Stalking: The Gift that Keeps Giving

Last night, I had a nightmare about my stalker for the first time in over a decade. I thought I had written about my stalker in previous blog posts, way back in the beginning of my blog, but I couldn't find a specific post. It's more likely that I just made mention here and there in other posts.

My children refer to it as the period of time in which we were "hunted", which directly lead to the title of my book, Hunted Lyon. I thought I'd done a good job of hiding the stalking from the kids, but obviously failed.

My stalker was, as is most common, someone I knew and had had an intimate relationship with shortly after my divorce. We'd been friends and coworkers for a few years prior to the divorce. And, no, he was not the cause of the divorce, my ex-husband's alcoholism was, but he was the rebound. A much older rebound. Ugh. Such a dumb move on my part.

Anywhoozle, while he never physically harmed me, he did a job with PsyOps, and physically destroying my property. It started with the slashing of my tires. At the time, he played it off as the hero, that he'd come over to visit and just happened to find that all four of my tires on my minivan had been slashed. I bought it, hook, line, and sinker at the time, because we were still 'together' (I use that term very loosely). He was going determined to transition from working in healthcare to an executive protection specialist, and was taking classes through Executive Security International in Aspen. At the time, the courses were basically correspondence courses. Once all of the courses were complete, then students went to Aspen for a week-long 'resident training' for the practical application of what they'd studied. 

He had grand aspirations of the two of us opening our own business, and, in fact, had already started the S-corp, but insisted on putting everything in my name. At the time, I thought he was just trying to help me out as a newly single mother. As the primary business partner, he wanted me to do the classes 'with' him, even though I wasn't enrolled as a student. I read all the assigned reading, I did all the assignments. At the time, I was also a full-time university student carrying 16-18 credits a semester. But I found the ESI coursework interesting and blew through all of it quickly. He'd look over my 'assignments', make suggestions for improvement, as though he was the instructor. I was such a naive idiot and didn't realize that he was taking my work and submitting it as his own. 'His' work was good enough to earn him top grades in every class.

What does his earning his Executive Protection certificate from ESI have to do with his stalking? Everything. Because I'd 'taken' the courses 'with' him, it became a game of cat-and-mouse. After we broke up, and I told him I no longer wanted to see/talk to him, the stalking started in earnest.

Just a few examples of his actions:

• Took my dog out of our backyard when we were gone, then went to my neighbor's house and told her that my dog had been running free and he'd clipped my dog with his car. My neighbor was horrified, checked Jake over, and put him back in our yard. Jake had never escaped the yard prior to that, so when she told me he got out and got clipped, I knew something was amiss. Jake was also very protective of us and would never have allowed a stranger who supposedly hit him with a car close enough to catch him. I didn't have my phone number/address on Jake's tag, only his name, and his rabies tag on his collar. Only someone who knew Jake, and knew where we lived, could have done it. The shitty thing was, that I'd never told him that we'd even moved, much less where. This was before social media, so it was much harder to track people down.
• Trapped us in a drive-thru at McDonald's on the highway. I didn't recognize the car he was driving, and when he pulled off the highway behind us and into the McDonald's drive-thru, I didn't think anything of it - that particular location is incredibly convenient and busy at all times. When he parked in the line behind us and got out, I started telling the person taking our order to call the police. Multiple times. He approached, and I told him again that I didn't want to see or talk to him and that I'd asked for the police to be called. I had my gun with me, but it was in my soccer bag in the trunk of the car, where it did absolutely no good. I did realize, in that moment, that I could absolutely shoot someone who threatened me and my kids, and I'd do it with a clear conscience.
• Showed up at my door with his kick-me dog, trying to be cute and telling me that his stupid dog missed his 'mama'. By that time, I'd been to the police to seek a restraining order, despite my feelings about them. I didn't have enough evidence to obtain one. Of course I didn't, he'd never put hands on me, and I couldn't prove anything. The officer working the desk when I went to ask for a restraining order (who, ironically, knew both of us) told me to write a cease and desist letter and the next time he showed up, to give it to him. I handed him the letter, informed him of what it was, and told him the next time he showed up, I'd shoot him with the gun he bought me.

