A New Day and 4% Body Fat Loss

I was feeling pretty low about my body weight today because yesterday, a muscle between my shoulder blades decided to clench for absolutely no reason at all. Great. Just when I was starting to feel good about my exercise program. But then I remembered something from my training as a personal trainer and sports nutritionist. I hadn't taken my calipers in some time. So I got out my trusty body fat calculator program, calipers, measuring tape and blood pressure cuff and went to work.

First was the calipers. If you've never had your calipers taken, let me tell you that it can be an eye-opening experience. You come face to face with exactly what is going on in your body... the good, the bad and the ugly. What I saw today was not exactly ugly, and it showed progress. In comparing the calipers of today with the measurements I had taken last October, it was shown that I had lost 4% bodyfat since then. It stunned me to see that the last time I had taken my calipers was on the day my father died. It must have been before I got the news. I remember not really caring what happened to my body from that point until just before the holidays. I was pleased to see that the concentrated effort I have been putting forth since that time has borne fruit.

Tape measurements came next. I was pleased to note that my measurements had gone down. And by looking the history of these measurements, I was able to see exactly where I had gone off track. Between 2005 and 2008 I had put on 43 pounds! I think it's safe to say that I wasn't putting on muscle during that time. I had started working a horrible shift at a new place, and it was obviously taking its toll. I had the PE's in 2002, but was still on that horrible rat poison in 2005, and then shattered my foot in 2007, which didn't help my health any. I believe that was when my weight skyrocketed. I was stuck in bed for 6 months. The foot still isn't right, but I deal with it.

Blood pressure was the next stop on my list. I could plainly see that my blood pressure had gone from being healthy to being borderline hypertensive.

In view of all this, I am re-developing my program to kick myself into gear. I have a project coming up that has to be done at the client site, so will have to work around that. So far, I have been doing hatha yoga and vinyasa yoga, to help my body to adjust to the changes I am making. If that muscle in my back unclenches for tomorrow, I will begin the program I am outlining here.

Since I have about 130 pounds of lean body weight, I will need approximately 1700 calories to keep my basal metabolic rate working properly. That's the easy part. The hard part will be forcing myself to do cardio. So... I'm bringing in some dumbbells from the gym in my garage and going to use that to help my upper body strength. I wish I loved cardio. It would make this so much easier. But my lungs won't tolerate much right now, so I will have to increase my cardio slowly. I used to go walking for hours. I don't have anyone to walk with now (and the streets aren't safe), so I have to come up with an alternate plan. I have several different pieces of cardio equipment in my gym, and can work on those. I'm going to have to try and get a little cardio in every day. Strength training will have to be done on an increasing basis, 3 times per week. Yoga will continue to be done almost every day for balance and flexibility. So my tenative schedule looks like this:

Sunday - Saturday AM - Cardio
MWF - Strength training
Sunday - Saturday PM - Yoga

I have been used to getting my yoga done in the morning, because I feel that it is a good start to my day. I don't know how it's going to be, getting it in later in the day. Maybe it will help me to sleep better at night. If it gets to where I am unable to practice in the evenings, I will have to switch it back to the morning. Nope nope nope... already I am changing my mind. I can't do without yoga in the morning. So here's the revised plan.

Sunday through Saturday AM - Yoga
Sunday through Saturday PM - Cardio (I should have Steve and the dogs to walk with.)
MWF PM - Strength training

That should get me through. A bath after the workouts would be good, so I can wind down and get to sleep at a decent hour. Ugh... I hate to have to plan all this, but my progress will stop if I don't. I guess I'm going to have to go back to my weight training log as well. When is my deadline for starting all of this? There's no time like tomorrow (Friday) to start. With warm weather starting up, it should be easier for me to stay on track (literally).

The boys and I were just out in the gym, surveying what needs to be done so that we can use the gym again. A few things made their way into the attic, and my rebounder and 3 pound dumbbells came into the house, where I suspect, I will be doing most of my workouts until the weather turns warm enough for me to be outside. We have several space heaters for the cold, and an air conditioner for the hotter weather, but for now, I will start inside. Tomorrow we will make some strides in cleaning up the gym. On my list of to-do's includes oiling up the bikes and test riding them in the neighborhood before taking them on the greenway.

Ah yes... it's going to be a lovely spring.

