Running cost of my soul: $2.04

I’m not into the 21^st century. Jen told me the other day I was born out of time. I should have been a settler. I forget how this came up; I guess somehow it came out of either a Morocco, ranch or Indonesia-type story. Or maybe it was just somehow related to the RV, which continues to sit in a swamp.

Yeah, I have a really dumb phone and have never owned an iAnything, but it’s not that I don’t embrace the Internet. Granted, the best it’s done for me in recent memory is deliver me season four of “Arrested Development,” but I do use it constantly.

Even if it doesn’t actually reach the swampy RV. This Memorial Day weekend I’ve been re-watching seasons 1-3 in my office, which is a really pretty boring place to spend a holiday weekend.

But that’s not the Internet’s fault. It’s the router’s fault, or the wifi, or something else. I’m not sure. I don’t really get to nuances of digital this or that. That’s why I have a brother.

But I don’t buy into the whole new technology thing. I don’t feel the need to go out and keep up with the Jones; never have. I’m quite content with what I’ve got.

I’m resistant to a Facebook account, although I am responsible for updating the work one. I had someone create a fake profile on her account so that I didn’t have to get one of my own in order to maintain the Hope Village one. (Like us now! www.facebook.com/HopeVillageND.org!)

But for personal reasons, I don’t want that much of me out there. Yes, I have this blog but let’s face it, it’s mostly because I like to write. Maybe four people read it. I don’t put enough specific information out there to identify much of anything, including who I am. I just don’t like the idea of throwing all my personal information on the Internet. I’m not sure why anyone would.

However, Facebook isn’t the only way people can sell out in the 21^st century, and even though I don’t buy into most of it, I finally gave in. And the running total of selling my soul so far is $2.04.

I gave into the Internet marketing mine fields of Target recently, acquiring their Red card. It’s this monster thing that’s connected to my own bank account. But they also know what all you buy.

Of course, Target is the king of marketing mining anyway – Laurie brought that one to my attention (http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/). So I figure they have all my information anyway since I use my regular debit card, so why not go ahead and acknowledge it by going official?

The benefit Target pumps for this little piece of technology is 5 percent of your order. Whatever it is, you get 5 percent off, with the exception of gift cards.

I’m not a really big Target shopper, though. Or any other shopper, come to think of it, but why the heck not? They know everything anyway.

So from here on out, my Junior Mints are costing .95. Woo-hoo.

Splat on a hot tin roof

No, these aren't the same photos I took two weeks ago. I'm having a do-over with the floating dock to the RV. Only last time, it was melting snow and I was merely carrying a box or two out to the RV here and there; now it is constant rain and I am living in in the RV again.

Lakefront property.

The weather has just not been nice for RV living. The rain this weekend has encouraged me to go out and hunt for animals two by two; I’m fairly convinced the thing is going to float away.

Nights continue to facilitate nightmares, in part because of the uncomfy mattress. Also in part, though, by the smacking of the rain into the roof. The aluminum roof just amplifies everything and I wake up from my bizarre dreams.

Earlier this week, we had the horrible wind again. I fell asleep, had some freaky dreams and woke up again. Lay awake for awhile and dozed off, had weird dreams again and woke up. By that time, the rain was just thundering on the RV and the wind was rocking it.

This is why I it is best not to
drink liquids after about 7:30 p.m.

I figured by that time, at least judging by the length of the wild dreams, that it had to be about 5 p.m. Uh, no. After hoisting myself from the gaping dent in the mattress, I found my watch and it was only 12:30. And that had been the second time I'd been woken up that night. Holy smokes.

Last week, I was able to sleep through the night but it hasn’t happened this week. And waking up to the splats on the roof in the middle of the night just brings on the urge to pee.

And man, there’s nothing less fun than having to heave yourself out of bed, fumbling for a light, then pulling on a raincoat, boots and tracking down a flashlight in order to trek down to the plastic outhouse at 3 a.m. Especially right now, when it's so flooded that water is encroaching on the door to the port-a-potty.

This is my view. Some people pay extra
for a lakefront view. I get it for free.

So this really makes living in the RV is somehow more depressing this time around. Even though I only have six months left I'm in here "until we're done." I don't have the house to look forward to; I’ve no idea what will happen once I hit the road back to Florida or wherever.

For whatever reason, that makes that little trek down the dock a little harder. And one I really, really don't want to have to deal with that in the dark.

Eyeing the last six months

Back in the RV. It’s as glorious as it was before, which is to say not so much.

The mattress is the worst. It’s an RV mattress, which means it’s bendy so that I can access the storage panel below it. Because it’s so old, there is a permanent crease in it. And it’s about at butt-level.

So, once I get settled in, I’m fairly all right. But it takes some maneuvering. Picture a dog making a nest by doing circles, but doing it drunk, and when it came time to flop down, missing half the hole.

