Odds and ends before I get started on Bizarro Land

1. I know a LOT of us have wandered off in different directions.  I just want to reiterate that this group, the initial lot of y'all, was so instrumental in my even starting a blog - and then you all helped me work through all those memories and reading YOUR stories and all your comments on everyone's blogs - I miss everyone, but I'm glad some have been able to move on.  Thank you, just thank you.  
2. I had said - a few posts ago - that I was 5 (ten!) pounds up.  I'm still hanging right there.  Other stuff keeps getting in the way of my concentration.  Now that I think about it from a woo-woo perspective, that sounds a lot like manipulation right there...  anyway, nothing new to report, I never made the effort I said I was gonna.
3. Still walking all the time.  2-4 miles at a time, 3 to 4 times a week.  I am absolutely destroyed by mosquito bites right now and I feel SEXY.  
4. Jeff's dad and mom and brother and that whole situation remains exactly the same.  I don't go with him when he goes to visit, he goes most Sundays, and I'm not in on phone calls or texts either.  I like it that way! Nobody died yet.
5. Mike, other than the PTSD stuff, is freaking GREAT.  He had the summer off from school - which means he got no money so that was bad...  but!  He's enrolled in his second year of college.  Switched majors to Business from Engineering.  His beautiful girlfriend moved in with him!  They adopted two adorable kittens (I have Grand Kitties!) He's spent the summer reading and studying up on a new fun hobby he wants to maybe turn into a money making venture, and he's ALSO spent the summer playing nerd games about 3 times a week.  We walk together when we can, I buy him groceries sometimes, it's all good.
6. VIENNA - small slice.  There is a woman, married to one of Jeff's co-workers.  She's about 65 yrs old.  We met for lunch here a few times, and planned to spend a lot of time together in Vienna.  ANOTHER wife, a super nice Korean lady I hadn't really known, was also there.  I got along with BOTH of them.  Wife 1 does not like wife 2.  And wife 1 got bent that I DID like wife 2.  I haven't spoken to wife 1 SINCE!  can you imagine?  I was like, "BYE Felicia!" (a flippant way to say goodbye to someone who walks off in a huff)  so, that was that.  The other wife, the Korean lady?  CRACKED ME THE HELL UP.  We had fun, said 'see you next time', and that was that.  I'm too old for Jr. Hi? check YES or NO and tell me by the lockers at break.
7. Vienna, another slice - a cocktail near the St. Stephens Cathedral?  €11.  ELEVEN EURO.  that, my friends, is $15.00.  Want to know what you get for that?  A rude pretentious waiter (no, srsly), a glass with (i guess?) a shot of vodka in it, and a bottle of tonic. No ice.  YOU HAVE TO MAKE YOUR OWN COCKTAIL.

   

   Not my picture, gangked from teh webz

   It was sort of hilarious in a painful way...  BUT!  I got to sit and look at THIS for an hour!

St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna

OK - more pictures of Vienna.  Remember, this is ME we're talking about.  If you want postcard pictures, go find them on Google.  I take pictures of stuff that cracks me up, or that moves me very much.  so, onward:

I have no idea whut in the great googly mooglies is happening here.  Looks bad tho.

Coffee Set, Hotel Intercontinental, Vienna

I should have stolen that set, dammit.

Neptune Fountain, Vienna.  He's CAVORTING with nekkid MERMAIDS.

If you can bigger that picture, it's worth seeing all the statues.  They are WHOOPING it up.  The horses they are riding?  Called 'Hippocampus'.  Their hooves?  ARE FLIPPERS.  Who knew.

This is not mine.  Way better picture.

That building in the back?  Called a 'Gloriette'.  It was built to look pretty from the palace, and the Neptune fountain is about 1/3 way up.  The Empress used to have breakfast up there!  There is a cafe in there now.  I climbed to the ROOF (extra  €5 please!) but like I told Jeff, I wasn't going to go all that way and not ring the bell.  It's quite the climb - let me find a good angle picture...

So, here is the back of the palace.  I am standing about 1/2 way up the hill.  The Neptune fountain is behind that ridge of trees.  There is a 'lake' behind me.

Same spot, lake is in front, and there is the Gloriette.  See that eagle waayyy up on top?  Yep, climbed up there.  This was my favorite thing to see - the gardens at Schönbrunn Palace.  they are huge, and I never saw the zoo or the maze.  I'd go back here for sure.  The inside is typical baroque style and I wasn't as interested in it as the outside, but it was fascinating to hear the stories.  Above everything else I saw in Vienna, this is the thing that made me go "!!"

