I wanted to use this forum to remind myself of the important things that happened in 2024. I decided to break ties with American Airlines because of the irritation I felt over the stupid contract they forced me to sign and sign again and again over and over. So I doubled my day-rate knowing that would end our relationship and apparently it did. I say apparently because I received a note/email from Steve saying they would not pay my new rate. That's all it said. Nothing formal just that they wouldn't pay and then I never heard from Steve again. No calls to see how I'm doing or to check to see if I'm alive or dead, just nothing. Another so-called friend is gone. I'm used to this type of thing but it still is disappointing to realize how few real friends there ever are. So there's that.
I do still hear in 2024 from Tim Auman regularly and Jose Gant from my TV days and it's always nice to hear from them although the calls from Jose seem more mechanical than the ones from Tim where we talk about so many things and it seems very genuine and like a real friendship so I'm very grateful for that.
Wednesday, April 17, 2024, one of the most loving and best friends I have ever had, passed away. My neighbor's cat Ruben. Maybe he was just a cat to many but to me, he was much more than that. Ruben stuck by my side every minute of every day throughout my journey to find a way to live after Mom passed away. Might sound weird to some but he knew I was having a rough time and would insist on laying on my lap and just looking at me. He would sleep on my lap and the times he would lay in the chair beside me, he would watch me looking directly into my eyes as if he knew I wasn't doing well. That animal was connected to my soul in a meaningful way and I will miss him the rest of my life.
August 22, 2024, I was shocked to learn my blood sugar says I have type 1 diabetes. Wow. Not what you want to hear when you already have kidney disease but both of those usually end up together as a one/two punch and here they are. This day I went into attack mode and went from not walking much at all over time to 11,000 steps. I threw away the bread I had and the potatoes and went from eating whatever I wanted and whenever hungry, to eating once a day vegetables and chicken breasts I cook in the air fryer. I walk every day now and try my best to get in 3 to 4 miles a day but it's still 100º and tough to keep it up when it's that hot but I'm doing better than I expected. I brought Mom's treadmill over for days when I didn't feel like getting outside and I've dropped 15 pounds. We'll see how this all goes but knowing I'm completely alone in this world I realize that I can either give up or take charge and that is what Mom always wanted me to do with my health. So there's that..
August something, 2024. I'm going through contacts on a new iPhone and I run across an old friend I used to talk to many years ago and hadn't heard from. She was an older woman and her and her husband had befriended me during my days shooting for the Business Press. Unbeknownst to me they were a very wealthy couple and just great people who for whatever reason had taken me in as a friend. I decided to Google her name honestly thinking of how old she would be today and as I feared might be the case, she had passed away 2 years ago. This was one of those wishes I would have called and kept in touch things we all do when we let things go for too long and then it's too late. Her husband has passed away a year or so before her and now they are both gone.
September 17, 2024, Bobby and Linda. I got a text from David saying he needed to update me on things with them. Turned out that the boys decided to place Bob and Linda in an Alzheimer's care facility for a 3-month tryout taking them from their home and telling them they were going to a place where they could get more care and not necessarily that they would be living there. This had to be one of the hardest things the boys have ever had to do in their lives. My overall feeling is that assuming it's a nice place with nice caring people, this is probably best for them. David says the visit they had there was good and they liked the people so with prayers for God's hand in this and what David thinks, Bob and Linda will hopefully accept it and feel good about it. That is yet to be determined as this only happened 2 days ago.
I put a call into Judy who is Lind's sister in Oklahoma to let her know and it took 3 calls and 2 texts to get her. Told her what I knew and the location of the place etc and then as per usual we got into it over the dumbest of things unrelated to Bob & Linda and she ended up hanging up on me which was the last straw for me. It was right then that I decided that my relationship with her was never going to be worth the irritations and tension and I wrote to tell her I was done with her. I blocked every avenue for communications to seal the deal and that was that. Hard as it may seem to let a so-called "friend," go as I've done MANY times, letting a sister go is on another level but it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.
2024 has a little over 3 months left in it and the upcoming election if I were to gauge it by what has happened so far, has the makings to cap off a miserable year.
I have removed another thing from my life this year and that is the saying, "Well, it can't get any worse."
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