Nazdrovie'

Paczki Puta

Judy, Getting Out, Books and Another Pound Gone!

I had the opportunity to go to lunch with my friend, Judy, today and had a wonderful time. I have not seen Judy for about a year, when I stopped working at the place where she and I met. It was really good to see her.

Judy had been a really good friend to me, a better one than I have been to her. Judy loves to talk on the phone, and I don't. Maybe it's because if I'm on the phone too long, it feels like I've been running a marathon. I used to love it when I was younger. I guess as I got older, I got away from the habit. I don't like to talk on my cell phone at ALL! I don't mind as much when someone calls the house number. But I digress. Judy loves to talk, and I love to listen to her. That makes for a very good relationship.

Judy has been working as a security guard for a really long time. But that wasn't always her profession. She was in 3 different branches of the armed forces, something of which I am very envious. I think it would be wonderful to have had that kind of experience. To be able to serve the country and travel all over the world. Yes, I am envious. But in a good way. I am glad she was able to do it. I think it made her the person she is today.

Judy is very outgoing and full of common sense. I love being around her. She lives 40 miles away from me, so it's very difficult for me to get there. She came to see me today (well, really she went to get her glasses replaced, but I was on the way). Jason dropped me off at the mall so I could meet her. I found her exactly where she said she would be, and was surprised to see that her hair is actually longer than mine, which has never been the case. As we always do, we picked right up where we left off, laughing and cutting up. We did a little (okay a LOT) of walking around the mall and window shopping. I never had the opportunity to do any window shopping with any of my birth family, and was surprised at how much fun it was. And okay, Judy was making me walk a bunch. And that's good. But it's very hard for me. My legs don't work like they used to, but I did my best, and she would slow down for me when she noticed I was doing all the huffing and puffing.

Bless her for making me walk. This was good for me, because I really do HAVE to be made to do it. A few days ago, I walked for the very first time (in the past year) all the way around the block, which is 4 blocks total. I am trying to up my exercise quotient, and Judy knew that, so we just started wandering around the mall. Before I knew it, we had gone almost completely around. We did a little stopping here and there, with our favorite place being the bookstore. I love books. I have hundreds of books in my home. They are like old friends to me. I love getting used books... the kind that show they have been used. My favorites are hardbound classical literature, and I have quite a collection. Unfortunately, the two used bookstores in Memphis are no longer in business. *sigh* I used to go in there and browse for hours and come out with my arms full. I feel like the old books have a life. I love to hold them and to run my hands over the worn covers. They have more than one story to tell. They are comfortable. I love them.

Back to Judy... she didn't know that I have been on a fat loss regimen, but when she found out, it made the mall walking all the more important to her. She would do anything for me, and this proved it. She wants to see me healthy and feeling well. I have stopped all medications and she is concerned about this, but since the medications were making me really ill, I decided to let nature take its course and fight it off naturally, if I can. If I fall, I fall. I would rather go out like this than to be on 20 different medications that don't work.

We went on to lunch, which was the $6.49 lunch special at On The Border. It had been SO long since I'd been out to lunch. I had the chicken quesadilla and salad, and loved every bit of it. I couldn't really afford to go to lunch, but I also can't afford to stay home when I haven't seen a friend in that long. Judy made comments about what I was eating, asking if I could "have that" on my "diet". Sure I can!

Nazdrovie'

Paczki Puta

Knowing Where You Came From

In the course of my genealogy research, I have been waiting for pictures from a cousin of mine to help me get a firm picture of where I come from on my father's side. I already knew what my great-grandparents on my mother's side looked like, but never knew what my grandfather's parents looked like. Today I got what I was waiting for.

As I looked at my great-grandfather's face, I took note of what a nice face it was. Not necessarily handsome, but a strong face, and a good face. He was definitely the force that drove his family. He had to be strong. He had 8 children, and times were tough back then. He had two brothers, one of which died when he was 21 years old. I can't prove it just yet, but I think he took care of this brother. The other brother was a bartender, and they all lived within 3 houses of each other. Imagine being that close to your family... that you'd want to live that close. Maybe they didn't have a choice. Maybe times were SO tough that it was necessary. I feel that families took better care of each other back then. I feel they were closer.

