well, a lot has happened since my last post. i went to new mexico to visit my family only to find that the drama continues. i am tooooo old to do drama anymore. my breathing was a whole lot better and they don't have as many bugs there as we do here, but it's not the same...i guess i've just gotten accustomed to the quiet and the trees around me.

i posted pictures of my father and his place on my facebook page. very impressive as man-caves go, but too work intensive for the normal sort. they have dogs,a lot of dogs, and most of them are big. and i have little sydni, poor thing couldn't go outside for fear of being eaten by the bigger dogs, but dad has a boston terrier named Ringo that little sydni just fell in love with, much to his embarrassment! he kept trying to hide from her but it did no good. she always found him and kissed his face!

the upshot is that when he is outside ringo is so much faster than the big dogs that he just devilled them. running around in circles and nipping at them and in general driving them crazy. sydni is the same amount smaller than ringo as ringo is smaller than the big dogs, so when ringo would be giving the big dogs a hard time i'd let him in and sydni would do him the same way he had been doing them!...lol...he was soooo embarrassed!

when we finally got home, sydni really missed ringo, i'm fairly sure that the sentiment was not returned. all the business with the roof started again. did anyone realize that i'm two years too young to get a grant for my roof? well, i didn't. but they are perfectly willing to give me a loan to cover the cost that i'll still be paying on till the day i die...sigh...oh well.

the search for the proper contractor has been arduous and long. (read here...a real pain in the butt) but it looks like i may actually get a new roof on my house sometime in the next few weeks....whew!

more later.

OH PLEASE! WHO THINKS OF THIS?

Do you know how many questions you answer in a day? How many do you ask? More than you think you betcha....I can't keep up! What's your religion? What's a desktop? Did you know you could text a phone from your computer? I didn't!

One time I told a guy he couldn't call me on my cel phone because my minutes were limited. And he called my on my computer! That freaked me out! Why couldn't he just take a hint and figure out that I'm old and NOT INTERESTED?

I keep butting up against stuff like this all the time. Copy and paste was a nightmare to learn. I think my machine just isn't intersted in being cooperative. And it is a machine, no matter what I call it. Hell, it just recently revealed the mystery of taking pictures with my web cam and then posting to facebook or any where else for that matter. ....Hey, I'm not so sure it ain't magic!

One of my proudest moments was figuring out how to take pictures with my digital camera, downloading to my hard drive, and erasing the sd card WITHOUT loosing the pictures in that never never land that my computer steals stuff off to! I figured that out because of that little yorkie Sydni. She is such a ham that she thinks ALL pictures should be of her!

Do you know how to text? I don't. My friend Pattyann does and my little sister Kelly does and maybe everybody else in the world too! But not me....Pattyann is painful to instant message with, but she text messages at 90 miles an hour!
Hey, I can spell and texting is UNspelling. I need a translater!...HELP!!!

A Speech to My Dad

To those of you who have been following my blog for a while I will say ahead of time that this one will be very different.


My father and I have been estranged for many years. The whys and wherefores are no longer important. Everyone in my family that I've spoken with in the last few days has asked the same question and it's time to tell the straight truth, at least as I see it, and we all know that I over analyze everything.

So Dad...This one is for you.

My whole life i tried to be everything that everyone wanted me to be. I'm stupid about trying to do the right thing, even if it kills me. All I ever wanted was your approval, and mom's, of course, but we all know that was never going to happen. We all loved her but I think that she never believed it. I don't think she thought she deserved to be happy. Sadly we could never convince her otherwise.

I left you, Dad and all I'd ever known because I was told to. And here's the stupid part, I'm just as hard headed as you are. Once, when I was small, you told me not to cause trouble between grown ups because kids could fight and kiss and make up and go play some more, but grown ups never made up...I never forgot that. Here's what the family never thought of....when the fight came down, I may have been the only grown up in the room, even tho we were ALL there. I remember asking, 'Are you SURE you want to say this to me of all people?' But it just kept on and I walked. I was told to leave and not come back, so that's what I did. And I'm stubborn. And I'm determined. And I wish now that I wasn't quite as much ME as I am.

