Tom and I have been tossing around the idea of one day doing a Euro trip where we would sweep through most of the countries in Europe. I couldn’t help but laugh at the thought of seeing Irene in Austria and Christiane in Germany, knowing full well they would mention it to Nane. Imagine what would be going through her mind! LMAO! Either way, it would be cool to visit my cyber friends over there—Adonis in the Netherlands, Mitch in Wales, and Christian in Norway. Not saying this will happen, but it’s a nice thought.

Yesterday, my throat felt a bit off and I felt a bit run down, too. I wrote it off to my never-ending PMS, but today I feel just fine, so I don’t know what that was all about. I only slept six hours, yet I feel more awake today than I did yesterday. The fact that menopause is setting in is pretty exciting! :)

I took a walk this morning, and it must have rained last night because the roads were wet. Sure enough, that damn flag is already wrapped around its pole, even though we paid extra for an add-on that’s supposed to prevent that.

It is so wonderful to be able to do simple things like walk around the block when Tom’s not home and not have to fear that my heart is going to start racing. I really hope my endocrinologist isn’t going to try to increase my dosage over 50 mcg when I see her in a few weeks. I realize I will never lose the extra weight I could stand to lose, but I don’t see how they can safely speed up my metabolism without putting me through the hell I went through last year. I don’t want to feel like shit just to look better.

Yesterday, we started painting the laundry room light blue. It is going to look so much better! It brightens it up tremendously. Going from brown paneling to light blue is like flicking a light switch on in that room. It just may take us a few days because the paint doesn’t adhere well to the slick paneling. The last owners had already whited out most of the house, so most of the place only needed one coat of paint, but this room is going to need two coats. This is the last of the raw paneling we will ever have to paint. Thank goodness!

Even without the paneling, this room is tough to paint. It’s small, but we have to go around doors, windows, and cabinets, as well as the washer and dryer. Tom is doing most of it because he is better at it than I am. It certainly helps to be taller when painting.

After this, all that will be left to paint are the bathrooms. This should be easier, although we do have to be careful when we go around the shower stalls, and painting around the toilets might be a bit of a challenge, too. That’s where my being small helps.

Gaudy or not, childish or not, I am having so much fun picking out future wall decals to stick on the newly painted walls. As most of you know, I already have a handful of wall stickers around the house—mostly flowers, dancers, skaters, gymnasts, and one strawberry rat with a black eye mixed in. :)

Currently, we have a white silhouette of a dancer in heels that is the largest decal at 72 inches stuck on the front door. To the sides of her are roses. On the opposite wall are purple flowers with butterflies as well as some hanging ivy.

In the kitchen, there are pink tulips and some butterflies.

The small section of wall across from the kitchen has a black silhouette of an eye, some butterflies, and some flowers stemming from the base. Those flowers are going to be replaced because I’m not happy with the way they came out. They are red and yellow-gold, which does not look good on a bold pink background. I intend to replace this with a black silhouette of a figure skater that is 31 inches tall.

Dotted along the hallway is a scattering of butterflies.

The master bedroom has pink and purple flowers plus butterflies. The master bathroom will eventually have pink flowers as well as a black silhouette of a gymnast. She will be sitting with one leg extended and her arms raised overhead. She is 36 inches long and 22 inches tall.

The pink rat lives on the door to the second bedroom. There are no decals yet in that room, but I was thinking of putting a purple gymnast above the closet that is 22 inches long and 13 inches tall. She is doing scissor splits in midair.

Once the second bathroom is painted, I was thinking of putting a smaller pair of gymnasts in there in blue. They are 13 inches wide and 10 inches tall.

The laundry room is going to have five 13-inch gymnasts in different poses. I decided to get them in dark purple so that they stand out against the blue paint. I have the option of getting multi-colors, but I thought that teal and lime might clash with the turquoise.

Woke up feeling tired. The period I was supposed to get on the ninth is getting closer, and we both agree that I definitely have signs of menopause setting in, but you have to have gone a whole year without it to be considered menopausal. I guess 51 is the average age for women in the US. It’s 44 for those in India. They’re lucky.

Really wish I knew why our rat, Cappy, randomly screams for no apparent reason at all. We've never had a rat do that before.

Yesterday was both relaxing and fun for us. We got things accomplished but still got to relax and enjoy ourselves.

We decided not to put the canopy over the swing because the swing is under the patio roof.

