Lots Of Living To Do
This week I took my children to the pool. Within two days Savannah went from needing a floatation device, water wings, and goggles to being able to swim laps while snorkeling around the pool and dive to the bottom to pick up diving rings with the help of nothing more than a snorkel mask and some fins. Hope went from sitting in a round baby float and refusing to get wet from the chest up to swimming around the pool in a floatation device that allows her to be submerged up to her armpits and able to "swim" and is now brave enough to put her face in the water with a snorkel mask on. They both did all of this on their own. Logan has graduated to being able to dive to the bottom just holding his breath. Progress is being made all around. Even I can swim two or three laps before getting winded and feeling the ache in my previously collapsed lungs. If someone had told me in March that I would be swimming at all right now I would have quickly reminded them that I would be the girl with the x'd out eyes by now. I am interested to see what all happens next week.
I bought two books today. Both are books are by John Cadwell Holt, founder of the unschooling movement and his views on learning and child development. I have been wanting to read both for a long time. I am finally making the time to do it.
I am still working on pictures. I plan to really get my shit together within the next couple of months and get all of the print pictures scanned in. I need to find out if there is such a thing as acid free art/drawing paper. If there is I need to buy a serious assload of it for the kids to use for their artwork as they are going through printer paper as fast as I can buy it and because I would like to use some of their drawings as backgrounds in their scrapbooks. Currently, I have enough artwork stacked on my bedroom floor to fill about two fifteen gallon trashbags with nothing but paper. That is just artwork from the last few months. I have serious issues with clutter so you can imagine how much I want to get this project going. I can't throw it away. Each one is a masterpiece! I made some pretty neat giftwrap last year with some of their drawings. Now I wish I hadn't done that so much.
This week I am going to go repurchase the paint for my bedroom and get it repainted because the clash of teracotta orange walls with my red floral comforter is just more than I can bear anymore. I also need to get the two six foot long pieces of L shaped lumber I stole from the parking lot (I realized later that the neighborhood boys had been using it to make skateboard ramps.) finished and hung as shelves somewhere in my apartment. We need to do something about my dining table too.
These things have been waiting for me long enough.
In other news, we took a long drive through the Everglades today. I am fascinated with the now closed Copeland Road Prison that is located out in the middle of nowhere in Collier County. We drove past there in April 2002 and I saw a scary shirtless man standing in the screened doorway of what I thought, at the time, was some sort of rundown looking one floor apartment housing. It turns out that it was a prison but it had no fence around it. I found it extremely disturbing. Today we went back to drive by and take pictures but it has been closed. We found a sheriff sitting in his car on the property and asked him about it. It seems it was a state prison and the land was leased from a private owner who plans to just leave it as is. The series of creepy buildings are just empty. Some doors are just hanging open. One tiny little shack has a sign nailed to the door that says "Caution. Caustic." I found that odd. The whole place was both spooky and interesting. I kept thinking that there were some really horrible secrets lingering in the air there. I had written a whole documentary about the place in my head complete with torture and death and horrible stories that would make the little hairs stand up on the back of your neck by the time we got home.
It was out in the middle of the swamp people. With no razor wire, no fence. It was creepy. Especially when we were there the first time and there was a person just standing there.
I wanted to go back today and take pictures of all of it but I was too intimidated to go back and ask the sheriff if we could. I bet since it is private property that he would have said no. I don't know why I have always been kinda fascinated with prisons. Maybe I visited my dad in prison one too many times when I was little and that messed me all up. Freaky. I came home and immediately looked up everything I could find about it. Then I found a bunch of interesting stories from prisoners from various Florida prisons. Granted, I am a firm believer that a lot of what happens to people in prison is their own Karma biting them in the ass. Yet some of the stories of wrongful imprisonment and corruption within the institutions is interesting to read. All I know is either way I don't ever want to be on the wrong side of the bars.
A side note: The prison I am referring to above was mentioned in the book that the movie Adaptation was based on. It is clear that the woman who wrote that book had visited that area. Today we had made several comments to each other about how much the area we were driving in reminded us of the setting of that movie and how much the people we passed looked like they could have been characters from it. Then while we were looking for information about the prison we found that.
Posted by gwendolyn on June 29, 2003 at 12:15 AM
Change Of Heart
Mr. Monkey and I are not renown for our ability to make choices based on careful contemplation and consideration. No, we are better remembered for our practice of throwing several destination names into a hat and drawing one out and then moving there within a week.
