I was driving to work today--very late, as I was once again unable to get myself out of bed and then preferred to play with Chances, who had her bowl in her mouth. Anyway, uneventful ride except that my windshield washer didn't seem to work on the driver's side. So I get closer to work, to West Plattsburgh and all of a sudden I'm thinking about my abusive boss, who is now enroute to Labrador for 3 weeks, will then return for a month before she retires, yes retires to leave my library system forever. I started to cry. I kept crying all the way to the library, sitting in my car in the driveway, crying. Here I am again, in an abusive relationship (though not one I volunteered to be in) and I'm facing the end of it and I'm realizing how awful it's been so it's all coming crashing down around me just how awful it's been for so many years. I can't realize how bad these things are while they're going on because then I'd go crazy. Now that the end is (hopefully) in sight, I can just barely begin to comprehend what a profound, destructive and awful effect this woman has had on me for the past 5 years. So now I'm dealing with the complexity of my feelings about her leaving. It should be joy, relief, happiness and a sense of relief, optimism about the future, but noooooo she's ruined that for me too!

Well, life goes on and so do I. The good news is that we were supposed to have a huge winter storm today with lots of snow (so much they couldn't even figure out how much) but they cancelled the storm and now it's warming up and isn't half bad out. Good! No more snow! But what would I do if we had a real amount of snow? We only have about a foot & a half on the ground.

Nice weekend, in some ways. I was not able to accomplish much on Saturday, being in the middle of whatever this is I'm going through--depression, thyroid problem, nervous breakdown, blight, who knows. I did start cleaning my living room and managed to clear off my dinner table (no small task) in preparation for serving Sunday dinner at my house. I finished the job Sunday morning so that the house actually looked ok (well, parts of it did) and I had Ken and Bill come for pork roast, mashed potatoes and broiled asparagus. They stayed a long time and Bill and I discussed various ways I could rearrange my house. Ken suggested a dig underneath my deck and have a garage put there. Bill thought I should do that this spring. Intriguing idea. Ken wants me to have a garage before he dies. I don't want a separate structure, there's no good place to put it--I don't want to look at it. Maybe I'll have an estimate done, I don't know. I have to put on new decking so if it's not too expensive I could do the garage thing. But it would seem strange, very strange.

I had to go to Ken's last night to treat his foot. Stayed 2 hours, had a good visit. He told me about the church he went to as a child, until they rode up to it in their Model T one Sunday and it wasn't there because it had burned down.

Saturday night we went out for dinner for Ken's 91st birthday. Had a good time, Lin & Ralph joined us so it was festive and a real social occasion. There was a liquor company with it's huge bus there (Jagermeister) and after dinner the owner came around with test tubes full of liquor, selling shots for $2. To my great surprise Bill had one, so I had one too. Yahoo. On the way to the restaurant we saw a deer curled up in a little ball, sleeping by the side of the road. . I've seen the grass beaten down from where they've done this but I've never seen them doing this before. They just do it sometimes. Then we saw an accident, a woman had somehow gotten her truck stuck about 10' high into the trees. Ralph was scornful of the whole thing because he didn't think that kind of truck had enough power to get that high into the trees. No one was hurt, but there was the truck, hanging in the trees. Much speculation about what happened--how DO you get a truck in the trees like that? I of course started thinking about what it felt like to roll my car. Wonder how long those feelings will be with me.

And now it's nearing the end of a day made short by my mental state. I have to stop at Ken's on the way home but will then have some hours at home with my dogs. It's warmer at night now (although it was only 6 this morning) so my house is very cozy and I don't have to burn as much wood. I still have plenty left, though, which feels really great.