So, it's Tuesday the 17th. At the airport, my 6th day here.

I did much of nothing yesterday as all of this caught up to me.  Driving 4 days for work, getting home on the 4th day, getting ready to leave, come here, do all of this visiting and running around? Yup, I spent most of yesterday sleeping. 

Visiting mom was a joy . I mean, you have to deal with the things 80 years deal with in their timing, but that's ok.  I know I should get here more than once a year, just hard with this job and other aspirations. But moms don't live forever, and I know I said the same thing last year when I was down here visiting and thinking I should just make more visit for shorter duration - but I didn't do it. 

And seeing my son and his wife was fun, too. Texas Roadhouse followed by a trip to Target, Christmas gifts for them and then back to mom's house.  BTW, I"m on the laptop version of a computer keyboard, really hate these things, nothing like using a keyboard you can use in your actual lap, but it's packed in my now completely stuffed suitcase.

And seeing on of my best friends from High School. Really enjoyable, spent 7 hours there catching up and enjoying our time together. 

The weird thing about this trip is that it cost me next to nothing. Mother refused my money for various things.  I really am not hurting, I didn't want her to bear the costs of everything but she absolutely wouldn't take anything from me.  So, I"m sitting at the airport bar having a few beers, lol.  I got here way early.  I was searched in Dallas, I didn't want to waste the time here for that if it happened - but it didn't happen, I just walked through the machine and ... nothing~!

But I"m ready to get home. For all intents and purposes, I haven't seen my dogs in over 11 days.  I mean, I had them with me for a few, short hours after I got back from the last trucking trip and then dumped them right back off at Maria's.  Addler is going to knock me over, I know he'll try, when I get there tonight...which will be late, cause' this plane I will be getting on doesn't land til 9pm and then I have to get my luggage and then get back to the hotel to get my vehicle and then a 2 hour, 15 minute drive back to my town.

I'm not even sure I'll make it back tonight, I"ll determine that once I get on the road..

But an overall pleasurable trip.  Next time - I'll try to remember not so early departure time and a bit early departure time on the trip back.  I won't get home til' after midnight, not really looking forward to that at all.

Well enough for this entry, I'm getting ready to head to the gate area.

G'day

We got shaken up pretty good in the air at 38,000 feet this morning.  The pilots turned on the seatbelt sign and said to take your seats like 10 seconds before we hit it. It was bad enough even the flight attendants took their seats.  But it was short lived and the rest of the flight - some more turbulence but nothing scary lol.
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Well that was 2 days ago.  I spent the day at mom's the first day, yesterday I spent most of the day at my house talking with Mark.  The place was immaculate, pretty much as expected, he keeps the place clean and kempt.  I was disconcerted, however, to find out they hadn't replaced the washing machine. They were supposed to do that what, a week and a half ago?  My main objective in renting out rooms is to make tenants as happy as possible.  That includes certain "luxuries" such as having a washer and dryer there, in the house, instead of having to take hours out of your day to spend at a laundromat.

This isn't an absolute necessity, I guess, renting rooms doesn't guarantee that particular portion of ease of living, but it's something I like to make available.  In other words, you pay one price and you get everything. Full kitchen access, laundry, wife, satellite, utilities included.  No guessing games as to what one month is going to cost going to  the next month.

I was a bit perplexed at their lack of ability to simply use craigslist and facebook and other mediums used to sell and buy and find something rather quickly.  I found half a dozen suitable "candidates" within an hour of casual looking while chatting with a tenant in the house. Mark wasn't there when I got there, he was a bit distressed seeing me chatting with one of the tenants.  But, the guy was a talker and we hit it right off.  What mark didn't want, was me interfering with anything going on there. Fine and well, I don't live there, I did not, however, give the guy my phone number or even my full name for that matter.  He has no way to contact me.  He's smart person, finishing a 4 year degree in some sort of computer code field and graduating soon. He is then going to go for his Master's degree.

During all of that, he is living in the cheapest room in the house lol. Which is fine and I admire his drive to succeed in life.  He wants to be a professor in a college  which nowadays is a very high paying field to enter.

Anyway, besides the duress of having found out there is no washing machine in the house, everything else appeared to be normal.  A short conversation about the payments that were never made for electricity came up - I brought it up to reinforce the idea that I wasn't just going to turn a blind eye to that and yes, I am watching it.  Beyond that, we had a normal conversation, the damage from the tree appeared to have been fixed and all looked good.

Today - Saturday - I am getting the washing machine, taking it over there and then going to spend some time with my son and his wife if she isn't working. That was left up in the air as my son says sometimes they throw a rope into her plans and ask her to come in and work on Saturdays.

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Day over. Washing machine acquired.  $150. 4 year old machine, perfect condition, older people, the wife wanted a new, fancier machine.  Lol.  Those are the deals I like to find.  Dropped that off - helped Mark get it into the house but I immediately left for I had visiting to do with my son and his wife. We talked for an hour plus, went to Texas Road House, had a nice dinner, went to Target - their pick not mine lol- got them what they wanted for Christmas and came back to mom's house.

Oh, forgot. Took mom to Petsmart.  She signed up with an organization to foster watch dogs that need forever homes, they set up at Petsmart every Saturday. Very well funded organization.  Not petsmart, they are just a retail outlet, the organization operates out of Petsmart.  She wanted to get acquainted with the organization and look at dogs, declaring she wasn't bringing one home. Yup, I said, you'll bring one home lmao.

And sure enough, she brought one home that needs a place to stay while they try to find it a forever home.  It's a cool little doggy, not sure of the breed, looks like some sort of Terrier mix.  It wouldn't surprise me if she just ends up adopting it and the end of the story.  Mom lost her doggy she had for years and years to whatever disease took his life.  She has been pretty lonely ever since.

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Sunday.  Going to friend's house today - confirmed that already to be sure he and his wife are actually available.  A couple of more days here and I will be ready to go home.

Ending this one so I can start a new one lol