Yesterday’s races were encouraging, but inconclusive since there are still not enough races bet on to really get a good enough idea. We’ve only done 5 straight wins so far and we need to do at least 20 and see how many out of that wins. By the weekend, when there’s more time, we should be able to accomplish this. We won 2 of yesterday’s 5, and when Tom first told me that I didn’t think that was encouraging at all, he assured me that all we need is to win 2 out of every 6 to make money with this type of bet. Still, after just one day, he said he’s not going to jump the gun by either getting all psyched up or all bummed out.

As for what I think, I think it’s still hard to believe that fate can be changed after so many decades. I’m not kidding when I say that something up there is really obsessed with me living where I don’t want to live! So I’d say no, we’re not going to make enough to live where we want to. I think we’ll either stay here or end up in an apartment and maybe get Satish’s house if he feels like renting it to us a year from now.

Anyway, all he had time to bet on this morning was 4 races after just 4 hours of sleep and 15 hours of work yesterday on this special project they were doing. He made $200 yesterday!

Thay did the room a little while ago. Both rooms next to us are occupied, but they’ve been out all day which is why it’s been quiet. I hope they check out tomorrow so Tom and I can have the “house” all to ourselves.

Yesterday turned out to be an incredible day! I hope we’re not going to be compensated for it with bad things to come, but if anything, it should be just the opposite. This should be compensation for some of the hell we went through a couple of months ago. I still cringe when I think of it, too!

The only dark spot is the noise around here, although the inside room checked out yesterday morning. The end people also still scuffle around more than I’d like, seemingly around the clock, but they’re not as bad as the other side was.

Also, the truck still isn’t taken care of yet, but I have confidence that I’d be having dreams signaling impending trouble if we were in any serious danger security-wise.

Less than two hours after winning the Armani GC, I won a $100 Spa Finder GC! Jessie said, “I wish I had your sweeping luck. How do you do it?” I told her she just has to master the art of influencing! I just hope I’ve mastered it enough, along with his hard work, to get out of here soon enough! Yup, we started with 5 small bets before he left for work. This won’t tell us anything 100% concrete, but should be a good enough indicator. If this doesn’t work out, then it’s either be stuck in an apartment complex or stuck here long enough to get Satish’s house after all in a year from now! Neither of which we’d prefer!

She also asked about Italy. That’s still a few years away, I told her. We need to either get the horses established or get him into a job where he can qualify for vacations, insurance, raises, etc. As a temp, he can’t get squat. On the other hand, a part of me doesn’t want to go seeing that we’ve been on a “trip” long enough! Really, if I never see another motel room again it’ll be too soon! I’d really love for my biggest travel adventures to be simply going from one room to another in a nice peaceful little house.

It gets even better. I not only have $100 more coming to me from Netwinner if I can ever get the $50 they’re processing right now, but we got a check from Oregon! Not from Unemployment, but a check we’re not sure why we got. According to what Tom read it had to do with a percentage of revenues exceeding this and that and other legal mumbo-jumbo, and as I told him, he may as well be talking Chinese and that ain’t one of my languages, so just cut to the chase. Anyway, the check’s for $350! We sure could’ve used this check on October 4th, but you get money when you already have it.

Things really do seem to run smoother when I pray for the basic necessities. When I’m not praying, things aren’t as good. I knew he’d be doing more driving yesterday than usual when he went to pick up the TV. I prayed a few times during the day on and off that he not get pulled over until he could finally pass emissions. At one point he ends up with a cop in the next lane, one car behind him at a very long light. Plenty long enough for the cop to notice the nice bold “11” in the rear window and 2-year expired Arizona plate. So after what seemed like an agonizing eternity, the light’s green, then they get stuck at another long light. This time the cop’s two lanes away with no one in between. Tom didn’t want to look at him, but didn’t want to appear nervous and like he was trying to go out of his way to avoid eye contact either. Then the cop accelerates around the corner. Of course the truck takes forever to catch up, but meanwhile, as he’s pulling around the corner himself, he expects to see the cop pulled over waiting for him, but he turned down a different side street instead. Talk about breathing a sigh of relief! Had he been in Arizona or Texas that pig would’ve jumped all over him like he was the FBI’s most wanted!

There’s still more good news, too. This is unfuckingbelievable! When Tom picked up the TV yesterday there was a card from Simple Green saying we’d won a prize that was returned from Oregon. He said he’d call them, but that it was probably just a small win that was no big deal. It came to mind this morning and I thought it odd that they’d notify me of returning a “small” prize. The prize itself should’ve been forwarded if it were “no big deal.” Sure enough, when I checked in the ‘expired sweeps’ section, I saw that I was July’s winner for a $500 GC to the online store of my choice!!! (I chose Walmart from their list of options). Is that just incredible compensation for some of the hell we went through or what?! I just hope we get it. I emailed Simple Green and texted Tom. We’re not even two weeks into the month yet and I’ve already won $750 worth of stuff!

Later…

Someone just checked into the inside room. They kind of slammed the door, so I guess that means they won’t bop around the room as much. Amazingly, the end folks have been out all day. Maybe they’ve checked out and the housekeeper just hasn’t gotten to that room yet. If so, will the next people be worse or just as annoying? As for quieter – not likely!

Tom called FedEx and they said my prize is in the process of being returned to Simple Green. I emailed Simple Green and am awaiting their response. He couldn’t call them because he didn’t have their number. I got it from their site, so he’ll call them tomorrow.

The TV is finally on its way. It’s gonna be a Philips TV from Best Buy. The incense from both Kepa and the Stickman should be shipped today, too.

Meanwhile, does anyone ever sleep at night anymore? The end room didn’t turn out to be as noisy as I thought it would, but there sure is something wrong with them. It’s an older couple with an accent I couldn’t even begin to place. Just some foreigners no doubt come to take what’s ours. The guy left the woman alone most of the day and I could hear her crying over there.

When Tom got up I asked if the room on the other side was still empty and he said no. I realized they had come in quietly enough not to wake me up and therefore there’d be all kinds of bumps and bangs from inside the room. Sure enough, even though it was 3:00 in the morning, we could hear things going bump over there from time to time, and even the door softly opening twice, a few minutes apart. I figure they came out to smoke. Why don’t these people just get smoking rooms? Are they just that scarce here or not allowed at all? Anyway, I can see that since they’re up this late and were going through drawers, they’re not checking out anytime too soon either. I like that neither side slams the doors, but hopefully they won’t be too distracting when they make up for it by banging around inside the rooms. Hopefully, some of them will be out most of the day, too.

