I have sooo much to update on. It’s both sad and good. It’s sad because we lost our little ratty yesterday. It’s good because Tom got hired on! After 4 years and 8 months, it’s official! Life is just about the best it’s been since we came here and it’s sooo nice to hear nothing but the rain today and any sounds we make and only what we make. But the job isn’t 100% official yet. The “realness” of it may not take effect for another week or two, and it may be a while before he gets a raise. But they’re a big, European company with good benefits! :)

Eileen was delighted with how well things have been going for us. As I told her, I have never “felt” my dad’s presence in any way, but just maybe he is looking out for us when you think of the good things that have happened in just the short time he’s been gone while no God, if there even is one, seemed to care about us at all. Our lives never were and never will be perfect, but it’s an ironic coincidence that God lets us suffer for years, then my father dies and we suddenly achieve things we’ve struggled for years to achieve.

Last night I crashed at 8:30 and it was perfect timing, knowing Jesse had left at around that time and the dogs wouldn’t stop barking till around 1am. So I kicked on the sound machine and slept 12 hours due to my emotions exhausting me. We were both sad and excited. It’s sad walking by the spot where his cage used to be and not seeing him beg for those weekend treats we’d share with him. But to help make up for it is knowing we can finally move on to making preparations to move! Just maybe we’ll even make it to Italy.

I giggle to myself when I think of the day we get to tell Jesse we’re checking out of this little old heap of tin. I hope he gets every single nightmare possible for tenants, too! I know that while he may appear indifferent when we break the news to him inside he’ll be upset. We were good tenants and good tenants are hard to find. Even when we had to split the rent back on unemployment, we still paid him everything we owed. Yet despite being the perfect tenant, I was not allowed to mourn my beloved pet rat in peace any more than my dad.

After Tom left for work, I knew that yesterday was the day. The poor little guy could barely lift his head. Then for a few hours, it was just horrible watching him struggle to breathe. I wished to hell we had that homemade euthanasia kit. I even considered smothering him to end his suffering but couldn’t do it. Although Tom assured me he was probably unconscious since whatever illness he had seemed to affect his head and that it was just his natural reflexes working to breathe in the end, it was a terrible thing to have to watch. What made it all the more miserable was the fucking cock gunning his motorcycle for what seemed like forever. Really, I’m sitting there watching my pet die and I’m getting vroom, vroom, vroom! Like I said, I hope the fucker gets the worst tenants possible like the thieves and druggies that were in here before us. They broke into his house when he was out and stole his gun and almost managed to steal his Harley too. Too bad they didn’t, though the damn cock would’ve just replaced it.

Then when Tom came home we had to listen to him working on a vehicle of some kind and gunning engines while he shouted back and forth to whoever was under the hood as we buried the little guy behind our shed. Tom dug the grave deep and put big heavy rocks on top to keep the fucking dogs from digging him up.

So no more chocolate brown ratty with the white “gloves” and “socks.” :( I posted his pic on my FB wall and people gave their condolences, including the drama queen. I was polite in my reply but thinking how much I wanted to tell her to take herself and Larry, lick their fingers and stick them in an electrical outlet.

It was nice hearing from Irene today. :) I figured she’d come back eventually. She’s just too sweet a person to stay away long. She again commented after a comment I made on one of Nane’s ocean pics, saying, “Kein Hai in Sicht.” I had to look up the word Hai because I didn’t know it, but now I know it means shark. So just when I was laughing at the thought of how she’s still teaching me German even though we weren’t friends, she messages me to say she’d been depressed, burned out, and things got to be too much for her. She apologized for ending our friendship.

I figured there was more to it than the tagging thing, and as I told her, if anyone knows what it’s like to feel depressed, stressed and totally pushed to the edge, it’s me. I told her I’d always be here for her and she added me back on FB, so that was nice. I still wonder, though, if she kind of likes me and was a bit jealous when Nane and I made up. Either way, I’m not surprised to hear from her. It was Nane that was the real surprise. Especially after how mean she was to me. I really didn’t think I’d ever hear from her again.

I called my mom to give her the news but got her machine. So I left her a quick message. She’s probably at the store.

Tom says he feels the best he’s felt in 15 years since he started the Q10 supplements. He’s also down 5 pounds without any effort, so he figures that if he actually tries to diet, he’ll lose more. He also added fish oil supplements to his diet which I’m trying, too. Fish oil is supposed to be good for those with joint pain like I often get. Even when I wasn’t working out I had joint pain at times, especially in the hips. I doubt it’s arthritis, but it is listed as one of the symptoms of my sleep disorder. Furthermore, fish oil seems to boost the metabolism, which makes you hungrier, thus causing weight loss. You just have to be careful not to give in to that hunger and eat more since you have to be hungry in order to lose weight. Like it or not the two go hand in hand.

There’s been a lot of loss lately. Kim and I lost our dads less than a month apart, and now I’ve lost my rat, Christine has lost her cat, and Alison lost a bird and a dog.

Aly and I can’t figure out what the hell the troll is up to. She peeked in on us the last two days but hasn’t blogged or contacted us. Is she trying to prove something? Or is Mommy really breathing down her neck that hard? As Aly said, it’s hard to believe she’s not blogging somewhere, but maybe she is and simply chose not to have it indexed by Google.

Can’t figure out what Maliheh is up to either. I knew that “promise” to keep in touch was a joke. I still can’t be sure if she’s playing with me or not, but since I’ve wondered this for so long now and have had this feeling for so long, I’d say that yeah, she’s “teasing” me by making me wait on her like Nane used to do. At first I thought I said or did something she didn’t like or she just got sick of me, but couldn’t figure out why she didn’t dump me if that were the case, but that would defeat the purpose. If my theory is correct, then she can’t string me along and make me wait on her if she dumps me. She may have a lot going on in her life, but she did before too, when I’d hear from her regularly. I don’t know if she planned this all along or if she really did get at least a little sick of me and decided this would be a fun game to play since she still wanted to remain friends.