, so who knows what’s up with her. I was going to wait till she opened my mail before sending any more, but I think I’ll send her the last few entries today.

Later...

Last night a huge clap of thunder woke both Tom and I up, but I went back to sleep. Wish I’d been awake, though. I like the sound of thunder. Love that wet earthy smell too, that the rain brings, though I doubt it rained much. That’s like the third storm surge this summer, which is weird.

Tom, unfortunately, woke up with a cold. He was able to go to Walmart, but he’s sleeping and relaxing for the rest of the day, which he definitely needs to do. I hope his cold isn’t the result of being overworked, and I hope I’m not next, but with the cooler running and pushing out germs, I should be ok. He mentioned going out tomorrow and I said, “Only if you’re up to it. Whatever’s up there might use your cold to slow the move down even more.” But he says he’ll be ok for more park scouting.

This is the first day in a while the cooler has cycled on and off after 10am. We probably won’t have any more triple-digit temps and by the end of the month, we’ll probably have to start closing windows at night. I so did not want to be here at this time, but you know everything takes longer than planned. I just hope we can get out before the next plumbing problem hits! I cringe every time I step in the shower or start a load of laundry.

Last night I had a dream I was in a place that didn’t look anything like this place but that was leaking really bad. So much so that it cut the power and I was unable to turn on the lights. It’s a good thing the dream premonitions seem to be a thing of the past. It’s been about a year or so since I had dream premonitions, but the dream I had about Maliheh’s mother dying in November makes me wonder if it was really my own mother I saw. From the sound of it, though, I don’t think she’ll make it to November. More like next month, October at the latest. We decided to carry on with house hunting as planned since we don’t know how much money she’ll be leaving us or when we’ll receive it. Whatever it is, whenever it is, we’ll greatly appreciate it and be sure to spend it wisely. Probably throw some in savings, too.

I can understand some of the Dutch status updates of Adonis’s on Facebook cuz it’s so similar to German. :)

The spam and scams I’ve been overrun with are definitely connected to Facebook as I had begun to suspect. I got another For Jodi message from another FB friend with a link to some kind of scam or spam. I’ve been unsubscribing like crazy from those that will let me, but so far they’re coming in faster than I can unsubscribe. Marking them as spam doesn’t do me any good and neither did changing PWs. No more signing up for apps if they’re just going to abuse my info like that.

Another strange thing is the instant hit from Israel showing up on my tracker the instant I post to LJ, which I started using just for fun. What the hell’s that all about???