Tuesday

Here I sit.

In Illustrator I listed the next twenty years and how old the kids will be in each year. And myself. Which was sobering.

Another five years and Flynn will be 18. In ten more years Cassidy will be 18.

Depressing and sobering information on that list I made. There it is. Don't expect a different ending than what everyone else gets.

I'm taking care of the kids now. Not a penny of support from Diane.

The endless insecure feeling of dangling by a thread. Will we get to keep this house? Will the divorce ever be settled..? Could Diane just not fucking kill herself..? Does Hallmark make a card I could send her to suggest that..?

Had the kids home last week for Thanksgiving vacation. Enjoyed that a lot.

Nearly out of firewood. The kid's visit to the dentist yesterday was $475. Which kind of precludes firewood at this time.

Or ordering wine from winelibrary.com. Good wine at low prices, deadly high shipping costs, though.

Diane gave me insurance cards for the kids that cover medical, dental and vision. I don't want to use them. I don't want anything to do with Diane. I want Diane to go far away and stay wherever she goes.

Maybe I'll get busy and re-paint the laundry room. And start on the kitchen. Which I thought I'd have painted over Thanksgiving vacation.

I was wrapping another gift or two this morning. I like seeing the pile of wrapped gifts in the corner of the bedroom.

I'm looking forward to getting a Christmas tree. I love Christmas. I put up the Christmas lights on Saturday, waaaay up on top of the extension ladder. That is intense. New string of "D" lights, the kind Dad used to put on the outside of the house. The big, old-fashioned ones. I had put up "C" lights in years past.

This string of lights blink, which I kind of like. I remember a transparent green light bulb that blinked on some of our old, like Mom and Dad old, Christmas lights.

The kids are still young enough to enjoy Christmas. I love to put up the decorations and play Christmas music, especially The Roches' "We Three Kings," my favorite Christmas music. And the Vince Guaraldi Peanuts Christmas music. And watch Christmas shows like How The Grinch Stole Christmas and A Charlie Brown Christmas.

Time to go do something else. Chilly this morning. Nice change.

Heard from the lawyer. Trial date in November or December? I e-mailed a mediator. What does Diane want? I don't have any more money for more lawyer fees. They blew through four thousand dollars, I'm unsure what on. Not impressed at all with the lawyer.

I want the house. You can borrow against my equity in it. BTW you owe me twenty thousand dollars. And how about some help with the kids? Thanks for no money. So far.

Marriage is a trap.

I'll need to vacuum one of these days. I doubt that will please the cats.

First full day of the Cat Era

The kids are at school. Mr. B is sleeping next to the small aquarium on my desk. Trixie is hiding under Cassidy's bed.

Life is better with the cats here. They've brought cooler weather with them. They are beautiful cats. Cassidy is wild about them.

Friday

I'm 48 now. Cloudy out this morning. Bought some switchplate covers at Home Depot. Finished painting the large wall red yesterday. Took three days. Tired of painting. Still need to paint the mantle and replace it on the wall.

Another iMac

Ordered another iMac identical to the other one. Do I need to buy another copy of Windows?? I hope not.

That ought to end the whining about "The PC" as the kids call it. Fuck Windows. Shitty OS. It's a Mac.

What now? Bought some yellow-orange paint and I painted a couple of the walls in the laundry room.

The screen door looks good, the newly-painted formerly-dark threshold looks good. I finished off the patch on the back of the house and that looks good. I spray painted the plastic table from God knows how long ago with some spray paint meant for plastic. Looks pretty good. It was fucked up.

I ought to dump that propane tank somewhere. Or open the valve and let the propane out. Or use the gas up... by running both burners on the stove for a year..? I've had that tank for ten years, I think. Sheesh.

Today is Friday. Thank God. Yeah, as if my schedule is so stressful... Cassidy said "I can't stand the pressure!" this morning and that cracked me up... loads of pressure in second grade, I'm certain...

The second PC ought to make life easier. Less squabbling.

What else? Three more hours until Cassidy arrives home.

I wonder if Flynn is going to mock the yellow color I painted the laundry room? I think that it looks cheerful.

I ought to pull the corned beef out of the freezer. Although I was planning on preparing ribs for Diane and Flynn for lunch tomorrow. Hopefully Diane won't ask for a ride over and back. That really fucks up Saturday. And I fucking HATE that part of town, Mira Mesa. Nearly as filthy as Anaheim. Yuck. Ugly houses, too much traffic, no reason to be there... it's badly planned. I don't want any part of it.

