How to deal with the neighborhood drug dealer

A few months ago I posted a little bit about Drug Dealing Dave (DDD from here on out) and my frustration that Management at the Park refused to do anything about his obvious trafficking.

I may have mentioned in previous posts that Noreen, half of the “management team” at the park – that’s a story for another day – has Meth Face. Her teeth are broken and she has the look of a long-time meth user but she’s never appeared high in my presence and I never asked, feeling that if she was in recovery she might not want to talk about it.

She and her husband became fast friends with DDD right off the bat. I pointed out the Tweaker Parades back when the weather was warm and got only a lukewarm response out of Noreen. I pointed out the car traffic going back to DDD’s trailer and complained about his coming and going at all hours of the night, waking me up.

“He drives a taxi,” was Noreen’s reply.

Uh…I don’t think so. Not in his jacked-up mini-truck with the loud muffler and ridiculous big tires. Not in a million years. And anyway, what kind of taxi driver leaves at 0200 and returns at 0210? Suuuuuuurrrrrreeeeee….I was not buying that line at all.

After my complaint about the noise of DDD’s truck, his nighttime trips became more quiet, but didn’t stop, so I knew I had to do something more drastic. An online search led me to print out a bunch of “suspicious activity” reports which I handed out to the Mrs. Kravitz’ in the park. Conveniently, they live right near DDD and are retired. I instructed them to write down everything they saw, including license plate numbers, and when the sheet was full, to call the Sheriff out. The Sheriff was asked again and again why they didn’t make an arrest, but it seems there wasn’t enough evidence. They knew all about DDD but for whatever reason they did nothing – that pisses me off.

It wasn’t long before the Sheriff was a regular presence in the park. Park Rules state that if the police are called to your “unit” three times, you’re out, no more chances. That rule was bent for DDD and he changed his tactics. The traffic changed from cars to young people with backpacks – they would come in with a pack on, stop at DDD’s and leave with a different backpack.

Now, you could argue that maybe he’s just a friendly guy who the local kids like, right? Nuh-uh! There is no earthly reason for teenagers to be dropping by a single man’s trailer for a few minutes and then leaving. Unless they’re engaged in some sort of illicit activity, but Noreen would not be convinced. Okie-dokie, then!

The Mrs. Kravitz’ continued their work and I waited for something to happen. I would have participated more actively, but I work and couldn’t see DDD’s trailer from mine.

And then one day Noreen was out walking with the owner of the park. He’s 94 and doesn’t get out much, but on that day he was feeling good. Mrs. Kravitz #1 stopped him and Noreen on their walk and asked what was going to be done about the drug dealer. He, of course, knew nothing about it. Noreen tried to drag him away, but Mrs. Kravitz #1 would not be deterred. She’s lived in the Park for 15 years and always been upfront with everyone (to the point of being a bitch, but sometimes it gets things done) so he knew she wasn’t making shit up.

“Give him a 24-hour notice! Now!” he commanded, and just like that DDD was forced to move. He’s now in a little park near where I work, so I see him on occasion. He’s parked right next to another former park member, Kyle, who DDD got kicked out on trumped up complaints. Funny they’re neighbors again 🙂

Noreen is avoiding me now. Won’t let me get close enough to look into her eyes. I suspect she and her husband were customers of DDD and really liked having a supply so close at hand. Meth is a big problem in my little town, as are opiates, or so I hear. I’m fed up with it! The only way to get it out of our neighborhoods is if we stand together and insist they move on. If they can’t be prosecuted, it’s the next best thing since there’s no Open Season on them…

 

Irritating Weekend

I don’t know how much more I can take. Crazy Dog Lady has been pressuring me to come over and solve her computer problems since the last time I was there, back in July. I finally set a date and told her this would be the last trip until after Winter because I am not driving that route in the pouring down rain or snow. Of course, I have to go back in a few weeks for my Court Appearance (provided the case goes to court, that is) but the weekend was supposed to get her all sorted and moving forward again. Sigh.

I really have too many things on my plate right now to justify taking time off to drive two hours (one way) but I know she has no other way to get things ironed out and I try to be a Good Person and not gripe about it too much, but this time very nearly ended with me driving home, never to speak to CDL again.

You see, when I got there she had company. Nevermind that I was “scheduled” to be there and stay in her cottage and we’d had plans for a couple of weeks. She’d double-booked! Okay, fine, it was her niece and she had to leave in a couple of hours anyway. CDL is easily distracted and I had planned to be out of there by noon on Sunday – if we wasted time “visiting” the computer stuff would not get done and I would get progressively more irritated the longer she forced me to stay.

Fine. CDL insisted we take Donna for a walk in the woods since she’s from California and evidently they don’t have woods there? Srsly? I hate hiking. Sabu is not a well behaved dog, and now we’re gonna turn her and her pals loose in the woods? Sure. That couldn’t go wrong….

I changed shoes and we piled into two cars (Sabu can’t ride in CDL’s car and she won’t let any other dogs ride in hers so every time I’m over there we have to drive separately which is a total PITA) and off we went. CDL drives like a maniac but I followed and we made it. Then it’s downhill, uphill, more downhill to the creek and throwing sticks for the dogs to chase. Sabu doesn’t chase sticks. At all. Sabu wallows in the creek and races up and down the trail until she can’t move because she is now an Old Lady Dog. It went better than I thought it would as far as Sabu was concerned but by the time we’d hiked back to the cars I was panting and sore and ready for a nap. No one had mentioned hiking so I hadn’t brought proper shoes and let me tell you, tall muck boots are not made for hiking in the woods!

Then we had to have lunch. Meh. It wasn’t great and there wasn’t a spot in the shade to park my car, making me anxious for Sabu but it was a cool day.

Donna left after lunch and CDL insisted we take the dogs to run on the beach because Sunday’s weather forecast called for rain & wind. Sigh. Okay, fine. We went to the beach but Sabu was pretty much done at that point. CDLs dogs were fairly well behaved but I was not enjoying the gale-force winds whipping sand into my eyes one bit.

