Time to Soar

Seeing how we are now in the good tidings and merry season, I shall not try to grumble and moan too loudly about everything that has gone so wrong the past three weeks. I need to keep on keeping on but I have to wonder what the tipping point is?

Is there a DNA component that has a person hitting bottom and rising out of the ashes like the phoenix? Or is there a component that makes a person throw up their hands and look up at the sky declaring defeat?

I hope, hope, hope, I have the phoenix DNA.

At my last job, over 6 1/2 years ago, I worked with a woman who had a black doom cloud hanging over her head. Trouble just seemed to follow her. I have been thinking about her a lot lately, wondering if she ever had any potential and just gave up on striving for things she wanted to achieve by giving in to the ultimate sin of "settling".

Was she once a vibrant, thin, good natured woman? Did life beat her down so much that she put on 60 pounds, took up smoking, settled for a low-wage job where she wore the same stinky sweater with pockets (to hold the cigarettes) everyday? Did she give up on her children and fail to help progress them along? What happened to her?

I hope, hope, hope, I don't become just like her.

***

Think of all my blessings . . .

13 and 6 mean everything to me. Everything I have done has been in the best interest of them. That includes not going back to work right away (this is a very sore subject with a male figure in my family.) As Vickie likes to say "should of, could of, would of". I don't want to regret being home for them during a very difficult time in their life.

I had a flat tire three weeks ago. I was at the country town library where the out of school suspension kids flock to after their class is over (ironic, I know.) As I walked to my car, a young delinquent pointed out that I had a flat. He offered to fix it . . . . for money. I told him thank you and that I had no money on me so I would fix it myself.

One of the other gang members shook his head and told me he would fix it for me, because he said "my mom could be in the same predicament as you and I hope someone helps her." It took the gang one hour to break my jack and change the tire. But I was happy they helped me and offered to write their probation officers and a judge a nice letter.

The 13 year old and I are going to practice changing the tire so that he and I both can learn. But first, I'm going to buy a better jack.

***

Last month the healer sent a huge package to the ADA's office. It included all correspondence from vileman that he has written to me and the kids plus all emails he sends (his bond restrictions are supposed to keep him off the Internet except for job hunting purposes.) After the ADA received the package, she called the healer to report that "if it were true, (duh!?! they had all the evidence) then he was in violation of his bond restrictions".

Nothing ever came of it. Which leaves me to believe that (1) they think it is domestic or (2) they are going to present it during his trial and probably subpoena me to testify. Grrr. Or (3) they know his trial is coming up at the end of December and maybe the info they have will keep him from getting another continuance.

I'm losing my faith in the judicial system.

***

I haven't been able to comment or post because (very embarrassing) I could not remember my password to this account. Ahem. And like the smart cookie that I am, the email address where they send the password info should you forget, required that password that I couldn't remember.

It finally came to me after days and days of trying . . . and I now feel quite merry.

Fear Snacking Factor

You remember in January, the divorce was finalized and I was doing too much giddy eating? Well, eventually that giddiness snacking was replaced by fear snacking.

Fear snacking?

Yep.

I kept snacking when full and just couldn't place what was wrong, and I knew something had to be bothering me or why would I be over-eating?

It was fear of what the future held for the kids and I. Fear that vileman will be acquitted. Fear that he will then show-up demanding to see the kids. Fear that his guilty verdict will make this city's paper (they always print vile peoples sentences from around the state in this mid-small newspaper). Fear that I might have to testify at his trial - something I do not want to do because I had nothing to do with his decisions or that lifestyle that he lived behind my back. DO NOT want to be dragged into his ugliness. Fear that when he serves his sentence, he will show up wherever my doorstep will be. Fear I will always be looking over my shoulder for him.

Vileman keeps getting continued by agreements - his trial has now been pushed back to late September. Very aggravating to me because I'm ready to exit this transitional phase.

Quieting the fears without food:

Acquittal is probably highly unlikely.

Should an acquittal happen, he will not be able to just show up - the kids have the backing of counselors who know and will testify that it would not be in the best interest of the children to visit with him.

