This will probably have to be several segments. A lot has happened, and it's bound to be long.

It still all starts with that one conversation, and even when this epic is done, that wasn't all that we talked about.

You see, it's this way. In the course of talking, AJ remembered to tell me that at one point Gargamel brought him a cashier's check for $100,000 that was from the refinance of her house. He said she took out around $300,000 and took the c-check out of that. She gave it to him in an envelope, and he thought it was a small amount of money for something else, and ended up carrying it around for a couple of days before opening it. He called her up, saying that he couldn't possibly take it. For some reason <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> she really wanted him to take it, and finally she said she would just put it into the bank for him. He lied to her *gasp* and said that I had made the corporate bank account so that only I could deposit funds.

So that was all very interesting (and there were some details he didn't even remember until we talked about it again today), but with one little problem. She had been whining about the possibility of me screwing up her refinancing as late as mid-July of last year, so it was still in process then, and it was almost the end of August before she told me that she had transferred the corporate debt into a low-interest account, which I assumed was connected to the refinance.

Since NC was supposed to have started on June 27, that didn't look too hot for ol' AJ. It was rather dismaying to think of him hanging out and refusing large sums of money several months into NC.

Thank you to those of you who chatted with me about this. It took a couple of days to make it to the county recorder's office, but imagine my surprise when I found out that there had been no refinance! So right off the bat I knew that the money must have come from somewhere else, and that it could have been at any time, not necessarily during NC.

After much examination and advice, I believed that even if this had happened during NC, that there was no ongoing contact. People who have talked to him about this recently said he did not seem foggy at all. That alone went a long way toward restoring my damaged faith in my instincts.

So I talked to him today again, to see if he had any blanks he could fill in, and to let him know that he had at the very least been misled, if not outright lied to.

Why I ended talking to him about it at that particular moment is a whole extra story!

Normally I would not bring up a potentially upsetting subject like that unless it was an emergency, as I have found AJ to be most receptive when he is not a) just about to go to work b) at work or c) just getting back from work. How many men are? I usually try to talk to him on his second day in a row off work, and at a time where he is doing nothing and in no hurry.

So I had no thought of bringing up the above topic while he was driving home on his 1 1/2 hour commute after working all night. Very poor form.

He thought he was working tonight, and I thought he wasn't, so I opened his Yahoo calendar to see who was right. I was, of course, but I was not at all expecting to see his calendar all month long filled up with reminders to watch pornos. There were two different reminders, one repeating itself every other day into infinity, and the other repeating itself every third day into infinity.

AJ's calendar is set up so that only his friends can view it, and only he and I can modify it. He has exactly four friends set up: me, Mom, Neaksis, and Neakbro.

He checked and rechecked all his settings, and finally discovered that he had somehow become a member of a Yahoo group, one with, um, adult content.

Unless somebody knows of a back door way of doing this, the only apparent way of joining the group is to sign into Yahoo with your user name and password, then choose the option to join. As far as I know there is not any way of them joining people up without their consent, since they have to be signed in.

With it looking very much as if his email account had once again been compromised, AJ played it safe and changed his password, and I changed mine, too.

But as long as we were on the subject, I brought up the c-check and non-refinancing. At first he didn't remember when it was, but reaffirming that it was before the first break-up, but then he remembered that it was while she was trying to get him to fly to Hawaii with her for their birthdays. She had already bought the tickets well in advance, but he (for some reason) didn't think he could come up with a good enough reason so that I wouldn't know, and he wouldn't go on the trip.

So his estimate of when this all occurred was in April, because of course an efficient person like her would order the tickets far enough in advance to get the best rates.

He lied to her about a number of things connected to that whole episode, anything to keep from being pushed into a direction he had no intention of going. The most mind-boggling thing is that she believed everything, no matter how far-fetched, e.g. that even as the president of the corporation he did not own any stock that he could sell her, and so on. I told him I understood that, because once you're in that situation, you will say just about anything to keep from having to do something so uncomfortable.

So it was interesting.

Oh, change of subject, but I had no idea until tonight that my great-aunt had lost a full-term baby when the doctor failed to perform a C-section when it became obvious that the baby was large and not able to finish its descent, so the poor little boy was born over 2 hours after he died.

It is weird to think of my o-l-d aunt having a baby in heaven just like me. Except she won't be old anymore, which is weird, too.

