Friday

Dang, I missed another entry.
Things got a little heated up around here - I washed my hands of it and disappeared into my bedroom.
Basically, the tenant that is leaving got into it with Mary last night, and was yelling at her some things that - I won't repeat here.
However, it turns out, the newer tenant isn't exactly a barrel full of truth and honesty.
I only say that because after it was all done - including Mary banging on my door asking for me to "do something about this" (I referred her to the police) - I went back out because I heard some banging noises outside. It was 9:30 so I thought it a little late for the neighbors to be making that much noise - but that's exactly what it was.

However, I heard some people talking out in front of the house, so I walked up to the gate and looked through a crack in the slats of the gate. There was the new tenant and Ken - my other roommate - smoking a joint, in front of the house, on the street, in open view! Mind you that this woman told me that she "used" to smoke pot in Oregon, where she came from, but stopped when she came here. I say THAT because my ads are VERY clear about drug and pot use: NOT. Now that I know she has lied to me, this mixes the pot quite a lot. Who is telling the truth about what? IS Mary smoking meth in my house, or is she not? And all the rest of the stuff.

I am not going to confront the new tenant about smoking pot because she will be gone shortly. She can smoke all the reefer she wants in her new house. She can blow the smoke in her little Pomeranian's face and get them high along with her, I really don't care, she won't be HERE.

What it does for me, however, is that I must take her statements with a huge grain of salt. Why would she say the things about Mary that she has? Maybe some of it is the truth. There ARE people on this planet - lots of them - that take pleasure in making life difficult for other people. I simply don't know. I probably never will. I caught her in a lie - that means she is capable of lying, therefore, I can't take her word for anything. BTW, she doesn't know that I saw her and Ken out there smoking dope, and unless she knows where this journal is (possible) she won't know cause' I ain't saying nothing, unless yet another situation arises that warrants it.

So, anyway, Mary calls me while I'm at work this morning. She started right in. I started right out - I don't have time for this, I told her, I am at work, and I am NOT dealing with this now. I ended up hanging up on here. She called again. Same thing. Half hour later, she calls again. This time, she's sobbing and crying and saying she didn't do any of the things that this woman claims, on and on and on. This conversation went on for a while. I laid out my known issues with her, since we were going there. Besides the meth issue, there is the electric issue. I know from seeing it for myself that she cares not one iota about the electric consumption in this house. I went on that line for a while.

Anyway, long story short - I did not confer anything one way or the other. I have another tenant coming in here either this weekend or next week, and I flatly warned Mary to LEAVE HER ALONE. Don't even TALK to the woman, excepting hi, how ya doing, etc. No asking for rides, no asking for ANYTHING, thank you.

Onto other things. I have been toying with the idea of this next party to also invite the neighborhood and see about starting a Neighborhood Association. Get a Board of Directors together if there are those that are willing, get it registered and start writing requests for money. Not for me, of course, for things for this particular neighborhood. Is there money available right now? Dunno, but it would be the perfect opportunity to get this thing started and at least get a foundation going. I currently have about 50 people lined up for the next party, which doesn't include neighborhood people because - I haven't gone there yet. Half the people coming have said they are bringing food. One person has sent me money PayPal towards costs for the party. More have said they would donate money as well. I have started a blog just for party, actually, and - it's had a LOT of visits.

Now? I actually got some overtime this week. Yesterday, I went out to the middle of Nowhere, Africa - literally - having to pick up some pipe that had been delivered there a long, long time ago. Seems that the company that bought it from us suffered the problem of the developer pulling out. Meaning the contractor was stuck with thousands and thousands of feet worth of pipe, along with a lot of fittings and alot of other stuff. All of it was sitting in the desert. It was all messed up, as one co-worker that drove another semi out there said: This is a Cluster****. In my line of work, foul language is heard constantly.

Umm, I left in the morning on that run and didn't get back until 4:30pm. That's because it took 5 hours to load the trucks, then instead of heading back to my yard, I had to take the pipe to our yard Buckeye - which is out west. WAY out west. Coming back? LONG trip.

Interesting rumors concerning my company. I am not going to divulge anything because - well just not prudent to say that here. Other things, though. More talk of combining a plumbing branch with our branch. A building we occupied has now been closed - plumbing was operating out of it. More people out of work? No necessarily. They are offered to go to work at the huge, downtown branch. My company cares about it's employees, even if it has to downsize to stay alive. Yes, people are being let go - I'm just holding my breath here, hoping I am not going to be one of those people.

