In the 3 years and 3 months I’ve been sweeping, I’ve had 6 big wins. A Caribbean cruise, $2500, a trip to Italy, a large high-def TV, $9000, and a 3K Apple shopping spree. That’s an average of one big win every 6 months. So I hope this means I’ll win big again before the year is out, seeing that I won the Apple shopping spree in May. I wasn’t notified till June, though.

Got a surprisingly generous coffee sample from Starbucks. This sample will easily make about 10 cups! I’ve joined a sample site and so every day I sign up to receive free samples in the mail.

I learned how to do headers in my tell-all journal in my word processor so I could set it up to display entry titles (it centers and bolds the text). It doesn’t open that day when you click on it, though, since it’s all on the same page. I just like the idea of entry titles like on Kiwi. I put them under the dates. I’m going back and doing my entire California journal, but not the others. It’d take forever to go through 20 years’ worth of journals!

Tom doesn’t expect to hear from anyone about jobs until next week. I’m just glad paying September’s rent appears to be no problem! It’s always tough when changing jobs, so unless we’re surprised with him landing a better-paying job than we expect, I’m sure I’ll just move on to worry about October’s rent after that.

So far my top 3 favorite Kiwiers are Jasmine, Alison and RainbowLesbian, whose real name is Jessica. They’re all gay. Well, Alison’s bi. Jasmine and I comment on each other’s journals daily, but Alison and Jessica aren’t online every day. Jessica and I have been reading and commenting more on each other’s journals lately, and she just told me she loves my story journal. I was like, wow, really?! So Alison’s not the only one reading them after all.

It’s hard to believe we’ve been here almost as long as we were in motels! The time really does pass by faster when you’re in a better place.

Once again, I was hungry and homeless in my dreams last night, but at least my allergy problems have stopped. I haven’t taken the snot spray in quite a while now. But are they better because the spells worked, or because whatever was out there causing them has ceased to exist? Hmmm…guess I’ll never know for sure. I’m just glad I’m not sneezing like crazy anymore!

Due to the temperature being down a bit I had to hear a few barking spells. And Tom thought it was a time-of-day thing. I’m still pretty sure it’s a temperature thing, though.

I hate these rats. Not enough to dump them, but I sure miss having sociable rats that like to be handled. These things are just way too timid, and trying to get them to return home after running around loose is next to impossible. I’m not even letting them out today. They’ve really gone and abused that privilege. Maybe if they suffer from being cooped up for a while, they’ll realize that abusing their freedom means they lose it, but these rats are just incredibly dumb for rats. We’ve never had rats this dumb before. They may miss coming out, but they’re hardly suffering in reality. They manage to play and keep themselves entertained at home.

I hope that when Tom gets home in a couple of hours he’ll have emails and even phone calls to tell me about pertaining to new job possibilities. Better yet, I’d love for him to get an actual interview!

Got a missed call this morning from a blocked number, but Tom says he gets those all the time. I still don’t expect to hear from Andy, but whatever’s meant to be will be. Unless Marla didn’t get the letter, though, perhaps she just has yet to get a hold of him to tell him about it, or maybe he’s taking his time to think about it.

Now that I’ve found this really cool online journal, I don’t have much to say lately. I guess that’s a good thing, though, cuz usually, when I have a lot to say, it’s not very good.

I just hope Tom gets a job real soon and that we get our savings back up. I’d like to always have at least a couple of grand after the rent’s been paid. That way, if the transmission went out on the car or something like that, we’d be covered. If it went out right now, though, we’d be pretty damn screwed.

I just wish I could stop worrying that the past is going to return to haunt us! Nearly losing your life really leaves your emotions pretty tangled up. I’m more appreciative of the good things, but I’m always paranoid and worrying, too. I’m still having “motel nightmares,” and I know it’ll probably be a while before they back off. The same thing happened after jail. I had all kinds of dreams about being stuck back there, and now I’m stuck back in that damn motel room all over again, writing my “death note,” giving details of what happened and family contact info for whoever was to find our bodies.

sighs I think I’ll go try to work on my book for a while.

Finally, a good win! Not a biggie, but a goodie. I got Flirtatious perfume worth $35. What’s interesting is that the contest ran for a long time, 6 months, and I was the only winner! Guess that’s the difference between a 1½-star non-premium sweep and a 5-star premium sweep. It’s got a nice sweet, sugary smell, and reminds me of cotton candy. I wonder if these are the same people who were supposed to send the Glamourazzi perfume. Maybe they sent this instead by accident, but it doesn’t matter either way, cuz this one smells great.

Tom tried to install and run parallels on my computer so I could use both OSX and Windows, but it corrupted my word processor and we had to reload it. That’s when I said fuck OSX! I’m not going to bother with it at all. I’ll just stick with what’s been working for me, and Tom seems to have solved the boot-up crashing problem I was having. He just needed to update a certain program.

Another scorching hot day. I wish it was this way year-round. Keeps things quieter, too. Of course, I can’t say what’s been going on at 3am, since I haven’t been up that late in a while. It wouldn’t surprise me, though, if the dogs were going at least a little crazy. I still think it’ll be just the opposite in the winter with the dogs barking during the daytime and quiet at night.

I haven’t been winning much lately which is a real bummer. Is it compensation for winning big a couple of months ago? Or is it compensation for another big win to come?

Alison gave me positive feedback when reviewing Angel Eyes. I’m surprised she liked it so much! If I had to judge my stories, I’d vote it as one of my worst. Even Tom couldn’t get into it. I’m glad she pointed out the few mistakes I made, too.

I hope the dork up the hill will tell us when he’s switched us back over to the well. Judging by how clear the water in the toilet bowl looks, I’d say there’s a good chance he did. I just wish he’d call to say so if I’m right so I can drink the tap water again, but no, he has to come down in person and bug us that way for everything.

Tom says they’re now short one person on the third shift and that they hope they switch him to it so he’d have more time during the daytime to look for a new job. I can’t believe they even have a third shift still with all the business they’ve lost!

I just hope whatever’s up there won’t let us suffer financially until he does have a new job. I’m tired of money being an issue so often in our lives. Enough is enough!

It was really hot today, around 100º.

Tom passed the DMV test, which is good, but he has to wait till his license is mailed to him. I just hope it doesn’t take long, even though he’s already got proof enough that he’s an Auburn resident and can therefore start hauling shit to the dump. More importantly, I hope he finds a job closer to home with benefits! He can start putting in applications early next week, which he says is the best time to submit them.