She can't hold babies any more, either, so it's not just me. If we ever had another I'm sure I'd get over that little quirk, but hopefully that will not be an issue. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" />

We had another lovely sharing time today as he was driving home from work. (I forgot to mention that in the same time frame as the porn invites taking over his whole calendar, one of the times he logged on, all his emails had been opened, just like the last time except there was no change to the blocked addresses.) There was more that he remembered from recently.

In the last little while, there was a day when our mail was apparently tampered with. He looked out the window and saw the mail lady just driving on to the next house from ours. A couple minutes later he went out to get our mail and there was nothing there. For whatever reason, he went back and checked it later that afternoon, and there it was as if it had been there all the time.

We had talked about the possibility of this before, but never so specifically; that he thinks that on many occasions she has parked on the hill above our house and conducted surveillance. He said that on numerous days he has seen different cars sitting up there for long periods of time. It is a small cul de sac, with only one house on it, close to the main road, and the cars were all the way at the end of the loop, where there are no houses or anything.

So the drama is not over even yet, and I have to wonder just what she's planning if all this stuff is still happening. On the one hand it stirs up resentment again, because if he hadn't made the choices he did I wouldn't still be in this position, but on the other hand it is more of a relief than I thought it would be to talk about some of this with him, and so ultimately it is serving to bring us closer to each other. Which I doubt is her intent.

(I have not forgotten that there is a great deal yet to say on the subject of resentment.)

So even if I am being dragged back a little, it will be good in the long run. I am just trying to walk the fine line between not obssessing over what she is/might be doing, and thinking about it enough to make sure that there are no obvious weaknesses for her to easily exploit.

The email thing is bothersome. The same song keeps running through my head. Grow a life!

Last night I had a funny dream. I was on a cruise ship that left the ocean and headed up a river. Suddenly we found ourselves in a small lake. Our momentum had carried us over a waterfall, only about 5-7 feet high, so we weren't destroyed, but high enough so we couldn't sail back the way we came.

Then I saw up ahead that where the river fed into the lake was about to break and flood, and somehow I knew that the resulting wave would be too steep for the ship to climb, and it would founder. So....we (almost) all climbed up the steep hill by the lake and took shelter as high as we could go. I woke up before the wave hit, when we were being besieged by black widows and other creepy crawlies, smashing them right and left. We had every expectation of surviving, though I'm not sure what we would have done about the influx of spiders fleeing the rising waters.

Most of my dreams would make excellent B movies. (Maybe even D- <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/pfft.gif" alt="" />.)

The Toad Whisperer is almost asleep, hugging his stuffed duck. He has had a long day, and I'm not surprised he is tired. Any ten men would be exhausted after dividing up his daily activities amongst themselves. (As in, just the dividing would exhaust them; the activities themselves would probably result in injury or death.)

AJ took me "in" to dinner tonight, bringing me food home with him from work. We went and sat in the bedroom to eat together, briefly pretending that there were no children around. It was very sweet, and I would reward him appropriately if only he hadn't long since fallen asleep after being up all night and all day.

Sweet dreams, all.

Even I, one not inclined to cut AJ any unnecessary slack (<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />), can imagine him being dumb enough to set up a bunch of reminders for himself to watch porn not even one week after he sets things up so I can get into his schedule any time I choose, just to see what he's got planned. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" /><img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" /><img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" /> There's insanity, and there's a death wish. I think he knows the difference! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

t&l

That level of stupidity would boggle my mind. "Hey Mom, wanna watch Raven from Las Vegas with me? I have it scheduled every second and third days from now to forever, and I was hoping you would join me. Can you bring some popcorn?"

You're right - just about any explanation in the world, including those that contain alien laser email scrambling beams, are more likely.

Last night I dreamed I was beginning an EA, and I'm sure this came from thinking about the other thread on that subject.

An all-male music group came to visit at the church, and I got to chatting with them. They knew I was married, although AJ was not there that day. One in particular was very friendly, and very touchy. He was so sweet, and I felt so happy and so alive. Briefly I compared that to the more solid, but less exciting feelings I had toward my husband, before deciding to just not think about him (AJ) any more.

Mom tried to tell me that she was concerned, but I said, "Oh, he's just being friendly." It made me uncomfortable enough that I thought maybe I should tell him that I was not a touchy person, and to back off a bit, but kind of just shrugged, guessing it wasn't so bad after all.

It was very eerie to have a switch just flip, and suddenly not care any more.

The first few moments of waking up and transitioning back into reality were also pretty strange. No musician, no EA, just a snoring husband rubbing my feet with his while he slept. What a relief! I cannot imagine how awful it would be to have that kind of deceptive fantasy, and then you wake up and it's still there. You go through the day, and it's still there. You crawl into bed at night, and it's right there next to you and inside you, filthy and obscene. And no matter how many times you wake up wishing, it's never a dream.

