Subtropical Lady

May 2022 (2)

WEDNESDAY, MAY 11, 2022

Turns out that the heart monitor is covered, but we would have to pay 15%. I told them that since money is tight and I really don’t think there’s any cause for concern I wanted to wait for now. Money isn’t really that “tight” right now, but still.

We were surprised they mowed yesterday since it’s been dry. So apparently, they go by the calendar. The good thing is that the sit-down mower is back. It did the side while the stand-up did the center of the park as usual. Hopefully, they’ll stick to this routine.

Mia’s free gift last time around was a silver wedding band. Like who gives a shit, right? Plus, the idiot devs still can’t seem to get their shit together which means all her makeup and jewelry are periodically removed. She also defaults to her original outfit. It’s fucking ridiculous that they can’t fix a simple problem.

Jessie’s not my age as I thought. She has another account that has a variation of her name that was suggested to me and the birth date on it is 1967.

I would still prefer to have a text version of my recipes on Blogger besides the screenshots of recipes so I found an image text transcriber. It’s not perfect, but it works pretty well. This way I can search for keywords if I want.

Again with the weird dreams, but I guess weird is better than bad. Horses were climbing palm trees. Then I guess I had a thing for some older nurse and was playing around in a wheelchair like a kid drives their toy car.

In the last dream, we had a two-story house or we were in an apartment on an upper floor. I woke up late in the day, walked up to a window, and gazed down at the front yard across the street to see a bunch of car equipment, tools, and radios scattered about. I asked Tom if the music was loud and he said no, but he could hear it outside.

FRIDAY, MAY 13, 2022

We’re planning on driving down to the beach on Monday, but since I don’t want to wait that long to catch up on my writing, I’ll get started now. I can work on my story on the road.

I’m using my chat thread with Alyssa to keep an audio journal. It’s the easiest place to do it that I know of. It’s even easier than Twitter and definitely easier than Swell. I still can’t help but wonder if she ever listens. It doesn’t matter if she does, but I’m curious. Does she or doesn’t she? I would still have to guess no. Where is a doctor/wife/mother going to find time to listen to several minutes of messages from someone they never wanted to be friends with? She’s never given me any indication that she’s read anything of mine, let alone ever contacted me in any way. Even so, the idea of her possibly listening, even if it’s slim, kind of amuses me. I’m not saying anything I wouldn’t mind her hearing. Whether she listens in or not, it’s a convenient place to keep an audio journal of my life. The lack of change in profile pictures for so long likely has nothing to do with me, and it’s even likelier that she’s not listening.

Sometimes I think that, yeah, maybe she is listening and that’s why she hasn’t updated her profile pic in three years; because she feels her privacy has been violated and she doesn’t want me seeing any new content. But if that’s the way she really feels, couldn’t she just simply block me? Or would that be considered a “reaction” of some kind that she doesn’t want to give me? I’ve always wondered why some people ignore while others block. Stacey might have the answer to that, but I’m certainly not going to ask her, LOL.

The doc is more confusing than ever. She’s read the few messages I’ve sent but continues not to engage with me in any way. It’s weird because she definitely doesn’t strike me as the type to be a friend collector.

Fitbit has added the A-fib detector, but you have to be still for them to detect it if you have it. I’m not always still when my heart flutters, although I don’t expect to get a notification either way. I was surprised to learn that some people with A-fib don’t have symptoms.

Everything I want to publish for now is published. So now I just let them sit there and generate whatever they’re going to generate.

The ENT referral I was given was for somebody who’s out of network, so they gave me another referral that was in Tampa. If we have to go all the way to Tampa, I would rather see the first guy I saw. But Tom swears we can find one closer, so he’s looking on the insurance site.

Yesterday I was like, what is it with this place all of a sudden becoming a little more like the old place with the projects and the barking? Yesterday morning, I was pissed at Steve for letting his dog bark for a minute or two and not taking responsibility to do a damn thing about it. I haven’t heard it today, but when Tom was out, he heard it bark and then Steve yelled at it. It’s about fucking time!

Then. I had a hilarious thought. When it was going off yesterday morning and distracting me when I was golfing with Tom, the windows happened to be open and I was bitching to Tom about it. Could Steve have heard me? I don’t know about that. I mean, yes, I’m kind of loud, but could he really make out what I was saying?