I still do what I’ve been doing best since we came here – worrying about money. That’s the sucky side of having a tragic experience nearly kill you. While you appreciate things all the more if you survive, you always fear the past is going to return to haunt you. Unless we struck it rich, I think I’ll always worry that we’ll one day be faced with either the streets or death, but at least we’d be a lot more comfortable dying here than on a motel room floor, if God forbid, we were ever cursed enough to have our only other choice be to live on the streets. We could go right here in bed without having to worry about interference as long as we did it at night when Jesse was less likely to show up. I just hope God wouldn’t allow us to ever again be put in such a terrifying predicament! He’s allowed enough shit to happen to us as it is! And I hate to think of what He may be putting Paula through right now. Jessie, on the other hand, is no doubt just busy as hell.

Tom decided to go to the DMV here in Auburn tomorrow, rather than by the Carmichael box today because from what he could see online, he should only have a 10-minute wait. Then on the 15th, he’ll return one last time to Carmichael and close that box out for good. Then he shouldn’t ever again have to go to that area.

I hope I’ll feel better once he’s settled in a new job somewhere and that we don’t struggle too badly until he is! Right now I feel like we’re never going to have any real security in life. If only I could win a few grand right now. Our savings is just about gone so a cash win would help. A fellow Kiwier recommended a couple of paid email/survey sites that really do pay you for your time without telling you that you don’t qualify after you waste time on their surveys, but it doesn’t pay much. Them making Tom lose nearly a week of work really hurt us probably more than he’ll ever admit for fear of me worrying even more. I still fear that money will be a problem for us for the rest of our lives. At least for the most part. If God hadn’t gone and cursed me with such a freak sleep disorder and driving phobia, then we’d probably hardly ever have any problems. None that serious anyway. I still have to wonder, what kind of God does this to a person? Why does He hate me so much to inflict that upon me along with all the other problems I’ve had? I keep thinking there’s got to be a reason, that I’ve got to have done something to deserve it, but I’m not sure what. There are people out there with faults far worse than mine that have much easier lives.

Alison said she’s in the middle of Angel Eyes and likes it very much, and I have another subby for my day-to-day journal.

Later…

I was laying around thinking that it was a bummer that my friends are so far away and that our families are the way they are, not just to help us out of any jams we may get into, but because it makes me feel we’re all the more alone in this world. Tom doesn’t feel as I do, but sometimes I just feel so alone.

Then I burst into tears, not so much because of that, but because feelings of guilt over dumping Andy nearly a decade ago hit me like never before. I’ve had my guilty moments over the years and have thought of contacting him at times, but always figured he wouldn’t want anything to do with me, not that I’d blame him. Walking away from my family was one thing as they were abusive to me, but walking away from Andy simply because he could be annoying at times and we’d grown so different was cruel and I’m sorry I ever did such a thing.

So I searched online, got nothing new in Massachusetts, and 3 addresses I’ve known him to live in Phoenix that I can’t imagine he’d still be at after all these years. That’s when I struggled to remember Marla’s last name. Fortunately, I did and found an address for her in Hayward where I remember her to live. I don’t know if she’s still there, but I decided to send a letter there, letting her know how bad I feel over what I did, and asking that she pass along my contact info. I enclosed my email address and cell number, and of course the address is on the envelope. Not knowing if she’d get the letter, I didn’t go into much of what’s gone on with us but simply said we left Arizona, lived in Oregon, and are now in California. As I told her, if all I could do was say “I’m sorry,” that would be better than nothing even if he chose not to contact me. I asked her to tell him that I love him, think of him a lot, and hope he’s happy and healthy in every way possible.

So what do I think will happen at this point? Well, if Marla gets the letter, I’m pretty sure she’ll pass it on to Andy, but I’m not sure Andy will respond. Guess all I can do is leave that to fate and hope for the best. Maybe add a few prayers, too.

Once again I tried OSX, Mac’s operating system, and once again it sucks. I should’ve known better than to bother paying for its pitiful version of Robo I thought I might be able to fine-tune. We’re going to get the $35 we wasted on it back. It’s only got a couple of cool features like the webcam and the reader. The reader not only reads text right in the document rather than copies it to a clipboard, but it also has some pretty funky voices. One sang a letter I typed to Mary to the tune of Pomp & Circumstance. I also liked how you can put it to sleep rather than shut it down, whereas the best I can do with Windows is hibernate it. Other than that, everything else sucked. I can’t think of one other good thing about it. The things that are normally such simple tasks to perform were either a bitch or totally impossible. You can’t even do color schemes or change cursors!

I’m swapping comments with Jasmine just about every day in regards to entries, and in the last two days, I’ve heard from Key too, regarding my bitching about OSX, which she herself uses.

I just get sick of those Kiwiers that always have to be on top. They constantly “edit” their journal just so it’s in the top 20, which is all they show.

One girl left an entry that included a couple of sites that pays people to read emails. She said she got $60 that she transferred to her PayPal account. They pay every month. I sent a note asking how long she’s been a member. If she had to read 10,000 emails to get the $60, then I’m not so sure it’s worth it. But it is free, so the worst I can get is spammed to hell and I already do, thanks to those running contests that feel obligated to pass people’s emails on to everyone in the world.

Haven’t heard from Jessie in ages. No calls, no emails, no nothing. I hope she’s just busy and that nothing’s wrong.

Tom and I went to Walmart and shopped to the usual tune of unruly kids.

Now that he got his birth certificate, the next step is getting a license. That means it’s off to wait forfuckingever at the MVD tomorrow. Then hopefully – hopefully – if God is with us Tom will get a new job closer to home that offers benefits that won’t cost half his income to receive!

I should add that I haven’t heard from Paula in ages. She’s always been a little out of it, but she never used to go this long without writing or calling. I hope she’s ok, too. I checked for any news online and came up empty. I hope she’s not sick or in jail! She no longer has her cell phone.

I hate this Apple PC! Better yet I hate running Windows on it cuz it takes forever to boot up! It boots and crashes, boots and crashes, over and over again. I’ve got to have him switch me to the Mac’s own operating system. The only sucky thing is that the Robo that works with it is beyond shitty. I’m basically going to have to fill out forms myself because it’s so half-assed, and practically give up everything else I do. I’ll edit my sweeps down a bit, but it’ll still be a huge amount of work.

Two nights ago I dreamt I won $500. Hope that means I’m sitting on a good one!

Tom has the next 4 days off, and this time he’ll be paid for it!