I was going to smoke the ribs... incinerated some ribs the last time I tried that. I still have most of a box of hardwood chips for smoking in the garage somewhere. Fucking up ribs is expensive.

What else? I ought to vacuum Flynn's room. Or address some bills. This has been a bad month for money.

Or maybe trim some of the tomatoes.. or transplant that one tomato that's still growing. Or mow the lawn... always something to do at home. Good to keep busy.

If I don't think "It feels so good to sit down" at the end of the day when I finally sit down, then I haven't been busy enough that day...

Sitting here listening to a Howard Stern replay. I ought to break down the tomato planters. Try that again next year, maybe.

Waiting for a quote on cutting a drain between War and Cor's house and here. That will be a big improvement. That side of the house has been wet since we moved here. So that will be a big deal.

I'd also like to get the rest of the windows double-glazed. The bedroom windows, two bathroom windows, the kitchen flowerbox thing, the sliding glass doors, the window in the small bathroom, the window in Flynn's room... The window in the garage? Yes, eventually.

In time, if possible, I'd like to get a doorway into the garage from the house. And to add a big bathroom for Cassidy's use. And to make Flynn's room a big larger. And to build a real fireplace and chimney and not a metal box with a metal tube. Some massive fireplace made of real bricks that would absorb heat while a fire burns.

That new iMac is expensive, but it will be nice to have my own computer to myself for a change...

Mr. Castro, when he was out looking at the walkway between War and Cor's house and here, mentioned that the palm tree which had planted itself outside of the small bathroom window would grow to be forty or sixty feet... yipes. Too tall for that space, too tall for the house...

What else is new? Cassidy spilled something on this keyboard and the "a" key sticks. Drives me nuts. I ordered a replacement keyboard with the new computer. And a new Kensington Pilot mouse, which is exactly what the other iMac has. I also ordered another 512Mb SIMM so both computers will have a GIG of memory... shit! Imagine that!!!

The iMacs are 1.83 and have a gig of RAM apiece... this iMac has 768Mb of RAM and runs at 1GHz...

I'd like to replace the squishy gel pad I rest my wrists on while I type. The dogs and then Cassidy have wrecked it.

Change the fish water this weekend. Moved all the larger, aggressive fish to the small tank. Where they promptly killed off six of their number. Moved two small fish back to the large tank last night.

I'd moved all but one of the larger or aggressive fish. Couldn't catch one brass tetra. Asshole fish. I was glad to see those fish kill one another. I want small and peaceful fish.

Sigh. Time to clean the floor again!??!!??! Where does this dust come from?!

I'd like to replace the kid's television sets with a pair of $250 Sony televisions. Those televisions were each $99 or less and have crappy pictures.

I'd also like to replace three of the exterior cameras. I have only the one in the eaves at the front of the house which looks at our parking spot.

Ho hum. Gotta water everything. And attack the final patch of crabgrass. Dangerous Africanized crabgrass...

What next? Go pack up the HDTV receiver which I can apparently keep. Stash that in the garage. There's a small hill of clutter in the garage which I don't seem to be able to get rid of...

Time to go do something useful...

Soloflex

$250.00 Soloflex Weightstrap Set
$250.00 WBV Attachment
$10.00 Soloflex Wall Chart
$15.00 Soloflex User Guide
$3.00 Hitch Pin
$5.00 Leg Bag
$10.00 Soloflex Wrench x2
$8.00 Bolt, Nut, Washers & Reta
$5.00 Fly Bag
----------
Total $556.00

Plus $200 for the bones of a Soloflex, the vertical and horizontal parts, the bench, bench legs, bench pin, chrome pin, two-part pin, floating arm, butterfly, leg extension, pads... Roman chair pin...

So for $780 or so I'm getting another Soloflex, with new weightstraps and replacement hardware on everything. That seems like a reasonably good deal overall.

I'll need to USE it for it to do any good...

At least I'll have it on hand. Gotta use it. Weigh WAY too much. Going to catch up with me. Gotta lose weight. I weigh 170 pounds more than I did when I weighed 160. I weight 330. Never heavier. Not good. Gotta reduce.