Tomorrow the betting begins! He was just trying to figure out the best way to bet for starters. I suggested superfectas, but he said that right now it’s either one or show. Just as long as it gets us outa here! The dream I had was certainly encouraging. Either that or it was a hell of a cruel tease. I dreamt I was standing back looking at the kitchen and some shelves in our home, deciding the best way to set up the kitchen and some dolls. That is after I watered the plants outside.

Later…

Now this helps make up for too many things going bump around here! Just won a $100 Armani Exchange gift card in an instant!

From the sound of it, the same old shit that just left the end room is back to annoy me. Tom said they came in quietly a couple of hours after I crashed, but when I got up after 1 AM I could hear spurts of banging over there. Fortunately, they don’t seem to stomp, too. Why is it, though, that those who come and go quieter are the ones who bang around in the rooms, while those who slam doors tend to be quieter in the rooms? Anyway, they seemed to crash around 1:30 and I think they’re up showering now. Hopefully, they won’t be as bad as the last people, but being a special room, I know I’ve usually got to put up with whatever they give me for at least a week. Any more than that and I’ll complain to the office. I don’t care if this is the West!

I know we’re finally getting close for real with the horses when even I feel we’re getting closer. We should definitely be wagering this week. He had to make a few more changes, then find out what tracks he could place bets on early in the mornings. He may have to do some by phone. It’s neat to see the computer do in seconds what used to take him hours, even days.

What made it start getting “real” was when he finally, after so many months, got to update his account info. Now we just gotta hope TUT (The Ultimate Tease) turns back into EFO (Escape From Oregon), the original name I gave it. Hopefully, it kicks ass and gets us outa here! He doesn’t expect it to spit out a few hundred a day from the get-go, but to gradually make more and more of a profit. Hopefully not too gradual, but we’ll see.

Even though I have no scale to track my progress, I’ve started the tea diet up again, cut my calories, and increased my workouts. I can track my progress by how I feel, and believe me, I’ve been feeling awfully fat and out of shape cooped up in this little room! It’s a simple regimen: A fruit cup when I get up, a 400-500 meal 2 hours later, then soups or yogurts and things like that that are between 100-200 calories every 4 hours after that. So I’ll eat 4 times a day, plus have light snacks in between like veggies and crackers.

I’m a few thousand points from another $100 on Netwinner, and therefore, a new microwave. The question is, will we ever have a place in which to use one?

As always, things take longer than planned. So while the programming is going well, it’s definitely not going fast. He still hopes to do at least a few races within the next few days. Yesterday was the first Saturday he didn’t have to work in ages, so he got a lot of time to spend on it. What seems really promising is the fact that due to the changes he’s made, he may very well be able to change the way he bets. Before he could only bet exactas, which were inconsistent. Now he thinks he can do trifectas and perfectas.

The truck is running fantastic, he says, and so we hope we can get the damn thing taken care of soon enough. The pigs here may not make going after expired vehicles a top priority, but we don’t want to take risks, minimal or not.

I’m so glad the people on the end left yesterday as they were horribly noisy! I was surprised when Tom said there was someone on the other side a few days ago. The end people were so damn noisy I couldn’t tell. I wish both rooms could stay empty as long as we’re here! But we’ll be here for months or even years. They don’t race as much in the winter, so even if he can make money at it, and enough to not have to work elsewhere, this still doesn’t necessarily mean we’d finally get to choose where to go. We could very well still be stuck with either this place or an apartment as our only options. I just hope that 50K dream was connected to the horses! If it was, then we could certainly be in the driver’s seat of our housing situation for once!

Another day as God’s little puppet. The room on our left has been wonderfully empty for two weeks now, but the end room’s been occupied by people who are horribly noisy. It’s been terrible! If it weren’t for me hearing that they’re leaving tomorrow, I’d be complaining for damn sure. They bang and stomp around all morning long. There’s a couple there. The lady, who’s the only one who can walk normally, leaves around 8:00. The guy follows a couple of hours later. The mother-fucker walks harder than Andy ever did! How can a human being walk so hard and not hurt themselves? Stomping like that has to wreak havoc on the joints. The reason I know they’re leaving tomorrow is cuz the cock talks so damn loud that I could make out enough words he was saying to whoever he was talking to on the phone when I put my ear to the wall yesterday morning. He’ll be home on Saturday and in Florida on Sunday. Good, cuz after nearly a week of this shit, I’ve had enough! I’m sure new trouble will replace this because there are hardly any people left in this world who can be quiet, but if I can get a few days in between loud, rude obnoxious assholes, great.

They’ve been putting people under us more often lately, which sucks, too. They’ve just got to slam the door along with everyone else and so the vibration jolts me awake when they do it when I’m asleep.

Right now I’ve got my headphones on cuz I don’t want to hear the shit next door. How can I possibly have faith in God after so many years of being hounded by noise like this everywhere I go??? Well, I don’t as far as Him ever allowing us to live in peace because I know He’ll never let us. Of that much, I’m sure of. That alone just makes me want to kill myself at times! I just hate living a life that can never be my own and that I can’t have much say in.

Without those horses performing a miracle, we’re stuck in this room indefinitely, and this is no way to live. I wish I was a noise freak like most people! If I could only dig noise and not care about ever seeing our stuff again, Tom could just get a job within walking distance of this place, quit driving again, get rid of our stuff, and see about getting into an end room on the other side. At least that room’s bigger and has two beds.

Sae or Sei came to do our room yesterday if that’s how you spell her name. It’s short for something but definitely pronounced like the word "say." This is the scrawny Asian woman in her late 40s or so. The housekeepers are taking longer lately cuz they’ve gotten to know me, so they like to chat more. All except for the last time the Indian bitch was here, and the two times the other Indian was here. I don’t think she even knows enough English to chat as it is.

As for the truck, he wants to work on it some more before he makes a second attempt at emissions. Meanwhile, he says there have been cops all around him, yet no one’s bothered paying any attention to him, so I guess there’s no immediate hurry. Still, if we’re going to be stupid enough to keep on living lives that can never belong to us, I want it done and over with real soon!

I still don’t know if we’ll make it, but I do know I had the shittiest birthday since my 35th one in jail. If the truck continues to fail emissions and we lose it, then no, we won’t make it. Especially since our savings is now gone and we couldn’t just run out and get a new heap of shit. Not unless the horses surprised me. Tom insists it was a major breakthrough when I commented on how rough it would’ve been had he had to start over if the asshole that broke into our truck had gotten his computer, too. I guess he decided this would be a damn good idea in some areas of the programming. He thinks we might be able to test it this weekend. Meanwhile, tomorrow he’s going to take the truck in for a tune-up and take another shot at getting it to pass emissions.