No one called back about the shooting, but I wonder, could it be Jesse? He’s got to own at least part of the ditch area to have a well there, he wasn’t home when I called (although I heard someone drive in not long afterward), so it makes me wonder. Tom doesn’t think so and he doesn’t think there’s a hunting season around here either. I hope he’s right and that someone puts a stop to whoever it is. If it’s a bunch of crazy drunks having a good time, then I not only have to worry about being woken up and annoyed by the noise when I am awake, but then I also have to worry about the house being hit as well.

I wonder why no one called if only to say they didn’t know anything about it. Maybe because it really was him or they were offended by my complaining about there being barking “all around here,” and knew that I was talking about his dogs. I was, but there’s one in back somewhere that can be just as annoying.

Anyway, it’s been dead quiet all day today.

In case I haven’t already said so, I’m done updating my autobiography for who knows how many years. I just hope that the next update won’t include anything nearly as bad as last fall!!! I still wonder how we survived it.

Alison hasn’t been turned against me by the immature assholes on KB. In fact, she’s had issues with Amber, too. She was not only busy but unable to access kiwinotes for a while. Yeah, some people were complaining about that, but fortunately that wasn’t one of the many problems I had. I still love Kiwi as much as I hate it. I mean, I hate the site’s layout, it’s very tricky to navigate and is set up by a bunch of dumb-ass amateurs, but it’s still lots of fun. I just wish they had a better prize selection and a more straightforward setup.

Alison subbied to my main journal and says she’ll catch up on my stories soon. She and Jasmine are definitely my favorites there.

The Olympics are to be held in Beijing this year and I’m looking forward to watching the gymnastics online. That’s my favorite of the summer games, as figure skating is of the winter games.

Won a $20 Kmart Gift Card from the Kmart Hulk Text2Win Promotion.

Oh, that fucking rude asshole up the hill! The dog’s fucking whining its ass off. How utterly rude of him to let this happen every single fucking morning! He lets the big one bark at 3am, and the other one whines early in the morning. It is so damn obnoxious! How can he stand it himself? And how can he not give a damn about us? He knows damn well Tom sleeps in. Just because Tom’s a heavy sleeper doesn’t make this rudeness ok. It’s annoying as hell to hear even when we’re up. I was a little worried my music was too loud, but you know what? I don’t give a damn anymore if he hears me or not! I just don’t fucking give a damn! I hear his motors, his dogs, so fuck him. Just fuck him!

I knew this place seemed too good to be true. I’m already looking for other places. Not actively seeking to move, but just keeping my eyes open as to what’s out there. If we can get a place that doesn’t have a well or the owner living on the land, and that has direct mail and trash service without the nearest neighbor being an arm’s length away, it may be worth looking into if it’s comparable in rent. I hate to move again, but I can’t ask my own landlord to shut his dogs up and leave us the hell alone to live in peace. The best I can do is enclose a note with the next rent payment asking that he call when it comes to non-emergencies and hope he has the decency to do so. It’s just that 90% of the things he’s coming down for are emergencies and I’m getting sick of his little emergencies, real or not, and the fucking dogs! He’s coming down here more than Scot came to the Maricopa house! More than I ever had any invited company in Phoenix or back east. Part of the reason we wanted seclusion was to keep people away from our door like religious and salespeople. Instead, we’ve got this little shit bugging us every 1-2 weeks. Yet if I complain he’ll probably just be like, “Well, I own this place, you don’t. So if you don’t like it, leave, and I’ll find new renters.” I personally would try to please my renters just as I would my customers if I had a store, but that’s just me and I know most people aren’t like that. They’d rather simply not deal with those who aren’t happy. Period. I may not be unhappy, but I’m not happy lately either, and you know how Tom is. He’d rather me be annoyed than open my mouth. He’s paranoid that complaining, no matter how kindly we went about it, would get us tossed out. Yeah, but WE’RE the ones paying HIM!

I know one thing for sure and that’s that he’s full of shit about going back to work. Yeah, when? When has he been working? Unless he’s working an hour or two each day or smashed another finger, we see vehicles up there all the time when we come and go.

And the motorcycle story Maryann told us when we first came to see the place just doesn’t jive. I don’t know why it took 4 months for it to hit me, but if someone was going to steal his motorcycle, why would they leave it at the end of the road? Wouldn’t they take it somewhere else if they were going to keep it, or sell it if they wanted to sell it? That sounds like a revenge thing. Like Jesse did something to piss the last people off. They may’ve been jerks, but it sounds like Jesse did some shit himself.

Later…

The trigger-happy psycho’s back in the ditch. Yeah, I figured it would be. There were only 3 shots fired this time, but what if I was asleep? I’d not only be woken up for damn sure, but it’s so damn annoying to listen to when I’m awake! It puts the Maricopa shots to shame, right along with Jesse’s ATV and beasts.

I really wanted to know if Jesse knew what was up with this, so I called up there but got no answer. So I left Maryann a message and added that lately there’s been “barking all-around” late at night and early morning. I figured that was a good time to subtly yet obviously let them know it bothers me. I added that I was “surprised” and wondered where it came from, hoping it’d stop soon. I told her there was no hurry getting back to us and that she could call either the landline or Tom’s cell. Anyway, I’d guess it is legal and that hunting season started after the 1st. Nice of them to tell us if that really is the case, huh? Now I’ll have to deal with that as often as I have to deal with dumb shit coming down here. Wish he could be a gorgeous woman to make his visits a little more worth it!

I told Tom why I thought the motorcycle story sounded like a crock, and he thinks they did try to steal it and that they wheeled it down the drive. But once they realized it was too heavy to lift up into a vehicle, they just left it there.

I’m sorry they failed to succeed, even though he’d have just gone and gotten a new one.

Once again we’re back to playing water games. Starting late last night the pressure has been low. Right on time, too. No wonder he can’t keep renters for long. I can hear him on the ATV going to and from the well, but I still wonder how much of these near-weekly problems are of his own fabrication as an excuse to come down here. If he’s that paranoid of us, why doesn’t he just plop a hidden camera on the hillside and keep an eye on us that way?

And I’m getting sick of the late-night/early-morning barking, too! Arrrggghhh!

Well, I’ll be damned. I just up and peed and found the water pressure back to normal. Ah, but I’m sure he’ll just have to come down anyway.

