Early Wednesday

 I woke up in the middle of the night again, couldn't sleep and working on a fantastically horrible depression.  

Years ago I had asked my doctor about dosing.  I had gone up to 4 lithium a day.  I had been taking it breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  "Heather" he replied "I don't care how you take them.  Take them all at once, once a day.  Spread them out and take them every couple hours.  The important thing is to take all of it, every single day.  Just take it every day."  

So I took that and got my antidepressant, at 3 AM, and took it.  I did eventually feel a little better and went back to sleep.  The cats were fantastic in all of this.  Cleo laid at my side purring away.  She makes it hard to get up.  Biscuit laid at my feet, also purring.  I don't know where Spotty was.  

It looks like my guy won the governor's race so happy about that but the local election is too close to call yet.  Agh.  I was most worried about the governor's race so happy about that.  

On election days Ron used to tell me the story of how his Dad's employer would give him a sample ballot all marked out with the "right" guys.  My FIL would take it to the polls and carefully select every guy on the ballot.  I think he did this his whole working life.  

So we will have to wait and see.  I am calling it a win so far.  Some other elections didn't go my way but I expected that.  Houston is a blue city.  The rural parts of Texas are all red of course but a lot of population is focused in our big cities, Dallas/Ft Worth, Houston, El Paso, etc.  

I got my pay, enough to cover the bills and $100 for groceries, etc. for 2 weeks so that is nice, and a lot more than I usually get.  I think it helps I am only doing a ride one way to work on the long days.  Jack used to take us to work very early so I didn't think 8 AM would be a problem, and he said it isn't.  One time he wore his pajama pants.  😂

Taking another look at my budget it's not quite a lavish as I thought, I have a credit card payment and I need to put $20 on my bus card.  But I'll get it.  

I think I am doing OK considering I never even had a credit card until a year or two ago.  I have learned not to take it to work, or when I am out with my aunt.  😂

Once I get below 180 (and can prove with photos of the scale) Dad will send me another $100 which I will put in the clothing fund.  That gives me $200 at the thrift store that is a very good time.  

Someone mentioned Y2K which brought back some memories for me.  Ron was working at a non profit agency and doing a great job.  Years after he left, they were trying to fill the job at $40K a year, over double what they had paid him, but they couldn't find anyone viable.  

Ron was self taught on computers and taught me the basics of operating the old DOS systems.  I took it from there with some classes and here I am, doing something pretty much unrelated to computers to pay the bills.  The State of CA bought Ron his own talking computer which really helped him take off.  At home he used to do things like steal RAM from the Video card and use it for his speech software as he didn't need the video of course.  

He had a coworker he was very close to, and as it turns out had an affair with her.  I knew he was too involved emotionally so I can't say I was horribly surprised when he confessed after the accident.  

One day after I had brought Ron home from the hospital we were talking about sex and I told him I will work with you where you are, if you want to try I will help however I can, if you don't want to try I will ask God to take my drive (which I did at the end of his life, and God has obliged to this day).  .  Ron started crying and said he couldn't lie any more, he had to tell me about something, told me about that woman, halfway though a tale of another woman when I told him to SHUT UP already.  I didn't want to hear it.  So he didn't talk about it much anymore (sometimes, when drunk).  

So he's in his office with his mistress who works as a secretarial assistant making I think he said $18K a year full time.  She was treated badly by the staff except Ron (I saw that, and even though she cheated with Ron I still like her).  After work, Ron would ask her to help with his computer and pretty soon the director found out and put them both to work.  They had about 30 computers in the office and she wanted them all upgraded with new motherboards, etc. and "made ready for Y2K".  Ron explained what he would need and took my copy of Upgrading and Repairing your PC to work for his friend to read.  It had a chart you could read, if you turned it on and it started beeping an error code you could look it up and say 'Oh it's the motherboard" or whatever.  

They fixed about half the computers when the director said Ron now had to train her husband to "do this, like you trained the office girl".  Ron and the woman both said NO they were not there to teach he would have to buy his own book or take some classes.  She said OK.  After they finished she congratulated them, said "Thanks you saved the agency $30K" and refused a raise to the office girl on her next review which was about a month later.  

She was disgusted.  So was Ron, who didn't get a raise either.  .  So he encouraged her to take some more classes and get certified, she did.  Then she went out and got a kick ass IT job paying like 3X her old salary.  They begged her to stay after she put in her notice but she said "You guys have treated me really badly, I'm leaving, the people at my new job respect me in addition to paying me what I am worth".  Last I heard she was doing very well and her son was in dental school.  

So that's what I think when I hear about Y2K.  Also the pneumonia story.  

I didn't handle this the way I should have.  I want to be clear on this from the start .  Ron loved weed but could not afford it very often as the prices in CA were very high.  

I was getting a co-op box of organic fruits and vegetables delivered 2x a month to work and carrying it home on the bus.  It was about the size of 2 milk crates.  Bay Area Organic Express.  They would put newsletters in the box, too, talking about the harvests and all.  

The box had an open top.  I got off the bus at the stop by my apartment.  They had put in a head shop not long before.  They did every piercing in the world and sold pipes, screens, etc, they also sold Urban Decay makeup.  It was known they sold drugs but the police couldn't prove it.  

Some guy had parked his $100K sports car right next to the bus stop.  Coming around the car, he crashed into me and made me drop my box, with my produce rolling off in all directions.  He scoffed at me and went in the head shop.  

I got home and looked in my box and my poor abused produce.  I had a lot of citrus that time.  And, nestled in the citrus, was a large baggie full of packed green herb.  I had an idea what it was.  I couldn't take it back to the head shop because that was illegal and I could get arrested for possession.  I chose not to call the police and turn it into them, which I should have done, as they could have gotten prints off the bag.  It was about a quart sized bag, packed tight.  

I waited until Ron got home and I said "Maybe you'll know what to do with this" and gave him the bag.  He opened it up, sniffed, screamed "INDICA" and ran off to get his pipe and lighter.  Then he stopped, looked at the bag, and asked me "What did you do to get this?"  

I was confused and said some toad had dropped it in my box (of produce).  He argued with me, saying I must have traded some sexual favor as this was "At least $300 worth of weed, if not more".  I told him the box story again and he finally believed me just because it was too weird to be a lie.  

He smoked so much weed the next couple weeks he got bronchitis, which progressed to pneumonia.  We went to the local hospital (we had good insurance at that time) and they said yes, he had pneumonia (he was coughing up blood and yellow mucus), had he been smoking lately?  Ron said yes.  The doctor said well you ought to be admitted but I think she can take care of you alright at home, so he sent us home with antibiotics.  

New Years 11:58 1999 Ron got out his pipe and had one more hit to bring in the new year.  He was so devastated when the bag ran out but his lungs got a lot better.  

Now, I should have turned it in to the police.  I sure didn't do Ron any favors.  The only plus he wasn't drinking.  

That's it for now.