Satish woke me up after a few hours of sleep to tell me what I figured he’d tell me; that he’s going to hold out another year. He also needed to do something in the bathroom cuz the room below us was leaking (I also figured it was about time someone needed to come in for something).

I haven’t had any nightmares, so maybe we aren’t being pushed toward death like last time, but I’m losing my will to survive. If my only choices are to die, live in this room, or an apartment, then I’d rather be dead. I’m sick of trying to be where I can never be!

Some people are strange, not to mention downright rude. They were gabbing away a few doors down as if it were the middle of a lovely afternoon rather than a late chilly night. These are smokeless rooms, so a lot of the coming and going you hear are people going outside to smoke.

Later…

Tom ended up getting the truck worked on for $70 instead of $110, so we went out for KFC afterward since we saved money and might not live past the weekend. He hates chicken, but because his chicken sandwich was honey barbecue, he didn’t even know the difference.

My left hip hurt when we first started on our way, but then it loosened up. No one ages that fast, plus I’m 42 and not 82, so I’m thinking it’s due to being confined in such a tiny space. Even the dump we lived in was bigger! Funny how we keep getting smaller and smaller. Any of the good things I was looking forward to doing like learning Italian just isn’t worth life’s bullshit anymore. As I’ve said before, if we’re still not meant to be in the driver’s seat of our lives in this day and age, we never will be. We’ll just continue to be forced to live where we don’t want to and teased for nothing in more ways and extremes than the norm. There are also the millions of little things that add up too, that we’re pretty fed up with. I can’t even get a day in my life without pain for the most part. Was that really an unreasonable request too, to want to live pain-free? To want to sleep normally? To not have to hear our neighbor’s every move?

He didn’t get a chance to take another shot at getting the heap of shit to pass emissions, so maybe tomorrow, though I still think it’s too old to stand much of a chance, and as he said, there’s no way to know for sure if what was done to it today really helped it or not.

Whether or not it passes will tell me what God’s up to this time around. If it passes, He just wanted us to lose our savings in order to keep us trapped even longer in this room. That is unless there’s a miracle with the horses. I’m pretty sure this is why we were denied the Citrus Heights apartment and why the housing cost had to coincidentally drop when it did too; to keep us trapped here. Well, we came here to better our lives, not live like bums in a motel! So while He can stop us from going where we want to, He can’t keep us in this room forever either. I hate for the only way out to be suicide, but I’m sure most people would rather that than this!

But that’s exactly what may be happening here. God may’ve set us on the road to death once again, just not as quickly as the last time. If so, this time we’re not running to anyone for help, even if they have the means to do so. That wouldn’t be fair to them any more than to us. So if the truck keeps failing to pass, we’re out of here. Period. Whether we want out or not, the truck would eventually get pulled off the road, even though Tom said he saw a ‘9’ vehicle on the road the other day. If it was us, though, it would get yanked off the road, he’d be out of work, and if the horses were really just another joke on us or a reality that couldn’t happen fast enough, we’d end up starving on the streets if we didn’t kill ourselves first.

So much for thinking God really did care after all. He denied my prayers to get into Satish’s house and so far He’s been ignoring my emissions request. Guess you just can’t ask for what isn’t meant to be or else the horses would’ve taken off over a year ago. We might’ve ended up screwed for a while if they had, though, with the lousy internet connection we had to deal with our first couple of months here.

The truck’s either gonna pass, the horses are going to take off, we’re going to get out of this damn room and live where we want to for once, or the truck’s going to keep failing, get taken away, causing him to lose his job and us to die because we absolutely won’t be reduced to street life. I don’t see much else that could happen at this point. When our time’s up, it’s up, but I hope it’s not up just yet if the horses could work out. If the truck passes, but they’re not working out, then I still wouldn’t feel we had much hope, but we’ll see.

The truck failed emissions. Fucking figures, huh? Why did I bother running to mommy and daddy for temporary help? Why didn’t we just get the fuck out of this world two months ago? There’s no place for us here or anywhere else. I see what that was too, a few months ago. Just like I knew I was being prepared for something the night they took me to Florence, what happened two months ago was just a training drill. God knew I was too chicken to die that night, afraid of what awaited me on the other side and of the dying process itself. So He obviously felt that having us nearly lose our lives like we did would toughen me up and make me a little braver. Well, it worked! It worked because I’m no longer nearly as scared or as sad as I am mad! I’m tired of sitting in this room month after month, living on impossible dreams! All our dreams, as simple and as reasonable as they may be since all we ever really wanted was a decent, peaceful place to live and a reliable vehicle, are totally impossible. Why? Oh, just because it’s what we want. What’s possible for most others is simply out of the question for Tom and Jodi S.

We would prefer to live and do the things we’d like to do in life, but as I said before, we have to go someday anyway so why stick around for another 40 years or so of bullshit and trying to get to where we can never be? Besides, I see where God’s going here. Once again, He’s having us slowly backed into a corner with no way out. So much for thinking we were friends now. Well, He can back us into any corner He wants because this time I’m not running to anyone! I’m not going to live to keep on being kicked back and forbidden from being in the driver’s seat of our lives. And as Tom said, so what if the truck eats our savings, cuz he’s resigned himself to the fact that it’s either the horses or nothing since no one gives a damn about us and those who do can’t help us. Well, I know the horses aren’t going to save us, so yeah, it’s ok if all the money’s gone by the weekend because we’ll be gone then, too.

He said he’s had vehicles fail emissions before and that the Ford Tempo he had when we were newly married and living in Phoenix took 3 times to pass. He was right about it passing the carbon monoxide test, but its timing is off and it idles too fast. But even if it did pass with the quick oil change his online research suggests, that wouldn’t change anything. Especially if I’m the one who’s right about the horses and him being naively optimistic. We’d still be stuck in this room forever, dreaming of the impossible.

I wanted to live to receive the new TV we won if they’d ever send it. I wanted to live to see my stuff again, get new rats and do all kinds of things. But there are pros to dying, too. I won’t have to deal with my teeth and ear anymore or suffer the effects of growing old. No more poverty spells or noisy neighbors. All this would be gone.

I don’t know why I didn’t have any dreams about this last night, but I guess I’ve finally accepted the fact that if God doesn’t want us to live, He won’t let us. I just wish He would’ve been kinder to us and had us killed off instantly in an accident or something! But He never cared. Never has, never will. Meanwhile, there are plenty of others He can bless with our dreams instead. Others can live them out. And others can have our stuff, too.