Tom had taken the flag down in front when it was windy, and the bracket broke off of the house in the back. He put the front flag back up, so the hummingbird and pink flowers are flying again. The cat and hydrangeas in the back will have to wait.

We went to Walmart, and later I came down with a sore throat, which I scalded with hot tea in case it was a cold trying to set in. Sure enough, my body fought it off. I feel fine today, just tired.

We decided we would alternate every other year between big trips and a major upgrade. That means that since we got me a new Mac and are doing a small trip to Reno this year, we can consider going to Florida next year. Then maybe we’ll make a major upgrade in 2017 and return to Hawaii in 2018. No guarantees, though.

I took proficiency tests in Spanish, Italian, and German. To my surprise, my German proficiency was higher than both my Spanish and Italian. I’m not sure whether to laugh or scream at that! I do question the accuracy of the tests since my Italian was only 1% higher than my Spanish. Despite the results, I still think Spanish is my best foreign language. However, I wouldn’t know this much German if it weren’t for Nane; I knew fewer than half a dozen words before 2010.

Due to the trash always stinking, I thought Tom was going to pick up a typical trashcan with a cover that you raise by stepping on a foot pedal when he went to Sam’s Club after work. Instead, I awoke to find a rather high-tech gadget in the kitchen that opened as soon as I walked by it. Then I found an email from dear hubby explaining:

"I know the garbage pail is not the one you saw and had in mind but let me explain. They had this electronic one right next to the other. They are the same size inside; this one is just not so oval-shaped. Also, this one was half the price so I decided that a house that has a robot vacuum and a talking assistant needed a motion-sensing garbage pail. The only thing that isn’t as nice is the way it closes. The other one kind of closed in slow motion but this one just drops shut."

I'm not sure I like having yet another thing that requires batteries, but it is still kind of cool.

I like how we can now see how many times our tweets have been viewed, though it’s hard to believe mine get that many views. Some of them get nearly 60 views, and I can’t help but wonder who all these people are who check my tweets out.

I had a series of dreams last night where one dream morphed into another. I was in a crowded courtroom where people were waiting for the judge. I walked out of the courtroom and saw a note just outside the door saying that no children under the age of eight were allowed inside.

Then I approached my treadmill, which was raised on some blocks, making the platform about three feet high. Some girl in heels hopped onto it, and then Andy got on behind her. Andy said something to the girl about not doing something (not going too fast?). The treadmill had controls alongside its platform as well as higher up, and I jokingly said, “Want me to turn it on? I can set it to 10 miles an hour.”

Then I was dusting the shelf of an old, dark closet when I heard the phone ring. I went to answer it, and the guy on the other end said he had been hired by Raj to find me. I asked how he found me and how much Raj paid him, and the guy said $3. Then the guy was standing in the room with me, and I was thinking to myself how easy it would be to rent a house from Raj if he had any to rent, if we were in his town and needed a place, even though I would probably wake up one morning after Tom left for work to find him standing by the bed with a hard-on.

I was trying to talk to a "dream person" in Spanish, but it just kept coming out in German. LOL.

I sat out on the swing yesterday and said hello to Bob. He was blowing pollen off his driveway. He mentioned that Virginia has a pinched nerve in her neck and needs to go to therapy next week but will probably be better by then.

He asked how Tom and I were doing, and I told him Tom’s been working overtime like crazy. Bob said that was a bummer, and I agreed, but added that we sure do like the extra money.

I mentioned that I felt like we have the ugliest lot on the circle, and he laughed, saying at least we have flowers and the camellias are doing well. He thinks the yellow flowers alongside the patio are African daisies.

The pink azaleas are starting to bloom in front. Those are my favorites. We also have red roses between our patio and his garage. I told him that if it were up to me, I would replace it all with white gravel because there are simply too many plants for such a tiny property. We’ve got cactus, aloe vera, and so much more.

---

I believe that everyone should be treated with fairness and equality, regardless of their background. It's frustrating to see cases where people feel justice isn't served equitably, such as in the episode of Forensic Files I watched. It featured a politician involved in a hit-and-run, and there was controversy over him receiving special treatment. It’s not uncommon for politicians to get special treatment due to their status, and this issue transcends race.

I sometimes feel society’s sense of good and bad, right and wrong, is skewed. For instance, I’ve worked hard to learn new languages, yet it often goes unrecognized. On the other hand, simpler achievements sometimes receive more praise. I know my husband appreciates my efforts, and that's what matters most.