Later…

Right on time. Yeah, dumb cock came ATVing down to tell us he filled the tank with ditch water (though we haven’t been hooked up to the ditch), so don’t drink the water. Tom then asked if he had the landline number so he could “save himself a trip” next time, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he were too stupid to get that what that really means is STOP COMING DOWN HERE! Yet I’m sure he’ll be back anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks to hook us up to the ditch as he continues to be too stupid to get his floats straight. That’s what Tom’s pretty sure is the problem. What I didn’t know myself was that when we were hooked up to the ditch, that was actually a shallow well. I had thought it was just a pump sitting down in the ditch itself. Anyway, living here is still way better than being in the city, but between his stupidity and the barking I’d really love to thread the dog’s tails down his throat and out his ass, then bury all 3 of them in the hillside and take over the land ourselves! Man, I wish we owned it. The only good thing about not owning it is not having to pay to fix things.

Meanwhile, if he continues to come down for non-emergencies (although it’s quite a coincidence the amazing amount of emergencies he has), I’ll call Maryann and explain to her that hey, I don’t think he understands that one of us is on nights half the time and a very light sleeper. And so I get woken up half the time he comes down. I’ll also see what she has to say about the barking too, though if they barked last night I wouldn’t know it. I slept until 5am. One of them whines for a few minutes every morning between 6:30 - 7:30, presumably because it hears him getting up. The barking’s not nearly as annoying as him coming down here (as long as it doesn’t go on for hours or many times a day) because my sound machine is loud enough to keep it from waking me up. The ATV, however, is not.

I just wonder how much longer this shit with the well is going to go on, and what will come next after that? Even more so, I wonder how much of it is intentional so he has an excuse to come down.

Tom’s allergies are bugging him today. Mine, amazingly, isn’t going off today even though I went out yesterday. Maybe this snot spray really does help!

We went to pick up the mail yesterday. The package was just a light bulb. Man, I ain’t winning shit lately, and when I do, it seems I don’t get the prize! The question is, is this compensation for the Apple win? Or am I sitting on another biggie?

I got the lip gloss from Kiwi. It’s just so-so, right along with the temp tat and rings I got. I almost wish I could get back the points I used for these things, but I wanted to try them anyway. The lip gloss is flavorless and doesn’t provide much moisture at all, the tat wore off almost as fast as I applied it, and the purple ring is too dark.

Another night of scattered barking. I’m getting closer to calling up there and asking what’s up with that and seeing if he can put the damn dogs on the other side of the house if he’s not going to take them indoors. I just hope it isn’t a temperature thing! If it is it’ll be like being back in the city from December through February.

I received another OLS friend request after commenting on this lady’s personal quote that I liked. Something to the effect of being happier when she’s worrying about what’s going on in her own life versus the lives of strangers. As I told her, I not only totally agree, but I don’t understand why so many people think things should be one way or another. Take gay marriage and abortion, for example. Why not let those who want these things get them, and those who don’t not get them? We don’t only sell one flavor of ice cream simply because not everyone likes other flavors.

Anyway, I had to laugh (not directly to her, of course) when I read that she’s been sweeping since 1985 and her biggest prize was 5 grand. And here I’ve been sweeping since 2005 and my biggest prize was 9 grand! Once again, not everyone’s psychic. I just wish I could get good enough to win a house or at least enough money to buy one outright! The first of 3 home giveaways just expired. On the 15th will be another one, then a million-dollar house in Florida expires on 9/30. They’re all dailies.

Nothing exciting in the mail, though there is an oversized package awaiting us. It could be anything from a package to a large envelope containing these damn travel packages I get to his birth certificate. Unless it’s something way good, we hope it’s the certificate for which they finally took the money. Hopefully, soon enough he can get the hell out of the shithole he’s working in now and into something closer that’ll provide benefits. Again, we don’t care if it pays shitty. Sure we’d rather it didn’t, but getting him closer to home so we can save on gas and getting me to a dentist and ear doctor is more important right now. Wish I could win at least a grand just to cover all the co-payments when this finally happens, if it ever really does, before I’m 65 and automatically insured in 23 more years!

The rats got so huge that we decided to move them into one of the bigger cages, the first one we got. So Tom pulled it out of the shed and I cleaned it in the tub with the shower massager and set it up for them. They seem much happier now that they’ve got more room to play in. It’ll be a little more work for me cleaning-wise, but they’re worth it, even though these aren’t the greatest rats we’ve ever had. They don’t bite which is most important.

It was a bad dog night there for a while. Around 2:00 the dogs went off for about 10 minutes, plus there were scattered barks afterward. I don’t think it was just them either. I still think someone recently moved down in the ditch somewhere, so Jesse must not own that entire area. That’d explain the lunchtime food smells Tom’s smelled lately, the gunshots, and increased barking. I know most people think it’s A-OK to leave dogs outdoors 24/7 and to make as much racket as they want, but how do people sleep through such noise? And how can they have no courtesy to their neighbors whatsoever?

I’m almost finished updating my autobiography. It’ll be a few more days before it’s all posted on Kiwi.

Last night I dreamt Tom was working the numbers and said the money was “dwindling.” It’s dreams like this that can be scary to someone known to have dream premonitions, but he assured me everything was fine. I hope so! Especially since it wasn’t here. It was in a big old house in New York of all places.

While I still don’t believe there’s any future with the horses, Tom’s learning a new programming language that runs on the new Mac. He’s encouraged, saying he’s learned that it’s not as complex as he thought it would be.

I had my first two wins of the month already. A sample of Colgate Total toothpaste, and an $88 beauty kit. It contains shower gels, lotions, cleansers, toners – stuff I love.

I was pissed today, now yesterday, for a couple of reasons. First, I was woken up by gunshots of all things. Yeah, there’s always got to be something cursing my sleep. It sounded like a pistol down in the ditch, but I never saw anything. As far as we know you’re not allowed to fire a gun in this area, and also, hunting season would never be during fire season. Fortunately, it didn’t go on for long, but now that’s one more thing I gotta worry about waking me when I’m on nights.

Jesse said the tank still wasn’t filling well when Tom called to let him know the rent was in his box. He didn’t say anything about the roof or anything else, but I’m sure he’ll be down here for something soon enough.

I still hear a few scattered barks here and there between 11pm – 7am, but nothing overwhelming lately.

The other thing that pissed me off was the mail people at the jail. I sent a letter with a sheet of 7 small pictures on it and specifically enclosed a note asking that they not return the letter to me if the enclosed picture sheet wasn’t acceptable due to the cost of stamps these days and that they just disregard the picture sheet, but what did the assholes do? Well, they returned the whole thing of course. They enclosed a little note of their own saying “pic size.” Tom said I should’ve cut them up so it wouldn’t be seen as a collage, but how could they have seen it as a collage? The pictures in a collage touch and overlap. This was clearly several pictures on one sheet of paper, not one big picture. Would it really have been all that hard for them to pick up a pair of scissors and cut them out if that was the problem? I don’t think that was the problem, though. Remember, I was kind of famous too, so they no doubt recognized my name and are going to fuck with me no matter what.

