Heading out to run errands and get the new rat real soon. It sucks to know we’ll have to get to know it to the tune of Jesse roaring in and out all day on that damn Harley that even my tolerant husband finds abrasive. But it’s better than the place reeking of skunks as bad as it did last night. We don’t know what’s up with all the skunk activity this year, but OMG! It was so fucking strong that it woke me up and I had to light a stick of incense.

Oh shit! It’s barely after 8am and the cock is already starting with the loud engines. I heard either the motorcycle or a truck start up and then it stopped. Why can’t he just get on/in the damn thing and go?!

Tom got a home testing kit for diabetes. My numbers were surprisingly high - 133. I always used to think that only heavy people got diabetes, but as Tom said and the test showed, that’s not always true, not that those numbers mean I’m diabetic. They just mean, keep on exercising and keep the weight down or else!

Trying not to get my hopes up, but we’re looking to get into a park that’s not only got some nice homes and spacious yet compact 1000 or so square feet I’d prefer (why cool/clean all that extra footage?) but it’s a resident-owned park instead of owned by a corporation. This not only means the residents vote to make the park rules themselves instead of the company, but we’d only have to pay $350 a month in HO fees! Talk about a MAJOR compensation for the struggling we did our first 4 years here! Hopefully, God wouldn’t pick on our health instead but damn would we have serious dough saved! First I used to say that as long as we had enough for necessities I didn’t care if we had money in savings. Then I used to say I wanted to always have 2K in savings so we could get a new used car if this one crapped out and wasn’t worth fixing. Then I used to say I wanted 2K plus 6-12 months of expenses covered should he be jobless again which is what we’ve got saved now. Now my attitude is that you can never have enough in savings!

Later…

Romeo has arrived! He’s a little sleepy and timid thus far since we had to wake him up at the store. He looks EXACTLY like our last rat – dark brown with white “socks” and a vanilla belly. He’s 4-6 months old and was in the store for over a month. Sure enough, some kid was running around screaming at the time, which didn’t help as the attendant was removing him from the cage. But he didn’t bite or try to run. He was just a little nervous as they usually are at first.

He had two older roommates with white fur and red eyes. They were pretty wound up in comparison so we took just Romeo.

Before picking up Romeo, we made a few stops and got a lot of fun stuff minus Renate’s postcard. No one seems to have postcards in this damn town. Not the drug store, not Kmart, not anyone. So we’ll pick one up later on at the California Welcome Center if we have to. The UPS Store would also have some, but they’re closed on Sundays.

You can still pick up your mail on Sundays at UPS Store boxes, so we grabbed our mail and found a couple of surprises waiting for us. A really nice homemade Halloween card from Andy, and a sample of Tom Ford Black Orchid perfume oil in a vial from my favorite online perfume oil & incense store folks. I figured they weren’t going to send the sample after all, then I forgot all about it. So it was a pleasant surprise and it smells great, too.

We went to Radioshack and picked up some new power strips and wire ties to get most of them out of the rat’s reach once he’s running around loose. Then it was off to a drugstore where I got neon green nail polish, a cat calendar for next year, and a trio of glitter lip gloss in different flavors. Sugar cookie, gingerbread and strawberry cheesecake. I also got a bundle of ankle socks, which are good for working out. There are 4 white pairs as well as one in green, blue, pink and purple. Then I got a pair of pink super soft socks for lounging around which have little rubber dots on the soles to prevent slipping.

Our last stop was Kmart. I was really startled to see just how fat, old and ugly I looked when I caught a glimpse of myself in a full-length mirror there. BUT… there’s nothing I can do about it. We all get old and we all gain weight with age.

Got a beautiful stretch bracelet with colorful gems there, and that was it for today.