Life With the Kids

It is never boring...that is for sure.  Eliza is still in the Dominican Republic waiting out the holidays & religious feast days in order to file the final paperwork with immigration.

Meanwhile, life continues here with plenty of naughtiness.  Marcos is all boy; loud, loves to burp loudly and make other obnoxious noises.  It is impossible for him to be sneaky...his face shows it so obviously that it is comical.

Elsa is another story completely.  She loves to be sneaky, especially with candy, for which she will take great risks.  Yesterday, however, I think she just tried to think of ways to make Nana (that's me)as angry as possible.  She succeeded.  They hadn't been home from school long when I was doing something in the bedrooms and then came out to the living room to check on her.  She was on the screen porch where we have a table for arts & crafts and many small bins of supplies and a large plastic bin of paper for drawing & painting.  Everything has to be covered well because rain comes in there profusely.  I am always telling them to keep the paper bin covered because water & paper don't go together.  I had left 2 plastic cups of water out there since the last painting time so they could be reused. A large brush was soaking in one of them because Elsa had failed to rinse it out last time when she went from painting on paper to PAINTING THE FLOOR!  That was a No No.  Of course she knew that.  She is six.    So, I walked out to the porch and noticed the water cups were now empty...where is the water?, I asked her.  She slowly opened the paper bin and THERE before my eyes, were both of the pet ferrets eating some of their food which had just been dumped onto the pile of paper, AND the  cups of dirty, grey water had been combined up to the tippity-top of one container in there too.  I went a little crazy and shouted so loud I think you coulda heard me all the way to the clubhouse and across the lake.  The overflowing (almost) dish of dirty water was just the ultimate.  Lots of paper was wet and had to be thrown out, but the fact that the water was dirty is what tells me she just wanted to infuriate me.  She knows that we give everybody clean water.  (Note to self: NEVER leave water in containers on porch).   Marcos advised me at that point that Mom's method of discipline for similar behavior was to forbid her from touching the ferrets for some amount of time.  She does love to hold them and then I caught her holding one by the tail...grrrrrrr....she knows better.   At some point in the afternoon she drew a blue circle on the red sofa seat cover that her mom had stitched.  I am working on that now with white vinegar.    As a final touch, she used one of her markers from her cupcake set to draw a green picture on her white closet folding door.  I took away those markers.

Last weekend we went camping with the boyscouts.  It requires so much preparation and packing that it can seem a little crazy at the time.  Why am I doing all this for a couple of days?  But it is worth it and the more prepared we are, the more enjoyable it is.  Eliza had a good list from past trips (as well as a lot of things in freezer she had prepared)but I added more things this time...like a bucket and scrubby sponge & dish soap.  I had to use a bar of soap and a rag and set it on the ground beside the faucet on a plastic bag.  Overall, we had a great time and one key factor was that it was a lot warmer than last year's trip.  In fact, it was too hot during the day.  I had not even brought a t-shirt or one for Elsa since it had been such a cold week.  Welcome to Florida.  It does that.  I just forget sometimes.     I sure wish I could attach some of the photos I took but for some reason, my usual method of importing photos is no longer working on this computer.  So I will have to wait for my daughter, who seems to know all things computer, to return.     Marcos caught a good-size trout...the only scout who did...and , Boy, was he ever excited!  I have a photo of that too.      So we slept pretty well in our enormous tent and had lots of help putting it up (den leader, Jay)and taking it down (2 of the dads).  I was grateful for all the time saved.  

On the way home we stopped at the Dollar Store because I need paper towels and I promised the kids One thing each.  Elsa chose one of those microphones that is plastic and looks like a big ice-cream cone and is not electric or battery operated.  It just has sort-of echo power.  She loves to sing.  Marcos chose a pair of little pipes, like bubble pipes, that came with a little ball that he could hold in the air by blowing the pipe.  By the time we arrived at my house to pick up my mail, he decided he had made the wrong choice and that he MUST have a microphone also because Elsa would not share.  So I ended driving Back to the dollar store...ugh....and buying another one in a different color.  Then a good third of the way back they sang Freddie Mercury....OH MAMA....I DON'T WANNA DIE..... at the top of their lungs, magnified by the microphones.  Marcos even knows all the words.  After that they fought for a while and Elsa bopped him on the head a few times with her microphone until I threatened to pull over........finally arrived home....Ah....then the unloading began...and the bathing off all that camping dirt.  Over the next couple days I washed the sleeping bags & clothes and took out the tent and turned it inside out and back again and rolled it up nice & tight and all ready for the next trip in the spring.