Ten Days Later

Monday the nineteenth... ten days later... What's new?

I put up four trellises on the fence for the vines that are growing there, that looks really good.

The purple morning glory opened for the first time on Saturday or Sunday, very nice.

Go pick Cassidy up in about an hour. Go pick Flynn up at 3:00 or so.

Beginning next Monday I want the kids to review some math and practice typing. Impose some kind of structure on their summer vacations. Including some exercise. Before it gets too hot. I don't think that would kill them.

I can't believe that Cassidy is just about done with first grade. Flynn is finishing sixth grade, more or less.

Flynn had a very poor attitude when I mentioned the math review if he expected to play video games. He could really use a clue implant.

Friday

Yep. Friday.

Kids are at school. Here I sit. Listening to the Howard Stern show replay of the Artie roast last night.

Got a new iMac in the mail this week, installed XP on it last night. XP cost $179. Too expensive for a piece of shit OS. The kids have wanted a PC to play PC games on forever.

What else? Met with Sal Calfiero this week about taxes. Going to put some money in two 529a plans. Paid off the truck. Paid off the Visa card. Keep about $10,000 (three months expenses) on hand in a money market account. Invest about $1000 a month.

Need life insurance in the event I die earlier than I expect. Sal Calfiero mentioned that. Sounds like a good idea.

The attorney finally sent me a draft of a letter to Diane's attorney. Translated into legalese. Hopefully we can keep the house. I'm assuming that I'll keep the kids.

Two two bottom feeders in the small aquarium have been ill, I removed and sacrificed one of them. The other one is looking ragged. The green neons seem healthy.

Waiting for a sketchbook to arrive in order to wrap it with some other gifts for a friend of Cassidy's. Her birthday party is tomorrow.

What now? Some housework or something. Mow the law. Something useful...

Tuesday

Overcast and cool out this morning.

The tomato planter stuff arrived yesterday. Ordered two too many planters. I thought that five would fit in each tray, but only four do.

I need to figure out how to support the planter and mix up the media. Need to find some horticulatural sand. 

The tomato seedlings are nearly ready to transplant, I think. 

What else? Not much else. At home again. Got the kids up and took them to school.

 

Tomatoes

10 Two-gallon "Perfect Pots" 49.50
2 42"x8"x4" American Ag trays 39.90
2 1/2" fill/drain fittings 5.90
10 ft of 1/2 tubing 5.00
1 21-liter bag of Higromite
3 .4 cubic ft bags of Vermiculite 11.85
3 .4 cubic ft bags of Perlite 11.85
1 qt Fox Farm Grow Big
1 qt Fox Farm Big Bloom
1 qt Maxicrop Liquified Seaweed

$219.80. Ouch. Much more than I'd intended to spend. The trays are what I was searching for. The "Perfect Pots" ought to fit into them. I can suspend the big trays on something and then just pour the nutrient through several times a day.

The eighteen seeds I planted (three different kinds of tomatoes) have almost ALL germinated. Four each of two varieties and three of the third variety. 

I intend to grow the tomatoes on the cement side of the house, attached to the fence. I'd tried large containers and soil one year, which didn't work out well at all.

I think this will work. I think that I'll enjoy it.

Too much money. Spent over $100 on two pairs of Under Armour shorts and underwear today. And a new pair of giant swim trunks. And a tie-dye t-shirt. Nice lime green color.

Looking forward to the tomato project. I hope that things work out as I've envisioned them. I'm hoping that two gallons per plant is enough for a root system. It won't need to support the plant, but I want enough room for the root ball to develop.

 

Washed the truck

Nearly time to go and pick Flynn up. Time to go and wait for Flynn, anyway. 

Set aside money for taxes. Pay off the truck. Pay off the credit card. That will leave about $28,500. Keep $10,000 in an interest-bearing account and put $18,500 away in the IRA or kid accounts. Something.

Time to go get Flynn.

Here I sit. Monday at 10:20. 

I've gotta remember to pick Flynn up at 12:30 this morning, not 3:15.

Both kids have testing today. Hopefully they'll do well. 

I could not get out of bed this morning. I resented my clock's alarm clock. 

I looked forward to the weekend and when it finally arrived it flew right past.

Need to work on Cassidy's home photo project. I ought to find her camera and transfer the photos to her account on the computer.

Monday again already.