Story When All Doors Close

[Kathy in FL]

28) Dear Diary,​

Grapes are all in. I didn’t get near as many as I remember Papa and Daddy getting but I guess it has been too many years since anyone took care of the vines the right way. Same for the fruit trees. I get some fruit, but not near what I remember being on the trees when I was a child.

When I was a child. I look at the calendar and know it really hasn’t been all that long ago. I look in my heart and it feels like it’s been a millennium.

I’m changing. I’m being forced to change. To what purpose I don’t know yet. I hear doors closing. Sometimes they slam shut so loud I’m surprised no one else can hear them. Sometimes they close so slow and quietly it’s days before I realize what has happened.

They’ve made it harder for people to get cash out of the banks … or to cash their checks. They want everything done electronically. It’s like they are trying to do away with paper money at the very time when people only seem to want hard currency in hand for every transaction. Some stores are now required to track cash transactions. I no longer go to those stores except when I need to use my debit card to make it look like my money is going someplace the government expects it to. I really don’t know what I will do if Daniel’s benefits stop.

I’ve looked all over for Feena’s special formula but there’s none to be had, not even at the clinic where I was getting it know when they will get more in; everything is on backorder everywhere you look. We’ve tried her on a couple other formulas but they make her sick as a dog and she throws up for two days. She’s nowhere near old enough to try regular milk yet and piecing out what formula I do have left won’t work much longer.

Dorrie’s gran gave me a recipe for homemade formula that uses goat milk that she got from one of the older ladies at church. I’m willing to admit I’m grasping at straws now but it’s all I can do. She’s eating a little table food as long as it is ground very finely but she still gets the majority of her nutrition from formula. If the goat’s milk recipe doesn’t work I’ll have no choice but to try the black market. It’s dangerous and with Cal being a cop not the smartest thing in the world. Quality can be a problem too from what I hear. But what am I supposed to do? Let my daughter starve because the government is a cruel joke that can’t tell the difference between their butt and a hole in the ground?!

 

[Kathy in FL]

29) Dear Diary,​

The homemade formula works! I’d jump up and down and shout hooray but it’s just too blasted hot.

Feels like the hottest, wettest, most miserable July on record. Not much at the produce stands. Not much in the garden. Mostly up to now we’ve been dependent on fishing for something fresh to eat. Cal and Josh go fishing every chance they get and that is more often these days than in the past.

Josh’s mouth got him stationed out here in the so-called boonies with Cal. Seems that Percival Perfect let slip the identities of several confidential informers and one of them wound up dead. Josh complained of a cover up just because of who PP’s father is. He got treated the same way Cal did. Now they are partners again and they’ve made a place for themselves in the community. Josh is renting a garage apartment from Dorrie’s grandmother and she’s glad to have him. She says his sheriff’s car warns people off.

Cal finally got his cow and I’ve been elbow deep in flesh and blood. Gross when using the descriptives but totally yum when all is said and done. He had a call that some guy was reporting a rustling. Yeah I know, but this is the rural end of the county, and from what talk Cal brings home from work, while the normal crap head statistics are holding steady, crime statistics where people are just out doing what they shouldn’t because they literally have nothing at home to eat are really starting to make their mark.

The cattleman said he was unable to continue to feed his small herd of beef cattle so he was going to cull their numbers anyway but someone stealing from him really burnt his biscuits, especially since the steer was found two miles away with only about a quarter of the meat inexpertly hacked out. The poor thing died hard from what the one witness that came forward said; they were cutting on it before they euthanized it. Barbaric.

Anyway, in a follow up interview Cal went back and asked how much he would charge for one of his cows and if he knew any butchers.

“You’re looking at one son. I’ve worked for both Winn Dixie and Publix … at their plant and in store. But before we talk price, I need to see the color of your money.”

“Cash. Eighty percent up front, the remainder on delivery.”

The old man chortled, “You’ve been doing your research. Tell you what, you take this monster eater whole over here and I’ll charge you $500 for the cow, $40 dollars for the kill, and $.50 a pound for processing.”

They settled on $500 for the cow, $40 dollars for the kill, $.40 cents a pound for processing and even though that was still on the high side for processing in this area it came with butchering lessons from the cattleman and Cal got to pick his cuts. In the end Cal wound up with almost five hundred pounds of meat plus a large bag of soup bones and all the organ meat and sweet breads too. We had to load the chest freezer back in his truck to transport the meat back here. It also meant that come pig butchering time Cal said the cattleman was willing to work on shares.

I wanted to object to his assumption that he could just arrange my life as he thought best but the truth is I only remember Papa and Daddy buying their meat from the little carneceria shops, I know we kept animals when I was little but that went away after Abuela and Momma died and I can’t remember how the butchering was handled at all. I wasn’t looking forward to learning to butcher a pig on the fly so I suppose in the end Cal’s bossiness will save me some work, but I am not a charity case; I would have figured it out on my own in the end even if I made a few mistakes along the way.

With the way things are going it is shameful to be picky but the honest truth is that I just cannot stand chittlin’s … more properly called chitterlings … even more properly called tripe or intestines. I saw Cal and Josh trying really hard not to make a face when they were loading them into the freezer so I knew they weren’t all that fond of them either. So I did something perhaps I shouldn’t have. I made a barter deal with the owners of the carneceria.

I’ve been able to fill just about every hole in our pantry except for flour and cornmeal. Rice yes. Oatmeal yes. Pasta yes. But flour and cornmeal, not so much, and every time I run out the price has gone way up. It is a huge lesson learned but there is no way to go back and change it. The carneceria is one of the few places I’ll use my debit card because most of what I get from there is fresh anyway as they received their federal license to operate. They cater to the Hispanic population, but I’ve noticed other people around lately, if grudgingly.

The carneceria also has a little banderias (bakery) and a taquerias (restaurant) and one of their specialties are frugal ethnic soups that use up every bit of the animal … Menudo and Tripe. Menudo is beef stomach soup and Tripe soup is … well tripe soup. I traded some of the organ meats (most everything but the liver) and sweet breads (I’m not fond of brains either) to the cook – Abuelita to the family that owns the carneceria – for fifty pounds of flour and fifty pounds of cornmeal and a jar of bay leaves so I could store it without having to worry about weevils so much. I also got a lesson about how to turn the dent corn that I crack for the chickens into maseca which is corn flour rather than corn meal.

I was really scared that Cal was going to blow a gasket that I had done something with his stuff, but he just gave me a long look and then shrugged. “I was wondering how long it would be before I had to give up your biscuits and wasn’t looking forward to it. The Desk Sergeant was complaining just the other day that he’s down to eating tuna on stale crackers because four bucks for a small loaf of bread is just more than his wife is willing to spend. Sounds like you made a good deal. I told you I have to keep my lunches locked up in my trunk when I’m on patrol; if I don’t the guys pick them apart because sharing is just what friends do.” The last was said with sarcasm so heavy you could weigh it on the bathroom scale.

He and Josh and a couple of other guys are off fishing now. Blue crabs are in season and so are bay scallops. While half the crew going is collecting crabs, the other half is diving for scallops. The licenses to do either are really expensive so they decided to create their own cooperative. Half would do one, half would do the other, and then they’d split what they brought in evenly amongst the whole group. I moved the last of the beef into the standup freezer in the utility room and they loaded the chest freezer into an enclosed trailer that someone used to use to go to motor cross meets with. Cal is pulling his boat and another guy is providing the location to camp at up in Homosassa on some shoreline his family has managed to hold on to despite the property taxes. They’ll be back in three days.

Cal was so eager to get away for a long “guy weekend” that his safety lecture consisted of a few pointed stares and a couple of raised eyebrows. First day he was gone I had a Calgon-Take-Me-Away day where I soaked in the tub without having to listen for someone knocking on the door needing to use the bathroom or shower before going to work. I walked around the house in next to nothing since it was so hot and didn’t have to worry about shocking anyone but a few herons that had decided to dry off after their dip in the river using the back porch railings. I also didn’t have to worry about cooking to feed someone roughly the size of city hall so that they didn’t grow faint and cranky from lack of calories.

Now I am off to bed and thank goodness for ceiling fans. There’s not much wind tonight off of the river. I just hope Cal and company have a good time fishing ‘cause they’re going to need it. The only sustenance I saw packed was a cooler of beer and while some men may consider that manna it doesn’t fill up the empty spaces for long.

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[Kathy in FL]

30) Dear Diary,​

No, never mind. I’m just too hot and tired tonight.

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31) Dear Diary,​

Made the mistake of thinking that with Cal out of the house it would be a good time to tackle some stuff that I’ve been avoiding. Nope. There will never be a good time to dwell on those last few months. Did find Dorrie’s note and it was sweet. I wish I would have read it then, I think it would have made me feel better. Or maybe I did and just don’t remember it; memories of that time aren’t always reliable. I wasn’t exactly well-grounded in the land of the living there for a while.

I think I’ve finally organized and filed everything properly that I’m going to keep. There were some things that I put into a box for Feena in case at some point she’s got questions. I decided to chunk a lot of stuff into the burn barrel but it started to rain – again – before it could finish. It was hard to know what to do with some of it; some hurt too bad to even touch, but the idea of throwing them away hurt even more.

Cried more today than I have in a long, long time. Made me want to go put flowers on Daniel’s grave or talk to Trish. Neither one is possible. I’m not due to make another run to Tampa to the produce station until next week and Trish is kind of incommunicado as they live in an area where cell phone service is spotty and they don’t have regular phones in the house they are staying at. We exchange letters but mail service is down to M W F on rural routes and both she and I are considered rural.

Had one of Cal’s friends from work come by yesterday and at first I thought there had been an accident or something, or maybe that he’d set someone up to watch me while he was gone. I didn’t know whether to be worried or irritated. It was neither of those things. It was basically just a guy being nice because Cal was a friend though I didn’t like the news he brought.

There are some crap heads using the river as their getaway vehicle after burglarizing homes along the shore. He knew Cal was away and wanted to give me a heads up and would I please tell my neighbors to keep an eye out and not to hesitate to call if I needed anything and here’s my card.

Dorrie told me to expect that eventually the guys that Cal brings around would notice that I was not hooked up with anyone and would probably try and see if there was anything worth pursuing with the little widow. No … freaking … way. I don’t know if I can ever make that kind of emotional investment again. It isn’t that I’ve been turned off men; I’m not blind and appreciate a nice looking specimen as well as the next gal. I just don’t want ulcers. It’s just despite what Daniel and I had in the beginning which was really, really good it all still wound up like a slasher film. I knew right away that I was in love with Daniel. If I can’t have that again why should I even bother taking a chance?

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[Jeepcats27]

It is interesting to hear about all the tropical fruits you can use but sad as I'm too far north to ever have any access without paying a fortune to try them. Thank you!

 

[Kiwibutterfly]

Many thanks

 

[sssarawolf]

Good going, thank you.

 

[Lake Lili]

Thanks Kathy!
Lili

 

[larry_minn]

if you control food, you control people.

 

[Kathy in FL]

32) Dear Diary,​

Lesson learned, never boil crabs or shrimp inside. I swear it smells like one of the crabs crawled out of the pot and off into a corner and died someplace and I just haven’t been able to find it yet.

I spent most of the day canning crab meat and scallops in small pint jars. The crab shells are now simmering making shellfish stock and I will can that as well. And tomorrow I’m going to crush what remains of the shells and put it in the compost pile that I have going. I’m sure the raccoons will be tempted to dig around in the pile but I’ve got a lock on the screen lid so hopefully they won’t be able to make much of a mess.

I’m glad that I’m almost finished canning or drying what’s in the freezer and that my stove runs on propane because the electricity was out most of the day. I hauled water from the river to flush with and to water my plants with and saved what was in the water barrels to water the animals with. I had three people from the shore stop by to ask me if I had any power. I said sorry but no. A couple of them acted like I had to be lying but then they’d get a whiff of the crabs and I’d give them a sad face and explain “stuff is just spoiling in this heat.”

Boy they are gullible. Cal says they’re sheeple and wants me to keep my distance. Sheeple is just sheep + people. Silly name for silly people. It’s hurricane season, I can’t believe they don’t have a few emergency supplies put aside. I think most of them are transplants from up north.

Dorrie’s Uncle Darryl is back. Not thrilled. But the man has definitely hit a low point in his life and perhaps will start singing a different tune. Man got in a fight and his knuckles were cut by the other guy’s teeth. Well the scrape got infected as some bites tend to and he lost three fingers and a good bit of his palm on his right hand … looks like a crab pincer now. If the doctors had been able to see him sooner he might not have lost so much but because the injury was a result of carelessness on his part he didn’t get the emergency attention he needed.

That’s not the first time I’ve heard that story. Just yesterday on the local news there was a story that a boy died from injuries sustained while doing some tricks on his bike. His family said he was wearing a helmet and other protective gear but that he landed on a curb and bruised his stomach. Since the injuries were deemed “self-inflicted due to carelessness” he was triaged. Turns out he’d ruptured something and bled out overnight while he waited in the emergency room to see a doctor. I expected that the segment was going to be a rousing condemnation of the healthcare laws but instead ended up in a lecture about how people needed to be more responsible and not waste the medical establishment’s resources that could be better spent on people that had more to offer to society.

The clinic where I take Feena – the only one still accepting what remains of the tri-care system – has been pushing me to consider long term birth control. I keep telling them I don’t need birth control, long term or otherwise, but that hasn’t stopped them from their innuendoes and encouraging little remarks. It’s disturbing.

I mentioned it to Dorrie and she said, “I get the same thing from work all the time. I’ve even been threatened that if I get pregnant I can kiss my job – and maybe my license – good bye.”

“Little harsh don’t you think? They can’t take your license away for having a baby.”

“State issues the license, the state can take it away and set the rules. Too many people out of work. They figure if they lose me they can replace me.” Then she glanced around to see if anyone else was listening before whispering, “If I didn’t bring in my paycheck there would be hardly any cash coming in except for the liquor store. Dad hates making money off of other people’s misery but he doesn’t know what else he can do. Gerald isn’t up to it; the man doesn’t know his name about half the time these days. I’ve tried to tell his doctor that the meds he is on are too strong but what do I know, I’m just a lowly CNA. Gran says that she trusts me more than the doctors who she thinks just want Gerald out of the way since he’s old and not rich. She’s going to slowly cut back his medicine and we’ll see how it goes.”

On a different note I asked, “So … how are you and Josh getting along.”

“Oh shut up.”

She blushed and I laughed. I didn’t begrudge her the chance at a life. Lord knows I had my chance. Just because my dream went to heck in a hand basket doesn’t mean I want everyone’s to.

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[Kathy in FL]

33) Dear Diary,​

It’s so stuffy in this house you can barely breathe. Closing the shutters downstairs and upstairs both makes me feel like I’m just about to choke. Bringing all my plants in the house has made the jungle-like atmosphere even worse. Thank goodness Feena finally fussed herself to sleep.

It’s hard to see through the rain but the little bit of dawn like there is has shown high tide has been pushed up over the road. I’ve seen it worse but not much. When everything recedes it is going to be a mess to clean up. There’s a tree across the driveway but I’ll deal with it later. I don’t have to worry about Cal coming home and not being able to get around it because he’s at the station waiting for the next call from some looby that didn’t evacuate when they should have. They opened the schools early but less than a quarter of the people that should have evacuated did before the storm started getting bad. Now they are all cussing that no one will come get them and take them to safety.

Got a call early yesterday from the Produce Station with an offer I just couldn’t refuse though Cal just about flipped a switch when he found out I had left. When the track of the hurricane was more firmly established they realized that the bay area was going to take a beating so they were trying to get rid of as much of their produce as they could so they wouldn’t have to truck so much out of the area. I took the trailer with me and came back with carambolas, pineapples, papayas, Persian limes, guavas, passion fruits, lemons, grapes, and pomegranates. I also had a bunch of cases of drinks and bottled water from the open-air food stand in the back. On top of the fruit there were several pumpkins, some hubbard squash, and three hundred pounds of pinto and black beans weighing my little car down to the point I was almost dragging my tail pipe. I’ve got plans for those beans and will be giving some to Dorrie’s family too.

The very earliest squall lines were starting to drift through by the time I got home and it was close to dark. Cal was so angry he almost wouldn’t talk to me. The only thing he did was move the bags of beans – each one weighing fifty pounds – into the kitchen; then he left for work after telling me that he’d be back between shifts to tie down the trailer and anything else that needed doing.

I didn’t stop him from growling, it had taken me a lot longer than I had expected to complete the transactions and load up; it was every man – and woman – for themselves and the place had been like a madhouse. Coming home was no fun either; the evacuation routes were a mess and I had to cross several. I put all the produce in the house and after it was full dark moved all of my plants in using a head lamp whose elastic was so old I had to fix it to a baseball cap with a safety pin. Cal had already gotten his boat out of the water and tied it down and secured it the best he could. He’d started the job on the trailer and might have finished it had I been home to help him. Rather than wait for him I completed it using a ratchet to tighten the straps and then started filling water containers.

Cal came home and was mollified to see what I had accomplished in his absence. He still managed to say, “You shouldn’t have been out on the roads Aria. I’ve seen storms before, but I’ve never seen people acting this crazy because of storms before. We’ve already had several calls because of store looting.”

I shrugged. “People are animals. Expect the worst and you won’t be disappointed.”

He stood up from his stoop and said, “Hey, I’m supposed to be the cynic around here.”

