February 2016 in 2010s

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 29, 2016
Tammy messaged me on Facebook to tell me she had a wonderful visit with Lisa who is leaving tomorrow. I took that as my cue to let her know why I had been hesitant to reach out to her. While it was definitely wrong of me to bash her in public, I didn’t like being accused of lying either. If she had any doubts or questions about anything, she should have asked me in a civilized manner. Meanwhile, I’m glad she sobered up and I realize she had a lot of problems back then. I’m also glad she and Tammy are getting along and I hope it stays that way, and that the cycle of family drama won’t be back later on down the road. I know I’m gone forever if it is.

Finished my Bowflex workout. It’s so nice to be able to add more and more weight the longer I continue to work out. I had to drop back some of the arm weights upon returning from vacation, but now I’m beyond where I was back then. Still don’t expect to lose weight as I’m not going to get any younger and my Hashimoto’s isn’t going away, but I’m definitely getting stronger.

Went out walking with Tom after work. The weather’s gorgeous… dry, sunny and 70s.

As is typical of me these days, my story was off to a good start. Got about 6 pages written containing about 1600 words, and I have already lost motivation to continue on with it. :(

Last night I beat the shit out of Jodi Arias in my dreams. Yeah, the bitch escaped from prison in Arizona and came up to NorCal where she had connections. She was hiding out at a friend’s place when someone called and tipped her off that the cops were onto her location. So she ran blindly, and when I was taking out the trash in the dream, there she was. I clearly recognized her from all the news footage I’d seen of her. She tried to push past me and into the house, but I threw every punch and kick I could as fast and as hard as I could while Tom called the police.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2016
Went to Goodwill earlier. I swear one could use them alone just to collect stuff! You just never know what goodies they’re going to have, and we hadn’t been there since before the trip. I got a gold figurine of a rat that’s fairly large and a small parrot figurine that goes perfectly with the larger one I got in Florida.

I also got an 18” vinyl doll with a nice face and well-sculpted hands. I replaced her drab outfit, but need to re-wig her or get her a hat or something. Her hair is totally trashed. Like someone grabbed a pair of scissors and started chopping in random spots.

So yesterday they spent hours tearing up the yard at the house that sold, and today the house across the street had a bunch of people over who appeared to be hauling away a couch and some other items. She’s a little too company-happy, but please don’t tell me she’s getting ready to move too! Really, why are so many houses going up for sale all of a sudden?

Haven’t seen Hazel in ages now. I’m guessing that if she’s still alive she’s been moved to a home somewhere. She was pretty out of it last I knew.

Anyway, I wonder what they’ll plant in place of what they removed? Whatever it is, I’m sure I’ll have to hear all about it. I wish they’d at least make quiet weekends mandatory. We hear enough shit during the week.

The good news is that I had a win-dream. Yes! I would always win something following a dream about winning back when I was last at it, though I wouldn’t usually win what I dreamed of winning. I just hope it’s a good sign! The first is right around the corner, the most likely time for your name to be drawn.

In the dream, I won a huge coffeemaker that could serve many people at once. I told Tom that if we didn’t get to take in the foster kids we were expecting to take in, we’d sell it, LOL. Never saw myself getting affidavits notarized or anything like that, but it’s a hopeful sign just the same.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2016
Here goes another neighbor/noise rant. I just need to vent! It’s been my experience that those that move in next to us usually start off fairly peaceful and respectful and then it’s like… we’re here! Now the newcomers aren’t doing anything even remotely “disrespectful,” but they sure are annoying. Today it was doing what I wish we could afford to do; having nearly every single plant torn out of their yard. I’m sure that tomorrow or the next day I’ll have to listen to whatever they plan to replace it with. It’d be nice if that was gravel and a few scattered bushes or trees, but with my luck, it’ll be grass so I have to hear them mowing every week. Mowers aren’t nearly as annoying as blowers, though.

Jackie pulled her SUV out of her carport so it wouldn’t get damaged along the way. She’s probably already sorry they moved in. They’ve definitely got money, whoever they are.

But what’s next, a new paint job? New roof? Just wondering when they’re going to settle down, not that it’ll matter much since someone else will just take over the landscaping/project frenzy.

At least I will always have my peaceful nights. The only annoyance in the evenings is across the street. As in across from the front. She has an unbelievable amount of company, half of which drive loud vehicles, and loves to slam doors while they’re coming and going.

The only sound I hear right now are those small planes that love to circle above every now and then. I can’t tell, though, if it’s the same plane circling around, or a series of planes crossing overhead.

Last night Andy drove me somewhere in my dreams and then Adonis did as well. Then I was doing something (a writing project?) and was thrilled at how it allowed me to recall a couple of things from the past I had forgotten about. One of those things may’ve been a dress I had years ago. I was psyched at the thought of all the hidden memories I might be able to uncover.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2016
Tammy and the girls went to my parents’ graves (even though they’re “absent”) and I’m like WTF? After acknowledging how horrible they were? It’s like they can’t make up their minds about them.

The mailman came to the door and had me sign for a brown envelope. But just as I was about to sign for it, I realized that while the address was correct, the name wasn’t. Knowing the woman on the corner is Jackie, I thought she might be the Jacques H it was addressed to, and had the mailman see if she knew anything about it. She didn’t. So I then signed for the package and opened it to find a bunch of blue pills in blistered packets. I figured they were either sex or diet pills. Aly suggested I Google the name (duh, why didn’t I think of that?), and yup, Aurogra is for those who can’t get it up.

I caught Bob and Virginia on their way out and asked if they knew the person, but they didn’t. So then I looked in the directory and found a Margaret H on Cayes Cove, just across from our street, and ran them over. The woman that lives there, however, said no one named Jacques lived there.

So somebody out there won’t be getting it on tonight since I’m stuck with the tools to make that possible. Maybe it’s a good thing I couldn’t find their rightful owner as they may’ve been rather embarrassed, LOL. The only problem is that I don’t know if returning them is an option due to the way they were packaged and they can’t legally resell them anyway. I can tell that they came from overseas but not what country. The writing is probably Thai, Indian or Urdu. So… no hard-on for Mr. H. Sorry!

A different old lady got out of a large red car that could almost pass for a mini SUV at the house that sold. She had long gray hair in a ponytail. I later saw the short-haired lady fetching the mail. Wouldn’t it be nice if lesbians moved in there? We couldn’t get that lucky, though. I’m sure the less-than-quiet man of the house will appear soon enough.

Right after I was saying how dead and quiet it was here yesterday, moving trucks showed up for about 2.5 hours, along with Miss Shorthair’s car and a couple of other vehicles from which I saw a younger woman unloading some stuff. The fact that they could afford to have all that remodeling done for a week or two, and then move in two moving trucks, each about 15 to 20 feet long, tells me they have money. And a lot of shit.

Yesterday Tom and I went for a walk around the park and it was just gorgeous. The weather and temperature were perfect. Sure was a lot of noise coming from outside the park, though… barking dogs, basketballs bouncing, etc.

Fitbit tried to tell me my HR reached 171 during that walk. No way. It probably got up to around 140 but more than likely it was 130 because I was only walking. I never ran at all. Tom couldn’t keep up with me if I did, LOL.

We grabbed a pink filter for my Keurig on Amazon for the cups that it won’t accept. I also grabbed another miniature animal for my collection… an Australian Shepherd. My white poodle should arrive today. Sometime I’ll make a list of all the pieces that are in my collection. There are a few fairies, but most of them are animals.

On the agenda for today, besides my online work, will be blogging, taking another Dutch lesson, and doing dishes and laundry.

Last night I dreamed that someone put a large snake in my bed to try to scare me, but it didn’t work. Not afraid of snakes.

Then I dreamed that I was part of a chorus somewhere. Everyone appeared to be in high school but me. As we were all singing while standing on these little bleachers, one woman known to be a bit of a bitch but that wasn’t the music teacher, was gazing at us through a pair of binoculars from a distance, though I’m not sure if we were indoors or outdoors.

I later saw her pull aside a small boyish-looking girl with very short dark hair and poopy brown eyes. This girl was very shy and insecure and not well-liked it all. She was about 16 but looked 10. The woman accused her of not singing but simply moving her lips instead. “You don’t even know the words, do you?” she asked the girl who shyly looked downward with a guilty expression. The woman demanded that she sing. When the girl remained quiet she said, “Why join a chorus if you’re just going to lip-sync?”

The girl then walked away and I overheard a woman tell the bitchy one that she probably didn’t have the voice to sing with or the mentality to learn and memorize the lyrics.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2016
Lisa is down in Florida now. Tammy posted a picture of the two of them at the beach. I wasn’t sure whether or not I should “like” it, comment, or just ignore it. I chose to just ignore it in the end. Without knowing how Lisa feels about me and whether or not she is anything like she was 5 years ago (she may be sober now yet may still have mental issues), I can’t possibly know if contacting her would be a good idea or not. Again, the last thing I want to do is reach out to her, have it backfire on me and get caught up in the family drama all over again. I will NOT play the ‘he said, she said’ bullshit game again! I swear if that ever EVER happens again I will be forever done with them. I just can’t go down that road again. Just like I would rather be friendless than have nothing but assholes for friends, I would rather not have anything to do with family than for us to be bickering all the time. Life isn’t worth it. I will always choose peace over problems.

She’s still not on Tammy’s friend list, but she is now on Sarah’s.

I love it when I read a follower’s blog that starts off saying, “I don’t have much to write about,” and then it ends up being 2500 words. I hate reading long entries. No patience. I just skim those or ignore them altogether.

A couple of cars were at the house that sold yesterday, but surprisingly it’s been incredibly quiet today and I haven’t seen anyone over there. The woman that I saw was maybe about 65. A younger woman in another car was also there. I’m guessing that was the daughter helping out.

It’s a gorgeous day out today and I’m looking forward to going out for a walk with Tom after he gets home from work. I worked out on the Bowflex earlier. I do that every other day.

Last night I dreamed I passed by Bob and Virginia on my way to get the mail. They were eating steaks and Bob offered me a few bites. I accepted and found it to be the best steak I’d ever tasted. He said he got a gun and I looked at him all confused. Then he said he killed the cow from which the meat came because he was tired of all the tough meat in the grocery stores, LOL.

Later…

Sure enough, the peace ended at 2:30. Worried there’s going to be activity well into the evening at the house that sold. Two large moving vehicles showed up at around 2:30, making me think there are a lot of people moving in since it is a 3-bedroom. My biggest concern is how much company they’ll have and if they’ll use the garage for the wrong reasons. The garage abuse is my biggest fear. Really, I wish these people would use their garages for what they were intended for!

Mutts shouldn’t be an issue unless it’s left to bark out open doors and windows. That could only be on the side facing Jackie in the corner house. This would make it more likely to be heard mostly in the laundry room, but I’m not really worried about that. I just want all the traffic to die down already and for the garage to be used to park vehicles and store stuff, not some little workshop.

As I learned the hard way, age doesn’t matter. Anybody can be noisy if they’re physically able to create the noise. It would be wonderful if a bunch of couch potatoes were moving in, but I know better than to hope for that. I’m not stupid. Years of a pattern that I question is coincidental or not, tells me what I’m in for. It’s one of the few things that makes me question the possibility of a god. Just how normal is this? Do people really happen to get noisy neighbors that often? It’s too soon to jump the gun and call them noisy for sure, but if they’re like what I usually get next to me or at least within close vicinity of me, they’re going to be noisy. If not with the garage then maybe lots of traffic, but that garage has got to be way too enticing, especially since it’s climate-controlled.

What I don’t get is those who say that God works in mysterious ways. Let’s say there is one even though we can never know for sure. Well, you can tell yourself that if it makes you feel better to justify the unfairness and the atrocities of the world, but where is the mystery, for example, in what my mother did? She abused me. There’s no “mystery” in that.

I still worry at times and think, what if there is a God and my turning against it is only making it hate me more and setting me up for a really shitty afterlife if there is such a thing as that, too? But I can’t live that way. I’m not going to kiss a god’s ass that may not exist. I’m only going to be myself, and if that lands me in an eternal pit of fire, so be it. But yes, that’s a fear of mine and I do realize that anything is possible. Anything. If there is an afterlife, it could be a million times worse than my worst of times here. But I know I shouldn’t worry or assume what I don’t know for sure and that I should just be myself.

If there is a god, I don’t like him. I don’t like him for what he has allowed to be done to me and I don’t like him for what he has allowed to be done the countless others in the world. I could go through life pretending otherwise for no reason at all, or I could just be myself and allow myself to feel what I feel. After all, if there was a god and he was so against us having any ill feelings toward him, then he could have created us not to be able to feel those feelings. Correct?

Meanwhile, there is no “mystery” in things. We may not know why they happen, but I don’t see the mystery, for example, in what the sickos in Arizona did to me. The only mystery is why any possible god allowed it to be done to me. To say he works in mysterious ways sounds like a lame excuse to excuse his cruelty in his unfairness. I know what happened to me. There’s absolutely no mystery there at all.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2016
Noticed a new sleep low for my HR last night when I logged into my Fitbit account. It hit down at 65. My typical sleep HR seems to be 68 to 73. My resting HR when I’m awake is 85 to 95. Working out can range from 120 to 140.

Where I’m leaning toward tachycardia, Tom is leaning toward bradycardia. He’s gotten down as low as 45 in his sleep and the 80s is considered “booming” for him.

Our research shows that neither one of us is in danger. He has no symptoms, although my rapid pulse can be uncomfortable at times, sprinkled with a little terror when you give me too much thyroid hormone. As much as I would love to have those perfect numbers, a perfect thyroid score for me means I could hit 130 just sitting on my ass. No fun feeling like you’re having a heart attack.

A few days ago I started retaining water as if my period was right around the corner, even though it’s not due until the 15th. I asked Tammy if that, along with my last period being late and short-lived was consistent with perimenopause and she said yes. I owe her a translation if she finds a mysterious letter somewhere in one of my languages in exchange for the medical advice, LOL.

I went out walking earlier and chatted with Bob who is trimming by the back corner. Kudos to him for having the guts to work with the bees and spiders that are coming to life a little too fast. He thanked me for the wind chime and asked about the cruise.

