Oh, what interesting messages came in while I slept.

First, Tammy called wanting to work things out and saying she loves and misses me and has good news. Honestly, I’m not surprised. Our relationship as sisters has always been important to her and I do miss her too. It’s her narcissistic, selfish and often dramatic brats I wish she didn’t have around to complicate things. I love my nieces but I don’t like them. I’ll call her after she sees my FB message. Knew she wasn’t dying, though.

Next up was a call from Mercy (on a Sunday?) asking if I’d like an earlier appointment with the new shrink. It’s a he but I wasn’t impressed with the she doc, so not sure it matters so long as I can understand whatever foreign accent they’re likely to have. I don’t mind seeing him. I’m just not sure anyone can help. It’s also way too soon to know if it’s a dose issue, menopause, etc.

Lastly, I asked the Twenties if they knew anything about the punk with the loud car who’s back to living here but not sleeping here and that’s been coming and going twice a day. Carolyn said they have no clue, they’re just as frustrated, and I can fill out a complaint form at the office.

Yeah, I could, but we all know the office isn’t going to do shit. They just don’t do much to enforce rules here and I think these assholes see that, know they’re not going to get kicked out, and so he’s slowly moving his lazy ass back in. Might as well. Coming and going twice a day is enough like him living here, anyway.

After sending Tammy a message I listened/read her VM again and realized she said she had “big” news, not “good” news. If it’s not health-related, could one of the girls be expecting? Getting married? Both? Still think Becky’s gay and would be a bit surprised since they’ve always seemed very “modern.” Work comes first and foremost. But that could very well count as big news. My first guess would be Lisa since she’s 36 now and has been in long-term relationships before. Second would be Sarah, but overly tall, wide, aggressive women don’t win too many hearts over so easily. Living with your sister till you’re pushing 30 kind of tells me something right there, though these days it’s very common to marry later in life if you ever do at all. In 20 years from now, a 53-year-old who’s been married for nearly 25 years won’t be very common.

IDK, maybe they obtained a bunch of money somehow or are going to move to another country. I think it’s connected to her health or the girls, though. Should find out soon enough!

Now I just gotta hope Etta never tells them I contacted her. Eh, I’m not too worried about it.

She gets up early so she could be picking my message up anytime now since it’s almost 6am in Florida.

Later…

I’m getting a little tired because it’s been a long and busy day but I thought I would get some updating done now. If I have to finish this entry tomorrow, I will.

Tammy’s big news was definitely not at all what I expected. It was health-related but it’s what she’s going to do on account of it that surprises me.

She started off by telling me she’s been through hell with her sarcoidosis and fibromyalgia and how the constant heat and humidity there have been making things worse. Plus, she’s got allergies that don’t respond to nasal spray or anything. Mark had also become very depressed and she feels bad because moving to Florida was her dream. He went from making $27 an hour to $12 an hour and they’ve both suffered so much ever since they moved there nearly half a decade ago. Well, they’ve had enough and they’re going to move.

When I asked where they were going to move to she shocked the shit out of me and said Ohio. The Columbus area where my cyber friend Christine lives.

Not only does Mark’s brother Paul live there but at the men’s retreat he sometimes goes to, he became close friends with a guy named Dave. Dave lives in Ohio as well and told him all about these wonderful places there and a lot about the area. He’s offered Mark a job doing home construction and remodeling like he used to do in Connecticut. Mark just isn’t the type to sit at home all day despite being 68.

So Mark is there right now and is really impressed with what he’s seeing and learning about the place. It’s even cheaper than Florida there.

“But do you really want to go back to cold and snow?” I ask Tammy, knowing how much she always hated that.

She says that the area they’re thinking of getting one or two acres of land on is in a valley. Therefore, while they do get cold and they do get snow, they get a lot more rain than snow. She said they only really get a few inches of snow a year there.

She is also getting a taste of what I’m getting here. They’ve gone through 4 managers in her park and things have really gone downhill in a lot of ways. It’s become noisier to the point where she can now understand what I’m going through with people sitting there revving motorcycles and shit like that.

She was telling the manager about her plans to put signs up to sell her house which they want to do themselves rather than go through Zillow or anything like that, and the manager said something about her not being able to put signposts on her grass, even though she intends to put them in the lanai window. Then Tammy said, “What grass? You mean the grass that we pay for every month?”