Here's some more truth. When I left I stepped off into a whole other world. After a while I found that I didn't even speak the same language as the rest. Truckdriverese should have it's own dictionary. There is one focus, 'don't be late with the freight.' There is no life but the truck and your company and the next load and I had a talent for keeping my focus right where the company needed me to. It was the perfect escape and it makes us emotionally lazy. Is there something you don't want to deal with at home? Work until it goes away, and it will go away, one way or the other.

And here's yet, still, some more truth. All of those years that I went coast to coast and border to border, I looked for a man just like my Dad. Oh, I met literally thousands of men, even got to know a few, made a lot of friends. They never could figure out why they couldn't get close. The answer is both proud and embarrassing. There was not one single damn man out there who could measure up to my Dad.

I have told Dad stories to thousands, and even tho we didn't talk in all those years, I always loved you, it always showed, and you are famous.

MEET SYDNI

I have a friend that would say, in a situation like this,"Help! I've fallen down and I can't reach my beer!" That's pretty much how I'm doing, without the beer of course. No drinking for me! Just ask my Doc.

The problem is this: After I came home from running away I kept running into the print outs of my 360 blog. I just had a feeling that they wouldn't all transfer like yahoo said they would and boy was I right. The only ones that transferred were the ones I did after things started going south. None of the fun ones went like they were supposed to. But I had them printed out just in case, right?

Well, in all the mess of cleaning (see pics from previous posts) and arranging and worrying, I ran across them several times. And I kept telling myself that as soon as things got settled down a little I would re post them. You guys are going to love the 'Camp Fire' stories. A lot of people like the 'Wake Up Leroy' stories even better. Either way, they'll all get told again, even if I have to make them up all over again.

Tonight, I'll tell you about Sydni. Last Sept. my little yorkie Babideau got killed. It took me a long time to get over it and even with everything that has happened, loosing her hit me the hardest.

A few weeks ago I had to make one of my rare trips to town. The whole trip was a wasted dead end. BUT I made a stop at the local truck stop for a paper and something to drink before I headed on back. In that paper I saw an add for yorkies. Before I even read it I knew it would do me no good, but I never learn. Anyway, there was a breeder across the state line in Oklahoma who woke up one morning and decided she had had it! She was just going to sell out. The dogs were selling at $100 and $150. The way the add was worded I could tell that she wanted to sell only to other breeders.

I missed Babideau so much, but I'd been checking yorkie prices on the internet and the dogs that came even close to Babideau are running from $1200 to $1500. I couldn't help myself, I tried to call but of course, got a machine. Oh well, I tried.

That night I got a call from the breeder! Surprise! And, yes, she was trying to sell to breeders, but if I liked I could come by and see if there wasn't just the perfect dog for me. And there was! If anything she's even smaller than Babideau and her name is Sydni. I'd love to tell you she's a perfect angel, but she's just like every other animal I've ever had.....it's my fault if it rains or if the cat doesn't like her. Oh! I forgot to say, she loves Sox. She kisses his face every chance she gets. He thinks it's totally undignified, and hides in the room that used to be my library most of the time.....well except when it rains, then he comes out and gripes at me just like she does....Sheesh, they're never satisfied!...lol

Vultures Circling

If you've read previous stories, then you know that my house was trashed and that the vultures are circling, just waiting for my guard to be down. And that is very serious, but we can't live without some comic relief, so guess what happened?

One night a few weeks ago, I was sitting in my chair reading...all was quiet...and Sox was making himself comfortable in the middle of the floor...Someone coughed right outside the window by my chair!...Of course, I called the sheriff's dept., but by the time they got here, there was nobody there. Are we surprised?

A few nights later, sitting reading in same chair, all quiet, someone stepped on that ill balanced manhole cover in my front yard...right outside the window by my chair. Same story. These people actually think they're scaring me!...lol

Now if you've been reading you know that my roof is in sad shape, well the roof is mostly okay, but the eaves in front are rotting and falling. Which is awful, but...well kind of amusing too...Here's what happened.