I turned my attention to the face of the great-grandmother I had never known. It also was a good face. She looked a little care-worn, but I guess I would too if I had 8 kids and was marrying one of them off. She had been through a lot. Medical care wasn't good at the time, and I know that both of them were gone by 1940. I wish I had known them. I think I would have liked them, and I think they would have liked me.

I have always known what my mother's grandparents looked like, at least on her father's side. Funny that I never thought about the 4th pair of great-grandparents. My mother didn't talk about them much, except to say that she didn't know her grandmothers' names, and she wanted her own grandchildren to remember her name.

One of her sets of grandparents was an arranged marriage. I can't imagine having to marry someone that your parents chose for you, have his children, live and die, all without making a single choice for yourself. It must have been incredibly difficult. I suppose that women didn't have many choices back then. Without a dowry, a woman was lucky to have a husband at all. A husband meant security and protection. A wife meant someone to "take care of things", i.e., clean house, cook and take care of children. Not much more was expected, but that was enough.

As I go forward in my life, I will at least have the security of the faces of three pairs of my great-grandparents. That's more than most people get.

Nazdrovie'

Paczki Puta

My Aunt Marge

I got a call from my Aunt Marge the other day, telling me that she was having surgery this coming Friday. She is my mother's younger (and only surviving) sister, and has suffered from a hiatal hernia for a long time. They are operating on her to "take care of" this condition. I worried at little as I talked to her, because she could not stop coughing. She said that the coughing is caused by the hernia, but as a layperson, I don't know the slightest thing about that condition and hope that the doctors are right. However, they also told her that she has a mass on her right lung. She asked if it was cancerous, and they told her "If it was cancer, it would have killed you by now." The doctors' flippant answer did nothing to assuade my fears. Aunt Marge is 70 years old, and although she seems strong, she's had 2 strokes, and that's serious enough for anyone.

As is always the case, our conversations go on and on. She tells me about things that happened a long time ago, how it was when she grew up, and the early life of my family as she remembers it. It has been my pleasure and my honor to know her, even though we didn't grow close until after my mother died. I regret that I haven't had enough time to know her better, and haven't kept in touch with her children. Her oldest daughter, Daphne, and I used to write letters back and forth when we were teenagers. She's one of the sweetest people in the world. I reconnected with her at my Uncle Dick's funeral last year, and it was wonderful to see her. She looks exactly the same as she did when she was young. I wonder how it was, growing up without her extended family, and know that my own sons must know that better than I. Her paternal grandmother told Aunt Marge years ago that she didn't want anything to do with her granddaughters. What a horrible thing to say! Even in the worst of circumstances, I cannot imagine a grandmother saying such a thing.

Even though Aunt Marge told me about the things of her past, there is such a big gap there. She went through so much... and much of it I did not know about until the other day when she called. I didn't know, for example, that when she was being abused by her father and his new wife, she ran away to Ohio to be with Aunt Flo (another of her sisters). The police came, and both Aunt Flo and Uncle Walter told Marge that she had to go back. She did, but ran away again before she was 18, lived with a girlfriend, and then joined the Navy. I had no idea. I had heard snippets here and there from my mother, but nothing like this.

Aunt Marge got married and had two daughters from her first husband. When she found her husband had a girlfriend on the side, she left him. He never even touched his second child, Krystle. He never picked her up. Marge said "here's your daughter", but he just looked at the baby on the bed. I can't imagine how he could do that. I guess he got it from his mother. They divorced, and she met and married my Uncle Fred. They had two sons. Thank God she got out of that first marriage and into a good second one.

In the course of our conversation, I told Aunt Marge what I had written about and the reactions of my birth family and their "friends". She said unreservedly, "I believe you". She went on to tell me about how my father had tried the same thing with her when she was a teenager, and she told him that "You are married to my sister, and if you don't stop it, I will tell her!" God bless her for telling me.

She has been through so much in her life. I certainly hope that she makes it through her surgery all right. She has her doubts, but I will be praying for her, as I know the rest of her family will and hope for the best. I love you, Aunt Marge!

Nazdrovie'

Paczki Puta

Wrapping It Up, Dr. Pierce and More (or Less, depending on how you want to view it)

Wrapping It Up

It's funny how making people accountable for what they write makes them stop writing it. On this blog, I have made it impossible for anyone without an account to post here. So you may read, but unless you have an account, you're SOL. And I still have the option to ignore you if you DO send a comment. Considering the negativity has come from my former family and their "friends" (you know who you are and so do I), know this. You are not in our lives. What you say and do has no effect, and I want no further contact with you... now, or ever. Since I have been the one to send flowers when someone was in the hospital, to call on people's birthdays and send cards at Christmas, I have stopped doing that.

