Job, Housing, Sandbar, Hector-Fish, and Freaky Friday!

My private contracting job is finally starting to show promise. It was put on hold for a while but I'm supposed to be able to start on Monday! I really hope this works out because working from home sounds like a dream. I had a meeting yesterday morning to get all the details and now I'm just waiting for them to send me the software that I need. Be on watch, I could be calling your house very soon to see where you stand politically. Get ready!

I also have my housing situation all figured out. That was a HUGE relief. I was starting to have nightmares about living in my car for two months. I'll be staying at Ashley and Brie's apartment from mid-July to mid-August and then Erin offered to let me stay at her place from then until mid-September when the opera is over. Whew! Now all I have to do is move everything I own back to my parent's house and find an apartment in Chicago all while working one full-time job and a second part-time job and getting ready for this opera. NBD! In all reality, this is probably the least busy that I've been in the last few years. I feel like I get so much more accomplished when I have a million things to do in a very short period of time. Bring on the chaos!!

I've been a little agitated as of late. My sandbar has been sullied by a hillbilly with an attitude problem. Adrian and I were out on the beach and when we went back to the car, there was a note on the windshield. The note said that we were trespassing and if we didn't call him, he was going to turn Adrian's license plate number over to the authorities. Thinking that the whole thing was absurd, I call the number. The man immediately started ripping into me. I explained to him that at no point do we ever cross the fence and that we stay out of the area that is covered by the private property signs. We stick pretty close to the beach. This was something I was really conscious of because I didn't want to have this exact problem. He said that he owns all the land up to the water. When I inquired why his fence is nowhere near the water, he lost it. He kept saying that he was friends with the Game Warden and the Deputy Sheriff. I told him that according to his signing and the fence we weren't trespassing and I told him that I was going to get in touch with the sheriff. I told him that if the sheriff said we could be there, we would continue to go there. He said that people have been stealing his game surveillance equipment...I don't even know what that consists of. I wasn't going to justify his veiled accusation with a response and I just told him that I'd be in touch with the sheriff. I'm planning on going back out there to take pictures of the signs and fence and then videotape the path we take down the beach. I'm going to show them to the sheriff and see if we can find the property lines for that area. If he owns it, I obviously don't want to trespass. If he doesn't own it, you can bet that I'll be back. It is a nice place and I'm not going to let some jerk scare me away.

Two days ago someone returned a dead fish to Walmart. Shortly after, the fish started swimming around. Walmart policy doesn't allow us to put the fish back in the tank so we were supposed to wait for it to die so that we could dispose of it. It broke my heart. It just didn't seem right to let him die like that. I named him Hector and Erin asked management if I could take him home. They said yes so Adrian, Phil, and I got supplies and took Hector home. The cats were mind blown. They didn't know what to make of Hector. He seemed like he was having a rough time. He had a bad fin and the scales near his tale were completely gone. Despite this, I got my hopes up and was very excited to have a new addition to our motley crew of a family. This morning I came out into the living room and Hector was dead. I was really sad. I was already accustomed to having him around. I've decided that I'm going to get another fish because I already have all the supplies. I'm thinking I'll name it Hector Jr. but we'll have to see what he looks like. RIP Hector-Fish. For your short time in our household, you were loved. :-(

FREAKY FRIDAY!!!

Today I'm going to talk about something that freaks out Adrian. Sssssnaaaakkkkesssss. :) I'm not scared of snakes but Adrian is easily destroyed in the face of snakes. The reason I bring it up is because we are going camping in the Black Hills next weekend and Brie, another snake hater, brought up the fact that there are snakes there. I'm thrilled with the possibility that we might see one and that Adrian will be scared out of his mind. It is mean spirited but he laughs at me every time I run from bugs so this is a little bit of payback. I might even have to go looking for a snake so that my enjoyment is guaranteed. I'll never tell if it happens though. You'll never know for sure if it was a coincidence or if it was a deliberate fiendish act. Keep an eye out for the results of this adventure. It should be excellent. :-D