He didn’t know anything more than I know about the house that sold, but what I do know is that they’re annoying me with their remodeling racket. I just hope it’s not the owners doing the remodeling. Really, why can’t we just get an indoorsy old couple? People speak of too many couch potatoes in the world as part of what’s leading to the national obesity crisis. Send them here! I want all the potatoes… Couch potatoes, chair potatoes, lounge potatoes, rocking chair potatoes… I want ‘em all. Instead, I keep getting neighbors who are anything but lazy and who love the outdoors as much as I love chocolate. Then again, four of the houses in my immediate surroundings haven’t been a problem at all.

The dream people tried to blow me up last night. Yeah, in Dreamland I was held hostage in a large elevator somewhere with about a dozen other people. They threatened to bomb us if we dared leave the elevator, but as soon as the doors popped open I ran scared. Someone cried out my name in fear and desperation, but instead of looking behind me or turning back, I ran even faster in case they made good on their threats. Sure enough, I heard a loud explosion behind me. Amazingly, though, no one was hurt.

Later…

Just grabbed the mail and said hello to both Bob and Virginia who are sitting out in front of their place reading papers. It’s beautiful out now and I have the doors and bedroom window open.

Every now and then curiosity draws me to Doc C’s page to see what interesting travel photos she may’ve posted and what she’s looking like these days. So I did just that last night and found she’d changed her name to Lara S. Lara S? LOL. Lara’s her middle name, but S? Also, her account is now almost all private. Hmm… has somebody been getting their stalk on? Someone must’ve pestered her for her to literally change her account to a fake name and hide her shit.

I’m tempted to send her the rest of the story I didn’t finish sending her just to see if she blocks me or not. I mean, it might answer my question as to whether or not she got my messages. She might’ve gotten them but never noticed them in her ‘other’ box if they landed there. Hard to believe one as smart and as observant as a doctor would miss that, but hell, I had to be the one to figure out that the root of my anxiety was/is perimenopause. So maybe sending a few chapters at a time will tell me for she’d certainly block me sooner or later and I’m genuinely curious. Then again, maybe she liked getting my messages and would be interested in the story, yet still has her reasons for not replying.

I like how Facebook added reactions to posts. Now you can be sad, angry, laugh, love it or be surprised.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2016
So I get up, check my Facebook feed, and there are a couple of posts by my nieces in remembrance of my dear old enabling dad. Not a thrilling thing to wake up to.

And then I remembered. He died 4 years ago tomorrow. Or was it today? Honestly, I don’t remember exactly not just because of the brain fog I’ve been experiencing, but because I just don’t care.

Speaking of brain fog… I went down to the clubhouse this morning. They were happy to see me and I kinda missed them, too. :) Anyway, I was telling them that the cruise wasn’t that great, and while I remembered that it was RC, I totally forgot which ship of theirs we were on and it took several seconds for me to recall the name.

Judy led the group and is definitely my favorite instructor. She goes right through the moves without issues.

The dark pickup was already at the house that sold (though if it really sold, why is the ‘for sale’ sign still up?) and I could hear the whirring of a drill as I came in the back door. Couldn’t hear it in here, though I sure have been hearing plenty of landscaping on and off for the last 5 hours. It’s ridiculous. Today is much noisier than yesterday and it’s driving me crazy. I just want to be able to concentrate on the story I began in peace. Or do a language lesson in peace. Or just LIVE in peace.

No water damage workers at the corner house today and I guess they’re done with that. Doesn’t matter, though. Someone else will annoy me with a new problem or project soon enough.

We made a stew in the pressure cooker last night. The potatoes came out good, and while the meat was definitely cooked, it was too tough. What is it with tough meat lately?

Can’t remember much in the way of dreams last night. Something about riding bikes on rural roads and boarding a bus in Michigan.

Got a beautiful journal today like the kind I used to write in by hand before I went all-digital. I’m going to use it for jotting down whatever dreams I can remember upon waking up. I could do it on a simple notepad, but then I thought… why not get something pretty, leave it in the clubhouse library when it’s full when no one’s looking, and laugh at the thought of whoever finds it and gets to go on a real WTF moment? Yeah, I do silly things like that at times. ;)

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2016
Even though it may be more expensive, I should probably order my coffee directly from Keurig, so I can be sure to get compatible cups. The coffeemaker arrived yesterday and while I absolutely love it, as high-tech and sophisticated as it is, not all the coffee pods are compatible with it that I got from an Amazon seller. They’re all from the same brand, Crazy Cups, so I don’t know why. The different flavors have different color writing on them, so maybe it’s got something to do with that. I got to sample the Italian Chocolate Cheesecake and Death by Chocolate, but the Bananas Frosted Blasé is giving me a hard time.

The lovely purple coffeemaker came with a sampler pack. Hot chocolate and a few coffees, one being from Starbucks. I also got some iced tea, but all our plastic cups are too tall for it, and it says not to use glass.

I think this rather pricey hair treatment really is helping after all. My hair feels smoother to the touch and Tom says it looks shinier. I just wish it looked less shabby. If it weren’t for the fact that it’s been growing so fast ever since I was put on 75 mcg of levothyroxine and the exciting new straightening brush, I would simply cut it off. But I don’t want to do that for a while. I do want to get a trim, though.

I still don’t know if the house across from us has been sold to someone who’s going to live in it, or if it’s been sold to someone who’s doing a fix and flip on it. Either way, the vehicles coming and going over the weekend (and door slamming) really sucked as I thought – and hoped - that they would at least give me the weekend off. I’m working in the back bedroom now because I don’t want to listen to it for 8 hours, or the workers at the house next door to it fixing the water damage. I just wonder how many more weeks this is going to go on, and how much peace I’ll get in between before someone else has another problem or project going on around here. Plus, Bob’s got to be itching to get outside and grab that hammer and saw. We had a cold snap, but it’s to warm up again.

Tom gathered some food items to experiment with the pressure cooker at Walmart yesterday, and I grabbed a beautiful wind chime, black thigh-high stockings, and a rainbow glitter wand.

Not hearing very good things about cockatiels. They seem to be noisy, from what people say, and I worry about how the dust might affect my lungs. The last thing I want to do is have to return a pet like I did with Simone because I found I couldn’t breathe. I still feel horrible about that, even though there’s no way I could have known. But I still have time to decide. I don’t have to make my decision in a hurry.

Later…

There was one item that Tammy gave me that I found rather disturbing. That was a rock in the shape of a miniature headstone that said something like: No longer by your side but always with you.

This, along with a few other things, is nothing I feel comfortable sharing publicly. The ”headstone” sits in a cabinet under the hutch. Why would she give me something like that if she didn’t believe that she would die relatively soon? I don’t know what to think where her health is concerned. She’s always been a hypochondriac, but clearly she has been suffering. The oxygen tank, all the pills, and many other things aren’t there just for show. She is even entitled to handicapped parking and mentioned something about the nurse bringing up the subject of a motorized wheelchair which was a place she didn’t want to go. So I guess she refused to discuss that much.

At the very end of our visit, she asked if there was anything I wanted to ask her, and while I had no questions (at least none that I felt comfortable asking her) I wondered if she was basically saying it was okay to ask her if she was going to die.

I just don’t get it. Everything I read on fibromyalgia says that it’s not deadly. So what the hell is really going on?

I also wish Tom hadn’t been so quiet and had praised me more to her, but that’s just how he is. He’s very shy and quiet and has not one romantic bone in his body.

While we were there she told me some stories about the girls, and it was hard to tell whether or not she was amused or pissed. I guess they were farting in the grocery store when Tammy went to the next aisle something like that to look for something, and some lady told her that she ought to use the ladies’ room. Then she said something about them taking off and driving manically around some parking lot in a car she had.

Another funny story was Tammy being called to Sarah’s school when she was still in high school. On the way out of school, the two of them were walking side-by-side, and Tammy said, “Your principal is a real asshole. Meanwhile, the guy was right behind them.

She’s already made an enemy at her park, though I don’t know that I would consider her an “enemy,” so much as your typical rude person. They have a wide space of grass running behind their place. This lady was letting her dog piss and shit right outside their storeroom while there was plenty of space for dogs to do their business away from the homes. Tammy, who is much like me in that she doesn’t hesitate to speak her mind, especially when she knows she’s in the right, kindly asks the lady to keep her dog away from their house. Yet she caught her a second time letting her dog piss and shit too close. This time, however, the woman refused to even meet her eyes, let alone say anything. This is so typical and very Western-like too, where a perfectly reasonable request is made of someone and then they take it personally. I guess some people really believe they have a right to do whatever they want. Literally.

I’ve learned that while Tammy may not be broke, I don’t think she has as much money as we do. She didn’t put up much of an argument when I gave her $40, and based on some of the things that they’ve said, she and Mark don’t have much extra.

I don’t know if I’ll do this because I don’t know if it’s worth wasting an extra email address on Twitter just to test Kim, as I may want to use that email address for an account there for other reasons, but I realized a simple way to test if she is still stocking me but just doing it silently. She can’t be too afraid to go to my accounts, because she does it’s a block me and play victim every single time she creates one of her silly fan accounts.

Anyway, if I create an account and call it something like Jodi’s Wins or something like that, I’ll see if she notices it and blocks it. She may not have noticed the account I created in Tom’s name had Aly not followed it. This will tell me if she sees my activity through Aly, or if she’s seeing it directly through me. If she’s following my tweets then she’s probably following my blog as well.

Sarah publicly thanked Becky for being there for her when she got sad. For what, I wonder? Wacky hormones due to early menopause? Not being able to get a man? Never having kids? Something else?

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2016
Made a roast yesterday in our new pressure cooker, although we had to add more time than recommended. They suggest 25 minutes for 2 pounds, but we had to cook our 3-pounder for close to an hour. The meat was too tough with less time than that. We also got a chuck roast since there was no eye of the round in stock, and we’re guessing that’s a tougher cut.

In a few hours, we’ll be going to Walmart. We need to finally start paying off our debts, so we won’t get much.

But should we get a cockatiel somewhere down the line? We’re thinking about it. I did a little research on them yesterday. Love how they live a lot longer than rats and how affectionate they’re said to be. Wonder how noisy they are, though.

Thought my worst fear neighbor-wise had come true and that those working on the house were actually the new owners because they were here yesterday, which I didn’t expect. Trust me, you don’t want contractors with garages for neighbors. Early in the morning I saw the same two trucks over there and thought, great, just great. They’re going to always park on the street because they can’t fit in the garage, and also so they can use the garage to work in. But then I remembered Ray bitching about contractors arriving bright and early in the morning on Sundays to prepare to flip the house behind him. Hmm… wonder if that’s what’s going on with this place?

The power chopper arrived yesterday, though there’s not much “power” to it. It’s not an electric chopper or anything. You just place what you want chopped in a little cup below and manually chop it up.

Have a feeling I’m going to have to fight for the set of dolls I won. I remember that; that it’d often be up to me to beg for and work at getting my own damn prizes sent to me. So yes, even winning has its downside. They don’t want to send the prizes; they just want to promote themselves. As they’re doing this, they hope you forget about your wins. I’ve even had to fight for big prizes that took months to receive.

Had a dream I was in the back bedroom of the house we lived in when I was born. I was gazing out the side window, but the view was nothing like it would be in real life. In real life, you’d just see other houses. In the dream, there were many bustling streets.

Then I had a horrible dream about watching a little girl drown. The girl had long blond hair and was 4 or 5 years old. A bunch of people and I were standing around a pool. Some were in the pool, and the nearest swimmer dove down toward her when I shouted that she’d suddenly sunk to the bottom.

I was standing next to her father. Her mother wasn’t around, but I knew he and his wife had a house to which he suddenly drove me. I thought it strange that he didn’t want to stick around to see his kid rescued, or god forbid, drowned. It’s like he wanted to delay knowing the outcome of the ordeal as long as he could. Like the longer he put it off, the longer he could hope for the best. Or delay the inevitable.

At his house, I offered to do their laundry. “Have you ever washed a man’s clothes before?” he asked me, and I knew that what he really meant was whether or not washing his clothes, as well as his wife’s, would make me uncomfortable.

I assured him I was fine with it, but was unable to locate their washer and dryer. He then pulled out a huge metal drawer and said he’d show me how to use it. I guess it was some new way of washing clothes, LOL.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2016
Last night I had a dream that I was eating dinner in a large dining hall in which I seemed to be part of a large group. The dining hall was half full and it really annoyed me that we had to have assigned seats. I went and asked one of the “bosses,” or at least someone I perceived to be of authority, why it was necessary. Her answer was something like, “We’re looking for criminals.”

Then she said, “Stop moving me,” in an irritated tone because I had to lean over somebody to ask her, putting me too close for comfort, though I didn’t seem to be leaning against her.

In another dream, I was in a car with one of two young guys in their 20s driving, I sat in the front passenger seat as Tom sat in back. Eventually, the city gave way to rural roads and we were back out in the country following a wheat-brown grassy road. It was a strange scene in that the rest of the grass everywhere else was very green.

Once back at some type of lodge, I heard the young guys being kind of loud in a community bathroom and I wondered what was going on. Were they doing drugs, were they drunk, were they sick? I dared a quick peek at them and one of them seemed to be doing something in or over the bathtub. Tom threw his hands up behind me in frustration and said, “They’re college kids.”

Tammy did a fine job of scaring the shit out of me in my dreams last night. She was driving us somewhere and we were in a large parking lot. She suddenly took off at 100 MPH because she wanted to make the light at a nearby intersection. I urged her to slow down, saying that no light was worth going so fast for.

I ordered that Keurig coffee maker I said I was going to order. It’s the purple one that’s just under $100. I also got a variety sampler in regular and decaf, plus new air filters for the air cleaners and bedding for the rats.

Tom was going to work today but then I guess they decided not to bother. The extra $200 would have been nice, but so is the extra time to get some things done around here. We want to cook our first meal together in the pressure cooker, and he needs to make room in the front somewhere for the cat/rat bike spinner.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2016
My sister’s fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis are at their worst and she needs a pain patch as well as an oral one. They’re going to be cutting nerves soon, but she still may need a morphine pump because they can’t do anything for the bones and muscles. So she’s understandably not too happy now. Wish there was something I could do to make it all go away!

