I’ve had a definite rough night and it has nothing to do with anxiety, fatigue, or anything like that. Instead, we lost Flaky.

When I got up I noticed his “tail” caught in the filter. I immediately ran and unplugged the filter and thought he would be okay. However, he struggled to rise from the floor of the tank. All he could do was sort of slither along the bottom. I thought he was a bit injured and perhaps a bit in shock as well but would eventually recover.

With him in the kitchen, I returned to the bedroom where my laptop was and heard this strange knocking sound I’ve never heard before. My immediate thought was that it was some kind of nocturnal animal underneath the house. A skunk, a possum, a raccoon… I didn’t think much of it. A few minutes later I heard it again but still didn’t think much of it. Then I went back into the kitchen to find him gone.

Although I always try to be a realist in that I look for scientific proof and evidence in things and try not to assume anything based on wishful thinking, I thought of the knocking and wondered if it could possibly be his way of saying goodbye. I’m not sure if there’s an afterlife but it was definitely a weird coincidence and I haven’t heard the knocking again since. I would think there’s some kind of logical explanation for it but I’ll just have to wait and see if I hear it again.

Then Tom got up who didn’t get home until after I crashed yesterday. He told me he was sure he didn’t die because he got caught in the filter but because he was having trouble swimming and that’s why he got caught in the filter. He thinks something was wrong with him when he got home. He was acting sick and like he was having trouble swimming.

So with sadness, since Flaky had adjusted well and seemed like a very bright, alert and friendly little guy who would swim right up to me when I would put my fingertips in the water, I flushed him down the toilet and said goodbye.

Then I took a shower and we went for a walk. Now, when I got up I wasn’t having any bleeding and thought my period might have been over as of yesterday even though that’s not what my still sore boobies were telling me. Sure enough, after we went walking, mixing in a bit of running, it ended up causing me to flow like a river. It’s beyond frustrating and disappointing but it is just my shit luck and now I realize that not only does this reset the one-year clock I was within 6 weeks of hitting, but that I’m anything but menopausal. I may not be for several years to come. Although unlikely, it really is possible to get a period every so often throughout most of your 50s. I did read that no one in their 60s has ever had periods so that’s good.

I also realize this still leaves my hormones wide open to affecting my moods. I still believe the medication is the main culprit and I always have but now I realize that some of the anxiety could be attributed to that. I just hope it’s a little longer before my next period, and yes, there will be a next one. I know better now. So I have resigned myself to the fact that I’m going to be in the perimenopause stage for quite some time to come even though I just read that the average woman in the U.S. has her final period at age 52 and I’m still 52.

That isn’t it. Oh no, there’s been quite a bit of action today. I nearly burned the fucking house down. I don’t know why I did something so stupid but I took the filter and heater out of the tank, forgetting to unplug them first, and placed them on a towel because they were wet. Then I dumped the 3-gallon tank and suddenly I could smell burning plastic. That was when I looked and saw smoke coming from the heater which I immediately yanked out of the plug and doused with water in the sink. My lungs are a bit tight now. Glad I have an inhaler but I shouldn’t need it!

I am seriously beginning to wonder if something is trying to stop us from having fish. And then I had this crazy thought about our beloved long gone but never forgotten Tinkerbell, and it’s not the first time I’ve had this thought either. We’ve had such shitty luck with pets overall since coming to this state 11 years ago that a part of me wonders if there is an afterlife and if she is there saying, “Oh no, I was the queen. No pets allowed that are even remotely as good as I was!”

Tinkerboy was a good rat and Sugar was an outstanding one but then he had a stroke. And now this friendly little fish is gone. What, was Tinkerbell up there thinking he was too friendly to be our pet that he must be replaced with a timid fish that always runs and hides whenever we walk in the room? Again, I’ve always tried to be a realist, logical and base things on science and don’t see how an afterlife or reincarnation is very plausible. But every now and then some weird things happen that make me wonder. I mean, I’m proof that people can have dream premonitions yet there’s no explanation for knowing the unknown, is there?

I wonder why my dreams didn’t warn me about Flaky but I certainly don’t see everything coming my way. I did have a dream my parents were alive and we were hanging out with Caroll Spinney. Anyway, in the dream, I asked him to do his Big Bird voice for my parents and he did. Yet my parents didn’t seem the least bit fazed.

I learned something interesting about Ask. I was a naughty girl and anonymously said something I knew would annoy Aly as a prank. Even though it was just one thing, she blocked me. I didn’t think you could block anonymous questions but then why wouldn’t you be able to when you now need to have an account, after all? I don’t know why it let me “heart” some of her answers but she never received any of my questions even though I never got a message saying that I’ve been blocked. So I’m just assuming that’s what happened even though the site is notorious for glitches. This was the Dusty Illusions account that I used mostly with Andy.

I then realized he probably did harass me as well only I never saw the questions cuz I had him blocked. This is only if Aly blocked me. If she did, then you can apparently still ask questions; they just won’t be visible to whom you’re asking.

So I decided to delete the Dusty account and reactivate Lady Rainbow and I also unblocked Andy because I’m curious to see what happens. I don’t think he remembers that account but we’ll see. I won’t ask Aly anything with my name showing so that if he’s watching her, it won’t flag his attention.

Since I couldn’t tell Aly I’m switching accounts because I sent her a nasty question and she blocked me, I told her it was because that account not only is less associated with Andy but is also plugged into an email address that still exists, and this is the truth. Dusty Illusions is connected to my old MyOpera email which is no good since the site went down 8 years ago and it won’t let me change it.