I shrugged again. “I’ve seen too much not to know how stupid some people can act.” Smacking yet another mosquito that was dining on me I asked, “Have you heard how Dorrie’s family is?”

“All buttoned up. Josh said that I was to tell you if the water gets too high you’re to take off to their place.”

I snorted. “That’s sweet but Dorrie knows better. If the water gets too high we’ll be trapped on this side of the river. In the old days the storms would push the water clear up to the house, that’s why the crawl space is so deep … so the water can flow under the house rather than through it. The animals are as secure as I can make them in the shed. At least we finished all the repairs to it. I suppose I’ll bring them up to the house if it gets really, really bad; I’ll lock them in the Florida room if I have to. I’m worried about your stuff though. At least consider letting me bring it in the house.”

“You already store almost all of it in here in the back bedroom.”

“Not that stuff, your everyday stuff that’s in the trailer.”

Looking at me, “You’ve seen storms out here before. You think it’s necessary?”

“I don’t know about necessary necessarily, but it couldn’t hurt.”

After a moment he said, “You got bags or something to put it all in?”

“I’ve got some empty storage tubs.”

I dragged the tubs over to his trailer and he started filling them and then looked at them more closely. I asked him, “What? Is there a crack in that one?”

“No,” he said cautiously. “Aren’t … aren’t these the ones you … er … had Daniel’s stuff stored in?”

“Yeah, they don’t have cooties. I cleaned them before I stacked them up.”

He shook his head. “That’s not what I mean. Just … uh … where did his stuff go?”

I sighed not wanting to have the conversation. “Some here, some there. I suppose I should have asked if you wanted anything.”

He shook his head. “No. But … but when? I mean you wouldn’t even touch or move the stuff when we were replacing the locks and doorknobs.”

I leaned against the trailer door and talked to him through the screen unable to stand in the light and look at him while I spoke, even if it meant vampire mosquitos sucked me dry. “While you were off with your buddies playing Creature from the Black Lagoon. And before you ask, I don’t know why then. It was just time. Feena is almost nine months old. Daniel has been gone … over … over six months … longer in a way, a lot longer. I was in the hospital for Thanksgiving last year and we were all in mourning by Christmas. Here it is July and I didn’t even want to go to the 4th of July picnic because it reminded me of last year. So much has happened since then, I’ve come so far yet sometimes if feels like … like I haven’t moved a step.”

“But why then? Were you waiting until I was gone?”

“That’s not it at all. I hadn’t even thought that was what I had planned to do. I don’t know what put the bee in my bonnet Cal; I was sitting on the porch trimming my toes nails when it just hit me. I was still holding on to things, not dealing with them. I’d put it off too long, let it get too big in my mind. It was just stuff, inanimate. It needed to be done. End of story.” Slapping at a beetle that had zigged when he should have zagged and had wound up in my hair instead of against the porch light I told him, “I still can’t see anything like normal in my future but if I’m going to help Feena to have it I’ve got to … got to …” I shrugged. Refusing to verbalize anything else I ended with, “It was just time. That’s the only thing I can say. Please don’t ask me to explain it any better than that because I can’t.”

Matter-of-factly he said, “OK. So long as it wasn’t because you were afraid to deal with things with me here.”

“No. That wasn’t it. It was just time.”

After we got everything but the built-in furniture out of the trailer he ate a plate of picadillo while I packed him some empanadas for him and Josh to eat on if they had time.

As he was leaving he said, “I wish there was room for you and Feena at the station but it’s crammed with people that have gotten arrested on purpose to get out of the storm. It isn’t a fit place right now.”

“We’re fine. Go before they start asking for your twenty.”

I slept a little but the storm really started whipping and whistling and woke me up. I can’t say for sure but I think I see a couple of power poles have snapped. The river probably looks like the ocean at this point. I hope no one is crazy enough to be out in this stuff.

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[Kathy in FL]

34) Dear Diary,​

What a mess. The water came all the way up to the front porch steps on the river side of the property. Barn was flooded but nothing was damaged except for a little wash out by the doors when the water started receding. Not one but two trees are down over the driveway. One corner of the roof on the shed got dented pretty good when a limb fell on it but no major structural damage at our place.

Unless you count the septic field which is toast. When the plumbing in the house backed up I checked the clean out and that’s when I noticed several pools of bubbling water that reeked. I knew that I’d have to do something eventually but I hadn’t really put it in the priority column of potential disasters.

In the scheme of things, we got off far luckier than a lot of the neighbors. I don’t mean to be nasty but that’s what they get for building a house with the footprint the size of the Taj Mahal on land that is little more than filler left over from dredging. What part of Shell Point Road and Man-Made Canals and Florida Wetlands do they not understand?

OK, maybe I do mean to be nasty. I’ve had several people over here complaining that I need to do something “right now” about my private road being washed out and unusable. I told them they’d just have to use their real access through the gates of their gated community, that my private road was not a right of way for construction crews.

“That’s not fair.”

If I hear that one more time I will flaming shriek. Fair? Fair?!! Fair would mean them not coming over uninvited demanding that I do something that they have no authority to demand from me. Fair would mean they would have a little concern for me and not just me supposed to only think of those poor babies in their million-dollar mcmansions suffering and cranky because they have no AC or electric which also means no water. Their HOA has trucked in a couple of loads of bottled water but I’ve been offered not a drop … but they expect me to repair the road so their construction crews can use it. In their freaking dreams. Even if I could I’d be tempted not to just to show them they have no power over me.

Sigh.

OK, that’s out of my system for a little bit. I don’t need to start fussing. It will wake Cal up and he is finally supposed to have a full shift off and I want him to spend it sleeping. The National Guard has been sent in because of the rampant looting and so many people applying the castle doctrine and shooting intruders.

Typical groups are up in arms about it naturally. I walked down to the gas station to meet Dorrie and her father who wanted to check on me … cell phone service is still sketchy … and when I heard about some demonstration led by the types of people you’d expect and I said a little louder than I had intended, “Tell ‘em to take off the suits, roll up their sleeves and shut up long enough to actually do something to help and I might give them some respect. Tell ‘em to man a soup kitchen, help folks unclog the drains to let the water to run off into the canals like it is supposed to. Put tarps on the roofs of those people they are trying to defend and tell them to tell the kids in those neighborhoods to stop standing around waiting for someone to help them and teach them to help themselves so they aren’t a burden on society. Until then they are nothing but a bunch of hot air and we’ve got enough of that already in case they haven’t looked at the thermometer.”

I heard several people around me snicker but not too many said anything outright since there was politically mixed company around and it was too hot to brawl. I was at a point I didn’t care, the septic field being the straw that was coming close to breaking my back.

Now for the rest of the story like that radio guy Daddy liked to listen to old recordings of would say.

Returning to the house I was picking up debris when I saw one of those small fireproof safes sticking out from under a large tree limb. I figured someone had lost something in the storm and I would give it to Cal and he could turn it in. As I got closer I saw sparkles in the sand and thought that maybe some jewelry had washed in too. I was going to just pick it up when I noticed that the ground was literally crawling with fire ants. The water had obviously disturbed a large, underground mound; no way was I sticking my hands in that. I looked around and saw a plastic trashcan lid and a broken rake. Like I said, the road area is littered with junk the river had picked up and then deposited.

I slid the trashcan lid over near the safe and tried to work it out only it was stuck on something.

“No good deed goes unpunished,” I muttered to no one in particular, wiping the sweat off my face.

I stuck the rake in as far as I could and pulled, solidly hooking the safe. Then I gave a big heave ho and it finally came out … at least part of the way. It was still stuck and I could finally see what it was stuck on.

I’m not normally someone to lose it and my experiences of the last two years would have dulled that instinct even if I had been. For some reason the phrase “death grip” entered my mind and I finally understood how apropos it could be.

I stepped back and took out my cell phone praying for a signal.

“Aria, I’m busy right now.”

“Ok … then could you send Josh or somebody?”

There was a micropause as something in my voice must have caught his attention and he asked, “Is everything all right?”

“Not … not really. There was this fire safe under this limb and then I saw sparkles all around it but the sparkles were covered in ants so I used a rake only … did you know that a death grip is a real phenomena. I thought it was just hyperbole or something. So if you could send someone out …”

In a very steady and calming voice he said, “Aria … I want you to take a deep breath and start again.”

I did and then realized what I was smelling was not fish washed ashore by the storm. I gagged for a moment before I said, “I told you, there was a fire safe. I was going to turn it in to lost-and-found or whatever they call it after a hurricane. Only it was stuck. I used a broken rake to tug at it because of the fire ants. Only I can’t get it loose because there is a hand on it. The hand is covered with ants too. The hand is connected to an arm but if you guys want to know what the arm is connected to you are going to have to come out here yourself. OK?”

It wasn’t long before a sheriff’s car and a National Guard vehicle was pulling up close. I didn’t recognize any of them and I had the urge to run but then a woman got out of the shotgun seat of the sheriff’s car and came around.

“Hi, I’m Mel … Cal says you found something?”

I pointed in the general direction of what I’d found and added, “I thought it was dead fish I was smelling. And the fire ants are really bad so be careful.”

I was repeating my story to Mel while the other deputy called in for the coroner when Cal showed up and came running over interrupting my story to Mel. “Are you OK?” he asked.

“Yeah but now I’ve lost my place and I’m going to have to tell the ding blasted story all over again.”

He looked at me closely then asked, “When’s the last time you’ve had any water?”

“What?”

“You’re white as a sheet except for your cheeks which are red as beets and that’s saying something considering your normal skin tone. When’s the last time you had any water?”

“Oh. At the store. I was standing outside with Dorrie and her father made me drink some because I had given the last of mine to Feena.”

Next thing I know I’m sitting in Cal’s truck while he looms over me until I prove that I know how to drink from a cup which he’d filled with some washed out blue sports drink.

“Cal this is the worst tasting …”

“I don’t care if it tastes like licking the bottom of my boots after I’ve mucked the goat pen. You’ll drink it.”

“God you are so bossy.” But I drank it while Feena inhaled another bottle of water. Then his majesty ordered me to stay in the truck. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes, it was just so hot.

I must have jumped a mile when something wet touched my face. “Easy Aria. You got too hot, this will help. People are suffering from heat exhaustion left and right today.”

“The heat doesn’t bother me; I grew up without air conditioning remember?”

“This heat would bother Beelzebub. You ready to tell it one more time?”

I groaned but when I turned my head he stood in my line of sight. I asked, “That bad?”

“Yeah. You don’t need to see it. Trust me.”

“Of course.” He blinked like he had expected me to make a fuss. “But … like can you tell me after they figure out who it is?”

“Maybe, depends on what goes down and when they say information can be released to the public.”

“OK.” Then I looked around. “So who am I supposed to tell it to this time?”

“That’d be me.”

A rumpled man in dark dress slacks and a polo shirt with the sheriff’s department insignia on it came around Cal. Cal looked at him and nodded then turned to me, “Aria, this is Det. Jason McLeod.”

So I told it again. Safe, sparkles, ants, rake, tug, hand, arm and then calling Cal. “You didn’t notice it the first time you walked down the road Mrs. Lowery?”

“No,” I told him taking a sip of the awful sports drink to keep Cal from glaring. “I was more concerned with not tripping over the rest of the junk in what’s left of the road bed than what was up in the grassy area. Feena … my daughter Josefina … was wiggling and I didn’t want to lose my balance or turn my ankle in a hole.”

“And coming back you decided to look for stuff in the grass?”

“No, not purposely. I was avoiding being seen by the guy who lives right over there in that house and it just sort of happened. He keeps complaining that he wants the road fixed so he can have his construction guys come this way rather than ruin his bushes in his front yard but he won’t listen that this road isn’t certified for large equipment because they’re too heavy. He won’t shut up about it so I was trying to sneak back without him seeing me; I wasn’t up to another … er … discussion on the topic.”

“I see.”

“No you don’t … but you will when you go talk to him. The man is as tenacious as a bull terrier. And he’ll try and sell you insurance while he’s at it.”

Deputy Mel picked that moment to come over shaking her head. “She’s not exaggerating. He’s already been over twice, asked for everyone’s business card, and asked if we could encourage her to do something about the road.”

“Oh brother,” I groaned.

“Don’t worry about it,” Mel grinned. “He irritated the NG boys and they bolted his rear gate shut and stuck a sticker over it and told him that if he drove over the crime scene they’d be coming back by the front entrance.”

I smiled in return then remembered there was a dead body nearby and it melted. Mel asked, “You OK?”

“Yeah, just … you know … not every day you run into that,” I answered pointing in the general direction of the body.

Cal came up and asked, “You through with her? She and the baby should get back to the house.”

I rolled my eyes and went to get out of the truck. “Where are you going?” he asked.

“I’m walking back to the house.”

“Does my truck look like it has a flat tire?”

“Oh.”

“You need some sleep.”

“What I need is the number to a good, cheap septic company.”

“What?!”

On the way back to the house I explained. He said he’d ask around and then said, “We need to talk about water.”

“I’m drinking, I’m drinking. Any faster and I’m gonna toss my cookies.”

“Not this water … although yeah, finish that up. I mean water water. They still don’t know how long the power is going to be out around here. I’ll switch the generator from the freezer tonight and hook it up to the well long enough to refill the barrels but the gennie doesn’t exactly sip gas and they’ve tightened fuel restrictions even more.”

“Yeah. Speaking of, do I need to bring you out a can of gas for your truck?”

“No. Since I’m being forced to use my truck on the job they’re letting me fill up using my gas ration card; I just have to keep my mileage.”

“OK, what about food? Had anything since breakfast?”

His stomach gurgled and we both smiled despite the situation back down the road. He put it in four-wheel and went around the trees, dropped me at the door and waited just long enough for me to run him out some left over rice and beans in a plastic container and a bag of dessert pears before turning around to go back to the scene.

“Call me if you need to.”

“I’m fine.”

“Call me,” he insisted.

“I’m fine,” I insisted right back.

“Then I’ll call you.”

I rolled my eyes and he finally left. I didn’t really mind. I was – and still am – a tad freaked out by what happened. My imagination has been coming up with some pretty gruesome backstories for the owner of the hand.
---------------

 

[Kathy in FL]

35) Dear Diary,​

Been too busy to write. I figured if I was being forced to do all the yard work due to the storm damage I might as well go ahead and get a fall garden started … well late summer garden … whatever.

Promptly in the first week of August I planted pole beans, sweet corn, okra, black eyed peas, squash, watermelon, broccoli, lima beans, cucumbers, and late tomatoes. Heat has been so bad I had to hang burlap to shade the seedlings or risk them shriveling up as soon as they popped out of the ground. At least we now have power, although it continues to be sporadic since they basically just put bandaids on the worst of it until they can put in more permanent fixes. There is a new excuse every day; the latest one is that the parts that were ordered from overseas turned out to be wrong or something so now the process starts all over again.

About the only thing in the produce markets these days that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg is local tropical fruit but a lot of people have forgotten how to use them, or didn’t realize they were edible to begin with. You’d think with things being as they are people would be more willing to get outside their comfort zone and try something new, or at least new to them. Soursop, sweetsop, atemoya, karanda, kei-apple, langan, pineapple guava, governor’s plum, imbe, acerola, mango, sapodilla, prickly pear, avocado, strawberry guava, guava, pomegranate, downy myrtle, muscadine grapes, pineapple, papaya, calamondin, lemon, Persian limes, carambola, fig, passion fruit, pear, Surinam cherry; I’m just thankful that we’ve got it to use even if some of it does look a little like something a Martian might enjoy. The price of groceries is getting outrageous. No, they’ve been outrageous for a while, now they’re … they’re … well, not even sure there is a word in Papa’s thesaurus that fits the way things are right now. It’s even caused rioting in some places. Not around here, the stuff coming in at the Port kinda keeps things from completely falling apart. But Chicago and LA have only been saved by the fact that school has started back up. Now that’s scary. Of course what is happening closer to home is scary too.

Sorry for the smudged page, thought I heard someone on the porch but it was Cal up prowling around again out in the Florida room. I don’t know if it is that his days and nights are mixed up, or he’s still getting used to living in the house, or if the dead stranger down the road is still weighing on his mind; or maybe it was the conversation he had with his oldest brother. No matter what it is it seems to be dragging him down.

He sold the trailer. He got a good price for it too; some cash which he has insisted on adding to the household money as “rent” though I swear it makes me want to kick him in the ankle every time he brings it up, and some equipment in trade. Some guy in the gated community down the road walked over to talk to Cal the other day. Turns out he’d had enough of the Florida life and was moving back to Maine, wanted to know if Cal would sell him the trailer. He wasn’t interested until the guy was ready to up the cash and throw in a solar set up he’d never bothered installing after the HOA nixed placing anything on his roof.

Cal and I had a long talk about it. We both know that we’ve crossed some kind of indefinable line. We’re family. We’re friends. I honestly can’t imagine surviving this past year without his support. But when we started this whole “survivalist” thing it was with the idea that Lily would be coming out and we’d be one, great big happy pod of people … like Feena would have three parents or something; kinda like I had growing up to a certain extent. But with Lily out of the picture but not quite gone and Daniel’s ghost still haunting me on occasion I’m not sure either of us were eager to be forced into redefining what the future was going to be.

I’m not going to repeat word for word what all was said. Bottom line is this is my home, but it is Cal’s too, just like it has been home to various members of my family, from blood kin to marriage to adoption, since the land was first cleared back in the 1800s. If at some point in the future either one of us does – and here we both shuddered like a goose had walked over our graves – does wind up finding another significant other then this would be their home as well or we would be free to once again redefine our living arrangements.