We got back to the house and CDL asked me if I wanted to go outside and sit in the sun. Wha….??? I told her it was way to windy for that. Well, she knows a place where we can sit in the sun out of the wind…Uh…no.

And then she nearly slayed me.

“We need to get started on the computer stuff, don’t you think? It’s already after 3:00 and I’m not gonna stay up until 2 AM like you do….” I said.

“I don’t need any computer stuff done,” she replied. “I thought you should come over and relax. Have a vacation!”

She was taken aback at the sight of my eyes bugging out of my head.

“Relax?!?!?!?” I stammered. “I don’t have time to relax! I have four hundred things that need to be done before Winter sets in For Real and relaxing is not one of them!”

I was furious. I tried to recover and not sound like a total bitch, but I had so many other ways to spend my time. Gaaaahhhhhhh!!!

I did my best to be cheerful and get some stuff done, but it was not fun. At all.

While we were chatting at the computer, trying to get some files copied onto a thumb drive, she mentioned that she had someone else “helping” her with the online stuff and couldn’t find her phone number and would I look through the emails so we could call her Sunday morning at 9:30? Uh-huh. CDL doesn’t get up that early, but whatever.

I looked through the emails and discovered that CDL had been emailing with this woman from Arkansas for almost three weeks and that she’d sent all her passwords to her! WTF?!? I reserved judgement until the phone call, which happened late, as CDL was not up when she said she would be and in fact I had to wake her up to make the call. Sigh. I was most unhappy at that point and the rain was falling down sideways already and I was not looking forward to the drive home.

Anyway, turns out this woman has no clue about anything internet related and could not make sense of CDL’s password email. I was suspicious of her going in and she only confirmed my reservations the more we all talked – she was on speaker, of course, so no translations would be necessary.

I was rather gruff with her and refused to give her unlimited access to CDL’s website or Facebook account and I know CDL was put off by that, but I explained later that she doesn’t know this woman, and based on what I heard this woman has no clue what she’s doing. AND CDL is paying her $10 an hour! In fact, she’s already sent her $60, because, “she doesn’t know me, so I had to prove I’m willing to pay her – you wouldn’t work for free, would you?”

Right. I said, “No employer in the world gives people money BEFORE they’ve done any work, and no one in their right mind just hands over the keys to their online life to a perfect stranger!”

Gaaaahhhhhhh!!!

I know some people would praise CDL for being so trusting, but this will end badly, mark my words…

The drive home was every bit as nasty as I thought it would be and I was relieved to get home at last.

The Kid is eager to redeem himself and was sober when I arrived. I’d set him to painting Towanda’s interior and he’s doing a good job. Not as quick as I’d like but I’m not paying him, so it’s fine. The change of color is refreshing and the insulating stuff added to the paint should make Winter a little bit more bearable.

It is SOOOOO Monday!

 

Summoning my Inner Calm…

This week is shaping up to set new records for spiking my blood pressure.

Mom texted me on Tuesday to let me know she’d been subpoenaed to appear in court in Newport for a trial next month. She has to drive 215 miles one way to testify in a domestic case. Well, huh. I was there when the “incident” went down and I hadn’t received my summons, and I was hoping they wouldn’t be calling me but today I got a call from “Restricted” and knew immediately what it was about.

A Sheriff was in the trailer park but I hadn’t given my whole address to the cops on the day of the “incident” so he didn’t know what trailer to knock on and was reluctant to knock until he found me. Of course, I wasn’t even there, so he would have been out of luck. I directed him to my office and he served me and left. Sigh.

After taking a look at who was being tried, well, my blood pressure went through the roof. The wrong person is on trial and I am pissed that it’s even going to trial. A look at the prosecutor and all is now clear.

When I still lived on The Coast, I had Jury Duty. It was a ridiculous waste of time for all parties and I doubt I should go into the details except to say that the attorney for the defense was a young woman who was ill-prepared and, well, idiotic. We the jury convicted because the defense had no case. It was absurd and I left with a bad impression of the defense attorney and her client.

Seems she’s moved up in the world to Deputy District Attorney! OMFG! Granted, it’s been a few years and she must have more experience now, but she has no case if she’s basing it on eye-witness testimony.

Here’s what happened –

Mom and I were at Crazy Dog Lady’s house one Sunday back in July, spreading rock salt onto the weeds in the ditch from the trunk of CDL’s car. I was already angry because killing weeds was not on my agenda for the weekend and we were on a schedule. We were about to get started when I looked up the street and saw a woman walking down the hill towards us. I didn’t think much of it until she started waving her arms and yelling for help.

She started to shuffle-run towards us and a car crested the hill, moving slowly, a woman hanging her head out the window saying, “Just give me my stuff back. You can’t go to work like this. I just want the money you stole from me…” She wasn’t yelling, she wasn’t chasing, she wasn’t threatening at all, IMHO.

The woman (younger by a few years) on foot came rushing up to us, desperate for a phone. She wanted to go into CDL’s house and I held up my hands and told her to stay where she was. Something was very off about her and my hackles were up. She was going on and on about the other woman chasing her and she needed the police and wanted to go inside.

I ran in to get the phone and CDL came running out, phone in hand, asking what was going on. The woman started spinning a tale, and I say it that way because I was watching her work on CDL’s sympathy like a pro. I can’t really explain what I mean, but if you’ve ever dealt with a snake in human skin you know just what I mean – it was fake, engineered, scripted to play heartstrings and not a bit of it was true.

So. I asked the woman from the car if drugs were involved because the woman on foot was coming down from something and it was a bad trip. The woman from the car was sober and had that defeated look on her face that I’ve had myself when you know that the lying asshole is going to get away with it, again, and nothing you say is going to change a thing.

She told me that this has happened before and she’s had to move 5 times in the last year because of the drama caused by the younger woman. I said that maybe this would be a good time to make a clean break and let the drama go. The whole scene felt like something they’d played out many times before.

I’d never met either of these women before, but my narc-dar was ringing like a bell so I was watching them both. The woman from the car was defeated, depressed, humiliated, and just wanting to get out of there, which she did when the police didn’t show up within 15 minutes. She said they could talk to her at home and off she went.

