I'd forgotten about that.

Jen was poking around in the back of my wardrobe this morning it seems. Looks like I've lost my old hockey jersey and she gained a new night shirt. She's lucky it looks better on her than it does on me or I'd probably be a little upset :p

-J.C.

Yowzer!

Shopping is done and man was it awsome. I now have a midnight black SUV and will be driving it around for the next week or so until my other purchase (A lovely looking Mecedes-MacLaren SLR) arrives. Once all the important stuff was done, I took Jen to buy a new dress. We had already bought a stack of new clothes, but I wanted to get her something really fancy. There's a conference coming up soon in Boston that I want to go to and even though I think Jen would outshine anyone else there even if she was dressed in nothing more than an old potato sack, I figure that since we have the means to do better, it wouldn't be right not too. All I can say about the dress she picked is wow... just, wow.

-J.C.

Hell of a week.

Well, things with Sam went well. It's been a lot of hard work trying to get things organised, but we finally managed to get it all sorted out. I now have a rather nice income that I don't have to work for (as does Jen) and a slush fund that will continue to rake in interest until I decide I need it. All that is independant from the host of other investments and strategies that Sam has been putting into place. I can certainly see why my father hired him. Now I could just kick back and retire if I wanted to and I must say that with things the way they are, I'd be very tempted to. Right now, the only thing stoping me is my concience. I want to look into the things we've discovered and see what I can do. Ballance is important and I'm going to try make sure that the creatures aren't tipping the scales. I get the feeling that Jen is starting to feel the same way. We've been seeing them around for a couple of weeks now and with that first exception, we haven't done anything except aviod them.

The papers for me leaving active duty at the base should be here early next week. C.O. seemed a little upset about losing two staff members in the same week, but was pleased that I told him he could still call any time if they needed help. I'll still be required to do some work for them if I want to keep my rank and military privileges (which I do), but it works out to about 2 days a month. Pretty good deal as far as I'm concerned. Jen and I have both applied for a licence to carry a consealed fire arm and with our military background we should be cleared for them. Still not sure if guns will be of any use if we have to take down one of the others but then again, if they do work on them, all the better for us. I'm going to start collecting a few things that I'm almost certain would be able to hurt anyone, monsters and demons included. I've got a few white phosphor grenades on order and I managed to get some thermite from the transport devision on the base. I'll keep looking around for anything else that might be useful, but until I start tangling with them up close and personal it's going to be pretty hit and miss I think. Still, better that I start and it turns out to be useless than I don't and it isn't.

On a slightly less 'Hellfire and Brimstone' topic, I'm looking forward to the weekend. I'm going out shopping for a few things. Trading in my current car and getting 2 new ones, new laptops for both Jen and myself, some new clothes, all the usual. Should be fun though as I've never really gone and done anything like this before. It's a pretty odd sensation being able to go out and do that without having to worry about the expense. Once I've done all the shopping, I plan to kick back and relax with Jen for whatever's left of Saturday and Sunday. Monday is going to be my first day hunting for these things and trying to find out if I can be of some help, so I figure that the rest will do me good. Besides, there are cartoons to watch on Sunday and nothing short of death is going to stop me from watching them.

-J.C.

Didn't see it coming.

As great as last night was, I woke up feeling a little apprehensive about today. There were two reasons for this. One was quickly laid to rest when I spoke to Jen about it. I couldn't help but wonder if she only agreed to start dating me because of our unique situation. In a way it's almost like being stranded on an island and dating the person you're stranded with because what other options do you have? As I said though, Jen laid that to rest very quickly. She let me read a few entries from her diary from before things changed and it turned out that like me, she was interested but hadn't quite gotten srount to doing anything about it yet. Even more than knowing she was thinking about it herself though, that she let me read the entries in her diary showed me that she trusted me. That means a lot at this point. Anyhow, the other reason I was nervous was a little more sinster. It struck me that my accountant may be one of them. That would make the meeting uncomfortable at best. I was pleased to find that it wasn't the case though when I turned up. Sam is just a regular guy and I have to admit to being a little jellous of that. Either way, he'd prepared a full account of my assets as I'd requested.