Is the fact that we have now decided that we will not be taking the little house, after all, a sign that we are getting older and more responsible? Or are we just getting lazier and less exciting?
Moving into the house would require extreme downsizing even more than we already have. At this point in time none of us are really excited about giving anything else up just for that particular house. It has strained our financial situation even more coming up with moving money. That wasn't in the original plan. The plan was to stay here until we were back to zero and then hit the road. I am new to this sticking to the plan thing. It is pretty hard.
As for the lovely large yard and the bike/jogging/blading path, I guess we just need to invest in a bike rack for the van and head to the park more often. It isn't impossible to be happy here. It just requires more effort than we have been putting into it.
The children seem to understand and be okay with not moving. I hope they really are.
Posted by gwendolyn on June 25, 2003 at 11:14 AM
With Childlike Eyes
Home and routine seems very foreign after spending a three day weekend in someone elses house. It always amazes me how I always feel like I need a day to normalize again. The only thing left is the laundry.
Our copy of the fifth Harry Potter book arrived while we were away. Our nice neighbors took it in from the doorstep so that it wouldn't rain on it. Logan has had his nose buried in it for the last several hours. He started around two this afternoon. He is on page 127. So that means it will take him around three or four days to finish it. I would have liked to have taken them to one of the midnight release parties they have at the bookstore. I like the excitement and anticipation my children have for all that is Harry Potter. I know that there is a lot of money behind all of the hype but the books and movies have kept my children in that young imaginative state that my childhood never had. Sometimes it is good to be a kid.
Posted by gwendolyn on June 24, 2003 at 06:23 PM
Wanna See My Baby Pictures?
I am smack dab in the middle of importing thousands of pictures from the firewire hard drive back onto my ibook and into iphoto. I have used it a couple of times before but I am not big on learning how to actually use things like that on my own. I am a visual learner. If he sits here in front of me and sets it all up and then shows me exactly what to do to get things the way I want it then I can repeat it over and over. As long as there aren't more than like five steps. After that it just seems like too much work again. Like on the back of the shampoo bottle. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. I can do that. Three steps. It is quick and painless.
Secretly I can't figure out why I don't like to just play around and learn to use these applications more. I keep saying to myself that I don't have time with that whole Mom gig I got going on or that I have too many dishes piled up or too much laundry blocking the hallway. I know it is just because sitting here figuring it all out would just be one more reason I am still sitting here. My ass isn't getting any smaller people.
However, the other day I was really determined to drive over and take some footage of the new house. When I came home I made a little iMovie to send to my friends and family in an email. It was so completely simple that I sat here and tried hard to get myself all confused complicating it. When I finally just started clicking randomly I ended up with a shaky (my filming-while-driving skills need work) but cool little thirty second clip of the house and yard.
I am going to use iPhoto. I am going to get all of these files imported and then I am going to make scanning all of our prints my top priority...wait... one of my top five priorities this summer. I am going to make slideshows and movies and export cute pictures of all of us formatted fast and easy into emails and annoy everyone I know. It is going to be huge! Massive. You watch!
Posted by gwendolyn on June 18, 2003 at 11:23 PM
Enter Cheesy Horror Film Sound Effects
Last night something strange happened here. I am not sure if it was something to be thinking twice about or merely just my over active imagination at work doing what it does best, conjuring up feelings of panic and dread.
At 11:30 p.m. I was sitting at the dining room table typing away to a friend on AIM. Terry was laying down with the littlest one trying to coax her into sleep mode. There was a knock at my door.
A little shaken by the fact that we know absolutely no one here that would be knocking so late, I got up and went to the door thinking that it was probably the girl that lives downstairs as I had thought I heard someone come up the stairs. She has never knocked on my door but I have told her that if we are ever too loud or if she ever has a problem with her ceiling leaking or anything to come knock. The place was still as everyone was in bed but me. So I dismissed that idea as quickly as it came to me.
Immediately something told my sometimes overly trusting Midwestern brain not to open the door. Had it been daylight outside I probably would have nonchalantely just opened the door like I do for FedEx, UPS, or the mail lady. Stupid me.
I asked who it was as I tried to peek out the little hole in the door. It was completely black. This disturbed me because the landing and stairs are normally very well lit at night. The male voice replied back nothing more than "Delivery".
I said back to him through the door that I did not order anything. I mentally ran through the list of possible delivery items one would expect at nearly midnight. If it were a pizza surely he would have said where he was from, right? I didn't ask him if it was a pizza as I was not going to feed the serial killer his lines for him. I have seen that movie. The stupid blonde girl always dies first.