Meanwhile, CDL is calling the police every three minutes, sounding more and more hysterical. Let me assure you, no one was on fire or bleeding, but the woman on foot was winding CDL up like one of those old alarm clocks and CDL was about to blow. I watched the woman very closely and could see that CDL was falling for it hook, line and sinker. When she went inside to get a sweater for the woman, an amazing change took place – the woman’s expression and body language changed completely, from tearful victim to calculating monster. I saw it very clearly. I turned away before she could see that I’d seen and CDL came back out, sweater in hand, and the woman once again became the tearful victim. BUT when she asked me for a cigarette I saw who she was and she saw that I recognized her.

It was a good show – if she knew me she would have shut down the waterworks and tried a different tack, but no, here we are.

So Mom and I spread the salt and the police came. The woman was questioned. CDL was questioned and of course told a tale of victimization because she hadn’t even seen the other woman, so focused was she on the “victim.”

I was questioned and I told the police exactly what I saw, including my opinion that the woman on foot was creating a drama-filled scene and I didn’t believe a word she said. I explained why I thought what I thought. I gave my contact info and went inside to finish crossing things off my list so I could get the fuck out of Crazy Town. Mom gave her statement and that, we thought, was that.

I had a conversation with CDL about the incident later and she was convinced that the woman on foot was horribly abused and needed help. She totally bought the act even though she only had one side of the story. She was called in to testify before the Grand Jury and told the story as she remembered it. Here’s the kicker, though – I was the only one who saw the two women approach, the only one who saw the car actually in motion (a lot of questions were asked about if the car was “chasing” the woman on foot) and I was not called to testify then – doubtless there would have been no case because I am not a bleeding heart who believes alligator tears and would have told the Whole Story as I’d seen it unfold, but there ya go.

I dunno. Now I have to appear in court and I am not happy about it. If the prosecutor is calling Mom and me to testify, don’t you think she would have deposed us? She has no idea what we might say on the stand, especially considering the wrong woman is on trial. I would think the notes the police took make my position clear on the matter, but maybe she is as green as she appeared the last time I saw her.

I mean, doesn’t she watch How to Get Away With Murder? Annalise would never ask a question she didn’t know the answer to or put an unknown witness on the stand, especially if all evidence points to said witness being hostile to her client.

As if that’s not enough, The Kid was drunk when I got home from work last night. Not a little tipsy. Not enjoying a little buzz. Fall down, slurring, stupid, pass-out drunk. He was awake when I got there but my silent fury caused him to go outside and pass out in a chair on the patio in full view of all my neighbors. Towanda smelled like a frat house.

By this morning I had calmed down enough to yell at him without putting my hands around his skinny neck or calling him names. It seems, contrary to his protestations, that if he has cash in his pocket he will spend it on booze. Fine. I told him he could do whatever he wants to do with his cash but I don’t have to live with it. I’ve been here before and I don’t have to live like this. I didn’t kick him out in August because it looked like he had some prospects and he had an attitude change and was helping me with some chores I just couldn’t get to but my patience is at an end.

Stay tuned.

 

Seems all I do is bitch around here…

Life has been very busy around here of late, most of it going just slightly off center in the most irritating of ways – hanging the skirt on Towanda and discovering the sticky snaps don’t stick, losing the base of not one, but two dress forms that I needed to set up a display in the local Art Guild Shop, having the scheduled time for said display set up moved to a completely different day at the last minute, like I have all the time in the world to do this shit, The Kid still being unemployed and needing a haircut, just to name a few.

But this post isn’t about most of that. It’s about (again) assholes and petty thievery.

A week or so ago, The Kid and I were working on Towanda’s skirts (not yet aware of the snap problem) and I moved my bicycle from where it was chained (totally in the way and I wasn’t using it anyway) to laying under the trailer, mostly out of sight of casual passersby. All was well.

On Sunday afternoon, Yvonne and I were outside talking over her tomato plants when we observed a young woman with a baby stroller enter the park, phone in hand, looking at the screen and turning this way and that, almost like she was lost and looking at a map or something. We remarked upon it but soon went back to more important discussions* and forgot about her.

Sabu has been particularly growly in the evenings, for lack of a better term, waking and stalking about growling low in her throat and even barking on occasion. I put it down to her being cranky at not having her usual number of outings at the dog park and figured it was just her arch-nemisis, Scooter, out strutting around like he owns the place (in his mind, he does. They’re basically the same dog in two bodies) and told her to hush.

Last night after I’d gotten in bed I heard a sound like a door slamming. Sabu jumped up and barked a couple of times but we didn’t go outside. All was quiet after that and I thought no more about it.

This morning when I took Sabu out for her morning walk I noticed a piece of metal siding I’d stashed under the trailer lying in the grass. The siding had been under my bicycle. A closer look confirmed the bike is gone. The thief must have pulled the bike out, it got caught on the siding and the sound I heard last night was the siding crashing about as they made off with my bike.

Fuck. It was not an expensive bike, but it was mine and the thought of fucking tweakers making off with my stuff boils my blood! So far in the last three months or so a couple of bikes have gone missing in the park as well as two bike trailers. My guess is that the girl with the stroller was casing the park to report back to the thieves where the easy pickings were to be found. Yvonne said she’d seen her a few times, wandering around like she was looking for someone.

So now I’ve become a victim of theft. I am hopping mad. I do not own a gun, but I do have a high-powered taser and the desire to see just what it does to a human being. If Sabu gets growly again, well, we’re gonna hurry outside and have ourselves a little look-see. Pretty sure I won’t go to jail for tasering a would-be thief, but I’m willing to take the chance at this point.

Life is getting too irritating to bear right now, what with the Peri-menopausal rages, wildly irregular periods and now I think I’m having hot flashes during the day and I’m waking up at night because I’m too hot. Me! Too hot under two thin blankets in fucking October! If you knew me at all you would be picking your jaw up off the floor at that last sentence, I assure you. Cold in the morning, flashes of hot during the afternoon, cold in the evening, despite adding layers and the temp being in the mid-60’s, and waking up in the middle of the night to throw off the covers.

