After seeing Helen, we went to the pet store for bedding, and ended up getting two more mice! They had no jumbo rats. Here I have 60-some-odd mice and yet I got two more. That’s because they were black with white bellies, so maybe now I can make Oreo cookies. It’ll also add new genes to the gene pool. So far everyone’s related to The Gray Lady, and the more you inbreed, the more you get problems like tumors, sterility and whatnot. I got one female and one male. I assume the female’s pregnant. Even so, I put the male in with the males and the female in with the female. The ladies ganged up on her at first, but the boys seem to be OK with their new roommate.

After the female has babies, if she does, I’m going to put the male in with a white lady, one with markings, and the darkest lady I’ve got (probably this new one).

We looked at cages too, for both rats and GPs, but aren’t going to make any set decisions on what we’re going to get till we can tell the sexes of the GPs. I’m sure I’ll get something for the rats, and that some pigs will get the cage the rats are using now. If I have 3 girls and 1 boy, for example, I’ll probably put the ladies in the old rat cage and leave the guy where they all are right now in the cage we made for them with a Tupperware base and wire. If there are 2 of each, 2 can go in the rat cage and 2 can go in a new cage. If they’re all girls, they can all go in the rat cage.

Helen was able to schedule me for two weeks from now for our final meeting.

She stressed to me the importance of “living life” and not worrying about the past and the future and thinking “If only I had done this” or “If only I had done that.” She certainly has a point. Especially since none of what happened can be changed, but sometimes it’s easier said than done.

I told her I got all psyched up thinking I had found Rosa, then realized I probably didn’t.

I told her Tom went down on me, and it was so funny when she asked me what my favorite thing to do with Tom was. I thought she meant in bed, and so I told her I love to be gone down on. She meant in general, though. After thinking about it I realized that I don’t really have a specific thing. Just being with him, I guess.

As usual, I stopped off for a cappuccino and Jolly Ranchers and gave her the lemons. She gave me a couple of pieces of toffee from Montana.

She was telling me she has a client she’s seen for 3 years, whose perpetrators still haven’t had their trial since it just keeps getting postponed. Yeah, that’s our wonderful justice system for you. Anything to keep the serious criminals from getting what they deserve, and when they finally get what’s coming to them, if they get what’s coming to them, it’ll only be for a short time.

Anyway, they didn’t rape her, fortunately, but they robbed her in her car at gunpoint.

The point Helen went to make was that when the lady read the police report recently, she was shocked at how much she’d forgotten.

I wonder how much I’ve forgotten about my childhood. Not enough, unfortunately. I’ve always felt that I remember too much, in a sense, and find myself wishing I could forget a lot of the traumatic events in my childhood like so many people seem to be able to do. Then again, if I had forgotten anything, I wouldn’t know it, would I?

I’ve been having a lot of computer problems due to the burner Tom tried to install. It was causing me to crash all the time. Yeah, I knew my having my own burner was too good to be true. At least for now it is.

I miss you, Teddy Bear! But now you’re just 207 days away! Well, 207 till I can send the letter.

Anyway, our first priority is the satellite (I can’t wait!), then the CD changer, then the new cages, etc.

The assholes at the PO fucked up on the payment again and locked Tom out of the box just like they did last March, but he says there probably is a letter in there. I hope so. I mean, even though I have enough of my own work to do, it’s about time I heard from Mary. Not just to continue on with her story, but because I’m still dying to hear what she thinks about the bear and me.

As far as my projects (my book, my bio, scanning, editing TB’s copy of the jailhouse journal, and arranging closets) I decided it’d be best to finish the Estrella saga before I start my bio, meanwhile, I can do scanning and closet arranging anytime. As for TB’s copy, I’ll probably wait till I see her before I begin that. I’m 99.9% sure I’ll see her again, not 100%, so I’ll wait and make sure I do see her again before I go through all that work. Nothing’s guaranteed in life no matter how sure we feel about some things.

That brings me to another thing I realized the other day. Actually, I think I’ve realized this possibility for a while now. Although I can’t see it, nothing is guaranteed, and we can’t be too sure about anything.

Well, almost anything, anyway.

I swore I’d never marry a guy. I was 100% sure of that in my mind till I met Tom, so maybe, just maybe, as much as I just can’t sense or picture it, I could end up with Teddy Bear. What if I did leave him for her? That’d be taking a hell of a risk, though. With Tom, I’m secure. I had my SSI and SS checks and dancing to fall back on till I gained security with Tom, but now I don’t have those checks and I’m too fat to dance. I’d have to really love and feel comfortable with her to give up Tom and hurt him like that, not to mention leave this big beautiful house in Maricopa, for a no doubt not as nice house in the city. Or maybe even an apartment. I think she’s in a house, but I can’t know that for sure. So, I guess what I’m saying is that I can say never and that anything’s possible, despite how impossible it seems at the moment.

This is a long entry from what I usually put in these days, but I’m going to sign off for now, go make some popcorn, read, rock out, then crash in a few hours. I don’t know if I’m going to flip my schedule between now and next Friday. One thing’s for sure - Apple Cheeks will be bugging me here next week.