Goodbye and God Bless.

Now, on to better things.

Dr. Pierce

There was an account today of an asthma physician, Trent Pierce, who got in his car in his West Memphis garage, and it blew up. Dr. Pierce is in critical condition at The Med, and our prayers are with him and his family. The authorities have stated that they do not suspect foul play, but you have to wonder, with all the stuff that Hollywood produces, Soprano-style. I once saw a show (or movie, can't remember which), where the hero put a piece of scotch tape on the hood of his car, with one end of the tape on the hood and one end on the top fender. The idea was that if the tape were dislodged or broken, he would know that someone had tampered with his car. It turned out that someone DID tamper with the engine, planting a bomb with a trip wire, so that the car would blow when the engine started. I sincerely hope that someone did not intentionally sabotage the good doctor's car, but he is in the hospital all the same. I do not know him, but can imagine the horror when his wife found him in the flower bed in front of his home. We are praying for you, Dr. Pierce.

Update: 12:48pm Officials have found an explosive device (or parts of it) that were planted in Dr. Pierce's car. They are calling it a "terrorist attack on one person". Hmmm....

More (or Less, depending on how you want to view it)

In other news, I was pleasantly surprised this morning when I weighed in to find that I was a whole 10 pounds down from where I started. This is a milestone, and one I will not take for granted. I have had great success on www.sparkpeople.com, which is unmatched in its program of support, encouragement and tracking tools. And it's all FREE! I don't know about you, but FREE is a magic word for me. I can't wait to log in every morning and track my food and activities. I have 63 pounds to get to where my body will function without hindrance, so I am on my way. It seems like a long way, but I've come this far in only 6 weeks. This is a journey for me, not a destination. This is something I know I can stick with. The first 10 pounds are the hardest, I think. I went through my first plateau... or at least I thought it was a plateau, and broke it. Now the weight is coming off a bit easier.

The thing that is astonishing me... well, two things, actually... is that I am eating SO much, and that I seem to need at least 10 glasses of water daily, to make this change happen. It's all right with me; I love water. And I love to EAT! AND I love to cook! So this is great. As long as I have the time right now, I will continue doing all the cooking necessary. However, when I get one more website project, we may have to re-evaluate the cooking duties. We have so much on our plates right now, that I'm not sure if we can even take on another project, but it's a very happy dilemma to have to solve. Film at 11.

Okay, boys and girls, that's enough for now. I've got work to do, and yoga to practice.

Nazdrovie'

Paczki Puta

Cockroaches Analogy

It has been my pleasure to read all the hate mail and comments that have come my way as a result of telling the truth about my father and the abuse I suffered at his hands. My extended family has shown themselves to be nothing more than cockroaches, who skitter away when light is shined upon them. Let it be known here, that I do not run, and I do not hide. I do not shrink from a fight and never have, especially when truth is on my side. You may not like the truth, and you may not want to hear it, but it doesn't make it any less true.

Let me recap some of those hate messages for you.

1. I received hate mail from my youngest sister, telling me to "get some help you sick f**ng B**ch". I'm sorry you don't know how to spell those words and have to use symbols to help you out. I believe the words you were looking for are "fucking bitch".

Here are the definitions from dictionary.com:

fuck (fŭk) Pronunciation Key
v. fucked, fuck·ing, fucks

v. tr.

1. To have sexual intercourse with.
2. To take advantage of, betray, or cheat; victimize.
3. Used in the imperative as a signal of angry dismissal.

AND:

bitch

   /bɪtʃ/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [bich] Show IPA Pronunciation

–noun

1.	a female dog.

2.	a female of canines generally.

3.	Slang. a. a malicious, unpleasant, selfish person, esp. a woman. b. a lewd woman.

4.	Slang. a. a complaint. b. anything difficult or unpleasant: The test was a bitch. c. anything memorable, esp. something exceptionally good: That last big party he threw was a real bitch.

---

Please make sure you use the correct vernacular when attempting to insult me as a result of your denial. And also, if you do not intend to be subject to public ridicule in the form of a rebuttal, show some courage and let me reply directly to your email. Cowardice does not earn respect.