Sometimes I wonder, did we do the right thing by calling my folks and not killing ourselves that night? Oh, I’d still prefer to live and so would he. But where we want to, not where fate says we have to. Yet I’ve been stuck in places I didn’t want to be in since I was 15 years old, so I don’t see this changing anytime soon. Just like we all have certain physical traits, both good and bad, I think we all have certain life traits too, also good and bad. I’ve definitely been cursed when it comes to sex, sleep, noise, and being stuck where I don’t want to be.

After not having anyone on the end for one wonderful week, we’ve now got someone slamming in and out of there. No one’s been on the other side for a few days, but I’m sure that’ll all change soon enough, too. I hear more inside movement from that room because its closet area, dresser, table and cabinets are by the dividing wall, but I don’t know what’s worse – hearing inside scuffling that goes on and on that annoys me rather than wakes me up, or the doors slamming less often that does wake me up.

Tom had a frustrating setback with the horses this afternoon but is now just 2-3 hours from knowing how much longer we’ll be stuck here. He got tired, though, and needed to hit the sack since he’s got to get up so early. I’ve been saying that I wish he could make a copy of himself just like you can make copies of MP3s. If he could copy himself, he’d have had it done a long time ago so one copy could stay back and work on the horses. This still doesn’t mean this may not be just another tease on us, but we’d at least have a better idea of it by now if he’d had more time.

Now they’re talking about not starting second shift till next year which tells me they’re really not all that serious and are all talk and no action. If the horses could just work out, though, then he won’t need to be there long enough to find out for sure!

So for a while longer, we’ll be “unsentenced inmates” stuck in this room anywhere from a couple of weeks to forever. We just don’t know.

Meanwhile, he got an idea that sounded appealing, but that could also take forever. That’s the problem, though. If God really does care about us, then why must everything take so long if they even happen at all? Why can’t anything come fast and easy for us?

His idea was to get an RV. My first thought, upon remembering Gert, as I called the old piece of shit we went to Oregon in, was NO WAY! It’s like living on a full-wave waterbed. Just the slightest movement on his part and I’m vibrated wide awake when trying to sleep. But then Tom said to get that $1500 piece of shit out of my head. He’s talking about one that might cost 10 grand or more, but this way I wouldn’t have to worry about us losing it since we’d own it outright, and we could move it if it got noisy wherever we were at the moment. It’d be an alternative to spending a few months to a year in a rocking complex while we waited to be able to buy a place. Then, as soon as we bought land, we could move it onto it while we had something built.

I really like this idea better than a motel/apartment/duplex, but I don’t know if it’ll ever happen. The problem is that it could take many months to buy an RV, and I still believe something up there is trying to hold us back and wants to keep us where we don’t want to be, so it’s hard to be very hopeful. I think it’ll be either here or in an apartment. Maybe the best we could do would be a duplex so we’d only have to listen to the neighbors and not so much outside activity as well.

I wish that if we couldn’t be rich at least Jessie could be. If she could give us 10 grand to get something now, there’s no reason we couldn’t give her a grand a month, and that’s the least we could give her. If things did pick up, we could pay more. But that way we’d be dealing with someone we knew and trusted.

For now, though, we have to hope to hell that truck passes emissions tomorrow!

Life in this little room is basically the same. Sometimes the noise is annoying, other times it’s quiet. Nothing utterly maddening so far, thank God. Same with the car stereos. They get annoying, but not as maddening as up in the Klam, the freezing, cold, snowy miserable Klam. It’s pretty cold here at night too, though.

We like the money all the overtime brings, but it sucks too, because he has so little free time to “horse around.”

Although I’ve been continuing to pray for the things we want and especially the things we need, God obviously isn’t going to let us have Satish’s house. Is He doing us a favor somehow? We’ll never know. I can’t believe, though, that He did us a favor by denying us the Citrus Heights apartment we initially tried to get into since it would’ve saved us a ton of money. Not unless one of those extremes we always seem to get (with the exception of Kim) would’ve been waiting next door for us.

The next prayer we hope He grants is letting the truck pass emissions. Tom got the part he needed today and also had the truck weighed. I have no idea why they require this. What, do they think the truck will break the roads? He has a permit to drive to the place on Monday after work. Let’s hope it passes! Tom thinks it will since the carburetor has improved. Before it was too smoky. Because of the California smog, they’re really picky about that.

I won 5 Playtex bras, but don’t know if I’ll receive them. I don’t even know if I’ll really like them that much since I prefer sports bras cuz of the way the straps of regular bras slip off my shoulders. It’s just that I can’t remember whose name I entered! I asked them but never heard back from them. Therefore, I went ahead and emailed back the form, assuming I entered in my name.

I heard from Mary, just to wish me a happy birthday and a happy holiday season. She says she’s doing well.

Paula called and left a message yesterday evening and I called her right back. She sounded a little down, understandably, but was still her usual self at the same time.

She said she had to stay at a motel for a week before the housing people placed her where she is now, which she says she doesn’t like either. I guess the people below her get noisy. Getting a quiet place outside of an adult community is getting harder and harder to find. There are more and more rude people obsessed with getting attention, more dogs, more stereos, etc. We got someone next door last night who can’t sit still for long, so hopefully they’ll leave today.

Anyway, she said Justin’s been depressed, has dropped out of school now that he’s 16, and is spending most of his time shut up in his room. Her sister Brandy wants to get him a puppy. I hope for his sake he at least gets his GED.

They still don’t know who started the fire, but it was definitely arson. It happened in the middle of the night.

She said my old building on the corner of Locust and Woodside is gone, but when I checked via satellite, I found that it’s still there, but the building on the opposite corner is gone. The satellite pictures are never up to date, though, so it could be gone, too.

Her husband left her and is filing for divorce. She said his new girlfriend called her claiming to be pregnant, which she doesn’t believe (or want to believe). She also wonders if she’s in jail.

Whatever. That girl is forever cursed in that department!

Things are as bad in the East as in the West with those of color getting special treatment on the job. Jessie hadn’t gotten a promotion in the 5 years she’s been where she works. She told them she was going to leave and take a job that offered her 6 more Gs, even though the benefits wouldn’t be as good. That’s when they said they’d match that pay and give her a position as an analyst, but she has to wait till her position’s filled first. In other words, as soon as they find the perfect little black or Puerto Rican, she can finally move on.

I hope Tom can finally move on himself to second shift soon since they’re not going to hire him on or give him a raise. But he’d prefer second shift till he got something better (or the horses raced us rich) for the bonus and the fact that it’d free up some time during business hours. Like today he had to go in an hour early so he’d have time to play truck later on. He’s been searching for this part which he needs before he can take it to emissions.