I have to admit that I always knew that mom and dad were wealthy. I'd have to have been in a coma to not realise that. We had a big house in a wealthy neighbourhood and all that, so not realising it wasn't really an option. Still, we didn't get a new car every year (although the ones dad had were exceptional), we didn't fly round the world at the drop of a hat, in short, my parents were responsible with what they had. Now, when dad passed away back in 2000, I was more than just a little rattled. We lost mom the year before and so I still hadn't quite adjusted to that yet, let alone being prepared for dad's death. I paid virtually no attention at the reading of his will and just blindly signed the papers Sam told me to when the time came. Sam has been the family accountant since before I was born and more than just being our accountant, he was a family friend. Sam was one of the other pole-bearers at dad's funeral. I trusted him enough to look out for me then and I still do. When he started running me through the list of assets though, I was thunderstruck. Mom and dad weren't just wealthy, they were multi-millionairs. When he saw the look on my face, he explained that for the last 4 years, he has been managing my finances and related affairs full time! I nearly fell out of my chair. Jen just shook her head and said "See, I couldn't put my finger on exactly what it was about you that I liked so much, but this can fill in for it until I do!". My own laughter snapped me out of it. I figured that at best, I'd have enough to manage an income close to what I have now, but Sam assures me that now I'm ready to start working with him a little more, we can start taking a few more risks and the earnings could go through the roof. Hell, even if we leave it as it is I can pull in 10 times what I do now as a surgeon. Looks like I'm about to have a lot more freedom than I thought. I feel like I've just won the lottery!

For now, I've got Sam sorting out an account that I can access as a sort of slush fund. I've asked him to make sure that both Jen and I have access to it so that should hold us until we know what we're doing. I'll call the base and let them know this afternoon.

-J.C.

How much better can it get?

We just got back in and Jen is getting changed so I only have a few seconds, but she said yes! Could today have been any better? I seriously doubt it!

-J.C.

Dad's legacy.

My father spent a bit of time working in Asia right before I was born. He was there for about a year and a half, maybe two years with my mother, but when she fell pregnant, they decided to come back home to the U.S. to raise me here. While they were there though, my dad became good friends with one of his work collegues. He was a Taoist and by the time my parents came home, they had both absorbed quite a number of the Taoist beliefs. As such, I grew up with that influence and I still think that many of it's tennants make a lot of sense. The one that sticks out most for me is the concept of ballance. The last week and a half have really reminded me of that. On the one hand, the world has changed in a serious way for me and I now see the kinds of monsters and demons that society has denounced as mere myth and superstition. The darker element of life has been thrust right in front of me and it often feels like it could overwhelm me at any moment. On the other hand though, Jen has become so precious to me so very quickly. I know that a lot of it has to do with her being the only other person that's in this situation with me, but I can't help feel that all it has really done is speed up what may well have happened anyway. She gives me a reason to keep looking for a way to move forward rather than just stall or let things start to drag me under. Sounds mushy I know, but there's nothing more satisfying than the feeling I get when someone genuinely appreciates the help I can give and with Jen, I always know that she's grateful for my help.

It's amazing for me to think that one of the worst events in my life may also be the start of one of the best things in my life. The reason Im mentioning all this is that I'm thinking of taking Jen out for dinner tonight and seeing if she'd be interested in making our cover story into a reality. After spending the morning watching cartoons again, I realised that I'd have to be a complete fool to let a woman like that slip through my fingers. Let's hope it all works out.

-J.C.

My new plan.

Well, I spent a lot of time thinking about how to get rid of Susan at work, but I'm just not used to all this. I don't know how to elliminate someone and just get away with it, that kind of thing only happens in the movies. I spent some time in the morgue back while I was doing my residency and I'll tell you right now that getting rid of a body isn't as easy as they make it look. Point here is that it would take me months to try come up with something and we may not have that long. As I said, I'm still assuming that they can sense us like we can sense them. Even with all those problems aside, we encountered a new one today. One of the girls in admin has gone on maternity leave and her temporary replacement started today and she and Susan hit it off straight away. They're both part of the same club if you know what I mean. It made both Jenny and I realise some very basic truths about the world as we now know it. Firstly, there are a lot more of these creatures than you might realise. On any given day, you're likey to intereact with one of them. Secondly, even if we managed to get Susan and now this new one out of the medical center here on base, there's always the possibility that their replacement will be just as bad. In short, as long as we keep working, we'll have to watch our backs because they're always going to be around.

With all that in mind, Jen and I have taken next week off. Without wanting to say much about my family history, my parents were an enterprising couple while they were alive. When they passed away, they left me with a small fortune. I've never had much need to touch it (with the exception of using my college fund for it's intended purpose of course) so I'm going to go speak with my accountant. My hope is that with some decent management, I should be able to turn my inheritance into an income. If I can do that, then I'll pull myself back to a private practice like I'd originally planned to do before joining the army. My home here was built with that in mind after all so the surgery already exists. I won't abandon my work with the military all together though as I'm not willing to give up what could turn into vital access to military equipment and information, not to mention the friends that I have all over the base. If I plan on fighting these monsters, I'll need all the help I can get from the looks of things. This is just a way of minimising exposure to them. I spoke with Jen about it and she has already said that if I can pull it off financially, she'll happily take on the role of my assistant here. I know her medical knowledge is more than enough to make her invaluable in assisting me during surgery and I doubt that she'll have much trouble with the administrative work that we'll need.

I wonder if this will hurt my chances of making Major at my next review? ;)

-J.C.