I will not have to testify because he did all that ugliness when he should have been at work. If it was in the off-hours, it was because he called home and said he had to work late or left his keys at the office or my favorite excuse "I forgot I drove to work and rode the bus home - so I just stayed on the bus and went back downtown."

If I do have to testify, I will be confident and not allow attorneys to frustrate me. I will take my time and think out each question prior to a "yes" or "no" answer.

I will not let "what is going to happen when vileman gets out of jail" paralyze me. The kids and I need to live our lives for today.

Phew.

To counter-act the 10 pounds gained from "snacking", I got on the Crack the Fat-Loss Code diet. Started on Sunday and this morning my weight-loss was at 5 pounds. Woo Hoo!

When the Fog Lifts . . . It's Amazing How Clear Everything Is

A couple of weeks ago, in a session with the Healer, I tentatively mentioned a dream I had the night before. Tentatively, because I was afraid of dream analysis and didn't want to hear something like "how long have you been harboring those latent ***insert something horrific or embarrassing*** tendencies?"

Anyway, the dream had me swimming in a huge pool, which happened to be in the middle of my house. I was so happy, swimming by myself. Then vileman came home from work and stood alongside the pool. The temperature in the pool got colder and any joy I felt quickly turned to anxiety. Worse of all, vileman jumped into the pool and tried to swim with me. I refused to turn my back on him, because I didn't trust him and was afraid he was going to try and drown me.

Okay, settle down and quit laughing.

I know what you are thinking and the Healer told me it wasn't a s*xual or m*sterbation dream. Instead it was a very illuminating summary of my life with vileman.

***

It has been very hard for me to want to post lately. Yet, I have so many thoughts that need to be put out here and then let go of. So here goes . . .

I had no tangible proof.

Gut instinct and a few hints of odd behavior told me something wasn't right.

My first suspicions occurred around late August 2004. We were in the process of moving to another city and were a few days away from closing on the house we had sold. There were men in and out of the house: repair men and inspectors.

I got the call from a woman who said someone from our phone number (a land line) had called her daughter's cell phone. I told her it couldn't have been anyone here because my son was only seven and didn't use the phone. Vileman was standing next to me and it is so clear now how sheepish he looked. The woman on the phone seemed very concerned about her daughter receiving a call from our number and I explained that we were moving and had many people in and out of the house, and that perhaps maybe one of them had used our phone and accidentally called her daughter's cell phone number. She wasn't buying that.

After she hung up and the vileman left the room, something told me to call her back and ask how old her daughter was. The lady refused to answer any of my questions and was uncooperative. She probably was just as scared as I was to know the truth.

I knew at that moment that I might be married to a vile person and would have to wait it out and be on guard until I had enough evidence to leave him.

Over the last six months, I have acknowledged and understand that the kids and I provided a family-man cover for him. We were, in Hollywood terms, his beard.

Grooming.

People like vileman are expert groomers.

At one of my son's ballgames, I watched from the bleachers as vileman went into the dugout and one by one touched each player on the shoulder, bent low to their ears and said something to them. It gave me the creeps. He wasn't their coach nor the assistant coach and really had no business being the in the dugout.

When we got home I told him I thought it was very inappropriate for him to do that. The verbal abuse was spewed at me "you are so paranoid!" "How could you think those awful thoughts about me!?!" "You are the sick one to think those things!" "You need to get a life because you are going crazy!" and so on and so on.

A couple of years later, I found out from the Healer that what I had witnessed was vileman practicing his grooming techniques.

*Grooming is the gradual process of invading a person's physical space, emotional space and intelligence. The groomer uses a selection process and desensitises the victim with more and more intrusive behavior. (*The Healer's definition - I was taking notes that day.)

My suspicions went into hyper-alert with my own children (they are fine by the way - my son swears he was never touched. I may never know the truth . . . did he or didn't he . . . but they both are in good mental and physical shape right now) and I hated to have kids play over because I had to be watchful. Remember, I had no proof that he was vile . . . but I couldn't let my guard down.

