In my words, who I am

In the span of my lifetime, I have won a pony at a drawing, won a collectible car and a jukebox at a fund raising raffle but was never allowed to have the car or jukebox despite protests from the crowd, witnessed the Hippie movement in San Francisco at its peak including the famous Love In, had a long term relationship with a person who is now powerful in Washington, DC, and on two seperate occasions, legitimately had $100,000 in cash in my purse. While living in Palm Springs I was personal assistant and confidante to Galen Tourtellotte, a beautiful woman who is now wife to one of the wealthiest men in the USA the CEO and founder of US Filter Corporation and Rossignol (sports equip manufacturer) and she was once Sonny Bono's paramour. I was once drugged and held against my will in Los Angeles for 30 days by an infatuated stranger, Jason Garon, who was later apprehended for being the first person to be convicted and serve a jail sentence for successfully cyber hacking through the largest mainframe computer in the USA, I worked in the aerospace industry as an electrical engineer and have only completed 12 units of college, completely passing a thorough a medium-high level background security investigation that mistakenly claimed I had a Bachelors degree from San Francisco State University. I worked at Mc Donnell Douglas Aircraft before it became Boeing, alongside the inventor of the modem, Larry Lamm, and once gave him a teddy bear because he was so lonely. My eyes and ears were wide open during the formation of Silicon Valley. My first PC was an Eagle computer made in Los Gatos, California. Eagle was poised to be the ultimate PC until its founder was killed in an auto accident the day he was to sign papers for the company to do public. Apple's founders jumped on the opportunity and the rest is history.

I was a close friend and confidante of a Native American World Champion cowboy, Sonny Jim, who was shot dead defending his friends fenceline, and another long time friend, Tom Campbell, is the reason you have High Def TV in your home and was behind creating surround sound/home theater systems and the rating system, G, PG, etc. for media. Another friend/lover, Nandi Chenik, has been a comedian in Hollywood clubs and is now a psychiatrist to the stars. Nandi is my daughter's father and his only child. He refuses to let her into his life.

My father's uncle, Giorgios Kafantaris (Kaphandaris) was the premier of Greece for a short time, and was assassinated for his stand on democracy.

I've been married four times. The first ceremony was on the air at KPOO, a charitable radio station in San Francisco with the services conducted by a storefront preacher, the second marriage ceremony was on a dare in South Lake Tahoe, the third one was in a country church, and the fourth one was in a Drive thru wedding chapel in Las Vegas, yet I have never been to a wedding. One of my ex's died from injuries after being mugged over five dollars and was in a coma for a year. I raised my daughter with a bogus child support order obtained by my ex who had a girlfriend fraudulently stand in for me, and somehow managed to keep her in good schools and live in good neighborhoods. She got the Christmas Pony one year, hated it and I gave it to neighbors, who loved it.  She is now a successful woman who was estranged from me for 17 years. We are now on pretty good terms but we missed much together because of her temper. I have a large number of grandchildren who I have never known.

I've done some extremely interesting real estate transactions with no money upfront and made tax free capital gains by the hair of my teeth thanks to ex Reat Estate Investment mogul Michael Bradley Hendricks, the man who originated the condominium craze in California in the late 70's. He is now reported to be broke, bankrupt and fighting many civil cases. I've succeeded winning many, many court cases against me, one as high as Federal Court and the judge called me to the bench and congratulated me on my casework.

I successfully beat the odds with breast cancer without radiation and chemotherapy. I've had horses nearly all my life and have had Olympic coach Michael Cintas of Rancho Mirage train myself and my Hanoverian horse Donlara, who sadly passed away on October 26, 2012 from months of mistreatment from my fourth husband. There is a special place in Hell for people like him who abuse women, children and animals.

And now I am relatively content living in a house that should have been torn down, raising livestock on a very small scale for myself in southern end of Virginia. I have no source of heat except for a small portable heater (a church disowned me for not buying the wood stove they charitably gave me). I boil water for both myself and for my part time dog grooming business, which I finally gave up on because of the people element. At this edit, however, I've revitalized it for a small source of sustainable income.

