I love reading books. And the first time I ever went -- first time my mom ever took me to the library when I was a kid, I was probably, I don't know, eight, nine, ten, maybe. And the librarian asked me what kind of books I enjoyed, and I said horse books. And she took me to a shelf that had nothing but horse books on it. And I am pretty sure I read every single one of those horse books that were in that library. The first day, I took out four and read them all, you know in the two weeks that I could have them. And then went back and probably got four more, I don't know. But anyway, one of the, one of the series of horse books that I really, really liked when I was a kid were the Black Stallion books. And they were just amazing. I loved them all and got most of them from the library. But there was one year for Christmas -- my grandma lived in Florida, and Walter Farley who wrote the Black Stallion series also lived in Florida. And she bought a copy of his latest book and I, I can't remember right off hand which one it was. She bought a copy, a hard, a hardcover copy of his book and she had him autograph it for me. And I still have it here somewhere. And, oh! It was a prized possession, let me tell you. I was thrilled.

I proposed to my then-boyfriend on the dock. I think it was yesterday or was, has it already been two days? It's already been two days. So, two days ago, I proposed in the afternoon. It was like one of our best days. It was so hot, but once the start -- sun started setting, I told him I had a surprise out for him by the water. And I had written him a little poem, and I read it out loud. And then, of course, he said, yes. And then we both jumped into the water. And we thought the water would be really chilly 'cause it's been like below, below 55 degrees Fahrenheit in the water, but when we jumped in, it was so nice and so refreshing. And I, like, video taped the whole thing. Well, it was a time-lapse, but it was kind of funny. We're like, just running around in the video. And yeah. Then I made blueberry scones to celebrate the occasion. I told my mom and posted it to my socials 'cause I don't have any cell service over here, so, but oddly enough we have Wi-Fi. So I was using my Wi-Fi and letting all my friends know, and we were just getting so many congrats, congratulations and stuff. So, yeah, now we're engaged! It doesn't feel any different, obviously, and I wrote this in my poem, too, to him that, you know, nothing changes. It's pretty much just like, the name or the label that we’re putting it on to let other people know how serious our relationship is. 'Cause like, that's just how I felt. It's just so weird to be with someone that, you know, you're going to choose for the rest of your life and then but still call them like your boyfriend, you know, like when talking to other people or people who don't know you that well, and so it's nice to be able to say fiancé now to those people. Because it's just like -- it holds a different connotation to it, like it's more of a, a deeper commitment.  ‘Cause you never know, like, how long people have been together for, and if they say, “oh, this my boyfriend" or “this my girlfriend,” or even “partner.” Partner is even more ambiguous, I feel. So, just having that label of, like, with that whole --…

I just completed my last day of work and I am fully retired now. So I just wanted to answer the question about ending a chapter in your life, and, and, and all of those things that go with that. So, definitely ended a chapter in my life. Yesterday was my last day and it was a pretty emotional day. There was several things that happened during the week that were -- that added to that.  It was quite interesting because I was -- because I have 32 years of experience as a para in the school system and I've known a lot of people and I've done a lot of different roles. A lot of people just think I work with these high special needs kids, but I've done many, many things over the years and I've been in many teachers’ classrooms. With my students, I did captioning for hearing impaired students for a long time. I worked in emotionally impaired classrooms. There were lots and lots of things that I did.  So, um, I was invited to the staff meeting which normally I wouldn't attend but because they wanted to honor us and there were seven of us, so our principal had asked for a memorable moment, which was really kind of hard to come up with one moment out of 32 years that I really wanted to talk about. I wanted someone else to share. So, but she -- when it was my turn to go up, and she clearly had no idea what I did. It – she’d really never been in my classroom. We had never really had a conversation. She knew my name and that was about it. So, it was very interesting as she went and told these -- this roomful of people where two thirds of the people knew me way better than she did, telling them what I did and telling them about me. And it was, it was, it was pretty uncomfortable. And I just wanted it to go quick, and it went quick, and she mispronounced my name when she called me up to begin the -- So, but the funny thing was that -- and the rewarding thing was that night, a friend of mine who's an English teacher invited me to go out to a brew pub, our local brew pub, and -- after school and have…