I also struggle to understand the ongoing discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community, who simply seek equal rights. At the same time, it seems there is a lot of support for racial equality, which is necessary but complex. It's essential to acknowledge the historical and ongoing struggles faced by different communities without making broad generalizations.

Everyone deserves equal treatment and opportunities. Society needs to address issues of bias and inequality in a balanced and fair manner, recognizing that the fight for justice and equality is an ongoing process that requires understanding and compassion.

Telling people something once and having them forget may be just simple forgetfulness, but telling them over and over feels more like they don't care. It seems that way, anyway. Well, I give up on asking people to stop “liking” my cover pics on Facebook. Even though my cyberstalkers are a thing of the past, there’s always the potential for future ones, and Facebook is the one place I like to be private and selective, including keeping my friends' visibility limited. Yet, people are going to do what they want, so I just keep changing the pic until they stop “liking” it.

It has been noisy every single day this week. The residents haven’t been noisy, but the park sure has been. I don’t understand why they need to maintain the common areas in this section bit by bit when they used to do it in just one or two sessions. And why must they use the loudest equipment on the market? I know a lot of people are complaining about the same thing as spring sets in, and many hear more noise than I do (neighbors, dogs, gunshots, kids), but that doesn’t make the daily landscaping any less annoying to me. I don’t understand why the residents tolerate this any more than they do the noise of people breaking out their saws. Perhaps they are all deaf.

They have arrived. Yes, it’s official. We need to bomb this place soon because I saw the first spider of the year in the bathroom, and once I see one, they appear in a steady stream until winter. They’re not going to skip this house out of the goodness of their hearts.

I had a not-so-fun dream where Tom and I were facing homelessness. I then went down to my dentist’s office by myself and asked the dentist if she knew anybody who would give me a room in their house in exchange for me cleaning and doing their laundry. She told me I could just stay with her. The dream ended with me hugging her fiercely.

I put Hoodie in with Cappy, but sure enough, Cappy started screaming. So I separated them once again, and once again, I am contemplating getting rid of Cappy altogether. Why have I had such bad luck with rats in this state, except for two? I swear I will never get another rat again, just as I will never go on another diet. Diets work, mind you, but it helps not to have hypothyroidism, and it also helps not to be the kind of wimp I am when it comes to dealing with hunger. I like to eat when I’m hungry, and you often can’t do that on diets. So, working metabolism or not, fat I shall stay.

Now that Tom’s almost over his cold, we are going to go out for a quick walk real early this morning before he goes to work.

I have been hearing landscapers every day this week so far, and I wonder why. This is the park, not just the homeowners I’ve been hearing. I heard the park's landscapers twice on Monday and once yesterday. We don’t have falling leaves at this time of year, so I thought the daily leaf-sucking was over until the fall.

I’ve been with my husband for over 20 years now, yet he still points out some very intelligent and enlightening facts. I was saying something about how people who go out of their way to either stand out or blend in often fail to be themselves. Tom then said that no matter how unique we may think we are, considering the billions of people in the world, we’re really not that unique. He definitely has a point there. Only 1 in about 10,000 people has my type of ear birth defect, but when you gather all those people up, that’s still quite a few. So I think that just because something may not be common, it doesn’t mean it’s all that unusual either. There really is no such thing as "normal." And even if you might be what some consider different, you’re really not that alone.

I agree, however, that certain stereotypes can get old, and therefore we sometimes strive to break those stereotypes. It annoys me when I see a picture of a married woman and man with a daughter and son. To me, that is so old-fashioned and stereotypical, especially with most kids being born to singles now and fewer women, married or not, having kids due to the pressure and the desire to have careers.

I haven’t been remembering much of my dreams lately. All I remember is a quick few seconds where I dreamed I entered a room and caught Raj masturbating. My jaw dropped in utter shock. He noticed that I had entered the room, but he didn’t stop. After standing there just staring at him in shock for several seconds, I quickly turned and left the room, not wanting him to think I was enjoying the show and perhaps wanted to join in.

Even though it’s still a decade too soon, I was thinking of the pros and cons of living in Hawaii when Tom retires. I still don’t think we’ll be able to afford it, but if we could afford to at least rent, would that really be a wise idea? I’m pretty sure that the only so-called adult communities they have there are apartments or condos, and anyone who knows me knows how much I hate living attached to others. Even those who are quiet seem noisy at times when you have nothing more than a single wall between you. It’s easy to think you’re as neighbor-cursed as I was in Connecticut and Arizona when you live attached to others.