Worried about my own health when they do a full blood panel on me in May. Not that they’re going to uncover something new that’s wrong, but I fear my cholesterol and thyroid numbers are going to be worse. I “feel” more hypo, but I’d rather that than the OMG intense anxiety the higher doses cause me. No way in hell I’m going to take a chance on a higher dose after finally getting stable again after the hell I went through which typically takes a few months to fully recover from. Especially not while my body’s hormones are changing as I go through perimenopause. I do not want to bring back that anxiety that was so bad it was like literally living in fear. Worst thing I ever felt in my life. And the scariest. But having frizzy hair and never being able to lose weight is far from a crisis. So I’d rather be a little hypo than suffer the horrible terror I went through.

As an “experienced hypo” I can bet my numbers will be worse. My hair is thinning on top by the hairline, the hair feels like a pile of straw, and I’m cold a lot. I know age and peri can also be a factor, but I’m expecting bad numbers.

The so-called wallpaper on that Keurig model is really just a choice in color background. I think I’ll settle for their cheaper model in purple.

When we were talking about our parents, I brought up a horrible memory I have of waking up as a little kid to the sound of my dad beating up on either Larry or Tammy (his belt was his usual weapon of choice) and my mother coming into the room to comfort me while she let her husband do this.

But Tammy looked at me, frowned with confusion and said, “Dad never belted me.”

Could it have been Larry then? Even though Dad was much more passive overall than Mom was, he was the one who got a little more physical when we’d piss him off bad enough, which luckily wasn’t that often. I even remember an instance when I was wide awake and he flew up the stairs to attack one of them. Mom was more of a slap-you-across-the-face kind of person. Not a belt-your-ass kind of person. I swear I also remember seeing my father slap my mom one time. Her piss poor excuse for him later on was the stress put on him by fear of his heart condition.

Great way to deal with it… just smack your wife as if it’s her fault your fucking heart is bad. Yeah, I’m really proud to have been the daughter of Arthur and Dureen O.

Either way, for every one time they got physical with us there were 100 times my mother would verbally or emotionally abuse us.

But it isn’t what they did that’s the main point of this entry. The point is my wondering which memories aren’t really “memories” at all, but perhaps dreams or misconceptions? We don’t form memories as little kids like we do when we’re older. So… how the hell did I know enough Spanish at just age 16 to impress a social worker of mine who came to see me when I was with Anne and Harry? I have no doubt that this memory is real and that this did in fact happen. I remember how she was excitedly telling someone she brought with her that she might have been training how I could even affect the accent.

At 16? I know I started learning ASL when I was 15, but who the hell would have taught me Spanish in an all-white, English-speaking little bedroom town in which anyone who knew other languages probably knew Hebrew or Yiddish? Really thought I didn’t start learning Spanish until I was around 19 or 20. This is because I wasn’t in the public schools long enough to take it there. I had to teach myself.

If there’s one sure memory (or a series of memories) I wish to hell I could delete from my brain it would be the severe anxiety attacks I had. The more I go without incident, since mine was medically induced, the better and more confident I feel, but I still have the awful memories and the fear of it happening again. But if I couldn’t remember then, then I wouldn’t know what to fear.

Looked at the weather. I’d say I’m going to be in for one noisy day, or at least a noisy morning.

Had this dream that I entered a huge building and was totally lost. I just couldn’t find room 350 like I was trying to do for whatever reason. I asked a woman if there was an illustration of the building online that could help me and she said there was.

After dark, I was in a corner room on one of the upper floors of what might have been the same huge building. It was a tiny room with a twin bed and I guess I was staying there. I gazed out the door and into the darkened hallway and I got a little nervous when I saw someone heading down the hall in my direction. I shut the door and held my breath but no one approached the door much less knocked. I was actually worried about it being a fat woman that I was rude to earlier.

Later…

The lady across the street in the gray house has been having more and more company. Last night that loud white truck that comes to visit her regularly left in the middle of the night. There are two vehicles in front lately that I’ve never seen before, and two work trucks plus a car at the house that sold. The corner house is working on her flooding damage, too.

Really wondering when I can have the luxury of going a whole month without having to deal with anybody’s projects around here. Projects, projects, projects! I’m sure the landscaping is next. Then there’s the traffic, or more appropriately, the door slamming. Really wish people could just get what they need out of their vehicles and leave it at that. Or at least leave the damn door open.

I should have known better than to re-add Lori and her cousin Cindy. They noticed me around when I unblocked them. Nothing against either one of them, but they make such pests of themselves! Cindy, who rambles on and on faster than I can respond, wants me to call her. No thanks. Again, why do I get all this attention from people as ugly as them while the Nane’s and Christiane’s out there always have better things to do? I would still rather nice and ugly than hot bitches.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2016
It’s been pouring ever since I got up shortly before 8 PM. Part of me wishes it could always be like this because the wind and rain keep everybody quiet around here. Better yet, I wish it would be too hot for people to be out doing things.

Period was short. It stopped yesterday. But I still have feminine itching and to think that I’ll have to deal with the burning and itching on and off right along with my ear aching on and off, makes me want to scream.

Saying goodbye really is never easy. But that’s exactly what we had to do Sunday night on February 7th. Before our goodbyes, we left the hotel and headed for Tammy’s for an evening of wonderful food and conversation. I’m just not sure how much of it I want to share in public. Certain health issues and other personal issues pertaining to those I’m close to require some degree of privacy. Everybody’s different and so I use my best judgment when it comes to everyone I know.

Mark threw some steaks on the grill and dinner was absolutely delicious. We had baked potatoes and a wonderful side of sautéed mushrooms and onions, plus rolls. We had chocolate pie for dessert, but I barely had room for it by the time we got to that part.

I am amazed at the personal growth of my sister. We all have traits we’ll always have, like me and my mischievous, goofy side, but most of us do – or at least should – mature over the years. My sister may be the same in that she won’t take any shit from anyone, but she’s also really mellowed out and has become a much more positive and supportive person. The old Tammy would have been jealous of anything I might succeed in. This Tammy would be happy for me.

I felt like I’d known Mark forever. He’s a great guy! I’m touched by how happy he was to finally meet me. It was definitely an emotional hello and goodbye for us as well.

He had some fascinating and funny stories to tell. One was about a guy at the retreat he was at for those who have been sober (from alcohol) for decades. The guy was a real shit in his younger, drunken days and did a lot of nasty stuff to his neighbor. He later apologized and made it up to them in ways that were quite touching.

Then he told us a hilarious story about this squirrel that just wouldn’t leave their bird feeder alone no matter what he did.

Didn’t know Tammy was his third wife, though. I knew years ago that he lost his wife Mary to cancer, but when he was explaining to me why he considered August to be a romantic month for him, that’s when that came out. All his marriages were in August and so is Tammy’s birthday.

I was surprised to learn that Nana never wanted the house that was next to the one where I lived for my first 13 years or so. Then what did she want? I’m just surprised because the Hünden was a very headstrong woman with a mind of her own. She wore the pants in her family, and just like my mother had my dad wrapped around her finger, so did Nana when it came to Pa. Pa jumped at her every wish and command. So I wonder why she didn’t want to move there, and where she actually preferred to be, and why she didn’t put her foot down about it. Can’t help but be curious despite the fact that I couldn’t stand her and she’s been dead for 30 years. I guess they got a really good deal on the place or something.

Then it came time for a tearful goodbye laced with lots of hope of them coming to visit us in a couple of years. We’re definitely not going to let another 24 years slip by, that’s for sure!

When I got back Tammy said on Facebook, “Who will help me with my shoes?”

LOL

Later…

OMG, this is so fucking funny! Tom and I once talked about me writing my dreams in story format and turning them into little stories just for fun, to be creative, and get even more writing experience.

I took that little diary from India and started doing just that and writing my dreams as if they actually happened. Then I will tie it up with its ribbon once it’s complete and leave it in one of the bedroom’s built-in drawers for the next owners to get a real WTF moment out of, haha.

The only one I’m going to let in on this is Tammy (Aly’s sense of humor is too dry), but I decided to take it a step further. Hey, if you can’t come up with creative stories, why not creative bullshit, huh? LOL Or at least “creative dreams.” I do have a sensible story idea in the works, but anyway, I created a second Prosebox account a while back so I could see what logged-in members see in my account. No one ever knew I had that account, and I haven’t used it in a while.

But then I got the hilarious idea of writing the dreams as stories and posting them there so I could get a good laugh at all the people I’ve come to know trying to make sense of something I know they’ll never make sense of. Wish I could install my tracker there, but I’m the only one I know of who uses TIP, and am sure they’ll find that an odd coincidence. It’s just that that site has the best tracking. Blogger’s a joke, LiveJournal is dead, and I can’t track at all on my-diary.

I’ll make sure not to post at sporadic hours like I do. I’ll also make sure to make some errors I wouldn’t normally make as much. The profile info differs from mine and there’s much less of it, too. What I came up with for an initial entry goes like this, but this copy is with correct grammar and spelling:

Recognized a trio of folks walking into the multi-story clubhouse behind me when I was sitting outside, and wow. How amazing it is all the people I’ve come to know here! Two guys and a girl. Pretty sure they’re in their 20’s.

I went to clean the bathrooms I was hired to clean and they were weird. I was inside a tiny one and that one, as well as all the other ones, had these sculptures of a human hand. They were life-size, though slender. I still can’t figure out what the fuck they’re for. They’re affixed to the sink counters and will swivel left and right, but not up and down. WTF?

What really scared me was my driving lately. I’ve lost track of how many times it happened but I parked the car by the side of the road, got out and lay down. I’m not sure if I slept or not, passed out or what the deal is, but I got back up even though I felt like I weighed 1000 pounds and hurried back inside the car. I said to myself, “You’ve got to stop sleeping at stop signs!” I was afraid someone would call the police or paramedics. I did manage to get home safely from there so it’s not all bad.

Later…

Got up around 9am on the morning of the 8th. We’d packed most of our stuff the night before and were pretty much ready to go after our showers.

I grabbed a chocolate muffin and coffee from downstairs, and off we went to the airport in Fort Lauderdale.

Returning the Jeep was simple. We just pulled up in front of a line of used rentals and were even told we could leave our trash behind and they’d take care of it.

With time to kill, we ate at Chili’s, a restaurant I’d never been interested in until my sister and nieces got me turned on to quesadillas. I ordered some steak ones. Tom got a burger and fries.

We then left, after Tom worried me for a minute by leaving his boarding pass on the table at the crowded eatery. Fortunately, he realized this right away and no one had been by yet to pick things up.

On the way to Florida, we were in row 5 of first class for both flights, but for the flight to Houston, we were in row 2. We changed planes right away and then we were in row 4 for the remainder of the trip. It felt like that plane would never land! I could only go through my mail, write and read so much.

My favorite flight attendant was definitely this black guy with a great sense of humor. Both of us hated the food, though. It was too spicy. He got pasta and I got shrimp and rice.

Finally back in Sacramento, we found the airport rather dead, which was nice. We just wanted to get the hell out and get home.

I was astounded to learn dogs can fly on planes WITH passengers! I thought they’d have to be in a carrier underneath the plane like the cat I flew to Phoenix was back in the 90s. What if they have to pee or poop?

So we finally got a shuttle driver, deciding to pay a little extra to be the only passengers, rather than go with a group. The guy was eager to tell us all about his fellow employee being pissed off (I guess he was supposed to drive us) and complain about all the foreign drivers and how shitty they drive.

That familiar nervous excitement came over me as we approached the house. There’s always that slight fear that something might be wrong, though the park would have contacted us, yet it felt so good to be back, as much as I hope to escape this state someday.

So Tom turned the water on as I unlocked the door. The only thing “wrong” was that the rats stunk. The reason we couldn’t play back Bob pulling our trash bin in on the cameras we set up or see the rats while we were gone was because fucking Windows did an update as soon as we left. I can operate Alexa from my computer no matter where it is, so I played the rats some music and nature sounds at times. I was just sure to keep the volume down so that those who knew we shouldn’t be home yet wouldn’t think something was wrong. Rats have great hearing anyway.

The next day, Tom had no trouble starting up the caddy.

So 10 days later I am finally caught up on the trip! There is one thing, though, that Tammy and I talked about that was weird as hell. I’ll get to that probably tomorrow.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2016
Tom’s back to cranking out the overtime to finish paying off the trip (regardless of whether we do or don’t get refunded), and I’m still working at winning, too. The higher pay and the way OT is done in this state makes it too hard to pass up. Saturday will be a $200 day.

I’m even going to splurge on a new Keurig coffeemaker probably this weekend. There’s one for $144 that not only lets you add a wallpaper pic, which I thought was cool but has multiple features. It’s their latest model, the 2.0, and I plan to get a variety of coffees, teas and hot chocolates in both regular and decaf.

I’m enjoying the peace until the people around here pick out what instruments of audio torture to inflict upon me.

I did almost as much multitasking in my dreams as in real life. I chased a mouse, dated my shrink, spoke Spanish incorrectly, and got hit on by a US Marshal at the grocery store. At least she was good-looking. ;)

Then someone tried to tell me Nane was really from Arizona, and I was combing through a bathroom in search of something to unclog a drain while Aly took a bath. Not likely. She prefers showers.

The last dream was strange as hell. I was on the floor by a door. I poked it with my index finger and a picture of a rat suddenly appeared. In a nearby room, I heard the booming voice of a guy I knew Tammy to currently be with, and it wasn’t Mark. It was someone I definitely didn’t like and that didn’t know I was there. I wanted to get up and walk away, but couldn’t. So I began to crawl instead, only I could barely move. It was as if I was drugged or something.

I got curious and looked up my shrink. Can’t find much on her at all, but I’m kind of surprised she has a 1.5 rating. I gave her a 5 on Yelp, but later thought about it and realized I should probably have given her a 4. She’s a fantastic lady. Best shrink I ever had. But she interrupts and changes subjects a lot. I could edit the rating, but I won’t.

How is it that therapy and shrink sessions are now down to just 20 minutes, though? It used to be 50 minutes.

This period is a bit heavier than the last due to being later. I’m surprised I haven’t had to take anything for the cramps given how mild they’ve been. Or have I just gotten that much tougher with pain? I’m using it as a wonderfully shitty excuse not to work out and to finally catch up on the trip. If I wait much longer, my notes will no longer make sense to me.