The first few weeks after I had a noticeable weight loss, vileman paid a little more attention to me, which made me, want to gain my weight back. The attention didn't last long and by December of 2006, he had lost all interest in me. Vileman never touched me again.

The last few months, he was spiraling out of control, he would call me with weird stories about why he wouldn't be home from work on time. I knew he was cheating on me and per the discovery from my lawyer, I was right. Vileman had begun to participate in dangerous and anonymous s*xual encounters. He admitted to having several hook-ups with couples but did not know their real names or remember where they lived.

My assumption is that he semi-told the truth to avoid perjuring himself, had our divorce went to trial. I know that there had to be a lot more "hook-ups" than he admitted. But I digress back to the true vileness.

I knew he was lying to me and I just couldn't stand sleeping next to him at night. I once had a nightmare of him rolling the area rug in the family room around my bludgeoned body.

I found myself sleeping in the family room on the couch or on the futon in the spare bedroom. (I took neither of these items with me during my move.)

Over the last few years, I doubt I ever got more than six hours of sleep and that would have been a good nights rest. My average was probably less than four hours.

Vileman had a bad habit of calling people that I knew (I usually found out later) and I would have to hold back on telling him about any new friends or people I had met. For example years ago when I worked, I found out that my boss was having a fling with another co-worker at work and mentioned it to vileman. He called both of them (I found out months and months later). And there is no telling how many of my friends he called over the years behind my back. It dawned on me recently that he did that to keep me from developing any outside friendships, which would make me depend on him more and make it harder for me to want to leave him . . . there's that fog lifting thing again.

I survived. My children survived.

You might read this and think why did you stay married to him? I had to. It assured me that the children were safe with me in the house. Had we divorced before he got caught, he would have gotten joint custody of the kids. I am at peace that I made the right decision to stay in that marriage and wait it out.

It is sad for my children that he may go to prison, but they don't need a man like him in their life. Nor does the public need another vile person on the streets.

I have more to write about vileman: his psychopath attributes and seeing him for (I hope) the last time. I promise they will not be novella length.

Saying Goodbye to all the Old Hiding and Numbing Places

On Sunday night, I sat in my hotel room, located between two places where I ran up credit card debt of several thousand dollars over the time frame beginning around the fall of 2006 and abruptly ending mid June, 2008. Super Target is a hop, skip and a jump north and the mall is several hundred feet south of me.

Good bye old, destructive friends.

Actually, I said a semi-goodbye to "non-necessity" spending last June. For old times sake, I stopped at the Super Target before checking into my hotel room. I splurged on Method household cleaning products and picked up some Italian soda to bring back for the kids. (We don't have a Super Target at home.)

I was back in town (from the previous life) to close on my house Monday morning. Eight months after being on the market, it finally found a buyer. I am so relieved that I will not be saddled with a mortgage if and when the vileman goes to prison.

His portion of the equity will not fully pay off the $$$$ owed me for back child support and lawyer fees, but it is about a 40% start. My very good lawyer put a lien on the house payable to me since vileman's payments for legal reimbursement would not start until August 2009 . . . and I knew I would never see any money.

As I tried to watch Celebrity Apprentice (my guilty pleasure) I thought about all the ways I coped while living with vileman and how I have managed to say goodbye to both the destructive and non-destructive habits.

The mommie juice.
It was on its way to becoming a problem. I wrote one of you saying, that my tolerance was getting higher and higher of the cheap red wine and two glasses a night was not enough to give me that numb feeling. My solution to the problem was to get bigger red wine glasses. One glass probably held 16 ounces! When vileman walked through that door every day at 5:15 pm, I headed straight for the wine box. It was my unhealthy coping mechanism.

Once I was out of that environment, I noticed I didn't think about the mommie juice nor did I need the mommie juice any longer. In fact, it should have been renamed "vileman elixir".

The super-sized wine goblets went to one of the day-laborers who I hired to help me load my u-haul moving truck.

The Treadmill
When I was in a get fit mood, I would avoid vileman by walking on the treadmill after he got home from work. I made sure dinner was on the table for my family and instead of eating with them, I would disappear into the spare bedroom with my iPod and walk and walk and walk. Never walking anywhere, just walking in the same place. Stuck. I chose not to take the treadmill with me and vileman either kept it or gave it away. Either way, I don't care.