Also, I think it is standard for pizza delivery guys to say something to the effect of it being a pizza delivery and announcing from where if you sound like you aren't going to open the door for them.
So he mumbled something about being sorry and then a firm "Could I come inside to use your phone?" At that point I had went from being a little shocked and curious to genuinely suspicious and scared. I quickly replied even more firmly, "No. You may not!" So he stumbled around for a second and then asked if I could tell him then where apartment 17S was. I think he thought this would validate my opening the door to give him directions as he was now playing the poor lost delivery person card.
I replied that it might possibly be the next building over knowing very well that this was the only building 17 and there is no apartment S. The letter of our apartment is clearly marked on a little plaque outside of our door. This person was clearly fucking with me.
At this point he gave up. At that moment I noticed the bottom lock on the door knob was locked but the deadbolt above it was open. I swiftly flicked it to the locked position. Shuddered at the odd feeling of the stranger possibly hearing it from the other side and went in to ask Terry if he had heard the whole thing. The odd thing is I don't remember now if I heard him go back down immediately.
I am wondering if I would seem crazy for calling the office tomorrow to just kind of let them know incase things start happening around here.
Posted by gwendolyn on June 15, 2003 at 09:30 PM
Playing House
We are considering renting a house in September. It is tiny but the yard is big and right now we really need a place for the kids to get outside and run around.
There is a paved bike/jogging/rollerblading trail behind the yard. The houses on both sides have fenced in back yards and all of the houses on the street seem pretty decent. I noticed today that the house directly across the street has toys in the yard like a preschooler lives there. The owners of the house we are looking at told us that there was an attorney living across the street. I don't know if that is the same house or not.
The neighbors to the left appear to be a nice older retired couple and when we went to view the house they were lounging in their pool. Today I saw her out in her driveway in a moo moo with her cat.
The house to the right of it is beautiful. It would appear that the back yard is across from a nice housing development with a privacy fence all the way around it. I have been told that the Head Coach and some of the players for the Dolphins frequently jog on the bike path. There are also a lot of horseback riders that go past.
This little town is sort is sort of an oddity, as it is as country as you can get in the suburbs of a city. There are tons of horse farms. Every building looks like it is from the old west. This is all intentional, of course. It is the only town around here that still has space between the houses and where a farm with cows doesn't seem weird looking. There is a feed store and plenty of tack shops and then you have the country western bar where you can see live country music and line dance. We went there the night before my second hysterectomy (who knew how horrible that was going to be). Everyone was sporting cowboy hats and cowboy boots, the whole works. I have no clue where these people came from as we aren't really in an area where you would expect such things. We neither drank nor danced that night. We made our way through the crowd and around the outskirts of the dance floor and decided to go home. After all, I was going into surgery first thing in the morning.
The house sits sideways. It doesn't face the street. No clue why except that it is very old. The new owners have completely gutted the place and redone the walls, electrical wiring, installed new appliances, new cabinetry and light fixtures, completely new bathroom, and everything new in the kitchen.
An addition is being built off of the kitchen which will house the laundry room, pantry, and storage shelves. They are also building on a screened in patio next to the addition. They had all of the window glass replaced and brand new screens put in. The central air is new, the water heater is new. There is pretty new tile in the kitchen and bathroom and the rest of the floors are the original hardwood that she is having refinished before we move in. It has a fully renovated and functioning fireplace with a brand new stone hearth and mantle.
I don't know when we would get to use it but I don't put it past monkeyboy to turn the air conditioning down real low and fire it up once or twice a year just for kicks.
Our lease isn't up here until September. They are still working on it and it won't be done until at least August. So that works out pretty well. Our only concern at this point is storage/closet space and the lack of a dining room issues but at this point I would give up a lot to have a screened in porch and a yard. Actually, I think this is the universe's way of testing me to find out just exactly how much I am willing to downsize before it grants me my wish of an RV and a mobile income for my monkey.
The couple who owns it plan to retire in about six years and are looking for a nice family to take care of it until then. They liked us and I am supposed to meet with her to fill out the lease sometime at the end of June and put down a holding deposit. She worked with me on the move in costs and seemed to really want us to consider taking it as they have had several people look at it that they didn't feel would be good or trustworthy tenants.
When we discussed the back patio I commented that I would love to have outdoor dining furniture for it and she told me not to run out and buy any because she had some in storage that she would bring over for us. I am not sure if I should be relieved at finally finding nice people down here or suspicious.