I have been called a dog whisperer, a horse whisperer, and a stupid ass, all in one breath. The ONLY person who travels down my lane unless invited or has called first, is the meter reader, the animal control chief and my husband, and even he is gone now. There have been invited guests who have afterwards called authorities over situations that are completely legal and permittable, like an alpaca living in the house, but didn't fit into their scheme of normal. My family, or what's left of them has woven such a string of lies about me to make them look better than they actually are, and me worse. Ask my sister before she takes her Xanax and she will tell you that in 1990 the FBI had agents & technicians on her roof installing an elaborate surveillance system to find me. Believe me, I'd rather have it another way.

My first marriage was to Ron. Ron was a lithographer and worked for several high end publishers/printers in San Francisco. He actually worked for the official printer for the famous artist M C Escher's Gallery who sold photograveurs (fancy name for high end specialty prints) and always in doing a run, you make a bunch of copies that are to perfect the main print run. Everyone who worked there was authorized to have a few of each, and they were even signed, limited editions that were numbered. We had two each of about a dozen of them. Framing was very very expensive then, and we never had them framed. My second husband, an Armenian exile from Tehran, Iran, was Ivan Begian. Ivan's wonderful friends took the artwork when I wasn't around. I had them in a big folder and in a breatheable box for a long time, well until 1983 when they disappeared from under my bed along with a lot of art that I had framed. Nope, they were not reproductions or bootlegged. He worked for the official lithographer in downtown San Francisco and was a GAIU union member being paid an excellent wage of $10.66 an hour. We lived in San Francisco on Sacramento Street in a studio apartment on the third floor and had great times rummaging thru Chinatown in the wee hours when the shopkeepers put their trash out. Our biggest haul was a crate full of Medjool dates. Upon arriving home, I discovered the reason they had been put out in the trash...bugs.

I met Ron in May 1973 through my brother. My mother was being evicted for the millionth time and I was working in San Francisco at 1 California St. as a traffic secretary for Japan Line (shipping, not airline). I had been commuting by train and she picked me up each evening. She took my check, cashed it and I pretty much got an allowance. I was only making $500 a month gross, which (I remember) my take home pay was $232.50 every two weeks. HAHA! They didn't take much out, did they?? Times have certainly changed. It was about $4 a day to commute. I budgeted $3 a day for lunch. The rest I never saw. So when I found out she was being evicted, I kept my paycheck, my brother John cashed it and rented an apartment for $135 a month. My brother, John, moved my things while my mom was out and then all hell broke loose...she ruined my job by telling my boss I was only 17 years old. Ruined my place that I lived at with the same news. I was scared and did not know how to handle her continuing drama. She went to the police and they put out a warrant to arrest me, or so she claimed, so I called my brother and he picked me up (I was just walking aimlessly in San Francisco afraid of everything) and I met Ron at my brothers. The police came and took me in custody and I went to Huckleberries Home for Runaways in San Francisco. They could only keep me for three days and they got me in touch with someone who helped me become an emancipated minor, legally. Mr. Blankenship. He had also been Ron's probation officer when he was a minor. Later I found out that the reason the police were so keen on picking me up was because the famous Zodiac serial killer was in my neighborhood and they wanted me safe.

Well, I stayed at Ron's house until everything got straightened out and then a relationship developed out of that. So it wasn't like I met Ron and we fell in love, I guess. It was almost a sense of duty to me, I guess. I never had a chance to meet someone, date and do anything without pressure. LOL.