OK, as a solution it isn’t perfect, there is potential for problems, and people might get the wrong idea on occasion but lots of people are having to go back to the old-fashioned way of families doubling up to make ends meet. Look at Dorrie’s family. Four generations, some of them blood, some halves, some steps, all under one roof making it work because they need to. If the menagerie works for Dorrie, then Cal and I can make it work.

Actually after learning that the body I found is still unidentified but more than likely belonged to a looter – the body had bullets in it so it is a toss-up whether he bled out or drowned first – and because there have been a lot of mysterious lights on the river and coming close to shore, it doesn’t hurt my feelings any to know that Cal is closer.

About half the houses in the gated community are now empty. There had already been a few due to foreclosures but some of the homes are just in too much disrepair and the fire marshal won’t release their hold preventing the electric company reinstalling the wires to the house until all of the code inspections have passed. I don’t know where all the former residents have gone. I walked over there one day only to find that some of the places are now deemed “hazardous to human habitation” due to things like black mold or vandalization. The entire neighborhood has a really creepy feeling to it and Cal asked me not to go back alone anymore. He also told me there have been several domestic calls in the area and he’s heard that one guy in particular is on the raw edge.

He must have seen my face and realized I was thinking about Daniel. “I didn’t mean to bring it up but at least you have some idea of what I’m talking about.”

“Sure. And I’d rather know than not. My Pollyanna days are long over.”

He nodded and went back to his brooding. He’d called his brother just to give him a status update that all was well, yada, yada. His brother then just flat out told him that he needed to make some other plans if he had imagined being able to come to him if his life fell apart here in Florida. Said he’d seen the pictures and it looked like a war zone in some areas and he just couldn’t afford to invite that kind of thing into his home.

“I never planned on coming out to your place without an invitation, but I wasn’t holding my breath Gary. I’ve yet to get an invitation to even visit from any of you. I get I’m on my own and I got it a long time ago.”

And then unbelievably you could hear the relieved smile in Cal’s brother’s voice. “Oh? Well … well good. I hadn’t known how to tell you, you’re my little brother after all. It’s a relief to get it out in the open. The others feel the same and they’ll be happy you’ve finally grown up. So, how’s the job going? Made detective yet?”

Talk about thoughtless and out of touch with reality. And it didn’t help that he’d asked about Cal’s work. He’s heard through the grapevine – whether he wanted to or not - that Percival Perfect and Lily are still hot and heavy. PP thinks that Lily is his upwardly mobile ticket to the big leagues. Lily … well I’ve given up trying to guess what Lily is thinking. But to make himself look better PP has used innuendo to blacken Cal’s reputation. That’s going to be a lot of political compost to overcome if he does decide to pursue being a detective.

Cal is thinking seriously about considering other career options but all he has ever been is a cop, all he ever wanted to be was a cop, and with the economy being what it is he feels stuck.

I’m feeling moments of panic myself. The support and benefits checks were almost a week late this month. They said it is because of the hurricane but still, it gave me pause. I’ve got enough in savings to pay the taxes on this place for a couple of years and I intend to keep it that way but any time a major repair comes up … like the septic system I had to replace … it eats into my savings and it seems to take twice as long to get the money back in to the account. Just writing about it is making me itch.

I think I’ll go downstairs and see if Cal wants to watch something completely mindless on the blue ray. I’m just tired of thinking and worrying for a while.

---------------

 

[sssarawolf]

Thank you very much.

 

[Sportsman]

Thank you. I can't imagine your feelings writing this in the shadow of recent storms.

 

[Deena in GA]

Another great story! Thanks, Kathy!!

 

[Sammy55]

Caught up on this one. Didn't realize I was behind! Thanks, Kathy!!

(And wondering if and when they will....naughty, naughty...LOL!)

 

[Griz3752]

It was hard keeping up with you in 2022 Ms Kathy.

I think I'm all caught up now . . . . .
Well, there might be a couple or three more.

 

[feralferret]

Good story, Kathy.

 

[larry_minn]

I miss this story. It has such hopes, promises, directions I hope it goes.

 

[DIMDAL]

If you liked this one, you might like the start of Dark Days or Eidetic Sunshine. There is also a story where the husband leaves the woman & child at her parents and doesn't return, the title evades me at the moment.

 

[DIMDAL]

Ettie is the title https://m.fictionpress.com/s/3338007/1/Ettie
Eidetic Sunshine link is https://m.fictionpress.com/s/3336520/1/Eidetic-Sunshine
Sorry, I can't find a working link to Dark Days.

 

[DIMDAL]

Found Dark Days

Dark Days

winniedarkdays.blogspot.com

 

[Kathy in FL]

36) Dear Diary,​

Blessed silence … at least until seven freaking o’clock in the morning again. I shouldn’t complain, I’m up anyway, but honestly the banging and pounding and buzzing would drive a saint to drink.

A lot of the shoreline along the river got washed away during the storm surge. I lost almost a foot of shore just on my protected little section. Well the environmentalists were having hissy fits. The new flow was disturbing things in the Cockroach Bay preserve. Something just had to be done right there and then or millions and millions of dollars was going to wash out into the Gulf and umpty bumpty fancy schmantzy homes were going to lose property values (lowering the taxes they’d have to pay) and on and on.

So out comes the dirt and rocks one dump truck at a time and every time a truck hits a pothole – BAM! – and every time they dump their load – BANG! KABLAM! – and then the constant grinding of the back hoes and these big fat machines that mash everything flat. This goes on from seven in the morning until at least seven in the evening as they try and address the eroding shoreline fast enough for the green freaks and the rich environmentalist.

I guess anything to distract from the real problems we are all facing. But it is also true that the squeaky wheel gets the oil because they are rehabbing the shoreline. But to do so they used government privilege to use my private road to travel down. Of course, before they could do that they had to fix my road so do you hear me complaining?

It’s also quiet because I finally convinced Cal to stop treating me like a baby and go with his buddies and do some more crabbing. I asked him how likely a bunch of maniac river pirates were to pick my particular part of the shore with the way the county and state have the place under lock and key. Even I had to get a special pass to use my own blasted road.

They also need Cal’s boat because one of the guys has a brother that has some lobster traps and he’s willing to share if they help him guard his haul until he can get it to market. Mmmmm … lobster. Haven’t had it since …

Sigh. I haven’t had it since Daniel and I were on our honeymoon over in Daytona. We only had three days and the only time we left the motel was to eat … and even that was usually brought back to the room. I swear we got so many smart remarks about coming back with less of a tan than we left with.

OK, enough of that. Back to the present. Had a chance to ply my old wares today. (snicker, that sounds dirty, wish Dorrie was here to share the joke). Actually, one of the granddaughters of the carneceria owners is getting married tonight – probably saying her vows in front of the priest as I write this – and I overheard how she was having a difficult time getting her grandmother’s mantilla and veil to stay properly. It just sort of grew from there. I did the bride’s hair and then the mother’s and grandmother’s then the father of the bride needed a good cut and so on and so forth. I spent all morning and most of the afternoon and had a really fun time talking with people and hearing all the local gossip. It was a while before I realized that people were putting money or other things in a hat the grandfather had sat on the table beside me.

“No Senor, no es necesario para, esto es un regalo para la novia.”

He just shrugged and said, “La mitad de los hombres no estaban en la fiesta de bodas. Hacerles pagar lo que pueden. Les hace sentirse como un hombre.”

I suppose it is hard to argue with that kind of logic. I hadn’t known that not all those men were in the wedding but were customers. And I also can’t argue that it feels good to pay your tab rather than take charity. It was something the men wanted to do with whatever they had to offer. Most of it was change like I would get in the tip jar back at the salón but there were a few little trinkets and stuff that looked like it had been found on the beach as well. Spanish men have a machismo that can’t be ignored. Of course most men are like that in my experience, some are just more obvious about it than others. Daniel didn’t have a drop of Spanish in him but his machismo could compete with …

This is ridiculous. I swear I’ve got a one track mind tonight.

Anyway, the owners also insisted that I accept some corn and wheat flour in payment for what I had done for the wedding party. The grandmother winked and told me that they still got off cheaper than had they paid a salon and that she was much happier with her granddaughter’s makeup; she looked like a young woman getting married and not one going out to a club to go dancing with a bunch of hombres.

Everyone was in a good mood because for now there are construction jobs to be had. It made up for the poor harvest and ruined fields which meant no harvest jobs until they could be replanted.

But from Dorrie’s side of things I’ve heard a lot of talk that the planters aren’t going to replant; they are taking their insurance money and digging in, trying to force the government to back off the ridiculous federal licenses. That is a dangerous game, not only for the business owners but for the customers they serve.

 

[Kathy in FL]

37) Dear Diary,​

We’ve had a full week of clear weather which hasn’t happened in a while. The thermometer doesn’t reflect it, but it feels a little cooler without all the humidity resting at near one hundred percent all day long.

Cal is actually at home tonight and I’m having a hard time not laughing. I can hear his snores all the way down the hall even with his door closed. I suppose I should cut him some slack, he’s been working really hard with only limited overtime to show for it. Every cop in the county has been doing the same. Things are finally settling down, but they are nowhere near “normal.” Whatever normal is supposed to mean anymore.

The primary reason that crime has dropped off is that the kids are officially back in school. They were two weeks late starting because the schools were still being used as shelters for those made homeless by the hurricane, but those people have finally been evicted – a lot of them didn’t want to give up their free room and board at the city, state, and county’s expense – the campuses cleaned up and the kids reinstalled.

Fewer domestic calls, fewer calls about vandalism and petit theft, fewer loitering calls and public nuisance calls. The home invasion calls have gone up but that’s a different demographic usually. Shoplifting reports remain high as well for obvious reasons. Pawn shops and grocery stores now have 24/7 on-site security guards. Dorrie’s Uncle Darryl and one of her other uncles switch off in guarding their liquor store ‘round the clock.

Dorrie’s family figured out a way to get people to use their gas station more often than many of the others. They are allowing the “twenty” in the store to include grocery store gift cards and prepaid calling cards. They are also carrying less and less general merchandise except for some auto type stuff like oil and fuel treatment. They also purchased a commercial ice machine that pays for itself. They shut down the deli which was losing money and now rent that side out to a guy that does small engine repair or minor car repairs and he accepts barter. He even does a bit of welding and I paid the guy to repair the hitch on the trailer when the lock thingie broke when I unexpectedly hit a pothole hidden under a palm frond that had fallen on the road.

That was a bill I didn’t need but the trailer has been a Godsend and I don’t know how I would do what I need to do without it. Cal also paid the guy to do some welding on some upright, commercial grade fence posts. The guy is the type that asks no questions and answers none himself so when he welded those uprights that seemed for no particular purpose he didn’t seem interested in the least.

Cal has decided he is going to mount the solar panels near the ground instead of to a roof so that they will be easier to remove and store in case of another storm. He is only doing a few additions at a time so that it draws less attention. He’s holding off until they are finished with the road in particular so that the less traffic in the area the better.

I was worried there because for about a week they were considering doing the old “imminent domain” thing on that side of my property but then they agreed to drop it as long as I agreed to sign a contract saying that I would not sell any of my land to a commercial or waterfront developer and kept my dock below a certain size. I asked them that if I could trace various branches of my family to the land for over a hundred and fifty years why would I all of a sudden just up and sell it to any yahoo that came along? The county guy just sort of blinked at me like he didn’t understand that type of family history at all.

He came back two days later and I found out he wasn’t stupid he just hadn’t believed me. He asked if I had ever considered deeding the land to the state wildlife people. My answer was to the point and clear enough that even a DC bureaucrat could understand it.

After the guy had left I walked around the house to find Cal and Josh nearly rolling on the ground trying to hold their laugher in at the stunned look the guy had had on his face after I explained things. Honestly, sometimes those two are nothing but a couple of oversized boys. Big feet, big hands, big appetites … at least that time they knew when to keep their big mouths shut.

I’ve been giving the house a seriously good cleaning, especially the windows and walls. Old houses “breathe” better than the hermetically sealed things that pass for a modern home so I haven’t had to worry about mold and mildew so much, but everything has had that sticky icky feeling you get when it’s been humid all summer long.

I was even up in the attic today – what a joy that is I simply can’t express – and found a honey bee nest the size of two basketballs. Not sure how they got in but it has been interesting trying to get them to relocate without dislocating something vital avoiding one of the flying devils. I think they might be between the walls too as when I opened one of the windows honey kind of oozed out of a nail hole. Sigh. This is going to be another fun project and a half.

 

[Kathy in FL]

38) Dear Diary,​

Oh happy, happy day. Well, compared to what it could have been anyway. Josh’s grandfather owned a pest control company and he worked there as a kid, through college, and right up until he became a cop. He knew exactly what to do but it has been several days of work.

Rather than taking the siding off the outside of the house we’ve taken the old cedar paneling off the inside of the attic. There was no insulation and the hive was relatively new, probably just one season’s worth, and small so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Josh even helped to relocate some of the hive by capturing the queen and most of her court with a shop vac, taking some of the honey and comb, and depositing them in a hollow oak tree in the woodlot. I feel bad about that but not so bad that I’m going to put Feena at risk.

Getting rid of the bees was actually the easy part; it was cleaning up their mess that was a challenge. We disturbed some of the comb when we took off the paneling and gooey, warm honey dripped even further down between the walls almost to the first floor. We had suspected it but began to be sure of it when Josh pushed on the crown molding and baseboard of the room directly beneath that part of the attic and heard a kind of sticky sound like something was tacky behind them. We had to take both off but luckily there was only dribs and drabs in a couple of places, and we got most of it by taking down the trim and the molding from around the window on that wall.

Josh also showed us how to save what honey that we could since he didn’t use pesticides to get rid of the bees and there was no insulation in the walls so no particles to worry about in the gooey stuff. I guess you just never know about some people. We got eighty pounds of honey alone from that one small hive and that didn’t include the waxy combs. I wanted to pay Josh for his help but he got all offended.

“Don’t be hardheaded. You may be Cal’s friend but that doesn’t mean your expertise hasn’t been valuable. You certainly saved me a ton of cash. You even managed to remove the bees without killing all that many of them. They’ve probably been pollinating my trees and garden and I’d hate to lose the free labor.”

Josh crossed his arms and just looked at me. “You’re trying to make me feel bad.”

I told him archly, “I’m trying to have my own way.”

My honesty startled a laugh out of him. “All right already. Then how about giving me some of this honey and comb and we’ll call it even.” I wasn’t going to argue with a good barter deal like that.

Josh did not strike me as the most useful person the first few times I met him. He comes off as a bit of an oversized goof but then again I think some people think of Cal the same way. They are way handier to have around than you might guess. Shows you can’t always judge someone on initial meeting or short acquaintance.

The bee wall also happens to be the one that faces east and gets the most sun. Cal and Josh talked me into letting them inject pre-expanded foam insulation into that wall. It worked so well that we’ll likely do the other exterior walls as well when we’ve saved up a bit more money. The only thing that I didn’t like was all the holes they drilled. The attic was OK since it was just cedar paneling over cypress framing and the paneling could be reused with only a few minor repairs. Second floor also wasn’t too bad since it is easy to repair drywall. First floor? That is the problem; it’s real lime plaster on slats and can be a pain to fix if it cracks. I should know, I was playing downstairs when I was ten and rough housing with one of Papa’s dogs that wasn’t supposed to be in the house. We knocked over a table that then hit the wall and created a big dent with a running crack. In addition to lots of extra chores I had to help repair the mess I had made. Taught me real fast that rough housing was NOT something you do inside, a lesson I’ve never forgotten even to the point of cringing when I see other people doing it in their homes.

One of the reasons I loved the bungalow was that it reminded me so much of my old home; it had real plaster walls too except in the bathroom which was green board. In a way I am sad that it has been torn down but I have a feeling it would not have survived the winds that went through the Ybor area during the hurricane. Many of the historical structures near downtown sustained heavy damage; to the point that some of the older homes in the area simply have to be bulldozed down. I’m not sure how far they have gotten in the clean-up efforts; the news media seems to be focused on the more affluent areas of town. I hear it is a lot like what happened after hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. Even though I miss the cultural flavor of the area and the unique people, I’m glad I don’t live there. It would have been nice to visit but everything has to change eventually. There are very few real constants in life.

 

[Kathy in FL]

39) Dear Diary,​

It’s been two days and they are finally willing to say that Josh is going to make it. As I understand it, it was more the loss of blood than anything else and now that they found the leak and plugged it he is rapidly improving.

Dorrie … now Dorrie is another story. She knew Josh was a cop when they started keeping company. I think the reality of that just now set in though. It hasn’t changed how she feels about him, she’s just not sure how to accept the violence that he faces nearly every day and keep it in perspective. She’s trying but Cal has said that Josh told him not to push her; that some people just can’t deal with it. He wasn’t going to hold it against her if she couldn’t.

I’m not going to give up on it yet. I think Josh is just trying to protect himself from a potential hurt. Dorrie has a good head on her shoulders and I know she thinks quite a bit of Josh. I won’t play matchmaker – don’t have the experience, misjudged once too often – but I will pray that if it is God’s will they’ll be smart enough to work it out.