After I gave him the cease and desist, I never physically saw him again, though he wasn't out of my life completely. Before the kids and I moved from the duplex in which the whole thing began, but after I'd broken up with him, I got a call from the FBI. He'd been in Texas and caught their attention. He tried using our 'business' (that never really got up and running) as justification for whatever he'd been arrested for, so of course they called the business owner. I let them know that the business had been dissolved and we'd gone our separate ways, that he owed me a good chunk of money, and that last I'd heard he'd moved to Texas. The were pretty tight-lipped, but asked me to call them if he contacted me. Absofuckinglutely, I'd call them. 

A couple of weeks later, a check with a CD that he'd burned arrived. Not the full amount that he owed me, about half, but the minute I opened the check I was on the phone to the FBI. It felt a lot like hush money. Like he knew they'd eventually contact me and he wanted to be in my good graces when they did. Fucker. They took the CD and told me to deposit the check. If it cleared, it was mine since he owed it to me, but thanks for letting them know.

After we'd moved, to our new place, and I realized he was back in town and knew where we lived, I contacted ESI. I don't know much about how they do business now, but back then, if you were a graduate, and a client needed to hire someone, they would recommend one of their grads. I couldn't fathom allowing them to recommend him to anyone. When I called and spoke to the director, I laid everything out. He listened quietly, then told me that they were aware of his actions (probably from the FBI) and had blacklisted him, that they wouldn't even acknowledge him as a graduate.

The kids and I moved again, and I began to let down my guard. Over the years, I could feel when he'd been lurking about, but never again laid eyes on him. After a couple of years without feeling him around, I relaxed and allowed myself to believe it was over.

And it was.

Then, Nebalee (who also had her own stalker) asked if I ever Googled him to see what he was up to. I never had. I was happy to have the whole incident behind me. She cajoled me into doing a quick Google search, and my heart leapt for joy when I found he'd been dead for years. I can't find the newspaper obit, but he died alone in Canon City (the city, not the prison), with no one to claim his body. He had family, a brother, sister, and two daughters who had been no contact with him since before we met. That should have been a clue, but of course his story was that their mother kept them away from him. Oh my God, I believed anything that came out of that man's mouth. LOL.

And that brings us back to: WHY THE HELL DID I HAVE A NIGHTMARE ABOUT HIM? AND WHY NOW? He's been out of our lives for a long time, and dead since 2011.

Stupid brain, digging up old traumas.

More Spring Pretending (2/16/26)

When I ordered the flowers that I wanted from the "Goth Garden Bundle", I looked at flower heights, because I didn't want them to grow too tall. 

The seeds arrived and I went through them, reading the sowing instructions and plant heights to start planning out the flower beds. Well, one of the packages of flower seeds I ordered was Beaujolais Sweet Peas. Only then did I realize I misread the heights as 7-8 inches. In actuality, they grow 7-8 feet. 

I had already scrounged around and used all of the cattle panels and t-posts on the property, so since Mom was down with the truck last week to deliver the bunk beds, I asked her to stop by Tractor Supply to pick up a hog panel and some t-posts to build another trellis/archway.

Mom dropped me and my supplies off, then had to run off to meet Junior. Usually, I have Jay come help me when I'm putting up an archway, because I never really put any thought into doing it myself. I had run across a FB reel of an old guy demonstrating how to do it solo, and put my do-er pants on. 

Could I have waited until the weekend when Jay was home to help? Of course. 

Did I want my arch trellis put up Right Now? Of course. 

After watching the old farmer do it on his reel a couple of weeks prior, I decided I could do it my own self.

So I did.

Three quarters of the way complete, 
I needed a break.

Using the t-post driver while holding being backed into the hog panel to keep it out of the way was a lot more difficult than I'd anticipated. But I'm stubborn, and I wanted it done. After a short break, I got back at it, and got the fourth t-post driven and secured the panel to the posts with wire.