Funny thing is that soon afterwards, Ron invited my mom to live with us because she didn't have anywhere to go, and stayed even after we separated for the LAST time in 1978-79, except for about 6 months on Sacramento Street in San Francisco and when I got her a job managing apartments in Sacramento in 1976. Ron and I never had a chance to have a real relationship. We started out okay, but ended up fighting viciously in the end. My mom died March 1, 1980. Ron and I were already divorced and he married someone he met in court ordered rehab. He was a cheater extroardinaire. Cheated on me from 1974 onwards. We split up on a very regular basis from 1973, beginning the third week of living together, like in June 1973. It was doomed. I think we married in July 1973 just after his third divorce was final and I turned eighteen. He was twenty-five years old. I felt like he wanted me in his life, but hated how straight I was. So I learned to smoke cigarettes, drink wine and also smoke pot just to please him. I smoked from October 1973 to July of 1974. Quit when I discovered I was pregnant with Veronica. Ron and I were separated for the umpteenth time, yet I wanted a baby. I was taking a few classes at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill, California and my study partner was a young man, Nandi Chenik, who was taking classes over the summer to be able to attend UC Berkeley in the fall of 1974. I was vague on his last name because he had scribbled it on a piece of paper for me once. Now, one thing I really remember him for is that he was the cheapest date I had ever had. His idea of a great night was to order for me at Jack In The Box drive thru, sit in the parking lot across from the local drive-in theater to watch a movie, and then go to his parents house for some fun. Yes, with his help, I got a 3.75 GPA but when I found out I was pregnant on July 5, 1974 I avoided him because I knew he would not be pleased because he was Jewish and I was Gentile. Ron was here and there in my life averaging about a ten day stay at a time until he finally left for good and left for Canada in 1978 with a man he worked with, claiming they were in love.

Between May 1973 and October 1978, I had lived in TWELVE places with Ron, all because he decided to move on, he wanted to go somewhere else. I just lived out of boxes then.

The lady doctors name was Dr. Laura Stallone in Orinda, CA. She delivered babies out of Alta Bates Hospital in Berkeley, CA and she didn't charge me for my baby's delivery because I was broke and alone...again.

Despite all that, the biggest highlight of that era to me was the Patty Hearst saga. It was a huge, big deal in the bay area. Ron and I stood in a highly publicized line for the free meat and food that their was handed out off the back of a refrigerated tractor trailer that had been hijacked on Interstate 80 in Vallejo, California. It was also the era of the Watts riots in Southern California. Lots of tension between blacks and whites. Not so much any hippie influence as the wealthiest "hippies", the intellectuals who go to the universities versus those who don't, were dividing up the neighborhoods. It was a power play between the very rich and all the others. The bay area was very racist and anti-women, unless you had married a hippie. That's where womens rights and lots of social movements sprang from. Nope. the rag-tag hippie days were pretty much fading fast.

Women were expected to marry well into families that were "good" and my family was non-existent, I didn't do drugs or party, so I was caught in the cracks. Working women made very little money; you see I made just $500 a month, and Ron made $10 an hour. Marriage was for squares, drugs was as available as cookies and the kids from rich families took advantage of their situation and were not nice to the rest of us who were caught. So girls in my situation had to find a good working man who could support her and then she would normally seal up the relationship with children. It was rough. My mom was screwed because she didn't work. I was screwed because I didn't have a good family that cared or supported me. Decent guys only wanted to screw girls like me and leave them in the dark. I didn't admit I played that game, I just worked and trudged along.

My fourth marriage just came to an abrupt halt on November 15, 2012 with him claiming he never loved me, used me to advance in his life and has been cheating on me for most of it. I discovered 58  e-mails between himself and his love, Nicole Merryman, on my laptop the morning I obtained the assistance of the county sheriffs' deputies of asking him to leave.

Breast cancer, loss of a special horse not even a month ago...living with an alcoholic/workaholic husband. Surely I needed the ultimate challenge. So yesterday morning, after a good day and an evening that was just strange, I went into the kitchen and raised the lid on my laptop. It was hibernating, which wasn't unusual, but the page that it was on made my eyes pop. It was an e-mail page and was talking about how she, his Kitten, couldn't wait to have her cowboy in her arms again and I thought this must be some mistake, so I scrolled down and the previous reply was from my husband, Charles! He was saying how he cannot wait for them to spend the 28th and 29th of this month together in a cabin in the mountains and they continued discussing what they planned to do and how "she" (me) has no idea what's going on. I just about DIED! I then took the laptop and my wallet which had $800 in cash and hid it in a very unlikely place and then went into the bedroom where Charles laid passed out from too much beer consumption. I flipped on the light and asked who Kitten was and said I had read all the e-mails. He waved me away and said to leave him alone. I pressed for more and he sat up and yelled and said "it's all there". Long story short, "Kitten" was another manager from a store out of state who had spent a few days with him for a grand opening. Somehow, the second day after they had met, they had quite the time in her hotel room. One thing led to another that morning (he was very drunk) and I ended up having the sheriff out and ultimately they drove me to take out an order of protection and he was escorted off the property with his clothes and books. He has told some that I left him, and told others that I kicked him out and he had no money and nowhere to go. Upon returning, I discovered he had trashed the house by emptying bags of trash waiting to be dumped; I thought maybe so he can take pics with his new camera phone and show her what a bad housekeeper I was which he later claimed that was his reason for seeking out affections of another woman, but I later found out he had been calling his family and telling them that I had left him. That 'someone' had come and picked me up to take me who knows where. He asked several people what he should do with my cats and dogs since he doesn't want them. I believe he flipped out.

