I spoke to the social worker at the hospital this morning. My ex is really in “bad shape” according to her. He broke into a neighbor’s house, which was enough to get him placed back in the hospital. He apparently believes he is running the FBI (rolls eyes….he always had delusions of grandeur). He also told the hospital that I, and my sister-in-law, are dead. And, that my son is in the same hospital on a medical floor. When the social worker asked him what was wrong with my son, he said, “You don’t need to know that.”

He’s going to be placed in a care facility of some kind, and I’m so relieved and glad about that. They will see to it he eats, and gets his meds, and can’t get out. I put in a call to my atty to find out what will or should happen to my ex’s personal effects in the cottage he was renting. Slowly this will work itself out, and I won’t have to deal with the situation much longer. I may have to make a trip up to CT though, to sort through the stuff in the cottage. I’m sure there’s a ton of stuff in storage somewhere, but I would expect he stopped paying that bill a long time ago.

I got an update on my niece. She’s doing as well as can be expected, having had large amounts of her arm around her shoulder removed. I’m going to order a Kindle for her today. She should be home soon, maybe today even. It seems crazy, but they want people out of the hospital so quickly now, to avoid getting anything else.

I’m so glad to have things like open mic night to distract me. And that I had just had a few wonderful days down at my sisters.

Love and light.

I’m home, back in Gulfport. We got back mid-day. It was hot and humid today, and didn’t storm for the first day in ages. It is Thursday, open mic night. As I was getting in the shower, my ex’s cousin called me and left a voice mail. She and her sister are pretty close with me, but they are both kind of high maintenance, so I put off talking to her today, since I was about to get in the shower.

When I checked my voice mails, I saw that I had one blocked voice mail. It was from the hospital my ex had been put in back in April. He is apparently back there, so they want to talk to me. I called them back and left a voice mail for the social worker, but it was late today so I won’t get a call until tomorrow. I had to unblock the hospitals number so they can call, but felt ok about it, since my ex does not call me anymore. This is just the ongoing drama with him, the saga. I don’t know anything yet, because I haven’t talked to anyone.

It is good news and bad news. It means he is not better, has not been taking his meds, and probably did something to have been brought into the hospital again. I know he refused to pay his rent because he said the landlord no longer owned the property. But the fact he is in the hospital is good. I was told that he would need to be brought in multiple times involuntarily before he can be committed to the state hospital. So this will probably not be the defining moment, but just another chapter in his drama.

UGH.

Then, my god-daughter, my sister-in-laws 26 year old daughter is in the hospital having just had surgery on her shoulder and arm to remove a tumor and all the surrounding tissue. She is in a lot of pain, naturally. Her family is with her. They said she may go home tomorrow, though we can’t imagine it. I haven’t sent her anything but will wait until she gets home to send anything.

I didn’t tell my sister-in-law about her brother being back in the hospital. I think her plate is full enough with my niece’s cancer.

After a couple of carefree days in paradise, reality hit kind of hard today. I really don’t want to be involved with my ex’s problems now. I’m not family. Yet, I fear that it will next go to my son, and I don’t want to unload it onto him. He hasn’t spoken to his father in 7 years, and would have no clue how to deal with the situation. I keep him up to speed on his dad, but he really has no interest in his fathers issues. My sister-in-law is really next in line but she has so much on her plate at the moment I can’t put this burden on her.

So I have some stuff to deal with tomorrow.

Open mic night was fun. There were lots of performers there, it was a really good show. But it was so hot. No rain today means the temps didn’t cool down. The venue is outside, and we were pouring water down our backs with a straw. I took a shower before I went, and another when I got home.

Life had its dark moments too. Just dealing with what comes. Love and light all.

Today dawned bright and sunny. And hot, again.  We went to breakfast at a French creperie. They had really good crepes. We got one filled with applesauce and caramel, and one filled with bananas and chocolate, with rum poured over the top and set aflame. Both were really good  

It was on to the local beach. By then, the day was really heating up with high humidity. We put our chairs in the sand, and headed for the water. The water was only slightly cooler than the air. We spent about an hour in the water. Then walked the beach. We were there for about 2 hours or so. 

We decided to go to my favorite restaurant for happy hour. We got drinks for $3, and a bunch of small appetizers. Buffalo wings, seafood bruschetta, and steamed clams. So good and so cheap!
As we sat at the outdoor bar, looking out on the calm turquoise Gulf of Mexico,  I saw the restaurant workers putting down all the umbrellas on the outdoor tables. I lookedoff to  my left and saw the sky in the picture below. Crazy! 

We were finished eating, so we went out to the edge of the restaurant beach access, and took pics. As we drove back to my sisters house a torrential and rather violent thunderstorm started, not unlike yesterday’s.  

I think that has happened every day this week, that the beautiful day has turned into a big thunderstorm.  Back st my sisters we sat in the deck and watched the storm for awhile. Then just like yesterday, a rainbow appeared in exactly the same place!!!  

Good omens!!  So beautiful. We’ll be going back to my house tomorrow, so no more blogs typed on my phone. I’ll be happy about that!  