Tom suggested I cut them up and try again, but no way! I’m not going to play games with these people. As long as it’s me sending pictures in, they’ll be returned no matter what. Hell, they’ll say the colors are too damn bright or something, and we don’t need our time and money thrown away like that. I totally should’ve known better. I really should have. Therefore we’re back to waiting for her to get out of there if she ever does. They’ll look so much better on a computer anyway. If Nathan can get some in to her from Webshots, more power to him.

Today’s our one-year Cali anniversary! Yes, it was exactly one year ago today that we left snowy, cold Oregon for warm, sunny California. Well, it’s usually warm here. I knew the move would be rough, though I had no idea it’d nearly kill us. Even so, we have survived! In one year we’ve gone further than we got in the 3 that we lived in Oregon. We’ve got new computers, a camera, an iPod, desks and more. We didn’t even have a kitchen set in Oregon! An old, peeling, and beat-up table and lawn chair hardly count as a dinette of any kind.

If someone had told us where we’d be a few months after leaving Oregon, I’d have wanted to drop dead on the spot. Had they told us where we’d be a year later, I’d have laughed!

I’m helping Tom help himself with not eating himself sick. Fortunately, he’s never eaten to the point of puking, but he upsets his belly at times on his days off by eating too much crap. So he’s doing what I try to do and space out his food so he eats more often but less at a time.

We decided to take a chance at upgrading our internet speed to the second-highest speed out of four, and we’re now twice as fast! In a month or so, we’ll step it up another notch.

I won another writing contest! Just some bullshit essay about how duct tape saved the day. I made up some line about being scared of mice and jamming the hole with duct tape where the sink pipes go through to keep them out, and it got me a Tee and a roll of duct tape in Orange Blast. Cool, huh?

I don’t know if I’ll get it, since I’m obviously not getting the popcorn samples I also won, nor the perfume, nor the Karmaloop shopping spree, but I won a $50 Amex card in an instant the other day as well.

Since Jesse hasn’t shown up, we’re assuming he got a construction job. With that kind of thing, you just gotta go on whatever jobs they give you, whenever they give them to you.

Anyway, other than just lounging around doing our usual things these last few days like watching movies, programming, fine-tuning the new computers, writing, enjoying the radio, entering sweeps, playing around in Kiwiland, and running a few errands, life has been good. My sleep is still cursed (even at night now), but life is good. We tried Rally’s, a grocery store Tom ran out to today, and I love their Chinese buffet. I got chicken fried rice, and sometime I’ll load up on a little of everything except for chow mien and egg rolls. It’s not a good place for regular grocery shopping, though, as opposed to Walmart, cuz it’s so expensive.

We canceled Rhapsody and got commercial-free, unlimited song-skipping for just $35 a year with my old Yahoo radio station. The only thing I can’t do now is downloading, but with my recorder, that’s ok.

If things could stay running as smoothly as they have for the rest of our lives, even if this place is too small and too old, that’d be just fine with me! God, I hope we never have any disasters half as bad as last year! I know one thing for sure and that’s that I’m never going to stop praying for things to be ok no matter how mad I may get at God for the unfairness in this world that has touched myself and others.

Of course, staying away from the off-brands helps keep us safer, too. Jews may not be as hated here as in Arizona, but no matter where you are, the off-brand prevails.

Tom and I both agree that while I may be best as a psychic at influencing and with dream premonitions, there definitely does seem to be an uncanny coincidence with “jinx-writing.” So many things I’ve written in stories, letters or journals have come true. Therefore, after I finally get around to finishing the stories I’m working on now, I should definitely try to incorporate more of what I’d like to happen to us for real into the story somehow.

Tonight I’ll be redeeming points for lip gloss on KB.

Not at all surprisingly, Jesse hasn’t done the roof. So he’ll wait till Sunday, assuming Monday is when he returns to work.

Yesterday was another miserable day for me with allergies. I mean I was totally miserable! I was practically bedridden, too. Every time I’d move I’d get hit with a sneezing fit. So we got some nasal spray which I’m going to take once a day and hope for the best. Naturally, all the damn congestion that goes with the allergies has my ear even more fucked up.

Jessie sent me an attachment you’re supposed to send to at least two friends within two hours to get your wish granted in 6 months, and one friend to get it granted in a year. I forwarded it to Tom and Satish (I couldn’t think of anyone else), and Tom forwarded it to me. We wished for money, of course! Jessie said she wasn’t sure if she believed in it, but didn’t see how the hell it could hurt to tell her friend she was thinking of her. I don’t know if I believe in it either, but we’ll find out in time.

Our Macs are pretty much all set up now. Just a few more things need to be changed or added. I sent Mary a picture sheet. If it makes it in to her as she says it will, I’ll enclose a sheet with each letter which I’ll send every week or so.

The built-in webcam is cool.

Anyway, it fucking figures Jesse hasn’t done the roof yet. My schedule’s pushing later into the morning, too. He’s obviously the type that puts things off till the last minute. He wouldn’t have waited till the day we moved in to check the heater and cooler if he wasn’t. He might come on Thursday cuz that’s trash day, but I think he’ll come on Friday or maybe even over the weekend.

Moo also reviewed Nocturnal Obsession and I’m glad she likes my stories so much. :)

Read Moo’s final review of Heart of the Forest, which she just finished. Moo’s her SN (screen name), so that’s why I call her Moo. Haven’t heard from the one reading my biography. Guess she either got bored with it or is busy.

Yesterday I was just miserable. Non-stop allergies all day long. Every time I’d move I’d be hit with sneezing fits, and my nose was stopped up all day, too.

Tom slaved his ass off yesterday getting Windows installed on the new Mac I’m using because I hated the Mac operating system (OSX), browser (Safari), and especially its pitiful version of Robo. I don’t know why people were saying it was so good when it wouldn’t even fill out the entire form.

Won a couple of packs of gum, got the rest of the stuff I ordered from Ashton-Drake, and a few samples. There were tampons, Dove lotion, and Kashi granola which was so boring I sicced it on the rats.

It’s hot, but not as smoky lately.