If we could afford to at least rent a house, that in itself would have its pros and cons, just like owning this house does. I couldn’t paint the walls whatever color I felt like painting them, but we wouldn’t have to pay to fix things that broke. If we wanted to move in a hurry, rentals are easier to leave than houses. I know one thing for sure: I will never live with any landlord again. It annoyed the hell out of me when Jesse would just drop in on us unannounced as often as he did. Even if I were always on days, most of us would agree that’s a pretty rude thing to do. Renting from individuals has benefits that renting from agencies doesn’t. An individual is more likely to work with you if you’re having a tough time than an agency would be. Agencies will charge late fees no matter what, not caring that “punishing” you is punishing themselves as well in the end, since the more late fees they charge, the further in debt you get and the less likely you are to be able to pay rent in the future.

While it may still get too cold here in the winter, I love knowing that I’m almost as safe out on the streets at 3 a.m. as I am inside our house since I’m in an upscale, gated community. Bike riding or jogging around Maui or Lanai in the middle of the night might be fairly safe since there are only so many people there to begin with, but I don’t know how they treat dogs there. Do they see them as pets? Or do they just toss them outdoors and forget about them? I would think they would at least have some serious leash laws there, but who knows. It does seem that it’s mostly the rural areas that have a lot of loose dogs.

It’s a dream I don’t expect to happen. I think it’s much more likely that we will end up in Florida if we don’t stay here.

Tom slept most of the weekend because of his cold. Next weekend we’re really going to make a point of getting more things done around the house.

I now have a bit of a strange ache where my capped tooth is. Hopefully, it’s only because my gums are getting used to regular flossing. The floss on these angled sticks that help you get to the back teeth is awesome. That’s really all I need, although I did get some regular floss on a spool. It’s still hard to believe I don’t have any cavities because when I have something really cold or hot, I swear I feel like I have at least two cavities.

The weekend wasn’t a total bust. At one point, Tom mustered up enough energy to go to Walgreens, where we got some fun treats. Besides a few sugary treats, I got some incense, which I try not to get too often because of the smoke residue.

I also got some coconut body spray and a beautiful barrette that would’ve been the perfect size for putting my hair back had it not broken as soon as I got home.

The coolest thing I got was these metallic jewelry temporary tattoos. I thought they were raised stones that you stuck to the body at first. I didn’t realize they were temporary tattoos right away because the girl in the picture really looked like she was wearing gold and silver bracelets and necklaces. While some may consider it tacky, to me, they are the best temp tats I’ve ever had. They sure aren’t kidding when they say they’re temporary, though. They will look really cool at the pool.

I’ve been noticing underarm irritation and then realized when I was putting on deodorant earlier that it was Suave. No wonder I have irritation. My skin does not like Suave at all. Their hair and skin products are horrible. I was going through their bins of cheap samples at Walgreens—not the last time we were there but before that—and grabbed it thinking I would like sweet pea and violet-scented pits. I didn’t even check the brand. Time to go back to Secret.

I went out for my walk, and those same five cars were at the dog lady’s house. Again, I never heard the dog, but those kids definitely live there. The couple living there seems too young and healthy to need caregivers. Therefore, I doubt it’s the children of any caregivers. I think their daughter and two granddaughters live there. There might even be a young guy living there too, but from what I can tell, there are six people in that household.

Oh well. It doesn’t affect me directly, so I’m not going to say anything. Maybe they’re affiliated with the park somehow, and that’s how they, along with that contractor, can get away with some of the things they do. I still wonder why they’re here if they want kids living with them. Why not just stay in the mainstream in that case? Maybe the daughter and her kids ended up homeless or something, and they had no place else to go.

Dureen: Abused her child and then put that child into the hands of strangers (the state) when she could no longer deal with the problems her abuse created for that child.

Arthur: Allowed his wife to abuse and then give up on their child.

Larry: Turned his back on his little sister and then later stabbed her in her own back.

Me: Not likely to forgive or forget.

