Changes

So, the snake has moved out. His stuff is still here, because even though he had notice nearly two months ago that he would have to move at the end of summer, he still made no effort to find employment. I finally had all I could take and let him know in mid-July that summer ended at the end of July (he of course wanted to argue that no, it ended mid-September). He still made very little effort to find work or shelter, so I don't know exactly where he is sleeping (although he emailed his sister that he slept on a park bench the first night). I hope to think I am a compassionate woman, but as to him, I really do not care. He had time (five months!) to find work and try to prepare for life on his own, and he chose instead to live like a hermit. I finally decided he wasn't really drinking (at least not so I could tell after a couple of times) but just holing up in his room, lying on the gradually flattening air mattress I had bought for him (because I couldn't afford a mattress for the bed he was using) and being too lazy or shiftless or whatever to even blow up the mattress-with an electric pump! By the time he left that mattress was nearly flat (and it doesn't leak, it was brand new).
Okay, now I can resume posts that are good for me, and quit obsessing about him. I look forward to my writing again.

Attitude

I am, at the moment, furious and trying not to be. I made the mistake of kindness. It is a mistake I often make. Remember the Al Wilson song about the woman bringing in the snake? I feel like the woman. Although he hasn't bitten me, he is disrupting my moods, and I hate it.

What happened is this. I had a friend, from many years ago, with whom I had been corresponding for a year or so. He got in a bad place (he was living in California). I had more or less casually commented before this that if he couldn't find a job there and should want to come back to South Carolina he could stay with me. He became unemployed in California, and didn't have success finding another job (based on his behavior since arriving here, I doubt he tried very hard). He asked if he could come here. I emailed his sister and told her I had concerns because he had been a heavy drinker in the past; she assured me that he didn't drink anymore. He assured me he would look for a job right away, that he had no intention of acting, as he put it, "as if he were on vacation". May I say, HA!! SNAKE!!

Since he came he has primarily stayed in his room. He sells plasma for money. He hasn't ONCE filled out a job application anywhere, and he doesn't even have his birth certificate with him (which is a requirement for a South Carolina ID card or a job)! I think he uses the plasma money for wine because I haven't seen but $50 in over two months.

I can't even stand to look at him at this point, because over the weekend I talked to him about all this and since then he is, if possible, worse. Years ago I swore I would never take anyone else in, and I should have stuck to it. I hate being lied to and used.

Civilization and Westerns

I have watched Westerns all my life. My father really liked them, and so I watched a lot of TV shows and movies about the settling of the western part of the US. Something that strikes me about these old shows is that usually one of the first things the new marshall or new sherrif does when they take office in a "wild" town involves guns. They don't give all the upstanding citizens guns and tell them to defend themselves. They don't go on a "war against crime". They make a law that no one in the town can be carrying a gun. They check the guns at the door, so to speak. The people who don't choose to cooperate are locked up, and their guns taken from them. The lack of guns is what establishes the beginnings of a town where people can walk the streets in peace.

So as our population moved westward, the towns began, and as decent, civilized people moved into them, the guns disappeared. Gunfights were discouraged, the rule of law established, and those who wanted to take the law into their own hands were arrested. I am not talking about having a gun in your own home for self-defense, foolish as I think that may be. I am not talking about England, where the police don't generally carry guns. I am talking about walking around with a six-shooter strapped to your leg or an AK-47 slung across your back. Those are things I expect to see in countries where there is constant warfare, or in the uncivilized west, or in the movies. To see it at Presidential events, at Town Hall Meetings held by Congressmen for their constituents, gives me the impression that there are those in this country who want to return not to the ideals of our founding fathers, but to the reckless behavior of the men who thought to take the west for themselves, with no thought for the civilized settlers who had just as much right to live on those lands. It gives me the impression that there are those in our country who want to return to those wild west days, with no civilization or law enforcement. And that is truly frightening.

New car

Wow, I have been slack. There have been a lot of stressful moments since I last wrote. On August 8, my truck transmission conked out on me (or it may be the clutch, either way it's stuck in fourth gear). I got home okay, but it won't be traveling under its own steam for a while. So I resumed driving my Sunbird, but it kept running hot, and I kept having to add water every time I drove. Finally it was nearly pouring water out as I poured it in, so I took it to the mechanic. In the meantime, of course, I had been looking at cars. But I didn't think I could get financing and I didn't have enough cash to buy anything even semi-decent, so I was hoping to fix the little car. My mechanic changed a hose, but discovered the water pump was leaking, so I was to bring it back the next day for that (he didn't have time to get to it that day). Well, the next day it ran hot on the way to work, even though it had plenty of water, and I had it towed to the mechanic after I got to my job. He called me, way too soon for the water pump to be replaced, and gave me the bad news. Head gasket at least, but most likely a cracked head. Well, that did it. I love that little car, but I couldn't justify $1200-$1500 when it had other problems, such as a leaky manifold and a mysterious oil leak. So I bit the bullet and started serious car shopping.