I still hear the dogs at night that are outside of the park, but never in the daytime. This pretty much tells me they’re probably allowed indoors during the daytime and that they are at the junkyard protecting the place. At least I think it’s some kind of junkyard. At first I thought it was coming from straight behind us, and while it could be, the distance seems about right for the volume.

So yesterday’s projects were Steve having his place pressure washed, a pest vehicle at the place next to him, plus a roof going on a few houses down in the other direction. Fortunately, it was far from maddening. Just a little noticeable. I can hear some hammering today too. Someone recently moved into this house, so I guess now they’re adding the trimming to the place or something.

I’ve certainly got a growing curse on me lately. One of the bamboo stalks died and the basil plant doesn’t look so great. The newly planted palm trees across the street don’t look like they’re doing well either. I don’t think it’s just the dry weather. I think it’s mostly due to the shitty soil they warned us about when we first moved here.

Bought a $10 app called Wander. You can explore almost anywhere in the world, and even the space station. I’m not so sure about it yet. It requires so much clicking of the controllers. I can pretty much see the same stuff in VZfit, but I’ll give it time. I like how you can choose a random place to explore even if it doesn’t tell me where I’m at. I don’t like that I’m not at ground level, but Google doesn’t shoot pics at ground level. The pictures also take longer to load than on VZfit.

SATURDAY, MAY 14, 2022

I only walked down about 10 houses worth this morning and then ran back up. I breathed in the stench of smoke on the way down and up. I swear there weren’t nearly as many smokers in Cali as there are here.

Less than a year in and it’s already noisier with all the projects and barking. Funny, though, how he said that if we go rural and the neighbors are up to no good, we can’t do anything about it. But we can’t do anything about it right here. I get his point in that you’re likely to have more problems there than here and how it’s safer here, but still. If Toni decided to run a dogfighting ring, the honker blasted in and out, and Steve let his mutt bark round the clock, what could we do about it? Complain and get sent to jail if one of them has a cop pal or be told to do a $1000 upgrade because someone in the office is besties with one of them?

Believe me, I hate the complex the past has put on me and I know a stronger person wouldn’t let the past dictate the future, but it’s not that easy. It does get to me at times, though, that 6 people on the Supreme Court can tell millions of women what to do with their lives and bodies, and I can’t even get one person to control their fucking dog. Just one person.

Why does this always happen to me? Just why? Every single fucking place I go gets noisier until I’m about to leave it. I swear yesterday was almost like the old place without the traffic. Yes, it can and has been much worse, but I didn’t come here for this. I don’t care if his dog barks for less than 30 seconds at a time. Just the fact that I hear it every single day really gets to me. I don’t make him hear anything of ours regularly.

They put the roof on the day before yesterday and that wasn’t too noisy. Just a few rounds of mild pounding. I thought they were done with the place, but they did work on it yesterday as well and the pounding got to the point where it was distracting.

It’s a crisp, cool morning out at 68 degrees, so I have a couple of windows open. I’ll shut them when the temperature rises or the projects and barking get too annoying, whichever comes first.

Really surprised that Texas of all states wants free speech online. I would think a state like that would do the exact opposite. Still, with all the crazy laws, restrictions, and all the little sensitives out there and their poor, poor little fragile eggshell feelings, I’m afraid to even breathe online these days.

Reality versus Amy Coney-Barrett:

Amy: Any woman can simply get paid time off for having an unwanted kid, there’s plenty of childcare available, and they can all become Supreme Court justices and raise many children just like she did. Plus, there are plenty of contraceptives available.

Reality: This country has one of the shittiest paid leave benefits and childcare services available due to the way women have been pressured to be little workhorses and skip having kids in the first place for the last 30 years or so. And no, they can’t all become Supreme Court justices with lots of kids nor do they all want to in the first place. Lastly, contraceptives sometimes fail, and no, there aren’t plenty of contraceptives available because not everyone can afford them, and they’ve also become a target.

It’s almost scary to have such blatant stupidity for a “justice.” It really is.

SUNDAY, MAY 15, 2022

So I was talking to Becky who plans to partake in the abortion protests and says apathy is deadly. Maybe so, but a lack of apathy also gets you in jail or spited. Yet she feels the protests will work, and after all, protests were what stopped the Vietnam War. Yeah, but that’s different.