Too bad about the photos!  Darn...I will add them later tho and will let everybody know.

My Home Away From Home

Right now my home is in my daughter's apartment near Jax Beach and I am caring for my 2 grandchildren.

My daughter, Eliza, just had one of the most momentous days of her life yesterday (Full Moon in Taurus, incidentally) at the immigration office in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.   After failing their first attempt to obtain a visa for her beloved two years ago, she has worked steadily at gathering proof of their devotion to each other.  Immigration people assume one is a phony until one proves otherwise.  (You can read all about it in her blog: AmorySabor.com).  The man whom she married on her last trip down there is from India and it has been an arduous task to assemble all the necessary documents, as well as an expensive one.  Corruption also plays a significant role.    When she revealed the news of their success on Facebook late yesterday, I could hardly get the words out, I was so excited.  I wept and when I was able to tell Marcos (he will soon be 9), he did too.  The children are aching for a dad and will be overjoyed to be reunited with the only dad they know.  Their original father is Dominican and, as it turned out, had another family.   He dropped the ball, which brought great suffering to the kids.     He stays in touch occasionally but the children barely remember him.    

 So this event will affect many lives.  I am so happy for my daughter and the children and may not have to be here quite as much in the future, freeing up my creative time.  I can't stand to be away from them for very long, though, which is why I am extremely desirous of making another trip to Maine soon.   Grandchild #3, Eli, age 4, is there and I have not seen him since May!...Much too long...In fact, I am hoping my son, Jake, will be getting some land up there before too long where I can start a big garden.  Then I would split my time between the north and the south.

Since tomorrow is Halloween, I will include a photo of Eliza & the kids at a recent Halloween party. (Elsa's smile is not exactly candid..haha). We trick or treat around this nice, safe neighborhood in the apartment complex and I hope they don't get too too much candy- but of course they will.    We need to carve our pumpkin asap.

Next blog will be in November... going camping with the Boy Scouts this weekend and I sure hope it warms up a little.  We were just socked with cold weather while our northern neighbors suffer through Hurricane Sandy.   Just went swimming in the ocean last week and now it feels suddenly like winter!

To the Dishonor of Christopher Columbus

Every time I listen to FreeSpeech TV and the Thom Hartmann show in particular, I learn something new.  Yesterday was October 12 and  the original date of Christopher Columbus day.  Now I know just how diabolical Columbus really was.

He sailed for the New World in search of gold and had told the king & queen of Spain that gold was so precious it could even "lift souls to paradise".  However, when he arrived on the island now known as Hispaniola,  (which is now composed of two nations; Haiti and the Dominican Republic), it was then populated by Taino indians, who welcomed Columbus' ships when they arrived there.  Apparently they had no iron and accidentally cut themselves when examining the Spanish swords.    Columbus found no gold on the island but something just as valuable: people - people whom he could enslave and sell. According to the writings of his own men,  Columbus reported that with as few as fifty men he could subject all the Tainos to do whatever he wanted them to do.  According to a letter in 1500 written by one of his men,  Columbus rewarded him with his own teen-aged Taino girl.   She fought him off so fiercely that he no choice but to "thrash her severely and rape her".  Columbus had started an international child sex slave trade.   He raped, pillaged, enslaved, and massacered many, many Tainos.  On his second trip to Hispaniola, Columbus and his men gathered 1600 indians as slaves, including sex slaves and it was reported that girls from "9 to 10years were in the greatest demand".   Tainos subsequently resorted to mass suicide to avoid being stolen by Columbus' men.

Christopher Columbus Day would more appropriately be called Taino Genocide Day.  

Making Marijuana Legal

I recently discovered the Documentary channel on the Dish network and have seen some excellent, though very disturbing, films.