I'm just trying to catch up on my journal - there's a lot on my plate and I'm hoping to dump some of that this weekend. I want to spend some time doing things outside. I will be buying 3 or 4 rolls of sod tomorrow and putting it over an area in my back "yard". Grass definitely grows on the other side of the house - wild grass that I didn't plant, so I have some confidence that it should take over on the west side. The only problem is, will the dogs, peeing and pooping on it, kill it? You know, if it can survive the summer - for the most part anyway - I won't care. I would rather have them doing it there than all over the friggin' place.

I'm done with this one, as I haven't watered the plants in several days - they are getting thirsty.

Hope you all are doing well.
ben

Thursday

I haven't been writing a heckuva a lot lately, and there's a reason for it.
Unfortunately, it's not something that I want to write on an open blog for the world to see - an issue I have been dealing with since I got divorced. Nothing illegal, nothing to do with tenants, kids, dogs, whatever. Purely a personal issue. The only thing I can say is it is an unbelievable battle that I'm not even sure how I got into in the first place.

It's been consuming my thoughts.

THEN, you compound it with tenant issues and other things going on and the whole scene is right out of a horror flick. The newest tenant is closing on her home Friday - that's a good thing. I pretty much hit it off with this lady - she has a lot of work to do around her house that she asked if I would come over and do - for pay of course. Hey, it's mostly stuff that I have experience in doing, and a few extra bucks isn't going to hurt me anything right now.

There is now allegations that this newest tenant has made about Mary that have me quite unsettled. Enough that this person said I could keep the security deposit she gave me to get Mary out of my house. The problem is, I have no proof. She alleges that Mary is both smoking and selling meth in and out of my house. That Mary actually offered her a pipe and that THAT is the reason Mary can stay up all night long and still go to work all day long the next day.

I'm VERY intolerant of drug users, to the point that I wrote Mary an email yesterday while she was still at work saying that Karen - the now home-owner - has made these allegations - and yes, Karen agreed to let me use her name as the source - and what was Mary's response.

Mary wrote back and replied that she wanted to wait until she came home to talk about it. I had some instant thoughts, having been down this road with her before: she'll either not come home at all and wait until after I have gone to bed, or, she'll come home with someone and then leave with that same person. The latter turned out to be true, she didn't say a word to me except: Hi Ben.

When Mary dodges an issue, it's probably because that issue is TRUTH.

Regardless, I am at work and the 6:00 am hour has just hit - need to get working.
C'ya later.
ben

Tuesday (and Monday?)

Not sure what happened to Monday - I got home I think the new tenant wanted to celebrate that fact that the home inspection came back with only one thing wrong with the house: old ceiling fans that are falling apart. Considering the price she paid for the place, I would hardly call that a setback.

Then I got involved with cleaning the kitchen up real nice for a prospective new tenant's tour of the property - who never showed.

The guy apparently called back today to my landline and talked to Michael - the boys are on spring break. Of course, Michael is in his own little world and doesn't ask to take a message, so the guy said he would call back later.

Meanwhile, someone else wrote me 3 emails today about the room, so I wrote back on that and hope to hear something.

I just got back from the dog walk. I haven't been going every single day - but then again - that wasn't my initial goal. My initial goal is to just get started doing it and do at least 4 days a week. I failed last week by only doing 3. I intend on doing 4 this week and now have 1/4th of it over with. In the 3 or 4 weeks I have been doing this, I am already feeling a significant change. I can hike the steep mountains I have been going up much easier and getting less winded at the top.

I am only pumping iron twice a week - and though that isn't really a lot, I'm also seeing small - but visible - results with that as well. Again, the goal was simply to get started back into it. Going full tilt - I just wouldn't have lasted. I wanted to get started before summer gets here - I would never have started in the summertime. I don't know about the mountain hikes in the summer, either. Don't want to hike in there when it's dark - but it's too hot during the time of day that I can do it. Even packing water I don't wonder if the dogs wouldn't be able to handle it.

Right now, Duke is totally winded. That dog is totally out of shape. He loves the walks, but he starts lagging and I have to tug the chain and give him commands to keep up.

There is nothing new going on at work - which is a good thing. Considering the daily parade of bad news in the media - cepting Citibank's report today - it's fine by me to not hear of any more lay offs - at least for now. Our parent company is dumping an entire building supply company. Our store's sales are down - all of the stores in the division I work for in our state are down. WAY down.

I really have nothing else. I'm just working on getting another tenant in here, and at least the current respondants are not fakes/scammers/frauds.

So, with that, I must be getting on with other things as daylight is running out and I want to do some work before it gets dark.

Hasta La Vista!
ben