Tammy cooked a scrumptious dinner on Saturday night containing a roast, potatoes, rolls and a few dessert choices that were wonderful. She even gave me a cherry coffee cake to take back to the hotel. The only problem was that the meat was so bloody and tough I could barely eat it. Tom ate a lot of it because he didn’t want Tammy to feel bad which worried me at first because I thought it was dangerous. A part of me wanted to say, “Screw Tammy’s feelings. Stop eating that fucking meat!” LOL

She read the eulogy she read at Mom’s funeral. When she was pulling it out from a chest at the foot of the bed, I looked at a picture of her and Dad in the 80s in the kitchen of our Massachusetts house. How time flies. What shocked me was how thin she was! I knew she wasn’t as big as she is now – damn is she huge – but I honestly didn’t think she was that thin since she was in her teens.

I was just pissed that she shared some of the pics we took on Facebook and annoyed with Norma for ignoring my request to not “like” or comment on it so Andy and his family wouldn’t see them. I figured Tammy would be eager to share them, though. I mean what did I expect? I hate Facebook the most for not allowing US to choose who sees what.

She said Larry didn’t want to write a eulogy. Yeah, I can’t picture him doing something like that as little as we were in each other’s lives and as much as we really didn’t know each other very well. I would never have written one either because nothing I could say would be appropriate. There are places to say what I really feel, and there are places to say what others expect and want to hear, and well, whenever I can get out of having to say things I don’t feel or believe in my heart, I do. I’d say I was a mass murderer for a million bucks, but I won’t say what I don’t feel is true about my mother just to put smiles on people’s faces.

Also, I’m not the believer in God and the afterlife that most people are. Again, no offense to anyone, but I believe the belief in that kind of thing is more of a dire need to believe in it. Not saying their beliefs might not be correct, though. That’s why I’m more agnostic than atheist; because I don’t know if these things exist. It’s hard to believe in someone I’ve never seen or met, and the possibility of an afterlife seems scientifically impossible. We need eyes to see, ears to hear, and a brain to have awareness. If that all dies, then how can we go on?

Tammy says that our husbands being so wonderful is a sign God exists. Ah, but people who abuse children is just as much of a sign that He doesn’t, isn’t it? So that’s why I’m undecided; too many signs saying there could be one, and just as many, if not more, saying there’s no sign there could be one at all. Then again, if you want to see a sign of something bad enough, you’ll see it.

I’ve never personally sensed our parents, but she believes Dad’s spirit influenced his dog to lick her tears away when she came home crying after his funeral. This was not typical behavior of Max, she said. Do I think he took over his dog to soothe her in her grief? Probably not, but I also realize that I don’t know what’s typical of Max and I didn’t have the experience firsthand. Maybe I’d think differently if I had. Also, had it not been for my own personal experience with dream premonitions and a few other things, I’d probably be saying the same thing about that… that it was just a trick of the mind, wishful thinking, whatever. But I can assure you without a shred of doubt… we exist. A few dream premonitions and I’d call it an odd coincidence. But dozens and dozens? I don’t think so! The only thing I don’t know is why I haven’t had many in the last 5 years or so, but that’s a good thing as most of them were negative.

Regardless of whether or not I believe the words of the eulogy or think Mother even deserved that much, it was beautifully written.

I was surprised to learn Dad’s death wasn’t quite what I thought it was. I thought his heart just slowed down till it gave out, but according to Tammy, some doctor fucked up by trying to get him decongested. I guess there was a lot of fluid in his lungs and trying to remove it was what killed him. His body was just too weak to handle it.

Later…

If I remember correctly, our second day in Florida was warmer, but then it was windy and cool again.

Tom decided that Florida drivers in general are worse than here, haha. Here they annoy you by creeping (due to stiff speeding fines?), but in Florida, they were very erratic with their driving. They’d pass solid lanes and do various things they don’t typically do here. I can only guess it’s because if things are cheaper there, then the fines probably are, too.

I don’t remember exactly when it was, but we went over a bridge that goes over water and Tammy told me, “See those buildings in the distance over there.”

I said I could. Turns out that’s where mom and dad lived on Nettle’s Island. I visited them there twice, once in December of 1989 and once in January of 1990.

Anyway, here’s more of the stuff we got while we were there. One of the days we were there, Tammy took us out for some fun shopping (and didn’t drive poorly on the way there). First we went to a store that was nice. A large garden statue of a red fox caught my eye. It was the only one there. It’s about a foot high, maybe a little more, and very realistically done. I decided to keep it indoors. It sits in the corner on our counter.

The next store she took us to was awesome. It was called Nautical but Nice. There we treated her to a parrot figurine. It’s glossy and dark red. The one I picked out for myself has a matte finish and is a bit more colorful with red, yellow and blue.

I got blue and clear crystals hanging on a ball chain, which now hangs from our ceiling fan/light.

Got a beautiful hanging mermaid with royal blue glitter from the waist down. Her tag said “Ana.” She has dark hair and eyes and wears a “diamond” ring on both hands.

Lastly, I got a 3D postcard of seahorses. Not to mail to anyone, but to keep for myself, as it’s so cool looking. Royal Fucktards must’ve tossed the ones I got earlier because no one’s told me they got them as of yet and they should have by now.

I didn’t get any shirts at this store, but Tom did.

We also got stuff at Walmart, but most of it was stuff we needed. Like an extra suitcase so Tammy didn’t have to ship the fox home to us. We took it on the plane since you’re allowed two things per person. So that, along with the carry-on and my handbag, went with us. The other two purple suitcases always get checked. The new suitcase has a hard case and is cute with light and dark zigzag stripes. It’s got 4 wheels instead of 2, which makes navigating easier. We put most of the delicate items in it since there was room around the fox, and this helped cushion it, too.

Tom got shirts and what he says is the most comfortable robe he’s ever had that was only $9. It’s a blue plaid flannel robe. He then ditched the white terrycloth one my parents sent him many years ago.

I got a purple top with sequins to go with my black leggings, 4 pairs of neon-colored shorts, and a doll – well, they call it a figure – from The Walking Dead. Never saw the show as it’s not really my kind of show, but I loved the 10” realistic black woman wielding a sword and just had to have her. I also got a couple of 6” female wrestlers.

From the hotel gift shop, we got a small flamingo spinner that hangs and a bigger one with a cat riding a bike with rainbow-colored wheels that you spike into the ground. It even has a cute mouse in its basket. Tom just needs to find time to make room for it in front.

I also got a roll-on perfume and a pink hoodie. It’s a size medium and it fits well.

Tammy gave us a wooden sign saying “Relax” with a little turtle on it. That’s hanging out front. She also gave us a cute frog figurine, and when Mark came back he gave Tom a keychain and me a cute little stuffed turtle that hangs from my handbag.

What else… Tammy stopped at a Publix grocery store for prescriptions along the way and a few household items. She showed me her weekly pillbox and OMG! She could open her own pharmacy with all the shit she has to take. It’s sad. Really sad. I saw the oxygen thing she has to sleep with, too.

I’m also worried about Aly’s health. She’s in the ER with problems I’m not sure she’d want me mentioning in public, so I’ll just leave it at that and hope for the best.

Not gonna finish the story today after all, but I’m really close now. Just another day or two. :)

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2016
LOL, Seashell apologized for calling me an asshole and said she wouldn’t stop reading me cuz I’m her favorite writer and person on Prosebox. Aw. I told her, “I’ve been called worse than that, you Hünden.”

I knew she knew what that meant, and she responded with a “fist bump.”

At about 6:50 yesterday morning I heard a loud vehicle pull up by the front of the house. I peered through the blinds and said to myself, “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. After listening to a week of them cleaning up after water damage in back, you mean now I have to listen to them beat out a new roof in front?”

But they let me sleep, and that’s more important than how crazy they drive me when I’m awake.

Although I haven’t had any anxiety while awake, the warmer temps had me a bit nervous about going to sleep. When I can keep the house at 68°, I’m okay. But the warmer it gets, the harder it is to keep it cool. In the summers I keep the AC at 75° when I’m active and 78° when I’m not. Yet if I get overheated in my sleep, that in conjunction with menopause can cause me to wake up with a racy heart. This started to happen today, but I was getting up then anyway. According to Fitbit, however, my HR never got over 94 upon waking up. Usually, it spikes into the triple digits at that time and usually doesn’t go under 68 when I’m in my deepest sleep.

Sometimes I still have to remind myself that this isn’t Oregon or Massachusetts. Spring really does slowly but surely begin in early February and sometimes even late January. It got up to 74° in here today. It’s going to be a little warmer tomorrow and then it’s going to drop into the 60s while we have a couple of days of rain.

The pressure cooker I won arrived today, but not the power chopper. Tom is all excited about it. We’re thinking we may try a roast first. Tammy would LOVE this thing! It’s huge and definitely the Rolls Royce of pressure cookers. You can even do canning with it. Why do they call it canning when it’s really “jarring,” anyway?

On the second day after the cruise, we went over to Tammy’s and did a load of laundry (or was that the third day?). She gave me a gorgeous necklace with beads of turquoise, lime, and deep purple. I sampled some of her perfume, too. I’ve got lots for her to try when she visits me!

I was surprised the expert here couldn’t figure out Tammy’s Windows problem (we’re not as familiar with Windows anymore, but if he had more time with it he probably could have). There’s only been one computer problem that I was able to figure out that we were stumped on, and that was over a decade ago. I was oh, so proud of myself, too, LOL. But he’s the one who figures out the rest of them.

With the laundry in the washer, we were then off to the beach where I had a blast running along the shore like a kid, haha. I’m sure Tammy got a kick out of it. The waves were a lot like in Hawaii. We took pics of the ocean, of each other, and I ran through the frothy waves squealing like it was the first time I’d ever seen the ocean. Well, when you spend so many years living 100 miles inland, it can do that to you! Didn’t mean to make it look like I’d peed my pants, though. Yeah, I underestimated some of those waves that crashed upon the shore. :)

I got some adorable shots of an old man feeding a squirrel. It was so cute!

Later…

So Jodi Arias was in the news again. I was wondering what took her so long. I also wonder what the media and country’s obsession is with her after 9 months since her conviction. As someone else said, there are tons of other killers out there. So then why focus on this one?

I guess she called one of the corrections officers a vulgar name for denying her request for a haircut. Cockblocker. That’s a new one. Pretty sure I haven’t heard that one yet, but hey, if I was looking at life I might not care who I spoke my mind to either. She lost her visitation rights for a while, though, so even lifers have something to lose unless no one visits them. She may be imprisoned, but I wonder why they would deny her request for a haircut of all things.

What I wonder most of all is why so many strangers out there are sending her books, sweatshirts, and God only knows what else. This is someone who’s 100% guilty of murder. Meanwhile, I was framed by a corrupt cop for making a legit complaint against his welfare bum buddies and I didn’t get shit from strangers but a bunch of sympathy since, even if I’d been just as guilty as Jodi, half a year for even the most vicious of letters is ludicrous. But Arizona and Texas are like that.

This brings me to a certain piece of shit named Bill. Tammy says he’s dying, but haven’t we heard that before two or three times? I’ll believe it when I hear someone actually say that the little cock’s dead. Tom said I should be glad it’s stringing out like this because then he gets to suffer more. Ah, but if it wasn’t for the love and respect of my dear sweet, beautiful nieces, I would make him suffer a lot more than any disease could make him suffer. Normally I am as harmless as can be and under normal circumstances, most people could beat my ass to the next galaxy and beyond. But once I am utterly livid and furious as hell, my lack of height and gender pretty much takes a back seat and no longer matters for much.

When I heard one too many stories of his abuse against my sister and niece, I had a choice. I could either abide by the law or I could speak my mind. I chose to speak my mind. Fuck with most people’s family, and believe me, they’re not going to give a shit about any laws. If they have to break it to defend those they love, they usually will.

I broke the law. I get that. He didn’t know any more than I knew about the default warrant and that he was essentially opening the door for the sickos and corruptos to get at me. I get that too. But I still don’t get how he found out where I was. My only guess is that he got the info from mom who got it from my in-laws, and we all know good and well that my mother wouldn’t have hesitated to throw her own daughter under the bus. And yes, my in-laws would be dumb enough to give that information up to whoever, even though I asked them not to tell anybody where we had gone. But Marjorie did whatever the fuck she wanted to and so did Mary. That’s just how they were.

He didn’t make me write that letter and he didn’t make me make that phone call to him. He’s also not responsible for those who were after me. I get these things, too. But come on. Did he really think that I was going to travel 3000 miles just to beat his ass? It’s the spite that really burns me up and pisses the shit out of me. He was never afraid of me. I clearly remember us talking one day when I was at the Salem house about self-defense and fighting and him saying that if he punched me hard enough I’d go down. Then why call the cops if he had nothing to fear?

Then again, maybe he truly was scared. Bullies like that who pretend to be all macho and tough are often pussies who are just putting on a show. Could I have taken him? Again, under ordinary circumstances like just wrestling around for shits and giggles, probably not. But as much as I hate his fucking guts now? You bet! He could go back to being young and healthy and I would still flip his ass like a pancake! He smacked Lisa around. He brainwashed my sister into thinking she was worthless and that he was somehow worthy of her defense. And then he opened the lion’s cage door and pointed a finger in my direction.

If I’d kept my mouth shut and never spoken out about the welfare bums, their loud music, their fights, their late-night parties, their wild kids, their vandalism, the people that weren’t allowed to live there per C8’s rules, their trash… and if I’d kept my mouth shut to Bill, I never would have gone to jail and suffered the loss of my freedom and thousands of dollars on top of immense mental anguish. But do I regret being myself, expressing myself, and telling it like it was? Absolutely not. You fuck with my family and you’ve got a big problem.

Me.

Tom left for work a little while ago, and I am hoping to continue to remain anxiety-free. Sometimes it almost feels like those butterflies in my gut are about to start fluttering.

Later…

Guess who got a period 9 days late? Something I have definite mixed emotions about.

We made it to 7:07 before the daily noise started instead of 6:50 today. Someone was hammering for a few seconds. I thought someone was knocking on the back door at first. But who was it? It totally screams Bob, but his garage door is shut. Would I hear it in here if he were in there hammering with the garage door shut? And why would he be in there hammering at just 46°? Is the guy really that bored?

Oh, to have quiet neighbors. It’ll never happen, though. Never happen.