The posts on the left are not at all square.
I don't care :)

Now, I have to build the flower boxes to go around the base of the trellis and build the flower boxes that will be in front of Maggie. I left 40" between the trellis and the flower boxes, to match the spacing between Whimsy's tomato boxes and her trellises. It's enough room to walk between the trellis and box, but not so distant that it seems disconnected. I also was careful to make sure there was enough room between the front of the trellis and the barn (out of frame) to the right for a truck and trailer to drive through (the Bionic Cowgirl thought of that). It might be tight-ish, but it's doable.

Bunk Beds

We've had a set of bunk beds in our family since the Bionic Cowgirl was a kid, which makes them over 70 years old. She slept in them throughout her childhood, then when she had us, we all slept in them. I have some fantastic memories of these bunk beds, including some of my earliest memories.

Nebalee and I would jump from the top bunk down into Deejo's crib when we were wee ones, and the three of us shared a room. Gosh, I would have been five-ish, and we were living in a little duplex on the edge of town. That would have put Nebalee about two, so maybe she didn't jump with me, but just climbed up onto the top bunk with me. I definitely remember soaring from the top bunk to the crib more than once.

Then, when we lived in the yellow house that Mom and Dad built, we learned that if we laid perpendicular to the bed on the top bunk, we could lean over and grab the springs on the bottom of the bed, then roll out in a somersault, landing in a seated position on the bottom bunk. At that point, Junior was too young to join us, but Nebalee, Deejo, and I entertained ourselves for hours doing that. I can still feel the little butterflies in my tummy as I rolled off the bed. Eventually, I got a bit too big to do that, and stopped when I got my hair caught in the springs.

After my kids were born, and I left my first husband, the heathi slept in the bunk beds at the Bionic Cowgirl and Papa Bill's house. Unfortunately, the ceiling in the room they shared was too short to have them set up as bunk beds, and were broken apart into two twin beds. Once we moved back out on our own, the twin beds got moved upstairs to a bedroom big enough to stack them again, and the kids got to sleep on them when they visited. Digger swears he remembers falling off of the top bunk, but I don't, so it must not have traumatized me as much as it did him. LOL

When Mom and Bill bought the lodge, the bunk beds went with them, and lived in the apartment for 25 years. Many guests slept in those bunk beds over the course of that quarter century, but when Junior and Mrs Junior moved up to help with the lodge, they took over the apartment and the bunk beds came down.

Last weekend, they were loaded up onto the truck and moved to their new home with Digger and the Gremlin.

Digger and the Bionic Cowgirl with the official
passing down of the bunk beds.

Mom brought down enough bedding to make both beds, but Digger has plans to make that into a fort/reading nook for Gremlin, so we left it unmade. He's the fourth generation of kids to sleep on these beds and my heart is so incredibly happy.

The Gremlin was at his mom's house when we delivered and put up the beds, so it was a surprise for him when he came home on Tuesday and saw them. Digger was kind enough to take a video of his reaction, which was so sweet. Unfortunately, I don't know how to edit videos well enough to obscure the little one's face, so you'll just have to take my word for it that it was adorable.

This morning (2/19/26) Digger sent me a picture of Gremlin on the top bunk. He learned how to safely climb up to the top and was working on learning how to safely get down (until his Lola (me) teaches him how to somersault off!).

So proud of himself.

Four Years in the Making (2/9/26)

Almost, four and a half, actually. I started my aerial journey shortly after I turned 50, and I've loved it. In my mind, there's no better fun, full-body workout. It's increased my confidence in every aspect of my life.

I've played lyra (aerial hoop), dance trapeze, sling, and silks. I enjoy lyra, because of the immediate gratification I get from learning a new pose. Cool lyra poses require different grip strength, but I think I are easier to get into. I find lyra more of a mind game than a strength game.