Fuck. Just fuck.

* Like whether Drug Dealing Dave is really dealing drugs (yup! I’d stake my reputation on it) or whether we should give him the benefit of the doubt (Yvonne’s idea – she thinks he’s getting a bad rap based on stories he’s told her that don’t come anywhere close to adding up.) He’s still in the park, despite the efforts of The Old Ladies to get him out. They’re calling the Sheriff regularly about the excessive traffic of his “friends” but Management (Ha! what a joke!) at the park remains convinced that he’s a Good Guy, but they are very likely customers in his meth trade…OMG! I am so furious over the whole situation, I can’t tell you! Meanwhile, the tweaker parades have stopped being so obvious but Drug Dealing Dave races into and out of the park multiple times each evening and Management will hear nothing about it. There is no other explanation for his activities or the traffic around his trailer. None. Not even in the wildest, kindest, most ignorant imaginings of a total moron.

 

Coining a New Phrase

Doesn’t everyone at some time or other wish they could be the one to coin a new phrase? A phrase so very catchy that soon everyone is saying it? Just me? Whatevs.

Today’s New Phrase, or rather acronym, is EPS – Entitled Penis Syndrome. Surprisingly, Urban Dictionary has no listing for this particular acronym, so Yay!

What prompted me to invent this new term? I’m so glad you asked!

There’s a sign that hangs on the back door of my office that states the two parking spaces directly outside the door are for my company’s survey crew. This sign is 24″ wide x 36″ tall and is bright yellow, white and black. It’s not small, and it’s not the only sign – there’s a slightly smaller sign in red and white that states the same message. The reason those particular two spaces are reserved (the parking lot has 12 spaces and is private, for my company only) is because the Survey Dudes back in and load & unload the trucks directly through the door and into the back room of the building. Because of the high rate of (tweaker) crime in this crappy small town nothing of value is ever left inside the trucks. In fact, two of the Survey Dudes take the trucks home every night so they are never parked behind the building when business is closed.

So. On Monday some young man* drove into the lot and carefully backed his pickup up against the back door, got out, locked the truck and began to walk towards the Big Town Hero next door. I know this because I was out with Sabu and just returning to the office and I saw him.

“Hey!” I said/shouted, “that spot is reserved. You can’t park there.”

“I’ll just be a minute,” he tossed over his shoulder.

“Uh, no,” I said, a bit louder now. “That spot is reserved for the survey crew and you need to move your truck.”

“I’ll just be a minute!” This time with a dismissive hand gesture at me without even turning around.

“So if they come back and don’t have a spot to park to unload the trucks, well, you’ll ‘be back in a minute’ and they can just wait for you?” I asked, getting really angry now. “Way to be an asshole!”

“I said I’ll just be a minute!” He finally turned to face me.

“You can see there’s a sign right there on the door and still you’re gonna park there, huh?” I might have had steam coming from my ears, I was so pissed at this entitled little shit.

“So what?” Another dismissive hand gesture and he was around the corner.

I seriously thought about keying his truck, but that wouldn’t have been in character for me – I much prefer to commit crimes no one can blame me for.

I went inside and asked Kyle if we had any recourse when someone parks in the clearly marked reserved spots.

“Was it my brother?” he asked with a grin.

“I hope not – I called him an asshole…”

Amanda had a better solution, though – she has printed up a little flyer, bright green, that clearly states the parking spot is reserved by City Ordinance and violators will be towed. They get ONE warning. Hah! I was quite happy to put that little missive under the asshole’s windshield wiper.

Let me just say here that there is A LOT of parking in front of Big Town Hero and he could have parked on the street all along the block, or across the street, or any number of other places. He was not disabled, and if he had been, well, there are MANY places he could have parked that would have been closer to his destination. He is just an Entitled Asshole.

BUT this was not the only piece of assholery I saw on that most irritating day of my week. Lest you feel I’m being sexist with my new catch phrase, I’d like to coin another: EBS, which can only stand for Entitled Bitch Syndrome. Why would I need yet another acronym to describe asshole behavior? Because, as I was driving Sabu to the dog park** a young woman in a red car rolled down her window, tossed out a napkin and then rolled the window back up. She actually tossed a napkin out of her car window into the street, in full view of a dozen or more people, and went merrily on her way. Who does that any more? How difficult would it have been for her to keep the napkin in her car until she got somewhere she could properly dispose of it? I would have run her down if I could have gotten over into that lane, but, alas, it was a futile thought.

Gahhhhh! That’s only the start of the assholery I’ve been witness to this week, but it’s all I have time for at the moment.

What say you – did I overreact?

* Funny how “young man” now encompasses any male under 30 in my mind.

** Srsly? When did I agree to be a dog chauffeur? Seems like all I do is work and pick up dog shit and hair all day.

 

 

“Doesn’t play well with others”

It might as well be tattooed onto my forehead.

In an effort to meet people my age who might have the same interests, I joined a Facebook group. I lurked for awhile to get a feel for the group and it seemed fine. The people are of both sexes and the only requirements are that they live in Oregon and be over 40. Sounds good, right?

And it was until a woman posted that her divorce was final that day, and while she left with her children because of his substance abuse, she still felt sad about the end of her marriage. She left when she realized that she had “stopped living” and his constant demands for money (she worked, he, of course, did not) meant that her kids were going hungry.

I was in the middle of composing a, “Way to go! Congratulations! You did the right thing for you and your children,” response when someone else (a woman, surprisingly) jumped in with a caustic paragraph condemning the newly-liberated woman for leaving her man when he was at his lowest. “You wouldn’t leave if he had cancer, would you? Alcoholism is the same thing. You’re a horrible person who will burn in hell.” or words to that effect.

Red flag in front of a bull! To compare substance abuse to cancer is not only ignorant, but cruel to a person who is still raw from being a victim of it at the hands of the man she meant to spend the rest of her life with.