Had no problem with tonight’s walk. I wasn’t even aware of my heartbeat this time, and I definitely didn’t have any cramps. It was beautiful out in just a T-shirt and shorts. I'll need the AC for sure tomorrow. I already pulled off the heavy rose blanket and replaced it with the light purple zebra blanket. Every time I pass by the house that Tom looked at on the other side of the circle, I’m so glad we don’t live close to it. There are five cars parked there along with a pretty big trailer, the kind you pull with a pickup. The carport is lit up like a football stadium with all the tape lighting they have. I’m surprised the mutt didn’t go off on me. I almost always see a car with a child seat in the back. If their kids and grandkids don’t live there, they sure spend a lot of time over there. Our immediate neighbors are comatose compared to them. There is almost always something going on over there when I pass by in the daytime, like barbecues and other activities. I’m learning that some of these people aren’t here for peace and quiet as much as they are here to be around people their own age. The lady who lives there, despite how many park rules she may be breaking, seems really nice. Attractive too, for an older lady. Despite my dwindling anxiety and calmer pulse, I’m still not sleeping well every other night. Where I used to wake up only once or twice, now it’s a lot more often. I suspect my thyroid meds play a big part in it. I read that people who describe themselves as “good sleepers” can experience insomnia and frequent waking during the night. Instead of having terrifying dreams about overdosing, I dreamt I was stuck in an apartment. I didn’t seem to know Tom for the first part of the dream. Andy once lived in the building and warned me that the walls were thin and the place was noisy. There were three floors, and I was glad to learn that there was an apartment available on the third floor so I wouldn’t have to have anybody above me. At one point, I was talking through the ceiling to Joy, who was in the apartment above me, even though I was supposed to be on the top floor, about the rent payment that my mother, who was alive in the dream, gave me the money for. Then Tom was there with me, and I was commenting on how one of the bedrooms had a wall that was squash-colored. I was standing in another smaller bedroom with an angled wall, trying to figure out the best place to set up the old stereo. Placing it against the angled wall made it stick out too far, and I didn’t want to put it behind the door where it could get hit when the door was opened. The other side of the room had furniture taking up space. “Dr. Smith,” an aging man, was to be my new doctor wherever this apartment building was located. The dream ended with me taking a dip in some strange-looking pond in a blue bikini. Later... Tom’s cold has been winding down, and he has been sleeping on and off. He’s coughing up a storm right now. As usual, his wife escaped catching it. It kind of sucks right now with him sick and my schedule not being the greatest. The neighbors are probably wondering why we got such a nice new bench swing but never use it. Oh well. We should be here for at least another decade, and I’m sure the sun will shine when I’m on days here and there along the way. We are going to Walgreens real late tonight just to get out, get some treats, and whatever. One really cool thing is that they gave him a few LED lights at work that look like fluorescent lights. They would not only be great for the kitchen and last a lot longer, but those would have cost us hundreds of dollars, so we save money right there along with the electric bill since LEDs are so much more energy-efficient. Cappy has been the shyest, least manageable rat we have ever had. I almost feel like we have a wild rat and not a rat that came from a pet store. I considered getting rid of him despite the risk of karma getting me for it, even though I don’t know what the hell I supposedly did to deserve what happened to me last summer. People get rats all the time as snake food. But then we decided to separate them so I can let Hoodie out without Cappy hopping out too. I always leave the cage door open so that Hoodie can go back home when he’s ready to, but I can’t do that and expect Cappy to stay home. I will put the Hoodster in his cage from time to time so they can play together, and I might let them run around the master bathroom because it will be easier to coax Cappy into his cage from there. Another thing we’re going to do is get strips of aluminum tape to wrap around the couch’s legs to keep them from going under there. That way, I can maybe let them loose in the living room like I usually do. It’s easy enough to scare them out from behind the desk, but not the couch. When I try to scare them out from under the couch, I only succeed in scaring them from one section to another because the couch is so huge. This won’t just be good for keeping the rats out, but when we get a kitten, it will be nice to know that it’s not going to get stuck under there until it’s bigger and litter box trained. Did a survey that came in the mail on my primary care doctor, her staff, and the place itself.

Took a bath earlier in the garden tub. Not something I do very often as I prefer showers to baths, but it’s nice every now and then. 

I decided not to do a sequel to the first book that I published on Amazon. I don’t want to have to keep referring to it as a reference for the sequel. The idea wore off of me anyway. Instead, I have started the stalker story I mentioned pondering and have written a few chapters. 