I just still can’t believe that someone was crazy enough to tar and feather people in this day and age. What a crock of stinky stuff! It still makes me sick to my stomach. Luckily Cal only got a glancing splash from the cold roofing tar and not the hot tar that covered Deputy Hanson. That man Ricks was caught and while he blusters about being a real patriot (little “p” as I refuse to see him as one with a capital “P”) and says that he was standing up to the tyranny of an oppressive government, he also denies that he told anyone to use hot tar. Apparently he was going for something less than outright First Degree Murder. Tell that to Deputy Hanson’s wife and children. Tell that to Josh who was shot while running to the aid of Deputy Hanson who was screaming horribly.

I found out about the screaming when Cal woke up with a nightmarish yell of his own that first night, missing most of one eyebrow and his own scalp raw in places from the solvent that was needed to get the most stubborn of the tar to release his skin from its grip.

On top of that Cal has gone back and forth about moving out. He’s worried that if he stays it will make me and Feena a target … several police officer’s homes have been vandalized and threats have been made against their families. He’s worried that if he does leave there won’t be anyone here – or at least near – to protect us and make the criminals think twice before trying something. I told him I’ve known what he was for years and if he was asking for my opinion I wanted him to stay … that he made me feel safer.

“Safer? What if I bring this crap to your home Aria?”

“This is your home too so don’t go abandoning it out of some misplaced sense of guilt and good intentions. You’ve got no reason to feel guilty and the road to hell is paved with good intentions; and, since I’ve chosen a different path than that hot ol’ place I might as well drag you along even if it is kicking and screaming … for your own good of course.”

He opened his mouth to say something and then just rolled his eyes and gave in. I know it is still on his mind. I caught him drawing outlines for new and improved tactical plans for the house and surrounding property. I noticed he was trying to sneak around and inventory the ammo supply as well. I didn’t comment. I think it is a guy thing … and glad of it I am. I wasn’t kidding when I said I feel safer with Cal living here.

What really chaps me is that Ricks – “the accused” or “the alleged” if you listen to the boob tube or radio – tries to act like he is the innocent victim of some gestapo like tactics by his creditors. Hello!!! No one broke his arm to buy that house that was financially unsustainable on his income. No one put a gun to his head to then take out equity loans to buy the latest big boy toys. No one told him if he didn’t run up his fifteen or so credit cards to maintain his chosen lifestyle as his income began to deteriorate that they’d sell his wife and kids to flesh peddlers. He used his free will all the way. He also used his free will in ignoring all the legal correspondence that came his way warning him as he got further and further behind in payments.

But hey, it was OK that he got all sorts of public assistance like free help from the feds to get a three months stoppage on his foreclosure, food stamps, free Medicare, and who knows what else. I hate that kind of hypocrisy. I mean, I know I’m only getting money because Daniel is dead. I admit that. I don’t like it but I admit it. I’m trying to create a life where I don’t need that money because I suspect that I’m not going to get it much longer. I’m also accepting it more for Feena than for me. Is that rationalizing it? Probably. But if she hadn’t had those doctors she would be dead right now … and maybe so would I. And we wouldn’t have needed the doctors if Daniel hadn’t done what he did. And because she was so sick when she was born early, the docs say that is why she needed the special formula and the vitamin drops. I found a milk replacement for her eventually but she still needs the vitamin drops though not quite so often and those things aren’t cheap. I don’t think Daniel would begrudge that for his daughter.

But I’m a good steward of what money I have – regardless of where it comes from. About the only thing I ever splurge on is apple soda. I buy my clothes and shoes at the thrift shop unless I can run across something on the deep discount rack in a regular store. I sew Feena’s clothes. I did have to buy her a pair of orthopedic shoes when she started trying to walk because she is badly pigeon toed on her right foot. Sure, I’ve spent a good bit of money on the house, but I didn’t do it using a credit card or equity loan; I’ve paid cash for everything that I couldn’t trade or barter for.

Cal and I have discussed the possibility of revolution happening at some point - watering the tree of liberty and all that; even a blind man can see the possibility with the way things are going. But if Mr. Ricks or people like him are the leaders of that uprising then I’m pretty sure I don’t want to have anything to do with it. It sounds like they’d be just as likely to interpret the Constitution to serve them than to adhere to the Constitution so it serves everyone.

---------------

 

[Kathy in FL]

40) Dear Diary,​

Josh is out of the hospital but on sick leave until he is fit for duty which may be another six weeks or so. He might be able to go in for desk duty at some point if needed but right now it looks like it will be at least that long before the doctors release him to drive.

I didn’t know it but Josh has been sending money to his mother to help with expenses. She wouldn’t accept it at first but he said that he managed to convince her based on him paying back some money she gave him to go to college with. He’s worried he won’t be able to continue doing it but his step-dad says that with his brother and wife moving in with them to save expenses it won’t hurt if he can’t.

Dorrie told me, “Josh says his mom is going to hate it because she doesn’t get along with her daughter in law because she’s like this uber liberal eco-freak kind of person. She was raised that way. She’s even got a family portrait where the whole family – both her moms, her, and her other sibs – are at some rally and they’re all wearing those pink caps that look like … well you know what they used to call them. On top of that she prays to crystals – or maybe meditates with them or something like that – and won’t spank her kids and gets really bent out of shape if someone tries to stifle their personal expression.”

I snorted. “Like the comedian said, ‘Is that your kid up there in the clock tower with the rifle expressing himself?’ Sounds like a charming woman.”

Dorrie giggled, “You are so bad.”

“You OK?”

“You mean have I stopped spazzing about Josh?”

I shrugged. “If you want to put it that way.”

“Yeah,” she said then paused. “I’m still … something, I don’t know what … but I’m working on it. Seeing that he needs me in a way helps. Him seeing that I’m not going to treat him like a baby helps him … I think. At least that is what Gerald says; he says that men need that respect, they don’t want to be seen as helpless.”

“Mmm,” I said noncommittally. “Real men. I’ve met a few that would rather be babied than anything else.”

Later Cal and I were talking while we made plans for the upcoming week. “So you think Dorrie is ok with the cop thing.”

“Yeah. Or at least ninety plus percent OK with it.”

Cynically he said, “It’s that last ten percent that can be the killer.”

I told him, “Stop thinking about Lily’s call. She was just picking at you because What’s-his-name won some kind of doofus productivity award. All that means is that he shuffles paperwork faster than the next guy, that he’s a super desk jockey instead of just a plain ol’ desk jockey. When he actually wins an award for solving cases – which is supposed to be his job – then she can brag and people will listen to her.”

He shook his head trying hard not to smile. “Anyone ever tell you that you can be mean?”

“Can be? Anyone that bothers my family will find out that I will be. Now eat your vegetables before they get cold. You’re going to need the vitamins tomorrow when we start planting the sugar cane.”

He shook his head. “You’re gonna draw more snakes to this place and we’ve got enough as it is.”

“Just more protein for us. And stop making with the sour face, you liked it just fine until you saw the fresh skin and figured out what it was.”

“Hmphf,” was all he said to that.

In addition to the sugar cane Cal is going to enlarge the garden for me by taking up the last of the tarps and tilling in some lime and a few other things to sweeten the soil a bit. I honestly hated to ask him because he has been working so much but the old rotary tiller that was Papa’s just beats me up and tries to run away with me rather than staying in the ground like it is supposed to; it is like trying to hold onto a bucking horse.

He is also going to go with me over to Pinellas to pick up some tropicals that I ordered from this place in St. Petersburg. I’m going to try to grow persimmons as well as some herbs and spices and other things that I haven’t tried to grow before. Most of them are in three-gallon pots so we are taking his truck and the trailer.

I’m glad he is coming with me and not just because he’ll help move the heavy stuff. I ordered the plants a couple of months ago and they are just now in. I’ll lose the money if I don’t go pick them up but … you know … downtown St. Pete is what it is; not exactly the safest place for a lone woman with a kid to be these days. Matter of fact some of it is starting to bleed over the Sunshine Skyway into our side of the Bay. Sigh. Seems you can’t go anyplace these days without personal protection of one form or another.

There haven’t been any more incidents with direct hostilities towards cops. People talk of course. The world would collapse in on itself if people didn’t hold it up with all their hot air. But at least there hasn’t been much more than a little bit of spitting and a few slashed tires. Pinellas has had a few rock and bottle throwing incidences from young kids but no more than they had to deal with back when things used to be normal. Still doesn’t say good things about how people feel. Cops are human too, they just have a higher level of accountability because of their job. That doesn’t mean someone is going to push one or more of them too far one of these days. It will be terrible then, for all of us.

---------------

 

[Kathy in FL]

41) Dear Diary,​

I know it’s selfish. No one needs to give me a lecture on how selfish it is. Part of me has been dreading this day while the other part is so thankful that it actually happened.

Josefina Delores Lowery is officially one-year-old today. Josefina for my mother (who had a Spanish name but no Spanish blood, she was named after a heroine in a romance novel) and Delores for my grandmother (who had an English name but who was more Cuban than Castro, who was named after the woman that ran the orphanage where she grew up). I hope that when Feena gets older she’ll appreciate the irony of that and not judge people based on names or ethnicity. You are who you are based on your insides and the choices you make, not what you look or sound like.

A good example of that is Dorrie’s Uncle Darryl. He is good looking in a road hard and hung up wet kind of way; had a lot of advantages growing up too. But through his own choices he has turned into a Grade A donkey’s behind; and he’s only slightly mellowed by the tragedy of losing his hand. Although Dorrie has said he is better than I am giving him credit for being; that she thinks he may act that way around me in particular just to get my goat. Well he can’t have my goat or any other part of me. If he thinks showing his … er … attitude is going to get my attention he needs a seriously good knock in the head.

I suppose I shouldn’t be so hard on the man; I’m not exactly the model for unbiased thinking and behavior these days. I feel way older than I ever thought I could. And there are things that just start me down a thought path that is hard to get out of. If I ever had a cat scan you’d probably see ruts in my psyche. I said that once to Cal and he said I had the most vivid imagination. His exact words, I’m not kidding. He tickles me sometimes the odd things he says.

Speaking of Cal, he insisted on taking us to lunch to celebrate Feena’s birthday … a real restaurant … while we were in St. Pete today to celebrate. We went to Munch’s on 6th Street South. I’d never been there but had heard about it for years. It was on that old show … Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives … Or Dives, Diners and … whatever, that show with the guy that had the peroxide spiked ‘do that always made me want to give him a seriously deep conditioning. The burgers were incredible; Cal ordered for me while I was in the ladies’ room and since he was buying I didn’t complain, actually thought it was kind of sweet in a very Cal kind of way. He wouldn’t let me see the check either when it came which says more than it doesn’t. Sigh.

Next year I’ll try and do a cake and all that … or at least a cupcake depending on if flour is still as expensive as it is. This year I am ashamed to admit, it was just all beyond me.

I kept myself as busy as I could throughout the day and I did try and sing Happy Birthday to Feena – try being the operative word since my singing voice is so rusty that I don’t even think a combination of WD40 and Liquid Wrench would help. But that fateful day kept coming back to haunt me. So did other things.

One of the things we did while over in Pinellas was to scope out the stores to see what they had versus what we had easy access to. We scored a few things as we stopped at three going out of business sales … all in the same strip center. I heard lots of hushed and worried talk from people wondering how they were going to make ends meet. Heard one woman mention that there was a waiting list so long just to get in the application process for public assistance that it would take at least three years to clear the backlog. Heard another man complaining that he had so many relatives wanting to come down and live with him he’d lost count, and most of them he hadn’t seen or heard from in years. Heard a couple of others say they couldn’t wait to move out of state because cold weather or not they never wanted to have to deal with hurricanes again. Each to his own, I’ll take wind and water over snow and who knows what else any day.

We also took a chance and stopped at a grocery store just to see what they had and while I was walking the aisles I heard a baby crying that sounded so much like the baby in my old nightmare that my brain went on autopilot and I nearly pushed my cart into this old lady; would have if Cal hadn’t grabbed the front of the cart.

He asked, “You OK?”

“Yeah,” I answered. “Did … did you hear a baby crying?”

“Crying? Are you kidding? The kid was on his way to breaking glass. The mother never even looked at him while she stared into the meat cooler. Little girl that couldn’t have even been ten years old came running from down another aisle and picked him up out of the carrier. Mother looks messed up or high on something. Store employees are surreptitiously tailing her around the store.”

That was a lot of details, but Cal is a very detail-oriented kind of guy. Don’t ask him a question unless you are prepared for him to answer it. Rarely does he give a simple yes or no.

Then as we were walking out of the store my knees nearly buckled as a young man in fatigues walked in and I swear he could have been Daniel’s twin right down to the broken nose and dimpled chin. I started to fall and grabbed Cal’s arm so I wouldn’t go down to my knees on the black asphalt of the parking lot. Feena, who was on my hip in the sling, complained bitterly as she got mashed between the two of us.

“Hey, you really …” He never finished what he was going to say. I saw his eyes widen and his head turn and follow the young man into the store. Then he was helping me out to his truck. He took Feena and made me sit down while he buckled her in.

“You … you OK?” he asked.

I looked at him and realized he’d seen the same thing I had so at least it hadn’t been a ghost. I shook myself and tried to act normal. “Sure. We better get over to the nursery or they’re going to think I decided to give up my deposit on those plants.”

“We will but not until you can tell me you’re fine enough for me to actually believe you.”

I closed my eyes briefly then admitted. “I’ll … I’ll be fine. This is just a hard day. One of those milestones that part of me has been dreading but wanting to celebrate at the same time and the day seems to be conspiring against me by sending ghosts.”

I pulled my legs in and started to buckle up. He said, “Yeah, you WILL be fine. But you don’t have to keep it bottled up when you aren’t. You’ve let me vent more than a time or two about Lily. You can talk to me about Daniel if you need or want to.”

I sighed. “All I did was talk to you … and Lily … about Daniel there for a while.”

“So?”

“So … I’ve got to … to keep this craziness that comes over me sometimes in check. If I don’t it might completely take over and I’ll … I’ll wind up completely useless and then what is going to happen to Feena and our plans to keep her safe?”

“Our plans?”

“Uh …”

“Easy Aria … I like the way you say it. Makes me feel like my wheels aren’t as likely to fall off since I’ve got some purpose. If I didn’t have you two to look after I don’t know where I’d be right now. So that’s what I mean … you need or want to talk, I’m here.” After a moment he said, “Look, I’m not saying that you’re necessarily doing anything wrong and I’m probably the last person you should be taking advice from about this sort of stuff, but keeping it in check is one thing, trying to completely bury it is another. You gotta let some steam off sometimes.”

“Steam makes it sound like I’m mad and I’m not … not really … not anymore.”

“If you aren’t mad then what are you?”

“Some days I don’t think I’m anything anymore. I’ve pretty well accepted I can’t change what happened just sometimes … like today when everything is so … so in my face … it just really hits me.”

“What does?” he asked trying to understand.

“All of it. That it wasn’t just some poor girl whose story got splash across the tv with sordid sensationalism, it was me. That it wasn’t someone else’s crazy life, that it was mine. That it wasn’t some other woman whose husband tried … whose husband tried to kill her and their baby, it was me. And the rest of it as well. On some days … most days … it has already become a lifetime ago. But today it seems like it was just yesterday.”

He patted my hands awkwardly where they lay bunched up in my lap and then went around and got in. We were both silent on the way to the nursery but the heat and hard work of moving all those flowerpots into the bed of the truck and into the trailer helped me to find my balance again. Paying the remainder of my bill certainly brought me back to reality.

I spent the rest of the day intentionally playing with Feena, but she was a little cranky. She’s teething … again. Anything that gets near her mouth gets chewed on, including other people’s body parts. She bit Cal’s finger when he was giving her a taste of peanut butter from his sandwich and he had a hard time getting her to let go. She’s going to wind up with as many teeth as a shark does if she keeps this up. She certainly has the temperament of one right now.

Cal is home tonight … I can hear his congested snores from here, I have got to find out what that boy is allergic to before he brings the ceiling down … but he leaves early tomorrow for a double shift. I’ve got oatmeal doing its thing in a thermos for our breakfast so I don’t have to cook first thing and heat the house up and his lunch is already packed; cold fried chicken, fresh tropical fruit salad, and a couple of hard boiled eggs. The next couple of days, but especially tomorrow, are going to be busier than normal as I get all of those plants and trees in the ground so they have time to take root before the weather changes and their growth slows down.

---------------

 

[Kathy in FL]

42) Dear Diary,​

First week of October, hard to believe. It has finally cooled off … but only marginally; it takes ten minutes to start sweating instead of two. Real cool weather won’t be here until the end of this month or the beginning of next and then it could decide to leave again until January, but at least it won’t be August and September kind of hot. Hopefully it will also cool people’s tempers off. We can pray it does anyway.

Oh, and I saw another drone flying along the river. They are becoming commonplace; like annoying mosquitoes, you just want to swat them. Makes me feel like I need to go inside and close all the shutters. And I’ve gotten paranoid about making sure I’m out of my nightgown and dressed for the day before I open the shears in the morning. I don’t get undressed until I’m ready to crawl between the sheets because I keep imagining one of those golf ball size drones is outside the window just waiting to take pictures. Dorrie says she swears that some pervert is operating the one that flies around their place every once in a while, because it always seems to go by her window right as she is changing her bra and since she is on the ample size well … I don’t blame her for having the wooly boogers. I’d say it was her imagination if not for the fact the news had a story on some college students that had made a mock government drone to do just that up in Virginia. Technically savvy deviants, just what the world needs more of.