I still say you can’t reason with crazy. There’s no changing their twisted little minds. No amount of scientific evidence or education will do a damn bit of good. Conservatives are hateful, controlling, obsessive, and delusional. Anytime you have mostly conservatives in charge, the country will be in trouble. You can’t just talk sense into extremists. They’ll keep attacking one thing after another until the Supreme Court is one day mostly Liberals, and that takes decades. Things won’t change for the better in our lifetime. Conservatives should never be allowed to hold any kind of power anywhere but sadly, we live in a black-and-white country.

I still think they’ll allow abortions for emergencies, and I still say that many doctors still do abortions because they took an oath to do no harm. It’s their job to serve and help their patients, so no law is going to stop that. Until the abortion pill is made illegal, there’s that to help women too. But once that’s illegal, they can’t stop other means of abortion like herbs and taking a good swift punch to the stomach, among other things.

Those that worry about all these millions of women being forced to have kids they don’t want and dying from home abortions are silly. What we should really worry about are the things that there’s no getting around. There’s no way to get around it when they tell gays they can no longer marry. There’s no way to get around when they start cutting Social Security and chipping away at our healthcare access. If God forbid things really, really get crazy, my life will be in danger. Jews are the second most hated group in the world.

One day isn’t nearly enough to tell me anything, but I never once heard the dog bark yesterday. It still makes me wonder yet again if there’s something about this influencing I might actually be able to control. I can’t make all the conservatives cease to exist, but maybe I can make it as peaceful as it used to be, especially when the snowbirds are gone.

So what exactly is my ideal dream house? I’ve had ideas, but not the specifics. I’ve often asked myself what I want. I think my ideal dream place is in a soundproof high-rise condo that overlooks the ocean as well as some other things. This way the view would change from day to night. I would see the ocean and observe people going about down below during the daytime. By night I would see twinkling lights. I loved how I could see for miles and miles out the living room window in Maricopa, and then lights twinkling in the distant city at night.

If we were up high enough, a high-rise would take us further from the street and any projects going on. However, the interior would have to be soundproof otherwise we would be trading in street noise for the usual bumps, bangs, and slams you hear when you’re attached to others. I don’t want to go back to listening to people’s TVs, stereos, cabinets, doors, and heavy footsteps if they happen to walk like an elephant. It would also insulate the place better and storms wouldn’t seem so loud being in concrete and steel as opposed to this flimsy wooden house.

It’s just a dream, though, as is my second dream home, which would be a place that was on the beach or close to it. It would have its own private dock like what my parents had.

MONDAY, MAY 16, 2022

On the way to the beach now. So, so good to get out today. Too many days cooped up inside the house and I get a little stir-crazy.

For two days, I didn’t hear the dog but this morning I did. So much for influencing. It was only about 6 barks, but again, not the point. It probably barked the last two days and I just didn’t hear it as I was either close to the air cleaner or in back of the house. They have two lanais, so more opportunities for its racket to escape its house besides through open windows.

I also heard one that’s been here all along. Sadly, where there are people, there are dogs. It’s just a matter of if it’s a few scattered barks or all the time, depending on where you live. In the mainstream, you get it all the time. In adult communities, you get it sometimes. Sometimes is definitely better than all the time.

Aly would be just as sickened by the Governor of Nebraska as I am if she was still alive. Sometimes I wonder if she wasn’t actually one of the lucky ones to be able to escape this twisted world sooner. I guess that depends on what, if anything, happens after death.

Anyway, the prick says women should be forced to carry their rapist’s babies. How fucking sick is that?! Let someone implant female anatomy in him, rape him, impregnate him, and then see how easy it is for him to say that.

I didn’t read the article – I’m so sick of nothing but abortion, race, and Russia/Ukraine that I try to avoid the news except to get Bing points - but I saw a headline that said something to the effect of nurses gearing up for training that excluded abortion care. But aren’t they still going to train them for life-saving abortions? Or are they just going to let the mothers die? Sadly, I know better than to say that people aren’t that crazy because yes, they certainly are.

After they attack gay rights next, I wonder if they’ll ever make abortion illegal on a federal level. This country is really doomed if they do. I mean, that’s beyond crawling back into the dark ages. Once you revert to that shit it’s like, what’s next? Making women dress like they do in Muslim countries?

There are still some people worried that Putin’s gonna resort to nukes, but I still don’t see that. The only way there might be a slight possibility would be in a murder-suicide case if he knew he was dying. This would depend on how much he valued his family and friends. If he didn’t give a shit about them and knew he was about to die, then he might decide to take as many people as he could with him, but I doubt it.

