Saturday 23 August:
on Saturday 23 August i spent a little while doing internet piracy.
i fired up the Virtual Private Network to protect my anonymity, and the Qbit Torrent, to gather the movies, and the Pirate Bay to know which hashtag to direct the Qbit Torrent machine to.
i downloaded two seasons of TV, two movies, and another, third movie for Dax.
Dax has been watching a lot of YouTube clips from the Trolls movie, which i don't care for, but she seems to really like.
so i thought she might like to watch the whole movie but then, later, it turned out she thought the movie was too scary, she cried at some point, so she just went back to watching the clips.

later, i stayed up until 3:30am working on a photo album of pictures of the first three years of Dax.
i have been working on this for over half a year because i never have the fucking time to do any of my own projects, between being a lawyer and a dad and helping the PSE with home construction.
which is why i have to stay up until Three Fucking Thirty In The Morning on a Saturday night.
i got the project finally finished, though, so that was cool.

Sunday 24 August:
on Sunday 24 August the PSE woke me up around 12:50pm.
there was pizza, she said, so i went out to go eat pizza lunch with her and the PSE. it wasn't very good.
there were garlic knots too, but they weren't very good, either.
then, we got dressed to go out to the pool at the YMCA.

Dax and i used to go to the YMCA pool every other Sunday, but then, for the past several Sundays, she wasn't into it.
what happened, i expect, is that the past few times Dax and i went to the pool, we came back, and Dax was grouchy and she wanted the PSE to give her a bath, and the PSE was grouch, and they had a great big fight about it.
so, Dax didn't want to go to the pool because it would just end in a fight.
which made me sad, because going to the pool was something we would do together, and we don't have a lot that we get to do together, because i always have to go to work.
but then a few days before Dax came home with a mermaid toy, and that got her into mermaids, and she wanted to go to the pool to practice her mermaid moves.
but, she insisted that the PSE come with us, which made me all that much more sad.
my Mother came along too, because my Mother likes going to the pool, i guess.

so, we put on our bathing suits and we all went to the pool, but, when we got there, it turned out that the pool was closed. “annual maintenance” they said.
i don't know why they do their annual maintenance in the middle of Summer, it seems like the week between Christmas and New Years would make the most sense, but i'm not in charge of the YMCA.

we decided, instead, to go over to a playground over by the YMCA that the PSE and Dax have been to plenty of times but that i've never been to.
there is a slide there made of a series of rolling pins that Dax has talked about several times, so i wanted to see what the fuss was about.
i was in my bathing suit and a dirty pajama top, so, it was a little embarrassing being out in public, but, whatever, who gives a shit?
so, Dax and i went to go play on the rolly slide while the PSE and my Mother sat on a bench, but we didn't get to play for too lunch because an alarm started going off soon enough, indicating a storm rolling in, and everybody had to clear out.

as we were leaving the park we saw a lot of thick, black smoke coming from something nearby, so we detoured out of the way back home to go see what was on fire.
it turned out to be a car, and a tree above it. we have no idea why it caught fire.
police and fire were on the scene taking care of the problem.

by the time we started back to the House there was a full storm coming down, and lightening and thunder in the sky.
the rain was so thick it was hard to see, and it was drumming down so hard on the car that i couldn't hear the PSE or Dax or my Mother.
and when we went down certain streets there were flash floods and we were splashing through water up to the doors. it was pretty cool.

we made it back to the House, dropped off my Mother, and then continued along to the Asian Market.
i was out of lychees and i wanted to restock, and the PSE and Dax came along for the ride.
the Asian Market was back in the eye of the storm, so there was more heavy rain and lightening and thunder.
when i went to get Dax out of the car there was a great big lightening crash directly overhead, and the PSE decided it was better if they both just stayed in the car.

i ran into the Asian Market, got all soaked, but they had plenty of lychee and they looked nice and ripe.
i bought five bags for $27 dollars, then ran back out through the pouring rain, back to the car.
i was cold on the ride home, with the defogger blowing.

the PSE didn't make any dinner on Sunday because, Fuck You!
the PSE really makes a thing out of not feeding me sometimes – it is her way of fighting the patriarchy, or whatever, or maybe just how she lets me know that she fucking hates me, so i had a dinner of lychee and Animal Crackers.
then i gave Dax a bath and brushed her teeth and we put her to bed.

Saturday 30 August:
i woke up at 6:30am on Saturday 30 August, which is today.
i'd been awake since 6:00am, because i knew i had my alarm set for 6:30am, and it's always hard to go back to sleep so close to an alarm.
but, at 6:30am Dax came in to the bedroom to let me know that it was time to get out of bed and go to the Hot Air Balloon Festival.

the Hot Air Balloon Festival is a thing that happens every year in August at the big park up the block.
a bunch of hot air balloons come to town for a long weekend and do hot air balloon tricks, or whatever.
i've been to the Hot Air Balloon Festival a few times, but only in the nighttime, which is pretty much an orgy of White trash.
the morning is when the balloons do their best work.
the PSE and Dax went in the morning last year and i felt left out, so, alright, with five hours of sleep, i'll get up and go along this year.
my Mother came along too, because it is nice to include her in things, and also old people wake up early anyway.