Love and light, everyone. 

We are at my sisters on the island.  It’s so beautiful here, despite the fact that it’s been thunder storming on and off all day.  Crazy tropical weather!  

The storms stopped for a couple hours and we got to get into the pool for a couple hours, which was really nice.  The temp drops to the 70’s when it rains, but as soon as the sun cones out it’s back up to 90. 
I forgot that my sisters internet is turned off so if I want to post I have to do it from my phone. So posts will be a bit spare for the next couple days. I wanted to share the picture of this rainbow we saw tonight. Friggin amazing!  


Love and light, everyone. 

Going over to my sisters on the island for a couple days either tonight or tomorrow. Dan’s going with me. My sis and brother-in-law are not there, but I have to go every couple weeks and check on the house per their insurance coverage. So, I get to get away from my stressful life, lol, in Gulfport and hang out by her pool and on the beach for a couple days. It’s a rough life but someone has to live it.

I still am amazed daily that my life has turned out like this. Living here, in my cute house, good friends, and this amazing man. I can’t begin to explain how wonderful it is to have a drama-free relationship. More than 2 months later, we still have not even had an unpleasant moment. The closest we come to arguing is when we’re both trying to be the most considerate, and that just makes us laugh. We have become inseparable, moving from one house to the other. It works out well, we are only about 10 or 12 miles apart. His condo complex has the pool, and hot tub and his family close by. My house in Gulfport is nice because there is always something going on there we want to be part of.

I didn’t expect this. I expected I might find someone I wanted to spend 2 or 3 days a week with. I didn’t expect to meet someone whose company I enjoyed so much, and he mine, that we would rarely spend time apart. He says the same thing. It’s crazy. I still say, I had that picture in my head of the man I wanted for so long, and the universe crossed our paths when we were both ready.

Well, enough waxing poetic, lol. Today will be for getting laundry done, getting the houses in shape to leave for a couple days. I guess sometimes I just need to sit back and reflect on the path my life has taken to bring me to this place. It fills me with wonder. Like Rumi says in the poster below:

Love and light to all.

I saw my first alligator in the wild today! Dan took me to a place called Sawgrass Lake Park. The park is really a swamp, around a lake, with raised boardwalks throughout so you can walk safely through. It is like a jungle, there is so much old vegetation. It is allowed to just grow, with no interference. There are giant live oaks, the root systems pulled out by hurricanes and other big storms, and they are still alive because there is so much moisture here.

It was hot, but not too terribly bad today. It was about 90° but the humidity was only about 60%, which is actually pretty low for here. We walked about a mile, but we were not uncomfortable. We did apply considerable bug spray before we set out though.

The picture above is the first alligator we saw, under a little rest area that has benches to sit down on. It looked to be about 4 or 5 ft long from nose to tip of his tail. The tails are really long on alligators! They are about half their body length. Dan says, if you eat alligator that’s the part you eat, the tail. He’s had it, I don’t think I’ll ever be that adventurous in my eating. He was very still, and seemed to be staying in water that was in the shade.

The second alligator was quite a bit bigger. I’m guessing from the part of him that was visible, he might have been 8 ft long or so. It was pretty exciting! We ran into a couple who said they’d spotted 6 alligators on their walk. We only saw those two, but we only walked a little over a mile of the trails. We both thought that you’d probably see more in the winter here, when they come out of the water to sun themselves. It’s so hot now, that they get plenty of heat staying in the water.

We also saw a couple of big turtles. They were swimming and we didn’t get a clear enough view of them to know what kind they were, but maybe snapping turtles. About 15” in diameter. I couldn’t snap a pic of them. They were swimming on the surface for only a couple moments, and then dove a bit deeper.

It was an interesting walk, and we only drove about 10 minutes to get there. I think our next move is to get into the pool and the hot tub, and get the bug spray off.

Love and light to all.

Touch is so important. To be touched, to be held. To feel the warmth of another human being. A hug, a back rub, a caress, or just patting someones arm or knee. Sometimes you don’t know how touch starved you have been.

Ending a bad marriage, and subsequent years of solitude, left me touch starved, I’ve recently realized. I’d forgotten the connection made by touching. I was lucky in that I had my son and my friends to get hugs from all those years. But the connection made, or strengthened, by regular touch, intimate touch was not there for about 15 years for me.

I’m not talking about sexual touch, just loving human touch. The warmth of a human hand on your back, or your neck. Sitting close enough to someone to feel their body heat as you watch TV. A warm embrace for no reason except you felt like it. It’s a joyful thing. It’s just not something I realized was missing from my life, until it wasn’t any longer.

I think I’ve heard that babies who aren’t cuddled are often diagnosed with “failure to thrive.” We have all seen pictures of crowded nurseries, where there are too many babies and not enough caregivers, with not enough time to just hug and cuddle all the babies. I am guessing that a lack of loving touch in a child’s life contributes to his growing up anti-social, or looking for a way to numb obvious feelings of lack of self worth. It’s a sad thought.

Just my thoughts this Sunday morning. I’m just grateful to have touch back in my life.

Love and light.