Ah well, enough philosophizing for the moment - my math students are getting restless.

The Toad Whisperer is almost asleep, hugging his stuffed duck. He has had a long day, and I'm not surprised he is tired. Any ten men would be exhausted after dividing up his daily activities amongst themselves. (As in, just the dividing would exhaust them; the activities themselves would probably result in injury or death.)

I wonder what he dreams of......... chuckle, chuckle.

SS

I admit it, I chuckled a little too, till I really thought of what he might be dreaming of. That is too scary for words.

Lately he has expanded his sphere of interest to include frasshoppers and frickets, as well.

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Lately he has expanded his sphere of interest to include frasshoppers and frickets, as well.

He should keep them away from the lizzards if he wants them to stay around very long. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />
If you don't want the bugs around, you can encourage him to let a lizzard play with them. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

I know they are a handful (kids in general) but the Savior said "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdon of heaven."

I have to agree - and am glad we get to spend time with them. We spent Monday evening at the lake with 4 out of 5 of our grand kids, and it was a good thing.

I hope the others are doing well - and you also. Tell Neaksis we hope hers are well too.

I keep wondering what your brothers are thinking...... family is where it's at.

SS

They don't know what they're missing! How wonderful that you got the chance to spend time with your GK's.

I always liked that quote of Jesus', but lately it has been hard to remember that He meant the other kind of suffer. (I am kidding, mostly. I will be almost all kidding once I get well so I am not trying to harangue the troops from a prone position. It does not work well.)

We have one lizard here that I see on a regular basis. After almost a year, it is much larger, and nearly half its tail has grown back. The hundreds of toads are helpful with bug control.

Neaksis may be yielding her foster child today, that is the sudden, last-minute plan, anyway. She will not be crushed, as there has been extreme tension between the foster child and her own 3 from the beginning. (Tension would be described as her children yelling "I HATE [FOSTER CHILD]" right in front of the foster child, and said foster child lying and manipulating to try and get the other 3 in trouble as revenge for the mean things they were saying about her.) Truly, Neaksis is not sorry to leave that battleground behind. She wants a nice, happy, speechless, cooing baby. Twins, if possible.

Just heard from her as I was typing this, and the departure is definitely scheduled for immediately. She won't have a chance to talk to the social worker till tomorrow to be sure, but she doesn't think whatever emergency had to do with her.

She is having to send off her foster child with no changes of clothes, and absolutely covered with paint, as they have been working on the church interior all day. The other bad thing is the poor kid is having no warning at all. Neaksis' social worker is seriously cranky about this.

Oh, I am close to half-way through a cute little love story for Amazon shorts. It's about this prostitute that falls in love and wants to get married. Sound like a winner?

(Her name is Rahab. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />)

Dare one ask why it only had part of a tail? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" /><img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" /><img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" /><img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" /> Did someone have an unfortunate encounter with the Dervish, perhaps? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

Foster child is gone. Good object lesson for adoptees, who sometimes complain that they want to be foster children and not have to obey the rules. One second you're there, and the next, POOF! you're gone. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/pfft.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />

t&l

We have many types of geckos (sp?) here and they often drop their tails to escape any kind of danger. The tail remains 'alive' for quite a while and continues wiggling around. I'm sure the Dervish has 'sussed' this situation. Those cute little tails are so entertaining - what little boy could resist?

You need a motion-sensor camera pointed at your mailbox. Tampering with the US mail is a FEDERAL offense. you will be rid of her for a long long long time.

Radio shack sells one you can hook up to a VCR. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I have a strong suspicion about the lizard, but was never able to prove anything one way or the other, lol.

The adoptees need a good lesson like that. They have, indeed, expressed sentiments very much like that, on more than one occasion.

They will get another very good lesson, too. Now that they have their wish, and she is gone, there are going to be some very painful statements like "I'm sorry, but we can't do that fun thing after all, because now that we have no foster children, there just isn't any extra money after paying the bills."

Life's little lessons...

Of course she won't get it, but if Neaksis ends up home schooling her daughter next year, she will certainly deserve a raise! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

We have a camera mounted on the garage, it will just be a matter of hooking the little tv back up to it, and aiming it just a little higher.

It would certainly be convenient to have her in federal prison, but what are the chances she would be that stupid twice? Well........