Recently I watched one about the drug wars in Mexico and the whole gun culture that feeds it and I came up with the obvious conclusion that we must legalize marijuana and make a lot of this violence stop immediately.  But that is not profitable.  I learned that there are at least 7000!!! gun shops along the border to Mexico and the owners are not even required to report their sales.    The Mexican drug cartels are armed by American assault rifles.  They are brought into Mexico by the truckloads from the US and are rarely seized.  It was shocking.  It all has to do with the National Rifle Association (NRA), backed by $250 million, and the gun lobby, which works tirelessly to make the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms powerless to change this situation.    There was an interview with the head of the ATF Agency who basically said that no matter what they do,  the gun lobby wins.    The footage of the carnage in Mexico made me look away sometimes.  The body count is rising and in the last four years, at least 7000 people have been murdered.   One American gun shop owner was interviewed and asked if he knew that his guns were being used for killing in the drug war and he said yes.   Asked if he felt any regret about the situation, his response was No, this is America.      Whaaa?

Incidentally, Wisconsin has some of the least restrictive gun laws in the country and they even showed footage of a big community bbq/picnic where all the men were "packing".  They were all, without exception,  enjoying the picnic with guns stuck in their belts....I mean with little kids running around and all that!!!  I had to wonder if this was the same planet as that one.

I am not against anybody owning a gun (but keep it in a locked box in car trunk or truck if you must keep it with you, for God's sake!)but I am very against ANY individual owning an assault rifle.  I do not know what to do about this problem, honestly.  It is all based in FEAR.  Yes it is.  Fearful people need to wear  guns to a community picnic.  

But the subject was marijuana.  While it is a No-Brainer that medical marijuana should have been legal nation wide before this, and Obama has missed the boat on that one, I believe all marijuana should be legal and let them tax the hell out of it like they do everything else.  They might still kill each other over cocaine, but it sure will reduce the carnage immensely and free up tons of room in the prisons.  And speaking of prisons, the for-profit route we are going in just puts all those criminals back into a position of slavery with little hope to rehabilitate and get out ever.  They need a quota in those places to get their money...and Boy, do they get it.  

Another reason to legalize the cannabis plant is to free up the production of hemp, a most useful and strong material that was once in common use in industry.  Politics & greed caused it to be outlawed but I hope we can swing the whole thing around before long.    It is greed that has caused the drug war fed by gun sales, and since the demand for marijuana will not be going away, there is only one solution.  

I don't have a suitable photo for this article either, so I will again just add one of my drawings/pntngs.  These are my Camelias.  They are not in bloom at the moment but they are budding.

In the Company of Writers

I attended a wonderful event last Saturday at Flagler College, here in St. Augustine.  It was "The Florida Heritage Book Festival" and it was simply delightful.  My only regret is that I was late for the first session and could only go to one presentation at a time from all the offerings!   A long list of authors gave lectures and workshops and it was so difficult to choose from among them.

  I caught the tail end of Hilary Hemingway discussing  her uncle Ernest's life in Cuba, the PBS documentary she is directing, a book she is writing, as well as the upcoming feature film,  Hemingway & Fuentes.    Sounds interesting, doesn't it?  It was and she had original slides on the screen to bring it to life.

   The next writer I chose after reading this description: Deborah Sharp left her job reporting for USA Today to write her Mace Bauer Mysteries.  A native Floridian, she rode horseback across her home state as research for the four books in the series.  Deborah's short fiction and essays have appeared nationally and her commentaries are heard on NPR.     Horseback across the state!!??!!  That's what got me.  How cool is that?  I asked her about it and she said even tho she grew up riding horses, it was a whole lot different in her 50's than in her teens.  Her descriptions had me laughing so hard I cried.  She said sitting in a lawn chair in the wagon pulled by a mule was even worse!   Her description of the ups and downs of her career and the relationship with her husband, a veteran tv news reporter, was hilarious as well.  I really want to read her books, which are mysteries with humor.

Each session was an hour with a break for lunch.  I sat outside at an umbrella table and ate the sandwich I'd brought while poring over the booklet trying to choose the next 2 offerings...not easy!

The next one I picked was a team of two women, Adrian Fogelin & Caren Umbarger, whose presentation was entitled:  From Writer to Author   "Your story: from your mind to the bookstore shelf".   They were both very smart and very funny with lots of experience and wisdom to impart.  Here is what the booklet said about them:    Adrian Fogelin the author of seven novels for middle grade and one young adult novel.  Her latest book is "Summer on the Moon".  Her books have received two Florida Book Award Gold Medals and numerous other awards including one for Italy's most prestigious children's book award.
Caren Unbarger won a Bronze Medal at the 2011 Florida Book Awards for her first novel, "Coming To: A Midwestern Tale".  The book is set in her hometown of Mason City, Iowa, and was inspired by the lives of her grandmothers.  She is a professional musician and string teacher. 

