You are all so kind. Thank you, thank you.

Christina, my sleep went haywire. Tired all day (but no napping), "woke up" at about 11 p.m. with all kinds of creative ideas that I HAD to work on. Wound up in bed at 2, tossing and jumping up to look for the moon. Strangely, it stopped being that deep orangey-red and was altogether obscured by the smoke. Kept looking for it...nothing. Very unnerving for there not to be a moon. Thank you, hun, for keeping me in your thoughts. That means a lot.

Vetigo, thank you...you are so kind. No, I'm not in the north Bay (where I wish I was today). I live in the hot valley between the Sacramento River and Cache Creek.

WC, you are so sweet and caring.

CantExplain, thank you for your kind encouragement.

TheSadGirl2, I love your post. And I appreciate it. Thank you.

pirilin, You are not only a tremendously gifted writer; you are able to cut to the chase (and it IS a chase!), while at the same time communicating a wisdom that can only come from the exploration of your inner world, and diving in to the true experience of life. Thank you. Yes - we will survive. We always have, after all. This is nothing new, old, or even middle-aged. It simply is.
Some day soon you should post a blurry pic of La Bruha, just so we can get an idea.
Thank you.

Apparently I plunged into the higher dose of Paxil way too rapidly and had a crazy reaction to it. For the past 2 nights I've dropped the dose a bit and feel substantially more stable, albeit, discouraged.

But the feeling of being discouraged has mostly to do with my husband of 35 years who seems to grow increasingly emotionally immature as each year falls away. His behavior of doing all he can humanely do to control me while his own life is pathetically out of control is truly wearying to me.

As for the trip to San Diego - meh. SD is gorgeous (for the wealthier population, anyway) - should you ever have the chance, go!- but I'd much rather travel northwest, to the Zen center (Green Gulch Farm), for example...a location where the coastal beaches are breezy and cool, not warm like SD. In addition, I would be genuinely afraid of leaving my cats alone for days. My apartment is not very secure, for one thing. I would be worried about someone breaking in through a window that doesn't properly lock.

This is a picture of the inside of my husband's house - a large house, every room like this, save for a tiny space in the kitchen where he sits to eat. This is how he lives. Each box is filled with books, but the house also contains a mountain of 100's of empty boxes and large sheets of plastic over boxes. The bright light in this pic is my camera's flash going off (because Lord knows, he does not dare open any windows, lest the neighbors see inside). I am, by some kind and loving virtue of the universe, quite the opposite of my husband. My little apartment is sparse and clean .