Now on to more constructive musings. Let’s see this week I’ve planted beets, burdock, carrots, onions, parsnips, salsify, shallots, turnips, broccoli, cabbage, celtuce, collards, leeks, lettuce, mustard greens, spinach, English peas, strawberries, snap beans, brussel sprouts, Chinese cabbage. I’m not sure what celtuce even is and some of the others I’ve never eaten much less grown, but when it comes to seeds beggars can’t be choosers. I picked them up the end of September at one of the monthly Barter Bizarres that is being sponsored by several local churches. There is a “no cash allowed” rule although vendors still have to issue receipts and keep records per the IRS (yes, bartering is taxable). I know they did it for people that have no or little cash coming in and I admit that it is a neat concept, but you still have the “haves” and “have nots” and those that are able to outbid if two or more people go after the same item.

That particular bizarre was the first one that I had attended so I kind of wandered around trying to get the feel for things before I got my feet wet. Had a guy that tried to invade my personal space but some of the men from the church acting as security spotted what was going on and came over to handle it. There is a zero-tolerance rule for harassing and intimidation. We’ll see how long that lasts. After the creep went away I generally tried not to stand alone too much but stuck in groups of two or three with other women, some with small children just like me.

Heard some local gossip while I was there. There was an outbreak of measles at the Brandon campus of HCC. It didn’t really go far in the student population since they are required to show proof of MMR prior to admission – those that can still afford to go anyway – but it has really hit the staff pretty hard. They made me get an MMR booster when I was still in the hospital after Feena was born because when they pulled my blood work it showed that I had a negative resistance to almost all the childhood diseases that I hadn’t had growing up. I asked Cal when the last time he’d had any boosters was and he said that two years ago there was a department wide push to get all the deputies in the county up to date on their immunization boosters because there was a chicken pox epidemic in the Orient Road jail.

“And then there were three cases of hepatitis in one of the juvie facilities. So, I’m all up to date. My parents were not real fond of vaccines when I was a kid but since I was homeschooled it was never an issue.”

“Wait … you were homeschooled?” I reached across the table and slapped his arm.

I’d knocked a meatball off of his fork and he glared. You never get between a hungry man and his food. “What was that for?”

“You never told me you all were homeschooled.”

He shrugged. “My brothers weren’t but I was. That’s how I finished my BS at nineteen. I dual enrolled at HCC and then entered USF right as I was turning eighteen only a couple of credits shy of being a Senior. I had to take some additional credits that didn’t carry over to my degree in Criminology and … uh … too much information?”

“No,” I sniffed in response. “I’m jealous. I always wanted to be homeschooled but Momma got sick the first time right as I was to start kindergarten. Then Daddy thought I needed … I don’t know … what he called structure or something like that while she was sick and then didn’t get better. She died when I was going into middle school. Daddy died within a couple months of her which left everything at sixes and sevens. Papa was seriously considering it when he saw what high school was like but was worried that I wouldn’t have any friends and then he died and I got shoved into the foster care system. You know the rest. Edgewater was the only constant there for a while except for …”

I stuck a forkful of pasta in my mouth to keep from finishing the sentence. Wisely Cal got the message and didn’t mention Daniel’s name. Instead he asked, “Would you want to homeschool Feena?”

“I’m considering it. A lot depends on what she needs and if they change the laws by the time she gets school age. They keep making all this noise about making homeschooling illegal. I’m sure you’ve heard all of that junk coming out of the UN about international educational standards as well as standardize curriculum for everyone worldwide. And some whack job up in DC actually had the nerve to say that homeschooling creates militants.”

Thoughtfully Cal said, “He’s got a point, just not for the reason he thinks.”

“What?!”

Cal shrugged and after consuming the last meatball on his plate in one bite said, “Think about it. Homeschoolers are usually grounded in free will and critical thinking. They’ve got boundaries and consequences that a lot of kids don’t and usually wind up being internally motivated to succeed for whatever reason you want to pick. Most of them are also grounded in their parents’ worldview yet are still encouraged to be individuals rather than crowd followers. All of that is very dangerous to groups that espouse socialism or communism. They want cogs for their wheels, fodder for their cannons, not leaders that will wrest power away from them and show people there is a different way than being indoctrinated from birth to be an automaton.”

My mouth had fallen open and then I felt a giggle gurgle out.

He shrugged grumpily and said, “Look. You asked.”

“Aw, don’t get your feelings hurt. I was just imaging how well you would have gotten along with Daddy and Papa. They ate that kind of stuff up and talked about it all the time.”

He looked at me but his mouth was full of pasta and garlic toast which he almost choked on in laughter of his own when Feena chose that moment to peg me with a long string of spaghetti.

And speaking of food, I learned something else today at that bizarre that I’d never even thought of … dollar weed is edible. And no I’m not kidding although it sounds like a bad joke. Some people are down to looking in their lawns for something to eat. I mean I know you can eat some flowers and I know herbs get eaten and technically I guess I know that there are a lot of things out there that are edible that you wouldn’t normally think of in that way. But it has given me pause. What if our garden doesn’t work out the way I hope? What if all the produce stands close? What if there are no u-pick farms next year? Worst of all, what if the benefit checks stop coming in and I don’t have anything to go to the grocery store with?

I haven’t said anything to Cal about that. I know he has his own worries. Lily’s lawyer called and started making some noise, trying to rework their agreement. Lily hasn’t lost her job but she’s at half pay and hasn’t seen a commission since the divorce proceedings started. Personally I think she is more interested in her social life than her professional life and it has had its consequences. She’s also going into arrears in the house payments.

Luckily Cal didn’t wait around for Lily to take care of things and notified the lender of the divorce proceedings and they quit claimed his name off of the deed. His name hadn’t been on the loan docs to begin with because basically the down payment had been a gift from Lily’s parents (they’d also picked out the house) … kinda like saying they didn’t trust Cal to look after their daughter appropriately. But the lawyer was trying to say that Lily’s change in economic standing was solely a direct result of Cal leaving her. Cal called his lawyer who was not happy that the other lawyer was trying to take his legal counsel out of the loop and told him to leave it to her. I guess we will have to see where it goes; hopefully nowhere.

Cal has enough on his mind with the way things are out in the public now. When he comes home it looks like he’s been figuratively worked over. Morale is suffering. No one likes to be viewed as the bad guy all the time. When he is feeling low he will sometimes tell me about various cases and then ask rhetorically if people hate the cops so much why do they call them anytime they need help? I’m not sure what to tell him. I know there are bad cops but they are only one or two bad apples; that really isn’t how the majority of cops are. They hired on to do a job which is to do their best to enforce the laws on the books. If the public wants to blame someone how about blaming the people that created the laws … the politicians … or suggested the laws … such as group that sent in petition after petition to get something done? But people never want to take personal responsibility; they have to have a bad guy to blame to make themselves look better.

All of it is sitting heavy on my chest; my problems, Cal’s problems, and the problems we both have that overlap. I can’t dump one more on him; I’ve got to pull my weight. I’m starting to tally up how dependent we are on various things. Cal gives me money every paycheck to add to the household funds but I am NOT going to turn into a charity case. Even if I didn’t have my pride no way am I going to watch Cal go from supporting Lily to supporting me and Feena anymore than he already does. Actually that sounds kind of … never mind. I’m just not going to have it. Period. I’ve got to start thinking outside the box even more than I already try to do.

 

[Kathy in FL]

43) Dear Diary,​

OK, I felt like a dork but I did it. I gave into temptation and ate a piece of dollar weed just to see what it tasted like. Well, it sure didn’t taste like lettuce and I wouldn’t want to eat a bowlful by itself but … well … it wasn’t all that terrible. I made sure to do it when Cal was at work because no way was I going to have him thinking that I’d finally lost what little bit of mind I have left. Bad enough I had a dream last night we were all out in the yard, grazing like the goats and scratching around in the sand like the chickens. But it has got me thinking about what I can do to piece out what we have.

First off I know I need a green house, a real one. Might not happen any time soon but I do need one. I think that I can maybe afford some PVC pipes and some visqueen sheeting with which I could build something sorta like some of the organic and hydroponic farms use. It wouldn’t be big and I’d be afraid it would blow over in a storm but at least I could start seeds early and have someplace besides the Florida room to put the potted trees like the cocoa that I bought from the nursery. The deep south tropicals are outside right now but as soon as the weather starts dropping below forty-five at night I’m going to have to move them into some kind of protected structure.

Second off, dang but there are a lot of wild plants you can eat. I’ve been looking at some of the books I picked up from the library sale. I used “Florida’s Best Herbs and Spices” to decide what to order from the nursery that time so I know that when something is growing it doesn’t always look exactly how you are used to seeing it in a bottle on the grocery store shelf. Still … I mean, I never imagined you could eat cattails. Come on, cattails … those fuzzy things that grow in ditches … but apparently they are like gourmet in the world of wild edibles. From roots to shoots to pollen there are a bunch of different ways to use them.

And that’s not all. You can make a lemonade like drink from dried sumac berries … I thought those things were poisonous but apparently the poisonous kind isn’t what grows around here. There are a whole bunch of sumac growing up in the palmetto stand area; they stick out like a sore thumb. I’ll test it out on myself first and if I don’t croak then I’ll give some to Cal and maybe a tiny bit to Feena just to see her make a face the way she does with lemons.

And I finally know what fiddleheads are … I thought they were a fish … they are actually baby ferns, the kind that are still curled up like snail shells. People pay big bucks to eat them in fancy restaurants. Who knew?! Heck, we have enough ferns growing in the wood lot to supply every fancy restaurant in Miami, Tallahassee, and Jacksonville combined.

I went looking around the property with a guide book that had both drawings and real photographs – blasted rattler nearly had me climbing a tree until I saw a hawk or something had already killed it – and found a few things, then realized I’d never remember where I saw them and went back to the house and got some awful colored yarn that I had bought a couple of years ago to crochet a bed cover with until Daniel had emphatically nixed sleeping under fluorescent pink poofs. In hindsight I can’t say I blame him but I’m glad I can finally put the stuff to some use. It is so bright it gives you a headache just looking at it for long.

There is a freak ton of wild anise on the property but I already knew that. Papa and Daddy swore it was their fishing secret … they’d rub it on their lures and never failed to catch something when they did. The thing is I just didn’t know you could eat it. I mean you can really get anise from the seeds just like at the grocery but apparently the leaves are edible too … like you can add it to a salad or make a tea out of them. I love anise tea with honey when I have that gassy bloated feeling at a certain time of the month. Papa used to love Anise Tea if he’d eaten too many garbanzo beans and they had upset his stomach.

There’s a big ol’ achiote bush near the barn – annatto for you Yankee talkers – that is the same plant that you get the stuff like you buy in the store from. If I had known that you know good and well I wouldn’t have spent any money on it in the store even though I was getting it deep discount. Why spend any money if you can get something just as good for free or barter. I bet it was something that either Abuela or Momma planted. They both were really into growing things and loved plants and flowers. Both of them grew up very poor and had to make do a lot. I think that is why they were such kindred spirits and that my grandparents were so happy with Daddy’s choice of bride. She wasn’t Spanish – which I guess makes me a bit of a mutt – but that’s not the first time that’s happened in the family. Papa said our family tree had more diversity in it than the UN … and we still managed to make a lot more sense. Daddy always said that that wasn’t that much of an accomplishment since the UN made so little sense. Then Papa would laugh. It was an old joke between them. I hadn’t thought about that in years.

And the fruit of our bilimbi tree is edible! I know I keep saying who knew but … who knew? I thought it was just some strange ornamental Abuela had planted before I was born. It has these freaky fruits that grow from the trunk and because of the way they look I always called it the cucumber tree. That fruit is actually edible. I think Papa brought it back from one of his early missionary trips to southeast Asia. He used to do stuff like that before customs got so picky.

There’s chicory all up and down the road. I thought the stuff was just a stupid weed with cute little flowers. Young leaves can be used in salads but what most people go after are the roots. You dry those suckers and grind them up and you have coffee. Now that I’ve read it I remember hearing about chicory coffee being a Louisiana delicacy. I swear, the things you learn when you bother to read and listen. It’s like understanding that two plus two equals four for the first time.

And all that lemon grass that I replanted around the house like it was when I was growing up because it keeps away the mosquitos? Yeah, that’s edible too. And let me tell you it is good. I sliced some up when I was broiling some fish and also put some in the rice and tried it on Cal and Josh (Cal picked him up to get him out of the house for a while and I think they were doing some guy talking) and they raved about it. Hah! I’m almost tempted to not tell Cal what the secret ingredient was.

And for sure I’m not going to tell Josh … he makes funny faces about nearly everything but French fries, hot dogs, and mac-n-cheese. He’s a spoiled mess … I’ve tried to tell him what actually goes in hot dogs and what the casings are made out of and he just sticks his fingers in his ears and goes la-la-la-la like some kid. Dorrie said he was the pickiest eater imaginable until he was forced to eat what she gave him or go hungry before he could get out of bed for more than a couple of minutes at a time. At least now he will actually eat something green without closing his eyes.

Those little orange things that are left on the heirloom rose bushes after the blooms are done are called “hips” – I know, silly name – but they are edible too. I only remember Papa telling me that Abuela used to make perfume out of the rose petals. The sunny parts of the fence rows used to be covered with the wild roses but the renters didn’t take care of them. I’ve started cutting the dead parts out but it is not a job to do when it is hot. It also isn’t a job to do without chain mail and armor … those thorns are nasty.

All the plants have given me ideas of for the Barter Bizarre. I’m thinking that if I could gather enough I might even open my own booth … but it would have to be worth my while and there would have to be people out there willing to try something new. Maybe if they get hungry enough. But what a thought that is, that people here in the US of A might get hungry enough that they’d be willing to eat weeds.

I could go on and on; you should see the pages of notes that I’ve made while going through the books. But the one thing that I think makes this hard – adding wild stuff to my food inventory – is that it takes so much time to locate and harvest enough to be worth anything. That is one of the reasons why I used the pink yarn; I was lucky to find them the first time around, I don’t want to be stumbling and wasting more time trying to find them again.

And speaking of stumbling, sounds like Cal is home. He must have tripped over something on the porch.

---------------

 

[Kathy in FL]

44) Dear Diary,​

It wasn’t Cal. I know it happened last night and all is well but I’m still shaking. I caught it just in time. There’s damage but it is fixable.

I better back up because I’m not making much sense when I just read what I wrote.

I got up last night when I thought it was Cal coming home early. I thought he must have dropped his keys or something because usually he is quiet as a cat, first because he can and second so he doesn’t wake up Feena. As I was going down the stairs my phone buzzed and I looked down and indeed it was Cal calling. Rather than answer I flipped on the outside light and then I hear what sounded like a heard of elephants leaving the porch. When I couldn’t see anything through the peep hole I started wondering if Cal was pulling some kind of security test on me so I used my phone to access the little pinhole camera Cal installed out there. That’s when I see flames.

I grabbed the kitchen fire extinguisher – thank you Cal for insisting I get a big one and then teaching me how to use it – and got out through the door and shutter as quick as I could. If I had waited a minute more it might have been too far gone for me to stop. The guy from the fire department said they used some kind of accelerant that busted right through the fire-retardant capabilities in the house paint.

While I’m spraying the extinguisher and wondering if I should just give up, run upstairs and grab Feena I heard a horrible crash. The first thought through my head was that whoever took off must have clipped the tree trunk that still hangs out in the road a bit. I was too busy coughing and trying to put out the flames to use too many brain cells on it. Then I heard all sorts of noise from down at the drive and then someone was running around the house.

I look up, my eyes tearing up because while the fire is out everything is still smoking, and see a couple of people with rifles. I squeal like a blasted old lady, and accidentally shoot one of them in the face with the extinguisher until it snorts empty. For some unknown reason I then throw the extinguisher at the head of the other one, practically fall back into the house slamming the shutters and door shut behind me. I’m up the stairs, grabbing Feena and we’re both half way out the bedroom window before I recognize Cal’s bellow from below telling me it’s OK that the guys – the guys I just blinded and tried to decapitate – are the good guys.

I hope no one thinks badly of me but once I got back inside I slid down the wall and cried doing a pretty good imitation of Feena who was horribly upset at being jerked out of a sound sleep. My heart nearly stopped when something big swooped down on me. Then I smelled Cal’s aftershave and cried even harder.

Anxiously he asked, “Did they hurt you or Feena?”

“What?”

“Look at me Aria, did they hurt you or Feena?”

I shook my head and let him help me stand up. Completely ignoring the fact that I had also just been close to howling I said, “I need to get Fenna a cup or she’s not going to stop fussing.”

He held her for me while I washed my face that had tear streaks through the soot that covered me from head to toe. When we got downstairs there were strangers out in the yard and I was finally calm enough to pray they wouldn’t go off into the garden and trample anything.

“Dang it Cal, someone tried to set the porch on fire!” I told him as I took care of my hot-tempered daughter. I didn’t want to put her down but she wanted her bed and her blankey. I put her back down and then came downstairs and asked Cal, “How did you get here so fast?”

He put his hand on my shoulder and I realized it was to stop me from nervously rocking myself. “Here, let me see that rag; you still have soot in the corners of your eyes.” As he was getting the last of it out he told me, “I was on my way home when the calls started coming in.”

I said, “What calls? I didn’t make any calls.”

Law enforcement officers all over the county, including in the city limits where TPD is in charge, were targeted and hit nearly simultaneously. Last night they thought it was one large organization but this morning, after thoroughly questioning some of those that had been caught in the act, they discovered that it was actually more like a flash mob. If you wanted to play you replied with a txt and you were sent an address. Most thought it was just a prank, never realizing they were hitting the homes and families of cops.