So I was put into a position I despise. And I have to lay some pretty good plans for surviving the future. I can get by for about two weeks, after that I'm toast if I don't revitalize grooming income. Everything here is hanging on a delicate thread and I need encouragement. I close my business for the winter until April, so I'll have no income of my own unless I scurry. I plan to file a legal separation agreement as soon as I can think straight so I can be awarded spousal support and get my mind together. I believe I can do that pretty quickly.

Every day is an emotional rollercoaster and I'm trying hard not to want to explode rage on him, and then also ask WTH are you thinking??? Virginia has many wonderful laws to help me. This is perfectly fitting into a situation where he will be responsible for spousal support, and she can be named as a CO-RESPONDENT!! Virginia addresses adultery as grounds in determining spousal support. and the judge could determine that he has committed a misdemeanor as well. My saving grace was my quick mind, and taking all those e-mails into safe hiding. Without that, it would be another he-said, she said situation. I may also be able to bring his place of employment as another Co-Respondent as there is a good chance that this secret relationship was known by some in management, and did nothing to stop it. It's a stretch, but I'm gonna give it a shot. As of this edit, he has become un-rehireable by nearly every one of his past employers because he left his position unresponsibly by not giving notice and the threat of a civil lawsuit is pending on their lack of supervision of their employees actions, ie sexual misconduct between managers.

 

I positively refuse to spend the winter struggling the way I have been just because his money has been going towards them having their secret trysts...oh no. It stops here. I will not tolerate this wrong behavior.

I'm scared of course of the future and must keep my head on straight; I hate the fact that now I have to disrupt my flow of life to do something that was unnecessary... if people would only be honest or even just respect their VOWS. Yes it is a good thing that this "douche bag" of a spineless cowardly man is gone. He knows I will not treat this lightly. Now though, maybe i will have some peace and move ahead to take better care of myself. And no, I have no real friends but a few...his antics have driven people way far away from me. I do have his sister though, and she and I have always had open and honest lines of communication open.

My business for the past decade has been dog grooming in my home and also in clients homes. I made the decision to close it the end of this year because I don't have running hot water (he never hooked it up) and my heat source is a little portable heater. I've had many struggles in the past few years that with his help, we got by. But this year he has been refusing to repair or make operable anything that went wrong. Unfortunately I saw this coming despite his denials and reassurances...I was totally blindsided.

This was unbelievable...What I did is after the sheriff escorted him out and safely off the property, I got back online and FORWARDED each e-mail to my account, but first changed my password to something ridiculous so he couldn't get into that either because he DID know the password. There were 58 e-mails to do and it went fairly quickly. I KNEW he was on his way to the library to get online, or had instructed Nicole to erase the e-mails in his account, so I had to do this quickly! THEN I started the process to change his password (which I didn't know, but be forewarned, in Hotmail it's not too hard). Before the process was started though I watched him or maybe her delete all the e-mails and everything in there...that was really funny. But then I sent him AND HER an e-mail telling them that I snagged them all (I did say something out of anger, but I couldn't help it). I also sent her an e-mail describing all his flaws and issues like how he has night terrors, how he sleepwalks and does things I won't talk about here, and about his criminal record. She shared it with him of course.

In the meantime, I've contacted the court about some procedures and I will NOT need an attorney, just me and the judge'll do fine, she said. I aslo talked with a female friend who I have done tons of favors for, and she works where Charles works. She's gonna do some snooping for me because I can't due to the Order.

