Saturday, August 30, 2008
Monday, August 25, 2008
This is our car by the Canso Causeway in Canada
So if you see a dark green Volvo coming down the street loaded with not one, but two car top carriers, one hard, one soft you know we're back. Our Volvo may be spotted in Wyoming today and further west each day thereafter. We hope it doesn't rain too hard on the Playmobil, who are in the soft carrier. Looks stormy.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
On The Road Again
Thus far we have been in five states and we are bordering on a sixth. We are three days out and almost half way to our destination in California. Started in Michigan, progressed through Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa, and are settling down for the night at the Days Inn in Sidney, Nebraska which is almost to Wyoming. We are staying the route on I-80 instead of diverging through the mountains of Colorado as we did last time. We believe it will be faster, meaning less time in the car, which is always an issue when travelling 2200 miles. We managed to pick up a nifty coupon for the hotel at the Chinese buffet which convinced us to call it a night despite gaining another hour today. By far the best road food ever was at a CSA / Organic restaurant just west of Des Moines called L.T.'s Organic Restaurant. The L.T. stands for "leisure time." It is run by a family. Both the parents were health care professionals who came to realize through their work that the reason people get ill is because of their diets. They believe strongly in the importance of pesticide free food as well as vine ripened food. A plate of food at their farm restaurant was $17.50 but easily fed two people and was well worth it. On top of a great meal full of vine ripened veggies and very fresh farm chicken, we were able to wander about the farm and appreciate all the work that went into our meal. The hens were completely free range and the girls loved following them around the farm. We noticed the rooster had its legs tied together. Sofie was able to ask our server why the rooster's legs were tied together, so we learned that the naughty rooster wouldn't stay otherwise. We have yet to learn why that rooster wouldn't want to stay with twenty or thirty hens and a farm full of veg. They also had a really nice outdoor seating area in the shade which was made with Gourd plants. The only drawback was the giant gourds hanging down everywhere this time of year. Boz's Kiwis seem more practical and delicious, but it was a great way to make shade in any case.
Monday, August 18, 2008
ACTION PACKED
I just had the most fabulous time at my mom and Mac daddy's lake this past weekend. We went sailing and swimming and tubing. We roasted marshmallows for S'mores and the moon fairy came with pennies for our shoes. My step-brother and his wife and four boys were there for almost two days, and we had a little birthday, complete with balloons for Landon, who is four. Caleb and I managed to see Batman and Pineapple Express and go to the Danish festival / used book sale in Greenville. We soaked up some of the culture, carrying a DVD on Islam my mom forgot to watch, that was overdue at the library, we wended our way between the Catholics and the Baptists and their galoopa (flattened marbles) crafts on Main St. We saw a garden stone for sale at one booth that had the words, " If I ain't home, try WalMart" etched in it. I really appreciated the way the guy at the booth explained his Danish pastry, the Apelkiver ( I think), as "just like a pancake, dude." I don't know if I really learned much about Denmark there, but Greenville was out in full force. So we took in a little piece of America, as we prepare to take in a bigger piece on our way across it. We are leaving Thursday or Friday for California. This should take us a little while if we are kind to ourselves and the children. The intention is to be at Boz and Kathrin's house by August 30th.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
gardens
The girls and I planted some herbs in Lynne's yard that are perennials in Michigan. We planted Thyme, Oregano, Lavender, and Echinacea. We also intend to scatter some Mullein seeds before we leave. Lemon Verbena and Rosemary are said not to winter well, though they are doing great at the Matthei Botanical gardens in Ann Arbor. They might cover them, or move them? We saw a Massauga rattle snake on the trail there last week. We read on line that they are not nearly as deadly as the diamond back rattlers as you have more time to get the anti-venom. There were also pictures of rattle snake bites. Yikes. The Massauga rattled at us three times. It began rattling before we even saw it. It saw us first. We are maybe not the quietest people on the trail. Woop- Woop. Oh speaking of wooping, I had a glass of wine at Melange in downtown Ann Arbor called Woop-Woop wine, with sushi at happy hour. Yum!
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Children at the lake
Picked up the children from my mom who had them at her lake for the last three nights, and went shopping at the outlet mall. I guess Sofie missed me a little, but I don't know how she found time. Grandma Janet took them to see the new American Girl movie and swam with them and boated with them and did multiple art projects. I stayed with Caleb and Lynne at Lynne's parents lake. One might wonder how it is that everyone's mom has a lake. Well, that's just Michigan for ya. A lot of lakes to go around and we're all quick to claim ownership I guess.
