Life

My Dream Itinerary

San Francisco
New York
Raykjavik (Iceland)
Amsterdam (Netherlands)
(London)
Paris -- Nice
Barcelona (probably Madrid too - it's early in the trip *and* it's SPAIN!)
Rome  (maybe drive/train from Barcelona along the French & Italian Riveras to Cinque Terra, then to Roma)
Malta
Athens (insert greek island(s) here)
Ankara (Turkey)
(Istanbul)
Bangkok
Krabi
Singapore
Jakarta
Sydney
Auckland
Nadi (Fiji)
Papeete (Tahiti)
(Los Angeles)
Honolulu
Hilo (I want to see volcanoes.  That's right.  I'm an ARIES!)
San Francisco

(denotes additions to my itinerary by the trip planner; not on the original tour)

Sunday night I cried, weeped, bauled, lost it.

I couldn't tell where the root of my emotion stemmed from.  All I could feel was sadness welling up deep from within me.  It made my eyes well with tears and my crying could not be contained or quelled.  I hurt from the deepest point in me.  I sobbed in pain.

---

Yesterday was the first time I've seen or spoken to my father in over ten years.  Though I felt righteous in my anger at him over the things he has done (and those who know the details agree with me) when I came in and saw him so sick in his bed all I could do was give him a hug and tell him I'm sorry he's so sick.

My father has multiple myeloma - bone marrow cancer.  I came to help my stepmother care for him.

What I noticed first was that he's gotten bigger.  Not only has he gained weight but his face was very swollen and red.  His lip has a permanent furl where his cigarettes dangle from his mouth.  He's older and ill but he hasn't really changed a bit.

Though I've spent concerted effort attempting to prepare for this moment, I did what felt natural; I fell into my family role as caretaker, mediator & peacemaker.  The hard questions may still be coming, but they haven't found their way out yet.  At this point I realize that I can't predict or script what will happen or how I will react.  All I know is that I promised myself that I will not continue in this relationship without very real honesty.  To me this means that at some point we need to discuss our troubled past.  I don't know how to broach that subject; I don't know when the moment will come but I am confident that I will know when the time is right and that I will have an opportunity to air my soul.

---

Since then I have been cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, picking up prescriptions, taking my step mom to the neurologist, and picking out geriatric specialty items that will accomodate the 300 pound "baby buddah" (my stepmom's name for him) we tend to.  I have only been here 36 hours and already I am exhausted.  In total I will be here a week.  Though that sounds like a lot of time for my sleepless self at this point, I recognize that a week caring for an ailing person is not very much.  There are so many people who struggle with this intensive care alone and for a long time; my stepmother is one of them.

Meanwhile, it is hard to sleep.  Clearly, I have a lot on my mind.

It appears I am first to respond.  You're right, I'm game.

 

Five Things In My Refrigerator

1. Pineapple juice, lemon-ginger juice, fizzy water, italian grapefruit soda, blood orange soda, tonic water, cranberry juice (100% cran - not ocean spray), homemade iced tea, 4 bottles of champagne, 2 bottles of white wine - we had our housewarming party yesterday.

2. Assorted imported olives & cheese (we eat them at the same time)

3. Homemade root vegetable soup (I made it last week when I was recovering from my dental surgery)

4. Zachary’s pizza - the best deep dish pizza in the Bay Area and possibly California (since I lived in Orange County and San Diego I think I can make that bold statement)

5. Kale - one of the healthiest things you can eat.  It's great sautéed with olive oil and shallots; just wilt it a bit.  It takes 5 minutes!

 

Five Things in My Closet

1. A movie poster from The Outlaw introducing Jane Russell

2. Paper japanese lanterns (they hang at the bottom of the light pull string)

3. My vitamins (I put them in a small box because the Vitamin B STINKS)

4. Scarf & hat collections - it gets cold in the winter

5. My art supplies (glue gun, embossing gun, two light boxes, pen collection of maybe 100 pens, sticker book, glue dots, circle cutter, templates, rulers, scissors...and still growing)

 

FIVE THINGS IN MY PURSE

1. Bart Ticket (have to get across the bay) & Pre-paid bus ticket (for the Transbay Bus)

2. Lip liner & lip stick (I don't use them as much now as I did pre-Dustin; he likes me better w/o make up)

3. Cell phone

4. Purell (you need it when you take public transportation)

5. Hand lotion (to offset the alcohol and smell of purell)

 

FIVE THINGS IN MY CAR

I don't have a car.  I haven't had a car in about six years.  In San Francisco, especially at the height of the dot com era parking was horrific.  I took a bus to work and still spent $100/month on parking tickets.  Add the cost of registration and maintenance (which was averaging $200/month for my old VW Golf) it didn't make sense to keep it.)  Dustin has a car.  That's enough for the two of us.

Ok, I'm tagging too:
artsysf
jack
xpix
rebecca
ellie88

I am posting the following article because I am sure that most people missed it when it was published.  I printed a hard copy and kept it on file; it was conceivable to me at that point that the information might go missing at some later date.

I am really frustrated with the politics of today.  I have written several letters to my representatives and senators today.  I would urge you to do the same.  If you don't know what's up in the world, go to visit the ACLU site or moveon.org or truthout.org or the Associate Press.  But please, educate yourself about what is happening in our nation.  1984 is in the near future not the recent past.

---

  Friday 17 October 2003

  WASHINGTON - President Bush's grandfather was a director of a bank seized by the federal government because of its ties to a German industrialist who helped bankroll Adolf Hitler's rise to power, government documents show.

  Prescott Bush was one of seven directors of Union Banking Corp., a New York investment bank owned by a bank controlled by the Thyssen family, according to recently declassified National Archives documents reviewed by The Associated Press.

