I’m doing my first speech-to-text entry on my brand-new smartphone. The phone is definitely bigger and faster, but I haven’t learned everything about it yet. Before the weekend is out I should have it down pat, though, because it is the same operating system as it was on my old phone.

My old phone will now be designated to playing “basket music” only. That means that I start music playing on it and set the phone in the basket of my bike when I go out riding.

Other than being excited over the new phone, other goodies we have on the way to us, feeling good both physically and mentally and the fact that I’m now lighter than I have been in over a year and a half, I am very sad to say that we finally lost Sugar. He was alive at 5 p.m. according to Tom because he was out walking around his cage then. But when I got up a couple of hours later and went to look in on him, he was dead. Early Saturday morning, he was acting like he was having a seizure. Tom wondered if his memories were all jumbled up and he thought he was young again, based on the way he was trying to climb and jump like he did when he was young and before he had a stroke. We both knew that it was a sign that the end was near, for animals often get one final burst of energy before they die.

I will miss my beloved Sugar ratty, especially the young, healthy ratty from before he had a stroke. I miss the way I would lay on the floor and he would come running from across the room and leap onto my back or my head and then snuggle up with me after he got tired of playing. He didn’t sit with me for long, though, because he was a very energetic little fella.

The fate of Hoodie is still unknown but I can say that it doesn’t look good right now. I have no idea if this is some kind of respiratory illness he’s got or if it’s some type of organ failure. He doesn’t appear to be struggling to breathe like Sugar was in the end. He is just weak and doesn’t have much of an appetite. If I had to guess, we will probably end up losing him too, because sick rodents rarely recover.

The only other negative thing right now is Tom’s back. He injured a muscle in his back and it is taking forever to get better. Hopefully, he won’t have to go to a chiropractor and it will heal on its own. He’s done this before but I don’t know if it’s ever been this rough on him in the past.

Other than his pain and the loss of Sugar, life is wonderful for us. If things could stay this way for a good long while, that would be great! For a time I felt like I would never again experience anything new and exciting and that while my life may be productive, it would also be very predictable throughout the remainder of it. But now I feel as if I have more things to look forward to. Not just the things that I enjoy doing on a daily basis, but new things as well, both material and not. I also feel like I have my dream of retiring in Maui to look forward to, even though it is very unlikely that this will come to pass, and Florida if it doesn’t. A tropical climate is the one climate I have yet to live in. I’ve lived in the northeast, the southwest, the northwest, the west, so maybe next up is the southeast if Hawaii doesn’t happen.

Got a new wax cube scent to try, Sugared Lavender Twist. I love it because it reminds me of my favorite perfume, Pink Sugar. It’s those little things in life that I really look forward to. I also got Vintage Lace, which reminds me of White Shoulders perfume.

My butterfly stickers, or what I thought were stickers, arrived today. I was originally going to decorate the side of the bookcase with them but then I saw that they’re not wall decals like I thought they were, but they’re 3D with little magnets on them instead. There are little round stickers you can place on top of the magnets but Tom said he read online that people complained that they didn’t stick well. Since the hood of the stove is metal, I decided to just toss them on that. So now there’s a whole swarm of pink butterflies over the stove. It looks pretty cool and definitely adds color to the area, even if some may consider it a bit gaudy.

In my dreams last night someone knocked on the door and Tom and I stepped out onto the front porch to talk to them, leaving the door slightly ajar. Some guy was there and he and Tom started talking about whatever. The guy then started to step into our house when I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back saying, “Excuse me, but this is our house.” Next thing I know we’re inside the house with the guy’s girlfriend while the guy goes and has some photos developed. We were all talking about who knows what. It wasn’t much of a dream.

Later…

Cruuuunch went the sound of the shovel slicing through the dirt as Tom placed a foot on the shovel and guided it down through the earth to the left of Romeo and just outside the master suite. Tears slowly slid down my face as I sadly watched him lower the tiny box that held Sugar into the hole he’d dug. Although I’d heard that slow crunching sound as metal drove through dirt many times before as many rats as we’ve had, it is still a sad sound. The sound of death. The sound of loss. The sound of sadness.

They overpaid Tom by $250 last week. He told them about it, but they haven’t taken the money back. As he said, he’s not about to keep reminding them of their mistake, hahaha.

When we lost our land up in Klamath Falls, Oregon, we stayed in an efficiency motel until we could rent a place. One such place we were at for a couple of months was owned and run by an Indian family that was super nice to us. Tina and Raj lived with Raj’s parents, and I know there were other family members who lived at the motel or nearby. Raj and Tina had just had a son. This was back in the fall of 2004.

Anyway, I was reading something about someone with the same last name as Patel when it struck me as being familiar. I realized it was their last name and decided to look them up on Facebook. I was unable to find Tina, and I don’t know if that was her given name anyway. That might have been the name she chose for herself upon arriving in America. They were first in Tampa, but after having numerous problems with blacks, they relocated to Klamath Falls.

While I don’t miss the cold and the snow there, I definitely miss how there weren’t very many people there and there were no bustling freeways either. It was a very laid-back, safe and friendly town. Not very liberal, though. I don’t think there was even a synagogue in the area.

Nonetheless, I was unable to find Tina, but I did find Raj and sent him a friend request. He accepted and I told him who I was. That’s when the confusion began. I noticed that there weren’t any pictures of Tina on his timeline. In fact, I couldn’t even find anybody on his friend list with that name. He began pestering me with messages and said he did not have any babies yet, and his English also seemed to be horrible. So horrible that I couldn’t understand half of what he said. The Raj and Tina I knew had pretty good English. The parents didn’t speak it, but by the time Raj and Tina went to school in India, it was a mandated subject.

He also gave me his number and asked me to call and then asked when I would be in the area. When I told him that we had no plans to return to Oregon, he said, “How about if I come to your city?” Well, I don’t know how many people could possibly have the same name in such a tiny town, LOL, but that’s when I decided to delete him.

It isn’t very cold tonight, but it is super windy. The wind chimes are rocking and the awning that spans across the big living room windows is vibrating.