A few nights ago, we had a storm. Now what this person was doing out in the rain, I don't know but...all was quiet, reading in chair, Sox resting comfortably. (starting to sense a pattern here?)...I could hear a piece of wood from the eaves coming loose and swinging in the wind and I just knew it was going to fall down....AND IT DID!

What made it funny was the thump and the loud "OUCH!" I heard right outside my window! All they could hear from inside was my laughter! That'll larn 'em!!!

It's pitiful how that cat just can't get comfortable isn't it? Somebody has always got to interrupt his best naps!...lol

WELL, WELL, WELL...WHO'DA THUNK IT?

As you know I'm disabled. CADC is going to help with the weatherization of my house, I think. (yay!) Today I got a call from their assessor, he wanted to know if it would be convenient for him to come by this morning, so he could give the interior a once over to see what it needed. So far, so good.

I was under the impression that they did rooves too, but not so. It was obvious to both of us that he could do all the cosmetic work he wanted but if the roof leaked it would be for nothing. My heart fell thru the floor. I can't afford that! Yikes!

This very nice young man told me not to panic, that there was an organization called 'Rehab' that did exteriors. That was news to me! He also told me that he would see to it that an application was sent to me as quickly as possible and that he was confident that I qualified....with one proviso.

My house was built BEFORE 1920. He found several things that told him this. AND that before anyone could do anything they had to get the go ahead from the historical society or we'd all be in deep dodo. HMMMM...who'd a thunk it?

I doubt seriously that any historical society will be interested in this old place. I'm very far out from any city center, but it would be nice to find out the true history of this place. No wonder I get regular visits from ghosts!

But then, that's a story for another time!

STRANGER THINGS HAVE HAPPENED

I don't normally write or even say things like in my previous blog, but sometimes you just have to get it out...New day, new subject.

Strange things have a tendency to happen around me. When I ran away I went to a friend's house in the back woods of Oklahoma. Very nice, 2 story house on the outside, but with a history.

This house was built in 1827 as a stage stop, post office, general store type place. Lots of history there. It had been modernized quite a bit (wish I had some pictures, maybe I can add some later) but the bones were the same. I loved just imagining what it must have been like. OH and I forgot to mention to my friend about the tendency of strange things happening around me, boy was she in for a surprise!

I come from a family and a part of the country where strangeness is no big deal, so I didn't think anything about it when we started hearing strage noises from upstairs. In the old days the upstairs/attic was used for storage, so naturally we could hear boxes thumping and things being dragged across a bare floor. (it's all carpeted now) We'd go check and nothing. It got to be an everyday occurance, and finally we stopped going up there and looking for every little noise, only the big loud ones.

There were cold spots around various parts of the house which my friend explained away in the most mundane way she could, but I still think differently.

The time came for me to come home. We thought at the time that I would be coming back in a few days, well we all know how that turned out. I had been there nearly 4 months and had quite a bit of personal property there, so she started packing up for me.

I waited a couple of weeks before I asked her about her ghost activity...and guess what?!? Not a peep. She said that maybe they had followed me back home, but that is not the case......They simply didn't have anybody to talk to anymore!...lol

HOW TO MAKE YOURSELF CRAZY

Women's Liberation did the women of this country no favors. If you want to make yourself really crazy just go out there and try to meet a real gentleman. It's not going to happen. They say (whoever 'they' are) that we only confused men by burning our bras. Well, I never burned MY bra. All I ever wanted out of the deal was equal pay for equal work.

Sounds reasonable right? I guess not. In order to get equal pay I had to do a man's job, and do it better than the men. I drove a truck for 25 years. When I started there were no women's bathrooms in most of the truck stops, that's how long ago it's been. Things have come a long way in the industry since then, but prople's moral standards have gone in the toilet. It seems that women are just as guilty as men in this area.

As the years went on I became more and more of a hermit. When I did finally find someone I thought I could trust and finally let him into my life, everything was fine as long as I could work. While we ran team he got to sleep till noon and by then most fo the real work was done...he loved it. He even got to take time off when he wanted to for personal pursuits and the pay checks still came in because I always made sure the freight was delivered on time. I wasn't allowed to talk on the radio or have any friends, but at least I wasn't alone, right?

