Mainly, I’m so not prepared for a hard northwest winter that it’s not even remotely funny.
Thick heavy comforter for the bed? Don’t got one.
A bed? Don’t got one.
Thick heavy winter coat? Negative.
Thermal shirts to wear under my normal shirts to keep warm? Don’t have any.
I’ve got to try and fix this.
And that’s all I’ve got to say about that.
Today is day two of a job hunt for a job that is within walking distance (or at least close enough that my family doesn’t worry I’ll wreck their car if I borrow it). Getting a job now isn’t as much fun as it was when I was a kid; now I’ve got to worry about things like medical insurance and paying bills instead of “oh, money for books!” Granted, I still go “oh, money for books!” but you get my drift.
And not too many employers want to hear their newest hire say “by the way, I’m gonna need about a week off really soon”. Just doesn’t bode well for getting the job, you know? But I do need the time off because 99% of my stuff is still at Fort Knox with D and the family. And it won’t move itself.
I finished moving yesterday. Now I’m basically where I’m going to be living, with a short move in my future into my own place instead of living out of family members spare bedroom. I actually looked at a place today that is just perfect for myself and Thunder Butt, with appliances that are in my size!
The drive across the country was interesting, to say the very least. I moved from southeast Georgia to Montana, passing through Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, and Wyoming before getting here. I saw swamps, forest, corn fields, desert landscape, and finally rolling range land.
I pulled out of Casper Wyoming at 0515 local time on Monday morning, heading on the I-25 N, and it had just started to rain. A few moments later, as I was trying to navigate the rain, the unfamiliar road, and the fact that some jackass in a semi thought racing me in the Honda Fit was a good idea, lightening split the sky open like an too ripe melon. My heart jumped straight out of my chest, up to my head, and leaked out of my ears as I saw the flatlands as clear as if the sun was shining. It happened again, and I pulled off the side of the road to awe at Mother Nature and her sense of timing.
It rained the whole way from Casper to the town I’m in now (population <2500 people), and some of the turns I had to navigate, I was sure were going to kill me. The town of Judiths Gap was one that I just knew the bottom was going to fall out of my car on the loose gravel and dirt road, and then Thunder Butt and I would have to hoof it the rest of the way.
Then came the twisty-turny highway, with hairpin turns and “slide area” signs.
I made it one piece, the car is perfect, and Thunder Butt likes her new surroundings. And her new playmates (three dogs, one overly friendly cat, and one cat who is a bit squirrelly) and all their various toys. I even kenneled her today for the first time in years; she needed a spot that was ‘hers’ and hers alone, and there was a spare kennel folded up by the washer, so we unfolded it, hosed it down, I stuck Thunder Butt’s smaller bed inside (along with a pillow of my own), and two of her toys. She went it in twice today without a fuss and seems to like it.
I’m going to sign off here, I’ve got a tortie cat using my left hand as a bed which is making it hard to type.
Oh, poetry reference!
The last few days have been jam packed busy for me. I moved on Saturday (you should convoy across a few states in a small car with a U-Haul trailer sometime, it’s a lot of fun), unpacked on Sunday, returned said trailer, and have been settling into the new place since.
A new place calls for new hair, so a friend of a friend (and now one of my friends) came by, and lopped about twelve inches (real inches, not man inches) off my hair and it’s now above my shoulders for the first time in four years I think. I don’t hate the heat so much anymore 
And hard candies make the world a better place. Especially root beer ones. Go ahead, try one, tell me you don’t feel like smiling more often.
Mention of smiling, children are much more likely than an adult to smile in the morning. I am going to try to smile every morning from now on.
Thunder Butt is settling into the new place very well; she has two children to play with and a yard she can run in (she likes to sniff out the bunny trails), and there is even an inflatable pool. I’m trying to get her to stop liking the pool so much, she might pop it.
The drive was long, my butt went numb somewhere around Pembroke and it just got feeling back into it today.
I have no idea how people did that kind of crap in a covered wagon with livestock, dozens of kids running around, and no possible chance of a hot shower anywhere.
As a side note, I have an idea for a Clio short story.
Today felt like Monday with all that could go wrong, going wrong.
If it was possible, I’d go hide in the tiny little house with Snow White.
After I began plotting out just how to make an ark, the rain stopped. And I went into cardiac arrest when I got a good look at my little postage stamp sized yard: it had become a jungle.
Donning heavy gear to battle the weeds, bugs, grasshoppers, and occasional snake that likes to camp out in the clover that runs along my fence, I prepared to do battle. After gallons of blood, sweat, and tears, the weeds are pushed back behind their lines, the bugs retreated, and the snakes are off wherever snakes go to nurse their wounds for the time being.
My luck, the rain will come tonight, but at least I know that I’m fighting the good fight.
Day Three of rain at Fort Stewart, I feel like I should start building an ark. I’m loving the rain, it makes everything smell fresh and clean. I don’t love the rain for the humidity and bug eggs hatching.
The gray and gloomy clouds have perked me up. Winter weather, and stormy weather, make me happy. I laugh more, smile more, and just love it, where as the intense heat of summer, with the bright sunlight and cloudless skies have me running indoors and refusing to leave my bedroom.
Thunder Butt the Wonder Dog, however, doesn’t like the rain. She doesn’t like the heat either. She doesn’t like winter. She’s a fall sort of dog, so she’s really cranky living in Georgia like we do.
She can suck it up and deal, as my writing has gotten a swift kick in the proverbial ass since it started raining. Which is great, since I’ve had an idea for short story cooking away on the back burner, but I just couldn’t find the drive to sit down and write it out. Professional writers have my undying respect in that they sit down and make their word count, whether they’re in the mood for it or not. Hopefully, some day in the not too distant future, I too will be having to sit down and make word count 
I’m looking for silver linings here people, I’m taking them any way I can get them.
I was deep in the writing groove, ticky-tapping on my laptop, when an icy cold wet thing touched my knee and scared the fracking hell out of me. I saved the laptop from taking a tumble, but my coffee (which was ice cold by this point) took a header for the floor and the cup smashed.
The dog, naturally, thought the whole thing was funny, and loves to see if she can sneak up on me again and scare me to the point I scream.
It was everywhere I had errands today. Vet, JAG, Rear D, vet again, court house (tags for the car, which has taken me three weeks to get them to just give me the fracking things instead of fighting me on it) and then the store. Tomorrow it’s another trip to the vet then I’m taking myself to the doctor and then I’m going to sleep for a week.
It’s not the errands that wear you out, it’s the start and stop and the damnable heat that just sinks into everything.
And wearing improper shoes for all the walking. Should have worn sneakers instead of cheap slip ons.
Owwie.
Well, technically Snooch, but since I’ve been feeling like I’m one ear skritch away from turning feline, it fits.
Do humans hibernate during summer? I feel like all I’ve been doing lately is sleeping or writing. It’s too hot to spend any amount of time outside, and when you do venture out, the ground burns through the sole of your shoes and feels like it’s trying to burn off the bottoms of your feet.
The dog and I are both more active at night, simply because it’s cooler and it’s easier to be outside. If I could flip my sleeping schedule around, I’d get up at four a.m. and start my day then, instead of going to bed at one or two and getting up at ten. That could be my goal next week, a more normal sleep and wake cycle. (Interesting tidbit: people used to sleep in segmented cycles called ‘first’ and ’second’ sleep. People would go to bed soon after sun down, sleep for four hours, wake up for a few hours, return to bed around two a.m. and sleep for another four hours. This segmented sleep pattern appears to be better for people instead of one big chunk of sleeping)