I’m glad to know my sister loves the wind chime I picked out for her in Cozumel. You can think you know what someone will like and you can take your best guess, but you can never know for sure till they receive it. It does sound cool, like glass tinkling.

Because I didn’t do a great job with taking notes I can’t remember what things happened on what days, but I am sure that it was the second day, the 5th, that I finally got to see and hug Becky when we all met up at the Flamingo diner. She is just as big and almost as tall as her sister; only she leaves her hair curly and doesn’t bother with makeup much because of her eye problems. I also wouldn’t say she’s ugly now that I’ve seen her in person. Just plain. Both of them are taller than Tammy, with Sarah being the tallest. Becky smelled wonderful, too. She told me she was wearing White Diamonds, and I’m definitely going to get some for myself some time.

Sarah was telling me that when they were in Hawaii this woman kept staring at her and Becky. Finally, she asked why and the woman said she was just amazed because she’d never seen twins before. LOL, they do look very similar, though they are a few years apart.

Becky cracked us up, saying it must be senior night since she and Sarah were the only young ones there. Since most of the patrons were behind me, I turned and scanned the room. She was right. I didn’t see anyone appearing to be under 50.

The food was fantastic. They got an appetizer of quesadillas to share which I’ve never had before and loved their chicken ones. I had to control how much I ate, though, so I would have room for dinner even if that room was limited. It was great, too. I got the Fisherman’s Platter, which consisted of clams, cod and shrimp. I kept laughing at Tammy along the way, who accidentally dipped her ring in her mashed potatoes more than once. ;)

Tammy began to question them about a stalker who was supposedly in their building, and Sarah got just as irritated with her as she did a few times the previous day, firmly assuring Tammy that all was well. Tammy said something like, “Well, you know what to do if it’s not. I’m just being a mother.”

A creepy stalker stalking and creeping out one as tall and wide as Sarah?

I felt an unexpected, but instant bond seeing the girls. Just a sense of love and pride that was like, wow! They both have become very strong, intelligent and independent young women. Didn’t think I would feel such a strong connection since we really don’t know each other from a can of paint. Yes, that’s how long it’s been. Yet there it was, making me feel both wonderful and guilty at the same time for being the absentee aunt that I was for so many years. Ok, this is a piss poor excuse, but you know how we sometimes not only feel the need to remove ourselves from a particular person, but also those they’re connected to? Well, I didn’t just remove myself from my parents that decade that I didn’t contact them (other than to send them that postcard from Puerto Rico, which still makes me giggle when I think of it), but I also removed myself from the rest of the family. The problem, as usual, was mostly our mother. But my brother, who swore that he wasn’t going to get involved when he contacted me in the 90s after dumping me for his own silent decade, did just the opposite. He stuck his nose in every crack and crevice of the family’s life and drama that he could. Regardless, I could probably forgive the guy, though, for being the ass that he could be at times. My father… maybe, but probably not. My mother… definitely not. I’m just not as big as most folks on the whole forgiveness thing and all that.

Nonetheless, I “wiped the slate clean” and stopped talking to all family members as well as some friends, though not all at once. I still feel terrible for most of it, though I’m sure Tammy knows and understands how much our mother loved to cause trouble and pit family against family. I was/am ashamed and disgusted by her as well as embarrassed for her. I felt like I was in high school all over again. “Cliques” and getting people to turn against others… that’s the kind of shit you do as kids. For a mother to pit her own kids against each other is just appalling.

But I don’t want to think of her right now. My cramps are picking up, and well, it only deepens my hatred of her, dead or not, and my hatred of God, fictitious or not.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2016
Costco contacted us today (we’re surprised they would do so on a Sunday) about our disaster aboard Royal Catastrophe. They asked what we think is a fair settlement. So we discussed it and agreed that getting half of our money back would be appropriate. Anything under $300 would piss me off, but we don’t expect to get anything at all. You know God. If there is one, He’s going to continue to be on anyone’s side but mine.

Blogger shows the referring sites from which my visitors come. One was this weird social search site. I ran my name and that of a woman I was once friends with, but nothing that came up pertained to us at all. I don’t get it.

After a long-overdue embrace, I turned to Sarah. She looked beautiful. Her straightened hair was a deep auburn color and her makeup was applied to perfection. She was dressed casually but stylishly, though just about as big as I imagined her to be. And tall, too. It felt so good to hug her!

Tammy wore some way cool T-shirts during the few times I saw her, and her hair was styled pretty similar to the way she’s always worn it; short, though a bit lighter than I’ve ever seen it. Mine’s lighter now too, though I still qualify as a brunette. Her eyes have gone from green to a light caramel brown that matched her hair nicely.

Sarah’s eyes are a prettier, brighter shade of green than my darkish dull green ones. Then again, my eyes are neither dark nor light. I’m as stuck in the middle with that as I am caught in the riptide of periods and peri. Only peri’s winning this month so far.

I smell mice in here. Sorry to change the subject, but my bloodhound nose really does. I swear I saw what might’ve been a few turds too, but I haven’t heard or seen any mice. Thus far this has been the first place he and I had ever lived in that didn’t have mice. I swear I smell that musty odor, though, which is why I haven’t had them as pets for 15 years or so. They also don’t have the intelligence that rats do, and I honestly don’t see how such little bodies can produce turd after constant turd.

Ok, back on topic. Tammy’s house is absolutely gorgeous. Although radically different than my youthful, colorful and rather eccentric style of décor, hers is very classy and sophisticated. I personally wouldn’t choose such an open floor plan, but they love it and it’s beautiful as hell. The thing we envy most is the storeroom Mark set up so nicely. Damn is it nice compared to ours! So is their yard, too. It’s not the jungle ours is. They have just a few scattered, well-kept plants hugging their house and that’s it. The rest is all grass. We don’t have as much of a yard, but it’s jam-packed with stuff that’s been growing for 15-30 years.

They have plans to make improvements to the house and get more furniture. Loved their new washer and dryer and how it has timers on them. That and the floors will be our next upgrades.

I’m even thinking of getting a Keurig coffeemaker. A genuine one too, like Tammy’s got. They do produce delicious cups of coffee unlike anything else, and Tammy assured me the grinds don’t explode. Well, they sure did on the cheap off-brand I got and stopped using a long time ago. I’d love to get a huge sampler pack with both caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee as well as teas and hot chocolate.

Anyway, Mark arrived after we did, and left about an hour later to meet his brother at the men’s retreat they meet at yearly. He is beyond wonderful! Best BIL I ever had. So glad we got to meet him before he left.

We talked about all kinds of things, and Sarah thanked me for agreeing Tammy at least used to be a rather scary driver, LOL. Tammy said mom nearly got her killed in the end as she began to lose it. I can imagine!

Sarah told me that she and Becky went to Hawaii, Mexico and I think she said Puerto Rico too, though it wasn’t with Tammy. They also went to Martinique and hated it. Said it was the worst vacation ever because they don’t like Americans there.

I was super glad to learn that she and Becky don’t smoke, but surprised to learn Sarah’s already going through menopause. I thought she was joking at first. We were talking about health issues and I was discussing how rough the onset of menopause has been on me. I guess Dad picked Tammy up some kind of estrogen thing after her hysterectomy, and that’s when the subject came up. Anyway, I made the comment to Sarah about not getting any older, and she said she was already going through menopause. It has something to do with her medication or being an epileptic.

Wow. Just wow. She definitely won’t have kids then unless she ever adopts. I wonder how she feels about that, but I’m guessing she’s okay with it since most of today’s younger women are more interested in careers than family. She has made reference to her future husband a few times, though. Well, I hope she can find one that can see past her weight, height and underlying aggressiveness because sterility would be a huge asset as far as finding a boyfriend or husband goes. Sadly, she will probably only be able to get a guy who’s immensely overweight as well and that’s unable to get anyone thinner.

Tammy asked if she was as we expected her to be, and we both agreed that she was based on pictures and what she’s told me, and of course what I’ve told Tom about her. Although Tammy has mellowed out with age, we both agreed privately that they all have an aggressive streak, especially Sarah. I would not want to piss her off and then have to face her in a dark alley, LOL.

Not sure what’s going on with Lisa. I know Tammy has spoken to her by phone and that she’s supposed to go down to Florida later in the month, but after I unblocked her, I wasn’t able to find her on Tammy or the girls’ Facebook friend list.

Sometimes I wonder if I should reach out to Lisa, but I’m not sure if that would be a good idea because I don’t know how she would react. The last thing I want is to become caught up in any family drama all over again. I was glad to hear that she’s been sober, though.

So after a few hours, since we had to wait to check into the Pirates Cove anyway, we went to Walmart to grab a power supply for the laptop.

This hotel was very nice, and like the one we stayed at in Fort Lauderdale, it was MUCH quieter than the ship was. Just a few scattered bumps and bangs anyone would hear being attached to others, but nothing that drove me batty or that kept me awake. The only real annoyance was the live band they had in their restaurant one night, but fortunately, it only went on for a couple of hours.

The room was spacious and the view was gorgeous. Boats were docked in this little inlet and it was a very lovely place. I was surprised at how dilapidated some of the homes in the surrounding area were, though.

Each bed got firmer and firmer from place to place with this being the firmest. If I were skinny I’d probably have hated it, but I could sleep on it easily enough.

A tray of snacks sat on the dresser, but you had to pay for what you ate. We indulged in some cookies, candy and Fiji bottled water along the way.

There was a private balcony, but we only spent enough time on it to take pictures and see how the weather was when we’d get up, as we were hardly in the room.

The restaurant food was good. That night I got clams in a garlic butter sauce that was delicious.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2016
Moving on with the trip I can never seem to get caught up on. The night before getting off the ship, they gave us two options for how to disembark. We could either put our luggage out the night before and have them take care of it, which would have taken longer. Or we could have taken our luggage ourselves and left the ship earlier. Well, we certainly didn’t trust them with our luggage after all they’d fucked up, and we definitely wanted to get off the damn shit as fast as possible. So that’s just what we did. The sooner we could leave, the sooner I could see my sister for the first time since June 9, 1992.

As our luck would have it, we had trouble finding someone to shuttle us to Enterprise, the people we rented a navy Jeep 4x4 with Pennsylvania plates from, so we hailed a cab. Because we got there a half-hour early we had to stand outside and wait.

Tom was able to get cell reception upon docking and while we stood outside Enterprise waiting, I called Tammy. As I worried she would be, she was practically in tears as she was worried about the lack of contact. Also, she hadn’t slept the night before due to how excited she was to finally hold me in her arms after so long.

So was I! So we fueled up on breakfast at Denny’s and headed up to Stuart where I called her a second time.

We used my cell to navigate our way through her park which is quite a maze compared to ours. The roads are as curvy as yours truly. Where we have narrow yards and wider streets, it’s the other way around with her place. I might actually be a bit uncomfortable riding bikes there as flat as it is. All the roads are lighter in color in Florida, too.

Finally, I spotted her place and recognized it right away from both her pictures as well as satellite images. We pulled up behind an SUV and got out. My sister busted out of her lanai, down the steps, and down the driveway to where I stood. It was one of the most emotional embraces of my life! Tears of joy sting my eyes at the memory of it. We hugged fiercely, sobbing on each other shoulders. Well, more like me on her chest and her on my head, LOL. She still has a good 6 or 7 inches on me.

Movement then caught my attention out of my peripheral vision. Someone tall. A flash of deep auburn-colored hair.

Story to be continued for this writer is now choking to death after swallowing her tea wrong.

Later…

So I get this long rant from Seashell in regards to our trip (I figured she might take it a little too personally being a travel agent and all that), and here is my response to the key highlights of that rant. If she can’t agree to disagree from here on out. I’m not going to argue. I’ll just block her. I’m not going to defend my shitty experiences to a total stranger. I tread carefully when it comes to her, though, because she’s unstable. She’s got a temper and has admitted to seeking revenge on the others and even hacking their computers, so I’m careful what I say to her while trying to remain honest. But like I said, if she doesn’t handle my reply well then there’s nothing to say at all.

“Get off the net, you are on vacation!”

Actually, we wanted the net access for banking purposes. We make a point of checking our accounts twice a day to ensure no unauthorized charges are present. We once found a $200 charge for a gaming site we had nothing to do with and had it promptly removed.

“Those people are from third world countries who make ZERO money from the cruise line except in tips. That was a pure asshole move to take away from those hardworking people.”

Wow, Jamaica and England are third-world countries? The crew came from many different countries from what we saw, and like it or not, our housekeeper didn’t do a good job at all. Trash would be left behind as well as requests going unfulfilled or fulfilled incorrectly. It’s just like when you eat at a restaurant… if you don’t like the service, you don’t leave a tip. :)

Secondly, as far as we always knew, tips aren’t their only source of income. They also get payments from the cruise line that are comparable to minimum wage.

Thirdly, just because you might be from a third-world country doesn’t mean you’re poor. :) Technically, the definition of “third-world” means you didn’t align with the US and EU after the Cold War.

“Seven nights of no cleaning, no cooking, no loud neighbors.”

It was 5 nights and the people above us were very noisy in the evenings slamming, stomping and banging God knows what.

“Just because you had a bad time doesn’t mean everyone else will.”

Never said they would.

“I want to see pics!”

You know where to go for those, don’t you?

“That is NOT Royal Caribbean’s fault. There was a delay due to customs ( blame the government for that) and the port officials did not handle things well.”

Yes, the government and port officials fucked up. BUT… RC DID prove to be very incompetent and disorganized in many ways. Again, I’m speaking from my own personal experience. You know how you said just cuz I had a shitty time doesn’t mean everyone else will? Well, just cuz they got it right for you doesn’t mean they will for everyone else. :) Trust me, they fucked up in many ways, but I’m willing to agree the stem of the delay was probably immigration. Still, RC shouldn’t have waited TWO hours, one paramedic call, and several heatstrokes later to offer water. :) I will say, however, that there were several people who have cruised way more than us who swore this was the first time they experienced such a nightmare.

“I am a travel agent going on 13 years”

Way cool. :) But I don’t get it. You said something about leaving a job in which you had tenure in, and assisting the DA in nailing cyberbullies. Are/were you just Wonder Woman with several jobs, or did you do these things one at a time?

“The heat, the humidity, the sun - you are in the Caribbean. Closer to the equator.”

Yes, I know. Comparing Cozumel with Ft. Lauderdale is like San Diego to San Francisco. Didn’t know about the powdered eggs, though.