She’s also had problems with some of the people there. She didn’t get into every single thing but Connie, a deaf 85-year-old, suffers from serious dementia. The woman has come over in her nightgown screaming at her at 1:30 in the morning and even her son who was living with her got so fed up that he left. She said the woman refuses to take medication or let anyone help her and there was some concern about her starting a fire using her oven and stuff like that.

Left with no choice, she called the cops on her during one of her screaming fits, and the cop was telling her son, “Hey, you can’t leave her alone in this condition.”

Tammy hated to do it, she said, but she got a two-year order of trespassing against the woman and was told to take her picture and call the police if she comes over screaming at her again.

Then she was at the pool one day and could clearly hear other neighbors talking about her and saying how she was yelling at this poor old lady. Tammy was upset and told them, “She’s deaf! I had to yell because it was the only way she could hear me.”

I told her that I do miss rural living as well but that we’re getting too old for that, especially with no family around.

“You have family,” she told me. Yeah, but not in the same town.

I totally believe that where there are people, there’s noise. Rural living may not be perfect but I do miss many aspects of it. Where she’s going to be isn’t so far away from civilization. From the way she made it sound, they can still get high-speed internet and they don’t have to rely on a well either.

Makes me wish even more that I was oblivious to cold climates if it’s even cheaper than Florida and you can get an acre or two with a house that’s fairly new for the 130K she says you can.

It’s tough cuz everything seems to have its pros and cons. I don’t mind rain but I don’t like cold/snow. I do worry about how the Florida humidity may affect me, though, plus there are bugs, gators and hurricanes to worry about. We’re still a long way from deciding anything, though.

Can’t wait to see how things go for her after she’s been there a while. She says the hardest thing will be leaving the girls who are going to remain in Florida for now but says it will be cheap enough to fly them to visit.

Tammy rambled on and on mostly about herself, as usual, but that’s just Tammy, LOL. Definitely missed our chats even though I prefer to keep in touch more on Facebook as I’m a very digital person compared to her. Missed sharing things with her, though. So it’s nice to be back in touch again.

She also had to get rid of Hunter because he was attacking people. He was part Chihuahua and part rat terrier. There was no change in him even after 8 weeks of training so he had to be returned. She now has a dog named Bella. She’s a Chihuahua and very loving and quiet. I didn’t hear a thing when we were talking. The other dog used to bark non-stop and it was very annoying.

I updated her on things like the Liothyronine experiment, our new pets, new car, etc.

I scrolled through her wall and she posted an article on Lady Gaga announcing that she too, has fibromyalgia, and we were both pretty disgusted by some of the ignorant comments she got. You can’t just “not let it get to you” or “move on” or “take Ibuprofen.” I have been met with the same ignorance regarding my circadian rhythm disorder. “Just set your alarm and get up at the same time every day.” Like, gee, I couldn’t have thought of that one on my own if that was possible? But yeah, I’m lazy and making excuses, according to some people. Amazing how many people think they have this power over you they don’t have. Like I would have to be afraid they would spank me or something if the truth really was that I was lazy and dared to say so? rolls eyes

Not only is Tammy the same chatty person who’s hard to get a word in edgewise, but she’s also still emotional, LOL. She was telling me that they threw Mark a farewell party at the nursing home he was working at and got all emotional because it was really nice. They were both emotional and very touched by the generous gesture. It sounds like it was wonderful from what she told me.

We ended up talking for 1 hour and 11 minutes and she didn’t say anything about Lisa other than that she’s spotted a gator during one of her visits and ran from the pool freaking out. Becky is working at Publix now and Sarah left Sears and is now with Ross.

I sent Becky and Sarah a message and while it appears that Becky saw it, she hasn’t replied. Don’t know if she’s just busy or if she’s gone Lisa on me but if she has, that would certainly make things easier. It’s other people that complicate things. I think I could get along with Tammy alone just fine. It’s others that sometimes get in the way and come between us.

She claimed to have no memory of the girls calling me out on some of my posts and I totally believe her because I know that she has way worse memory issues than I do. Her condition is worse than mine, it affects the memory worse than mine can, and she’s older.

But yeah, I almost wish none of the girls would want anything to do with me. It would just be so much easier that way.