I fired off an “I call bullshit on your comparison and here’s why…” reply and sat back to see what would happen. Several others joined in to tell Sarah Sunshine (yes, that’s her name) she was wrong to abuse another member of the group and that she needed to back off. She kept on, berating everyone who disagreed with her in rapidly escalating language. And then she started throwing around the c-word. Yep. She called three women posting to the thread cunts and said that she would rather shoot up a speed ball and follow it with a shot of vodka than be in a relationship with any of us narrow-minded, judgmental cunts.

That’s when the moderator of the group deleted the post.

Okay, fine. It did get out of control and name calling is the lowest form of debate. But then he posted (twice) telling everyone that he wouldn’t tolerate that kind of behavior and blah, blah, blah. Okay, I get it, but he was rather condescending, and to post twice? Really? He posted again this morning saying that he had some new moderators and there would be a crackdown on “inappropriate content.” Several people started asking in the comments what exactly that meant (as if he hadn’t already outlined his New Rules in the previous posts.) It got silly very quickly and I commented that I would never post anything I wouldn’t say to anyone’s face and couldn’t we all just act like adults?

My comment was deleted about ten minutes later. No warning, no questions asked, just gone. The new moderator posted an apology to another member for deleting his comment before reading it thoroughly. What? Someone else chimed in, asking WTF was going on with the comment deleting and I asked why my comment had been deleted as it was a harmless eye-roll.

I was told, with a shout out for all to see, that I was welcome to leave if I didn’t like my comments being deleted for no reason.

And so I left the group. This always happens. I’m also a thread killer – if I comment on something, very soon everyone quits posting. I dunno. I don’t think I’m especially combative online – I really don’t type anything I wouldn’t say to your face and I don’t mean to piss people off or whatever it is I do, but there ya go.

What say you? Did I do the right thing? Am I just being paranoid and/or crazy?

 

“Relax…” Part Two

A lot of things have been going on here that I haven’t blogged about, mainly because I am tired. So very tired. All you men can just stop reading here unless you want way too much information about the workings of the female reproductive system.

Okay?

Those who are squeamish have left, right?

Good. That leaves the sympathetic and the curious. Perfect.

So. I’m 46 this year. We all know what that means, right? I’m of the age where all those wonderful Changes start happening that herald the end of my child-bearing years and the beginning of Real Freedom from the plagues of women. Right? What a load of horseshit!

I want to lodge an official complaint to who-the-fuck-ever informs society about the “most common” symptoms of menopause. Dude, you suck!

Oh, sure, we’ve all heard about Hot Flashes, right? Great news – only about 30% of women experience hot flashes, and that’s the most common symptom we all hear about. Hot flashes and night sweats. I’m usually cold, so those don’t sound so bad. And, no, that’s not what I’m talking about today. Nope.

You occasionally hear that your periods will get lighter, irregular, and then stop altogether. When you haven’t had a period for 12 consecutive months, you’re officially in menopause and done with all that messy business. Right?

WELL! The symptoms no one talks about (except women on various internet boards who are all shocked and horrified, apparently) are the two I’m experiencing at the moment – flooding periods and peri-menopausal rage. I don’t know if one isn’t caused by the other, but I suspect they go hand-in-hand.

I’ve had regular periods all my life. Like you could set your watch by them. Seriously, totally predictable. A few years ago I went in for my usual Yearly Exam. The doc told me I could expect my periods to get erratic and likely much lighter in the next few years. It’s like the words went from her lips directly to my uterus and the irregularities began. Nothing too shocking, just not on schedule, but lighter, so that was a great bonus!

Not long after I left the narc, I missed completely for three months. There was no way I was pregnant, so I counted my blessings and was a bit disappointed when they started up again, slightly irregular, but back to my normal.

I missed February, March and April this year and was pleasantly surprised, but since there was no way I was pregnant, I didn’t think too much about it. In May it  came back a little more severe – more PMS than usual, heavier bleeding, but nothing too strange.

But then! June 7 (about a week early) it started. With a vengeance. At first I didn’t make much of it. Maybe it was a little heavier than usual, but no biggie, right?

And then it was quite a bit heavier than usual. No panic, this never lasts more than five days and I can do five days of pretty much anything.

That was when the flood began. It went on and on. And on and on. A full week. Still, no biggie, this is to be expected at this stage in my life. But it didn’t stop. It was heavy and oh-my-god-surely-I’m-dying heavy. Then nothing overnight. Whew! It’s over, right? Nope. It’s freaking Niagra Falls down there, if Niagra Falls were prominently featured in a slasher flick.

Today marks Day 18. A bit of online research reveals that it can go on much longer or stop at any time. It can never happen again or start up again at any time. Either/or and/or both at once. Lovely. AND I can expect this to go on for 4-10 years! Halla-freakin-looya. Being female sucks.

Besides the irritation of going to the toilet and having it look like a crime scene, there’s the expense of all the pads I go through.

From a website (they all agree on this info):

The usual length of menstrual bleeding is four to six days. The usual amount of blood loss per period is 10 to 35 ml. Each soaked normal-sized tampon or pad holds a teaspoon (5ml) of blood. That means it is normal to soak one to seven normal-sized pads or tampons (“sanitary products”) in a whole period.

Srsly? So I pay way too much money for pads that only soak up a teaspoon of liquid? How many drops is that? I’ll save you the Googling – one teaspoon equals 76 drops. Okay. So each pad soaks up 76 drops. Lemme tell you this – Flooding Periods can produce as much as 2 cups! How many drops is that? Yep – 4,732 drops per cup, for a total of 9,464 drops. Divide that by 76 and you get 124.52 pads. I wish I was kidding. Two pads per hour sometimes and it shows no sign of stopping. It’s a laugh riot around here, lemme tell you.

Now, being smarter than the average bear, I use a FemmeCup, which holds 7.5 – 15 ml, so more than two pads, which makes it a bit more convenient, but it still has to be emptied every couple of hours and if I miss that, well, it gets really messy, really quick. Good thing I have a good stain stick for the laundry!