Still think he can add a grand and maybe even a few grand to our yearly income, but I don’t see us ever in a position to move without him working, and of course, we don’t want that.

Sometimes I wonder…would it be worth it, despite the tremendous odds and receiving other people’s win notifications if I started sweeping again? I’m still thinking no. Way too many people entering sweeps these days. At least I’m up $20 in book sales, even though that won’t last.

Coming back over the drawbridge now and heading for the charger and then BK. I shouldn’t be eating crap, but it’s been a while and we all need variety and to treat ourselves now and then.

We didn’t exactly get our $8 worth today since we only stayed for about an hour. It was high tide, leaving us nothing but a rocky strip of “beach” to set up on. Getting in and out of the water was a bit treacherous too. Next time, we’re definitely going to go to an area with more sandy space even if it means more people, and there would probably still be rocks and shells to navigate. The problem with traversing the rocks is their lack of sturdiness. As soon as you put your weight on them, they roll out from under you. The water’s current tugging at my legs didn’t help either. I fell getting in and out of the water and nearly landed on my ass on the shore as well. It was especially hard getting out of the water and I needed Tom’s help. I’m a little perplexed as to why my balance has gotten so bad. I’m guessing it’s connected to age, weight, and shitty vision. Hard to believe I used to figure skate and skateboard as a kid and even did cross-country skiing and water skiing a couple of times. I would be absolutely terrified to put on a pair of skates now!

Swimming was still fun, although the water seemed slightly cooler this time. I got goosebumps after a while, but it was still nice despite some floating grass and accidentally swallowing a bit of water. We didn’t stay long. The rocks were getting to me and I didn’t bring anything to do yet didn’t want to stay in the water for hours. I think next time I’ll bring my phone and see if I can read in the shade. I’ve got the Kindle app on my phone.

I also want to see if I can find some kind of umbrella I could attach to my chair. That way we wouldn’t have to lug the umbrella. It always seems to take too long to set up and gather up the stuff to leave. Better yet, I want to look for a higher chair. It would be easier to get in and out of.

OK, we’re back at the house now and I just talk-typed up what I wrote in my rainbow journal that I’m going to leave here whether we move or die here someday. The next person in here is really going to be confused since it was written in on and off since 2014 and contains a mix of things. Stuff going on in my life, dreams, story excerpts, etc.

TUESDAY, MAY 17, 2022

Just when my slew of scam calls started slowing down, they’re picking back up again. I’m even getting some spam texts. Sooner or later I’ve got to have most numbers blocked that they could possibly call me from, right? eyeroll

Found out some really interesting information about the mutt that’s been annoying on and off. I said hello to Toni and casually mentioned hearing more barking lately that’s kind of annoying, and as expected, she said it was coming from Steve’s place. Apparently, it’s Roy’s service dog. Roy couldn’t take care of it anymore, so Steve adopted it. I’m surprised because I thought a service dog would be a lot more composed, even though it’s likely confused as to why it’s suddenly in a new home with new people. Toni and I are hoping it just has to get used to its surroundings, but I think this is just the way the dog is and it probably barked at Roy’s place as well. She says she’s used to it, but also annoyed and feels stuck between a rock and a hard place because she feels bad for the dog being uprooted and all that, and therefore feels obligated not to say anything. She told me not to hesitate, to complain if it bothers me, though. But of course I won’t. And I did tell her without going into details that complaints have a way of backfiring on me so I wasn’t willing to go that route.

Where it got interesting was that her sister used to live in her place. She let the dog bark that she had at the time and got complaints. She received a letter saying that it had to be resolved or she needed to leave. But then Toni came around and kept it quiet. So as I knew was the case, it isn’t that Steve can’t do something about it but that he chooses not to.

Jessie told her immediate neighbors to let her know if her dogs get annoying. She says it’s horrible living in manufactured homes because the walls are so thin. Indeed they are. I definitely miss being on a concrete slab with brick walls.

Anyway, Toni said “complaints” as in plural. So as long as it wasn’t whoever was in this house and in Steve’s house before he moved in, then somebody around here doesn’t like barking. Now I’m hoping the barking will actually get a little worse and entice them to complain again. I feel really bad for those on the sides of Steve. Tom guess is one of the complainers is the guy across the street because he has one of those ‘no pooping’ signs on his grass.

Tom said it barked for 30 seconds or less because somebody went on the roof to paint the trim. Well, I really hope someone will take the honors of complaining because I think we’re gonna hear it three or four times a day, if not more, until they do. I have too much of a complex on me after past experiences to have the guts to complain and I know Tom wouldn’t want that.