“Being miserable about your boarding experience for days. Honey, take your cranky pants off you are on vacation!”

I was sick. No one springs back from a heatstroke in just minutes or even hours. Recovery takes days, sometimes longer. :) I was exhausted, confused and disoriented for about 3 days. Sure would’ve been nice, though, if some food and a good night’s sleep were enough to do the trick.

“But oh my god, I think I have a level of PTSD from people bitching me out for their bad trip.”

LOL, time to switch professions?

“If you call Costco with an attitude, you are going to piss off your TA and not get any help in the future. Please don’t do that.”

We didn’t. In fact, negotiations are in progress as I write, and will blog the results in the end. :)

My dear Rose Louise, I thank god I don’t have a pair of balls lest you be hanging me by them right about now, LOL! Seriously, hun, if you let yourself get upset by other people’s personal experiences, you’ll drive yourself batty. Please don’t take this wrong. I mean absolutely no offense. You know me better than that. :) But if you feel any part of me is “true asshole” or that I’m “making your blood boil” or “lighting a fire under your ass,” perhaps it’s time to stop reading me? Yes? No? Maybe so? :)

I appreciate your input, as always, but I guess some things we’ll just have to agree to disagree on. Different people have different experiences after all, and we’re both entitled to our own opinions. But you took the time to write this and I didn’t mind taking the time to reply. I won’t, however, apologize for my own experiences, reactions or opinions. :) If someone else has a great time with RC… great! :) But if I’m ever asked for my own two cents on them I’m not going to lie. I doubt I’ll ever cruise again, but if I do it won’t be with RC and it will definitely be on a much smaller ship like that AIDAvita. I looked that up and it holds only 1266 passengers.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2016
We fixed my Mac Mail program and now I’m trying to figure out why my hair is thinner again. I’m far from bald, but I find it odd that it thickened up and is now thinning again. I noticed this since we got back. According to my research, the common causes are thyroid disease and menopause. Well, my thyroid is treated, so I guess that leaves menopause. I’m now 8 days late for my period.
Tom has had a bad back for 8 days now, too. Icing it used to help but it doesn’t seem to be working its magic, he said, unless he’s lying down.

I’m more worried about Aly. She said there’s only a 20% chance of the chemo pill working and will probably need surgery. The good thing is that it’s got a 70% chance of working. If it was under 65% I’d be really worried, but there’s no reason not to believe at this point that somehow, some way, she will make it through. It’s sad that the stem cell will cost her something like 6K, though.

It’s also sad that some people in their 80s are in better shape than those in their 20s, but that’s a whole ‘nother story. I’ll just say that it amazes (and saddens) me to see Bob walk, ride his bike, go golfing and climb onto his roof to blow leaves from his gutter, while my sister contemplates having her bathtub removed because the poor girl can’t get into the damn thing. Yeah, God is grand.

And then there’s Marie. Marie… who will always have a special place in my heart but who also makes me shake my head sadly with her “20-year-old” problems. She asked me, saying I was the only one she could trust with it, if I thought she should move on if a “girl” tells her she’s not emotionally unavailable due to the fact that her ex-girlfriend accidentally shot her. I’m sorry she’s going through this, but seriously, these are the types of problems and issues we have in our 20s and maybe even our 30s. But the woman’s in her 50s, for God’s sake. Shouldn’t she have found Miss Right by now or pretty much decided to go it alone? She goes through one relationship after another and the immaturity involved is rather sad. The fact that she has MPD doesn’t help either. But yes, I would certainly move on in her case. Who wants to be with someone who’s not emotionally invested in the relationship?

I chatted with Christiane early yesterday morning. She went down to Austria to do some skiing. She can have the damn snow, I told her. She gets together with Nane once a year. Nane went up to Leipzig last year, so Christiane is going to go down to Munich this summer.

Sometimes I miss my old cyber girlfriend, judgmental, hypocritical Hündin or not. She was smart, talented, honest and damn good-looking, even if her sense of humor was a bit dry. Smart, honest and sane… not qualities that are easy to find.

Germany is almost always the runner-up visiting country to Blogger. Because of her?

I was laughing my ass off when Tom told me that he described the ship as a floating Motel 6 to its coworkers. That’s exactly what it was! Things were filthy, the place was chaotic and noisy, and the service was shitty. If Costco doesn’t refund the better part of our money, I am personally going to introduce them to my dark side.

He brought up something that I’ve been wondering myself… why wasn’t it possible for them to dock in Costa Maya? The waves were just a little choppy and it wasn’t storming at all. The seas were much rougher and the weather was stormy back when the Westerdam failed at its attempt to dock at the Grand Turks & Caicos, another place without a safe/protected harbor, which makes perfect sense. Yes, the boat would sway enough that when you walked down the long narrow corridor to and from the room, you would sway a bit like a drunk, but it was nothing like on the Westerdam. On that ship, things like pens and tubes of lipstick rolled around on tables. Sometimes the sea smelled salty, and other times it smelled like dead fish. Didn’t smell much of anything most of the time.

Either way, it was so horrible that Tom did make it to customer service in the end and not only refused to allow them to take tips, but he also demanded a refund on the Internet service we never got. This much they did comply with.

I love that one of their other ships got damaged. Hope no one was hurt, though!

I also liked being in Hawaii in my dreams last night until a hurricane arrived. I saw Nane in one of the dreams too, no doubt influenced by discussing her with Christiane.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2016
LMAO! Was reading a trending forum on OLS and someone was bragging about their first win of $50 since they started in December. Now, this is where I really have to sit on my hands, keep my mouth shut and be nice. My mischievous side wants to be, well, honest with her and let her know that that ain’t shit. I started up again in Dec. too, and look what I’VE won! LOL

Got a $5 GC from Amazon for doing a survey, so I got a miniature Bernese Mountain puppy to add to my collection.

I’m really getting the double whammy of perimenopause and PMS right now. I don’t want to ever get another period, but I also do to relieve my PMS symptoms. I’m waterlogged, a bit fatigued, my boobs feel like they’re ready to explode, and I’m hungry as hell. Baking chicken wings now since protein helps with hunger. As long as I don’t have any serious anxiety! In fact, I’m not even going to get my weekend treat as I not only want to lose weight, but the sugar is definite butterfly food. Well, I don’t want those butterflies flying around in my gut, that’s for sure.

I asked Sarah how she manages to dye and fry her hair with straightening irons yet keep it so healthy looking. Mine looks terrible in comparison. She told me she deep conditions it and what shampoo and conditioner she uses.

I started deep conditioning my own hair, but after just one treatment it’s hard to say if the Frangipani Monoi stuff I got on the ship is going to help. It seems like it might, but I still like to straighten my hair because it looks less unruly that way and is more manageable.

Got up late today, but even so, I almost hated turning off the sound machine to listen to the usual daytime racket here. Really, I’ve never lived in a quiet place yet as an adult, so when am I finally going to get used to it? Quiet places aren’t meant to be for me and this is about as good as it gets for me noise-wise, to be honest.

So today it was Bob’s second day of blowing leaves from his roof and yard on one side, a semi-delivering stuff to the house that sold, and the workers at Jackie’s on the other side. Found out what’s going on over there too, and as I suspected and feared, they’ll be there next week as well, but by then I should be sleeping through the daytime.

I went out to make sure the trash still got picked up and that they weren’t blocking the garbage truck. A guy was smoking a cigarette by one of the trucks and I said something like, “Were they able to pick up our trash okay?”

He said they were, and that’s when I asked what was up. Turns out her hot water tank leaked and caused severe damage in one of her bathrooms. I suppose I should be glad I only have to listen to it and not pay for it. That’s gotta be pretty expensive what they’re doing over there, though most of the people here are well off.

Wondering if Hoodie’s days are numbered since he’s sleeping more and more and Cappy’s showing more interest in me. Rats are natural attention whores, so if they can’t turn to other rats as much, the more they’ll turn to people.

Last night I dreamed I was held someplace against my will. It almost seemed like a resort in a wooded area, or at least one that was more out of the way. Every time I thought to look for an escape when no one was watching me, something about the place would pique my curiosity.

The night before I had a horrible money dream. My parents were still alive in it too, and I said something about calling them for help since we were so damn broke and looking at losing everything.

Tom reassured me, though, that in reality, we’re far from having to worry. He’s easily able to pass up OT offers, so that’s good. He still does OT a lot, though, because we still like money and Cali’s still an expensive place to be.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2016
Today I have felt the most refreshed since returning home. I’m really starting to get caught up on things, including working out. I haven’t gotten to any reading yet, though, and I’m still behind in blogs.

I contemplated wishing Andy a happy birthday in a few days, but then I got curious and checked his Ask account for the first time in a while. It now sports another classic arrogant quote about saying how it is, which really means how he thinks it is. This tells me something about him. It’s a classic reminder that some things – and people – never do change. Hell, Tammy’s changed more than he has. So… I decided against the birthday wishes as I realized that nothing would ever change and that I really do need to continue moving on. I appreciate that he’s allowing me to do so in peace too, and not pestering me anywhere. He doesn’t appear to follow any of my blogs, so that’s a good sign. One saying he too, has moved on. Besides, he’s too sensitive to read this and I don’t want to hurt his feelings despite the fact that I was totally honest with him before I let him go. We’re just too different and I accept that he is who he is. Part of accepting that is letting him go and just getting on with our lives. We can’t change people. Only they can change themselves. The guy’s in his 50s. He’s never going to lose his arrogant, negative, immature ways. Again, he’s not a bad person. I don’t hate him. I don’t wish him any drama. He was/is miserable. I get that. But I don’t need to be dragged down with him and all the other annoyances that came with associating with him. Subtle but obvious annoyances not typical of a true friend.

No matter how well he may think he knows me (and he may’ve known some parts of me very well), and wishes I was him, I’m not him. I don’t feel, think, believe and experience everything he does, and well, I never will. The jealousy, the stupidity (perhaps deliberately to annoy me?)…it just got old. I spent more time feeling sad and embarrassed for him than anything else. This wasn’t someone who got on my nerves only every once in a while but regularly instead. The pot fucked with his brain. I get that, too. But damn did I get tired of having to repeat myself so often! Dealing with my own brain fog is enough. I may not be nearly as bad as he is, but my memory still isn’t what it used to be. Either way, I’m glad we have both been able to move on from each other and I personally hope the feeling is totally mutual and that he’s not interested in contacting me any more than I am in contacting him.

I appreciate the good times we had together. I’ll always smile or giggle at some of the shit we did… until I remember the horrible way he treated me mainly from 2010-2013… accusing me of making up my health problems, making us pay for prank calls to us when we were broke, making fun of my driving phobia, defending my past perps, and insulting my husband who never said or did a goddamn thing to him. Some friend he was for the most part, huh?

LOL, life goes on. :)

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2016
Things have continued to be hectic upon returning home, but nothing bad has been going on. Just some annoyances here and there like not being able to sync my Fitbit very easily, and the Mac Mail program being all screwed up. Tom read that this has happened with El Capitan as well as whatever it was I had before (Maverick?). I can’t receive anything from Hotmail without going to the actual account, nor can I send anything from mail.com. My solution? To just use Yahoo or Gmail for now, but we’ll untangle the mess soon enough.

The only other annoyance around here is whatever’s going on at the corner house across from our carport. This woman is usually very quiet, but there has been some project going on there that includes hammering, sawing, and plenty of door slamming as the workers go in and out of their trucks.

The house diagonally from us has sold, so I’m a little nervous about what we may be in for over there.

I’m so far behind in my writing that I don’t expect to remember every single experience, thought and feeling, but I’ll do my best.

Yesterday I went next door but only Virginia was home. Bob was out golfing with Jim. I told her a little bit about the trip and gave her the same wind chime I got for Tammy and myself in Cozumel, only theirs is heart-shaped and ours is butterfly-shaped. She really appreciated it, saying I didn’t have to, they didn’t do anything, etc. Yeah, they did. They took in our trash in green waste bins and we really appreciate that.

The wind chime was tangled just like mine and Tammy’s, but I managed to get mine untangled relatively fast. Virginia said Bob likes to do things like untangling things, so she’d let him have fun with it. I realize it’s not ideal for outdoors because it would probably get seriously tangled in no time as delicate as it is, so I’m just going to keep it inside. It sounds a lot nicer than it looks, but since it’s not very loud I doubt I would hear it if it was outdoors anyway.

Virginia said she and Bob were on a cruise to Alaska many years ago and they loved it. It also didn’t hold over 4000 people, and I think the number of people really makes a huge difference in the service. Incompetent people can screw up with just a few people, but I think they’re a lot more likely to mess things up the more people there are.

I told her about the family reunion, and she told me that Bob lost his last of 7 siblings last fall.

Their place is so much more modern looking than ours with all they’ve done to it over the years. They’ve got sheetrock on the walls and all that. It’s very neat and non-cluttered, too. I think our place is a good 100-200 square feet bigger, though.

What was funny was how determined she told me Bob is to have fun shaping some of our trees and how she told him, “Don’t you think you’re getting a little pushy?” And he told her that we could tell him if he was.

LOL, there’s no such thing. He couldn’t cut or shape our stuff enough. I know the guy likes to keep busy and be outside as much as possible. I also know that we don’t have as much free time as he does, so he’s welcome to butcher whatever he wants. I don’t think he would wake me up when I was sleeping in because he doesn’t use any power tools. Just those giant cutters like what we have. Pruning shears, I guess they’re called. Seriously, we’ve got way too much shit on our property and we have to clear out some stuff as it is just to be able to have a place for the new spinner we got in Florida. We got one with a cat riding a bike that I would like to put in front, and we got a flamingo twister that hangs. I want to put that outside the kitchen window.

Virginia said Bob noticed when we got home Monday night cuz he saw the light on through their kitchen window. I wondered if they’d notice with their window being at an angle the way it is.

I took pictures of the many things we got along the way, but not any of the clothes yet because they’re dirty. Yes, we did get carried away, LOL. Unless you’re trying to make it on our income in a place like Manhattan, most people would love to make what Tom makes, and so we’re lucky to be able to indulge like we did, and I admit we did! I will also share pics of the gifts we received from the family.