The ladies had questions about their writing processes already formulated that they each answered.  Adrian described her novelist mom stirring at the stove while she reread her manuscript held in her other hand.  She said she started editing her mom's writing and eventually her mother valued her daughter's input.     Caren described finding the mentor of a lifetime in Minneapolis where she traded violin lessons for writing lessons with a man named Alexs Pate, who wrote the book from which the film, "Amistad" was made.   She had many memorable quotes of the advice he had given her.  The hour made me more aware of my own value as a writer, however green and unknown, and the wonderful opportunity the internet provides for getting one's voice out there.

Finally, for the last hour of the day's offerings, I chose to listen to Jeff Ashton presenting "Imperfect Justice: Prosecuting Casey Anthony     An insider's look at the intricacies of the trial and the persona of the defendant."   Here is what the booklet said about him:  Jeff Ashton was on the prosecution team for one of the most-watched trials in U.S. history.  His book, "Imperfect Justice: Prosecuting Casey Anthony", covers that experience and will soon be a TV movie starring Rob Lowe.  Ashton recently retired from a 30-year career as a prosecutor.    How could I resist that?  While admittedly not a writer,  Mr. Ashton gave lots of credit to his co-writer and joked about how everybody, including himself, got an "upgrade" with the choices of actors depicting them in the film.   His discussion of his experience was fascinating.  He invited the audience to present questions to him as he went along and they did.  He was obviously in disagreement with the verdict and was incredulous that the jury seemed to ignore some of most powerful evidence that would have resulted in a guilty verdict.  But, he shrugged, these things can happen and Ms. Anthony cannot be retried.  He did not believe she could ever live peacefully in the United States.

There was also a Marketplace, a large room with author book sales and signings, book-related vendors, and door prizes.  Not all the writers there had presentations but many had books that I intend to order.

So that, in as much of a nutshell as I can reduce it to, was the wonderful day.  I urge everyone to put it on next year's calendar.   It actually began on Thursday afternoon and continued all day Friday at World Golf Village.  Saturday was the free day and I hope to be there again.

Flux

Haven't written anything lately as I have been absorbed with maintenance jobs at home, car repairs, (I certainly didn't do them but stood by and helped a little while a friend did), volunteer-teaching an after-school art class, and now at my daughter's apartment hanging out with the kids.

 I return home early tomorrow for the all-day Writers' Festival held at Flagler College.  I went last year and it was really great; numerous writers spoke in different rooms and it was difficult choosing which ones to listen to.  They were all fascinating and often very funny.  I'm looking forward to it and it's free!  I'll bring a lunch and sit at one of the nice outdoor umbrella tables when we have the free time.

I have a lot of things swimming around in my head about which I may want to write but for now I  will just add a couple of drawings that I did some time ago.

Making a Choice

It is not as though anybody who knows me doesn't realize that my politics are far to the Left and environmentally I am very conservative.    There is obviously only one choice I can make for this upcoming election.  Obama has made some pretty big mistakes but he has also done some serious good.    It certainly appears like this is a contest between the 1% and the 99%, with Obama representing the latter.

A Republican president at this time would roll back already fragile environmental laws to benefit business interests for the very wealthy.  Then there are women's rights for health care, as in Planned Parenthood, which the Republicans would eliminate along with other social programs.  I don't even want to think about what will become of Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security, which are absolutely vital to many Americans.  Veterans were not even mentioned at the Republican Convention.

I have been watching Free Speech TV lately with Thomas Hartmann and his various guests.  He is very knowledgeable about politics and history and I have been learning a lot.  For example, I now understand exactly what fascism is.  It is the merging of government and corporatism; represented by greed for money and power from monopolistic corporate cartels.  They are stronger now than ever.  They are the 99%.  Romney is a Corporatist.   Their tactics include a deliberate perversion of Truth & Fact.  They are trying to pit commoners, like you & me, against each other,  (via race, religion, gender) and therefore keep the commoner in eternal subjection.    I also learned that the richest Americans are stashing  21 TRILLION Dollars off-shore.  These people claim to be patriots and claim to be religious and they are actually parasitic.   Tom Hartmann urges us all to become active and to Occupy Something!

At the same time I want to do the Zen thing and be unemotional about it all and leave it up to The Great Spirit.        

Here is a pencil drawing I did inside my house.