I assured Toni I would keep our discussion confidential, thanked her for letting me go to her about the dog, and she said no problem. That’s what neighbors are for. So she’s the new Mrs. Twenties of sorts.

It’s a pity I’ve had to spend so much time over the years trying to get people to shut the fuck up. It’s almost like it’s been a side job. It also sucks how the Supreme Court can take from millions of women and I can’t take this one thing from one person. I would love to be able to take away the things that people annoy me with! As in abuse it and lose it. The thing is after I took the dog away from him since he obviously won’t control it, I don’t know what I would do with it. I wouldn’t want a dog that noisy and I wouldn’t have the patience to train it myself. Besides, we’re not ready for a pet and the expense it would bring. I would probably surrender it to a shelter so it could be adopted. Just not one nearby figuring he might look there, LOL.

It sucks just how polarized this country is with no middle ground. Why do so many people refuse to see all the gray areas in between? I just don’t get this. I can’t stand checking the news because it’s all about attacks on women, attacks on gays, attacks on Ukraine, the race bullshit, etc. There’s so much hate and control out there. It’s almost like nothing good happens anymore.

Andy says that while both were horrible, slavery was worse because it went on for 400 years instead of the 8 years World War Two lasted. But were 6 million of them killed? Then again, I guess length of time matters as much as the actual event. If I had to choose between spending the rest of my life in prison versus dying relatively quickly, I would take the latter. Either way, it isn’t black’s past that I have a problem with, but how they are in modern times. Some of them anyway.

Mia’s free gift sucks this week. It’s a men’s suit jacket. What is she going to do with that? Dress up like a guy?

For $75, we found a higher beach chair that has a canopy on top that pivots. It has a cupholder too. It might be harder to shade all of me, but all that matters is my upper body.

Ordered another spiral-bound journal as well since I’m almost finished with this one.

Although it will never be much, it’s fun watching my books work for me and generate extra money. First, I slaved over working to create them and now they work for me. I just put them out there and do nothing but hope they make money. Also, that no one goes review-bombing.

Last night I had this really bizarre dream. It started off great because I had this cute brown rat that was very obedient and loving. I would call its name, whatever that was, and it would come to me and snuggle up with me.

But then Tom and I were about to die. I don’t know if we were planning to kill ourselves together or if something was going to kill us that we had no control over, but instead of being sad, mad, or scared, we were thrilled. This was because we knew we would get out of the possibility of having future diseases and other forms of suffering. Plus, we wouldn’t have to watch our beloved rat die. Then he joked and said, “It figures, though, that when we’re about to die, I get more programming ideas,” and we laughed as if it was the funniest thing in the world.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 18, 2022

They’re expecting a wave of violence across the country when abortion is officially criminalized. I wouldn’t expect much for this. Most of the violence is race-related. If there is, it will be pointless since it wouldn’t be directed at the people who deserve the violence. I would absolutely love for someone to beat the shit out of or even kill some of these – I hate to call them justices because there’s nothing “just” about them – and make an example out of them to show society what can happen when you play God with other people’s lives. But that’s the problem…they are God. They’re invincible and they know it. So they get a little protesting outside their homes. That’s as far as it will ever go.

Nothing can or will change until the justices are mostly liberals. This takes decades. Even when and if that finally happens, it will eventually revert back to a conservative majority once again and go back and forth over the decades. Everybody’s gotta try to one-up the other. I think the US, along with Poland, are the only two countries to revert back to the Dark Ages. It’s sick. It really is. The US is one of the last countries I thought would ever stoop so low. I thought we valued women a little more than that here, but apparently not.

Next will be the gays. I wonder how long it will be before gay marriage is a thing of the past. I’m so sick of this little black-and-white world I live in where one day something’s legal and the next it’s not and back and forth and back and forth with the giving and taking of rights.

And I’m sick of Steve. He and his mutt need to go. The fucking thing barked yesterday at 8:00 PM, and it was for more than a minute. Damn, I hope someone will complain! If he is like most people though, he won’t take it very well, especially since it appears he has a temper. I heard him arguing and swearing at either his wife or the mutt and then storming out of the place to get something out of his car. He then shut the door with a honk and went back inside.

Tom lowered the sprinklers because he might have them start mowing now that the grass is starting to go to seed. To our surprise, they didn’t mow yesterday. He also glued what I call a disco ball back onto this black iron stand. It’s a ball with a pretty, colorful metallic coating.