As most people who know me know, I don’t follow a good 90% of the news. Just like most of us prefer to be around happy people, I prefer to read happy things. Reading the news often leaves me in anything but a good mood. Instead, it just deepens my disgust for humanity in general and convinces me even more that God is evil, and that the more we tell ourselves otherwise, the more we are living in a bubble of fantasy. Well, as far as I’m concerned, some bubbles are better off being popped. 

Every now and then, a particular story fascinates me, like the Jodi Arias case. Whenever it’s a female killer, my curiosity is piqued. Call it morbid curiosity but I can’t help but follow their stories with fascination. It isn’t the act of murder itself that captivates my attention, but the person behind the act itself. As they say, anyone can kill under the right circumstances, but what made this seemingly ordinary person commit such a heinous crime? She may be narcissistic and she may be the jealous type, but other than that she seems to be rather “normal,” even articulate and a bit intelligent. 

I still feel that she deserves to die for what she did. I know that the juror who held out did so because she felt that killing her would be an act of revenge. Okay, so technically that is exactly what it would be, but it would also be doing the right thing. At least in my book, it would be. I think that there are times when revenge is wrong and then there are times when resorting to the old Eye for an Eye concept is rather appropriate. On the other hand, she’s going to have a long depressing, miserable life ahead of her as life in prison might actually be worse of a punishment for her than death would have been. 

Arias is unusual to me in a lot of ways. I totally believe that if she were suddenly a free woman (assuming nobody killed her but then again nobody killed Casey Anthony) she would not take the life of another human being. I think that most killers kill more than once and they don’t stop unless someone makes them stop. But I think Jodi is one of those rare exceptions. An interviewer commented about her being so stony-faced, and she said that she prefers to express her emotions in private, and that if she cried people would say her tears were fake, and I totally believe that one, especially that last part. 

People were quick to say that she only agreed to be interviewed because she craves attention. While there may be a grain of truth to that, I wonder if she mostly did it to try to redeem herself after initially lying about killing Travis. There’s no way in hell I buy the self-defense story, but I do believe that Travis might’ve played with her head a bit. It may not have been deliberate. I think that in his confusion and being torn between his Faith and Jodi, he ended up jerking her around a bit with his insecurity and not being sure of what he wanted. 

Another thing I question when I read printed material on her versus what actually comes out of her mouth, is just how much of the lies actually came from Jodi versus the media. I know the media. Whether or not you lie on behalf of yourself, the media will definitely take the honors at some point and be happy to do so for you. I have watched Jodi in several interviews, and once you set aside the self-defense bullshit, I think she speaks very well and is actually quite honest in many ways. I don’t know if I could have handled some of the interviews as well as she did. When she would be asked a question I would mentally place myself in her shoes and try to imagine how I would answer and I think I would have stumbled on a lot of those questions, not sure of what to say or what would be the best words to describe whatever came to mind. She fumbled on a few questions, but otherwise she did a pretty good job whether she was being honest or not. 

Currently, there are a handful of inmates in Perryville Prison that I once knew from Estrella Jail. I had to laugh when I thought of Kim, who is in the Lumley Unit, which is where Jody is going. I can’t help but wonder if she’s excited at the thought of meeting her, LOL. I saw the video of what might be her cell, and I think it’s a lot nicer looking than Estrella. I was a little surprised to see porcelain sinks and toilets, though. 

One woman, who did seven years there and wrote a book about her case, says Jodi’s going to be walking into a living hell. The Lumley Unit is a maximum-security unit (which would be totally appropriate for somebody like Kim who loved to abscond) and many of those women have nothing to lose. It is almost like being exempt from punishment for committing additional crimes. Especially those that don’t have any visitors or commissary to lose. Personally, if I was in that situation and somebody pissed me off bad enough or I felt they were that much of a threat to me and I knew I had nothing to lose, then why not get rid of the problem? If I wasn’t going to get in any more trouble for it than I would for blowing my nose into a Kleenex… why not? Not saying I would, but the thought would surely be there. 

Anyway, the woman says that because she’s a high-profile case she will have some groupies and then there will be others that will want to put her in her place. The idea of somebody killing her is a nice thought, but that’s just not going to happen. I would be incredibly surprised if it did. Inmates just don’t go killing other inmates as often as one may be led to believe they do in movies. There are women in jail in prison who have killed children yet they survive. 

