[no, i'm not packing my bags. my two trunks have been sitting in the porch because Loverboy doesn't want them in the house. i don't want them out where mice can get at them. the big one contains xmas decorations and such, and the black one holds my journals from age 15 on. by the end of the day, they will be moved in.]

I wrote to the school board requesting that they have a seatbelt installed for Don on the school bus. They were quick to get on it, and the result is that last night the busdriver came over with something that looks like a parachute harness and was made in Nova Scotia, after precise measurements were taken. He wanted to show me how it goes on so Don can go out of the house wearing it in the morning.

I’m concerned that it will be too restraining. It is attached by the shoulders (and possibly at the waist) to the back of the seat, so Don won’t be able to move much at all. I hope he finds that okay, because if not, the school board is not going to be too happy about laying out that kind of money for nothing.
I wonder why they didn’t just get a seatbelt, as I asked, and Loverboy thinks maybe it’s too difficult to attach a simple belt to those bus seats. That doesn’t make sense to me, but then I don’t have his comprehension of how things like that are done.

All I know is, Don will have to give it a fair chance, and if he finds it too restraining, I will be going to bat for him so he doesn’t have to wear it but gets the kind of seatbelt he needs -- a simple lap belt.

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Loverboy went out before seven a.m. to help his dad “load up a pig.” I feel sorry for the pig, off to be slaughtered. Now if only my sympathy would translate into a distaste for sausage and pork chops, I’d be well on my way to living up to my vegetarian ideals.

It’s one of life’s contradictions when a man who cannot tolerate a speck of dust in his half-ton can live for years with two very dirty sets of furniture and not even seem to notice. Perhaps it’s because he doesn’t spend much time in the house, and when you’re laying on a couch you’re not looking at it.

Me, my van is a pigsty but I cannot feel good in the house if the kitchen is dirty. Once it’s clean and everything put away, the world seems a brighter place and my mind is at ease. But then, except for six hours a week, I am usually here. I don’t just come here to eat and sleep. I live and work here. It only makes sense that the immediate surroundings are more important to me.