I still worry that we’re just being teased yet again about having money and that the horseracing thing isn’t going to work out. He’s always getting “closer than ever,” but I haven’t seen any money yet. It’s not ready to be raced for real, though, and the question is when? When is it going to be ready? I really think we’re heading for an apartment and that we’re still not meant to live where we want to. I don’t think we ever will either. It hasn’t happened yet. That was a hell of a coincidence that the housing market changed right after I first spoke with Satish. Obviously, that would’ve been a hell of a house for us. Probably as close to perfect as we could get for being in the city.

Maybe Mary’s only half right. Maybe alienating God makes things worse, but praying really isn’t that helpful. At least not to Tom and me.

So Satish and others will live where they want and we’ll get into an apartment if we can ever get the truck taken care of first, and I’ll listen to their TVs and their stereos and their slamming doors and their pounding footsteps and whatever extremes are around us, but I’ll enjoy the security while I’m at it, cuz I’ll hate it too damn much to be evicted!

Then again, we may be forever trapped in this room. We may never ever make get out of here.

I saw Josephina and the Indian bitch both as Tom and I were returning from Carl’s Jr. the other day, but the bitch was smiling brightly and was just as polite, so maybe she really was just in a bad mood the last time she did this room which was quite a while ago. Josephina said she thought we moved. “Maybe some century,” I told her.

We’re on for housekeeping tomorrow. Hopefully, it’ll be Josephina or Thay.

For just $25, Tom got a computer stand and it really comes in handy in this little room. When he’s not using it, he stores it in the closet area. When he is, he wheels it over to the recliner. He always thought the chairs were so uncomfortable anyway, and having the stand frees up half the table space for eating and writing.

Since we’re doing better and since he thinks the horses are going to spit out money while I think we’re going to end up saving money in an apartment, I did a little incense order. I wanted to get some old IG favorites, but they still can’t get their shit together. I guess their main server crashed, so I ordered from Silksplash. I’m trying some newbies too, to add to the variety and make it more fun. I got 54 10-packs, 9 of them being newbies.

Later…

They’ve been banging on and off all day next door. Yeah, I figured they weren’t checking out today. They’re noisy, so why would they check out anytime soon? You know the noisy ones always stay. Usually, if they’re still noisy after 20 minutes or so, then that’s pretty much how they’re gonna be the entire time they’re around. That’s the pattern I’ve noticed anyway. The quiet ones stay quiet and the noisy ones stay noisy.

Satish still hasn’t come to tell me what I don’t want to hear, but he may never. Some people have a hard time saying “no” to others. And as Tom pointed out, he probably feels bad. It sure would be nice, though, if he could at least point us in some other direction, even if it wouldn’t be as ideal. God may’ve let us escape with our lives a couple of months ago, but that still doesn’t mean He’s ever going to let us go where we want to, and if He is, I have yet to see it. So I know I really need to start focusing on the good in having what I don’t want and being where I don’t want to be. How could I have to worry about ending up in an apartment like I have been if I’m already there?

I did end up hearing from my folks after all. I guess I’m not surprised. It was a blank card written by Mom. She said she hopes we’re on the path to success and that she and Dad were married for 56 years. Tom and I must seem like a weekend fling in comparison! As she forgot to tell me, Boo and Max are also gone now. She wished me a happy birthday and us a happy holiday season and said to forget about paying them back and that the money was their gift to us, which was very nice of them. Also, she promises they won’t divulge our address to anyone.

I’ll probably give it till just after the new year then I’ll send another letter.

It’s been colder here. Still ok during the afternoons, but down in the 30s at night. It actually froze once or twice.

No one came to join Thay, the tall Asian housekeeper when she cleaned on Wednesday. She works nights at the casino we go to. I guess she’s a blackjack dealer. We went there early Thanksgiving morning but didn’t win shit.

Also, we still don’t know when he’ll have the giant file split into lots of tiny ones for the horses. He’s been trying to think of a way to speed things up. As I told him, though, as long as he’s still sure it’ll work, then speed isn’t as important. I don’t care if we have to play rental until we can own something, just as long as it’s not attached to others. That’s the problem, though. I still feel as if something’s trying to either trap us here in this room or steer us right back into an apartment or duplex. If we could find a duplex with garages between the two and without a shared yard, that should be pretty comparable to a tooth house.

Right now I just hope there won’t be any problems licensing the truck and that it’ll pass emissions ok. If not, that could be as bad as it crapping out altogether. But California’s tough on smog cuz of all the people and pollution here.

The housekeeper, whoever she is, is next door right now. So someone was in that room last night and I slept through their arrival. They sure let me know it when they left today, though. And while they were packing earlier, too.

I hope the housekeeper isn’t that Indian bitch I’ve come to dislike, but whoever it is will be joined by someone else at some point which I hate because they distract the first housekeeper. They always seem to forget something and I have to check their work and ask for whatever they forgot. At least I’m here to catch whatever it is so Tom doesn’t have to make extra trips to the office.

Anyway, there are only 5 housekeepers here. So it’s gonna be either the tall Asian one, the short Asian one, this other really short one who may be Indian, the bitchy Indian, or Josephina. I hope it’s Josephina, but we’ll see.

I hit two instants in a row this morning. Coke and Pepsi have codes under their caps that you can input for prizes. I got a shirt and a DVD.

I’m also getting free books in our names, but slightly misspelled names, from a few clubs that give you some free books just for signing up. I used to do this like crazy when I lived on Oswego St. in Springfield. I can’t believe they set themselves up to be ripped off like this. But I also can’t believe I’ll get all the books, either. We’ll see.

Although it sucks that we won’t be getting Satish’s house and could be trapped here for still some time to come, it eases my mind to know that if the truck’s engine failed, we could now grab another junker for as little as $500. He’d probably still have to miss a few days of work to do it, so we hope we won’t have to and that the truck will hold out till we can get something better for around 5 grand.

I just peeked out and saw the tall Asian one going to lunch. She’s nice and I like the way she does the floor because she sweeps it first. I never heard her vacuum next door, so maybe she’s not even finished over there. I didn’t think it was Josephina or the bitch. They clean rather aggressively compared to both Asians.

And so begins another day of alarms blaring, mowers whirring, doors slamming, and God knows what else around here.