We power-washed the driveway and the car. Tom did most of it because I’m short.

My new beach chair arrived in it’s great. The only thing is that my feet don’t touch the ground, but if I have a mound of sand in front of me, that can be a little footrest.

I can’t wait to get back to the beach! I forgot to mention that for a split second I saw a dolphin just as it was diving under the water.

THURSDAY, MAY 19, 2022

Looked at the high-low temperature differences between this place and the old place. Where they’re 90s/50s, we’re 80s/70s. Much more comfortable here, even though it’s gotten a bit humid. I hated those high fluctuations between night and day.

Tom really nailed it when picking out new blinds for the lanai. Instead of real bamboo reeds, they’re white plastic but look so much better. You can see through them easier and they let in more light, yet you still have privacy. I wouldn’t want them for a bathroom or a bedroom, though. We still don’t expect to use that room very often. After the windows are done we’ll do the floor. We’ll probably just put down foam tiles.

One of the fitted sheets is coarse and pilling, so I decided to replace it, but instead of getting cotton or microfiber, I’m getting a satin sheet.

I’ll be seeing a male ENT in Port Richey on the 1st.

FRIDAY, MAY 20, 2022

Oklahoma is now officially sicker than Texas. They won’t even give you six weeks. In OK, any fertilized egg at any stage is considered a “life.” So what if it doesn’t have a brain or pain receptors? snorts with disgust You know, I just don’t understand how women could have a “guaranteed” constitutional right for half a century and suddenly it’s not OK anymore.

I once asked Tom if he thought I should bother editing typos out of old journals and he said no, leave them as they were written. I think I’m gonna take his advice. Why slave over something for so long and do all that work for free for something that may never be read in the future? I still may tinker with it a bit, but I get that you can’t possibly have thousands and thousands of pages of writing and not expect to have a few typos here and there.

I’ve set the final dates for my journal and a few stories to be published in 2045 on Blogger. I just don’t think we’re gonna be around in 23 years and if we are, we’re not going to have much time left. Chances are very slim of any legal trouble arising from anything I publish, and if there is, it isn’t the kick-your-door-in-and-arrest-you kind of trouble but the send-you-a-subpoena-that-you-ignore kind of trouble. I don’t care if the story of my life as I knew it offends or hurts anyone’s feelings, nor do I care what any laws say. If I have something to say, I’m going to say it. There are no direct threats or sensitive info that I’ve shared in any way, and that’s good enough for me. No one is ever forced to read my stuff.

Had fun with the Wander app again last night. I went to my first childhood home and took pictures to show Tom. Plus, my grandparents’ place next door. Mostly I had fun going to random locations. Some of them were pretty obvious, like the ancient ruins of Peru as well as the desert area in Arizona and Mexico.

At one point I landed in an empty house in what I’m guessing was some Asian country because of the way there was Asian writing on a sticker on the side of the kitchen counter. It was a cool-looking place. It was fun to explore and like breaking and entering without actually breaking and entering.

Managed to sleep through some thunder today. On a scale of 1 to 10, Tom said it was a 7, and this is coming from a guy who’s half deaf. The real test comes in a couple of months.

Got one of my worst sleep scores in a while of only 78. I kept waking up a lot. It was probably the wine I had. That’s going to be eliminated again for a while soon as I get ready in 10 days or so to make the next dose increase. My mother showed up in my dreams again too. It was a weird dream because she lived in a house by herself somewhere and I lived within walking distance of the place. I have no idea what state this was in or who got there first, but I was walking by her place one day. I hadn’t seen her in a while. She was indoors, but I spotted a young woman and a young guy in her front yard. I figured the young woman that was sitting on a bench was the housekeeper and the guy was fixing something. It frustrated me and I even felt a little hurt that she included me in so little of her life that I didn’t know who they were.

Then the dream jumped forward in time a little bit. After walking to wherever I was going, I was walking back when I saw my mother getting something out of her car. I walked up to her holding what looked like a small raft in front of my face. All she could see were my eyes. At first, she didn’t know who I was, and then she said my name. I uncovered my face with a giggle. She seemed to have mixed emotions about me being there. She gave me a quick kiss seemingly out of obligation. I didn’t return the affection. Instead, I pointed to a long round metal tank in her yard and asked her what it was for. She mumbled something, and then I was on my way home.

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