Yesterday started with some good news! I had calld my Drs office the day before when I remember that I had had blood labs done the middle of Febuary. Hey, I didn\’t obsess on my counts for 22 years or even when my t-cell dropped low enough to resemble a game of PONG (ask your parents what PONG was kiddies), so I figure why obsess on em now. ANYway, tthe Doctors office called back the next day and told me that my VL is still udetectable as it has been from about months four of therapy , but that my t-4s have climbed to 293…..that was nice news considering that my average count for 22 years was about 200 with the lowest being 104 just before I began meds last August…it was a very good way to start the day….

I don\’t know if I twas a glow I had on, whether I was wearing my "angel wings"  as my husband puts it , or my  my flashing "freaks and psychotics welcome" sign. In running errands I didn\’t make it to the supermarket until 5pm, probably the worst time possible if you don\’t do well with crowds. There was a time when a crowd of feral howswives stalking groceries would have sent me into a cold sweat and probably right  back out the door. I worked in the nightclub industry for over 15 years and during that periosd did my shopping at 2 or 3 am on my nights off. The vampire life is behind me now but sometimes the residual people allergy kicks in when I  least expect it. Here\’s the contradiction: I love people….but at the same time they give me the willies….Adam says that i could strike up a converasation with Satan and end up trading recipes…I just can\’t seem to avoid making eye-contact with people and there is an energy that passes form me that seems to make total strangers want to talk to me. ( by the way folks , this isn\’t  "crusing" in the traditional sense although it has been mistaken for that more than once. Now , this can be fun when it\’s an Ansley or Dunwoody housewife who can go home and tell everybody that the pierced freek gave her this *fabulous* recipe…..but when it\’s a clearly Loony-tune delusional Poptart who joins me on the subway and opens with the line " GOD told me to come sit beside you!"…it can be a bit taxing to say the least ( note to self : dig out that great pair of shades I like).

ANYway, as I was entering the supermarket, Miss Barbara was just leaving on one of the Hoverounds that the store provides.  Miss Barbra is in her 70\’s and her only living relative is a parasitic brother who only visits her when he needs money.  I met her at thh dry cleaners last year and from what I\’ve learned, she used to have a government job and now lives on a fairly comfortable pension. I have been in her house twice and I am not exadurating when I say that it  literally looks as if someone threw a bomb into a dumpster….Not being ugly…just accurate. Miss Barbara is a compulsive horder. I\’ve been oround the block o few times and the only time I have ever seen a place that looked this bad was years agos when I had a boyfriend that was a young Nam Veteran. It is nearly undescribable but you get the picture. From what my drycleaning lady tells me, she rents another house JUST for her cats…dozens from what I understand….I don\’t plan on going there caus ei\’m sure it must look something from that Animal Planet show : "Animal Precinct"  I somehow took Miss Barbara under my wing this winter when she got a cronic upper-respiratory infection. Her doctor gave her a perscription fir a Nebulizer treatment but according to her, the heathcare nurse that was supposed to come and tell her how to use it, never showed. Since I had several friends who did Pentamadine treatments back in the old days when Pneumosistic Pneumonis was taking so many of us out, I was  pretty sure that I could teach her how to use it….which I did….I oversaw a few treatments but I don\’t thing she folloed up with the regimen as she still has a disturbing cough and congestion. Adam tell me that I can\’t take it all on, but still I worry. Her central heat doesn\’t work so I took her a spare space heater; One that looks like a radiator but is filled with oil….It radiates the heat thru heating the oil inside soat least  there is no danger of her house going up form all the garbage/stuff heaped up waist deep in every room…one less worry. Whe I went to chek on her recently….there was the heather …in her kitchen…..being used to DRY CLOTHES that she hand washes in her sink! The kitchen WIndow was open and it has been in the 20s at night so I went to close it. SHe said " Oh no!  don\’t close that, my cats won\’t be able to come and go if you do!"  I am beginning to wonder if Miss Barbara is experincing some early  senile dementa or maybe even Alzstimers……by the way….she DRIVES and we all say a prayer when she passes by….She owns* two* cars because when the first one became too filled with newspapers, crap and trash….she bought another one, which is now filled to the brim as well…..I have knocked around the idea of contacting social services but I have absolutly no right and maybe I should  just mind my own damned business….Confliction…

Miss Barbra and I cleared a spot at the top of the heap to make room for her groceries and I really half expecedt a cat to come out of the heap and claw my (good) eye out….after she got behind the wheel I gave her a kiss.. As I watched her dive away, the rear of her Lincoln nearly dragging the road under the weight of the dumpster-on-wheels, I said a silent prayer….

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I had clmbed onto the HoverRound to drive it back into the store, when a sharp voice said  " Hey, Mister…..MISTER!……Can I axe you sometin? …HEY!  I KNOW you can hear me so DON"T be actin\’ like you DON\’T !!……………..

.*sigh*  Oh boy,  I could tell it was going to be one of those days, so I adjusted my aluminum hat ; you know,the kind you wear to keep out the alien transmissions, and turned around……

…to be continued after I go rescue a stray crackhead out of a tree….