It will be finished in about 6 to 8 weeks according to them. He works for the city as a building inspector and she works in an office of some sort. They have grown children and their youngest is just graduating high school. They bought the house in January and have been working on it on the weekends themselves except for the wiring which they had a professional do. Their son takes care of the lawn and the landscaping and as Mr. Monkey understands it he will continue to do so. We have told them that we want to go ahead with the process to rent it and they seem very happy. No money has changed hands and nothing is in writing yet and I have learned to trust no one, so I won't say we are really moving until moving day is over.
So, that is it. The children are very excited and so I hope they don't get their hearts broken. They wanted to go over and play in the yard today and didn't understand why we just couldn't do that.
Posted by gwendolyn on June 13, 2003 at 08:33 PM
Monkeys Will Love It
I just improved my soft serve banana "ice cream" by pouring Kahlua all over it. I feel like Jimmy Buffet needs to write a song about it. If I were a dessert chef I would name it The Drunk Monkey and serve it over poundcake. I wonder what it would taste like with Bailey's and Kahlua. I better go make another bowl and see.
Yes, it is even better. I wonder how funny it will look when I buy like thirty bananas at the grocery this week. I am coming up with all sorts of lovely ideas now such as frozen strawberry or raspberry puree with Captain Morgan's.
Posted by gwendolyn on June 10, 2003 at 03:55 PM
Screwy Squirrels
Savannah: Mom, how many squirrels does it take to screw a light bulb?
(Short pause while I contemplate correcting her "screw a light bulb" with "screw in a light bulb")
Me: I don't know Savannah, how many?
Savannah: Ten!
(Yet another brief pause while I try to figure out how she came to that deduction.)
Me: Why ten?
Savannah: Because it is OUR kitchen light!
Of course! How could I have not known that?
Posted by gwendolyn on June 09, 2003 at 03:11 PM
Good Morning, Beautiful
This morning we had four butterflies. One is left waiting to be born.
They looked very sad flopping around on the floor, captive in the Butterfly Jungle. It was breaking monkeyboy's heart.
So I took them out onto the balcony and released them. I am sure they felt much the same way I did the day I finally got out of the hospital.
I made friends with one before she finally flew off.
I hope they all have a wonderful few weeks.
Posted by gwendolyn on June 08, 2003 at 10:46 AM
Doin' That Stuff That You Do
Apparently, Starbucks Venti Iced Mochas are liquid crack, and I am now a crackwhore. I am bouncing off the walls and I was up until something like 3a.m. this morning and then back up at 9 something. I should be dead tired but instead I am up crunching numbers until well into October and dancing in my chair to Ween's Voodoo Lady. I am getting too old for this 'round the clock shit.
Posted by gwendolyn on at 12:37 AM
High Maintenance Women
My six year old is addicted to Bucca Di Beppo's. She needs to get a job if she is going to keep asking to go there every single evening. Where on Earth did she pick up these habits? By the way, the Torta Doppia Cioccolato is very good. Oh, shut up!
Posted by gwendolyn on June 06, 2003 at 03:26 PM
There's A Party In My Pants
Okay. Let me just say...Live's White Discussion is a good song on a totally new level.
Wait. So is the next song.
When you all come to your senses and get one of these I recommend downloading When In Rome's The Promise pronto. Trust me on this.
As a matter of fact, I haven't met a song I didn't like yet.
I think I am going to buy Audi-Oh!s and give them out as Christmas presents.
Gotta go.
P.S. I wonder if there is any relationship between this lovely thing and the song Bullet With Butterfly Wings by Smashing Pumpkins
Posted by gwendolyn on at 02:06 PM
Vanessa cardui
This morning one of our Painted Lady butterflies emerged from it's chrysalid. It is currently working very hard at the moment to pump blood through it's wings so that they will be full size and hardened. It is an amazing thing, metamorphosis.
Painted Lady butterflies can lay up to 500 eggs, are cold blooded, love a weed called malva, have a life expectancy of two to four weeks, tastes with her feet, has ten thousand eyes (compound eyes), breathes through her abdomen, uses her colored wings to attract other butterflies, and prefers to fly in daytime.
What a tremendous amount of work turning into a butterfly for just two to four weeks, huh?