  Fritz Thyssen was an early financial supporter of Hitler, whose Nazi party Thyssen believed was preferable to communism. The documents do not show any evidence Bush directly aided that effort. His position with Union Banking never was a political issue for Bush, who was elected to the Senate from Connecticut in 1952.

  Reports of Bush's involvement with the seized bank have been circulating on the Internet for years and have been reported by some mainstream media. The newly declassified documents provide additional details about the Union Banking-Thyssen connection.

  Trent Duffy, a spokesman for President Bush, declined to comment.

  Union Banking was owned by a Dutch bank, Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaardt N.V., which was "closely affiliated" with the German conglomerate United Steel Works, according to an Oct. 5, 1942, report from the federal Office of Alien Property Custodian. The Dutch bank and the steel firm were part of the business and financial empire of Thyssen and his brother, Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, the report said.

  The 4,000 Union Banking shares owned by the Dutch bank were registered in the names of the seven U.S. directors, according a document signed by Homer Jones, chief of the division of investigation and research of the Office of Alien Property Custodian, a World War II-era agency that no longer exists.

  E. Roland Harriman, the bank chairman and brother of former New York Gov. W. Averell Harriman, held 3,991 shares. Bush had one share.

  Both Harrimans and Bush were partners in the New York investment firm of Brown Brothers, Harriman and Co., which handled the financial transactions of the bank as well as other financial dealings with several other companies linked to Bank voor Handel that were confiscated by the U.S. government during World War II.

  Union Banking was seized by the government in October 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act.

  No charges were brought against Union Banking's American directors. The federal government was too busy trying to fight the war, said Donald Goldstein, a professor of public and international affairs at the University of Pittsburgh.

  "We did not have the resources to do these things," Goldstein said.

  Fritz Thyssen broke with the Nazis in 1938 over their persecution of Catholics and Jews, and fled to Switzerland. He later was arrested and spent 1941 to 1945 in a Nazi prison. His brother lived in Switzerland from 1932 to 1947 but continued to operate businesses in Germany.

  The new documents were first reported by freelance writer John Buchanan in The New Hampshire Gazette.

  By Jonathon D. Salant
  Associated Press

An older woman, in her mid 50's (?) sat bitter and alone at a corner table on the patio.  Upon taking her perch, she began to hurl negativity and strife.  She began with me as her first recipient.  "Fucking, god-damned narks."

?Huh?

Aaron assured me by saying that she was talking to herself.  But she was looking me in the eye...it's hard not to take things personally when someone has drawn you into them with their eyes.

Almost immediately to follow was some song she emitted that sounded spiritual in nature.  Or perhaps it was her stance; seated with eyes closed yet bent towards heaven and palms up and open like a baptist in a prayer.  She seemed like a different spirit (though still notably off kilter) than the woman whose bad attitude pervaded the peaceful community on the patio of this bustling breakfast place.

What happens in the life that bitters the soul so that it fights its way into isolation even as it sits alone among others?  Loneliness.  Sadness.  Pain.  Anguish.  Agony.  The only key to releasing her blighted spirit is compassion & love.

Circle
1 a: a ring, halo
   b: close plane curve every point of which is equal distance from a fixed point within the curve
2: the orbit or period of revolution of a celestial body

Sphere
1: the apparent surface of the heavens of which half forms the dome of the visible sky
2 a: one of the concentric and eccentric revolving spherical transparent shells in which according to ancient astronomy stars, suns, planets and moon are set
   b: a globe depicting such a sphere; broadly

Dustin and I are so excited about our new place.  (The orchids love it too.)

I won't be on much in the next couple of weeks.  In addition to settling in we are without DSL until the 13th...and my laptop is out of town getting a new motherboard.

I'll be back on soon, posting photos of our amazing new neighborhood. 

I never thought I'd say it, but I am so excited to be out of San Francisco.

Time to catch the train!

Hugs,

M

In the last three weeks I have been without DSL at home and without my beloved Elph.  Oddly, both were returned to working order yesterday, HURRAH!

I'm sitting in a tower with work still in front of me, procrastinating not from my duties but from going home (who does that?)  Though I could opt to head out and finally share some of my beloved images with you all, I am more inspired to work in words tonight.

I am at a crux of change.  My absence from buzznet has been coincidently timed with my retraction from my "scene".  Yesterday I wrote an email explaining to my close social circle where I've disappeared to and why.  It only just occurred to me that buzznet community and personal community are parallel; I have dropped out of both almost entirely.

In this moment, while I am looking out of this high rise window on the world I admit that I don't know where I'm going.  What I do know is that this life I have been building for the last nine years is going to change.  Though I am tempted to cling to it out of nostalgia and a dash of fear, I realize that I am already on another path; my task now is to create the vision for what is in front of me.

 

This morning I woke to the sound of a rooster heralding the dawn.  In the previous three days I lead a country life.  I watched salmon spawning in a stream.  I picked wild almonds.  I harvested apples, persimmons, olives and pomegranates.  I cooked DELICIOUS FRESH food with FRIENDS.  I fed miniature horses.  I read.  We sat communing around the table each night after dinner listening to music or reading something of interest aloud and then discussing it.  (We never made it to the Scrabble game.)

Last year on the same weekend I saw the biggest party weekend of my life.  It was *almost too much* fun.  I wasn't lead in that direction for 2005.  This difference is indicative of a larger change in me.  I am no longer the avid party girl.  I am growing into a new stage of womanhood.  I'll still go dancing, but my friendships are now built on more than this.

In the next 24 hours I should have both my Elph and DSL in working order.  I know I've been MIA; I'll be back here soon.

Hugs,

M