I had a tough week, there will not be any pictures of the hard parts

The fall rains have come
All grey awashed, storm ridden
The road has gone under

Lotus flower
Your boat is launched
I set you free

It has been a really hard week for me professionally and personally. That is all I can say, really. As many of my generation do, allow me this quote from the Princess Bride: "life IS pain, Highness."

I found myself silent the last week. I have not written for my blog or created anything. I had to stop and evaluate. Something had to change. It was time.

Several people have told me recently that I was a catalyst for change in their lives. One lady, a kind and thoughtful member of the cat rescue community, told me "you know you sent me on this path? You know that, don't you?" I did not realize, but do acknowledge that I indeed did guide her in that direction. I was profoundly touched. This was the day before I left my office one last time.

My thoughts ran "If I can be a catalyst for positive change in others, why can I not change my own life?" And so I did.

I decided to quit working as an office manager this week. I left the office behind. It was tough, really, so hard that I do not even yet have words to describe it. I had worked there about 18 years. I am aware that my years with the doctors were the longest relationship of my life, other than my biological family and my reenactment family. I guess the doctors and long-term staff were my "third" family. But it was time to say good bye.

There are few things I have ever done that were harder. It had to be.

I left the office for the last time as an employee on Thursday. Today is Sunday. I am still finding I have a tendency to think of the middle of next week as taken up by "work." My life will need a need pattern, a frame work, structure.

I guess this is where the second half begins. A play of two acts, the curtain fell on Act I, now the curtain rises on Act II. I wonder what will happen? And I hope the set designer and play wright are both good.

I leave my reader with some photos of the truest companions I could know in this life time:

Yes, cats, my cats

And my dogs. I am coming to believe that we incarnate, some of us, on purpose to experience love, pure love. And sometimes loyal truest love can only be given by a dog.

Indy, Professor Jones, my sweetheart

Torvald a' Bigbootee, my husband's heart dog

And Kona, the Queen Bee, our "Nugget of Evil"

Have I mentioned my house is currently over run by black widows?

It's like the intro to a horror movie: slasher waits for victim, down in the laundry room. Hiding in the shadows, with implements dipped in venom...

How is that for an approximation of my fear of spiders, mainly black widows? And the occasional brown recluse. Frankly, the brown ones are the ones that scare the panties off me, literally.

Some back ground: I got bitten by a black widow spider while on vacation almost 20 years ago. I was setting up camp in shorts (never ever done that again) when I felt first one incredible sting followed by a second equally shocking sting. One ER appointment identifying two tiny sets of bites on my calf muscle, the whole leg from the knee down swelled and turned black and blue. I only vomited for a week and mostly laid in a hammock while my vacation passed me by. As a result, I am really afraid of small, shiny black spiders.

But more so am I afraid of tiny brown twitchy spiders with violin patterns on their backs. I have seen several friends develop deep oozing wounds that didn't heal as the flesh liquefied and essentially melted away. Um, no, really don't like the little brown twitchy guys.

Being a life-long camper/hiker/paddler tree hugging dirt worshiper I come in contact with wildlife quite often. Usually we don't harm each other. Aside from a few brushes with yellow jacket nests, some fell-off-a-cliff stories, and maybe one or two bad bites, we mostly don't hurt each other. I can say I have rarely killed anything outside on purpose.

But inside my house, ah, the tables turn. Ever since Virginia entered some kind of wild-weather tropical storm zone, we have had an influx of tiny shiny black spiders, some with tell-tail red, yellow, or white hourglasses on their bellies or backs. Most die as soon as I spot them, hour glass or no. Not fooling around here. Nope.

I have become especially careful of my clothing. I shook one out of my pjs that were resting on the edge of the master bath tub recently, and shook another little black effer out of my panties, right before I put them on. It seems the laundry room level is over run and they hide in the clean laundry, get carried upstairs, and what? Lie in wait for me? No. I am not the tiny spider's normal prey. So there must be other bugs coming in for them to eat.

Now, you just heard the one panties story. Today, as if that were not enough, I stripped off my workout clothes down by the wash. I picked up a pair of boxers I leave down there for this purpose but right before pulling them on gave them a quick shake and out falls a tiny twitchy brown spider. I give it just enough once over and my husband witnesses a cry of foul curses wafting up the stairs. No messing around confirming my ID. No sir, that's one great big cup of NOPE. Into the hot wash with you, little brown twitchy sir.

I, ugh, hate this. I hate not knowing when the next bite will come and the fear it will be in a super sensitive area, like my boo-tay.

As if I were not already anxious enough? I need a good dose of "home invasion" anxiety to go with the "I'm about to lose my job" anxiety, right?