Maybe you really like hazelnut syrup in your coffee but for me it reminds me of when I was sodomized in my early 20’s. This weekend my hubby & I have talked about my life in the early 20’s & the trauma I have survived. It was a tough conversation but a productive one. In the age of men like Kavanaugh it’s time to get real about rape.

It happens to 1 out of 3 women in their lifetime & it happened to me & my rapist contacted me almost a decade later thinking he had done *nothing* wrong. Something that speaks volumes about current American society. Blasey Ford had guts just like Anita Hill before her. Rape is destructive in the most elemental way. It effects how you view yourself & your body.

I cried in the shower when I was raped & he acted as if he was doing nothing wrong. I now have come understand that he wanted me to wash off the evidence so I wouldn’t have been believed if I had gone to the police. In the 1990’s I was persuaded to not go to the police so I wouldn’t be re-traumatized again by the system.

I can’t handle water from the shower on my head if I am bent down, it triggers flashbacks, however I don’t get emotional over the flashback thanks to years of therapy but it’s very uncomfortable. I don’t always like to wear skirts as I view it as a way to be violated on public transit. I do now, but in the US it made me very uncomfortable at the end.

Rape is Rape and NO means NO-and if a woman shifts her body weight or tries to take away your hand, you should probably STOP. Verbalizing NO when being over-powered is scary because you don’t know how your NO will be taken. It should be taken simply. NO.

Trying to figure out what our petsitter did or did Not do while in our apartment. However, everytime I try to bring up the issues with her she has gaslighted the convo. I have not experienced the kind of toxic, melodrama since college. Her unprofessionalism & sheer lack respect for Flekk or our space has been astounding.

To name a few things she did, she cut the tags off a pair of Very expensive hiking boots and wore them. She tried on my clothes, opened a package of expensive tights & stretched them. She helped herself to a pair of expensive gore tex sneakers & claimed that she had “accidentally” packed them.

Flekk’s favorite moose is gone, several towels went “missing” after she took care of him. Instead of refilling the soap dispenser I had she tossed it. She took 3 unopened packages of cotton rounds from under our sink in the bathroom.

I had put my tablet in the safe & we had hid it, when we came back she had opened the box I had put the cords in & I found it opened. She put our expensive wooden kitchen utensils in the dishwasher. The sheet I had washed prior to leaving she left in the washing machine soaking wet. We had to wait to get our sheets when we came home after an entire day of travel.

She has the keen inability to NOT admit fault, or replace anything she took or went missing. I think she finds this kind of behavior a form of normal, because No one has the guts to ask her outright when she steals. I don’t think what she did in our place is new, I think it’s been normalized which means she won’t admit to anything she does wrong.

I feel sorry for her. To live a life of lies and conning & stealing. Really isn’t a life at all.

So,we were in Portugal for nearly 2 weeks, the trip was without a hitch until 48 hours before we left when I got food poisoning like I have Never had before. I got really sick & it took me almost a week to recover. Portugal was beautiful though, dusty but beautiful & my favorite part was the Southern coast where we went dolphin watching & had some really good food.

We brought our own water bottles something that saved us more than once, we would fill them every morning in the hotel & drink them all day long. Something that felt much better than purchasing water all the time. We took a tuktuk & thought we would die on the way to the apartment we stayed in. Everything close to Lisbon was mobbed so being on the Southern coast was nice.

I adored the small town of Obidos where we ate at a very famous bakery, & it was soo cheap. Amazing but cheap. It took us 8 hours to get to the Southern coast, as we took the train & buses. We stayed @ an excellent hotel with a fab front desk. The airport of Lisbon is not very safe but I didn’t feel comfortable using my wallet until we were by security.

It was way too hot in the 30’s everyday so it’s great to be back in rain & 12 degrees. We had a good vacay, all but the food poisoning @ the end but I heard it’s really common to get it. Thank you Portugal for a great vacation.