Posted by gwendolyn on at 10:19 AM
Hold The Sunblock
It would seem that we made it home from our short but sweet dip in the pool this afternoon just in time. The rain is now pelting the windows and balcony. The limbs from the big scary trees just in front of my kitchen look extremely tempted to reach out and smack the window over the sink. So we will hide now. Sipping cocoa. Shhhhh....don't tell the kids, but theirs is Swiss Miss and mine is Godiva :)
Posted by gwendolyn on June 05, 2003 at 02:08 PM
This Is Why
The week has been filled mostly with huge bills for things like four new tires for Ferris, new brakes and rotors for both front and back on the van, a new water pump for the van, and today, new front brakes and rotors for Ferris. The list just goes on.
The attorney called to tell Terry they don't have the time to devote to our case. Six months later. So yesterday I had to sit and think really hard about what I wanted to do about all of it. I could just drop the whole thing, let it go, and try to forget it ever happened. Though money would certainly help us out, it has never and will never be the motivation behind a lawsuit.
I wouldn't be the one to get that money anyway. I have already signed a paper saying that in order for the insurance company and my husband's employment to keep paying my medical expenses, which are now way up over the $400k mark according to my estimation looking at the EOBs, the insurance company will be entitled to any and all reimbursement should damages be awarded to me anyway.
This isn't about money. This is about the snide attitude of the doctor when this happened. This is for him saying to my husband as I lay there dying, "I didn't give her an AVM." As if the AVM which I no longer even had in my body was the reason I was laying there in ICU with my organs all failing.
This is for acting like everything I just went through had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he cut a hole in my colon. This is for not even bothering to come out and ask my husband before he did it.
This is for him playing on my emotions for months beforehand and making me trust that he had saved my life last March when, in fact, he very well may have been the one who nearly killed me. This is for telling me he was going to take care of me and not to be afraid and then ripping my uterus out. This is for him not doing his job properly and making me go through months of constant bleeding, swelling and aching with no uterus and no good way to explain it.
This is for fucking me up, yet again, and then sending me home over the telephone even after I told him I hadn't went to the bathroom and was getting very uncomfortable from eating the food he had ordered me to have.
This is for not being able to breathe. This is for nine weeks of being stabbed repeatedly day in and day out in every part of my body, for no fucking reason.
This is for him smiling and waving at me from the other end of the hall as I tried to push my pole and walk and hold the hose coming out of my nose all at the same time.
This is for months of my life that are gone. This is for my children who didn't know if their mommy was ever coming home again.
This is for sleeping on ice and having tubes shoved up my arms and into my heart. This is for scopes shoved up my ass and barium contrast poured down my nose. This is for puking bile and not being able to swallow for nine weeks.
This is so that, at the very least, someone somewhere will know he did this to me and not let it happen to them. This is because I wish I could do everything to him that I had done to me. This is because I wish I could face him without crying and wanting to hide.
This isn't about money. He probably won't even get a mark on his record. This is about me looking him in the eye and making him think about exactly what his mistakes cost me emotionally and physically.
This is about scars, physically and emotionally, that will never ever go away. This is about my nightmares. This is about my children saying to me every day "Mommy, you aren't sick anymore? You are going to stay home and be the momma?" This is about my three year old's real belief that the boo boo's on mommy's belly are just going to "be all better and go away". This is for the months that no one in my house treated my ileostomy like it was anything out of the ordinary. This is for my husbands unconditional love and strength and how fucking hard it must have been for him.
That doctor will be lucky if, on top of his completely fucking me up, I don't bring up the fact that he constantly felt the need to call me pet names, hug me for uncomfortably long periods of time after my appointments, smell my hair and tell me how good I smelled. How could I have been so stupid? I actually thought he was just an overly nice guy. Leave it to me to overlook his behavior and really believe he was helping me. Yeah, he was helping me. He was helping me right into my fucking grave.
This is why I can't give up. It isn't the money. It is about making him responsible for his actions. Fucking arrogant son of a bitch.
So, I have an appointment with another attorney on Monday. I had to sit here for the last two days and type out the entire saga to email to his office. It is very hard for me because a lot of that time has become one big blurred nightmare. I did the best I could. I know I missed a lot of horrid details. It would be much easier to talk about it in person. I had a hard time talking about it on the phone. I got emotional a couple of times. It isn't easy to talk about. In fact, it was easier for me to talk about it while it was happening. I don't know why but I was a lot stronger during the whole thing than after it was done.
Posted by gwendolyn on June 03, 2003 at 02:41 PM
Waiting
I was jolted awake about an hour ago to the sounds of Hope off in the distance in the pitch dark crying and throwing up. I am now sitting here waiting for her very new very expensive hemp sheets one by one to run through our very tiny very crappy washing machine. Lovely.
Posted by gwendolyn on June 01, 2003 at 03:37 AM