we toddled up the street at a senior citizen's pace, five blocks up to the big park.
there was a large crowd buzzing about, families and people with dogs, not the Insane Clown Posse types that make the evening event.
but, as we got closer the PSE started to mutter that something was wrong.
it was 7:00am by then, and the balloons should be taking off and scrapping the lake, but they weren't.
the PSE and Dax and my Mother and i got about halfway around the big lake before we started to notice a large press of people coming back in our direction.
the PSE asked one of them what was going on and they said that the hot air balloons wouldn't be taking off, on account of wind.
it didn't seem all that windy, but i guess the calculus is different in a hot air balloon.
people die at these kinds of events every year.

the PSE and Dax and my Mother and i sat on a bench and did some people-watching before my Mother suggested we go out for breakfast.
well okay!, so we walked back to the House, got in the car, and drove downtown to the Egg Place.
but, it seemed that we weren't the only geniuses who wanted to go eat eggs at 8:00 in the goddamned morning and there was a line out the door.
so, i did some quick googling and found that the Egg Place had another location ten minutes up the interstate, so that is where we went.

there was a line at this other Egg Place too, but there were open tables.
so, i got in the queue and i watched a table for two get seated, and another table for two, and then a table for four. then it was our turn, and all the fours were taken.
the host asked for my phone number but i didn't want to tell him because we'd just be sitting right there in the lobby.
he got kind of shitty with me and i didn't trust that he put us down on his queue, so i was on edge the entire time waiting.
it took maybe a half hour before we were seated.

i ordered a Tuscan Eggs Benedict with prosciutto, tomato and basil.
i also got a honeydew, cucumber pineapple mint drink.
i told them not to put too much ice in it, but they did, which watered it down.
my Mother got scrambled eggs and bacon and toast.
Dax got a yogurt parfait. she also wanted a hard boiled egg, but for some reason the Egg Place said they couldn't do that.
what the fuck kind of Egg Place do they think they are!?!
i don't know what the PSE got. she was sitting on the other side of the table from me, and it was loud.
something with spinach, maybe?
my Mother and the PSE were not impressed with their food. mine was pretty good.
notably, the water tasted awful, like they just scooped it right out of the toilet.
the bill came to, like, $74, including a modest tip. my Mother paid, which was nice of her.

we were back home by 9:30am.
am i going to do anything else with my day or will this be it? maybe i'll take a nap?
i don't know, but i'm all out of LiveJournal for now, so, stay tuned, i guess!

//[get excited!]

normally, my LiveJournals have a unifying theme throughout an entry.
this one here is just made up of miscellaneous leftovers that need to be recorded but that i could not fit into other entries. enjoy!

#1)
for about three weeks back in April the 4chan was out of service, the victim of some kind of hacker attack.
there was talk that it might never come back up.
[i have been hanging on to this since April.]
this was upsetting for me, as 4chan is, like, sixty percent of how i spend my time on the internet.
followed by watching clips from old TV shows that i've already seen before on the YouTube, writing LiveJournals, and checking my bank balances.
so, for three weeks i didn't have anything to do on the internet and i felt like i didn't have any choice but to go to bed early and hang out with the PSE more.
the PSE liked that, and so did i, but then 4chan came back, and now i'm back to flipping through pornography and racist screeds as i write the day's LiveJournals, so all is right with the world.

#2)
a few weeks ago the PSE and Dax went to a Yard Sale.
when they came back, they found my Mother on the porch who got excited at their haul and wanted them to go back, with her.
so the PSE and Dax went to this Yard Sale a second time, with my Mother, and this time they came back with a large TV.
the Yard Sale people were just giving the TV away, and the PSE figued i would be upset at her if she turned down a free TV.
the TV is one of those Smart TVs, like we have in the living room, that comes pre-loaded with a bunch of free apps with free TV shows, and YouTube, too.
the remote control is more complicated to use then the TV in the living room,, and there is, like, a half-second drag on the controls, but, whatever, free TV!
good job, PSE!
we put the TV in our bedroom and now we are TV-in-the-bedroom people.
i don't know how i feel about that.
on one hand, i think a TV in the bedroom is the death of intimacy.
on the other hand, the PSE and i have been running on fumes in the intimacy department for years, and i don't know that a TV is going to make it much worse.

#3)
on the way in to Court a few weeks ago i found something in the vestibule of the Courthouse that turned out to be wireless I-Phone headphones.
I-Buds, or whatever the fuck.
i have been using headphones with wires that you get from the Five Below for the past few decades, but i figured it was only a matter of time before the God of Salvage would provide.
i took these I-Buds back to my house and i figured out how to get them to work with my phone.
it turned out that the things had a name - Tianna's FunkyPods - i did not expect that.
and when i saw that i started to feel a little bad for Tianna that she was missing her FunkyPods, but i don't know how to get them back to her, so i guess they're TITS' FunkyPods now.