We’re just kicking back setting up the new Macs. It’s a bitch having to configure shit, install programs, etc., but worth it. The 22” monitor is perfect for a desktop. Tom’s $900 Mac is refurbished and has a wired keyboard and mouse, but the $600 printer and my $1200 Mac are wireless. So were my keyboard and mouse, except that insanely enough, my keyboard didn’t include a number pad, so I’m using the wireless keyboard I’ve been using all along and a different wireless mouse. The wireless mouse I had been using can’t be used with Macs, but that’s ok, cuz I still need one for the laptop. It’s awesome! I have the mouse I operate the Mac with by the keyboard on the keyboard tray, then I put the laptop’s mouse above it and I can skip songs on my radio that play on my laptop without having to get up.

Today’s been both a fun and annoying day. We got the Macs and printer, as well as one of the clear round crystals I liked the first time I saw it, then shortly after we returned, who shows up? Well, Jesse, of course! Jesse, Jesse, Jesse! He had his kid with him, too. They came ATVing down to get the metal tin that’s going on the roof. I guess they have to cut it to size. He also cut up part of the tree that went down.

Despite the fact that we were both up, that was still kind of rude of him not to call first and ask if he could shoot down and grab the shit. I guess instead of Tom, me, and tons of barking, or Tom, me, and the car stereos or neighbors’ wild kids, it’s now Tom, me and Jesse, Jesse, Jesse. Oh, to go more than two weeks without him coming down here!

I really hope to hell Tom gets a new job fast! He’s got to stay away from small companies, too. They not only have a 3-month waiting period, but they want over $40 a week for insurance! What’s the point of having insurance if you still have to pay a fortune anyway?! Gee, something up there really doesn’t want me getting my teeth taken care of, does it? This is getting a little scary. When can I go to a dentist and an ear doctor? When??? In another 4 years?

Other than a pair of Hanes panties, I haven’t won anything else exciting lately.

Tom’s setting up his Mac, then we’ll do mine. The printer, which is wireless, is set up now, too. Hopefully, it won’t take too long or be too much of a bitch learning the new setup and all that. The mouse alone is very different. You don’t click it, you push it.

Jesse switched us over from the ditch to the well, though he says the tank’s not filling as well as he’d like, whatever that means. So we gotta go easy on the water for a while, not do too much laundry at once, etc. Oh, those rural hassles, but it sure beats city life! It’s nice to be able to drink the water again too, and to have cleaner water in the toilet. That ditch water made the toilet pretty yucky and cleaning it was a bitch.

He’s going to finish the porch roof next week because he’s going back to work which I was glad to hear so long as the dogs don’t become a problem. Tom says he thinks someone will be with them and that someone was there today because he was talking on a two-way radio.

It turns out that when we tried to call him, it was the wrong number. So the guy’s not as aloof as we thought he was.

But now the pressure’s on once again to keep a schedule cuz of him having to come down here. Once this well thing is finally working right and the roof’s done, are we going to be able to go more than two weeks without seeing him down here? I sure hope so!

Most importantly, I hope Tom finds another job before they get the chance to force him to take more unpaid days off or go out of business altogether! Last year’s little tragedy has left me so traumatized, and so worried about our security.

I’ve been having fun changing my profile picture every so often. First I had a face shot of myself, then a rat, now a mannequin! Interesting, huh? Maybe a mouse can be next. I change it every couple of weeks or so.

Received more feedback from my loyal fan that was both detailed and insightful. I guess I succeeded in portraying Noelle correctly after all because she described her exactly as I envisioned her to be! Hot, confident, tough, unpredictable and downright scary. A lot of things rolled into one.

I was surprised she thought it was a little long. I always worried it was too short a story. The rest of it will be posted tomorrow, as well as the start of College Romance for which I’ll create a whole new journal. I’ll have a journal for each story, as well as for my daily journal, of course.

Jesse’s coming down to switch us back over to the well tomorrow, and amazingly, I’ll be awake!

Tom has Thursday and Friday off this week. The bad thing is that I worry it’ll hurt our savings, but the good is that we’ll have plenty of new toys to play with during his time off! The printer and one of the computers will be here tomorrow.

Wow, I guess I’m getting to be a more popular Kiwi author. I decided to create another journal and post my last story after all, and I already have a subscriber! She’s 28, bi, living in Nebraska. I thanked her for the nice feedback, wished her luck with her own story, and let her know I’d be posting other stories over multiple days since we only get so much room per entry. I post a synopsis for each story in the journal description.

Had some killer allergies yesterday and a little bit today, too. I can’t imagine what’s causing them. I just hope they let up real soon!

Yesterday morning we went out to pick up the mail and got the Apple cards! We also browsed through Long’s Drug and they had these really beautiful crystals that are ever so dazzlingly shiny! A little pricey for such little gems, but I’ll probably get one someday. Instead, I just got Tempt Me body spray, one of my favorites.

Then, after grabbing a few things from the grocery store, Tom dropped me off and took off a couple of hours later to check the Carmichael box and go to the Apple store in this mall we almost went to when we first moved here. I wouldn’t go in it, though, cuz it was such a zoo. It turned out to be nothing but a waste of time, money and gas. There was nothing but junk at the mail place, and nothing in the Apple store either which took him forever just to get into, it was such a circus.

So this morning he ordered from Apple’s site and got us a color laser printer and a couple of Macs, one refurbished. One Mac will arrive at the end of the week, another next week, then the printer the week after that. While I’m not looking forward to breaking in a new computer and having to configure and reformat things, I’m sick of all the incompatibility problems I’ve been having which will make it worth it. Every time I get an update on something it fucks up or alters something else. But with Macs, everything’s run by the same company so I shouldn’t have so many conflicts with everything being made to work together.

When Tom was browsing through forums online to see what others were saying about Robo and Macs, a few OLSers were bragging about how they’ve won “hundreds” of dollars worth of stuff in the few years they’ve been sweeping, while in the few years I’ve been sweeping I’ve won over 30 grand’s worth. Guess not everyone’s psychic!

I had a dream last night that’s either just a tease like the horse dreams were, or a sign that I’m in for a hell of a surprise to come! I dreamt we were just moving into a place and I had my Barbies spread out all over the floor. Tom came into the room and asked, “So, have you got it all figured out yet?”

I looked up at him, nodded and said, “Yeah, I think I’m going to put 5 on the ledges on top of each window.”

Well, seeing that I have about 60 Barbies, that’d be a hell of a lot of windows! As in a pretty big house, two of which I’m entering sweeps for right now. The odds have got to be astronomical, psychic or not, but I’m doing daily house prayers and spells until the contests end between the end of this month and the middle of next.