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

TT, our bluebellied lizards do the same thing as your geckos, and the most amazing thing is that I have only seen ONE with its nether end docked. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I am sick to my stomach again. (It probably wouldn't have been as bad without the mouse, lol. That smell just stuck to my poor nostrils!)

I'll be ok, it's just one more attempt to make trouble, but I'm so tired of this.

I just logged onto my bank account to make sure nothing bad had happened to it, since I haven't used it for a while. I was horribly shocked to see that I have $112 in there, instead of the $3 I expected.

I was even more shocked to find out that it was because they had redeposited the final payment to Gargamel, even though at the time a customer service rep said that it had been cashed. Apparently they were mistaken.

Sigh.

Sigh, sigh, sigh.

What petty, juvenile game-playing! Does she think this will force me into contact?

I think I will either just reissue the check, or get her Golden 1 account # from Mom and just deposit it.

What can she possibly hope to accomplish by this? It is all so stupid.

I have to run to town to pay the internet and get dog food. I am so mad - I thought this part was over and done with. Give me a few hours and I'll be better.

{This might be a good time to comment to Mimi, that after you said you were still trying to think of non-lethal revenge, I thought of a great one! Put poison oak on her car door handle (one of my friends thought the toilet seat would be even better, attacking the scene of the crime and all). They would never know what hit 'em, lol. I just keep telling myself I'm better than that. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />}

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

AJ took it well, but he usually does - just a <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> and life goes on for him.

Neaksis said I should just keep it, since she gave it to me. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> AJ liked my idea of skipping the rigamarole and sticking it straight into her...........bank account.

Sunday we all went up into the mountains for a BBQ (veggie, of course), and most of it was lots of fun. It was really nice to get away and not think about anything bad at all for several hours. But on the way back, he kept seeing places where he had been as part of his A-starting job, and remembering (& sharing) the experiences.

It bothered me quite a bit to be reminded of that time, and it was hard to fight the urges to pick up the BBQ implements and beat him with them, but I didn't say anything. BECAUSE...even though it is uncomfortable for me, it is soooo good to have him relaxed and chatting freely, and obviously not being triggered himself. I don't want him having to walk on eggshells, and count every word before he says it.

If it were so bad I couldn't stand it, I would have to tell him, but you know, there are just some triggers you have to plow through and get over. (Sex would be another.) I will not let his A rule every aspect of my life from now on.

Sometimes it's easier than others. Last week on the way home from church, I called his cousin-in-law, who is one of Mom's patients. The poor thing came in for premature labor, they got it stopped, and now she's bedridden from now until ?. (She just passed 24 weeks.) Anyhoo, the nurse that answered was one of the ones that took care of me when Dillon was born, and her name is also Gargamel. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />

She put me on hold to see if CIL was awake, and another nurse came on. I said one of the other nurses was checking for me. AJ said, "Why didn't you just tell her it was Gargamel?"

Hearing that name from his lips, and questioning me why I didn't say it, it's a wonder I didn't claw his eyes out right then. If I hadn't forgotten the whole thing until now, that would definitely have been something I would have talked to him, once I could speak again. My mental processes remind me of the scene in Galaxy Quest. "Hi little guys, oh, they're so cute!" "RRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHRRRRRR!!!!!!!!"

Time to go get ready to party. Mom had to call in sick, so Neaksis and I are going to take care of her. While we watch a movie. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Mom had a very good point about that check. Once she reminded me, I remembered that the customer svc rep I spoke with said there was no expiration date on any of their checks, that they would be good indefinitely.

So Mom thinks she took it back to the bank herself.

I already put in an inquiry, and should hear back from them in only the next 3-7 business days. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

Well, I'm sorry. At that point I didn't realize how name-sensitive you were, and I just chose the one I thought would give you the best and most attention in what was bound to be a difficult time...although I had no idea it was going to be short short or so intense. And she WAS very nice to you. Don't hold her unfortunate name against her. Besides, what kind of weird parents name their kid, "Gargamel"? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

t&l

Don't feel bad. I just thought of her as "Nurse [Whatever-her-last-name-is]". Or even just "The Nurse".

It was, however, a bit of a shock to call up your work and hear, "OB, Gargamel speaking." <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" /> My mind briefly spun, before realizing that the lack of accent eliminated the other G.

It was still less traumatic than having the kids' teacher call up once a month, ringing in on our unlisted number and chirping, "Hi, this is Gargamel!"

There are Gargamels everywhere. There is even a boy-Gargamel on the news. Don't know when, don't know how, but someday I'm going to have to get used to it.