The Shopping
November of 2006 showed a weight-loss of 32 pounds. I had cut out salty foods, alcohol, snacking and sweets, adhering to the Dash diet. I was moving my body and not sitting in front of the television. As the numbers on the scale and blood pressure machine lowered, my credit card balance went up. The girl and I went went shopping twice a month. The stuff I bought wasn't hoarded and left in shopping bags. It was almost all used (except for most of my stuff) and everyone in the family benefited. A little too much.

Two weeks ago, I went through all my workout clothes, many still had tags on them (hey, at least they were out of the bags!). It was crazy going through all the yoga pants and tops! I was able to give my older sister some of the tanks but I still had way too many. Too many tee's that are too tight. Too many shorts. Too many workout bras. Too many.

A big portion went to Goodwill.
***

Monday morning, before heading to the title company, I walked through the empty house for the last time and said goodbye to that fancy faux prison and all my old hiding places.

The Pantry
Though I worked out at the Y several times a week and walked on the treadmill at night, I still managed to stand in the pantry and consume hundreds of calories during the day; it usually started around 1:30 with a little handful of this or that and lasted until 4:30 in the afternoon. I can visualize me eating a handful of something then closing the pantry door, returning quickly for another dose of numbing. A revolving door would have made it perfect.

The Master Bathroom.
That house had an awesome master bath! Huge bathtub where I spent many hours soaking in that tub at night, avoiding vileman. On the nights that I walked on the treadmill, I would retreat to my bedroom afterwards and close the door, turn on the TV and put a facial mask on for 20 minutes before showering. I could easily spend an additional hour in there, putting off any face time with vileman.


When I walked down the hallway to the back bedrooms to say goodbye to the small fourth bedroom that had housed my treadmill, a stench reminiscent of an overflowing port-o-potty on a hot August day permeated the air. Seems someone had taken a poop in the half bath several days earlier and failed to flush the commode.

It reeked.

It stunk.

It couldn't have been a more perfect ending in closing this chapter of my life.

Battered and Bruised

But in a good way.

My dad and I headed south to my old house Thursday morning; rented a U-Haul truck and moved all my furniture back here on Friday afternoon. I put all of it in a storage unit.

I got rid of another van load of give-away stuff. I figured if I hadn't needed it over the past nine months, I could live without it.

Yippie!

I have one more milestone to pass and that date will occur hopefully on April 6th.

Yippie!

A busy Monday awaits and will have to write more later.

Have a super great day!

Summer/Winter Break with Steak

This is spring break week but you would never guess it. No spring like weather here. The first half of the week was in the mid 80's and yesterday a cold front came through bringing rain, rain and more rain.

After taking 5 year old to the after-hours clinic on Sunday afternoon (she has a cold with cough), the 12 year old and I headed to the old house. Vileman was working out-of-town until Wednesday, so the 12 year old and I stayed until Tuesday afternoon packing up all our items for storage.

We arrived Sunday night at 8:30 and I immediately went to work while the boy watched television. I was so pumped about packing, that I didn't stop until 4:00 am.

By Tuesday, almost everything was boxed and labeled. I didn't have time to get to the stuff in the garage, nor go through all the Christmas decorations, but it will just have to wait until the next opportunity, probably when I go back at the end of the month with a U-haul truck to pick up everything for storage.

Tuesday before lunch, 12 and I loaded up the mini-van (thank goodness for stow and go seats) with all the donated stuff to drop off at Purple Heart. We had a van full and it felt so good to just donate that stuff and not try to have a garage sale.

After our lunch, we loaded up the van with a few items to take home with us. When packing up the cooler with some water, I peeked in vileman's freezer (technically my refrigerator/freezer) and saw he had two, thick T-bone steaks. Mmmm. 12 year old loves steak.

I threw them in the cooler and left a note in the freezer for vileman saying "thanks for the steaks".

The 12 year old and I thought that was so funny.

