Tracy Petry

Today is Memorial Day.  It's cloudy, it's supposed to rain cats and dogs all afternoon. Marty is working today because it's double-time for him. It's a paid holiday for me, too, but I'm taking the day to stay home and process.  Friday night the Sabbath rolled in and was welcomed. It was a long week. It was a hectic week and we were both tired. Sabbath is our time to truly rest together, to set aside the worries of the world. We recharge. I cooked dinner for a change and we ate together. We turned in early. It was nice. Before I headed to bed I took the card I'd bought for Marty and left it on his chair so he'd see it first thing in the morning since he gets up so much earlier than I do. Saturday morning came. It was Marty's 56th birthday. It was a nice quiet day, which we needed. We couldn't visit with friends - some were out of town for work, one had just had knee replacement surgery, others are more in the "at risk" group and really aren...

"Don't forget to be an asshole today!" They were the first words I heard the other morning.  I was sitting on my new deck (that is a whole 'nother story, but the deck is almost done), having my cup of coffee with Bodie.   It was about 8:30 in the morning and the neighborhood was quiet.  For a community this size it is a surprisingly quiet place to live.  The silence was suddenly broken by a familiar voice from next door.  Lisa.  I love Lisa.  She was "hand picked" to be our neighbor and then to be our coworker as well.  Lisa's Italian.  She's from Chicago.  Soft-spoken she is not.  "Don't forget to be an asshole today!" she yelled back in to her husband as she walked out the front door.  "And if you forget how , just call me and I'll remind you!" I mentioned that Lisa works with us.  She was hired to handle sales because she has real estate experience and she could sell ice water in Siberia.  Her husband, Joe also wor...

One more benefit to this recent "Great Pause" we've all been going through is that I've had some time to get back to writing.  A little here, a little there as my brain-fog has been clearing from my bout with elevated blood sugars. One of the projects I've gotten back to is the long overdue sequel to Cast Down; A New England Haunting. The new book will be titled Cast Down; Masked and is the story of one of the characters we meet in the first novel - Carrie. Here is a brief excerpt from the current work in process.  - - - - - - - - - - - Carrie sat in the front passenger seat of the minivan and watched as the other members of her team went up onto the front porch of the old house and spoke at length with the young woman who’d answered the door.   She assumed that was the person who’d made contact with Mike and arranged for them to come out.   She glanced at her watch and noted their time of arrival on the small notepad she carried with her.   It was 7:3...

I recently told an old and dear friend, "Dude, I not only live in a trailer park, I work in them. I do evictions. Tell me I am not living the most entertaining life ever ." There are still days when I'm looking around this new little reality of mine and thinking, How did I get here ? Those are the days when I'm quite sure God has a wicked sense of humor. The company now owns fifteen mobile home parks, so that's roughly 375 homes to manage. I've been in each and every one of these homes over the last five years. I've cleaned them, inspected them, painted them, photographed them. If anyone has a question about a home, I have an answer; Yes, that's the one that had the toilet that got clogged and the tenant continued to use it for two weeks without being able to flush before calling us; that's the one the tenant painted the interior florescent orange and we had to use six gallons of Kilz to cover it; that's the one where the old lady died sitt...