2. This same person sent hate mail to my husband, which is unforgiveable. And she did it twice. Let me answer those for you now.

Holly, I am not mentally ill. It is common for the family of the abused person to lash out when the truth is revealed. Your comment for my husband to keep me on a leash shows exactly how little you know about the bond of marriage. Although, having your own marriage fail, I can see how you would have no knowledge of such a bond.

As for your comments about us never even thinking about going to Minnesota or Chicago, let me say this. Nobody made you custodian of either place. You do not own it, you do not rent it, and you have no say over what we, or anyone else does with their lives. We will go where we please, when we please. There have been many times when we have been to both places and never told any of you we were there at the time, because we chose not to deal with you. Not seeing you in the future is no hardship on us. We chose this a long time ago.

3. Then there was the nastygram from my nephew, Joseph. To him, I say this. Joey, you're nothing but a spoiled punk without an authentic thought in his head. I'm glad you're out of my life, as I am glad that your alcoholic camera-whore sister, Nicole, is out as well. I choose not to have your influence in my life or that of anyone I love.

4. Then there was the nastygram left on my blog, from this Janet character, telling me all about how she and her mother LOOOOOOOOOOOOOVED my father and he was the "grandpa they never had". I'm glad for you. I'm glad you had to wipe his ass and clean up his vomit, as well as listen to his tired old stories of heroism of yore. As I remember, I thanked you for doing so at the wake. I would have signed his sorry ass over to the state and let them deal with his care. And that's the truth.

You wanted to know why I came to the funeral. To make sure the bastard was dead, of course. And also to see people that I knew I would never see again. I accomplished that. I established contact with the only "real" people I know, who are keeping in contact with me through letters and phone calls. All that you accomplished by writing your comments were to show that you did not know the true nature of the man. He was more than demented. He was vulgar. He was several different people, depending on who you were to him. Look it up in any book regarding sexual abuse. The abuser generally seeks one person out, and tries to cover for it with others. The victim is generally abused further from family when the truth comes out. Read the story about Ronald Gene Simmons, who murdered his own family, including his daughter that he had an incestuous relationship with, and a receptionist who had rejected his advances. This is the same kind of person my father was. When his hands were around my throat, choking me until I submitted, he was not the "grandpa" that you came to know. I cannot tell you how many times he backhanded me down a flight of stairs and then told everyone "she's so clumsy... she ought to be more careful". It was well known by the elders in the family what he was, and several of my cousins and my Uncle Jerry know of his abuse and intended abuse toward others. You are not family, and as such, your comments do not count. Even if you were, your comments do not eliminate the truth. Denial serves no purpose and attacks on me do not work.

As a result of all of these nastygrams, I will continue to tell the truth, only more so. It matters not to me if it disrupts anyone's version of reality. The fact is, that the only people that matter to me are the ones that accept the truth. Any comments to my blogs will continue to be moderated and shot down. Any comments to me or any of my Memphis family on Facebook will result in reports of harrassment and further written revelations. I have no qualms about pressing charges against people who have done me wrong. Wanna try me? My father was lucky I didn't have him prosecuted.

Nazdrovie'

Paczki Puta

Paczki Puta Tells The Truth About Her Father

I thought that I would finally tell all about my father. Those of you who are squeamish should get off this blog right now. And for those of you who refuse to believe the truth, God help you.

My father was a good father to me while I was young. I remember idolizing him, thinking him the most handsome, smartest, "bestest" dad in the world. But that was until I got to my teen years. My father turned into the worst kind of predator, and betrayed me in the worst possible way.

When I was about 14, I started to notice my father watching me. It was to the point of making me very uncomfortable. He would watch me change my clothes, through a slit in a door that wouldn't close all the way. I was becoming a young woman, and was astonished at the changes that were happening to me. One day, I was standing in front of a mirror in the bathroom, and was shocked to see some marks on my breasts that I had never seen before. I called my mother into the room and asked her what they were. She said she didn't know, and called my father into the room to look at me. Here I was, naked to the world, and she was calling him into the bathroom! He took a look at my breasts, and said "oh that's nothing... nothing that can't be taken care of through massage". And he put his hands on my breasts. I was horrified! I looked at my mother, who turned away and left the room, with my breasts in his awful hands! He told her that he would "massage" my breasts every night so the marks would go away. They turned out to be stretch marks, but he took that opportunity to start the abuse he had been planning since my body began to develop from a girl to a woman.