I'll Be Clogging on Valentine's Day 2022

A few weeks after my divorce was final, my older sister said something to me about being single again. I scoffed at that and told her I planned on staying single and wouldn't even think about dating until the 5 year old is in college. Should I survive that long, I will be 58 years old. I told the sister I would then take up clogging, since that seemed to be a great way to meet the old geezers.

Not to mention the cute little short dresses you get to wear.

But on a serious note, I have been told by 12 year old that I am "hyper-vigilant".

Well, duh.

His major complaint is that I watch his karate class because I don't trust the instructor.

He's right, I don't know or trust the instructor at this time, plus something about him gave me the creepy vibes. From now on I will trust my instincts and not suppress them.

During karate class, the parents sit on a bench in the studio where we are able to watch. So I'm not the only parent watching.

I'm just the only parent sending silent "don't touch my kid" vibes toward the Sensi. Ha.

I guess it's going to take some time . . . possibly until 2022.

The Hotel California Roller Coaster Ride

Life over the past seven months has felt like a never ending roller coaster ride . . .

The day after vileman's arrest, I sat at my parents' kitchen table with a cup of coffee in my hand, thinking about our uncertain future. I knew vileman would lose his job, especially since he borrowed a company vehicle for his little jaunt, used the company computer for vileness and the nice detective had already telephoned his HR department to ask them to secure vileman's office.

I knew I was going to have to walk away from our house. My parents were distraught about the situation and kept telling me that was the wrong thing to do, that I should try and keep up with the mortgage. I was certain July's note would be paid, but who knew after that.

(Early July) This went on for days until I received a letter from vileman who was still in jail. He informed me that he was still on the payroll. Going up!

(Around July 8th) What he failed to inform me, was that he was indeed fired as of July 1st and that we lost our health insurance benefits. Going down!

Thankfully, on June 27th, I had purchased a six month, short-term health insurance policy on the kids and I, so we had no lapse in insurance. Going up!

The vileman was paid up to July 1st with no severance (ha ha ha) and no chance of getting unemployment benefits. Going down!

I drained the bank accounts and paid all bills due in July (including his credit cards) with money orders. Going Up!

I left enough money for him on July 15th to make sure that the mortgage would be paid in August. He spent the money on other things. Going down!

(Late July) We put the house on the market, with the realtor assuring me it was not priced too high and she could sell it within 10 days. Going up!

The mortgage bubble burst and we lowered the price two weeks later. Going down!

(August 6th) At the temporary order hearing, the judge ordered that vileman should have no contact with his children at this time. Going up! (By the way, the children last saw and spoke with their dad two days before he was arrested. Vileman called many times demanding to speak to his children: never was going to happen.)

(August 6th) He was ordered to pay $225/month child support based on an unemployed person. Going down!

(August 6th) The judge ordered early withdrawal of vileman's 401K balance (it wasn't anything to write home about) with me receiving 64% after taxes to live on as six months "spousal support" . . . Grrr. (Though it was good news, I knew 50% of his 401K would be rewarded to me after the divorce so I was a little peeved about them calling my 50% "spousal support".) Going up!

(First week in October) It would take 60 days before I would see any money. Going down!

The stock market begin to nose dive but his 401K was liquidated in August, so it didn't loose the 40% value that many people saw happen to their own investments. Going up!

(Late August) Vileman found another job making six figures (how nice, he got a big raise . . . she writes with sarcasm) and a fancy title (ohhh a promotion!). Still going up!

And we were immediately eligible for health, dental and vision insurance! Does it get any better than this. Up, up and away!

(September) He paid four weeks of child support based on his new salary then decided he couldn't "afford" to pay above and beyond the $225/month ordered at the temporary order hearing. What goes up, must come down! And it sounds like this SPLAT!

(October 2nd) Me: THAT MOTHER F*CKING, C*CK S*CKING, NARICISTIC, SON OF A BITCH, BASTARD!!!!!!

His insurance paid for the kids and I to go to therapy. Going up!