I'm functioning well now, not as bad as yesterday. I have my blubbery moments, but when they happen, I experience it's fullness of grieving as I remember many wonderful times with him, despite how this past year has gone. It's the grieving process. We both can be vicious, but I have the experience and quick mind in this department. I just think about how can he hurt me badly, and cut him off at the pass before he gets there. But all his efforts will just contribute to me being awarded a lot because this is just further proof of his intent to hurt me, which is what the judge needs to see.

After his usual cooling off period and lack of beer in his system for a few days we have spoken on the phone as adults. He told me that he used me from the beginning (seven years ago), had planned when I ran out of money back in 2007 that he would just leave but he just couldn't hurt me, so he stayed. We've both been working all this time and while it hasn't been a great income, it has worked. We've bought a small farm in this time, I thought we had a committed relationship/marriage.

So the conversation answered a lot of questions as to his attitude about nearly everything. I got my answers. He said that "Nicole" and him are done because it got so complicated for both of them, and he is in his car 'somewhere' undisclosed, but not within 100 miles of me. He did quit his job because he said the pressure at work during this time and after the discovery was humiliating and he was afraid he'd hurt someone there. Upper management offered to keep him and offer counseling or maybe even rehab options, and he declined. He authorized his last check to be given to me. He's keeping his promise about making the mortgage payment through the winter. He authorized me to sell whatever he left behind. He agreed that we will do the right thing with the tax refund and split it. The main thing was to remain clear through this process as he is admittedly struggling with mental illness. He truly is a misanthropist and working with the public the past four years pushed him over the edge. He still is adamant about rushing a divorce. He said that being married has felt like a plague to him for the past five years and he cannot handle it. I thought that was interesting. He insists it has nothing to do with anything I have ever done or said and he apologized for deceiving me for so long. He said this other woman was making demands on him to leave me quickly, and he was turning into a pressure cooker, ready to explode. He said the alcohol kept him from doing anything he would regret. I just listened and was just astounded at how blind I have been for what, five years??? I have also discovered where he has been chatting online to women, but had erased all but the most recent message sent by them. There were six others. He admitted he has been on a very destructive path and could not keep up the mask any longer. He had set a date to just disappear, November 28th. The day after payday of course. He admitted he has been responsible for my decline and saw how he had no feelings of compassion while destroying me with his ways. All I have been able to think is wow...wow...

So he left here with no money to his name, his car, his paperback book collection and that's it. He quit his job and just started driving to somewhere with no memories, several management members tried to get him to reconsider, he's applied for a new job and has an interview tomorrow (Saturday). He is an excellent employee so he'll have no problem working. In retrospect, he's acting out something he told me he had wanted to do when his last marriage didn't work. It's as though he is compelled. He had wanted to quit his job, go somewhere that he alone had decided upon, and start a new life with no contacts with anyone in his past. All he wants is his books, his work and a bare apartment nearby work. So I put my hands up and say wow... this is a compulsive decision of his he feels compelled to do, regardless of consequences to others. He says this might get his head screwed on right again. Uhhhhh..running from your problem does not fix it or make it right. It follows you. He has a path of hurt people, people who he has used for his own gains, and admittedly so. He said that our conversation was the most honest he has ever been with me and it felt good to him. He said it felt like in the beginning of our relationship. The first four years. I asked him what triggered this flip on marriage four years ago and he said nothing in particular. He said he just woke up one morning and he felt he had no more interest in me. Boom. Just like that. I do know when that happened and I was just as flabbergasted. It was as though a switch in him had been turned off and there was no way since to reconnect it, regardless what I or we did. It was dead in the water. Of course, I thought it was something I was doing, and it was also the time I was having surgeries and hospitalized, he totalled our truck, he was very reckless in his behavior and declared celibacy. The fighting started and it was infrequent, but this past year it had escalated where it would be about the most petty things.