What an asshole. What a fucking asshole. I hate him to this day. And I'm glad he's dead.

Just as promised, he abused me nightly. He would wait for everyone to go to bed, and tell me to stay up. He would take me in the downstairs bathroom and put his hands on me, and it didn't end there. My father thought he was a great hypnotist and tried to use that crap on me. It didn't work. One day, I came home from school (I was in high school at the time and my first class was at 7:00am) and went upstairs to take a nap. He came in the room and tried to give me suggestions as I lay there, trying to sleep. He thought he would "hypnotize" me into submitting. As he whispered "you're getting sleepy" in my ear, I shot my eyes open and said "I'm AWAKE!!!" He left the room. But that didn't stop him. He would overpower me, get on top of me and shove his dick in my face. Mind you, it wasn't even large and definitely nothing to be proud of. Then he'd run his dick on me until he had an orgasm. Other times, he would shove my head down on his dick and force me to suck it until he orgasmed. Then there was a time when he brought home a porn film for me to watch with him so I would know how to please him. It was the worst kind of betrayal. I heard the cheesy music start, and I said "I don't want to watch this" and left the room. I used to wonder why he didn't do this crap to my sisters instead of me. Why ME??? What the hell had *I* ever done to deserve this??? NOTHING!!! I never had a boyfriend and didn't know what was happening to me or why. I wanted it all to stop, but it wouldn't.

It got to the point where I wouldn't wait for everyone to go to bed anymore. I went to bed early. I stayed in bed. I went out and stayed out. I did everything possible to limit the amount of time I had to spend with that asshole. I looked for a way out and considered suicide. Then I met my future first husband, and realized that he might be able to help me get away from my father and that abusive situation. My mother? Oh she hated me. She would hit me on the back as I walked up the stairs, hit me when I came around a corner, shout nasty things at me, scream at me. All because this fucking asshole she married was abusing me. What... did she think I was her COMPETITION???? I hated him. I still do. She would scream at me to pack my clothes and get out. I heard that all my young life. I swore to myself that when I was 18 years old and I knew they couldn't bring me back, I would leave the first time she screamed it at me and never come back. That's what I ended up doing.

One night, I came home from my future first husband's parents' house, and my mother was in a snit. She started screaming at me. She was telling me that I "couldn't go" over to "that boy's house anymore. He will come here." I said we were getting married. We had just decided it the night before. She started screaming again "oh you are, are you? Where's your ring!!!" What should have been a joyous moment was nothing of the kind. I wanted the screaming to stop, so I turned to go up the stairs to bed. She started screaming at me again, to go pick up my brother from work. I stopped in my tracks and for the first time, I realized that I couldn't stay there anymore. I was the family nigger. I was working full-time, paying "board", doing the cooking, the cleaning, the ironing, "servicing" my father, and being told I "couldn't" go out on dates unless my sister Cheri wasn't on a date. NO MORE!!! My mother's screaming never stopped. She screamed to pack my clothes and leave. I went back up the stairs, put on my coat, picked up my purse and keys, walked back down the stairs, waved "bye" and walked out the door. My mother was screaming "get her keys". I left anyway. I went over to Bob's parents' house, where he still lived. We called his parents, who were on vacation in Wisconsin, and asked for permission for me to stay, since I had nowhere to go. They were very nice to me and allowed me to stay as long as I needed to.

The next day, I went to work, in the same clothes that I had on the day before. My plan was to go to my parents' house after my mother left for work, and pick up my things. I went there, and found a note on the table in my mother's handwriting telling me to "come home and we'll talk". I turned the piece of paper over and wrote a letter on the back of it, so she would know I'd seen it. I told her that I wasn't coming back, that I'd had enough, that I'd been told one too many times to go, and I was gone. I took my clothes and my stereo, which was all I owned, and left.

A week later, my clothes were still in my car, when I got a call at work, from my father, telling me that they had taken my car while I was at work because they "pay the insurance on it". I talked to Bob and told him what happened. I asked him to take me to my parents' house after work so I could get my clothes. He agreed. So we pulled up in front of the house, in Bob's brother's truck, and I opened the trunk of "my car" and started taking my clothes out. As I did, I was converged upon by everyone in the house, including my mother. I took the keys to "my car" and threw it at the people in the yard, telling them that if the car meant so much to them, TAKE IT!!! Bob and I got in the truck and left.