(Late October) Find out from our counselor, that vileman is a classic psychopath. Not serial killer psychopath but antisocial disorder psychopath. Read the book "Without Conscience" and realize he fits every description except he isn't mean to animals. Just the opposite, but than again, Tony Soprano was nicer to animals than humans. That is another post for another day. Going way down!

(Mid October) Decide to put the job search away for the time being and continue to be a stay-at-home mom because right now that's what the kids need. They need me to take them to school, pick them up from school, take them to counseling, take them to dance class and take them to karate. I feel good about this decision and live off the 401K distribution. Going up!

(Mid November) My lawyer (he's down there) tells me how much it will cost for him to come up here and diposition the kids' counselor. He says it will be cheaper for her to testify in court. Going down!

I tell the counselor and she says she will work with me to get down there to testify. Going up!

(Mid December) The counselor forgets she says she will work with me and wants $$$$ mucho money paid up front to go down to testify . . . it is almost three times more than what the lawyer was going to charge me for him to come up here and hire a court reporter. Going down!

(Late December and Early January) Win the following motions before our divorce trial is set to start: the detective and file must appear (the criminal DA tried to have it quashed/squashed), waived mediation (I was not about to pay a bunch of lawyers to argue over dishes and furniture), the counselor can testify over the phone. Going up!

(January 2nd) The vileman files a motion to have the children interviewed by the judge before our divorce trial. Going down!

(January 5th) Judge says she will decide after our trial. Going up!

(January 6th) The vileman settles and agrees (reluctantly) it is in the best interest of the children for him to not have access or possession of the children, agrees to pay me the back child support he owes, and reimburse me for all my lawyers fees ($12,000 it is very expensive to get rid of vile people but worth it). I'm soaring!

(January 14th) I get the bill from the counselor for file prep, court prep, standby and telephone conferences with my lawyer and his lawyer. Going down!

(January 15th) My lawyer says she is raking me over the coals and now I'm not feeling so warm and fuzzy over counselor . . . that will be another post. Still going down and now feeling a wee bit resentful!

(January 17th) Get a small check from lawyer of the remaining balance of the vileman's 401K after lawyer took out my final bill due him. It will barely cover the counselor's fees. A little up and a little down.

(January 26th) Time to start the great job search of 2009! I'm feeling good and ready. Going up!

(January 27th) The next day the media declares Monday as "Bloody Monday" with all the lay-offs. Going down!


I'm still waiting on my child support checks from January 15th and the 31st. The judge didn't sign our divorce decree until last week and the child support disbursement center wouldn't set up me until the decree was signed by the judge. I know I will be paid, but the redtape to set it up irks me. Going down!


I remind myself that my children are doing great and we are embarking on a new chapter with endless possibilities. Going up!

Foreshadow and Irony

***I know I wrote about going forward and not dwelling on the past, but I need the closure of putting those unhappy events in writing. I wanted to do it over at the other blog but I was warned a few months back by a relative to not write about it, because it would give me . . . cancer. (That person was not my parents.) Well, I disagree. I think writing it down is part of the healing process. Also, the vile man kept his family away from the filth. Unknowingly, we were his beard. The children and I provided him the cover-up of a family man. It was like living with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

I had no idea that he was doing what he was doing, though I did get the creeps sometimes. I thought he was cheating on me with other women (turns out he was doing that too).

I didn't tell any relatives about this new blog, that way I don't have to censor myself and should I end up with cancer, someone will not be able to tell me "I told you so".

Please bear with me on occasion, when I feel like writing about the past. Sorry, this is very long . . .***


I was sitting at the dinning room table with three strange men staring at me. They wanted to sit in the breakfast room, but I told them my children ate at that table and I just could not sit there and be told about the filth.

My mouth was dry and my head was pounding. I had already been on the road for 45 minutes, headed north, when the call came on my cell phone from the detective who arrested the vile man. I didn't take the call because I thought it was going to be the lawyer that the vile man had asked me to call, which I refused to do. When I checked my voicemail, it was the detective, informing me he was at my house and wanted to talk to me.

Visions of SWAT vans and police cars surrounding my house immediately flashed before my eyes. I think I saw several local news stations and maybe even Geraldo Rivera at my door. Instead of calling him back, I did what any normal, 44 year old woman whose husband had been arrested does. . . I called my daddy.

