“No problem, I understand,” would have been nice to hear from Aly when she wanted to chat when I wanted to charge the phone and do other things. Instead, I’m being made to feel guilty for not always being readily available. I do my best, so it would be nice if she was a little less clingy and without certain expectations whenever she has free time.

Got up in the early evening and read the letter on the counter from the park.

I knew it. I just knew it.

Sometimes I sit and think of all the things he knows that I could never figure out and how much smarter he is and how I wish I could be as smart, but you know what? Sometimes I am. Sometimes I’m even smarter. Yeah, I TOLD him they’d repave.

He had said, “Naw, they’re not going to do that because the roads are smooth.”

“Yes, they are,” I insisted. “They’re not going to leave these roads looking like a patchwork quilt (the squares they dug in and then filled back in when upgrading the fiber optics) or with all the colorful paint markings they left all over the place. This park’s too obsessed with looks not to resurface these roads.”

Well, they’re going to seal-coat the entire park. They enclosed a map with a different color marker tracing different streets depending on the date they’re to be done. They’ll be working on and off from the 15th till the 24th of next month. Our area is on for the 18th and luckily I’ll be on days at that time and our area won’t be split between two days like those who are on the edge of their designated sections.

Unfucking believable, though. Been here six years and they’ve worked in the roads five or six times already. Lived in the Phoenix house for just as long and they only tore the roads up once.

Then there was their little “reminders” note. No feeding the wildlife, keep your pets on a leash, etc.

Yeah? How about no tearing in and out on motorcycles in the middle of the night? How about management not playing favorites? How about doing something about some of the complaints you get instead of spiting people for it? Really, I’m sick of this underage punk that lives here but doesn’t sleep here. I’m serious, too. Just because he doesn’t sleep here doesn’t mean he isn’t living here. He is. No idea where he’s crashing at night but I wouldn’t be surprised if he was sleeping in his car. I think his sleeping here was where Joy had to draw the line. He comes in in the morning and leaves at night. Really think this kid just doesn’t want to work and his parents are paying for his food, smokes, and that fucking car which is like oxygen to the little bastard so that he doesn’t have to get a job, a place of his own, or take on any kind of responsibility. He sure hasn’t seemed to have any of those since his stint in the Army and divorce in 2015, from what I could learn snooping around on FB.

As far as the paving goes, since I’m going to be up that day, I say let them go for it. Sure, it will be annoying as hell but since it’s only for one day, let them spend money at our expense to make the roads prettier, and most importantly, smoother for bike riding. Really looking forward to that electric wheel someday!

Loving this translation job! It sucks that I don’t get paid even though I get extra bells and whistles, but it’s a great practice exercise. What I do is I set Google Translate from Spanish to English. Then in Spanish, I write what I think is the correct way to say whatever the prompt asks and watch it appear in English. This way I can verify that I’m correct. I’ve got a pretty good accuracy rate so far but my grammar isn’t always great.