Killing My Sleep

Spring is here! Birds are chirping, the sun is out, and I have cabin fever.

While I've enjoyed seeing my friends immensely, living in suburbia for a few days seems so confining. Where are the raccoons, sandhill cranes, deer, armadillos, turtles, gators, panthers, bears, red crested woodpeckers and those slithery things that I would rather not see at all?

Harley dog is of course immensely happy to have use of our friends' fenced in yard and he wears their Shih Tzu doggy out completely with his constant-in-motion antics. He loves our 2 legged friends, climbing all over them trying to slather kisses on their laughing faces. 

At the last campground where I spent 4 months of winter, about 90 people knew Harley's name where as only 3 folks actually knew my name. He is a funny little dog, full of wonder and excitement. He wants to meet all the doggies and all the campers. he dances, he twirls, he baby crawls and if you come to visit, he will drag out all his toys one by one to show you.

Some days I think Harley should get a job as a teeth cleaner. Given half a chance, he will gladly attempt to clean your teeth. If that fails, then he tries to make you laugh and dodge his kisses. The more I say "Yuck! Doggy germs!" the more he tries to kiss and make me giggle. It's a game we play of me dodging his kisses while he tries to plant one.

Last night he was accused of stealing half a doughnut which made me angry that my little boy was being bad to the bone. I didn't see it, but he had telltale signs on his little face and my friend says he took it out of her hand. Like that bundle of fur and endless energy needed a sugar high! I have to keep telling my friends to stop giving him treats. I don't want a fat beggar for a dog. I make him sit calmly before he can have a special treat. My friends are just shoving them at him letting him leap and jump for food. I don't want him doing this! Tsk tsk tsk. 

I am just not sleeping well at night. The triple murders just frighten me. On the outskirt of this neighborhood is a retention pond surrounded by woods. In the woods is a shack where the 3 victims were living. The news continually refers to them as homeless or transients, but they were living in a shack and most of the neighbors knew they were there. They seemed harmless enough. 

I met one of the guys years back when I was living in my friend's garden in my motorhome. My friends would send me to the store to fetch their groceries at a small mall nearby. Also they would send me across the street from that grocery to another store. This guy and his dog was often sitting on the sidewalk at one place or the other. Never begging, just sitting there smiling with his dog. I would say "Hey, how you doing?" We might chat about the weather or the dog for a few minutes. He seemed more hungry for human conversation than anything else but he was pretty skinny, always smiling and he loved his doggy.

One day before I left, I took him a little care package with food for him and the doggy. I know all about tough times and wanted to spread the cheer. So many wonderful angels have helped me out in my time of crisis.

When I saw his picture in the news as one of the three victims, I immediately recognized his face. I didn't know about the shack because I never hiked around the retention pond in that area.

I used to walk all over the neighborhood with my doggy, but on this visit, I just felt plain scared. What kind of monster can shoot and kill three people? How can 16 officers show up after two 911 calls and not a single one of them looked in the shack? Sadly, one of the victims made one of the 911 calls and this info has just been brought to light.

Anyhow, I will climb off my soap box now.

Pray for peace.

I love my friends, but I am going to shorten my visit and travel soon, because I am a nervous wreck after dark. I just can't seem to sleep more than an hour or so, then I wake up at every little noise wandering if the killer is out there looking for more victims. I know my doggy is trying his best to protect me, but he can't seem to make me sleep. My eyes are baggy. I'm tired.

There is just this evil feeling like the killer is somewhere close by.