"Dad, there is a detective calling me and he wants to talk to me! Will you call him back and tell him I'm too afraid to go back because the weasel is going to kill me for not bailing him out of jail!!!"

I was still headed north.

I kept thinking of me having to drive down my street with throngs of reporters sticking their microphones toward my car window. I could not be on television looking like I did. Earlier that morning, I took an aerobics class at the Y and it kicked my butt. When I got home, instead of showering, I made coffee, blogged and decided to lie down for my sinus headache. I also took sinus meds, hence the dry mouth. On top of that, I had sweated buckets after getting off the phone with a weasel and ran around the house gathering things to throw into the mini van. So, I basically looked and smelled like shit.

A few minutes later, my dad called me and tried to talk me into going back home and cooperate with the detective. So, I told my dad to have the detective call me back and I would talk to him.

Me: "Hello."

Detective: "This is Det. Nice."

Me: "I'm not coming back!!! Can't you get a search warrant?! Please! That man is going to kill me for not bailing him out of jail and I'm embarrassed about you being in front of my house! What are the neighbors going to say?!!!"

Detective: I'm not in a police car, I'm in a Ford **fill in some cheap economy sized model***. Your neighbors don't have to know anything unless you tell them." **Insert five minutes of him begging me to turn around and go back.**

I called the detective when I reached my street and told him what I was driving and that I would pull up in my driveway. I also told him that I needed to get my dog out of the car and to please not pull their guns on me.

He thought that was funny, assured me he didn't have his gun with him and that I was a victim.

I was surprised how quiet my street was. No media, no SWAT vans and no police cars.

After getting the kids' small poodle out of the car (he was carsick) I carried him to the front lawn where I greeted Detective Nice.

No fancy designer suit on this guy. (I gotta quit watching Law & Order: Criminal Intent.) He was wearing blue jeans, an untucked button down shirt and a baseball hat. His cohorts (the two other police officers) were also dressed in blue jeans. They all followed me into my house.

We sat down and Det. Nice tried to put me at ease and joked that he thought I was going to be getting a large dog out of my car and was surprised to see a small, hairy poodle in my arms all limp like.

Det. Nice was the good cop.

Sargent Baldy played bad cop. (I say that, because he rolled his eyes at something I said. )

But all three of them were very nice and assured me, that the children and I were victims of the vile man.

I spent three hours with those men, listening to them tell me what a sick man, vile man was. When they were leaving, they all mentioned how relieved I looked and not just because they were leaving.

I was relieved . . . and not just because three police men were leaving my house. The relief came, because I knew we were free of the vile man.

By the way, the vile man's arrest was kept out of the media. No newspaper mention nor was it on the 10:00 news.

On January 6th, I met Detective Nice once again. This time he was sitting in front of me in the courthouse. He was sitting next to the lovely lady he worked with who was the keeper of police records. I had already met Lovely Lady at my temporary order hearing (pre-divorce thing) last August. She was so supportive.

Had I passed Det. Nice on the street, I would have never recognized him. He had on a suit and no baseball cap. He looked exactly like Tony Soprano and/or the actor who portrayed him. I loved the Sopranos.

I wanted to hug this man - a good full frontal hug too! (I never give frontal hugs because of my big ahems, so my hugs are more shoulder hugs with my big ahems not touching the person I'm hugging.) Thankfully I didn't try to hug him because he was standoffish and a little unfriendly. Not because he didn't like me, but because he was having to sit in a courthouse, waiting to testify at my divorce trial and I wasn't supposed to be fraternizing with the witnesses.

The lovely lady turned around and explained that Det. Nice was nervous because the vile man's criminal attorney (who brings their criminal attorney to a divorce trial?!) would have the opportunity to cross examine him and it didn't look good if he was seen talking to me. She said he didn't want to hurt my feelings.

I said oops, I'm sorry and leaned back into the courthouse pew. But Lovely Lady said she could talk to me because all she had to do was hand over the big thick vile file on the vile man to the judge.

