Happy Holidays and all that stuff.

Hi Steve,

I've been absent for a few days.  My life has been rather chaotic lately.  Sorry about that.  Holidays suck.  I told Pete, "Next Christmas, I swear to GOD, your mother better be DEAD, and MY mother had better be in England living with my sister, and YOU will take me on a goddamned trip to a BEACH, do you hear me?!! I'm NOT DOING THIS CHRISTMAS SHIT next year."  Yeah, bah humbug.

Been working on the Christmas cards...I always create some kind of newsletter, to send along with the card, but our printer was on the fritz and tonight was FINALLY the night I could get them printed and stuffed into the envelopes.  Gotta mail 'em all tomorrow.  I hate waiting until the last minute for stuff like this, though.  I had this newsletter all done and ready to print for 3 weeks!!  GAAAA!!!

Anyway...

So I just read my Facebook, and saw that Journey is going to be on the Extreme Makeover show.  I laughed myself sick when I read a comment left on the Journey Facebook page, regarding this announcement, from some guy who wrote, "And after that, a new episode of "Home WRECKERS," starring Neal Schon!"  Ahhhhh yes, good times.  Ya gotta love razzin' that guy, he just makes it so damned easy to do.

I just received my AUTOGRAPHED Greatest Hits 2 CD from your ole buddy, Steve Smith.  He charged $15 bucks, I wrote my name on the online form, he signed the CD to me, and it was in my hands 2 days later.  Now, tell me how a $10,000 phone call can beat that?!  Seriously!  I mean, come on Stephen, TEN GRAND?!  Really?? To talk to you for just 15 short minutes?!  Don't you think that's just a bit bizarre?!  Have you actually MADE that phone call to the lucky bidder yet??  I'd love to be a fly on the wall for that one.  There would be some heavy sexy breathin' in your ear if it were ME, ya know.

Ah well, I can afford $15 bucks for an autographed CD at least.  Smitty deserves a bit of the cash from GH2, too, don't you agree?  Or will you now charge HIM ten grand just to do that?! heheheheh I like to razz YOU too, ya know.  And dammit, you gotta admit, I'm pretty good at it.  But that's just cuz I love ya.  You know that, right?  I mean, GEEZOPETE Bubba, I tell ya nearly every friggin' day, you really should know that by now, for cryin' out loud.

So this week has been "Florence is a royal pain in my ass" week....I didn't get the memo, so I was caught off-guard.  I am just beyond sick and tired of that woman.  I've been so damned stressed out lately, that my friend Lisa invited me for a "girls day out" today, to go shopping and have lunch.  I needed that.  In fact, I said "to HELL with my diabetes," and we went to a bakery, and got ourselves an awesome sugar-buzz.  But, I swear it's not the sugar that'll get me, it's the stress that will kill me.  I just cannot handle this caregiver stuff.  It's unbelievably hard. One minute, I feel so much compassion for her, at how frustrated she feels, how she is losing her memory and her mind more and more rapidly as each day passes....she is afraid....she needs a lot of reassurance...

--------GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!

Ya know, every time I get to sit my fat ass down at this goddamned computer to write to you, PETE INTERRUPTS ME about 50 times.  It drives me up the friggin' WALL.  "Print some more newsletters, and bring them downstairs..."  "Why did you hand-write the return address labels?"  "What did you want to add to so-and-so's card?"  "Where is your list?"  GRRRRRRRRRR.  Leave me alone for 15 friggin' minutes, WILL YA please?!!  Cripes.  This is the only real "fun" I GET.

And lately, I haven't really been having much fun with it.  Oh, it's not your fault or anything, it's just sometimes, I run out of interesting stuff to write that might make you smile or chuckle, or just enjoy.  I'm feeling like the life is being sucked outta me, and at the end of the day, I am just drained completely.

AS I WAS SAYING.....

One minute, I feel so much compassion and empathy and sadness for Florence, and the next minute, when the "evil twin" comes out, I want to strangle her to death because I hate her guts.  Ya know??  She can really be a bitch on wheels when she wants to be, and I know DAMNED WELL that she still knows right from wrong, and she KNOWS when she's being a bitch on wheels too.  But what can you do, really??  I mean, I'm not going to strangle her...but I think what I AM going to do, is contact a place that sends home healthcare aides to babysit your elderly relatives on occasion, and get that started soon.

Anyway, I gotta go.  Sorry I'm not more entertaining this time around.  I owe ya.

By the way, I definitely AM going to send Lora that Journeyopoly game for your birthday.  What you decide to do with it, I will respect and accept.  But if you don't actually DO IT, then you're an idiot.  And it's really really HARD to respect an idiot.  So don't make me bite your face off, okay??  Just do it.

Love you to pieces, you sexy singer-man.  I wish I could fly to San Diego, show up on your doorstep unannounced, and plant a big, wet, sloppy kiss on your silly mug in person, and then hide from the rest of the world with you for awhile.

Love, Rebecca