Fifteen years ago, when I was in jail for a crime I did not commit before I was vindicated, there was a famous inmate in my section. Occasionally she was threatened, but for the most part, she was well-liked. She was incarcerated until a few years ago and we were friends for many years, keeping in touch through the mail. I eventually ended our friendship when I finally looked back on that so-called friendship and realized just how much she had used me over the years. I did so much for her just to be stabbed in the back in the end. She too, probably wouldn’t be dumb enough to commit the same crime, but during the first year of her freedom that we kept in touch, I did see traces of the old her shining through. She’s so addicted to shopping and material things and is so used to using people that she would get that money from anyone, even if it were from an abusive man similar to the one who helped get her locked up in the first place.

At just a little over five hours into my sleep, I had a horrible nightmare. In the dream, we got a prescription for my thyroid medication but they gave us too many pills. Not wanting to waste the money I thought I would suck on the “extras” for a few minutes, as funny as I know that sounds. After who knows how many “extras,” I realized that I might be in big trouble heart-wise and that I might even die because I had sucked on too many. 

Unfortunately, this nightmare came right after watching a case of this guy who killed his wife while they were sleepwalking, and I couldn’t help but remember the two times in the trailer that I picked up the little notebook I used to keep by the bed, and then somehow managed to tear out a few pages before placing the notebook back on the shelf all without waking myself up. So naturally, I started getting paranoid and thinking what if… what if in my sleep (even though I’ve never been known to ever get out of bed), I downed some pills! 

I got up and peed and saw that clearly none of my pills had been touched nor did I have a weird taste in my mouth. I was still freaked out enough about it to Skype Tom. I wished he had been home to verify that he hadn’t seen me going to the kitchen in my sleep even though I figured as much anyway. 

After 10-20 minutes passed and I realized I would probably be dead by then if I had acted out my dream, I relaxed enough to fall back asleep. I just would have preferred to get up an hour and a half earlier than I did. 

Tom still has a cold and was crashing when I was getting up so I didn’t get to see much of him. I showered, ate, threw on a load of laundry, checked in with people online, took my daily Dutch lesson, and then I went out for a walk. It was beautiful even though it was dark and slightly chilly. I missed being able to go out there alone without fear. My heart behaved, however. I only made two rounds around the circle in 10 minutes but it’s a start towards venturing out on my own the longer I go without incident. I think that once I pass the one-year anniversary of when I first ran into trouble with the levothyroxine, I will totally have it made. Just a little chest pain afterward, but I can't say whether it's connected to my heart or not. It could’ve been a lung or a muscle. It’s a concentrated, sharp cramp-like pain towards the left. It’s kind of above my breast but a little closer to the center of my chest than the center of the breast itself. 

They’re talking about working Saturdays and Tom and I aren’t the least bit thrilled with this idea despite the fact that the money would be absolutely insane. The thing is that right now we need more time, not more money. But since the other employees there make so little, they’re all excited about the idea of the extra money. 

Once upon a time, we had no money but plenty of free time. Now it’s just the opposite. Money is wonderful, but when you have no life to go with it, it gets a little old. There is still so much we want to do around the house, but who knows when we will have the time? Some of it I can do myself, but some things we want to do together. We prefer to work out together, for example, no matter how I’m feeling. But sometimes our schedules clash, or he gets sick, or he gets backed up in sleep and so I am on my own. 

For now, I am so glad that the weather is warming up so that I can be outdoors more often whether I’m working out or not. Unless I have an appointment I’m usually only out on weekends, so being able to be outdoors more often keeps me from getting cabin fever even if I am a homebody and I love our big beautiful home. 

Later… 

Oh my god, this is so fucking funny! There was what I would describe as a “likable bitch” that I once knew on the old Kiwibox site about seven years ago (Amber). She was a rude, mean bully, but at the same time, she was actually a bit intelligent and mature for what was then a very young age. I remembered her first name and that she loves to rescue feral cats. Yeah, she was a strange one. She would treat people like shit but she sure loved animals. She would probably want to kick the crap out of me if she knew just what I sometimes fantasize about doing to Cappy. Really I’m sick of his timid, spastic nature! 

Anyway, I Googled her name plus the words “feral cats” and was able to learn her last name. I always knew it began with an S, but that was all I knew. I couldn’t resist contacting her and slipping her the link to my blogger blog. Maybe she’ll want to reminisce a bit and read around some of the 2008 journals I have stored there, LOL.