Not that I’m complaining, but strangely enough, neither Tom nor I have heard the dogs in about a week now. It’s been in the 90s, but I haven’t even heard them in the middle of the night when it’s cooler. Somehow I doubt Jesse, any more than most Westerners, cared to take them indoors cuz of the smoke, even if there hasn’t been as much of it for a couple of days. I was just out doing laundry and it’s just oh-so peaceful and lovely! I did hear dogs off in the distance, but that’s about it. The only thing dampening how much I love it here is knowing that we don’t own the land and that the winters may be more extreme than I’d like, even if they won’t be as fierce as Oregon or Massachusetts.

Blackie, who I sometimes refer to as the candy striper cuz he loves sweets and has a distinct stripe running down his back, has definitely warmed up to me more than Brownie. All Brownie really likes to do is run around loose in the living room and abuse his freedom by not going home when I tell him to. He only goes home when he feels like it. All my candy striper really wants to do is stay home and eat, though he does shyly come up to me for attention at times. They both still don’t want to be handled.

When Brownie’s out when Tom’s at his computer, he goes up and tugs on his toe occasionally. He does the same thing when he’s lounging on the futon. Now that he’s climbing on that, I don’t let him out when Tom’s sleeping. He used to only run along the wall his cage is on, but now he’s infatuated with the opposite wall. I dragged the cage into the bedroom so he could run around in there, but instead, they just stayed home, played tackle, and stunk up the room. There’s no air cleaner in there.

The smoke out there is a little scary. It seems worse lately yet there still aren’t any fires around here. Tom says it’s horrible in Rocklin. The moon had an eerie amber glow to it last night rather than the usual whitish-gray tones. I usually don’t smell the smoke with the cooler going which has a really good filter as opposed to the one we had in Phoenix, yet I awoke nervous in the middle of my sleep yesterday afternoon because I could smell it. I even got up to look out the window to make sure the haziness hadn’t worsened.

I wonder if my folks, who were always news junkies, are the least bit concerned over how we’re doing and whether or not the fires are affecting us. I guess they must not be or else they’d have written. Just why did they save us last fall anyway? It’s weird, alright. It’s like they don’t not care enough to want to see me dead, but they don’t care enough to stay in touch. I know it’s better this way, though, because it is very important to them (well, to her) that I be just like them, which I can never be. I can only be who I am. I think she’s come to realize that too, and to understand that sending little “Do Not Do or Discuss” lists won’t make me what she wants me to be. At last, she has learned to ignore rather than to try to change or control people - wow! I didn’t think she ever would. I mean, that is if I’m correct in assuming that that’s the reason I haven’t heard from her; because I said too many things in my letters she didn’t want to hear. I can’t think of any other reason and I don’t think I should waste my time trying to figure out just what makes those people tick. Even if I could figure them out, it wouldn’t change a thing.

On the other hand, they’re probably figuring they’re going to hear from me any day now. In my last letter to them which I sent from the motel, I told them I would contact them once we were settled, although it would be a while. But once we got to half a year with no word from them was when I decided to stop writing to those who don’t respond. That includes Paula as well. I sent the new address and phone number, so it’s up to her to call or not to call, although she could very well be in jail. You never know with her.

Yesterday we could hear some hammering and a saw whirring that was definitely coming from in back. It started early in the morning and I assumed Jesse was having the well worked on. He hasn’t been down to hook us back up to the well yet. But hammering and sawing? Why would you need to do that to fix a well or to drill a new one? Although I couldn’t see a thing through the trees, I just hope no one’s building a house back there! If I could hear hammering and saws, then I could certainly hear barking.

We were worried the refrigerator was broken. It failed to come on for a while. Apparently, something got shaken loose, but after Tom moved things around it was fine. That would’ve been the fourth refrigerator in less than a year and a half between the two that crapped out in Oregon, the leaky motel one, and this one!

I reassured Mary that she’ll only be known as “Mary” and nothing about her case will be mentioned in my journals at this time. She says that although she trusts me with her life, her friend Shirley is going to check it out regularly. Great, another fan! As I told her, anyone is invited to check out my writing as well as my photo albums on Webshots. Her friend Nathan is going to send her some of my pictures which is nice. I told her to be sure to describe the ones he sends so I don’t send the same ones in, and yes, I shall be sending some soon! The Apple cards are on their way.

Although they laid off 4 out of 12 people at work, Tom was not one of them. To save the company money, though, he has to take 4 unpaid days off in July, then he gets 4 vacation days in August. I just hope he’s gone by then! Gone to a more secure job with benefits that’s closer to home. Better yet, I wish I could win enough money to not only buy a house outright but to get him out of work for a while! I’d need to win 300K in order to do this. With 100K we wouldn’t have much left over after taxes.

The fires in Big Sur are still out of control and we can smell the smoke even though it’s over 100 miles away.

I thought a loud motor woke me up, but Tom said there wasn’t a sound at all. So now Jesse’s waking me up in my dreams?! Well, I’m sure he will for real tomorrow if the well’s been behaving. Then within 10 days, there’ll be something else. Fortunately, he’s not going to do the deck or the washroom, but he’ll be down to finish the roof before it rains, so in a couple of months. Oh, to be able to go a couple of months without him coming down here! We saw the owners of the Oregon house all of 4 times in the 2 years we were there, but we’ve had to see Jesse a dozen or so times already and we haven’t even been here 3 months yet! Is there something else behind these additions/repairs/problems? Curiosity? Loneliness?

God, please let me win us a house of our own!

Other than that, all is running smoothly enough, but at a rather high temperature. It’s to be over 100º for the next 5 days or more.

My rash has gotten worse, so Tom got a special cream for it that says it’ll clear it up in a few days. It’s itchy as hell! It started on the insides of my ankles, but now it’s crept up most of the length of my calves and there are a few spots on the tops of my feet. We still don’t know what caused it. The way it’s isolated to my lower legs suggests something I came in contact with, but what could I possibly have brushed up against that could do this? I haven’t been traipsing around in the woods or anything. If it were a food allergy or the ditch water, then why just pick on my legs? Wouldn’t it be all over me?