I haven't played trapeze in a long while, because there just isn't enough interest to make a class worth it for the circus center. I completely understand, but I do love trapeze. Sling is great, and you can find a ton of videos online of people doing "aerial yoga" in a sling (hammock). But my heart has always been with silks.

Except that I'm terrible with silks. Rather, I was.

My heart has always wanted to play in the silks, but my body continued to fail me, so I'd take an intro silks class, get sad, and switch to lyra the next session. It was an unending cycle of back and forth.

One of the things holding me back with silks was my inability to climb. There are some fun things I could do from the ground, but getting up in the air opens so many more doors. I've kind of been bouncing back and forth between lyra and fabrics for a few years, but since last fall, I've been able to do session after session of fabrics, without interruption. I was also lucky enough, this session, to be able to afford to add in a second class - lyra - so I'm at the circus center twice a week.

What a difference being able to attend two classes a week has made in my strength with both apparatuses. I've been diligently working toward my Russian climb for the past few sessions, and, after four-plus years of failure and frustration, I finally got it!

First step

There's two!

Three! I'm actually off the ground!

I was beginning to think I'd never get it, but determination (and some really sticky rosin) paid off! I also was able to do it with my left side, but only two steps. I'm so incredibly happy and proud of myself for sticking with it. And I'm so thankful for an instructor who continued to work with me and encouraged me to keep at it. She never once made me feel stupid or less than for not getting this very basic skill.

I'm excited to get back to silks on Monday and give it another go, just to prove to myself that it wasn't a fluke (even though I climbed and climbed every chance I had last class).

Pretending It's Spring (2/8/26)

The weather is feeling much more like April than February, and we haven't had a winter to speak of, so it's been really hard to fight off the itch to start planting. Sunday was in the 60s, and I needed to go play in the potting shed.

I secured the roof a couple of weekends ago (as secure as it can be until Autobot and Co. come to seal it and put in a ceiling), and I've been itching to do some decorating, so that's what I did. I putzed around in Maggie, and had a grand old time. I've been squirreling away decor for a while, and I wanted to get it put up.

Back in December, I think, I saw an ad from Botanical Interests for their "Goth Garden Bundle" and it spoke to me. By the time I decided I needed it, the bundle itself was sold out, so I looked at their list of flowers, and individually ordered the ones I wanted for Maggie's flower beds. Not that she has flower beds, but by God she's getting two - one on each side of her door. I took a look at the stands in front of one of her windows and decided that if she was going to have a goth flower garden, then those needed to be black. But not just black, shimmery black. After all, Maggie is the Magical Potting Shed.

I forgot true "before" pictures, so here's the "oops I've already painted
one" picture.

The iridescent coating doesn't show in pictures, but
it's really cool in real life.

Last night, I had to put some cardboard in Maggie, and just stopped and stared at the new paint on the plant stands. I really do love them.

My friend Amanda gave me a little garden gnome a couple of years ago for Whimsy, but Whimsy's so blowy that I knew he'd disappear, so I kept him in Maggie. When my work friends and I put on Maggie's roof, one of my friend's son built my gnome a little home in the wall. I had Autobot and Co. build his house into the wall when they insulated and put up the inner walls. One of the things that I've wanted to do was to dress up my little gnome's home (Clancy's his name, after my young friend who built the gnome home).

The dollhouse door I bought was a bit too tall,
so Jay helped me disguise the fact by adding
decorative bark and moss.

I'm not sure why the trim didn't fit around the door
once we'd placed it, since it fit perfectly when I pieced
it together in the house. <shrug>

If you look closely, you'll see my little gnome
is well-read, with a bookshelf full of books.

A bit of sparkly blue "Unicorn Spit" gel stain
makes Clancy the Gnome's house pop.

It looks pretty dark in Clancy's house, so I have some battery-operated fairy lights on order that will help make it look less cave-like. 