If all of this becomes too inconvenient, I can opt for birth control pills (which may or may not work to bring my cycles back to a predictable rhythm and which have many terrible side effects, naturally much more severe considering my age and that I smoke) an IUD (with more side effects and which may not work but could result in a host of really nasty problems) a D&C (which may or may not work and can result in severe pain and other side effects) a hysterectomy (just what I need – invasive surgery which will knock my hormones into all kinds of insanity but will bring on menopause proper) or various other drugs that may or may not work but will have side effects that may or may not make life unbearable.

All the websites agree that I should go see the doc and have a host of tests done, some invasive, some not so much, all of which will confirm that I am indeed Peri-menopausal and this is just the beginning of the next chapter of my life. With the wait to see a doc around here, I think I’ll pass on that one.

ALSO, I’m probably anemic, which can lead to a bunch of complications, including fainting. Yay! I bought some multivitamins and iron tabs today at lunch time to try to head that off before it becomes a problem. It does explain the fatigue, though.

Which brings us back to the Peri-menopausal Rage that I mentioned. Yeah. That’s not something anyone warns you about. My moods are all over the place and I would cheerfully choke the life out of my own child if it meant my uterus would quit gushing blood for just a few hours. I’m not even kidding. So far I haven’t acted out, but I think I chipped a tooth biting back words that I really didn’t want to speak to someone with a penis who was being especially stupid in that moment. Or maybe he wasn’t being stupid. Who can even remember? It was…something…whatever. The rage has passed, for now, but I know it will be back.

The good news is that I haven’t had any hot flashes or night sweats! Yay?!? Or will that be the next cross to bear?

Oh, but wait! There’s more stress. Tune in tomorrow for Part the Third.

 

Drama at the Dog Park!

Saturday afternoon Sabu and I went to the dog park on the way to the Studio, as we do four or five days a week. We’ve never had a problem – people are respectful and the dogs tend to work things out themselves while the people talk.

This particular park has separate areas for large dogs and small dogs. Sometimes people take puppies or very shy dogs into the small dog side so they can play without getting hurt. It sometimes gets very rough on the big dog side of the park, but we all understand that dogs like to play and wrestle and so far I haven’t seen anyone hurt.

Sabu, being Alpha, is often in the middle of a confrontation, breaking it up, maintaining order. Yeah, surprised the hell out of me the first time I saw it, but there ya go – she will have no fighting in her pack and has done some pretty strange things during our dog park adventures.

Sabu and I went through the first gate and into the little holding area. I took her leash off and opened the second gate as an older couple (and by older I just mean older than me – I have very little notion of age other than older than me, younger than me and “children” which has come to include anyone under 25, much to my dismay.) with a large Labrador-looking dog came in through the first gate.

Dog park etiquette dictates that you don’t bring your dog into the holding area or open the first gate until the dog before you has exited the second gate and it’s been closed, letting dog and human into the alley that leads to the park proper. Dogs can fight if they’re confined together before they get to know each other and most dogs are already over excited just being at the park – no need to add fuel to the fire, right?

They followed too closely and Sabu doubled back to see if they would be lax at the gate, letting her escape for a romp in the pond. I caught her and dragged her back.

“Is your dog nice?” the woman asked.

“Yes, she’s nice, but she’s a gate pusher. I’ll just hold her until you get in so she doesn’t knock you over.”

They came in, closed the gate and I let Sabu go, turning my back and calling for her to move out into the main part of the park.

The man was holding the leash and not taking it off the dog – a real no-no at the dog park as dogs on leashes can be very defensive towards dogs not on leashes. You’re supposed to take the leash off in the holding area so the dog enters the park with no leash, thereby minimizing confrontations – when Sabu doubled back again to have a sniff at the new dog. Because she’s Alpha, she bumped him on the shoulder to let him know what was what and he stumbled, causing the woman to start shrieking at me.

My back was partly turned, but as soon as I realized Sabu wasn’t at my side I whirled around and tried to grab her. She was dodging around, not at all sure what the yelling was about but not willing to move away from this new dog – he was now part of her pack and if the shrieking woman wouldn’t shut up, well, something was about to Get Done about the situation.*

I leaned down to get a grip on Sabu’s harness, noticing the woman’s feet and getting distracted. She was wearing flip flops and her feet were all twisted up. A bunch of things ran through my head and I finally settled upon “ballet dancer” as an explanation and tuned in to what she was saying. I mean, Sabu hadn’t done anything wrong and I was confused about what the woman was so upset about.

“We just spent $6000 on surgeries for this dog! We saved his life and now he could be hurt again! He’s only just been cleared to go out on a leash and now this! Get your dog under control!” and on and on in this vein at high volume.

I finally got a good grip on Sabu and looked the woman in the face.

“I’m sorry! You do realize this is an off-leash park?”

“Of course!” she snapped back at me. “It’s just that he hasn’t seen other dogs in so long we thought it would be good for him to come here but I can see that no one keeps their dogs under control and I spent all this money blah, blah, blah…”

That set me off. “You can’t expect to bring a dog to an off-leash dog park and not let it be a dog. All the other dogs here are off leash. All of the dogs are big dogs. If your dog is recovering from an injury you should not have brought it here.”

I was fuming and not about to let this entitled bitch make me feel bad about my dog being a dog.

I mean, really?!? Often the pack running in the park will bomb down the alley and crowd the gate when a new dog comes in – it’s all part of the Dog Park Experience. This woman was out of her mind bringing her injured dog inside the park.

They finally just walked it around the outside of the fence, where it got to sniff noses through the fence, which is what they should have done in the first place!

Stoopid people! Really soured the rest of my day.

* Sabu allows a certain amount of growling and barking when she’s at the park, but if a dog sounds like it’s being hurt or is squealing with fear, Sabu is right over there, sorting out who the problem dog is (not the one making the fear noises) and herding it away from its victim. It’s amazing to see. If two or more dogs are playing and they get too loud, either growling or barking, Sabu races over to be sure no one is getting hurt and if one dog is being too rough, in Sabu’s opinion, it will be corrected, severely if need be, before being allowed to continue playing.

