Unemployment: Day Two

All hell is gonna break loose.

It is 7:21 a.m. and my mother is asleep on the swing out by the pool. Her deaf puppy is tearing up a potted plant. Boy, is she gonna yell when she sees that.

I don't know where my father is - his truck is gone. He's upset because someone (me) left the pool gate open last night and the cat escaped.

I think I'm in trouble.

3:22 p.m. All's Well That Ends Well

The cat came home and Mom never made a peep about the dirt strewn across the pool deck. She's getting soft in her old age. Or as I like to kid her, she loves the pets more than she loves me.

Have been making travel plans today. I'm going to the west coast in August to visit some friends (old and new) and to see places I've never seen. When I told my sister where I was going, she asked who I knew out there and when I told her no one, she was incredulous. I'm not worried - I don't have any problems being with myself.

Just came back from a walk. It was raining this morning and even though it's hot and sticky out there, I wanted to stretch my legs. It's interesting being in the house where I grew up. I remember when we first moved here, we were the second house on the right side of the road. Now there are half a dozen homes before you round the curve and see the old homestead.

I remember riding my bike up and down the road, and in the summer when it got hot, the tar on the road would bubble up and we'd pop it with our bare feet. And the house at the end of the road where I used to babysit for $5/day with the weeping willow tree in the back yard - the weeping willow is no more.

It's a very rural area, so there are no sidewalks, and not really even much of a shoulder to walk on. Dogs would bark and half heartedly get up to chase me, but then they would sit back down and pant quietly. The corn is waist high, and I caught a big whiff of cow manure as I walked past one of the few functioning farms left on the road. I passed by the barn where once upon a time there had been a milk vending machine. I remember occasionally riding my bike to get a half gallon of milk from that machine.

I wonder how people make a living around here. Somehow, they manage. I noted the changes, but mostly I marveled at how much things have remained the same.