With Clancy's house done, and the plant stands outside drying, I got to hanging things I've been saving. One is a mirror that I asked Mrs. Deejo to make for me when I started building Maggie. In case you can't read the mirror, it says:

I made it through my Fuck Off Forties

And I'm halfway through my Feral Fifties

Heading into the Sea Witch Sixties

Swamp Queen Seventies

Eat Me Eighties, and the

Naughty Nineties

The future is looking bright, kids.

I've had that mirror wrapped in it's bubble mailer, hidden in the potting bench since we brought the potting bench up from L.E.'s basement and it feels good to have it framed and hanging.

L.E. framed this puzzle for my birthday last year, said
she thought it would go perfectly in Maggie, and she was right.

Ashinator and I went to on a mother/daughter date
where we painted Tairn and Andarna from Fourth Wing.

Jay gave me the little Potting Shed sign when I started building
Maggie. Candelabra was taking up too much space on the
bench, so I threw up a quick corner shelf for it.

A friend gave me the shelf, that I then painted purple. I got
the dragon for Christmas, and he'll go in with the flowers this spring.
The gaudy wine glass thing was picked up at Goodwill because
it makes me smile.

My Amanda gave me this amethyst geode.

My Harry Potter mini-verse potions also make me smile.

After I was done puttering around, I just sat in Maggie and enjoyed the peace. I love being surrounded by things that remind me of people I love, and by putting little pieces that they've given me into Maggie, it certainly makes her feel magical.

Hypokalemia and The Pitt

Two Thursdays ago, The Pitt, season 2, episode 3 aired. I didn't get a chance to watch it until Friday night.

ICU life with HypoKPP

Now, let me say, I love The Pitt. I love the format in which each episode is one hour of a fifteen hour shift. I loved E.R. back in the day as well. Both shows are insanely medically accurate, which is a pleasure to watch. And, funnily enough, both shows have had a patient with hypokalemic periodic paralysis. I'm always thrilled when Digger's disease is named, because it brings attention to his (mostly) invisible disease. When I first saw the episode, I texted Digger that he was going to love it when had a chance to watch it. (For a refresher on Digger's disease, click here and here.)

He did not love it, and with good reason. He said, "look, my disease is already a zebra, they didn't need to paint more stripes."

As his mom, I was just happy to have his disease mentioned, as it's rare (1 in 100,000). I've spent my time educating medical professionals about the disease, and I love to see it mentioned in an arena in which I know other medical professionals are watching.

When I asked him to explain why he hated it so much, he had some well-developed thoughts.

• In the episode, as they're going over the results, they said the patient had a potassium level of 1.2. Digger's lowest ever was 1.6 and they were planning intubation. The lab techs actually visited him in his ICU room, because they couldn't believe that he was awake and talking with a K+ level that low. His body is well accustomed to low potassium level; someone who has never had an attack would be dead with a K+ level of 1.2. Digger did a little bit of digging, and there is a woman with the disease who has survived a K+ level of 0.9.
• The two times his disease has been mentioned (ER and The Pitt), it's always a "drop attack", where the attack came out of nowhere. Those are so exceedingly rare that they're practically non-existent. In our experience (and that of Digger's entire paternal family), attacks are brought on by stress, sleep, hormone disturbances, food choices, etc. Hormones play a huge part in frequency of attacks, so most attacks begin in adolescence, then subside throughout the mid-twenties and thirties, only to come back again with a vengeance in the mid-forties.
• It's been a few years since I checked for any new/updated information on the disease and I was interested to see that there is a thyrotoxic form that effects primarily Asian males. I believe that's what the writers were aiming for, but they blew it. Let me explain: in the episode, as they were talking about the patient, they mentioned it was hereditary. Digger's biggest beef with this, is that unless the patient was adopted, someone in his family had to have had the disease and they would have been aware of it. The doctors go on to mention the thyrotoxic component of the disease. What it feels like to me is that the writers skimmed the overview of the disease, saw 'hereditary' and 'thyrotoxic' and mushed them together. Thyrotoxic hypoKPP and hereditary hypoKPP are two different things. Is the outcome of paralysis the same? Yes, but the etiology is quite different.