I’m also beginning to wonder if we’re being teased yet again with money and a peaceful place to live. I mean, it’s a hell of a coincidence that the housing market had to change right as we were so close to getting what sounded so ideal. I should’ve known better, too. After all, it just sounded way too good to be true. When am I going to learn that I’m one of those who just aren’t meant to live where she wants to, and just settle for an apartment? An apartment would have blaring TVs and stereos and rowdy kids which aren’t a problem here (yet), but other than that I don’t see how an apartment could be much worse than this. So we may as well get it over with and learn to settle. An apartment would be the quickest, easiest thing to get into. Then maybe – just maybe – we can escape the chaos in 5 years when he’s 55. Of course, if the horses could just come through for us we could go just about anywhere, but I can’t believe that without seeing it first, despite how knowledgeable Tom is. It’s just that the poor guy only has so much time he can work on it.

So since Satish is obviously going to come back in a week or so just to tell me he won’t rent his house to us, we’re not sure what to do about a place. Tom said he should have a better idea of where the horses will take us by the end of the weekend after the latest kink has been ironed out.

If the horses don’t come through for us our only choices are going to be to either stay here, get an apartment, or try to find another house somewhere, but that would be so hard to do and would take so much more time than he has. Especially while he’s still on 1st shift.

At least Subway screwed up in our favor. Or Tom’s anyway since I don’t care for deli-type places. They accidentally sent two $10 gift cards when I was supposed to get just one, as far as I knew.

OLS is down right now for the upgrade I hope won’t fuck things up too bad. I made a point of backing up ‘my sweeps’ at the end of each day.

To give a general update, things are still going well. Our shower drain is clogged again for the second time since we’ve lived in this little room, thanks to my hair which now stretches just past the middle of my ass. So hopefully things will be even better when I call Satish up to fix it later on today. I’m hoping I can get a better timeframe from him as to when his house will be available. I’m going to at least get the street it’s on so I can check it out by satellite, even though the picture may be old.

With the horseracing program looking more promising than ever, we’re hoping all the more not to have to settle for a rowdy apartment until the money builds up enough to buy something somewhere, so it doesn’t make us act in haste. If we’re truly going to be given another chance to own something, we want to take our time and do it right. But living where I get woken up constantly and can’t hear myself think when I am awake would only make us desperate. It was our desperation to escape Phoenix that helped us make the poor choice we did in Maricopa, and our having to leave there in a hurry helped lead us to screw up in Oregon, too.

The programming has been going slowly but well, which is better than fast and bad. Tom said he doesn’t know why he didn’t think of this before, but he got the idea to split the files containing all the information about individual horses. When he had everything in one giant file and it would get confused for some reason, it would automatically insert a bunch of garbage which was too hard to weed out being such a huge file. Now he can debug things easier in the smaller files he’s creating. He thinks that if it can have a 50/50 accuracy rate while it was confused, it ought to be much better if it’s not nearly as confused. Of course, I don’t know what causes it to be confused in the first place or how it all works. I don’t know programming like he does, and wouldn’t write about it if I did. The fewer people that know about this, the more money it can make us.

As an influencer, the success he’s been having with the programming has got me racking up points like crazy at Netwinner cuz I’ve been more hopeful. I got a record 14,000 points yesterday. I also won a $100 Best Buy card in an instant. Tom pointed out that the reason I’m not winning as much is that the piddly wins are still going to Oregon since you usually don’t get your prizes for a few months after the sweep ends. At least we know they aren’t getting anything big at my expense since they notify you of big wins via phone or express mail.

Tom just got up to tell me there was a setback with the way the program communicates, but he should be able to get it ironed out. He should also have more time this week to work on it with my schedule being on days again, and with Thanksgiving giving him a day off.

The guy on the end did move out, and the rooms next to us were vacant all weekend and so it was wonderfully quiet. Someone in back got a little bangy at times, but that was about it, other than when they were cleaning on the end.

I got a letter from Mary who was as glad as I figured she’d be to hear that I finally got the message where God’s concerned. She also called my parents helping to save us a miracle. Yeah, but while I’ll be forever filled with profound gratitude towards them for rescuing us, miracle or not, I mostly hope they blow me off on my birthday.

I ended up renewing my Webshots membership after all. As pissed as I am that they went from giving us 4 new photos a day to 2, I do love all the cool pictures. Most of them anyway. I also like the storage space for my own pictures, plus there are a lot of cool community pictures as well.

The weekend before last I heard a bunch of sirens approach that cut out close by. I figured it was either an accident or a hold-up at one of the convenience stores. Then yesterday when we were on our way to Walmart, we saw a cross, flowers and notes attached to a utility pole at the Northgate intersection. After Tom looked it up, he found that a 28-year-old guy was killed instantly when his pickup hit the utility pole.

It was incredibly foggy yesterday, but at least it wasn’t snowing like where Jessie is, or down to 15º like it’s been getting at night where Liz is.

Later…

Satish fixed the clogged drain. Although he promised to let me know either way by the end of this month, I can already tell the answer’s going to be no. I don’t understand the housing market, so maybe you can make sense of what he told me. He said something about being undecided because his realtor said that the cost of houses is dropping, so he should hold out a bit longer. Yet he’s already in the process of buying this other house which he says is just 7 blocks away. So what’s he to hold out for?

I told him I didn’t mean to sound pushy and that I understood he had to do what he had to do, but explained to him that living in one room with most of our stuff stuck in storage and having the outrageous costs we have is rough. He seemed sympathetic, though I don’t know if that’ll change anything. Especially since he wouldn’t say what street it was on. Just that it was in Sacramento and off of Diablo. I didn’t think to ask if that was a street or avenue or what. When I checked the map I got a street and a drive. The houses and neighborhoods in both areas looked bigger and ritzier than where we lived in Phoenix. It sort of looked like Carmichael, yet they were also tooth houses. Without knowing exactly where his is, since lots of streets are off both Diablos which means devil, I can’t see if there are any exceptions space-wise.

The big question is where to go if he doesn’t come through for us. Do we try to find the time to get another house? An apartment, hoping it won’t be any worse than here? Stay here and maybe even jump into the end room if the horses really do work out? Either way, those horses have got to come through for us. They’ve got to. If they don’t we’re gonna be where we’ve been for years now – where we don’t want to be.

Hmmm… are the prayers really working as well as I thought they were?

The guy on the end hasn’t left yet after all but plans to tomorrow. So after 10 long, but miserably interrupted hours of sleep like I had today, I’m sure I’ll get even less tomorrow and be tired as hell by the weekend. The inspector still has to come tomorrow or the next day, the housekeeper’s coming Thursday, and I’m sure the guy will let me know it when he moves out. I’m also sure the housekeeper will let me know it too, when she comes to clean, which will probably take quite a while as long as he’s been there.