One time, it was about two weeks after my last breast tumor surgery, he pushed me out of his way in one of his unbeknownst to me rages over who knows what, and the pressure from the fall split open my surgery stitches. I was able to drive to a friends house very nearby where she took me to the emergency and they gave me a sedative intravenously...I was that upset and shaken. There was one more situation where afterwards, we HAD to declare a truce. The arguments were always about him spending every non-working moment becoming inebriated, leaving the house with no reason claiming he had been called to work, taking unnecessary risks, acting wreckless an dirresponsible and destroying things such as a brand new riding lawnmower, a 2005 F-350, an F-250 and other things out of anger over something at work or unknown to me. I was in the path and he always antagonized me by switching on the bedroom light when I was asleep, putting on a dvd of some violent loud action movie which disturbed me or jsut staying up all night which made the dogs of the house impossible to settle down. Now I'm thinking that the dogs were reacting like that because he was such a disturbing "feeling" for them in the house. A couple of them cannot tolerate his presence and growl if he looks at them. They are also very protective of me. The cats watch him nervously as though he is going to kill them. They have utter terror in their eyes, so he would sit and stare at them. Animals know, and I saw this coming into being this past year. They saw him as a mortal threat. So did I, and I was careful on my approach to him for utter fear of my physical safety.

So for now, there is a calm. I know it won't last a long time, but hopefully I can get these proverbial ducks in a row so I can gently rebuild my life. I can see a light in the end of the tunnel, I have my dear friends here (please keep holding my hand, I won't disappoint you), a few long time friends on FB, a few friends locally maybe 10 or a few more? I feel bad for him of course, but my nature is such that I will. I accept that. I knew most of his tendencies coming into this and as I said it wasn't anything of great concern until here recently this past year. I knew there was a very high chance of me becoming his next victim to his rages,and I thought that being compassionate would help. It DID help, but his will to destroy only got stronger. Atleast he found enough good in himself to come clean to me, because I had truly felt a failure yesterday and the day before. In time, I will find myself. I'm on track pretty good...took some pretty tough tests yesterday and came out like a rose.

I can't say I didn't see this coming, but naturally was hoping I was either wrong or, well...I was just hoping this would never happen. After I had the last breast tumor (malignant) surgery in December of 2010, I had this feeling that he was not pleased with the outcome, i.e. I finally beat cancer. The scar is ghastly, not like the first mastectomy scar which is normal. This scar is significant because they took it much deeper, to the ribs, and there is a crater and a poorly done skin graft which was required to close the wound. I was at that time hospitalized for 21 days, and the only reason they finally discharged me is because I was honest with the doctor in telling them that my home/farm is falling apart and I have to be discharged to save what's left. So with a gaping wound I was released and upon returning home, my intuition was correct. It was a disaster. My two horses, a Lipizzan stallion and a 17hh Hanoverian gelding had been improperly fed as he would only buy the cheapest of hay and with that I hade to ration it, and were becoming very, very thin. The goats were very thin. He had fed them as he felt necessary and not how they had been fed before. We argued often over him taking the little money I had earned, he often took it out of my purse or hiding places under direct threat and spent it on more beer and more cigarettes leaving me literally nothing for animal feed. And here we were just about to embark into the throes of winter...

So now I had my surgical wound to care for, two horses to repair and I immediately threw myself into work, which is dog grooming here at home or in clients homes. The source of heat is one space heater and one small wood burning stove. I boiled the hot water for the dog baths on the stove, conducted the grooming process in a small room to conserve heat and found a discarded mattress to help to insulate the room on the cold side by standing it up against the wall. I was relentless in getting through the grooming and advertised on every free site I could. I had round bales delivered to set in front of the horses 24/7 and supplemented them with a plethora of feed. Gradually I saw improvement. I photographed their progress so I could see it in a flat dimension instead of my hopeful mind. I was sick with worry for them. All the other animals faired well. In the spring, the goats kidded and I sold down the herd to just four remaining. I expanded the horses area to include some grazing and started to work on fencing the front three acre field. That never was completed.

The Lipizzan who is usually the hardest keeper because he windsucks bounced back quicker than the Hanoverian, but I attributed that to size and temperament. Now the usually easy keeping Hanoverian was becoming a hard keeper. I now blame this on his mental condition which now was compromised as he has always been extremely well cared for and I felt I had let him down. Charles did say he was depressed all the time I was hospitalized. Sadly I have to admit that despite all efforts to bring him back to the horse he was before December 2010, feeding often, having a buddy, all ultimately failed. He passed away on October 26, 2012. I have been so distracted with my abusive marriage that it drained all energy from me and I was operating just to function the bare necessities.