Caleb and I got to meet Lynne's new nephew, Joey who is adorable. He lives with his mom Kristin on the lake in their own house so perhaps maybe it's Joey's lake. He was born a bit early so he is very tiny and cute. He is healthy, five weeks old and hasn't reached his due date yet which was August 28th. Amazingly enough, he didn't spend much time in the hospital and hasn't needed any ventilators and learned how to nurse pretty darn quickly. His family is receiving vaccinations instead of him at this point cause he's too little. He's not allowed to go out much yet, or be held by people other than parents and grandparents, though aunties must be allowed too cause I caught Lynne holding him. Kristin says they don't know anything about his cognitive level yet. I thought this was funny. Because who knows anything about anyone's cognitive level anyway, well, especially that of a newborn. She also says she's gotten a bit obsessive about the numbers concerned with how much milk he's getting and such. This is quite typical with premature babies she says because of the hospital beginning and concern with size and having to start with formula. Also concern with the numbers comes with a certain kind of mind. The hospital staff say the engineer moms are the most into it. Kristin is a French teacher at the middle school. I am sure no one who knows Kristin, friends or family has any doubts about Joey's cognitive level.
Caleb and I got to meet Lynne's new nephew, Joey who is adorable. He lives with his mom Kristin on the lake in their own house so perhaps maybe it's Joey's lake. He was born a bit early so he is very tiny and cute. He is healthy, five weeks old and hasn't reached his due date yet which was August 28th. Amazingly enough, he didn't spend much time in the hospital and hasn't needed any ventilators and learned how to nurse pretty darn quickly. His family is receiving vaccinations instead of him at this point cause he's too little. He's not allowed to go out much yet, or be held by people other than parents and grandparents, though aunties must be allowed too cause I caught Lynne holding him. Kristin says they don't know anything about his cognitive level yet. I thought this was funny. Because who knows anything about anyone's cognitive level anyway, well, especially that of a newborn. She also says she's gotten a bit obsessive about the numbers concerned with how much milk he's getting and such. This is quite typical with premature babies she says because of the hospital beginning and concern with size and having to start with formula. Also concern with the numbers comes with a certain kind of mind. The hospital staff say the engineer moms are the most into it. Kristin is a French teacher at the middle school. I am sure no one who knows Kristin, friends or family has any doubts about Joey's cognitive level.
Monday, August 4, 2008
Pedophilia and Facebook
Blogging from your homeland is more difficult than blogging from afar. It is said that a good Anthropologist writes about their own land and experience. But I can see why it is so tempting to write about someone else's home and your own outsider experience. In many ways, it is easier with all its obvious inaccuracy and prejudice. And probably less telling of who you really are, other than, a foreigner. The things one notices in their own land are more specific to who they are. The knowledge that one is privy to in their own land is abundant. There are basically far more things to be thought about and decided upon besides soaking up the climate and trying to understand the language. Perhaps once you do in fact understand the language and other less obvious differences, then you could begin to attempt to analyze a second culture, but it's basically more PC to just record and analyze your own.
My friend Tami's neighbor friend was recently arrested for sending naked pictures of himself to what he thought was a thirteen year old female on Myspace. Members of my family even have called Obama 'arrogant'. I made sure they understood the historical term would be 'uppity' and that they better check themselves fast.
Speaking of family and little girl fetishes:
When I was five I remember my father molesting me. I don't remember it happening before that ripe old age, and he didn't correct me when we reviewed the matter together, but wouldn't doubt it if it started much earlier. Whenever I have to tell another member of the family or an outsider to avoid someone else having to suffer through the same indignity, the person I tell, whether it be his wife, an authority, a friend, always wants to know, "What exactly did he do?" So I will put it in words here and forever refer them here, or not, but I'll let ya all know anyhow.
My father used to touch me everywhere, and move my hands over his body the way he liked to be touched. He licked me everywhere and made me perform fellatio on him. Thank god for these technical terms. It makes my writing so much classier. I don't think he ever penetrated me in anyway, which is why I say molested, not raped. He did this pretty much on weekends and Wednesdays when he had us over to his place or was watching us at our place. He stopped when I was about eleven. I was probably beginning to mature. He said to me some time around then that I would never be as pretty as my mother. Later he said he believes his motivation was anger at my mother. In any case, he's a pervert. Then a year later my now ex-step-dad, George starts sneaking into my room to fondle my genitals while I am sleeping in the wee hours of the morn. I react as I usually did before by freezing up and shutting up. But eventually, when I am thirteen, it all comes out. At this point the story only gets more sordid. Dad/ Buzz blackmails George for money, or he's going to the authorities. Uncle Bill the lawyer who is George's friend sends dad/ buzz a threat saying in legalese to drop the blackmail thing cause we all know you are equally sleazy, and that's bound to come out too.
