We're older now & still runnin' against the wind

I thought nothing of it throughout the day, but then it sort of hit me on my drive home. While at work today, I talked with Johnann who was at the airport about to fly home from Baltimore to Florida. I chatted online with Grace who lives in my hometown, with Laura in Arizona and Heather in Indiana. I got one text from Elizabeth and another from my friend Chris in Orlando. When I lived here the last time, a mere decade ago, none of that was possible. Yes, I had started playing around on the www and talking to different people from different places, but basically if I wanted to communicate with people far away from me, it was either by letter (and only a couple of my friends were as dutiful a pen pal as I was) or waiting until after 9:00 when the long distance rates went down. I take it for granted a lot, but like that Chinese proverb said, we truly do live in interesting times.

If things keep happening like they've been, by the end of this month I'm going to be curled up into the fetal position and mumbling to myself or else running down the street naked and screaming. I know - what else is new.

Amongst other things, last night lightning struck Brian's parents' very large shed which sat out in their backyard and burned it flat to the ground. In it was years' worth of accumulated things, both large and small, that George had collected and was saving for whatever reason. A lot of it was crap. But a lot of it wasn't. For instance, the kayaks - both melted into lumps of aluminum. And though I don't know the extent of the damage, all of Brian's yard equipment: lawn mower, weed eater and leaf blower (which actually belonged to his friend)(and was only three weeks old). The stuff he uses all the time to earn that extra money which has been so helpful lately. That stuff is obviously at our house 99% of the time, but it just so happened he'd dropped it off there the other day and hadn't gotten the chance to pick it back up yet. Of course. I don't like to look at the negative, but it really seems like for every gut-wrenching, back-breaking, sweat-filled step forward, we get knocked four steps back. It gets tiring sometimes.

Then this other thing. This was just brought to my attention Sunday night and I have very little fact or detail to share about it because it's only in the possibility stages. George was contacted by some guy who is interested in buying one of his rental houses. You know which one I'm going to say, right? Do I really have to say it? Oh, okay - THE ONE WE LIVE IN. Ha, what other house out of the eleven he owns would it be? And if he sells it to him? We'd totally understand, as he's told us all along that this is the only house left in this county he owns because the property taxes are so much higher here than where the rest of them are located, one county over. Had we not wanted to move up here when we did, he'd have sold it long ago. He has in the past given us the option to buy it, but neither one of us want to settle permanently in this particular area of town. Not that it's a bad area, it's just not our first choice. We've never owned a home before and the first one we do is damn sure going to be exactly or pretty damn close to where I really want to be, which is actually a town about thirty miles from here. We haven't heard anything further on this, what with the damn shed burning excitement and all, but it's going to be veddy interesting to see how this all plays out. And by interesting, I mean please shoot me in the head.

It wouldn't be the end of the world. Hell, we should know by now not to get too comfortable in any place we ever live. Once in Florida we'd been living happily in a house for two and a half years (our record) when the landlady sent us a very official letter stating she'd sold her primary residence and needed to move into the house we were renting from her (it was all nice and legal and spelled out in the lease but who pays attention to that shit?) and we had six weeks to vacate. Have you ever gone house hunting over the Christmas holidays? I have and it's about as much fun as a punch in the throat. Of course this would be nothing like that. George, being in real estate and also being related to us, would not leave our asses hanging in the wind. It's just the thought of purging again, erasing all proof of our existence, packing, and moving again that has me a little verklempt. But as with most things, there's no sense in worrying about it; we'll just have to wait and see what happens and then deal with it accordingly.

I really want to go on vacation.