The cycle of Charles behaving recklessly and the erosion of our life over the past three years have taken it toll bringing with it the unwarranted destruction of a 2005 Ford F-350 and two vehicles afterwards. Either through neglect or lack of repair and then abuse, he has made options for transportation limited. I've spent my time and energy constantly working on solutions to keep us upright while he trudged along, still working and being a star employee thus bringing home a paycheck, but spending $550 a month and more on alcohol and cigarettes. That figure is on the lowest end. I never kept track until I noticed that we had to keep cutting down on essentials like electricity usage, food and when I found myself using duck tape to repair my shoes, I said whoa...what's happening here??? As a groomer and charging an average of $25 a groom, I found I had no money to even get the blades sharpened. My purse was always empty as he somehow always found a need for the little money I had earned. If he truly wanted to leave during all these years he would have done so when I was at the peak of the year! Well, this year, 2012, the toll of having to maintain and repair everything here, his being gone on "training" and "meetings" for weeks on end and us not sharing the workload of running this home has taken its toll on me, so I announced semi retiring from grooming, atleast over this winter because he was never home long enough to help me as he always had. He totally lost interest, so he bequeathed all the tools and maintenance to me. He said he was going to only concentrate his focus on working and going up on the corporate ladder at Love's. That sounded great and he did always qualify for bonuses. I continued to be his support team and continued to cut down the livestock to make it more manageable for me. I also had to cut down on the number of dogs I groomed and miles I drove. Eventually it went to zero. I was exhausted. It was like the more I did, the more I had to do. When he wrecked my van by putting a tow chain by mistake on the transmission coolant line to tow his vehicle out of a stuck position from his wreckless driving, I no longer had transportation to groom dogs nor was I able to follow him to see where he was really going in the middle of the night and for his long weekends away from home. I was also stuck in case of an emergency and his reply was for me to call an ambulance.

I also had to keep Charles off the horses when he was drunk. His need to drive cars while very intoxicated became more frequent, and he has wrecked dozens of cars and motorcycles, but only three with me. I would become completely derailed and put most of my focus on keeping Charles out of trouble. The money I had set aside to spay the cats (Siamese) was taken by him and never replenished, as a result the cat had kittens. And more kittens It's impossible here to find homes for scrawny half siamese kittens, so a few remained here and the cat population doubled just with a couple of litters. More mouths to feed. More cats to worry about, and of course they love my attention, so they never want to go outside. Grooming customers could no longer afford their dogs care, so they asked me to rehome them and I have done so with success, but regardless, the dog population increases and decreases with the effort regardless of any effort I alone put into rehoming them. And I have some long term boarding dogs in residence. People feel their dogs are in the best of hands here, and for the most part they are. But then again, it's more responsibility.

All this would be just fine if I now didn't have this marriage issue taking precedence. Charles says that the noise level was also a factor in him leaving. His work schedule made him work rotating shifts in the last four months. Sometimes he works graveyard and sometimes day shift, but always gone for 12-14 hours a day. He's salaried so he's utilized. The disruption of sleep for both of us, the drinking and staying up all hours of the night, his erratic behavior, working with the public in a truck stop, managing hormonal young women...all that would push anyone over the edge. But in our home, it equated to neglect of the duties and responsibilities of both the marriage and shared responsibilities we once had. So instead of pleading for help, working with the problems as a couple or taking time to rationalize the situation, he bailed out and abandoned me with the whole emchalada and ran into the willing arms of another woman who promised him a place to live, lots of love and a new job. He left his marriage in the worst way possible and left his job as well, and totally left me out of the whole picture in the end telling me that he was just looking for the opportune time to move on because he didn't love me anyway...you can come to your own conclusion on that one.