I had opened the door to see how the weather was when he was coming up the stairs. I commented that we made it through the storm after all and was sorry to go begging for his help as I did. He smiled and said it was ok and that he was sorry he couldn’t help. Then he said something about not being able to make it here and going to live with relatives.

Fortunately, the quiet people on the other side are still here. They came in shortly after midnight. I heard a few subtle bumps and bangs, then nothing.

It sucks that Satish still hasn’t called, and Netwinner is late on sending me my cash card with $50 on it, saying that they’ve moved and all that and are oh-so busy. This is no excuse, and I’d like to move too, and so I could really use the damn money! We’ve agreed to have Netwinner be more or less the “furniture and appliance supplier” for now. The $50 that’s on its way is for the incense I got a while back, and the $50 I’ve got accumulated right now is waiting to be put on the card once it arrives. So I’ve got half a new microwave. Meanwhile, we still need a new hot/cold water dispenser and desks. Lower on our list of priorities are things like a new bed for him, a long dresser for me, shelves, and I really like these cool new digital photo frames they have now. They’re like portable screensavers, and of course you can use your own pictures to display. If we do have money again it’d be nice to send one to my folks, preloaded with pictures I’ve taken over the years, as well as Webshots photos.

My birthday coming up in a few weeks will be a good test as to where they stand. They’ll either send a card saying not to pay them back, or just send a card, or send nothing at all.

On the bright side, Tom’s been working like crazy and so we’re doing ok financially. The lady who had foot surgery isn’t returning for another week or so, so they can’t start 2nd shift till then.

For now, I have been praying every day for God to let Satish come through for us, along with his racing program. I also ask that He safeguard us from problems with our health, truck and money. If He hasn’t been keeping a fine ear tuned to my requests so far, then it’s a hell of a coincidence!

Still no call from Satish, which sucks. Tom said he wouldn’t assume he’s not going to rent to us unless we don’t hear anything for 3 weeks, since he said a month or two.

I still fear we’re still not going to be allowed to live in a peaceful place and that we’ll get stuck in an apartment. This motel and an apartment may be better than the streets, but both are still bad enough. All I want are these 3 things: A peaceful place to live, a reliable vehicle, and 5 grand saved up for the emergency we hope to never have. Maybe there’s a chance we can get the last two.

I still intend to use our clogged shower drain as an excuse to lure Satish up here to see if I can see if he’s still serious and to get a better idea of when we could move into his house if he still is. If he doesn’t happen to be here that day, then I’ll have the office have him contact me in a couple more weeks if he hasn’t called us first.

I’m still not sleeping well when trying to sleep during the daytime. They failed their inspection so now I gotta deal with a repeat episode of that shit waking me up, along with the housekeeper, door slamming, plus all the other shit they do around here. The inspector will be here within the next few days.

I’m pretty sure the guy on the end is gone. Someone checked in on the other side and so far they’re wonderfully quiet. I’d rather quiet neighbors than no neighbors, since it couldn’t stay vacant on either side of us forever, and since having good neighbors keeps the bad ones away. But the good ones don’t last long, so I’m sure they’ll check out tomorrow. I didn’t hear any telltale drawers opening and closing.

Despite wanting out of this room so badly, Tom started coding his racing program again in a different way that seems to be working well so far. He thinks that by the end of the week, he’ll have a better idea of how effective it’ll be.

They’re talking about opening an email account for him at work, but he still doesn’t think they’re going to hire him on. He thinks they’re cheap and will keep him forever as a temp without ever giving him any raises for as long as he’s there. They do this so they don’t have to insure people.

The lady who was out having foot surgery hasn’t returned to work, so Tom won’t be starting 2nd shift next Monday. He said it won’t make much difference either way. He’s still working tons of overtime and making tons of money. More so than in Oregon, but it doesn’t feel that way when all the money’s going to this damn motel! It’s like in Maricopa where we were rich, but we were broke, cuz all the money went to the house. Still, we’re in the position to pay for two weeks here for the first time ever, but we’re not going to.

I just wish I knew when we were leaving and where we were going! I’m sick of not knowing. This is the glorified version of being unsentenced inmates, we just have a fancy, more luxurious cell in which we’re free to come and go as we wait out our sentence.

At least Tom was right in saying he’d make more money faster if we came here rather than to Merced. I really thought he’d make shitty money for quite a while. Now if only he could be right about fine-tuning those horse numbers, too!

There are these huge wild turkeys running around here, strangely enough. Tom said he’s seen them beating their heads in people’s cars. He’s seen dead turkeys and raccoons on the roads on the way to work early in the mornings.

Today we’re having our coldest day yet. It’s to be in the mid-60s all week. I’m surprised we’ll have the same lows in the 40s as we had when we were having highs in the 70s. At least it’s not going to drop to the 20s like it will in the Klam and where Jessie is tonight!

I had what felt like the start of a cold trying to grab me by the throat, so I burned it away with hot tea.

And the annoyances go on! At least we’re not homeless, but even so, Netwinner’s having technical problems like crazy. Big changes bring big headaches. I’ll be going through that with OLS soon enough, too. Why can’t people leave things alone for more than 5 minutes?! Although I do love their multiplier. It’s what’s been upping my points like crazy lately.

It’s also been a zoo here in the mornings. They did the door on the end today. Hopefully, that’ll get him out of there more often. He seemed to be hanging around more often because as I’ve noticed before, he obviously doesn’t want anyone in the room when he’s not there, and he must’ve known they were coming soon. He hasn’t been “noisy,” but I’ve heard things that do get a bit annoying at times. The main annoyances are still all the damn door slamming. That’s 95% of what I hear around here.

It was a zoo this morning from 6:30 - 11:30 but has been dead quiet ever since. Wish it could be that way all the time!

I was stressing out again cuz the truck leaked some water yesterday. Tom epoxied it but wasn’t sure how it would hold up. I started getting all paranoid again, wondering if our being close to death as we were a month ago was actually to prepare us for having to kill ourselves for real. It’s just scary to know that if something craps out with the truck that we couldn’t afford to fix, we’re totally screwed and as good as dead. We’d be like cars without gas, and without gas, you simply can’t function. Whoever said money isn’t everything is a fool. Being rich isn’t everything, but having money for the necessities is definitely everything or else you can’t live.

Oh, to have peace and security! Why are those two simple requests such an impossible dream? Just a peaceful place with two vehicles and 5 grand saved up for emergencies, and if he ever did get the luxury of working for himself before he retired, then we could have just one vehicle to go with the peaceful place and the 5 grand.

