Whew.

You might remember my house-mate lady person that I stayed with for 9 weeks was having a pretty up and down time with her son etc and unfortunately a lot of her unhappiness ended up being directed towards myself and my daughter. In the end it became quite nasty and, knowing that I had kept my side of the street pretty darn clean while I was staying there, I chose to believe it was not to do with me and I got out of there as soon as I could and came here, to my mothers for a couple of weeks.

Well on my last day there, after being extremely cold and snipey and unfriendly for weeks, she cried when I left and said she would miss me very much and then emailed me for a few days that she missed me etc, which really surprised me. Anyway I have kept in touch and been friendly, and of course she has minded Michael Douglas (for a fee) for the past 2 weeks too, so I thought we might remain friends and catch up every now and then perhaps.

So when I moved in, I agreed to pay a weekly amount for rent and bills and it was a HIGH amount for a single room. As the atmosphere was pretty dreadful daughter, dog and I generally remained confined to that small room and daughter was away at her fathers for 4 of those 9 weeks as well. I'm just trying to paint a picture of how it was, we didn't come out of that little room and really, it was an excessive fee for a small room that was still full of someone else's stuff but that was what we agreed to and it meant daughter finished school with her friends so, that was the way it went and I'm happy with that and glad it is over now.

Well today she started texting me that she just received her water bill (this is not true, I saw it on her bench about 6 weeks ago and it was already very high and extremely overdue) and it is very high and she wants me to pay $240 for our water usage while we were there and when the electricity and gas bills come she wants me to pay half of them too (now firstly we agreed my weekly board covered all bills) and secondly $240 would cover my water usage for a YEAR, and even that would be too high, for her to say that we are responsible for that increase is utterly ludicrous. We do not take long showers, I used the washing machine once a week, I buy bttled drinking water, so her claim is outrageous. I can't wait to see how much she thinks I will give her for electricity.  I responded that my board was meant to cover bills but that I was coming to collect my cat later in the week and she could show me the bill and we would talk about it then. This resulted in very long text after text after text which I didn't respond to, about how we would have been homeless without her and at least she isn't greedy like my last landlord who tried to charge me $300 for gardening and anyway I have been staying at my mothers so I should have saved plenty of money and it shouldn't be a problem for me to pay her and...on and on, how disappointing and selfish my attitude is and she will have to go into debt now because she tried to help me out (this is absurd and she is being ridiculous; I paid her $1500 for my 9 weeks there and also fed her and supplied the cleaning supplies etc, she did very well out of having us there). Her final text declared that "Anyway I will see you on Thursday and you can pay me the money". Um, no? 

She also stated that she hadn't been there last week when I had gone to see her because she was "at the welfare office". (That is nonsense, she was there, I heard her talking inside and her car was there. She just didn't want to get out of bed and talk to me so I grabbed what I had needed to get from the front yard and left, emailing her that  was sorry to have missed her and would call in again next week). 

So I am tired of people trying to extort money from me like this. Really tired of it. I don't particularly want to go there and visit now, I need to go and get the cat and I wonder if she will try to hold him hostage or whether he will be alright at all? Frankly I am surprised she is trying to pull this on me. I really just want to not speak to her at all and do not want to give her my new address either because frankly she's been volatile and unpleasant since she started smoking pot again and I don't want to have any more of that in my life.

So I  am again grateful for my program and for my ability to not react. Old me would have been in a frenzy texting back and escalating the situation to fever pitch and then feeling guilty and uncertain afterwards about what I said in anger but I was direct and calm with my first response that I would discuss it with her on Thursday when I collect the cat and can she please have the bill ready for me to look at however I will be factoring in the money I have already paid for bills. After her texting frenzy I chose to just not respond at all and although I feel worried about the cat I think I'm pretty calm and OK. 

It's nice not having my buttons pushed so easily now, it makes me feel good when I can be calm, shake my head and walk away. It's quite empowering.

Now it is after midnight and I am meant to be up early tomorrow for the big move. The kids next door are throwing a HUGE party and the music is so loud my window is vibrating. My mother said their parents are away and last time they did this they were throwing bottles at this house at 3am. Fantastic. Not my monkeys.....not my monkeys....not my monkeys.....surely someone will call the police soon, probably my brother who is a proud member of neighbourhood watch and likes watching the neighbouhood from his window and calling the police LOL

OK now I'm giggling, they are playing that song "Africa" by Toto and daughter has just poked her head in my door and is singing "I've left some brains down in africaaaaaa" which is what she thought the lyrics were when she was little....thank HP for laughter.

And Happy Australia Day by the way, which is what it is here today.