#4)
several weeks ago i got an envelope in the mail with a $5 bill and an invitation from the United States Census to go take a survey online.
the survey was the National Survey of Children's Health, and rather then throwing it directly in the trash, i put it in my To Do pile, and then left it there for several weeks with other problems.
over the next few weeks i got, like, four follow-up letters until finally, last week, i finally got around to taking this fucking survey.
the National Survey of Children's Health asked me a series of questions on if i have a kid, and, if so, how's it doing?
i checked all the boxes that said that Dax was doing fine, though, i did not use her real name, because Dax doesn't need to be on the government's radar.
i referred to her as 'Hoot McGraw.'
i told the National Survey of Children's Health that Hoot McGraw was excelling in all parameters, physically, mentally and emotionally.
she was not blind, she was not deaf, she has no problems with her teeth.
she does not have no asthma, autoimmune diseases, palsy, diabetes, seizures, Tourettes, Asperger's, learning disabilities or mental retardation.
yay!
then the Survey asked if Hoot McGraw has a regular doctor and, if so, how are we satisfied with them.
i reported that we like Hoot's Pediatrician just fine.
they asked about our ability to access medical care and i indicated that we don't get to go to the doctor as much as we would perhaps prefer to because i have shit private insurance with deductibles and copays and it costs money to see the doctor, which is a human rights violation.
though, it was hard to convey all that through selecting different buttons.
they asked how i was doing and i reported that i was doing alright: physically fair, mentally good.
they asked if anybody else lives in the house and i indicated Hoot McGraw's mother.
they asked how she was doing and i put down physically good, mentally poor.
the PSE is always on the verge of driving Dax into the lake.
they asked if there was any violence in the home and i indicated that there was not, and they asked if there was any drug use in the home and i indicated that there was not, and they asked if everybody felt safe and i indicated that they did.
peppered throughout this lengthy survey were questions about if Hoot McGraw speaks English or Spanish, and if i speak English or Spanish, and was hoot a citizen and was i?
which makes me a little concerned that this isn't for the Department of Health at all but rather Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
i wouldn't put this kind of slippery, unethical shit past the Trump Administration.
a plan like that has Stephen Miller's grubby little finger prints all over it.
so, i guess what i'm trying to say is Watch Out!

#5)
a few weeks ago i got a notice in the mail from my Mortgage Company announcing that they would be raising my monthly payments.
the Principal and Interest are fixed for thirty years, or until my Mother dies and i can get it all paid off, but the escrow, which is the property tax and homeowner's insurance, can fluctuate from year to year.
and for as long as i've had a mortgage, i have never seen it fluctuate down.
this time, there was an escrow shortfall of $114.03, which meant that from month to month, my payment would be going up from $1,706.64 to $1,725.64
which isn't bad as mortgage hikes go. i can live with it.
i round up to $2,000 per month every month anyway just to try to get the principal paid down sooner.
but every little bit that doesn't go towards my principal just keeps me on the hook for that much longer.

#6)
i got an e-mail notification a few days ago that American Express Savings would be lowering the interest rate that they give me from 3.75% down to 3.50%.
down from an all-time high of around 4.25% that i was getting last year.
most of our Family's money is invested with a Financial Adviser, $$$ Get Dat Money $$$ Investments, and hopefully she will be able to do a lot better then fucking 3.5%, but still, i've got $60,000 in American Express and my Mother has $130,000, and Dax has $150,000, and the difference between collecting 3.75 and 3.50 in interest every month adds up.
fuck you, American Express Bank! what the fuck!?!

#7)
i got a bill in the mail several days ago from the Utility Company seeking payment for a month's worth of services for The Rental House.
The Rental House had been empty that entire month, but still, the Utility Company was demanding $198.
we had the automatic sprinkler set up to water the front lawn, so, sure, we'll pay something, but we didn't use any electricity or natural gas, and we didn't use the sewer.
so, i called up the Utility Company to ask them what the fuck, and the cunt on the other end said that they charge so much money per day just to be hooked up to services, whether you use them or not.
well, that doesn't seem fair, but when i tried to explain that to the Customer Service dipship, he just told me “fuck you! pay me!”
the Utility Company has a monopoly in town, and there isn't really fuck-all that i can do about it,so i paid the crooks, and now i am complaining in my journal.
i've got a Renter living in the house now, and he's set up utilities in his own name, so hopefully this won't be a problem going forward.
but still! the fucking nerve of the Utility cunts!

#8)
and speaking of nerve, my Mother got a letter in the mail the other day from the Jew Temple back in New Jersey.
inside was a bill for $523, for a year's worth of Membership Dues.
$175 of that $523 was a “safety and security fee” because certain kinds of American Jews have a bunker mentality, like they're living in the West Bank.
it's pathological.
my Parents were members of this Synagogue since i was a small child, paying membership dues every year.
say what you will about the Gentiles, but they don't charge you to talk with their god.
when i think about how much money these shysters have bilked from my Father i get upset.
and it doesn't help anything that the Temple knows that my Father has died, but the only thing we hear from them is a bill.
fortunately, my Mother has no need or interest to support the Temple like my Father used to, so i wrote on the bill “You People Have Had Enough!” and i sent it back to them.

//[get excited!]