After speaking with Digger, I completely understand his frustration. He was very clear, and correct, when he said they treated his disease, which has greatly impacted his life, as a prop, and failed to bring factual representation of it.

I get it, and he's right. Just because the disease was mentioned, does not mean it was represented appropriately, and did not bring awareness to it.

I watched last week's episode, hoping to see a resolution for the patient, but that hour of the shift did not deal with it.

Bonsai Bar with Nebalee

I've probably talked about it before, but I prefer to give experiences as gifts rather than things. So for Christmas, I gifted Nebalee a sister date at a bonsai bar event. It looked like something she and her green thumb would really enjoy, and any time I can force sister-time, I'll do it. We don't get to spend nearly enough time together anymore.

The event was held at a brewery located between our two houses, so it was perfect. They provided everything we needed, and had 'extras' for sale. When we first got there, we were told to pick a tree that spoke to us. Now, a couple of years ago, I would have laughed at that, but now that I'm attempting to be a gardener, I listened and one chose me. 

We used dwarf jades for our bonsai.

The next step was to name it. Huh. Most of my plants have names, but the little tree hadn't given up his name yet. I told Nebalee that he would tell me eventually. Also, odd that the tree is a he, since most of my plants are female, so I guess he was talking to me a little bit.

Getting ready to dig in.

He didn't want to come out of the pot, but when he did, he reminded me of a Mandrake from Harry Potter. Minus the screaming, thankfully.

I imagine this is how we both looked once
I wrested the tree from his pot.

Everyone, meet Mandrake, Drake for short.

The hardest part, for me, of the whole endeavor was scraping away the dirt and loosening the roots. I'm always afraid I'll hurt the roots and kill the whole plant. Once we'd freed the roots, it was time to put them in their pots.

Again, we had to make decisions. Turning the plant this way and that, we had to decide which was the front, then decide how we wanted it in the pot: straight up and down, or at an angle? So many decisions.

I wanted Drake to be at a sharp angle.

Drake did not, so this is our compromise.

Nebalee's tree, Jasper, liked the angle.

This is a bad picture, but Jasper has a much
more dramatic angle than Drake.

If I thought just repotting was hard, and had a lot of decisions to make, I was in for an awakening! The first prune was easy: trim the leaves a quarter of an inch from the trunk of the tree so we could see the 'bones' of the tree. Then, the decisions got progressively harder: choose one of two opposing limbs to cut off, then start thinning the crown and determining a shape for your tree. 

Fully planted, packed in diatomaceous earth,
ready to begin pruning.

Opposite branches pruned, ready to start the crown.

Once the crown was thinned to our liking,
it was time to shape the tree with wires.

Done. Drake on the left, Jasper on the right,
extra cuttings in the back.

I'm not in love with Drake's shape right now, and would have loved to add more swooshes to his branches, but I'm afraid of hurting him. Once he grows a bit more, I can adjust the wires to give him more shape.

We gathered up some of the cuttings to take home to try to plant some 'mame' (mini bonsai). Of course, the instructors were willing to sell us cute little mame containers for once they rooted, along with the drip trays for underneath our pots, and some special fertilizer. Nebalee took the cuttings home, and she'll be in charge of getting the mame started.

I was worried about where I'd keep Drake, especially when I heard the care instructions. I don't have a lot of sun windows in my house. I initially thought he'd be great in Maggie, but it turns out that she's not quite right for him. Maybe this summer he can go live in there, but even with all of the insulation, she'll still get a bit too cold for him in the winter. I ended up moving my Puerto Rican oregano from my bedroom plant shelf into the kitchen and put Drake in its place, next to my failing succulents.

I wasn't sure how well he'd like it, but the other day, when I was watering him, I saw new growth!

Now, of course, the question is, so I let him keep his new buds, or snip them and force him to continue to establish his roots. Okay, that's not much of a question, because I know the answer, but I'm loathe to clip those cute little buds. I'll give them until his next watering before they get sacrificed for the greater good.