I gotta go down on Monday and visit my friend [Name]. [Name] is a native of Moscow. And the story on [Name] is that his parents, his father was an engineering professor and his mother was an economics professor at a university in Moscow. And as a young boy, they thought that he should learn how to speak English. So he had taken English classes. And when he went through school, and he finished getting his doctorate degree in engineering, he wanted to go to an English -- to get a job in an English-speaking country. And somewhere, he found a directory and he wrote letters to everybody in that directory in, I think, Australia, New Zealand, England, and the United States, of course. And I received one of those letters. And I was involved in selling my product all over the world and the Russian market looked like it was just going to be -- start becoming available to the world. And so, I wrote him and answered his letter and said, "Hey, if you ever come to the United States, I sure would be interested in talking to you." And I got a letter back from him saying, well, he wasn't -- wouldn't be able to come to the United States unless he had an invitation. And, you know, that he would need an invitation from me to be able to come to the United States. So I wrote back to him and said, "Well, I'm gonna be at a trade show in Warsaw, Poland. And if you could come over to Warsaw, Poland, we could maybe work something out." So, I went to the trade show in Warsaw and [Name] came over there to visit me. And we made a deal that I was going to pick up his cost of coming to -- he was gonna meet me in Paris, at a trade show in Paris. And then after the Paris show, he could accompany me to the United States, and he would attend a trade show in the United States and he would be living with me at my home. And after, he'd have a six months tourist visa, in effect an invitation to visit the trade show in Las Vegas. So that's what we did, he -- I picked up his airline ticket and came to Paris. Got him another ticket into the US…

My car still had its snow tires on it and I wasn't getting them off until like, Tuesday of this week. So I was like, okay, we can't take my car on the highway 'cause like, it's gonna be bad with the tires. So we took my husband's car, which is an electric car. And I thought we'd be fine, range-wise. In fact, I'd even looked for a place we could probably plug it in on our way up there if we stopped for lunch. Um. But we didn't end up plugging it for, in for lunch, but we went about our business. I really wasn't thinking about it. And that night, my husband said, "You know, we're gonna have to charge the car before we get home," and I was like, "Oh yeah." Um, you know, and I didn't want to, I didn't want to have to like, be sitting in the car for like, you know, two hours waiting for it to charge and he said, "No, no, no, it'll charge really fast if you can find, you know, just find us one of those plugs that has the rapid charging." I went online to do that and realized only then that the -- so, my husband's car is a Nissan Leaf, and it uses, I'm not gonna pronounce this right, it's like, I'm gonna call it Chad Demo (CHAdeMO). I'm sure it has a different name, but its charging plug is, is a Chad Demo size, and, um, at the time the car was manufactured, I think they thought more cars would do Chad Demo. But then, and my husband said, GM came out with its electric cars, it decided to use the same kind of plug that Teslas use, and so now most charging stations don't do Chad Demo. And now, in fact, even Nissan now sells cars with like both plugs, so you can do the other one, but my husband's car could only do Chad Demo. And I went online to look, to see, and there were only two places in the entire city of Midland that had Chad, Chad Demo. And I was like, "Oh, great." So what I told my husband I'd do was, "Well, I will, uh --" We only had 48 miles of charge and, you know, we had to get home. It was like, you know, 100 miles or…