A group claiming to be Constitutional patriots quickly claimed responsibility and they say that this is only the first “volley” of the New American Revolution. The broadcast media is having a field day with it and eating it up but a lot of cops, including Cal, aren’t buying it. Cal says he is pretty sure it is what he calls a false flag event. False flags are meant to deceive and while everyone is pretty sure last night’s terror is a false flag, without proof the investigators are not ruling anything out. And the feds are involved making things into an even bigger Chinese fire drill and getting in the way of the local investigation. Not just the FBI but the DOJ, NSA, and a few other alphabet groups I can’t remember. MacDill is also on lock down as is all other military facilities here in the state.

Cal wanted to stay home – I wanted him to stay home but more because he was exhausted than because I was still scared – but it is all hands on deck. All leaves have been indefinitely cancelled, everyone is to go out and about in body armor (regardless of temperature I might add), everyone rides with a partner, emergency management has been triggered for some reason, and much more. Hillsborough County is under strict martial law. So is Pinellas and Pasco that also saw some of the same violence. All other counties in the state are on different levels of curfew and it is spreading to other states.

Not too many stores were open today. I got through to Dorrie but only after several tries and the line sounded funny, like it had an echo. Josh and her Uncle Darryl are watching the house. It took me a few minutes to calm her down, she was crying because it had scared her when she heard how close the fire had come to getting out of hand.

“Haven’t you been through enough?! It’s not ..”

“Don’t you dare use that four-letter word with me; you know how I feel about it.”

She hiccupped a gasp of a laugh the asked, “How can you be so calm?”

“Well,” I said still feeling embarrassed. “I wasn’t at the time. I sprayed the uniform of some poor National Guard boy with extinguisher fluff and then threw the actual extinguisher at another one.”

“You … you did what?!”

“It was dark. All I saw was their guns.”

She tried to choke back a laugh and then we were both giggling worse than when we were in middle school. “I could have just died of embarrassment but they were really nice about it.”

“What did Cal say?”

“Don’t even remind me. He is such a big brother and you know what big brothers are like when they get a scare.” What I didn’t tell her was that there were now several hidden guns throughout the house. They are all out of Feena’s reach – she’d rather walk than be carried these days – and a couple of them are even out of my reach as they are specifically there for Cal who is tall enough to palm a basketball and barely make any effort to put in in the hoop. The boy is broad as well as tall; for me to see around him I actually have to walk around him. He never uses his size against me but it can be irritating nonetheless when he stands between me and something else like a constipated guard dog.

For instance last night, different people kept wanting to ask me to repeat what had happened but that last time Cal put his foot down. I told him that no, it was OK, anything to help catch who did it but he just turned his back and stared whoever it was down while I got to stare at his back. You’d think I was made of cotton candy or something and would melt if someone looked at me too hard.

But suddenly not having to answer questions gave me time to think and suddenly I was trying to run outside only instead I ran into – literally – Cal and bounced off hard enough to lose my balance.

In a worried tone he asked, “What’s wrong?”

“I didn’t think about the animals … or the garden … or my trees … or … oh no … the panels! I’ve got to go check …”

He shoo’d me back in the house and said quietly, “Easy, I’ve already checked. And I threw a tarp over the panels before most of the people out there arrived. No need to explain if they can’t see them to ask about them.”

I relaxed. “Thank you. I don’t know where my head is at.”

That’s when he tried not to snicker and instead said, “If you’d had more time to aim I know a national guardsman that would be asking that same question.”

“Oh you!” I tried to throw the wet dish rag at him but for a big guy he can move fast. Instead of hitting Cal it caught Det. McLeod in the side of the head.

“Oh Lord, I’m so sorry!”

Det. McLeod tried to look stern but then cracked a smile. “It’s all right. It’s good to see you are recovering from your shock.”

I shrugged. “I’ve been through worse.” I blanched and then shook the memory away as fast as I could. Once I was back in the room mentally Cal was standing beside me and Det. McLeod was looking at me in concern.

I shook my head. “Stop it Cal. I’m fine. Or I’ll be fine. I’m not made of glass.”

He said, “I know you’re not but humor me and take it easy for a little bit.”

“I will after everyone leaves.”

Det. McLeod said, “That’s going to be some time. We need daylight to take some of the pictures we need.”

He walked out and I turned to Cal and asked quietly, “Should I make coffee or something? I think we have enough left without having to open a new can.”

“Not the coffee,” he said guarding our supplies jealously. “If they want coffee they can get it from home or at the station. If you want to maybe use that big orange igloo cooler we take fishing and get some ice water fixed up I’ll haul it outside and put it on a bench.”

“What will people use for cups?”

“Everyone carries canteens or water bottles these days. But I mean it, after that I want you to go upstairs and stay with Feena for a while. Underneath that soot you are as white as a ghost.”

Which is just what I did though I didn’t do much but pace around until the wee hours of the morning.

All’s well that ends well … at least for us personally … at least this time. The only thing we have to do is replace some wood on the porch and throw some geraniums in the compost heap. Not all of those attacked got off so lightly.

But what does this all mean? How is this going to affect our future?

---------------

 

[Kathy in FL]

45) Dear Diary,​

I’m trying not to be upset. I’m trying not to panic. There really isn’t a need to panic, none at all, at least that’s what I keep telling myself. But how did things go downhill so fast?! I’m not ready!

OK, anxiety attack under control and over with. At least until the next flutter gets away from me and turns into a screaming osprey in my chest.

Martial law is completely getting in the way of my plans. No travel but essential travel. They say they will let up on that in a few days, that this is basically just a calming down period for everyone. Yeah right, I’ll believe it when I see it. When people take power it is very hard for them to turn loose of it.

And by people I don’t mean the cops or even the state government … I mean the feds that seem to have invaded the land. DHS is particularly snobby about sharing their plans. Cal says it is making it very difficult for their department to do their job because there are feds all over the place looming like hungry vultures. They’ve got the 911 phone system so disrupted that you might as well be calling the non-emergency phone line. Response times are taking a lot longer because DHS wants to clear every call, send observers on certain types of calls, and even cop cars get stopped at the check points, even if they are running with lights and siren blasting.

The FBI, DHS, and some of the other alphabet agencies have been making arrests on their own authority and then the people just kind of disappear and then reappear in odd locations like out of state with no formal notification to their family or area law enforcement. As a matter of fact, local law enforcement is slowly being cut completely out of the information loop on the off chance that “dissidents and/or activists fill the ranks of the various law enforcement agencies in the state.” And yes, that was a direct quote from an interview some DHS honcho did on a talk show. But something keeps niggling in the back of my mind that martial law is a military thing; it’s not supposed to be the way they are running it.

But seriously, could they paint the bull’s eye on the backs of our guys and gals just a little bigger and brighter?! At first people were so thankful that the administration had acted decisively and quickly – for the first time in who knows how long – but now that reality is setting in they aren’t quite so happy. And who do they blame? Themselves for voting in those yahoos that sit in power? Of course not. No, they blame the cops for “being such babies and running crying to the feds that someone was picking on them which everyone seems to know they deserved.” And yeah, I’ve really heard a few people say it like that on network news as well out in the streets … when I get out at all. The few people that still remain in the gated community there at the mouth of the river that haven’t barricaded themselves inside like agoraphobics are getting on my nerves more than a little with the way they act.

Doesn’t matter how many times or ways they are told that the feds came in uninvited and against states’ rights, they want to blame who and what is closest at hand because it gives them a handy target and makes them feel better. Doesn’t seem to matter that if someone will beat down on the cops they won’t even hesitate at beating on regular ol’ Joe Schmoe on the street. Hardly anyone cackles when the feds haul someone away under cloak of darkness and silence but let the cops pull someone over for speeding or bust them during a domestic call and the rocks and bottles start.

The National Guard is also getting targeted but to a lesser degree. The fatigues, or maybe it is the large automatic rifles, make them a less desirable target apparently. It could also be if you interfere with a National Guardsman’s ability to do his or her job it is a federal/military crime. You can kill a cop and you’ll still only be prosecuted at the local and state level. It is just really freaky to see this stuff going on in the 21st century in the USA; Daddy and Papa would be horrified.

There is zero traffic on my little private road but I see the Coast Guard, boats from MacDill, and a couple that even say Department of Homeland Security emblazoned on them patrolling the bay and mouth of the river. The Port Authority boats are also out in force. I hear on the news that they are also out in the Gulf on the other side of Pinellas and further south along the coast.

The foreign boats that dock at the Port of Tampa are subject to search and seizure. Their crews are not allowed to leave their boats at all, not even when the Seaman’s Ministry said that they would house a few at a time to allow them to use their communications facility to call or email home to let their families know how they fare. I have a feeling the powers that be would close the Port completely if it could be done without creating even more economic chaos for the unions. Or maybe they are just afraid of looking like what they are - fascists.

I think they are intentionally making Tampa, and to a lesser extent the entire state of Florida, into an example they can hold up to others. Either play by our rules, do what we say, or we’ll bankrupt you into obedience. I don’t want to think about that part too much because I start having trouble breathing. I’ve read about this sort of stuff in history books but I never thought I would ever live to experience it. Kings would travel their lands giving fiefs and land owners the “privilege” of hosting the monarch and his entire entourage. The cost of the privilege could empty a family’s coffers and starve them making them dependent on the charity of the king. I know it isn’t exactly the same thing going on here, but it sure seems like some of the same tactics.

Oh and don’t bring up the bickering going on between the so-called classes and ethnic groups; you’ll start world war III without even trying. The blacks blame the whites, the whites blame a lot of the minorities. The Hispanics blame the blacks and the rich whites. The rich of all colors blame the poor of all colors and vice versa. Everyone blames the illegal immigrants and the illegal immigrants are doing the best they can to escape but finding it difficult to travel with martial law in place. In other words, everyone is nuts; and, they all want a piece of local law enforcement because they believe that’s who started this mess.

Then in comes politics and it’s the democrats blaming the republicans, the republicans blaming the democrats, the conservatives blaming the liberal progressives and the liberal progressives blaming everyone – including their parents – for their financial and psychological misery … everyone but themselves because apparently taking personal responsibility for the consequences of their choices and actions is an unlearned concept.

On a more micro level things are just as bad. Even if I was free to travel I can’t justify using the gas. They’ve cut the amount of fuel you can buy at the pump to twenty dollars and even with price controls in place that isn’t much and for some people that means going to the pump every day just to have enough fuel to get to and from work. Despite the price controls, or maybe because of them, the feds have levied a surcharge on the gas to pay for our own occupation.

And yes, it feels like an occupation. I can’t remember why Daddy and Papa were discussing it … and I can’t even remember what “it” was … but I remember the feel of the conversation. I also remember the following statement: “You can’t enjoy your freedoms if you are dead but you can’t enjoy living if you aren’t free. The Constitution is supposed to provide a balanced solution to that conundrum by stating the explicit rights and laws of the land but men will manage to destroy that one of these days.”

It makes me wonder if those days have arrived.

---------------

 

[Kathy in FL]

46) Dear Diary,​

I’ve given up waiting for Cal to have time. I’ve also given up the idea of being able to afford the lumber to fix the porch much less being able to get to the store to buy it.

It isn’t Cal’s fault. All area LEOs are working double shifts. Sometimes he is so tired he can’t risk driving home and he just collapses wherever there is space at the department or substation depending on where he ends his second shift.

This might have gone off much more easily for the feds if they’d picked some nice Yankee city that didn’t mind putting up with more new laws and heavier application of existing laws. But they aren’t up north where the weather is cooling rapidly and people don’t mind staying inside. They are here in the Deep South where it is still warm enough that people don’t mind being outside and creating a mess.

Rather than quiet things down martial law is making things worse. And trouble is starting to pop up in other cities now too. Some of the mainstream and cable media outlets just can’t seem to bring themselves to understand it. The government is just here to help us after all. Yeah right.

A couple of times a day there are people on the tv and radio saying how they plan on moving to another country because ours is finished. And right on the coat tails of that is someone from the other countries saying, “News flash, we don’t want you ‘cause you’re why your country is so screwed up.”

There are people all over the globe giving up their citizenship to this country, but they can only do it after establishing residency in another country and the hoops you must jump through are proving to be a lot more onerous than anyone expected. Add to that, until you do give up your citizenship you are still required to pay taxes here – as well as in the country you are living in, you have to maintain US health insurance even if you haven’t been in this country for years, you can still be prosecuted and then extradited for breaking US law as well as the laws of the country where you are at, in many cases you have to maintain so much in assets inside the new country which can be confiscated for whatever reason, and so on and so forth. This is why I think it is really just a bunch of talk about people leaving this country; but the media wants to make a big deal out of it and some people have a desire to win the crown for biggest drama queen.

And for those media outlets and bloggers that dare to raise a dissenting opinion, a few have mysteriously gone dark. Some pulled their own plug but not all of them. I stopped trying to keep up with it all after a cameraman accidentally on purpose panned back from a news desk on one of the cable networks normally considered conservative by most people and low and behold there were some uniformed men standing there with some serious fire power backing them up … the DHS insignia clearly visible.

The whole incident was spun so much it is a wonder the cream didn’t turn to butter. Apparently they were just there for an interview … no wait … they were there for an inspection … oh, it was all just a misunderstanding, see they were there to protect the media personality because he’d been threatened. Uh huh. And I’m going to believe that this side of Heaven’s Gate. Not likely. And now the Department of Justice is involved and the cameraman, media personality (who refused to play ball with the spun story), and the owners of the network are all under investigation. How convenient.

I get so flustered when I think about it that sometimes all I can do is put it away, put it out of my mind, and focus on my personal problems and try and find some creative solution.



---------------

 

[Kathy in FL]

47) Dear Diary,​

The porch was a lot easier than I thought it would be and it was all thanks to the hurricane that seems nearly a lifetime ago. When they were rehabbing the coast they didn’t bother cleaning up beforehand. If something was in their way they would just throw it up into the bushes that lined the area. A lot of rich people complained about it but they were basically given the finger and told if they wanted it done to organize their own cleanup crews. Some did, most didn’t, or all they did was clean up in front of their own property.

Well I hadn’t. I kept meaning to but it isn’t like I’ve got a lot of spare daylight hours and no way am I digging around in stuff at night when I can’t see if there is a snake, scorpion, river rat or some other biting or stinging member of the varmint population. Well, needs must when the devil drives. With a less than cooperative Feena strapped to my back in her old sling riding me like a bareback bronco I went along the road and collected the straightest pieces of scrap lumber I could find. Couldn’t have ants or termites either and if it was pressure treated that was even better. It took four or five wheelbarrow trips but I managed to scavenge enough wood to make most of the repairs.

I couldn’t replace the main column that was at the head of the porch steps so I scraped out as much of the burnt wood as I could, sanded what was left and then filled the resulting cavity with wood putty that I had bought in preparation of doing the rest of the insulation on the outside walls. Well, that’s unlikely to happen until Juvember at this rate so I put the putty to a different use.

It took me a couple of pieces to figure out what I was doing despite having a “Mr. Fix-It” book opened as I was working; but soon I had a rhythm down. And lucky for me the property management company had left the remainder of the paint behind after they had finished and there was enough porch paint to hide the repair … well mostly hide the repair. The paint had aged out in the heat of the barn and wasn’t a perfect match but I figured I could crochet a big rag rug and hide it completely. All that matters is that no one is going to break a leg stepping through the wood that was there before.

I was outside cleaning up when I heard Cal’s truck; being diesel it has a distinct sound. Instead of stopping where he normally does he drove on around the house to where I was standing. He looked in the first good mood he’d had since … well, for quite a while now. He looked at the porch then at me then back at the porch and said, “I’ll ask how you managed that in a little bit. Help me get this stuff in the house before that stupid drone makes its way here. Oh good, you’ve already covered the panels.”

“Drone? They don’t usually come until later in the day.”

“Uh, well, this one might … I’ll tell you in a minute, let’s just get this stuff in real quick.”

I so did not like the sound of that. “This” turned out to be several cardboard boxes, some of them heavy. As soon as the boxes were on the rear porch, he moved his truck and then came back to help me finish moving the boxes inside.

“Let’s just go ahead and close the shutters.”

“Most of them are already shut,” I told him suspiciously. “Someone was burning something and the wind was blowing a rank smell this way. And don’t get me off topic. Cal … you gonna tell me what gives?”

“In a minute,” he answered. Then he ripped a sheet off of pad of paper I keep in the junk drawer and clicked the pen from his pocket and wrote, “Call me paranoid but I think PP is tailing me.”

I looked at him and it felt like my eyes were going to roll out of their sockets. I opened my mouth and shut it and then opened and shut it again. I must have looked like a beached fish … I certainly felt like one.

OK, I am so not going to go word for word the rest of our “conversation” as it would be too irritating. It was hard enough to do it the first time around.

The boxes contained groceries. I nearly flipped when I saw them. I wanted to be happy but the way Cal was acting just didn’t ring right. We put them away quickly and as we did I realized that most of it was something that we would have normally need a ration card for – another new rule meant to control the flow of things in the county.

The purported reason for the rationing was fairness. Yeah, there’s the F word again. With ration cards no one got too much while someone else got too little or none. Everyone got treated equally and fairly. Yeah right. Of course they didn’t. I’d already heard reports on the radio that people had been caught selling their ration cards for things like drugs or other things just as illegal. Same thing that happens with EBT cards and WIC coupons. Some people, no matter how much help they receive, will always choose to screw it up.