I also have recently enrolled in University of Phoenix because I felt that we were now stable enough for me to pursue a degree so I can contribute better to the household. Charles has been very encouraging on this and he knows that everytime I have gone back to school, I've had some unsurmountable event that allowed me to only attend the first few weeks, then I had to drop out losing my pre-paid tuition. Usually it was a separation, divorce or something like that. So this time, with a little more confidence and trust that nothing was going to go wrong, I began Orientation. It was a lengthy enrollment process and then after one week into Orientation, I was told that there were flaws in my transcripts and until I either got it straightened out or got a GED, I could not continue. The "flaw" was that in 1970 I was taken out of 10th grade and placed in De Anza College in Cupertino, CA as a special consideration (exceptional) student. I was also accepted conditionally at Stanford University under the same terms, but my parents were separated and I could not get funding for Stanford as I was under 18 years of age, so I went to De Anza. University of Phoenix had documentation showing the release of me from high school to college, and De Anza provided proof that i had attended (but not completed) classes, but new regulations required the Transcript department to show a transcript that is water tight. Either you graduated or you didn't. Well, in those terms, I didn't officially graduate. I was a 10th grade drop-out, So the only alternative was to obtain a GED. So I went through the process, which has taken weeks now and the final half of the GED I will take on December 4th. It is then I can be considered to be officially enrolled in University of Phoenix. By the way, my scores have been outstanding even with all that is going on. As of this writing, I did the entire GED and my scores were so high, nearly 800 which is perfect, that I received a letter from Virginia's Governor commending me on my success and high scores. And I have completed Orientation at University of Phoenix and will be starting my first block on January 21, 2013.

So looking at all this, I don't honestly know how I'm holding up. My heart horse dies after a long battle. My husband who I loved more than anyone I've ever truly loved, has left me. I'm negotiating through the higher education process and every day watching Khan Academy to sharpen my skills for success. I am struggling financially even though Charles says he will help me, he does not because he will only work for minimum wage. I was of the thought that I have to believe him or I have no hope at all! But now, after two months I know I have the strength to continue. I live in a cold and lonely house. I know I can do this; I can get through this and be okay. Our anniversary came and went, again with no mention. Thanksgiving was spent online with a junior high horse friend who IM's me all through out the day and we exchange things on Facebook all too often. She lives in California and is a widow with no children. We bake bread and make caramel at the same time and exchange stories and pics of the results. We have our virtual cups of morning coffee together every day. We've known each other for 43 years. I have three other people I can depend on to lean hard on, through IM or e-mail, but its not the same as that real human sitting across from you or standing next to you...or better yet, giving you that hug you didn't know you needed. It's that that I want. My daughter who has a big house, a career, a husband and seven children usually has no time for me especially over the holiday season. She says she tries to call, but doesn't have the right number. I'm glad I live at the end of the lane, secluded by the woods and I don't have to watch the happy couples and families sharing their struggles together as I once did. I'm gonna be okay but it sure feels like hell sometimes thinking of what could happen if I mis-step...update at this time, my daughter is calling on a weekly basis now checking to see how I'm doing and leaving me messages that tell me she loves me. It means a lot to me.

Tougher times ahead? Oh my. Oh my. I can't think that way. I have to think of what I can do to improve my position in life, every moment.

On January 28, 2012 I was prompted to go to the emergency room by a constant nagging but small pain in my right side that had been persisting for literally months. It had increased in intensity and was demanding my attention. Luckily I did go to the hospital that afternoon as it was appendicitis. I had emergency surgery that night after being tended to and stabilized in the emergency room beforehand. It was gangrenous and was perforated, about to rupture. I had been telling Charles I had a pain in my side and he jsut told me to take asprin. He told me he would sign up for insurance, but never did. He told me he would and there was a six month waiting periood before using it. Again,m another lie. He not only had no intention of signing up for health insurance, but in his plot to leave me on November 28, 2012 he was not planning to keep insurance on himself or me. He had planned to have Nicole secure him a job in Tennessee and he would not have to sign up for insurance there. Sad thing is that for only $41 per pay period, I could have avoided the bill I now have for $34,760.00 for the appendicitis surgery.

He has tried going to church, tried group therapy meetings but he quits saying that they don't help. He is taking sleeping pills, still drinking and says he cannot have a relationship with anyone and he is soon moving on and out of Tennessee. He is developing a short fuse where he works.

I love Charles still, but not in the way that I loved him before. I love many people who have touched my life but not as I did before. Some people I love regardless of what they do or say, and I have to say those are my family members with my daughter in the lead. You cannot live with someone and turn off your feelings like a light switch, atleast I cannot.(unfinished)