That’s a nightly ritual, only no booze. I flop down and part of me lands in the right spot, because there isn’t enough “right spot” for the rest of me.

During the night, it’s kind of rough because my feet stick off the end. The new electric blanket works all right, but I got a full one and I really should have gotten a queen, even though it fits the bed. You just can’t tuck it in and since I’m too tall, I tend to get cold.

And get cold I did, because on Friday, when I moved back, Steve forgot to give me propane, so I was darn cold. Not when I was sleeping but before I crashed and when I woke up.

Because of the pit in the mattress (I’ve tried to fix this by layering yoga pads underneath it and quilts on top of it, but there’s still a canyon there), the art of waking up is incredibly rough. I swear I have to get up momentum to pull myself out of the pit.

Once I did Saturday morning, I was just so cold. I went through two cups of hot chocolate before I just opted to sit in my office and watch Frasier on Netflix.

After Steve came by and hooked up my propane (turns out, he’d been distracted by not only the painkillers he was on but the fact he decided to propose that evening), I got much warmer but still had to resort to the office laptop for Netflix.

I bought a new TV and haven’t yet gotten it hooked up to either the dish network or my DVD player. This has not been the most exciting of weekends.

And it’s going to be like this for my remaining six months, I guess. I have mixed feelings about that. I mean, the little trailer wasn’t super nice or anything, but it was heaven to me. Now I’m back to being at the beck and call of the meals here (the stroganoff tonight was great) and essentially having no reason to do anything else.

Day to day, that’s fine, but week by week, it makes me wonder if I will ever have a life. Honestly, I feel at this point here, it’s too late to start. I don’t mind being bored usually but at some point, I would like to do something.

The two road trips I can pencil in are Saskatchewan and Manitoba. I’m not sure when I can go, because things are picking up at work. We have four teams in this week and then it starts filling up. We’re pretty much at capacity in June; I am pretty sure I’ll be super busy then.

So that’s cool. I guess I am just at a point where I just need to hang on and enjoy the ride.

What’s for lunch?

So, I killed my laptop. Barry’s been telling me to get a new one, but I didn't expect it to happen this way.

We have volunteers in now, and since I'm still living in the triple wide I am not coming over for breakfast, but as soon as I get in, I start to break down the area, etc.

So Monday or Tuesday, I did that. I just walk in and I carry my laptop and everything else in a little bag. I think it’s from one of Zippy’s tournaments.

Got in, tossed it on my desk and started cleaning up from the breakfast. An hour later, I came back and smelled something. My rice! It had spilled. And not only had it spilled, it had soaked!

It sure smelled good, though.

Really, the screen is the only thing that's toast. I hooked it up to another monitor and pulled everything off it, but considering the thing is so old I figured to just move on. The only stuff I couldn't figure out how to pull off it that I can’t replace was the old Outlook messages. I’ll figure it out

When Uncle Gray died, I put $1k aside for a laptop. I was going to get one then but I have to have Access for work. I hate Access and won't use it after my service here, so I didn't want to buy it. It's expensive. So the money got socked aside.

And now it's tied up until October, since I put it in a CD. However, since I did that I got my old sitemate's laptop, which had been donated to Hope Village and was on loan to her. And, as it turns out, it has Access.

So I am just going to use this one until I am done here, and then figure out what will happen. It is highly likely that I can just take this one with me. It's nothing special, and in fact might be just as old as my other one, but it's at least faster.

So I am kind of hoping to be able to keep it, but we'll see. It's got a bigger screen than I like; I tend to go for the smaller ones. But this one is better for Netflix, I must say.

I just have to remember not to use that particular container to carry lunch if the lunch is fairly liquidy.

I don’t have much longer to stay in the house, though. I’m down to my last five days. Soaked in the bathtub last night and am planning on doing that this week, too. I haven’t splurged on it near as much as I should have.

But this weekend, despite having a crappy cold, I have done the deep cleaning on the trailer. It’s really not too bad, since I really only sit at the bar and read, watch TV or use the computer or sleep in the bedroom. I don’t even usually lie on the sofa. The big TV is in there, but I couldn't figure out how to hook up the DVD player to that one.

On that topic, I bought a little TV from Best Buy. By that I mean 24 inches; I think that’s small compared to today’s screens. I am replacing the one that was stolen from the RV, and I wanted to get one that I could take to the foreign service if I decided to.

I’m slowly moving back to the RV. I mean, it’s not like it would have taken a whole car load to begin with or anything, but I’m just piecemeal moving stuff. Tomorrow, I have long-sleeved shirts and the rice cooker. There’s no real method to the madness.

The lake around the RV’s dock has dried up, but the whole pond is still there. We have had some nice weather, though, and almost all of the snow is gone.

Maybe spring will stick around.