I guess the first time, ironically, I can think of that somebody suggested I watch something and I thought I would hate it, uh, I was, I believe, seven years old. And my parents didn't get to catch this in theaters, so they brought it home as a rental on VHS. Um, and it was the first time we had a rental where you had two, two tapes that you had to switch out at a certain point in the movie. And that movie was Titanic, which is hilariously ironic that I thought I would hate it, uh, because it is my favorite movie. I watch it multiple times a year. I have it on VHS and VHS widescreen. I have a fan cut that includes all the deleted scenes, um, on my PC -- can't currently access it.  Titanic, when I first watched it, I, I remember the opening scene being like the, the waves and, you know? And they have the, the logo for Titanic show up or whatever? I was like, “Ugh, I'm not gonna like this movie,” and as I watched it, it, it struck me for a few reasons. I really resonated with Rose because my home life was terrible. And I, I'm not sure if the movie affected me this way, or I was already affected this way and I understood the movie better, but my childhood very much was focused on if I can find a man that has the ability to take me away from this home life and start a new life together, I, I have hope. Um, I always fantasized about somebody taking me away from my home life and, and completely leaving it and finding myself as a person and being free to do the things that I wanted to do. Um, and Rose does that in the movie, and I always, I think, held on to that. And then, as I got older, I fell in love with the historical accuracy of Titanic. I, at this point, Titanic -- I could really go without the love story. I really could. I would've rather watched a Titanic, maybe, that focused on an actual survivor story. And that's something I have, I've always admired as well about the movie is the different true events that they cram into this movie. Um, you know, just, just, um, the couple that dies…

You know what happened the other day that was kinda weird? I was wearing my Eloy shirt. Eloy is a German prog band. I guess, yeah. They're prog, they're all kind of like hard rock, and psych rock and, um, apocalyptic rock. Eloy is really good. Highly recommend checking out Eloy. They’re like one of my favorite bands at the moment and they have been for a couple years now. Um, anyways, I was wearing my Eloy shirt and it just said Eloy on it, and, um, I was at a restaurant in Traver-- in Grand Rapids. And this woman kept looking at me. Like a older woman. And I'm like, "Why does this lady keep making eye contact with me?" And so then we ate our meal, and I went to go leave and I walked by her and she goes, "Excuse me! I was just looking at your shirt and, and I was --" Um, what did she say? "I was looking at your shirt, and I was wondering like, what does your shirt mean?" And I was like, "It's, it's a, a German rock band." And she's like, "Well, that was the name of my father. And I -- and when I saw it, I just really felt his presence in this restaurant," like, "And he's been with me all day and I've been really feeling him here, and to see you with his -- the shirt with his name on it… I've never seen anyone else with his name." And she like was tearing up telling me this. And she's like, "And they're a German band?" And I'm like, "Yeah, Eloy." And she's like, "Well, thank you," like, "Thank you for telling me," or whatever, and she was like really emotional about it. And I was just like, "Oh my God, that's so amazing…"

In 1973, the guy that I had gone with in high school decided to split with me, and I spent the rest of '73 and '74, and part of '75 dating different people. Not shocking. I was in college and I went to Michigan State, of course. And the summer of '74, I went home and I was working at the bookstore.  One day in the bookstore, a friend of mine from high school came in and he asked me out and I started dating him a little bit. I always had gone out on occasion with one of my childhood friends. He was the kind of friend of mine that on different parts of the year, we would do things together, and if neither of us had a date for an event that we needed an event, we would go with the others because we had been friends since third grade or something and our mothers knew each other. And it was one of those things where, "Yes, you can take [diarist's name] to your grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary because she will behave appropriately," or, "You can take [friend's name] to your cousin's wedding because he will, he will be fine," and that kind of thing. So, we, we dated.  There was a guy that decided that -- I had met him on our trip to Europe and he was in Detroit for something and he decided to come and visit me. So one Monday in the summer of 1974, the guy from my trip to Germany had made arrangements to come and see me, and the guy that I dated in -- from high school that I had met at the bookstore, he decided to come over. My friend [same friend’s name] got off work and he decided that maybe we could go to a movie. So he came over, and of course, you know, there's no cell phones, there's no text messages, people just show up at your house. And the guy that I had gone out with at high school and in Michigan State who lived in Ypsi was over in the area, and he decided to come by my house. So there were four guys trying to see me in one afternoon that I didn't work in July. My mother looked at me, and she said, "What the heck is this?" And I said, "I…