Then later, fourteen years old, we go to Texas for Christmas break and uncle Tom who is married in to the family like Bill and George, apparently wants to get some too, so he gets me high, probably drugs his wife and tries to get up on me after much pestering. Bizarrely, people who are skilled at this sort of thing have a way of coming on to children right in front of other people without anyone calling them on it or stopping it, making the children think they are the only one with a problem. He then again, years later jumps in bed with me in California, and when rejected, kicks me out of his house. Don't know what made me think it was a safe place to be then anyway. I was twenty. Who really needs safe from the likes of these guys after this much experience anyway? That is the big question now. How much of the family would one still be able to communicate with? Go ahead and factor in the two lovely female children and get back to me. I wouldn't mind hearing everyone's opinion on this.
Mom divorced George, not after she knew he molested me, but after Sean caught him outside my window masturbating when I was fifteen. My step-sister Laura warned me about George as he had apparently raped his own daughter Vicki years earlier, but it was all covered up, as it usually is, and the warning came late. Beth is still married to Tom, though she now knows about many of his infractions. They are having grand children now. More people to inform. My dad is very sorry and would like to be as much a part of my life, or my children's as I will allow, or condone, depending on your opinion of the matter.
I haven't seen my dad this summer except to use him for a ride in his van from the airport to Lynne's house. Part of me still likes the guy. He is my dad. But I can't figure out a single way to justify being around him with or without the children. Being around Beth who is still married to Tom is very sad. And she will likely still bring the man to family functions. In fact she wanted the whole family to go on Facebook, so I did and then was confronted with Tom's face as a potential Facebook friend as we have friends in common. So we've come full circle from Myspace to Facebook.
My friend Aviva says being invited to a family function is equivalent to being asked to sit and smile with the people you care about while they sit and smile with the man who raped you. She is one hundred percent accurate. It is truly upsetting to know that that man is more welcome in their lives than I am when I refuse to attend because of him and he is still welcome. These guys can come and go as they please without their lives being hindered or noticeably changed even.
By the way, all three of the perpetrators are or have been teachers at some time in their life. Dad taught English and Shakespeare at Manchester high school. George was a professor of Engineering at Ferris State University. Tom taught at a middle school, his favorite age group I think, for a short while but was called into question for hitting on a young girl so had to quit.
More irony still: My step-dad George went on to re-marry a woman who is a social worker working with pedophiles who she believes are incurable. When I wrote to her to tell her my experience with George, she refused to believe it and said my mother wrote it out of jealousy and somehow got it postmarked 'California' and there would never be anymore communication between either of the two families.
Curiously she has a spinal degeneration problem that she needed George to help her because of. My aunt Beth has a very similar condition and remains with her pedophile husband. My mother does have a little Osteo-arthritis, but had enough back bone to leave both of her losers and find someone who only wants her.
My friend Tami's neighbor friend was recently arrested for sending naked pictures of himself to what he thought was a thirteen year old female on Myspace. Members of my family even have called Obama 'arrogant'. I made sure they understood the historical term would be 'uppity' and that they better check themselves fast.
Speaking of family and little girl fetishes:
When I was five I remember my father molesting me. I don't remember it happening before that ripe old age, and he didn't correct me when we reviewed the matter together, but wouldn't doubt it if it started much earlier. Whenever I have to tell another member of the family or an outsider to avoid someone else having to suffer through the same indignity, the person I tell, whether it be his wife, an authority, a friend, always wants to know, "What exactly did he do?" So I will put it in words here and forever refer them here, or not, but I'll let ya all know anyhow.
My father used to touch me everywhere, and move my hands over his body the way he liked to be touched. He licked me everywhere and made me perform fellatio on him. Thank god for these technical terms. It makes my writing so much classier. I don't think he ever penetrated me in anyway, which is why I say molested, not raped. He did this pretty much on weekends and Wednesdays when he had us over to his place or was watching us at our place. He stopped when I was about eleven. I was probably beginning to mature. He said to me some time around then that I would never be as pretty as my mother. Later he said he believes his motivation was anger at my mother. In any case, he's a pervert. Then a year later my now ex-step-dad, George starts sneaking into my room to fondle my genitals while I am sleeping in the wee hours of the morn. I react as I usually did before by freezing up and shutting up. But eventually, when I am thirteen, it all comes out. At this point the story only gets more sordid. Dad/ Buzz blackmails George for money, or he's going to the authorities. Uncle Bill the lawyer who is George's friend sends dad/ buzz a threat saying in legalese to drop the blackmail thing cause we all know you are equally sleazy, and that's bound to come out too.