After trying to buy a 2001 Taurus (too old for financing, great shape, low mileage but overpriced), a 2003 Focus (again, too old for financing, but great shape, low mileage and great price) and a 2005 Taurus (got financing, but dealer sold car before financing was approved, it was at the other dealership owned by same people), here is my result. A deep red, 2006 Mustang (not a GT, though). Since everything fell into place for me to buy this particular car and not the others, I figure it was meant to be my car. And I so love it! The interest rate is ridiculously high (not a long credit history, I haven't bought anything big on credit besides my house for 30 years), but hopefully I can get it refinanced after a year or so, and hopefully can sell some trees from the farm to help pay it off. It gets about 20 miles to the gallon just driving to work and around, don't know yet on the highway. It's clean, one owner, 36000 or so miles, great shape, with a 100,000 mile warranty on the engine and drive train. I am thrilled.

It's been a while

It's been a long while since I made any entries here. I have been computer-challenged, and even though I have had a lot to say it hasn't made it's way to the keyboard.
I have been re-connecting with people from high school and college on facebook quite a bit. It's been fun. Memories and regrets, all mingle to make the reconnections important. We all choose paths when we are young that we can't retrace, and which take us places we might never have wanted to see. My life seems to have been more convoluted than some. Many of my friends have married (and stayed married), had children, stayed close to home with lifelong careers. Others have traveled far away. Some are divorced, some never married and some married more than once. The people from my past exhibit the entire spectrum of the lives of everyone else in the world.

We don't carry the same memories of each other, not surprisingly. Some things that I had forgotten have been recalled to me by friends. People I didn't think noticed me that much remember me with fondness, and saw things I about me that I didn't realize were there, and for that I am grateful. It is a wonderful thing, this reconnection, and I hope to continue doing it! I hope I can do as much for these friends as they have done for me.

Rambling thoughts

The weather is warm, which is nice. It was so very cold last week, amazing how quickly it got warm. Steven and I washed the car and truck yesterday, and my car is so clean, it looks wonderful (well, the outside, the inside needs some work!) It is usually hard to get him to help with things, but he enjoyed washing the car, so that was a plus.

I am being encouraged by an old friend to write a book. Not the first time it's been suggested, but now I am seriously considering it. I write mainly essay type stuff, like this blog, so I am thinking of something like David Sedaris, although I am nowhere near as funny as he. I have to ponder this bit longer.

I have resolved, or at least postponed, the current issue with the neighbor who hates me. The house needs work and he is a complainer, so he calls the city, which has the power to write tickets and charge me fines. The solution for now was to get a building permit for repairs, and now I can proceed to buy material and paint and start work. But the building permit is good for six months (actually, I have six months to get started, nothing about how long I have to finish) so I have time to do it as I can afford it, I hope.

Last week was my brother's birthday. He would be 50 this year, if he hadn't died at 15. One of his old girlfriends is now a friend on Facebook, and I was very touched that she remembered him. He has been gone such a long time now, but I miss him still. And Daddy. And Tracey, every day.

I don't have enough to do at work, and it is frustrating. I have some things on my desk to deal with tomorrow, which is good. I am not sure what I would do without my work, probably go home to my mother. She has more than one house, so we wouldn't have to live together (we might scream at each other a lot). I am nearly always at peace there, so that might be nice. But that's because I don't have to deal with cranky neighbors and it is basically vacation. If I were there all the time I might not like it at all!

I love watching Jon Stewart on The Daily Show. He is actually a good interviewer, and will invite anyone on the show. He is funny and serious at the same time, which is very useful in diffusing any potential acrimony, and also disarms his more conservative guests. Colbert is great, too, but in a different way, because no matter who he interviews he maintains his faux Bill O'Reilly character, and those who get it are hilarious and the ones who don't are not sure what to say, which is in its own way hilarious too.

I have craft stuff everywhere, and really need to get organized. It's hard to get anything done when you have to spend time looking for things. The PTO at Steven's school is having a yard sale in a couple of weeks so I hope to get some stuff together to give to that, although I don't usually have anything that I don't want to keep!

Back to my mother, she likes to go places, and it is hard to know where she is at any given moment. She has a cell phone but only turns it on when she wants to make a call, so if she isn't at home, forget it. She is going to be spending time in a house with no phone, so I hope she starts keeping it turned on when she's there anyway.

I need to go to bed, I suppose, so enough of this. Good night.

My chair

This is the chair I redid. I painted it and covered the seat and back. I need to redo the seat, it is a little bunchy, but it's a comfortable chair and I didn't want to throw it out just because it had stains on the fabric. I hate to see still-useful stuff thrown away.