A week or so later, I got a call from Aunt Shirley, asking me to come over and talk to her and Uncle Jerry. I did. They wanted me to go live with Busia, my grandmother, for the time being. I did. For a month. Then I found an apartment and moved out. I didn't make enough money for the rent, so Bob moved in with me and we got married a week later. There were 7 people at my wedding: Bob, me, his parents, his brother and a family friend. That was it. No ceremony, no music, no pomp and circumstance. I wore a green plaid dress that I had worn to a wedding. It was over quickly. Bob's parents took us out to dinner and they made a big deal out of it all. I remember there being champagne, and Bob's mother wore her mink stole. I never felt more special. THEY made me feel special. They gave me the love that my parents should have given me but denied me. It was December 14, 1973. I was 18 years old.

About a week after that (must have been around December 21) I got a call from my mother asking me to come for Christmas Eve, stay the night and stay with them for Christmas Day. I told my mother that I couldn't come. I had responsibilities now. I had married the Friday before. All hell broke loose then. It was a feeding frenzy that I wouldn't wish on anyone. There were constant phone calls to the place I worked, and my father would come there, trying to disrupt my workplace and get me fired. I finally told them to leave me alone... don't call me and don't come there. I was an adult and I was going my own way. My father told me I was dead to them.

The abuse... no, it didn't stop there. My father would come to the first house that Bob and I owned, during the day and try his bullshit again. I told him to get out. It got to the point that I had to pretend I wasn't home. I wouldn't answer the phone. I changed the phone number several times and kept the doors locked and the window shades drawn.

Bob and I divorced 7 1/2 years after we got married. I finally felt like I could make it on my own, and did. But the abuse didn't stop. I was invited to go swimming at my parents' house... my mother invited me. So I went... and what happens? My father comes behind me and unties the top of my bathing suit. I yelled at him and he laughed. Oh, it was all SOOOO funny, wasn't it? No boundaries. I tied my bathing suit again, and he untied it. This time I told him to keep his fucking hands off me. My mother was sitting right there. She didn't say a word.

I knew that I was going to have to get farther away from them than just Richton Park. When Steve came into my life, I knew that he would be good for me, and moving away from Chicago was what I was going to have to do. So I did. I moved to Memphis. I realized that I had to keep my sons away from my father, since I didn't know if he had "atoned" for what he did to me. So I kept them safe in Memphis. They grew up knowing what had happened to me. There are no secrets here. My mother and I made peace about 8 years before she died. We got close, but we never talked about what happened.

After my mother passed away, I got a call from my father, telling me he was ready to let go of some of my mother's jewelry, and he wanted me to come to Chicago to help take care of that, as the eldest daughter. I foolishly thought he actually wanted to be a father to me, so I went. And I went alone. I was very mistaken. He didn't want to give away my mother's jewelry, or have me there for any reason except that he wanted to see if I'd help him get his dick to work again, since he had his prostate removed and had all that radiation. I told him I was the WRONG person. He started telling me about the times that he had abused me and how those were "good memories" for him and he hoped they were for me too. I told him in no uncertain terms how what he did to me FUCKED ME UP for YEARS!!! He didn't say anything, but looked down. But that didn't stop him from trying to stick his tongue down my throat. I sat there in astonishment. He sat there in his living room at the condo, with his head hanging, and cried because he had taken Viagra and his dick just looked at the floor. I left in the middle of the night, and resolved to never stay in the same room with him again, much less under the same roof. I went home to Memphis and told Steve and the boys what had happened. If we had all been in Chicago, I'm sure my father would have been killed by my husband that night. As it is, I am settling for knowing that we have a very JUST God. He doesn't get mad, he gets even. He got even in the very best way. He took away my father's use of his dick. And since my father thought he was so smart, God took his brain later. Rest in peace, asshole. Good riddance.

And so... as a tribute to my GRANDfather... who was the only true father I've known, I sign my posts with...

Nazdrovie'

Paczki Puta

Addendum April 7, 2014:  I found out recently that I was not the first one to be abused by this awful man.  I sincerely hope I was the last.