So the question became where did these groceries come from. When I found out I was really upset. He wasn’t doing a thing illegal … that just is not who Cal is. He was moonlighting and doing some security work at a food distributor’s warehouse. On those nights I thought he was sleeping at work he was actually standing guard while food trucks came in and went out. Before I had a chance to absorb that he went on to explain to me through notes and hand motions that Percival Perfect was now working for DHS … and they’d had a bit of a tiff.

“What do you mean he is working for DHS?”

“I mean he’s working for DHS, don’t ask me how or why. I don’t know and could care less.”

“Then why the tiff?” At the look on his face I added, “I mean besides the fact that he is a jerk.”



He sighed and wrote, “He was complaining at me that I was holding up the divorce papers.” I gave him a questioning look. “I know, I told him the hold-up wasn’t on my end. Her lawyer keeps coming back threatening to ask for alimony. I told him she is the one that keeps changing things, not me. Every time she tries to take it before a judge the judge throws it back because she had already signed the original agreement and the judge had approved it.”

“What did he say to that?”

“Called me a liar. I told him if he didn’t believe me to check the court records because I knew he had access to them even though they are technically supposed to be hidden from the public.”

“And?”

“And I think he did because he was really angry about an hour later. Then I get a call from Lily screaming at me and I finally shouted her down and said that it wasn’t my fault that she’d been lying to her lover and stringing him along while she tried to get a better financial settlement out of me.”

“Whoops.”

“Yeah. I hadn’t really meant anyone to overhear it but …” He shrugged after I read his sentence and raised my eyebrows.

Then I wrote, “Did he actually threaten you?”

He shook his head and wrote, “Of course not. He may be stupid, but he is still clever and wily enough not to show his hand to anyone else. He buzzed me with the drone during a demonstration and tried to play it off as a joke and then explained how it was possible for someone to be specifically targeted, tailed, and observed all without their knowing it. He said it pointedly enough that he made some of the guys uncomfortable. And Josh completely understood where he was going with the implied threat and he and I have had a long talk.”

“Did you report him?!”

“PP? To who?” he shrugged. “And with what kind of evidence?”

“So are we supposed to spend the rest of our lives with the shutters closed and locked and passing notes back and forth like mutes?!!” And yes, I included the exclamation points in my note.

He shrugged again and then his stomach growled. I got up and flipped on the TV, not loud enough to disturb Feena who was upstairs playing in the room we had emptied just so she would have some place kid proof to cut up in, but louder than we normally had it. “I made pinto beans and rice for dinner. You might as well eat so you can get some rest.”

After a pause he said quietly, “I didn’t mean to bring trouble.”

I rolled my eyes. “I could give a rip about what PP thinks, wants, or anything else. Let him buzz around like the little German cockroach he is. What I am upset about is that you worked what had to be a lot of extra hours, making yourself so tired you’re nearly sick, and you didn’t even bother telling me.”

After raising his eyebrows like he’d just heard a kitten roar he tried to rationalize it by saying, “It was supposed to be a surprise.”

“You in a hospital bed or a coffin is not the kind of surprise I want or need Cal.”

He blinked at me. “You’re exaggerating.”

“No I’m not. Have you taken a good look in the mirror lately? I’ve taken your uniform pants in twice. You’re going to need a new belt if you lose any more weight. You are putting yourself at risk when you didn’t need to. And now you tell me it was for a surprise. How do you think that makes me feel to know that you are killing yourself like that to give me something nice?!”

I had to calm myself down before I picked up the glass for his tea or I would have shattered it. He came over and put his hand on my arm forcing me to stop what I was doing. “Hey … I’m OK.” I made a face but he continued on. “I’m tired and need some sleep. Everyone does. I’ve lost some weight. We all have … even you. I would not have done it except it was a chance to get a step ahead Aria. You haven’t said anything, but I can tell you’re worried. You look at the stuff in the pantry and you see that more is going out than is coming in right now. I had a chance to alleviate some of that worry and I took it.”

I closed my eyes and knowing that he just was not going to get it so I tried to let it go. But not before I gave it one last shot. “Cal … I don’t need someone to take care of me and be my Keeper. I need a friend, someone I can trust and talk to. I need YOU. I know we bicker worse than real brother and sister do sometimes but … I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you. And if it was somehow my fault …” All I could do was shake my head because my voice was starting to crack.

Cal shook his head. “Hey you. We’ll get through this and nothing is going to happen to either one of us. I didn’t mean to worry you but it was a chance I might not get again and I took it … and I’d do it again. You need to understand that and accept it.”

Sighing and throwing the dish rag in the sink I said, “I know you would, and I’m done beating a dead horse; you are who you are and I shouldn’t complain because most of the time it’s cool. Just next time … if there is a next time … tell me. OK?”

He nodded and then ate his dinner, took a shower, and finally crashed for some much needed and well-deserved sleep.

---------------

 

[Kathy in FL]

48) Dear Diary,​

I had to look it up, it’s just been bugging the tar out of me. Daddy and Papa would probably be upset that I had to; on the other hand they always told me to never be too proud to ask or search for answers when you had questions, even if you thought they sounded stupid.

I needed to know what martial law is supposed to be. After looking into it I figured out what had been bothering me so much. According to the encyclopedia, dictionary, and a couple of other sources … martial law is the temporary imposition of military rule by military authorities over designated regions whereby civilians can be prosecuted by military authorities under both civilian and military law. But I look around and I don’t see that it is the military who is enforcing the majority of the martial law around here, it is the alphabet groups out of DC which means that it isn’t a military authority running the show but a federal one. Even the military seems to be under some duress in this situation. Something is very wrong with this.

There was a brief mention that the pentagon closed itself off from the Executive Branch … basically the President and the Whitehouse and that some members of Congress (the Legislative Branch) were acting as go-betweens, trying to smooth things over. There hasn’t been much mention of it since, but I get the feeling by reading between the lines of what legitimate news we do manage to get that the situation isn’t improving. Someone thinks that the President is overstepping his Constitutional authority and they are trying to assure that the country doesn’t devolve into civil war … or so thinks Cal.

I mean there hasn’t been a real set of checks and balances in years, at least not like there is supposed to be. Executive Orders issued by the President have usurped power from both the Judicial and Legislative branches since before I was born. The Judicial branch has usurped power by making law instead of interpreting it. And the Legislative branch has been ineffectual to the point of stupidity. If I hadn’t been brought up to know that this was bad then I probably wouldn’t recognize it. I know a lot of the kids I grew up with didn’t – probably still don’t – understand just how bad it is when checks and balances are gone. Without it, and with a less than ethical person heading the Executive Branch, we wind up with something that is looking more and more like a dictatorship … or at least less and less like the Republic we are supposed to be.

For now, there is nothing that I can do about it. I say for now because I don’t know what the future holds. I’m not even sure what I’m prepared to do if an opportunity does present itself. I’m the only one that Feena has … besides Cal. And God help me for saying so, but I wonder at how eager Cal is sometimes for something to happen. It isn’t that he is exactly looking forward to it; he’s just looks forward to what we have now remaining in place even less.

If, God forbid, a revolution of some type does happen I am fairly certain that he’ll want to be in the thick of it. I don’t know why I am so certain of that. He’s never said it. But to be honest I’m too … too scared to ask. I’m too afraid to hear what his answer would be to the question. So I put it off and I try my best on one hand not to think of it and on the other to learn to live with it and try and plan for the day he might not be here.

At home I’m taking as much advantage of the ration cards as I can although I can’t use Cal’s, you have to show picture ID and it has to match the name on the ration EBT card. On top of that there is a regional ID in the works, perhaps a national one. I’m not quite sure what to make of it because they are talking amnesty for all illegal aliens at the same time. The idea is for them to accept amnesty or to get out. If they accept it they will owe the government “x” amount of dollars for every year they’ve been in the country illegally. If they don’t accept amnesty and don’t get out (at their expense) and are caught … well the implied threat was greater than I remember it ever being to enforce the existing immigration laws. I guess now that it is their idea it becomes important. And it also means that with amnesty they may think they have a lot of new voters that can … oh whatever. I hate this kind of politicking; it always gives me a rancid headache.

I have to tell you that down at the carneceria there is a lot of hushed talk; hushed so that even I can’t hear it. This makes me sad because it says that I’ve become an outsider. Whether it is because of Cal being a cop or something inherent in me that they were willing to overlook before and cannot now, I don’t know. I’ve lived here longer than most of them, I’ve given them my trade just like my father and grandfather before me … and still I’m not “inside.”

In turn it has made me leery. Who do I trust? Dorrie is even quieter than before. She avoids some of my questions before I even ask them. Even Cal asked the other day what was up with her, if she was sick or something. I want to ask until I get a straight answer, but just like with Cal, I’m stuck because I’m afraid of knowing what the answer is.

I know that some of this is actually going back to the old way I used to think when things with Daniel were just starting to go wrong. I remember all the things that Pastor used to tell me, that I had to stop always thinking everything was my fault for two reasons. One because that was disregarding God’s authority; and two, because it was taking on too much authority for myself, in essence making myself the center of the universe and the cause of everything. I pulled out the old counseling pamphlets that I got during Celebrate Recovery and I’m rereading them. A refresher is helping. I think I’ve caught it early enough that I can avoid most of the self-made misery that I invested in before. But it is so hard not to get discouraged and not to feel like people are going to leave me again.

Maybe they need to leave. Maybe something in me is driving them; I’m not always easy to get along with. Maybe I’m not providing something they need. I would if I just knew what it was. Or maybe I’m just incapable of …

That’s enough. Deep, calming breath. Refocus that thought train Aria. Find the positives even when things are beyond your control. What constructive things are you doing? What are you doing to help yourself?

OK, here goes; it may not exactly seem like a positive but it is to me because it says that I’ve still got options. I’m trying to max out my debit card use every day but on non-food items. I don’t like using my debit card because all of my transactions can be traced but there are limits on cash withdrawals on a weekly and monthly basis. And it is next to impossible to cash a check these days because the IRS wants all paychecks to go direct deposit. But I’m getting creative and am trying to overcome the new additional rules.

This situation has been a big problem for the under the table workers and the immigrants that rarely have bank accounts. It is also a problem for people that have been blacklisted from getting a bank account due to bad credit. If I think Cal and I are in a world of hurt, that’s nothing compared to a lot of other people. At least he and I have separate bank accounts at different financial institutions; this helps us get around the new rules a bit. It is a positive that our strategy has started to pay off. Our buying power as a team is greater.

Hard cash is being squeezed out of the local economy. I don’t know for sure what it is like in other places but it would seem to be the same way based on news reports. The government keeps issuing reports of how much money we are all saving by going “cashless” but in truth we’d save more money if the government would stop doing its ridiculous studies and wasting time on reports that aren’t much more than reprints of what the people in power want them to say.

---------------

 

[Kathy in FL]

49) Dear Diary (Part 1)​

I have to record what happened today and it was all thanks to Percival “Pucker up” Perfect. That guy has such a brown nose he’s practically one solid color from head to toe.

Cal and I shop together in one vehicle for several reasons which should be obvious to anyone with half a brain, but more on that as I go along. We locked everything down tight and left early this morning to try and get the shopping done quickly before the nasties rolled out of bed and hit the streets. They stay up half the night making trouble despite the curfew and then like to sleep in late so they can do it again the next night.

We took my car because compared to Cal’s truck it sips gas. It is also easier to hide things in the trunk; no one goes around showing what they have these days, you never know who you are going to set off.

Of course Cal has to use a shoe horn to get in and out of my car but that’s just the way it is and he doesn’t laugh at the situation too hard though the passenger seat of the car is practically in the back seat so his knees aren’t up in his chest. We stopped at the produce market – a sad affair with so many of the booths gone or empty. I got a little bit of everything that I could afford but it was mostly just the local tropicals as usual: soursop, sweetsop, atemoya, velvet apple, pineapple guava, governor’s plum, acerola, mango, avocado, canistel, pomegranate, ambarella, jicama, pecan, calamondin, lemon, ambersweet oranges, cara cara navel oranges, navel oranges, and passion fruit. Oranges were coming in which I was happy to see and even though I had a bunch of trees already, ours wouldn’t be ripe for another month and they’d need a cold spell to sweeten them up.

Actually I shouldn’t say just tropicals as there were a few other things starting to show up. I got a few avocados and eggplants. Cal didn’t say anything but he wasn’t exactly jumping for joy either. I’ll teach him, avocado sandwiches are to die for and I know how to bake eggplant so that it isn’t the least bit mushy or slimy. They had cucumbers and I picked up a small bag of them in case my vines don’t bear. Right now I have a lot of blooms but that is about it. I could have gotten bell peppers too but I’ve already gotten the first few from the plants that I set; they are smaller than what was at the produce stands but beggars can’t be choosers. What I got a bunch of was mushrooms and onions. Cal loves onions anyway he can get them but even he looked a little scandalized at me buying a fifty-pound bag of onions.

“Are you sure Aria?”

“Trust me. If you want salsa, spaghetti sauce, chili, onion soup, fried onion rings …”

“Ok, ok,” he finally laughed. “Just so long as you’re sure.”

“I’m sure, plus it is cheaper to buy them in bulk like this.” Actually I wish I could have bought more onions but maybe the next time I go … if there is a next time.

From there we went to the Barter Bizarre. Cal stayed with the car – too many people appear to know he is a police officer – because he didn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable or cause trouble for the churches. He was also willing to keep Feena but then Josh pulled up with Dorrie and her mother and I said it would be silly to try and have a guy talk with Feena doing her best to get their attention.

There were a lot of artisans and craft people at the bizarre and I grabbed a few bars of homemade soap, some candles, and I also picked up some yarn and some needle and thread. I found some more seeds but I had to be careful because not all of them looked like they had been stored very well … some of the packages were faded and some were obviously water damaged. Dorrie and I didn’t talk much; we were both being treated differently as word got around that we had cops in the family. She also seemed to have a lot on her mind. It was actually a relief to leave.

As we went back to the cars Dorrie’s mother said, “Well, I’ve never been insulted so completely. People I’ve known my whole life act like I’m a stranger just because we rent space to a police officer.”

It was upsetting but I wouldn’t tell Cal until we were back on the road heading to wally world.

‘They did what?!”

“Don’t snap Cal; there’s nothing you could have done.”

“This is getting ridiculous.”

I shrugged as I carefully crossed an intersection. “It’s been ridiculous and is now heading into absurd. People are just scared and they express it in stupid ways. These same people are the ones that will call in the middle of the night that someone is trying to break in their house and expect you to be there before they’ve even hung up, and no apology or embarrassment when it turns out to be an old tom cat in the garbage cans. I refuse to let that kind of idiocy get in my way. Dorrie’s mom may not go back to the bizarre but no one is going to scare me off. If they have something they want to sell that I’m willing to buy then we’ll work around their irrational prejudices.”

“Irrational prejudices. Is that what they call it these days?”

I snorted a giggle at the look on his face. “Actually they call it something much ruder but with Feena in the car and turning into a Class A mimic I’m being careful what she hears.” Since we’d already had one such incident where she’d overheard a particular word Cal had used when he’d busted a couple of knuckles while he was under the hood of his truck changing the oil filter he knew exactly what I meant.

We finally pulled into the parking lot of wally world. There were a lot of people wandering the parking lot but most of them only had one or two bags in their hands as they came out.

That’s when Cal says, “Aria, maybe we should split the list and shop separately.”

“Why? What if I can’t reach something on a shelf?”

He snorted, “You aren’t that short.”

“I know but they keep pushing things to the back of the top shelf like they don’t want anyone to reach them.”

“Then we’ll hook up and I’ll go back around. I just think it might be better if we don’t pile everything in the same cart.”

That’s when I began to understand what he meant. “Oh. You want us to look like everyone else.”

“See, I knew you were smart.”

I gave him a look that would have burnt toast and told him, “You’ll find out just how smart I am if you miss a single item on your half of the list. And don’t go picking up any junk either, especially not for Feena. I cannot believe you have her hooked on marshmallows. What happens when all the marshmallows run out?”

From the back seat her majesty demanded, “I sum mushmells. I sum mushmells. I sum mushmells.”

I glared at Cal but he just grinned. “Don’t look at me; you’re the one that said the M word.”

It just so happened I’d made the brilliant decision to stick a few miniature marshmallows in a Ziploc so I could give her a couple like a Scooby Snack and we finally grabbed a buggy and started to head into the store. Started being the operative word.

We walked through the first two double doors and as I was passing into the store and Cal was grabbing a buggy for himself we hear, “Deputy Lowery, what a surprise to see you here.”

I turned and looked for who would be lame-brained enough to shout out like that. I was right on the first guess … ol’ Percival Perfect, only he wasn’t alone. A number of other DHS personnel stood with him. In a voice full of sorrow he said, “I just wanted you to know that there are no hard feelings.”

I looked at Cal who was looking at PP with a carefully blank expression. I wanted to ask what it was about but Cal had gone granite and was holding himself very still. PP noticed and said in a falsely contrite tone, “Oh … Oh I apologize, you … you obviously haven’t gotten the call from your lawyer yet. I’m really surprised. Lily couldn’t wait to call me; the judge signed the papers this morning, she’s finally free.”

God help my mouth. Out popped, “Yeah, she could have been free a lot sooner if she hadn’t kept irritating the judge trying to change the paperwork.”

I don’t think he thought I was dumb enough to insert myself into the conversation. He underestimated the fact that I was completely able to be stupid at the drop of a hat.

