My youngest niece turned 24 yesterday. In one of last night’s dreams, I was with both Sarah and Becky at a bar of some kind and we were discussing life in general. I warned them that once they got to be my age they’d find many things to be no big deal that once excited them when they were younger. This is true, too. 

For the most part, I don’t miss my youth. But there are a few things I miss like not needing glasses, finding excitement in new things, which are no longer new to me, and living more in the moment. Sure I would wonder in my 20s what my life would be like in my 40s, and who would help me as I grew old and feeble, but not like I do today. These days it seems death is on my mind every single fucking day, partly due to getting older and fearing we won’t have anyone to help us in the end, and also thanks to a few brushes with death that were very traumatic for me. Not everything makes us tougher. Some things can actually make us more fragile. More anxious, more aware, warier. Is there a right or wrong way to feel or handle past/current hardships? Probably not since everyone’s different. Even so, I’m hoping that as soon as I can begin counseling they can help me help myself to deprogram my “deadly” way of thinking to a more positive one that lives in the present more often. 

The other dream I had last night didn’t exactly help jump-start my day with a smile. It was a nightmare involving a shooting at a mall. Tom and I separated so we could each look in shops we wanted to look in without the other having to be bored silly. Suddenly some guy got trigger-happy and I ran and hid behind a chair or something. But the guy found me and said something like, “Hey, you shouldn’t be here. There’s a lot of blood back here,” and proceeded to cut the back of my neck in a slow, downward swipe. I awoke screaming, “No! No! No!” I never tried to run or fight back as I was simply too frozen with fear. 

Later… 

I was going to wait till sunup to go riding, but opted to take the darkness and the lack of traffic I knew I’d find at 3am instead. I didn’t even see any skunks, possums or other signs of life. The weather was gorgeous. Totally perfect for riding. It was funny how Tom came back with a “booming” heart of 92 when we rode together on Saturday while mine was 122. I’m lucky if I’m 92 just sitting on my ass. 

What shocked the shit out of me was finding that the mutt in back is an outdoor-only dog after all, after it went off on me when I rode by. That’s so not allowed here! How do they get away with that? It seems so many people in the West don’t want pets. I wonder if those who are dogless are that way because of the pets-only rule that forbids them from storing them outdoors like old furniture, as opposed to them actually not wanting dogs. And again, what’s the point of getting a dog in the first place if you’re just going to toss them outside and forget about them? 

While I’m sure they’ll come and go until they’re too disabled to drive, I hope next door doesn’t spend the morning bopping around in their garage working on God knows what. I don’t want to hear any sawing, hammering or banging. The traffic and landscaping are enough, though there isn’t much of the latter on Mondays. 

We put in a request for an afternoon appointment with my endo doc between Wednesday and the 3rd. How she treats my situation will determine whether or not this will be the last time I see her. 

When Tom was jumping the Caddy the other day, it hit us that if he couldn’t get it to start, how would he get to the Ford, since the Ford’s blocked in by the Caddy? The end of the driveway is steep and would be too risky to roll the Caddy down, so he’d have to get the damn thing towed. 

I think I forgot to mention this, but while we were at Denny’s the other day, his phone vibrated. He listened to his message and an amused smile appeared on his face. I wondered who’d be calling him so early on a Sunday morning. It was from the electric company apologizing for yesterday’s power outage, saying they were working on it and that 64 homes lost power. 

We got these “Plink” balls you drop down garbage disposals. Maybe this will help keep it from seizing up again and we won’t have to get a new one, after all.