Tom wondered if it could be stress, but if that were the case, you’d think I’d have been plenty plastered from head to toe in the motels. I am a little stressed out, though, because they’re getting ready to go out of business at work. Tom says everything will be ok. That’s what he said when we moved down here, I reminded him, but he assures me that was a totally different situation and that there was nothing to worry about. He says we have enough money saved to get us by for a month or a little more if we were careful. Yeah, but I don’t want to have to be that careful. It’s always the transition period that’s the scariest when you’re hanging in limbo. If we had 5 grand saved, then no, I wouldn’t be nervous. I know it probably wouldn’t take more than a couple of weeks for him to find a job, even if it had to be another shitty-paying one, but still, that’s two weeks, plus another week or two that there’d be no income coming in. Our rent isn’t $450, and we now have to pay a fortune in gas, so even just a few weeks without money coming in is scary at least to me. He says he’s eligible for unemployment, though I can’t believe it could be nearly as much as we’d need.

For $10, Tom’s sending a request off to Arizona for a certified copy of his birth certificate. Hopefully, this won’t take long, and hopefully he’ll stumble across his passport, but I doubt it. I think someone connected to the house stole it if Tom didn’t lose it. He has been losing things and being forgetful a lot lately and it gets old. It really does. He’s always so damn disorganized. He also lost the non-certified copy of his birth certificate. It’s like something up there doesn’t want him having any ID! Like it wants to make getting a job harder for him.

Anyway, I just hope whatever’s up there will care enough to look out for us and protect us from yet another financial crisis. We’ve been reduced to that humiliation enough, and there’d be no one to turn to. My parents have obviously decided they don’t want anything to do with me. The only ones who care about us can’t help us. Tom’s right, this is a different situation. Ah, but one thing still hasn’t changed yet and that’s that we never get to stay long in the few nice, peaceful places we’ve had the blessing of residing in. I fear the risk of losing this place is way up there because of how whatever’s up there hates to see us be where we’re happy. But I will not be thrown back into the city again! Then again, if we couldn’t afford to stay here, we couldn’t afford to go anywhere else. This is pretty much as cheap as it gets around here. This would be a much more comfortable place to kill ourselves if we were faced with homelessness, and no one could interfere, but I really, really hope it doesn’t come to that! Sometimes I don’t know what’s worse, being in the middle of a crisis, or fearing we’re going to be!

I guess our latest mouse visitor decided we weren’t worth coming to visit now that we’ve hidden our food from it, cuz I can’t believe it would miss every single trap that I’ve got set up in here.

In the city it’s firecrackers for July 4th, in the country it’s gunshots! Yeah, we could hear them off in the distance. I just hope we get to stay here longer than a few months to a few years (unless we win enough to buy a house)!

Later…

Another day of disrupted sleep. First my rash, which is finally getting better (I think), woke me up. Then as I was falling back asleep I heard that fucking ATV. The sound reflects off the mountain and makes it seem much louder than it really is. This time the stupid cock had yet another leak and it turned out that he had a valve set wrong. So once again I had to be put out by his stupidity. He had wanted to let us know that if we heard anyone prowling around, it was only him. I guess he filled his tank last night which holds 1500 gallons, then because he had things set up wrong, the water got pushed out of the tank and back down into the ditch. We’re still hooked to the ditch water, but in two days I’ll have to be put out yet again cuz the asshole’s gonna hook us up to the well at that point when it’s had enough recovery time.

I’m so sick of having to see or hear him! We can’t even go two weeks without something going on. It’s still way worth living here for the peace and quiet I get when I am awake, but I wonder if we’ll ever get to go a whole month without him coming down here. I doubt it, though.

We got a kick out of his saying he’s been so worried over the well that he hasn’t been able to sleep. Good. He’s fucking with my sleep so it serves him right to get a taste of his own medicine!

Another thing I’m sick of is the responsibility having to fall on me to get my own prizes. I’m not going to bother fighting for the Karmaloop shopping spree. That one just isn’t worth the effort. But I do intend to fight for those Apple cards.

The good news is that I’m still 142 pounds and have regained a lot of my mobility since leaving the motel. I can once again sit down on the floor in Indian style position with no hands and have lost a lot of the joint soreness I had accumulated from sitting in that damn room. Losing weight and being more active have really helped a lot. Starting tomorrow I’m going to adjust my diet from 1200 calories to 1000 and see if I can lose any more weight. If not, I’ll be ok with staying where I’m at so long as I don’t gain any more. Being fit is more important to me than being skinny.

Although I dreamt the smoke was so thick you couldn’t see more than 25-50 feet away, and that I found his passport, neither has come to be. Instead, we’ve got another mouse to catch, and the pump Jesse had put in the well yesterday still isn’t doing any good. He thinks it’s dried up and that he’ll need to have a new one drilled. Sure enough, Maryann, who I spoke to earlier, said there hasn’t been a problem in years. Figures, huh? The pump was down there for 16 years. In other words, we’re the ones that jinxed the damn thing with the breakage curse that’s been on us forever now. We learned through the burst pipes and fucked up refrigerator in Oregon that just because we don’t own much right now doesn’t keep us safe from things breaking more than they should. The good part is that we don’t have to pay for it, just be inconvenienced. When I spoke to Jesse, who ATV’d down here after speaking with Maryann, he said it’d cost him 15-20 grand to drill a new well.

Yup. Guy’s got money. He definitely isn’t going back to work anytime soon, but if his presence will keep the dogs from going on two-hour barking sprees, then fine.

Because the well problems aren’t his fault, I didn’t ask for a rent deduction for next month. But I did ask about the dump. I explained how hard it’d be to get certain things to the dump because we only have a car and because we have nothing to prove we’re residents of this town yet, and he said something about a free ticket he had and that he’d haul some stuff away next time he went.

Meanwhile, he said to keep the outside faucets turned on all the time. I don’t know why Tom, who called to tell me how to turn them on when I emailed him to let him know there was no water, had them turned off. Guess he must’ve thought he’d be shorting Jesse if they were on all the time.

I’m glad to be dealing with problems such as this as opposed to wild neighbors and ferocious car stereos, but I still hope the well’s fixed soon because we can’t drink this water and it’s kind of yucky.

As far as I know, the well hasn’t been fixed yet and we’re still hooked up to the ditch, showering and all that in ditch water. The dumb cock thinks he’s going to fix it himself, but we’ll see about that! Tom said he says the well’s 400’ deep. That’s halfway to Arizona! I knew it had to be deep being on a mountain and all, cuz the water table just can’t be all that high when you’re on a mountain.

Other than a mysterious rash on the insides of my ankles and a bad allergy attack last night, nothing much is going on. Our throats get scratchy from the smoke and Tom says it’s hazy inside the building where he works, but so far there doesn’t seem to be any threat to us and I hope it stays that way!