One day there was a smaller intact male dog who was humping every other dog. I mean, he was really trying with everything that moved. This caused the other dogs to start hopping around to avoid him while still playing their game. Sabu took one look at the the situation, ran over and herded that horny little shit away from the other dogs. She then grabbed him in the middle of his back and repeatedly pushed him down onto the ground until he submitted to her. There would be no more humping while Sabu was on duty. Little Dog was not hurt and his owner was not unhappy about Sabu’s discipline (thankfully) and peace once again reigned.

 

 

People Suck – Part Whatever

After lunch Sabu and I were on our typical walk, down the alley, around the corner and up the street. We walk this way Monday thru Thursday, rain or shine.

The first house around the corner is owned by the neighboring church and stood empty for well over a year. I believe it’s generally used to house the pastor and his family. It’s a nice house, two story, large with lots of windows.

Some months ago there was a flurry of activity as the house was readied for new tenants. I thought it would be a new pastor and family, but instead a white trash family of dubious origin and a bunch of kids ranging in age from four to OMG surly teen moved in.

Now, before you get all up in arms that I used the term white trash, let me explain. These people ARE white and they ARE trash. How do I know? The crap that has started piling up in the yard, the belligerent, tattooed miscreants smoking and drinking on the front stoop, the language coming out of the mouths of everyone over there, the damaged vehicles (looks like they like to drink AND drive for entertainment) and on and on. These are not quality people and I wonder if regular church goers are sorry they rented to them.

There does not appear to be a male head-of-household, only an assortment of young-ish men half-dressed and smoking on the front step most mornings. No, they aren’t all the same guy. Sigh. It’s ugly.

Anyway. I’m not usually one to judge so harshly, but I’ve had a couple of run-ins with the woman in charge that make no sense and leave me angry and wanting to hit someone.

The first time, I was pulling my car from the alley onto the street. There’s a hedge that partially obscures the sidewalk until you’re right up on it. She was pushing a stroller with her 4-year-old daughter walking alongside. I came up on the sidewalk and she yelled at me for pulling up in front of her.

What? She was 10 feet back, was in no danger of being hit and I was moving at a crawl anyway. I looked into my driver’s side mirror to see if it was clear to back up when she started yelling again, this time calling names. Sabu started to snarl and claw at the window, so I pulled out into the street to her curses and bellowing.

WTF? That’s some high-class parenting right there! I couldn’t believe she was so nasty over nothing.

Today Sabu and I had another run-in with her. We were walking by her yard (strewn with lawn chairs on their sides and assorted broken toys and bits of trash) as she was pulling up in her (barely running) car with a child in the back.

Sabu did what dogs do – she peed on the edge of the grass. OMG! You would think she left a big, wet pile of crap for the reaction we got.

“Do you let that dog do that on everybody’s yard?” She was red-faced and shouting at me, gesturing at the grass.

“She just peed. If she’d pooped I would pick it up…” Stunned by her reaction, I kept walking.

“You didn’t pick it up last time! You never pick it up, blah, blah, blah…..”

I was getting angry now and turned fully around to look her in the face. “I always pick up her poop. Always!”

“You didn’t the other day!” She’s really winding up now and I’m getting mad enough to do something I’ll regret.

“It wasn’t me. It wasn’t this dog…” walking away now, trying to hold my tongue.

“I have five witnesses in the house who saw you! It was YOU!!!”

Fighting to stay calm, I said, “You’re wrong. It wasn’t me and it wasn’t this dog,” before turning and walking away.

She continued to shout at me but I tuned her out.

WTF? I’ve had people stop, in their cars, to thank me for picking up my dog’s poop. I am known for picking up after my dog in a neighborhood where no one bothers. Why does this woman have such a chip on her shoulder for me? What did I ever do to her but let her daughter pet my dog?

Gaaaahhhhhh!!! People like that give this town a bad name. What a crappy way to end my lunch break on a Monday afternoon.

 

Godbag at the Dog Park

The weekend was incredibly busy and overwhelming socially. I’m still recovering.

On the first Saturday of the month there’s a big gathering at the yarn shop and the place was full. I arrived early and stayed after. Somehow the clock at home went from 8:07 to 10:35 in three and a half minutes and I missed breakfast, which may have had something to do with how the rest of the day went.

There’s a guy who showed up at the usual Wednesday evening gathering. I don’t like him. He sets off my Freak-Dar lights and sirens but the other ladies think he’s just fine. He’s a young-ish man with prison tattoos and the look of the newly-released. He has not brought any project to work on and in fact claims not to know how to knit or crochet or to have money to buy supplies. He just wants to sit and visit and enjoy all the creative energy. Yeeeee-aaaaahhhhh. Dude creeps me out. He was there and in fact sat next to me, upping his creep factor exponentially. I don’t like his vibe at what is normally a very friendly gathering of like-minded people. More on him as the story develops.

After 5 or so hours of socializing Sabu and I headed for the dog park where we found three young springer spaniels romping about. They weren’t interested in Sabu, but they reliably fetched her ball over and over again which amused me greatly.

After awhile a very large pit bull showed up with his people. The dog (an intact male – don’t get me started on why that’s wrong!) was rather shy and didn’t want to play with the pups, who left soon afterwards. The couple did not look like locals. They wore brand new camo pants tucked into boots (not military boots, but Dog Park Boots) with rather dressy-looking jackets, obviously expensive. It was a discordant combination, but whatever. There’s an RV camping park within the State Park that also houses the dog park and we get all kinds.

The husband, Raymond (we’ll call him Ray from now on because it’s easier to type) spoke at some length about their conversion to a vegan diet three years ago (everything good for him started three years ago when he had an epiphany, but this did not become apparent for awhile) and how their dog is also vegan because they don’t want to consume the chemicals, hormones and antibiotics found in meat. Fine. I am on board for knowing what’s in your food and making informed decisions about what to consume. I even agree that factory farmed meat is not a good choice if you want to live a healthy life.

Then the conversation went a bit sideways. Now, normally I would not engage with a wacko, but I had not eaten, it was 3:00 on a beautiful sunny afternoon and I didn’t have anywhere to be until Sabu pooped, so I decided to start poking at the guy. Just for fun, you understand.