He gave me superior look and said, “That was merely a misunderstanding.”

Num num. My foot tasted so good the first time I decided for another taste. I said, “No. That was the judge getting tired of her wasting the court’s time with supercilious motions. Lily was an adulterous wife trying to take her husband to the cleaners and the judge saw through it. The fact that you were the one she had her last affair with just has made it more complicated for Cal because of your father using his interdepartmental influence.”

Cal said sharply, “That’s enough Aria. Lily … Lily didn’t want to be married to me. She made it obvious in a hundred different ways; I just fought the obvious for too many years.”

One look at Cal’s face was enough to make me mentally cringe. He hurriedly ushered me into the store. I wanted to apologize but Cal separated from me as soon as we’d gotten passed the “hello – buy me” stuff they put right at the entrance. I wasn’t feeling very good; in fact I was nauseous. I’d blurted out instead of thought first. I was too old to be acting that way. I wanted to find Cal but knew it was a bad idea. I would have to hurry if I didn’t want to make things worse. At the rate that Cal was moving he’d have everything on his list before I got halfway through with mine.

And in fact, I was halfway through with mine when a female DHS agent walked up beside me and said, “Mrs. Lowery, would you come with me please.”

Since the please was actually just rhetorical I followed her lead but was scared, nearly as scared as I’d ever been. I was wondering why I couldn’t have just kept my mouth closed. I pushed my buggy to the old layaway area and was asked to sit down in a chair stationed in front of a table.

“Mrs. Lowery …”

“Can I ask how you know my name?” I asked hesitantly.

She obviously didn’t appreciate questions but she arched an eyebrow. Then it clicked. “Oh … Percy.”

She twitched her nose and then continued. “Now as I was saying, Mrs. Lowery that is quite an accusation you made against one of our agents.”

I sighed. “If you want me to apologize I will. I’m … I’m a little hypersensitive where family is concerned.”

“Family?”

“Cal. He’s been hurt enough.”

With a carefully blank face she said, “I understand that you and Deputy Lowery have a relationship of long standing.”

When the innuendo clicked I sat up straighter but determined that I wasn’t going to cause any more trouble than I already had. Carefully I told her, “Our relationship is one of family and mutual support.”

“Could you explain that please?” Again, the please was only rhetorical.

I sighed. “Lily and Cal were a huge support to me when my husband … when he … look, I suppose you know what my husband did.”

She said, “He was a drug addict and killed his parents.”

I winced. “He was a severally brain damaged drug addict. And before he killed his parents he tried to … tried to kill me. In addition to the … to the physical injuries I suffered, it caused me to go into premature labor with Feena.” I nodded to my daughter who was chowing on the last of the mushmells to keep her quiet. “Both she and I were in critical care for almost two months. During that time Daniel – my husband – was confined by the state but he escaped and you know the rest from there. Lily and Cal provided my primary emotional and mental support during that time. They were also my primary contact with the outside world as the doctors didn’t deem it very good for my health to have a lot of visitors.”

“Were you aware of the stress their marriage was under?”

Quietly I said, “I knew something was going on because Lily was pulling away. I thought maybe it was me or maybe Feena … she didn’t want kids and once upon a time the family had given her a hard time about it but she and Cal had worked things out between them. He wanted her more than kids.”

“When did you become aware of the storminess of the marriage?”

“It wasn’t stormy; a couple of times Lily said that Cal just didn’t know how to fight and was boring. I thought she was playing at the time but maybe not. They were in counseling and I as well as my sister in laws thought things were getting better. At least until Lily pulled out of their second honeymoon at the last second and told Cal to take someone else on the cruise.”

“You’re very … free … with details Mrs. Lowery.”

I shrugged, resigned to the interview and determined to tell the truth. “It’s common knowledge. Plus it is probably in Cal and Lily’s divorce papers to prove that the marriage was irretrievably broken or whatever you want to call it. It isn’t rocket science to know you guys can look it up any time you want to and verify what I’m saying.”

 

[Kathy in FL]

49) Dear Diary (Part 2)​

She didn’t say anything to that for a moment then looking at some notes she asked, “When did Deputy Lowery move in with you?”

“Actually he didn’t really move in with me at first. He’d lent me his travel trailer to live in while the house I live in now was under repair to bring it up to code. When he came home and caught Lily in bed with yet another man everything just fell apart and Cal couldn’t take it one more time. He packed up and moved out.”

“Another man?” she asked like I’d caught her off guard.

“Yeah. When Cal caught your agent in bed with his wife that was the third time that I know of that Lily was unfaithful to Cal.”

“He … he caught them … in the act?”

“Yeah. That’s how your agent wound up buck naked on the lawn outside while Lily and Cal had a real verbal blow up that the whole neighborhood could hear. You probably know that Lily’s dad is kinda rich – some hobnobber in the construction industry with some funky connections – and he sent a lawyer after Cal. Your agent’s father is … well he has his own connections and I guess as a father he just wanted to protect his son so I’m guessing he called in some favors, or at least that is what was said. Cal got stationed out here in Ruskin as a result. It just made the only sense possible at the time for him to move into his trailer since it was already parked and set up out here.”

She was silent for a moment like she was digesting something. Then she asked, “But he now sleeps with you.”

I made a face. “Not the way you’re thinking. It was a matter of economics. The price of gas made it hard for Cal to keep the generator going in his trailer and it got to be like an oven in there. When some guy was willing to buy it Cal jumped at the chance. The only reason he didn’t go find an apartment some place is because … well … I guess you can see I’m occasionally still a pretty big mess. He hangs around to help me keep up with things. Not to mention with prices and stuff … aw, you know what I mean. I’m a little embarrassed to admit it but if Cal wasn’t around I don’t know if I could afford to stay in the house I grew up in. He and some of his buddies from work help with the heavy lifting when something gets broken … it was a mess after the hurricane … and all they ask is to have a dock to fish off of. They haven’t been able to do much of that lately but … I don’t know … I feel safer too. You know what it’s like for most women that are alone and I don’t know, some guys just don’t get that I’m not ready to … er … fish. I don’t know if I ever will again. Cal understands because of what he’s been going through with Lily. We just kind of … protect each other, just in different ways. Like brother and sister.”

“You are very free with details Mrs. Lowery.”

I nodded. “You’ve already said that once. And like I said, I’m not saying anything you couldn’t confirm through public records or just by asking around. It is what it is, kinda stupid to try and make it something it isn’t.”

She made some notes, occasionally stopping to look at me. It made me so nervous I finally asked, “How much trouble am I in? For mouthing off I mean?”

She raised her eyebrows and said, “You aren’t in any trouble Mrs. Lowery that I’m aware of. Of course if anything you’ve said doesn’t check out …”

“Despite the way I acted back there, I’m not stupid. I’ve got my daughter to think of and it would be a pretty poor payback to embarrass Cal any more than I already have.”

“Wait here please.”

So I waited. She wasn’t gone five minutes before coming back with an envelope. “Just sign here and you are good to go.”

“Sign what?”

“Sign for your additional ration cards.”

I gave her a suspicious look. “I didn’t ask for ration cards, I’ve already got one per the new rules.”

“I’m well aware of that Mrs. Lowery. These are additional ration cards. You use them like gift cards.” When I still didn’t seem to understand she seemed to think she was dealing with someone mentally deficient. “Mrs. Lowery, we provide our community contacts with ration cards as a matter of policy.”

“Why? And when did I become a community contact? Don’t take this the wrong way but this is the last contact I want to have on this.”

She closed her eyes briefly like she was looking for patience. “Mrs. Lowery it is policy.”

“Policy for what?”

“For our community contacts.”

We looked at each other and then since she still wasn’t talking any language I understood I asked, “Can I go? If Cal has noticed that I’m missing his going to get worried.”

“After you sign for these ration cards.”

“But I didn’t ask for any ration cards.”

From behind me a voice said, “Take the cards Aria.”

I jumped up and turned around. “Cal! I am sooo sorry that I put my big fat foot in my mouth and …”

He cracked a small smile. “It’s ok.”

“No it’s not because I talked and answered questions but I swear I never asked for anything Cal … I didn’t … only I think she thinks I did because …”

Cal said, “Aria, take the cards. If you don’t they get in trouble.”

“In trouble? Why?”

“Because it’s policy.”

“Policy for what?”

The female agent sighed and said to Cal, “This is where I lost her every time.”

Cal looked at me and gave a small smile. “That’s because she doesn’t get the routine.” To me he said, “The agents have a policy and procedure they have to follow. When they conduct an interview and the facts check, then they issue ration cards.”

I made a face. “For telling the truth?”

“Essentially,” he answered.

“That makes no sense. Why pay someone for telling the truth?”

“Don’t think of it as payment, think of it as a reward.”

“You shouldn’t get a reward for doing what you’re supposed to do. Doing what you are supposed to should be reward in and of itself.”

The female agent and the male agent that had accompanied Cal looked at me like I was suffering some form of dementia.

“Aria.”

“What?”

“Sign for the cards so the nice agents don’t lose their jobs. The longer you stand there arguing the longer it is going to take us to get out of here.”

“Oh.”

So I signed for the cards not really looking at them. I stuck them in my purse and then we went out, finished our shopping, and then left the store.”

After we had loaded everything into the car and pulled out I looked at Cal and said, “That was sooo strange.”

Cal burst out laughing and laughed nearly a whole mile before finally catching his breath. “Oh Aria … you are something else.”

“No I’m not, I’m me. And I still don’t understand those ration cards. I didn’t do anything but tell the truth. And I’m not sure I like being called a community contact.”

He continued to chortle. “Don’t worry about it, it doesn’t mean anything; just a way for them to justify their screwy policies and procedures. We’ll spend the ration cards and we’ll spend them on something we need. How much did they give you?”

I answered, “I don’t know; they’re in my purse.”

When he pulled them out and told me how much I nearly punched the breaks. “What?! That’s almost a whole month’s worth of points!! Oh my gosh, we have to go back, there’s been some kind of mistake or they are testing me or something! Cal …”

“Relax Aria before you get us in an accident; it’s the same amount they gave me.”

“Same amount they gave you? Oh no … I got you in trouble too.”

Cal shook his head. “Aria, why are you being such a ding bat over this? Neither of us is in trouble. It’s the same amount they give other people they interview. It is supposed to build good will.”

Not happy at being called a ding bat I grumped a little. “I’m not being a ding bat. I just don’t understand it.”

“I’m sure you don’t … at least not the way your average person would.”

“Well geez, thanks so much.”

“Don’t get upset. I just mean that you don’t expect things for doing what you are supposed to. In this case you told the truth and likely confirmed some stuff that they were already looking into or were aware of. For the most part those agents expect everyone to lie or that everyone is going to expect something for doing what they are supposed to. You aren’t like that.”

After a while even I get tired of going over the same old tracks so we agreed that it was silly for DHS to do what they did but that we’d have to disagree on why. All I know is that we now have almost two months extra ration points to use and it is all because of Percival Perfect.

 

[Kathy in FL]

50) Dear Diary,​

I am so selfish. I cannot believe how thoughtless I've been. I know I didn’t mean to be but that is no excuse.

After finishing up last night and getting in bed I was halfway asleep when some noise caught my ear. It sounded like the baby gate at the top of the stairs. I was up in a flash because Feena occasionally climbs out of her crib though she’s never done it at night. Sure enough it was off its latch, something I didn’t think she was capable of yet. I started down the stairs, trying to be quiet so as not to wake up Cal as he had gone to bed early ... I thought it was exhaustion catching up with him.

The first floor was as dark as the inside of whale's belly and I couldn’t hear anything that told me where she could be. I almost flipped on the light switch but then the one in the kitchen came on, then was intentionally turned dim so I knew it wasn't Feena who couldn't even reach the switch. My next thought was that Cal had gotten called into work.

I walked in and I am glad I hadn't called out because what met my eyes when I rounded the corner took my breath away. I found Cal with his head down on his arms at the kitchen table. He wasn't making a sound yet his shoulders were shaking. A picture of his and Lily's wedding day half crumpled was held in a fist. I was caught flat footed. I had no idea what to do. Some men are extremely private about their misery and pain. But then I thought, this is Cal, we've been through some horrible stuff together, if I don't try and share his pain then who will. I owe him.

Quietly I came over and hugged his shoulders. He jumped slightly, stiffened a bit, then relaxed enough that it wasn't like trying to hold a boulder, though it still came close. I don't know how long we stayed like that. Eventually he sat up, but wouldn't look at me.

I had to say something; the quiet was stretching into something terribly uncomfortable. "I'm sorry for the circumstances," I told him solemnly. "But I am blessed to be the one here and to give back some of what you've been giving to me for so long."

He got up and went over to the sink and splashed his face. After a moment he cleared his throat and finally spoke. “It isn't like this day hasn't been coming. Maybe for years. I know I didn’t want it at first but now I do so it isn’t that. I don't know why it is hitting me like this.”

Trying not to say the wrong thing I took a moment to answer him. Drawing on my own experience I told him, "Because … because it is like a death. You're grieving the loss of what could have been."

He seemed like he was thinking over what I’d said and then asked, "Was this how you felt with Daniel?"

"I don't know. Some, I guess. There’re days I still don't know how I feel. Sometimes I think I have a handle on it and sometimes I know I don't. I still don’t know why Daniel made the choices he made, and I sure don’t know why Lily did what she did to you. They were both wrong."

After a sigh that sounded like it came from deep in his soul he said, "I know why. She never loved me."

Automatically I said, "Aw Cal, of course she did."

For some reason at that moment I noticed that the bald spots on his head had finally grown back in but then that thought flitted away as he shook his head and said, "No Aria, she really didn't. She married me on the rebound to prove that she was over the guy that had dumped her mid-way through college. She married me to escape the life her parents kept trying to force on her. She married me because it was unexpected, and she wanted to break out of what everyone kept telling her she would do. She married me because I was easy to get along with and I made her feel better. She was in lust with me, we were good in bed, but she was never in love with me."

"You can't know that Cal."

He shrugged, but it had not energy to it. "Sure I can. When we were really being honest with each other in counseling she said it and never changed her story."

Confused I asked the first thing that popped into my head. "But ... but if that's true, how did your marriage last this long?"

Still not looking at me he said, "Because I was willing to settle. Divorce just wasn't an option I was willing to consider. I loved her; I made that good enough. I learned to accept that she didn't love me the same way, but I convinced myself that in time she would. I accepted she didn’t want kids. I learned to accept what she could give and live with it. And for a while things were good; they were never great, but they were good. Some of the best times we had being together and working together were when things were so bad between you and Daniel. It is like we were seeing there but for the grace of God went the two of us and we made more of an effort each day to treat each other the right way."

"But it's also when things went so bad."

"Yeah. Because I think she saw it all and it was just ... she got tired of settling, pretending to herself that it was enough. She went back to her first love to try and recapture being in love. When that didn't work is when she got angry … angry and progressively nastier. Mostly at me but the anger spread looking for a target. You got caught in that, so did Trish and Amaris. She was angry at what she started to think of as all the wasted years. She just didn't want to waste any more time, anymore years. See she’s finally decided she wants a kid."

"Wait, I thought she didn't."

He shrugged. "Turns out she just didn't want a kid with me."

I have to say, even with all the carp I have gone through, the stark cruelty of that sentence shocked me. If it is honestly how Lily feels, why would she tell him that to make his pain all that much worse? How could she possibly blame Cal for loving her? How could she possibly blame Cal because she was unable to love him back? It doesn’t make any sense to me at all. It would have been better if she had left him years ago when the marriage was so young than to build his hopes up, make him believe that forever was possible.

Cal pushed away from the sink and walked over to the back door and opened it but couldn’t go through. He stared blindly at the shuttered opening, as if he’d opened a door only to find a brick wall behind it and was still computing the surprise.

I stood looking at him trying to find the right words, but they seemed out of my reach. I knew telling him he'd find someone new was useless because I didn't know for sure that he would … or if he even wanted to. I sure didn't tell him what Lily had said didn't matter because it obviously did. I walked over to stand beside him, not touching since it seemed that was that last thing he wanted but still near, silent proof that I was on his side if he wanted me there. Hurting because I saw him hurting, frustrated I didn’t have the words to make it better, the only thing I could come up with was, "Lily is a fool in so many ways that there aren’t enough numbers in the world to cover them all."

We stood that way for a while and then without saying another word he shut the door and we turned and went back upstairs, only separating as we each turned into our own rooms. I hope he got more rest than I did because it was a long time before I could sleep.

But it isn’t over. In some respects it may never be over for him anymore than it may never be over for me. I don’t know if he’ll dream of her, wake up and for just a moment forget she’s gone. Maybe he’ll imagine he hears her voice in the middle of the night calling out to him. Maybe he’ll change his mind and decide he made a mistake and try and win her back. Maybe not, part of me hopes not unless that is what is going to make him truly happy like he deserves. Mostly I pray he’ll handle things better than I have and find some peace.

He rushed out of the house this morning. I don't know if it is because he was late for work or because he didn't want anything said about last night. There were no friendly texts during the day, no slightly bossy texts checking on things. The silence was deafening even though I understand it. Then about five o’clock he did text but only to tell me he wouldn't be home tonight.

I don't want to make him uncomfortable. I don't want to make him feel bad. I want to do something to help him feel better but I don't know what. I do know that I can't continue taking him for granted. I hope it isn’t already too late.

--------------

 

[Jeepcats27]

Thank you for bringing more of the story over!

 

[Mr Bill]

What a great addition. Thanks