After lunch, Det. Nice realized we probably would settle and not go to trial. So he turned around and talked to me. I told him a story called "Foreshadow and Irony" (see, I went through all the above mess just to tell you the following, and it might not even be considered irony, because, I wasn't all that smart in high school.)

The day before the vile man was arrested, I had just seen my parents off with the children. They would be visiting my parents for ten days. Ten days without children! Anyway, it was early afternoon and I turned on the TV and watched an HBO documentary about Roman Polanski (another vile man) and the trouble he got himself into before fleeing the country. Something about his narcissism, reminded me of the vile man. I even googled Roman, after the show ended, to read more about his vile troubles. And I'm not talking about the murder of his wife in the late 60's, I'm talking about what happened a few years later.

The next day, the vile man was arrested for similar troubles.

He spent eight days in jail, before he bailed himself out using credit cards. While in jail, he called my parents' home every night. We never answered the phone. In a weird way, it was soothing to know he was still in jail (thanks to caller ID).

When I finally did talk to vile man, a couple of weeks later, he told me he went to meet Det. Nice (not knowing Det. Nice was a detective) to beat him up and keep our children safe from men like him (Det. Nice's undercover persona). After my hysterical laughter died down, because I had already heard that excuse several times on Dateline's to Catch a Predator, I told him: first, our children were never in danger of internet villains because I monitored their internet usage. And secondly, the man vile man went to beat up, to protect his children from, ended up being the man who would set us free and protect us from vile man. I think that might be called irony.

Vacation Is Over (Not that I was on vacation ...)

January the first, came and went for me with nary a thought about diet or exercise. And I have to tell you, that was nice not fretting about health changes for the new year.

Since January 1997, I have been a yo-yo dieter. Every year, around December 30th, I would start thinking about meal plans and exercise schedules, promising myself "this is the year . . ."

January 2009 came around, and the only thing on my mind was my divorce date on the 6th.

I was so giddy that January day, driving the four hour commute home, after being in court all day long. I stopped at McD's to go to the ladies room (it was a four hour drive!). And since I was already there, I thought I had better have me some supper. Instead of ordering a small plain hamburger, I celebrated with a Big Mac.

Being giddy also gave me an awful sweet tooth. I have been very giddy for 16 straight days.

Prior to the giddiness, I was maintaining around 170 to 173 pounds. And I did have a very joyful Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years.

Thirty-five days of joyfulness followed by 16 days of giddiness begets a fat ass.

Alas, time to start thinking about those meal plans and exercise schedules . . .

So Where was I?

If you are reading this, you probably know me by another diet blogger name which I refuse to use anymore. That way of life/persona/chapter/book has ended, and I'm feeling it's time for a fresh start.

To catch you up on the last six months: I found out one day last summer, that my husband had been arrested. He called home that early afternoon, to ask me to bail him out of jail. After I asked him what he had been arrested for (it was bad), I told him he had made the wrong phone call and hung up on him. I knew at that moment, all those years of my suspicions had been right-on and I saw an opportunity to flee.

Thankfully, my children were visiting with my parents when all this occurred and I immediately packed up important papers and hightailed it north to be with them.

We never went back and our life in suburbia came to a screeching halt.

Over the next six months, I felt like I was on a roller coaster. Sometimes things were going very good then events would take a turn for the worse. But I survived and earlier this month, the divorce was finalized. And I am now ready to close that chapter on "Survival and Endless Waiting".

I accomplished what I wanted from the divorce - no access or possession of the children by their father. I also was able to get three of his parental rights revoked and at some point he has to reimburse me for all my lawyer fees.

A fresh start with a new blog and identity was needed. My head is in the right place (thanks to the healer) now I want my body to be in the right place and I always got such great support from you all.

So, hopefully that occasional funny lady shows up to write about the trials and tribulations of chronic dieting. And if it's OK with you, I might sometimes write about the divorce - just for healing purposes, and I promise it will not be too woe is me.

I feel like a brand spanking new 5-subject notebook, just waiting to be filled (with mostly ramblings of rubbish). But still, who doesn't love the endless possibilities of a blank notebook?