Then later, fourteen years old, we go to Texas for Christmas break and uncle Tom who is married in to the family like Bill and George, apparently wants to get some too, so he gets me high, probably drugs his wife and tries to get up on me after much pestering. Bizarrely, people who are skilled at this sort of thing have a way of coming on to children right in front of other people without anyone calling them on it or stopping it, making the children think they are the only one with a problem. He then again, years later jumps in bed with me in California, and when rejected, kicks me out of his house. Don't know what made me think it was a safe place to be then anyway. I was twenty. Who really needs safe from the likes of these guys after this much experience anyway? That is the big question now. How much of the family would one still be able to communicate with? Go ahead and factor in the two lovely female children and get back to me. I wouldn't mind hearing everyone's opinion on this.
Mom divorced George, not after she knew he molested me, but after Sean caught him outside my window masturbating when I was fifteen. My step-sister Laura warned me about George as he had apparently raped his own daughter Vicki years earlier, but it was all covered up, as it usually is, and the warning came late. Beth is still married to Tom, though she now knows about many of his infractions. They are having grand children now. More people to inform. My dad is very sorry and would like to be as much a part of my life, or my children's as I will allow, or condone, depending on your opinion of the matter.
I haven't seen my dad this summer except to use him for a ride in his van from the airport to Lynne's house. Part of me still likes the guy. He is my dad. But I can't figure out a single way to justify being around him with or without the children. Being around Beth who is still married to Tom is very sad. And she will likely still bring the man to family functions. In fact she wanted the whole family to go on Facebook, so I did and then was confronted with Tom's face as a potential Facebook friend as we have friends in common. So we've come full circle from Myspace to Facebook.
My friend Aviva says being invited to a family function is equivalent to being asked to sit and smile with the people you care about while they sit and smile with the man who raped you. She is one hundred percent accurate. It is truly upsetting to know that that man is more welcome in their lives than I am when I refuse to attend because of him and he is still welcome. These guys can come and go as they please without their lives being hindered or noticeably changed even.
By the way, all three of the perpetrators are or have been teachers at some time in their life. Dad taught English and Shakespeare at Manchester high school. George was a professor of Engineering at Ferris State University. Tom taught at a middle school, his favorite age group I think, for a short while but was called into question for hitting on a young girl so had to quit.
More irony still: My step-dad George went on to re-marry a woman who is a social worker working with pedophiles who she believes are incurable. When I wrote to her to tell her my experience with George, she refused to believe it and said my mother wrote it out of jealousy and somehow got it postmarked 'California' and there would never be anymore communication between either of the two families.
Curiously she has a spinal degeneration problem that she needed George to help her because of. My aunt Beth has a very similar condition and remains with her pedophile husband. My mother does have a little Osteo-arthritis, but had enough back bone to leave both of her losers and find someone who only wants her.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Upper West Side
In New York, an old friend of mine, Elana treated the whole family to brunch and we caught up on old times. She's gotten her Master's degree in education, took up teaching at a middle school (loves her job), and managed to survive a really nasty form of cancer that she watched her mother die of at fifty. I am so impressed with her story, and the way she's handled herself through this ordeal, I haven't stopped thinking about her. She refused Chemo, but is tumor free and just an all around amazingly good humored, and super strong person, who happens to have a slight glitch in the DNA which has wreaked some serious havoc in the past couple years. Many people don't understand why she would refuse Chemo. She's even had to explain it to the Psych ward at the hospital. I am just so proud of her for knowing herself so well, and making her own strong decisions throughout. She's just beautiful!
I wanted to stay in Manhattan on the upper west side for much longer. Both my friend Elana and Cynthia, Caleb's cousin offered to put us up at that time, but we had to move on. We were only in NY for three nights in Tarrytown. Anja is like a flower who droops, not quite a wilt, when she is in the city too long and blossoms when left near water and grass and woods. I wouldn't believe it myself if I hadn't witnessed it so many times. I think she might get this from her grandpa? Well, he's not a city person either, I hear. Perhaps, I will have to go without the children next time. It's a good excuse at the very least.
I wanted to stay in Manhattan on the upper west side for much longer. Both my friend Elana and Cynthia, Caleb's cousin offered to put us up at that time, but we had to move on. We were only in NY for three nights in Tarrytown. Anja is like a flower who droops, not quite a wilt, when she is in the city too long and blossoms when left near water and grass and woods. I wouldn't believe it myself if I hadn't witnessed it so many times. I think she might get this from her grandpa? Well, he's not a city person either, I hear. Perhaps, I will have to go without the children next time. It's a good excuse at the very least.
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