OK - so.  More weird crap coming at you.  Honestly, i decided to tell my story from the beginning, from Florida.  It's going to change the whole direction of my blog, in a way, from narcs to woo woo (better than from narcs to dieting, amiright?) but the narcs come into play in there too.

A slice of Vienna, an update on the Bizarre Bobby Pins, and lottsa woo woo stuff.

Summer is in full swing here in San Diego.  My niece Erica has come down to spend 10 days TWICE now and brought THIS:

SOOOO I've been a little busy.

Vienna:  it was wonderful and weird and a big dirty modern city built around architecture that would make you cry it's so great.  I really have to give you more photos but here is this:

Me in the rain - Opera House, Vienna

Just a gorgeous 1600's building with a McDonald's in it, no big deal

So now on to the weird crap.  I am going to lead you down a rabbit hole now.  I told you I am surrounded by weird, woo-woo stuff.  Y'all have no idea how deep this goes.  Since very early childhood I have been uh... pestered? let's just say I am definitely aware that there is something strange about/around me.  I'll start here.  I expect I will be 'un-followed' by lots more people here shortly.

Remember the bobby pins?

HA HA HA.  Yeah.  I have found at least ONE every day I walk, and sometimes up to FIVE.  the pile now looks like this:

I am not certain you can appreciate the sheer MAGNITUDE of that pile of hair pins.  Shit got weird, is what I'm saying.  And I STILL have no idea what it's all about.

I stopped picking them up one day early this month.  Saw one, stopped, and just said 'nope.  not touching that crusty thing' and that was that.  I still see them every-damned-where but enough is too much.  I think I want to get rid of them.  But I can't toss them in the ocean (my go-to for cleansing things from my life) because ewww.  I don't want to put them into recycling because I want them GONE.  They don't burn.  Still pondering my options.  Still don't know if they are from my Aunt Kaye, or my DNA mother.  One is protection.  The other may be an apology (which I do not want).

Mike and I both have been having SEVERE anxiety attacks.  His come in the form of PTSD at night - imagining there is a human being outside his apartment trying to get in.  Mine come (at night also) in the form of feeling like I am being psychically/spiritually attacked.    It is TERRIFYING.  (2 AM is not a great time to feel like evil is staring at you.  All your childhood fears about 'a witch under the bed' (what?) come right back.)  It hasn't been fun.  I haven't really slept in 3 days, even with the Ambien/magnesium/taurine I take.  I'm doing what I can to clean/clear my spaces, including both interior (my head) and living.  Unexpectedly about 2 days ago, I received a postcard from my step-mother from some vacation she was on - remember, she doesn't know I am no longer speaking to her.  I just simply stopped corresponding with her and will not do so willingly again.  anywhoozle, I decided this morning to burn that post card - why take chances, right?  and that fucker would. not. burn.  I seriously had to hold a lit fireplace match (long one, like a chop stick) under it the entire time.  Finally all that was left was the perfect corner where the stamp was.  At first I thought "of course!  her saliva!" and then, you know, common sense kicked in and hello - stamps are self-stick these days so who knows why.  But that thing would only char.  It never once caught the flame.  A PAPER POSTCARD.  Sorry, it was weird.  My thought is that maybe my dad tried to glom onto me thru that postcard.  Keep reading.

(The reason I include Mike in this post is because he is plagued by the same woo-woo stuff that I am.  In point of fact, we are the only people we can really talk to about it.  Jeff has lived with me long enough to have seen/felt stuff, but hasn't ever been immersed in it like we are.  Lucky him.)

I met one of my (other) nieces yesterday for lunch.  She is 14 and is on vacation with a friend and that friend's mom - the mom brought her to Old Town (of course, Mexican food!) and niece and I toddled off to lunch.  It was...  odd. She and I don't really know each other.  She can't hold a conversation (but you know, she's 14 and we don't really know each other) but it felt...  weird.  I was nervous and wired.  After we hugged goodbye I walked over to this old building with tables and chairs out front and sat down to call Jeff - and I was as icked out and bugged as I used to get being around my sisters/mom/dad.  I wonder if somehow my dad has attached himself to this kid.  I think he's pretty intent on getting to me for some reason.  I have meditated and done several visualizations of protection for myself - 'several' is funny because I would say more like DOZENS.  He isn't welcome, and any help I have on the 'other side' has been summoned to keep him out.  So far it's worked.  but.