Saw my shrink today for the second time and we chatted like old buddies. It was kind of funny, though I think she might have ADD worse than I do with the way she changed subjects a lot, haha. She’s a sweet lady either way. We talked about the trip, anxiety, perimenopause, etc. I told her I had used the lorazepam to help me sleep while on the trip (plus I have the sound machine and an earplug) but then I stopped the lorazepam since returning home and will only use it if I absolutely need to. Hopefully, I will never need to again or it will at least be several months before I do. With anxiety, you just can never know what to expect. It can get you anytime. The butterflies tried to welcome me back yesterday, but they didn’t last long. I still have my tryptophan-laden chicken as well as the emotional tapping trick my therapist taught me just in case things get rough. For now, though, there’s no point in taking it and making myself drowsy if I’m not feeling anxious.

She loves to drive and prefers road trips, saying she feels safer on solid ground. Not us! I have a driving phobia, Tom hates driving, and well, you don’t have to worry about some drunk cutting you off in a plane or a boat, do you?

My period is 3 days late. I love how they’re getting later more often, but wish they would just hurry up and STOP ALREADY! Peri is worse than menopause cuz you’re getting the peri symptoms, but you’re also still having to deal with PMS and periods. So I’m kinda stuck in the middle as I make the transition.

I didn’t know this, but as I learned from Tammy, menopause hit her full blast after her hysterectomy. I thought that having that done meant you got to skip that shit, but nope.

I just hope the anxiety doesn’t hit me when I’m alone for the first time in 2 weeks starting tomorrow. Yes, the root cause may be the peri, but there are still memories of the trauma I went through when the levothyroxine adjustments fueled the fire, so to speak. So while the vast majority may be physiological, there is still a part that’s psychological.

We stopped at Raley’s for a few things on the way home. The apple and cherry trees are now in bloom and looking gorgeous. But with this resurrected beauty comes the resurrected nightmares. You know… the ones with 8 legs? Gonna have to bomb the shit outa the place soon.

Less than two months after returning to sweeping I hit another good win in which I learned the details of today, leaving my sister no doubt both frustrated and determined, LOL. I gave her some tips and tricks to help her turn on her own wins. :)

So the prize package includes a pressure cooker, a power chopper, and some recipe books. Even though I’m not much of a cook, it may be interesting, especially since both of us want to eat healthier. Oh, speaking of health… my vitals were amazingly normal. My blood pressure is perfect and my pulse was a nice comfy 82. No scary “beatdowns,” thank God.

I have really missed winning like I used to but didn’t think I could ever do that again with all the competition out there these days. But whether or not I’m psychically influencing it or I’m just that “lucky,” it’s great to be winning again! Even if I’d still prefer to hit the million bucks over the pressure cookers.

Tried my new weekly hair treatment thingy that I got from the ship’s spa, but can’t say yet if it’ll make a difference. I think this frizz and fuzz is just going to have to be hacked off.

Last night I had a dream that Tom and I were sailing with some woman on a small boat. It wasn’t tiny but it was far from huge. As we were sailing along I spotted what looked like the tops of these 4 dumpster walls way out in the ocean somewhere. Curious as to what could be inside the “walls,” Tom and the woman dove overboard and pulled one of them open. A giant face peered out at us. It was painted on part of a ship that had long since been abandoned. Most of it was submerged in water, and once they pulled apart the wall we could hear water falling like some sort of waterfall that was filling up a space they had created in opening it.

I urged them to get back on the boat because I was afraid I was drifting away faster than they could swim. Yet a split second later all three of us were in the water, and one of them said that we might as well start heading ashore since we had a long swim ahead of us.

My sister was in another dream for a split second and looked nothing like herself even though I knew it was her. Her hair was longer, parted at the side and pulled back in a ponytail. The thing that struck me the most was her face. Totally unlike in real life, it was extremely wrinkled. This gives me hope that she’ll live to get very old.

I also had a dream Virginia died and I introduced some tall skinny woman to Bob by accident, since one of them approached me while I was talking to the other. The woman was in her 60s or so and she and Bob really hit it off well. After several days or weeks had gone by, I ran into the woman and she said, “This guy’s too good to be true.”

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2016
And we’re back! It’s great to be home, even though I hate being so far from my family. At least the weather’s gorgeous today. Dry and 70s.

LOVED seeing my sister and nieces, but missed the comfort of home. Just being able to pee in my own toilet is nice. Seriously, it’s those little things I missed, like my electric toothbrush. Just seeing the bath gloves that I use to scrub and buff my skin with was like seeing an old friend, LOL.

On the downside, I hadn’t even been awake 4 hours after a much-needed 10 hours of sleep, yet I’d already heard over half an hour of landscaping, a few wallops of someone’s hammer (not Bob’s), and some project going on across the street. :( I finally decided to throw on my kickass headphones so I could focus on catching up on my writing, though pics aren’t loaded yet and will have to wait.

In other present news, I hit my second biggish win of the year! Don’t have all the details yet as there are several winners for several prizes, but it has to do with the Your Best Year Giveaway. Not sure Tom will like vegan foods, but I’ll update on this when I get more details. I could’ve won anything from a pressure cooker to a food subscription.

Bad news: My Mac Mail program is all messed up and tomorrow Tom will try to figure it out before I get up to see Doc L. I wasn’t supposed to see her till the 19th, but I got a call asking if I could come in tomorrow afternoon so I said sure.

I don’t know how/why my mail accounts got all messed up. I can’t send messages in some cases and I guess it’s sent shit it shouldn’t have, though nothing appears to have been hacked.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2016
We’re now aboard United heading from Fort Lauderdale to Houston, but like always, this laptop is very hard to type on. Plus we’re hitting turbulence. Looks like we just headed out over the Gulf.

They just gave us snacks. Popcorn for me, chips for Tom.

Nothing much to see now out the window. It looks like we’re flying over a huge fluffy bed of marshmallows. I see bits and pieces of the Gulf peeking through, though.

Anyway, I want so much to get caught up on writing about the trip, but I also want to wait till I’m home and on a keyboard I’m used to. I just wish I’d done a better and more organized job at keeping notes. Instead of throwing all my notes together, I should’ve separated them by dates. So I can’t say which day I had NYC steak vs. chicken, for example, but it was one of the days on the ship obviously.

Later…

Combed through my hundreds of emails hoping for a win notice I missed, but nope. I was only congratulated on other people’s wins and the fact that I was offered a discount on various things. rolls eyes

I’m a bit thirsty now, but I’d rather that than have to keep making Tom get up so I can go to the bathroom. We’re about halfway to Houston now anyway, so I’ll survive. We won’t have much of a layover. By the time we get off this plane, we’ll be boarding the one to Sacramento. Can’t wait to get home! These may not be the greatest rats we ever had but I do miss my babies!

Oh, to sleep in my own bed and catch some alone time. No matter how much you may love and get along with family and friends, everyone needs their solitude at times. Unless they’re having the anxiety from hell, of course, to bring on the artificial fear. Speaking of which, I’ve had no tummy butterflies at all on the trip. Just some impatience, exhaustion and disappointment, sprinkled with a few pissed-off moments.

Battery’s now at 85% so I’m just going to write now and then edit/proofread at home. It almost feels like the plane is descending, yet the flight path shows we’re a little over halfway there. We’re over 28K feet, but never got much over about 450 in speed. I’m guessing we’ll go closer to 600 on the way to Sacramento, and higher too, as that’s further away. This flight is just over 2 hours, but the jump from Houston to Sacramento is closer to 4. By the time our shuttle pulls up to our house, it will be dark. I just hope the house is ok! We were never able to access the camera due to firewall issues, but we could at least tell that the computer and other things are still there, including Alexa. If anyone had broken in, those would be the first things they’d have gone for.

We’re under central Louisiana now and I can see a few scattered boats in the Gulf below us.

Had to ask for a Diet Coke as I got too thirsty to wait. I drank half of it. The plane should be dropping soon, so I think I’ll just go ahead and shut down till we’re on our last leg of the trip.

Later…

Dropped out of the sky and into Houston and then hopped back into the air in no time at all. The sun is setting as we head to Sacramento. Really wish we could move to Florida, but see no way to do so before he retires. At least no safe way that isn’t risky. The wages are so much lower there, too. I’ve struggled before and I could do it again. BUT… money really does spoil you in some ways, even if our expenses suck a lot of it up.

Shrimp on a bed of rice will soon be served to me, and Tom will be having pasta.

Took lots of pics on the last day of the cruise, but I didn’t go rock climbing in the end because I was too tired and had enough sun exposure. I didn’t realize it was outside, but I should’ve figured it was on the top deck. That was also where the miniature golf was located and the Flow Rider. The Flow Rider was more fun to watch than to do, so we didn’t bother. All you do is lay or kneel on a surfboard against a very strong current that I’m not sure I would’ve liked dealing with since it would “flip” people up a steep incline when they’d fall off their boards.

There was a lighted “icy blue” bridge leading into one end of the Promenade, and across it was a glass bridge where a 3-piece band played one night. They were nothing special. Just loud.

They had a couple of interesting ice sculptures in the Windjammer, one of which changed colors.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2016
Woke up more tired than I was yesterday because I was late in going to bed last night. Had a delicious omelet for breakfast with spinach, mushrooms and cheese, and a side of home fries. Tomorrow it will be chocolate pecan pancakes, then the next day we’ll jump outa bed and head for the airport!

I want to just see my other niece and just get the hell out already! I really miss my own bed and my own everything.

Okay, so where was I? Covering the last day of the cruise? Well, it’s like I said… they botched up just about everything. They never failed to mess up room service or much of anything else. We asked for burgers, fries and dessert on our last night and got just the burgers. Had to reorder, at which time Tom said what the hell, and threw in a pizza. I’m going to miss eating as we have been, but it MUST stop upon arriving back home or else I’ll be watching the scale go places it’s never gone before.

Anyway, things they said were open 24 hours really weren’t, like the Windjammer. That’s why we ordered room service that night, which also isn’t open 24 hours like they said they were. When we were in the Windjammer, I hated it when someone was cleaning nearby cuz then the place stank of bleach.

An older guy from Virginia sat next to us one evening, and we felt bad for him having to eat alone. That was because his wife wanted to be served in the fancy restaurant and he didn’t.

We didn’t see the point in paying an additional $35 to be served when we were perfectly capable of serving ourselves.

This laptop is incredibly hard to type on, so I’m going to take yet another break.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2016
The more I try to get caught up, the more behind I get. Argh! I have either been too busy or too tired to write. I wanted to last night, but was way too exhausted. I was so tired all day yesterday that I never even put on any makeup.

After nearly a quarter-century, I got to run into my big sister’s arms for a long, emotional embrace AND see my lovely niece Sarah! We’ll be seeing Becky tomorrow night at the Flamingo restaurant they’re taking us to.

Again, though, I’m determined to go in order of events as excited as I am to write about the reunion, so I guess the next day to cover would be the day we docked in Cozumel on the Yucatan peninsula. After waiting forever while they did an emergency drill, we got off the ship early the morning of the first. A small boat, which said “piloto” guided us in. I noticed that the land was very flat and green.

Where Florida was cool and dry, Cozumel was warm and humid. I can handle humidity in the shade, but not in the direct sunlight or if I’m doing something physical. Therefore, one of the first things I got to help protect me (this time we had sunscreen on) was a floppy hat with a drawstring that goes under the chin to keep it from blowing away. The wind was constant, and Tom saw someone lose their hat while on the ship. He said it took forever to land and just rode the wind for a while before settling upon the ocean.

The stores weren’t nearly as nice as the ones in Maui, but there’s also no comparing the Caribbean to Maui either. I did get a few things, though. Tom got just one blue shirt, and I got a pink dress with silver and purple studs forming the shape of dolphins, and a colorful dress (mostly purple) with fringes. I also got a pink shirt with the name of the place in colorful letters and black shorts with a silver-studded “Cozumel” on one side.

I also got 3 ankle bracelets… a pink one for Sarah, a blue one for Becky, and a purple one for myself. I also got a beautiful beaded bracelet for myself, plus a magnet.

I got 3 small wind chimes and while they may be nothing special to look at, they sound really pretty. I got butterflies for Tammy and I, and hearts for next door as a way of saying thanks for looking out for our place.

I got postcards for Tammy, Aly and next door. The problem is that I don’t know that they’ll be postmarked in Mexico since I dropped them in the ship’s mailbox.

Because I was still exhausted and disoriented from the heatstroke, we weren’t off the ship for long. I’d be tired all day only to perk up at night and have a hard time sleeping. I didn’t start feeling better till around the 2nd, but I won’t be back to 100% till I get a few good nights of sleep at home. I am a bit more awake than yesterday, though, so that’s good.

It really sucked that we never got to do much of anything as far as excursions go. We were supposed to stop in Costa Maya the next day, but choppy seas prevented that as I said before. You could hear the wind howling and see the ocean spray from the whitecaps. You could tell when it was more humid by the water droplets on the glass railings and windows, which were filthy despite them having a window washer.

The casino was nothing special, though we did gamble a bit.

One of the very few things that were good was the food. Well, so long as you stayed away from those nasty scrambled eggs that didn’t even taste like eggs. We did get sunny side-up eggs one time at the Windjammer and they were definitely real eggs.

For lunch and dinner, I had things like NYC strip steak, lamb, prime rib, pork, tilapia (both breaded and not), roasted chicken, mashed potatoes and French fries.

Most of their desserts weren’t that great. They just weren’t as sweet as I expected.

For drinks, I mostly had soda, coffee, OJ, mango juice and iced tea.

Tom took my picture with a guy dressed as a Star Wars character. Not that I’m into that show or anything, but just because I thought it’d make an interesting pic.

The lack of space and alone time got to me at times, but once Tom felt confident that I was recovered enough and more with it, he would take off on his own or sit out on the balcony, which was nice though windy at times, and I would chillax to some music.

On the second to last day was when I went to the spa for the Fire and Ice mani-pedi. I had to wait in the waiting room for a while where a woman told me she got her pedicure done earlier and said it was awesome.

Then Jill, a youngish woman from Jamaica, took me into another room. First she did a pedicure. She had me soak my feet in warm, milky-colored water that was all bubbly like a Jacuzzi. Then she filed my toenails and she did it in a manner which you would think seemed too rough and even painful, but it didn’t hurt a bit. Just a slight bit of irritation on the top of one toe. Then she took what looked like a big silver paddle and buffed the skin of my feet using the same motions.