Tom might start 2nd shift on Monday. He says he won’t be working as much overtime, but with the 5% bonus, it won’t make much difference pay-wise. He’s been working an incredible amount of overtime to get us into a place if we don’t get into Satish’s house. I just don’t know if it’ll be someone else’s house or that dreaded apartment. Not that Satish is lying, but what he told me sounded too good to be true. At least for us personally. It just sounds too much like what we want, and we’re not in the habit of getting what we want when it comes to where we live.

I was surprised there was nothing but junk at the mail place when he stopped today after work. I’ve been sweeping more and more, but you’d never know it. I’m surprised there was nothing from Mary, and still surprised there was nothing from my folks, either, if only to tell me not to bother to pay them back. Maybe they really are hurting financially, although $500 is a lot to shell out for someone when you’re hurting. Tom thinks they’re just waiting till we get settled. I think either something came up or they’ve decided that returning to silence is better, something we can agree on for once.

Today’s annoyance was one of the housekeepers taking a broom and swatting spider webs outside the rooms. And of course this meant swatting the doors and windows as well. It’s a good thing I wasn’t asleep, although I don’t expect to sleep well tomorrow. The guy on the end is on for cleaning tomorrow, someone’s below us, and we have new people next to us who also aren’t going anywhere too soon. I could tell by the drawers I heard opening and closing. People don’t usually fill dressers if they plan to turn around and take off in a day or two.

Oh, how I hope Satish comes through for us!

Jessie said her house is a small two-bedroom house built in 1930. She said she really likes not having a nosy landlady knocking on her window every time she walks by. I’ll bet!

God, they just can’t take a day off around here to save their lives! It’s so typical of apartments and motels of the West, too. Always gotta be mowing, blowing, painting, cleaning, etc. Even if it doesn’t need it. I guess they wouldn’t feel like a real Western motel if they took a day off to sit on their asses and do nothing.

I just hope Satish comes through for us and that the place is as good as it sounds!

I’m glad we haven’t had to go camping so far. I not only hate to camp, but to me, it’s just a fancy state of homelessness, and well, glorified vagabonds are nothing we need to be.

Our worst fears of losing everything like we nearly did happened to Paula, I was dismayed to read. She sent a letter about a week ago saying that in late August her apartment building burned down. She said they thought it was the neighbor, but didn’t say if they thought it was arson or not. Then the place got looted afterward. I tried to find information online about it, but couldn’t. She said her son was taking it really hard, that he cut himself, is threatening suicide, and so she may have him committed. She said all the dolls I sent got burned, but she did manage to salvage her wedding dress. On top of all this, she had a staph infection under her arm and misses her husband. She’s now in a new apartment which I guess is also in Chicopee. I wonder where she stayed until she could move into the new place. She says she’s on the second floor and that the landlords live on the first.

Both Tom and I feel bad for her and her son. That really sucks to lose your stuff to a fire, or to anything. I remember her telling me she wouldn’t move to Florida for fear of losing everything to a hurricane, too. I’ll be adding her to my prayers.

She also lost the bracelet I won and sent her because it was so her in shades of green and frost white. I’m going to one day surprise her with not only some porcelain dolls I’ve been sick of for quite some time but with a necklace she’d no doubt love with jades and clear beads.

Fortunately for us, we’ve been doing much better. I ended up getting over 10,000 points on Netwinner a few days ago, and next week he’s going to be getting a $600 check with all the overtime they’ve had him doing. If things could continue to go well with the truck and we could get into Satish’s house and find it to be all he says it is, then we couldn’t get much better than that! That’d be one hell of a stark contrast to how hopelessly miserable we were a month ago.

He doubts they’ll hire him on when he’s been there 3 months on the 14th because all the people that started off as temps say it takes 18 months to get hired on, and all they got were little piddly raises along the way. I’ve been uninsured long enough, and he doesn’t think this place has much potential for him, so as soon as we get settled somewhere and he can get a new birth certificate, he’s going to look for something better.

To say that October came in like a lion and went out like a lamb is an understatement! I’m so excited that I can barely compose my thoughts in order to write! I think I know why I had that 50K dream! Nothing’s etched in stone yet, but given the dream, the fact that Susie was only wrong once, and knowing Satish, the maintenance guy from the beautiful Fiji Islands, it sure seems quite promising. Especially since Satish isn’t “thinking” about buying a new house, but is buying one. There’s also the fact that I never vibed us being here in ’08, and haven’t had dreams where we were actually living in an apartment. This pretty much stamps out any remaining doubts I may’ve had as to whether or not prayer works, too! And did God do us a favor in denying us that Citrus Heights apartment? Yup! Especially if this works out, and if it does, there’d also be no doubt that this is the best motel!

Just when I thought he’d totally forgotten, Satish came to do the door a few minutes after I got up just before 11:00. We made small talk as usual and at one point I casually mentioned that we were looking to rent a house, preferably in the Roseville/Rocklin area. This is when he asked how much we were willing to pay. I said that, of course, the less the better, and that while we’d prefer to pay around $800-$900, we knew we may have to pay over $1000. I explained we were looking to rent from an individual we knew since management companies can be a problem, and since we’d absolutely hate to end up in an apartment. He said he’s never lived in an apartment and would never want to with all the noise, lack of privacy, vehicle worries, etc. He also agreed that no matter how good you leave an apartment you’re moving out of, they always rip you off.

So it turns out that he has a 3-bedroom, 2-bath house that’s about 1300 square feet heading towards Roseville in a beautiful neighborhood that he says is quiet. He says the house isn’t set too close to others, and that he hates those tooth houses, too. He said the only reason he bought another house was that he wanted a bigger place with a bigger yard. He said it’s an early 80s house. Brand spanking new compared to the 40s dump in the Klam.

He asked if we were looking to rent long-term, and I assured him we were. I told him the idea was to buy a house in a retirement community when Tom’s 55 in 5 years, but that until then we were hoping to find an affordable, peaceful house.

I told him Tom worked at Comtek and he knew where that was. I pointed out that since he’s new here and is only making $10 an hour, and I’m home entering contests, we couldn’t afford anything too expensive, and were in the process of saving up for a place since we figured the person would want deposits and all that. He said he wasn’t worried about deposits, and that he’ll call us once he’s worked out exactly what his own payments are going to be with his loan officer. He doubts it’ll be over $1000 a month, though, and said something about throwing in a few hundred himself, if possible. Also, two months would be the most it could take, but it would more than likely be one month.

To think that I not only saved us by calling my folks but that I may get us home too is a way awesome feeling! Maybe I’m not so worthless after all.