Current Events

I watch Ken on video surveillance - frequently - going into my refrigerator.
To say the irritates me is certainly valid, albeit certain other adjectives apply in a much more sincere sense.

Milk; cheese; whatever.

I ever-so-slightly turned the tables on him. I stopped buying coffee. It's expensive. If it isn't on sale - Folger's is like 8 bucks a can. He drinks coffee every day. He puts about TRIPLE the amount of coffee grounds into the brewer than is necessary for a regular pot of coffee.

He was going through my cans of coffee like a kid eating lollipops.

I figured if I just stop buying the stuff - I get all the free coffee at work I want so there's 5 days of the week covered - he would either have to quit or he would have to start buying it himself.

He bought the last 2 cans. In the time it takes him to go through 2 large cans of Folgers coffee grounds - that much coffee lasts me about 6 months. THAT'S why I stopped buying it.

In the same cabinet the coffee is located is where I store my bread. My bread disappears at a ridiculously fast rate - I had thought it was the kids. For that, I didn't care. I started seeing Ken helping himself daily to my bread, putting it into the toaster and then helping himself to my margarine in my refrigerator.

I haven't figured out an answer to that - I may let that one go, I buy cheap white bread for the boys as that is what they like. Ken, however, likes wheat bread. All well and fine until his supply of it runs out.

Cans of tuna fish? Gone. LOTS of them. Michael eats some of it, I had thought it was him. Michael is an eating machine as of lates - he is getting bigger and bigger and his body is demanding caloric intake to keep up with the pace (hence, I imagine, one of the long list of reasons he is over here, food is plentiful, at least for now). NOT. Ken - helping himself. I see this stuff on video surveillance, this is how I "prove" it. I have no choice but to go over hours and hours worth of surveillance to identify what, exactly, is going on in any given situation.

Beer. I drink beer in the summer. I don't drink massive quantities - but when I'm outside baking in the sun, and ice cold beer tastes better to me than anything except a large glass of water filled with ice. One has to keep tabs on that when in the baking sun - alcohol can really kick you in the @$$ when it's hot outside and if you're not drinking enough water. Ken? Will drink the entire amount of it in the refrigerator and it's gone. I have addressed him on that particular issue twice now. Oh, thank you, I am not a drunkard and I HATE being drunk. I don't even come close to anything like that, just as a disclaimer.

Ken helps himself to my laundry detergent. He has NEVER bought an OUNCE of it the entire time he's been here. Again, video surveillance. Did I tell Ken he could do all of this stuff? Do monkeys fly? Well, now that I think of it, yes, a certain breed of them do, however, I did not tell this particular monkey that he could just help himself to my food and drink whenever he feels like it - and he feels like it daily.

Funny it never happens when I'm IN here - here being the kitchen. I have my computer in here because I do not like to much of anything in my bedroom except sleep. Options? I have, thus far, resisted giving him an eviction notice. I am attempting to resist it. I don't know how long it would take to find another tenant. But Ken is starting to wear on me like Mary started to when she was living here - smoking meth in my house. I am EVER so glad that Mary is GONE. Ken is a different kind of case. I will have to pray and seek the Lord on this one - perhaps this is an "assignment" from the Lord that I must bear. Dunno. Perhaps I am supposed to just allow him to help himself.

It would help - if he would at least say thank you. A little gratitude goes a long way. It's not an egotistical thing - when you see someone taking your stuff without asking, you feel like that person has just stolen that stuff from you. It REALLY does. Food is a huge expense for me. I'm not complaining, but this man is not one of the people that I have included on that particular list.

Perhaps I'm just being a selfish, whining baby.

ben

Monday/More

I hate to keep talking about the heat - but it’s the same thing as people being stuck inside their homes in a frigid winter - just the opposite end of the scale. You can get just as dead going out there in this kind of temperatures and suffering heat stroke and all kinds of other heat related illnesses.

As evidenced yesterday when Kyle passed out at the skate park in the middle of the afternoon when it hit 114 out there. I told them not to go, they ignored my warning - maybe they’ll listen next time. Paramedics had to cool him down and whatever they did - I wasn’t there and didn’t find out about it until the event was over.

Unfortunately, there is no way to raise the temp of the AC in here during the day. The varied hours of the tenants force that. Ken doesn’t leave for work until 1:30 pm, I get off of work at 2:00 pm (at least temporarily) and Pete, the newest tenant, gets home usually late morning. People are here, in other words, 24 hours a day. Which is actually a good thing from my view - just that I can’t save a few bucks every day on AC by moving the thermostat to say - 85 degrees or even a little higher. If it were just the dogs in here, they can suffer a little in 85 degree weather, it certainly isn’t animal abuse. Abuse would be to leave them outside in this crap.

But, I resolved in my mind that this would happen and that I would just have to grin and bear it - the electric usage/bill that is. Pretty much the hottest part of the day right now - I have been home for 1/2 and hour and the AC has not shut off yet. Which is normal for AC systems at this time of year - but I have wondered if I should have had them install a dual AC system and get about 7 tons of AC out there instead of the single 5 ton unit. Too late now - it IS keeping it nicely cooled in here, no complaints there.

My manager started getting all of that stuff out of the crates and off the pallets for the drip watering system stuff we have now acquired.

I would love to learn how to install of that stuff -which I will - and then maybe make a business out of installing systems for other people - for money of course. Sorta doubt there is much demand for such right now - considering people are losing their homes, highly doubtful they want to spend the money installing such a thing on a house they are walking away from - but you never know what homeowners out there that aren’t losing their homes might want to do. I’m always looking for ways to earn some extra money.

I have nothing else. Not right now. I have to go out there in a few minutes and get to watering certain plants that will already have started drooping even though they got a thorough watering yesterday. Because of such, I am definitely going to put an automatic timer on the system I install and the whole thing is going to be totally self reliant. I have a lot of learnin’ to do, and I’m going to start delving into that tonight after I get the watering done.

C’yall later.

ben