There finally came a time, after we'd been together for several years, that I got sick and stayed sick. During the time we were together he had been getting meaner and meaner, but, hey, at least I wasn't alone anymore, right?...When I got sick, (it turned out to be TB of all things) he just kept getting meaner and meaner. When he was home he still wanted to be waited on hand and foot, meals cooked, and for me to clean up after him, no matter HOW sick I was. After all the years that I took care of him, (I never got to keep any of my own pay it went to bills.) it was time for him to step up to the plate. He put just enough money in the bank to cover groceries for when he was home, (and he was home a lot) and about half of the utilities.

Sooooo, I took a job at home on the computer and made just enough to cover the balance of the bills and that worked out just fine right up until I got so sick I ended up in the hospital. That's when they discovered the TB. Oh joy.

Have you ever known anyone to be cruel to someone in the hospital? Well, you're hearing about it now. When I got to come home he still expected me to wait on him...I was on so many drugs that I didn't even know my own name half the time, but he still wanted me to wait on him.

By this time I had been trying to get him to leave for at least a year but he just wouldn't go. Instead, he'd changed jobs so he could be closer to home and torture me even more than he had before....no he never hit me...even he wasn't THAT stupid. I just kept thinking that there must be something wrong with me that a man would do me this way, and that I should try harder. And I did, right up until the day he got arrested for drug possession in another state. (Well, THAT explains a lot!) But silly me, I really thought he'd been set up and felt sorry for him and even tho I was completely done with him, I bent over backwards, and with the help of his friend we got him out. I should have left him there.

When he got back I told him that I was done and that I wanted him to pack up and go right NOW. (there's a witness to this part) HE JUST WOULD NOT LEAVE. And I'm not big enough to have made him go. I thought maybe he would be nicer, because of all I'd gone thru to help him, but I was wrong.

It became obvious that if I was going to save my sanity and my health that I was going to have to run away from MY OWN HOUSE. So being the idiot that I am, I made a deal with him..."you can stay here for a few months as long as you pay your own utilities and phone and fix up a few of the things you've been neglecting for the past few years, no women, no parties, no drugs." I felt sorry for him, he said he had no place to go (a lie) and that he agreed to my terms.

We all know what happened next don't we? He was really mad because I wouldn't tell him where I was going, so he promptly got unemployment, which is more than my disability, and got involved with a woman who had already been in jail on drug charges and moved her into my house (which they proceeded to trash) and from what I hear started selling drugs. OUT OF MY HOUSE!!! Keep in mind that the utilities and phone were being drafted out of my bank account, so I didn't even have money to eat on most of the time, but that was fine with him, he was after all that he could get.

By the time I found out what he was doing and who he was doing it with and where he was doing it, I was well over feeling sorry for him. I called and told him that I would be down the next weekend with the police to make sure he and his ... were removed from my house. And then I promptly hurt my back by picking up a log for the fire wrong and couldn't move for several days...lol...I was like a turtle on it's back, everything moved but it wasn't going anywhere!

So when he and his... left they took all of his things and a lot of my things and totally trashed my house...I may even post a picture or two.

And you know what? There's nothing I can do. Oh, I have a restraining order, and signed an affidafit that makes it criminal trespass if he ever comes here again, but that's all. The police say he had permission to be here so there's nothing they can do...and the vultures keep circling...just waiting for me to be gone so they can come back and steal the rest of my things and tear up my house some more. The police keep saying that they'll catch them, but a loaded gun is a good idea. (no problem there, but it's no help if I have to go to the grocery store)

If confronted, I'd be willing to bet that he'd swear that he would never do that, break in and steal from me I mean, but the reason for the affidafit was because he did exactly that. He broke into the tool shed, but not the house.(the locks have been changed...twice) And he wore he'd never do ANY of the things he DID do.

Now for you guys out there who've been burned, I understand that it can get bad, but please, do you REALLY think that you're the only ones that get taken to the cleaners?