He asked me if I knew about chemtrails. Uh. Nope. Hoo-boy! I got an earful about that and then started asking questions.

“How far down do you figure the conspiracy goes?” I asked. “I mean, does the guy who puts the chemicals into the fuel know what he’s doing? Do you think he cares that he’s poisoning himself and all his descendants? How would the government keep those guys in line? Is money enough or do they use threats?” And so on in this vein until he changed the subject. Seems he was quite comfortable with the idea that Big Government was poisoning the world in their quest to reduce the population and bring about the New World Order prophesied in the bible, but the thought of one single Dude knowingly pouring poison into the atmosphere made him squirm. Interesting.

Predictably the conversation turned to god and his relationship with this particular dude. I heaved in internal sigh when Ray said, “I don’t mean to offend you, but I don’t know your religious background…”

Not wanting to give him any hints as to what my beliefs might be, I simply said, “none,” with a shrug.

His eyes lit up like it was Christmas morning and he launched into his spiel about the errors of his youth with respect to what he was taught about the bible. Turns out the church authorities of his younger days had it all wrong with their portrayal of god as a vengeful ruler who damned all people to hellfire for the slightest of “sins.” HIS god is a just, merciful god, and isn’t that a wonderful thing? Oh, he was positively beaming at that point, waiting for me to do…something…I never know with these people.

So, being my mother’s daughter, I said, “My problem is not with god, or with anyone who believes in a god, just and merciful or not. I take issue with organized religion and its crimes against women and children. I can’t stand behind any religious organization that would take away my right to choose and demand that me and my children submit to a man as head of my family, regardless of his ability to handle that role. I don’t believe in an organization that kills millions of people because they don’t have the same belief or who enslaves another people just because the color of their skin is darker. I realize that Rich White Dudes rule the world, but I don’t have to like it and I don’t have to subscribe to their propaganda, either.”

He was taken aback but jumped right onto my hottest button: abortion. I don’t remember his exact words, but he made it clear that he believes life begins at conception and to end that life is a horrible thing that only the most wicked of women even consider.

My reply was scathing. “No woman takes the decision to have an abortion lightly – that you think we do is because you are a man and will never face that decision. What about instances of rape?”

You’re gonna love this!

“Women VERY rarely get pregnant as a result of rape,” he said, “it’s too traumatic an event and pregnancy just doesn’t happen…”

“I don’t find that true, based on my personal experience,” I said.

Blink. Blink. Blink. For a moment he was lost for words.

His wife had been pretty much silent, nodding her head occasionally, obviously used to Ray’s public proselytizing and not in any hurry to leave, but at my remark her head came up and she looked me in the eyes. I couldn’t tell what her expression meant, but I like to think she was urging me to poke him again to see what he would say to this break in his routine.

He spluttered and repeated that it was “rare.”

“I think you need to reconsider the word ‘rape’ and take into account the ‘non-violent’ occurrences that happen every day, some of which DO end up causing pregnancy.” Hunger pangs were beginning to sour my mood, as was the smug face of this man without a clue.

He started in about how the “body rejects a pregnancy when it comes with violence….” and I told him that was bullshit and I based that opinion on my own personal experience.

Obviously uncomfortable with my insistence, he changed tacks and I was immediately reminded of the narc and his circular arguments. This was turning into an entertaining experiment.

“If a woman has the right to end a life, shouldn’t a man have that same right?” he asked. “Can a man just sign away his obligations to a child he doesn’t want? Do you see that happening?”

“A man can wear a condom and make it very hard for a woman to get pregnant if he doesn’t want children, and he can indeed sign away his parental rights here in Oregon. My first husband did.”

“Just like that? A man can’t deny his obligations, his responsibilities with the stroke of a pen! That’s absurd!”

“Yeah, he can. The father of my son did. He did not pay one penny of child support, nor has he once seen or even asked about his son in the past 22 years. Just. Like. That.”

We went round and round for awhile in this vein. He doesn’t believe in sex education and I pointed out that abstinence only education Does Not Work, nor does slut shaming, victim blaming or denying the problem exists. Sexualizing young girls, teaching them they only have worth as sex objects from the time they’re small children and giving men power over them everywhere they turn has created a rape culture that leads to all of the things he’s so outraged about.

He denied my interpretations. I pointed out that he’s not a woman and has no idea what I, personally, have had to endure in my life. He has no concept of the things I’ve had to do to keep a job, keep a roof over my head, to keep my son fed, to exist in a world controlled by Rich White Dudes. He has no idea how hard it can be for a young woman to say no when a man who has power over her (real or perceived) demands sex and that we need to educate and encourage all women to be strong and independent, punish men who beat and rape and shirk their responsibilities, and then we might approach the nirvana he seems to live every day.

He made some asinine comment about good men and blah, blah, blah, but I was mad by that point and said, “there are a lot of bad men out there. I’ve met many of them. You have no idea.”

He could see the conversation was over and so he said again, “I hope I haven’t offended you…”

This is, of course, my cue as a submissive woman to thank him for enlightening me and apologize for being rude and disagreeing. Instead I said, “you haven’t offended me. We can agree to disagree. I haven’t lived your life. Just remember that you haven’t lived mine, either.”

There was much more to the conversation, but I won’t bore you with details.

While we were talking, Sabu was trying everything she could think of to get Tank the pitbull to play with her. He was very gentle and shy for the longest time, not wanting to get physical, but Sabu insisted she wanted to wrestle and he finally obliged. What followed was an epic wrestling match and Tank falling in love with Sabu so hard he was drooling all over himself. At last! Here was a female he could relate to! She wasn’t having any of his mounting efforts, but he was undeterred – she’d come around sooner or later, right? It was a mirror of the human conversation.

In the end, we left the park, me feeling a bit slimed, Sabu literally covered in slime. It was a good day.

For the record, I have never become pregnant as a result of violent rape, nor had an abortion, but I will fight to my last breath to defend any woman’s right to choose, regardless of circumstances and I will continue to school ignorant assholes whenever I meet them. I just can’t keep silent any longer, even knowing that I can’t really change anything with my truth telling.