HOT & MUGGY

It's amazing how, each year, I forget how hot it is during the summer.

This year is no exception. It's going to be close to 90 again today. We already have thunderstorms forming from the heat.

I bought another 8000 BTU A/C and had it put in. The worst part of the day, amazingly enough, is after the sun goes down. From 9am on the temp just keeps rising. Even with both A/C's on max, is was still 75 by 10PM in the apartment.

On the bright side, sometime after midnight the temp began to fall and by morning it was nice and cool, around 68, in the apartment.

I tried turning the A/C down when I got up, but the temp climbed pretty fast, and after just an hour the temp was up to 75. My electric bill went up 40 dollars with the one A/C running for a week. If that holds true, the bill will be over 300 dollars next month.

I'm really saddened by the fact that most of the people from the top floors stay outside all day and night just to keep cool, or cooler. With temps in the 80's outside and in the 110's inside, they are taking the lesser of 2 evils, but it's no fun. I tried spending an hour outside last night, around 9pm and the mosquitoes were eating me, and everyone else, alive.

I have bites all over my body. Being poor is terrible. I try to keep looking at the good things. I have TV and Internet, at least for now. I may have to have them turned off if the electric bill is too much. I am looking at the disconnect and reconnect costs. I would need to have the phone off for at least 3 months to offset the cost of having it disconnected, otherwise it would cost more then leaving it on.

The Internet is 50 and the cable is 60 and the connection charge 50 for each, I don't know what the disconnect charge is, but I'm guessing 3 months would make sense on those as well.

I have thought about working, but for every dollar I earn they would take away a dollar, so I would lose money. The disability system is not good. I need to spend more time talking to my therapist about this and see if we can come up with any legal solutions, since working under the table is not an option.

The price and quality of food is really terrible. Basically everything has almost doubled in price,
and that is not an exaggeration. A can of mushrooms was 1.29 and is now 1.99, same can.
Hamburger was 3.99 a pound, now 5.99 a pound. O.J is up, but not by that much.

And so much of the food has MSG in it now, chicken, pork, they all say self basting, which is code for MSG. you have to read the fine print to find it. I've been buying the day old pork since it's got the 1.00 off sticker. Even seltzer jumped from .99 to 1.39 a 2-liter.

Something has to give. The poor people, like me, can't afford to keep paying these prices. I tried to get the meals on wheels that the seniors get, but I don't qualify. They bring a bag lunch and a hot dinner for 2.00. That's a really good deal, but you have to be 62 or older to get it.

They should have a program here for the non-seniors. Maybe I could suggest that.

The school taxes here are some of the highest in the country, I think about 4K per 100K and they a having a vote to request another 26 mil to find improvements. This is a poor town with little downtown. Lots of vacant stores. I think that added tax would drive out more business.

I stopped ordering pizza, which was a big treat, because it went from 8.00 to now it's 15.00 for a medium pizza. They tried switching suppliers and the quality was awful and everyone complained and they went back to the good supplier, but the price went way up. I don't know how they are going to survive. I went down a few times and had slices at the restaurant, but even then it was 8.00 for 3 slices. They asked why I was coming down and I didn't have the heart to tell them it was the price.

It's a family shop and they try real hard. I just don't think they are going to make it. There are several other pizza shops in downtown and there isn't enough business to support them all.

Well, that's my update for today. Keep cool.

Bill