BIG BUT HERE.

My friend Byron, who died in 1985, is one of my um...  spiritual helps?  He's actually the only dead person allowed 'in' to my space.  I trust him, is what I'm saying.  The VERY few and far-between times I've dreamed about him, it has been obvious (in that dream way) that he has to make a pretty big effort to get to me.  I don't 'call' him because uh, he's BUSY doing whatever the dead do wherever they are - I guess they have responsibilities?  lol.  But seriously, I know he's busy so I just generally tell 'them' that "he's the only one allowed in, let him in".  The last (prior to this) time I saw (dreamed) him, it was about 3 years ago?  I was giving a party and worrying about the table of food and fussing over olives or something, and I looked across the room and there he was, sitting by the patio door, watching me and smiling.  What I got from that is that he is always in the background, keeping an eye on things, while I fuss over the 'olives' in my life, lol.  SO.

Byron and I at Sadie Hawkins Dance, 1978

About 2 weeks ago I'm dreaming that I'm in some kitchen in some vintage home.  Sitting at the wooden kitchen table, white table cloth on the table.  For some reason I'm in a long, long-sleeved white nightgown (how very virginal, right?).  There is a knock at the kitchen door - and I get up and see Byron through the door window.  Fling the door open and hug him and till him I miss him and love him.  He picks me up and I feel (I FEEL IT) the back of one of the chairs just graze my back - it's an actual corporeal FEELING.  And I tell him again how I've missed him and he says 'I know.  Listen, I need to tell you something" and I am all ears because even in my dream I am like WTF?!? this can't be good.  Dude doesn't EVER come to see me, and when he does it's across a room - I haven't dream-hugged him since 2009 - at that time he was huffy with me for bugging him!  And here he is - ugh.  I WOKE UP.

So parsing that out - he made a HUGE effort to come to me.  He came to the door of my home, to the back door which indicates a familiarity with the 'house' (my um, spirit?  my head?  My space, at any rate).  I had to welcome him in - he couldn't just BE in.  He held me (carrying me.  ??) and then said specifically 'I NEED to tell you something.'  Not 'I HAVE to tell you something.'  Which - there is a difference.  It was (I believe) a warning.  The phrase 'I have to tell you something' is usually followed by 'i crashed your car' or 'I got a stain on that shirt I borrowed' - 'I need to tell you something' is more urgent - along the lines of 'I saw your wife with another man' or 'the boss read your email and you're getting fired'.  There's a bad moon on the rise, and all that.

I KNOW I KNOW.  I've put WAY too much time and thought into this.  But that dream affected me so badly that when I woke up I told Jeff about it and then called Mike and told him about it.  It stayed with me on a very real level (like I was surrounded by the sensations of the dream) for days.  To this day I can remember every detail.

**OH LORD I just thought of something.  That kitchen, that door - my NIGHTGOWN - all old fashioned like Wild West stuff.  Where I sat down to call Jeff?  OLD FASHIONED WILD WEST BUILDING TABLE AND CHAIRS.  Holy fucking crap.**  I have a picture of it wait I'll find the shot:

See that lady in the red t-shirt?  I was sitting right there in that exact spot when I called Jeff.  I had to climb up those steps - it would have been easier to sit on the steps but I wanted a chair.

And so THAT is great, that he came to me to warn me at a Wild West spot and the place I was at when I was trying to calm down from the weirdness of the visit was a Wild West spot.  SEE?  It's all woo-woo up in here, all the fucking time.  Glad I thought of that - it fits in with all of it.

And now all these anxiety attacks, Mike being attacked - his PTSD was actually getting dialed down from 11 to you know, like an 8.  Now it's back up to Def-con 5.  Mixing my metaphors is fun.  My anxiety attacks.  I'm piecing it together.  And let me tell you - that motherfucker of a DNA donor is NOT getting anywhere near me.  I think Byron was warning me.  And it was a potent enough threat that he had to come to me.  My protection meditations and visualizations also include Mike.  And Mike's house.  I protect me and mine.

OH JAYZHUS - a long time ago, right after dad died, my sister Judith said she had a dream that he was asking her to get pregnant, so that he could REINCARNATE AS HER KID.  Good fucking god I forgot all about that.  She said no.  (not to mention she was probably 50 at the time).

OK - so now that I've lost you.  Those of you still reading, please don't try and commit me to Bedlam.

Or at least hold off for the next few entires. Because it gets fucking weirder.