She then put a gel on my legs and feet, and because she had plastic gloves on, her hands glided over my skin easily when she massaged my lower legs and feet. First she used hot volcanic rocks, and then she used just her hands.

Next she put lotion on my legs and feet and wrapped them in a warm wet towel. Lastly, she polished my toenails a frosty blue, which I picked out earlier.

She repeated the same procedure on my hands and forearms, only she buffed my fingernails so that after the pink polish was applied you could no longer see the ridges. My nails looked so shiny at this point, almost as if they had clear nail polish on them. Unfortunately, however, this made my nails thinner, allowing them to crack.

She also put some amazing products on my face (3 different things?) that reduced the redness I have caused by rosacea. I bought 2 products and would’ve spent over $200 at the spa alone had it not been for the $300 in credit Cosco gave us for booking through them. So they basically covered that much of the trip.

I’m hoping one of the products I got will reduce the frizziness in my hair. I won’t use it till we get home.

By then the laptop’s battery was dead and I took notes by hand. I wish I’d done a more organized job of it too, instead of just throwing them all in one big pile, but hopefully I got the most important stuff noted.

On our last day was when we got all the pics of the ship we wanted to get, including the rock wall which I declined to climb. I just didn’t want to get any more sun exposure than necessary while I was still a bit burned and not fully over the heatstroke.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2016
Signing in for another shitty and exhausting day on the Independence of the Seas. They need to change that to Imperfections of the Seas or something like that.

Royal Fuckups has announced that there will be no docking in Costa Maya today because of the choppy seas. Not their fault, but disappointing. It’s not storming or raining, but the wind is really whipping. You can hear it howling by the door to the balcony. Tom said the ship was really rocking like the plane when it hit turbulence at about three in the morning and that it was a lot like driving down a bumpy road. I’m surprised I slept through it. Tom said that when they were attempting to dock the smell of diesel was horrible.

The pools have been closed, but we may be able to catch our first swim in one of them later on. The kids’ pool looks really cool. Will definitely get pictures of that, the rock wall, and a few other things over the next couple of days as we make our way back to Port Everglades at just 12 miles an hour. Something like that, anyway.

I have mixed emotions about not being able to dock today. Even though the heatstroke wasn’t my fault and we couldn’t have anticipated what happened with the delay and all that, I feel like I screwed us out of excursions, even though Tom assures me I didn’t do anything wrong. I definitely shouldn’t have that much more sun exposure at the moment, but what pisses me off about not being able to dock is that now I can’t mail the three postcards we picked up yesterday. I guess we’ll just keep them for ourselves.

I’m so behind in my journaling that I’m struggling to remember where I left off. When I’m not busy I’m either too tired or too disoriented, thanks to lousy sleep along with the heatstroke I suffered. I don’t think I’ll ever spend a moment feeling all that awake until we’re back home and I’ve had a chance to catch up on sleep. I do perk up a bit in the afternoons and early evenings, but mornings I’m dragging.

My battery life is down to 21%. I’m going to just use my laptop to catch up until it runs out of juice. I’ll do the rest by hand, but chances are I won’t fully finish until we’ve gotten back home and I’ve had a chance to fully recover.

We were never able to connect to the Internet so hopefully we’ll not only get our money back for that, but no one will be worried about us.

Let me jump to the present before I jump back and backtrack from where I left off. Our neighbors are worse than the last time around. Not the couples on the sides of us, But the people above us. I know there’s at least one young guy up there diagonally from us as well as directly above us, though I don’t know if it’s just a wild bunch of adults or if there are kids up there. I just know that the evening banging is horrible. They usually don’t start their shit until about 7 PM and then it tapers off around 9-10 PM, but for some reason, they returned to their room early yesterday and I had to listen to the constant bumps and bangs from about 5-11 PM. A classic reminder of why I loathe living attached to others. Too much banging.

To make matters worse, Tom and I got into a fight. He seemed very annoyed at my bitching about all the banging. You would think I would have learned years ago that for some reason, although it’s not anything I ever could understand, he takes complaints against others personally. Yet I just had to vent like an idiot.

He also got really fed up when I couldn’t find the three ankle bracelets I got in Cozumel and I feared the housekeeper stole them. He then said he was at his breaking point, he’d been supportive of me, I was abusing him, and was just about ready to take off and leave me alone on the ship once it docked at Costa Maya, not that we ever made it there.

I never said he wasn’t supportive of me and I just didn’t understand why he was so upset all of a sudden, but I assumed it was because it had been a rough trip in general thus far. I knew I wasn’t a fun person to be around, but I also didn’t see how complaining about very noisy people would be pushing him to his “ breaking point” or “abusing” him.

I realized then that I really should be less vocal about the things that annoy me, especially when it pertains to other people. He just takes it way too personally. Like I said, I don’t understand why, and it’s never made any sense to me why anyone would take such things personally, but nonetheless, that’s just what he does. I quit trying to figure out why a long time ago, but it offends him and he becomes defensive of them, whoever they are. I personally could never and would never side with anyone that upset or annoyed him, but that’s just me. He’s him and I’m me.

Secrets, Jodi, I said to myself. It really is okay to have a few here and there and not let him in on every little thing that’s bothering you, unless it doesn’t have to do with someone else.

So I will make a point of complaining less!

What really got to me was his constant ordering me around, but at the time I didn’t understand why he was being so bossy and treating me like a little kid. The heatstroke left me disoriented, and while I’ve been getting better, he was afraid to leave me alone because I kept getting confused. Although it was anything but funny then, it was funny how I went up a set of stairs that looped back to the same place on both sides and asked, “Which way?”

My battery life is now down to just 18% and so I’m going to go in random order and I will just edit everything when we get home.

We sailed by Cuba and that was a little exciting since it was almost like seeing yet another country, even though we never stopped there and nobody vacations there anyway. But I still saw Cuba. :-)

Just like on the other ship, the housekeeper comes around twice a day, which seems a bit overkill to me. After the first day, I just had him empty our trash as that was all we needed, but I let him give us the full treatment yesterday. Today he can just take the trash and dishes and give us a spare roll of toilet paper. Maybe make the beds up a bit, too.

On our second night, I went to the Windjammer for the first time, and Tom wasn’t kidding when he said that it has a much bigger selection than room service. Dinner was absolutely delicious. If I had a bottomless stomach I would’ve sat there eating all night long. I had prime rib, a little bit of macaroni and cheese, breaded tilapia, and the most delicious chocolate cake ever. I think it was a mud pie. Sometimes I have kiwi-strawberry juice to drink and other times I fill my soda cup.

This ship has more stores than the other ship had, but most of them either don’t appeal to me or the prices are just totally ridiculous. Prices are always insane on ships. They do have some nice jewelry, though, and even though I don’t exactly need another pen, I got a beautiful pen in which the bottom half is a solid pale pink color and the top is filled with shiny “diamonds.” I was also sure to spray perfume testers on each wrist every day.

Some of the inside rooms overlook the Promenade instead of the ocean. I could see a young girl sitting on her bed doing something on a laptop while stealing glances at the people milling about down below. Not a view I would like. I’m sure it’s anything but peaceful there, too.

I ran into one of the ladies at the Windjammer that was in line with us and she asked how I was doing. I told her I was getting better, and she said I looked better. Well, I definitely got some color, that’s for sure.

Later…

Battery life is now down to 14%.

Like I said, it seems that everything that could go wrong has gone wrong. Even the elevators lose their minds. The doors kept opening and closing on one of them.

They post the day of the week on the floor of the elevator because it’s easy to lose track of the days when you’re at sea. If I worked on the ship I would be tempted to change it to the wrong day, as the prankster in me came out.

Yesterday’s breakfast consisted of granola cereal and it was okay. I also got some other things with it like OJ, a banana, assorted rolls, and some yogurt. At least they don’t fuck up the bacon like they do the eggs. Today I just settled for a banana and bacon, and I always have coffee, of course. I did take a bite or two of the eggbeaters, which are slightly better than what they call real eggs, but nothing I care for. I think going to the Windjammer for all our meals is our best bet. I grabbed some bacon, tater tots, and potato slices with onions earlier, along with a side of corned beef hash. It was pretty good.

For both lunch and dinner yesterday I had a delicious spinach and onion frittata, breaded fish, mashed potatoes, and cappuccino cheesecake that was to die for.

Not sure what we’re going to do today. The Wave Rider or Flow Rider, as it’s called, as well as the miniature golf course doesn’t look appealing, but I will get some pictures of it. Maybe I will treat myself to one of the necklaces I like at the Promenade. I also have a Fire and Ice manicure and pedicure set up for 1pm, and I don’t just want the pampering but I need it as well.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2016
Continuing on with our disastrous trip that is, believe it or not, sprinkled with a few fun moments here and there. So upon embarking, I was exhausted, overheated and feeling like shit. Even so, they had to blast the shit out of the emergency alarms and make us attend that mandatory drill they always do first thing. They warned parents not to let their brats run around in most areas, yet they do anyway.

At this time we met the couple to our left and the ones next to them as we were all seated at the same round table in the dining room. Loved the incredibly huge and gorgeous crystal chandelier in there, but like I said, I felt awful and being ordered to attend drills as if I were a kid wasn’t fun at all, even if it’s understandably necessary.

By the end of the drill, I just wanted to collapse onto the bed. I felt too shitty to crash without eating first, though, and we had a hell of a time getting room service to deliver our boring burgers with their nearly burnt buns. We couldn’t even find a place to fill our soda cups (we paid $9 a day just to have soda), and so we had to pay for some since the dumbshits couldn’t tell us where to go. It was ridiculous. They just can’t get anything right on this damn ship. We asked for plain burgers and didn’t get them, but were too hungry to make them take it back.

Also, upon arriving at our stateroom, we found our beds hadn’t been set up properly and had to call Dede, our housekeeper, and have him take care of that.

Deciding to go to sleep early since we were beat, we turned off the lights and slid into bed. However, I was too wound up to sleep right away as tired as I was.

Finally, I felt those subtle little movements and heard the slight drone of the engine (not as audible on the 6th deck as it was on the 4th deck of the Westerdam), sat up and parted the drapes. Sure enough, we were moving. Lighted buildings slowly drifted by as we headed for Mexico.

So much for the anticipated excitement of being awake (though tired), on the balcony, and ready to wave goodbye to those on land. We took off over 3 hours later than planned and that was why it was dark by then and no one was out and about that late in which to wave to.

The people upstairs do a lot of banging in the evening. Trying to sleep to that and Tom’s snoring hasn’t been easy. His jaw sling we got for that is worthless.

Got up at 6am on the second day and still felt yucky. I hoped breakfast and a shower would perk me up, but the eggs were the absolute worst things we ever tasted that I ran and spit mine out in the toilet. They didn’t even taste like eggs. Today he had the eggbeaters and said they were a little better. I had some bacon, juice and rolls, so it’s not like I starved.

We spent the first day at sea and didn’t do much mainly due to me feeling so rundown, having not fully recovered from the heatstroke.

When it was discovered that we also forgot the laptop’s power supply, along with my hat, we went down to the Promenade, which looks like a mall, in search of the power supply Tom “guaranteed” me they had.

But they didn’t.

They didn’t even have the ibuprofen I wanted, after reading the rash warning on the Tylenol bottle. I doubt I’d get one, but I still have a medication phobia on me, thanks to the levothyroxine nightmare.

After having an upset stomach and continuing to feel shitty, Tom called for the room service they said was 24 hours only to be told they were closed at that time. Tom went and got us something from the Windjammer, which is like the Westerdam’s Lido Deck, only this place has better food.

At first they tried to refuse, saying they didn’t do trays, but Tom told them, “Yes, you do. My wife is sick.”

Then we tried to get the Internet service we paid for and couldn’t even get that much. Finally fed up, Tom said he was going to customer service to let them have it. But the damn line was so long that he didn’t bother. He’s definitely going to contact Costco and try to get as much of a refund as possible because so many things went wrong and because they damn near killed me (and others) by forcing me into the hot sun for so long. I’m just not used to that having not lived in a place like Arizona for so long. I’m also fatter and I’m going through menopause, unlike before. The Hawaiian sun was a lot easier on me because it was drier there, and my hormonal nightmare had yet to begin.

There are a few things I like better about this ship than the Westerdam. For one, this room is nicer and I like the layout better. I like how the bed is by the balcony, but I don’t like the sliding door as much as the one you pulled open because it doesn’t slide very easily. I’m surprised it’s not watertight either. You can tell by how easily you can hear sounds from outside as opposed to the other ship.

There are basically 5 different levels of rooms. There are the inside rooms with no windows at all. These crappy quarters are basically reserved for the crew. Then there are the ones overlooking the Promenade. Then the ocean view rooms, which just have a little round window in them. Then there are the balcony suites like we’re in. And lastly, there are the deluxe suites. We’re sorry we didn’t get a deluxe suite, but that’s what we get for booking too late.

I forgot if it was the first or the second day, but we got room service later on and I tried their fried honey-stung chicken and found it rather good. He got a pizza. I had a little of it and it wasn’t bad.

I’m surprised they don’t provide robes for us. Also, the beds aren’t quite as comfortable as in the hotel because they’re a little firmer, and the comforters suck. They weigh a ton. Reminds me of those things they put over a woman to protect her female parts when doing X-rays.

I’m surprised there are no stairs or elevators at the very ends of the ship (other than for emergencies). It is a very long walk from the elevator down to the room. It’s a good thing I don’t mind walking, and besides, the point in picking this room was so that there wouldn’t be as many people walking by. We’re at the back of the port end.

We keep the speaker off most of the time because of the way the crew makes these random announcements, mostly to babble about stuff that’s obvious. Most of the crew, like on the other ship, are Asian, though I’ve seen other nationalities as well.

On the first day when we peered down into the Promenade from our deck, a man was sitting with his wife and he offered to take our picture for us with the Promenade stretching out behind us. Again, the other passengers are more helpful than the crew. They’re still friendly and polite and they smile when they walk by, but they sure do a good job of messing things up.

I later met the guy next to us on the right. He was standing at the railing in a shirt and just his underwear, though I didn’t care because there was a frosted divider between us, and well, it’s not like I haven’t seen people in their underwear before. He and his wife are Hungarian.