July 20, 2000

"Patience"

Just how much patience am I expected to have? Oh, I know, as much as it takes. But how much is it going to take?

Yes, we did get the results from Julia's MRI. There is a herniated disk between the C-6 and C7 and she will require surgery. However, we are now waiting to get the appointment for the surgery. They, of course, will call when ever they get to it.

The web site renovations are moving apace. I don't know when we'll shut down the starnet site, and put the new system in place. but each day brings it closer. As I might have said before, this is not all a sad thing. I've been making some pictures clearer and more detailed and the text easier to read. I also found some new info and added to the ancient sexuality section about the history of Grecian prostitutes. It's quite fascinating as it was a different world then.

Of course, the most important stuff is being kept, in a tiered system of ranking. The top ranked stuff is going on the casagrande gallae side. Second in place, which will be some of the museion pages such as coins and monuments and wonders, as well as many of the better pictures will be sent to the cybele side. All the remaining pictures, mostly from journal illustrations, will be shunted off to another site. Glen has offered us 100 MB and our own IP number on a shared site of his own. If I can make the damn thing work. I couldn't access the proper file folder with our 'ugly' FTP circa 1994, and so downloaded a 'Cute' FTP that allows access to the folder. Perhaps this will work.

later this day. . .

Take a look at this work in progress!

http://216.221.166.242/joanall.htm

.

 

July 21, 2000

"Some Good News"

Yes, we actually have some good news! While Julia didn't pay into her county job's temporary disability plan, for a small fee, she can still keep her health insurance intact while she is off work. This greatly relieves our minds, for we were so afraid the insurance would be ripped just before she has the no doubt very expensive surgery to fix her herniated disk. It's great to have even a sigh of relief.

Also, I called the lawyer, and we are moving 'closer' to a settlement on the house. That's hopeful.

Anything positive is good. We went to Bookman's and turned in several boxes of books and CDs, for CASH, this time, rather than trade. This money will help us last better until the beginning of next month. Our libaries have been pruned to the finest of the finest, now!

Well waiting for the clerks to evaluate our boxfulls, I chose a well padded comfy chair to sit in while I read a book I'd grabbed off a nearby shelf. The Smithsonian had a book celebrating the best of the first twenty years of their magazine. I learned a few interesting things during that short while. The largest flower in the world is indigenous to a country called Sumatra. It is three feet across, and is mostly deep red with many pointy ended petals. I tried to visualize what the small photo of it would look in real life, so huge. It must be magnificant to see.

Not only that, I also took with me some fascinating trivia about the age when chamber pots were used for one's toilet needs. Decorating them became a custom, however the MANNER of decoration is quite significant. A portrait of a particularily despired person would be painted on the inner bottom of the pot! The illustration showed one with Napolean in the target zone!

 

July 24, 2000

"Sorting, Sorting, Sorting"

You might have noticed a change or two if you've been poking around in all the various pages assembled under the 'house of the Triad'. Yes, those pages at Starnet were very quickly made 'unavailable' within hours after I'd made the call to close the account. POOF! Gone!

I sort of thought I'd have time to organize this large mess here. But I had to send up my preparations 'mid readiness. Most of the important text is up, and the very most important pictures are up. However, if you stray not very far away from these here current journal pages, you'll find lots of broken links and missing pictures.

If I were like most people, I would scrap all that old dusty stuff from nearly four years ago. But I'm not like most people. The patina of age gives me a sentimental feeling to all that stuff. Or, to be more precise, my memory is not that good. Laura, on the other hand, has a detailed memory. As we were sorting through our music collection the other day, I showed Laura a disk we'd bought on that vacation we took Shayna to San Diego. We'd went to the great zoo there, On on upper level deck in an area with small restaurants and shops, a live band entertained zoo visitors. The band from the Andes were a talented and capable band, and Laura and I enjoyed resting and listening to them while Shayna was in one of the shops. However the recording technique on this particular CD of their songs wasn't of the latest skill. Perhaps some old castoffs of the fifties was used to make the demo record. Still, listening to it, I had a hazy picture of the way they sounded that day. Laura, however, could see it all in detail. She could 'see' Shayna coming to join us as she exited the shop, showing us her jewelry purchases, with each detail as distinct as it was that day.

I am rather 'nearsighted', and with the increasing distance of time, each detail gets increasingly fuzzier. Without the journal entries to mark my days, mental pictures of the past become hazy impressionistic watercolors that got left out in the rain.

So I'm keeping all that old stuff!

However, I must make a hierarchy of importance on all those K hogging pictures I've assembled, and sort them out to their respective ques. In time, all those blank squares will be filled with colorful images. In time . . .

And when I've done as much of that sorting as I can for the day, other sorting tasks await me. We have definately secured Anton and Cynthia's old house as our future three dimensional 'fleshspace' domain when all this VDP business is over. However, the new house is much smaller. We can not keep all the junk we've collected through the years. We, of course, will perserve the best of the lot.

But, oh, the sorting . . . We'll have it all done, in time . . .

 

July 28, 2000

"One Day At A Time"

Tuesday morning I was so nervous I could hardly stand it. I was, of course, anticipating that long awaited visit to the doctor, regarding the disability. What fears were in me? I thought I'd stop in with that inner space to see. Warning, it starts out a little grim:

I Can Carry A Day I fear the fierce force gnashing bashing, grinding, rending and tearing. What silent, invisable monster has been eating away at me? He claims my strength, he claims my power. He claims the seedy sinews. He claims, and I am left with what remains - no strength to lift beyond the present. The future, with all its dark mysteries, remains too heavy. Perhaps such a large future needs to be broken down into smaller pieces. A day, I can carry a day, with two hands aided by faith, I can carry a day. That will do. JAL, 7-25-00

Even in the midst of my near breath choking fears, inner voice was telling me some good advice. True that old adage of One day at a time . . .

It proved to be a good doctor visit. I think the doctor understood me and my condition. So it looks hopeful on that score.

Meanwhile, preparations for the house move continue slowly. Laura wet cleaned the carpets of the new place yesterday, Serena put some shelving paper up, and Serena and I tackled the refrigerator. The previous tenants did not leave it very clean, so it was quite a job. I'm beginning to visualize how it will look better. We all have had the curious feeling that had we never met Helina (aka VDP), this is the house we would have bought in the first place.

(For those new to our trials and tribulations, here's the background on VDP.)

 

July 29, 2000

"Left Behind, Mysteries"

I don't know much about the former tenants of what is to be our new house, except that they are friends of Cynthia's parents. And that they like slender stick pretzels. I found broken bits of pretzels on both the bedroom carpet as well as on the floor of the cupboard.

Also, they didn't carefully suspend foot over a wastebasket when cutting their toenails. Toe nails were scattered all over the bedroom floor.

There were a few other mysteries left behind. When I pulled out the bottom drawer in the kitchen to clean out the floor there, several things had fallen down there. Two blue and white striped pot holders were among them. But most mysterious was a Christmas card. It was likely sent by an older couple, as the card chosen featured an old fashioned traditional scene of a church on a field of snow, and the handwriting was that of an older person - ''Love from your sister Ellen and Don''. This could have been sent to the lady who owned the house even before Anton and Cynthia did. Or possibly even before that lady, an earlier tenant yet. The mystery of this card intrigues me.

 

July 30, 2000 - A

"A Fascinating Game"

There seems to be a curious cyclical pattern to the way things happen. Julia made an interesting observation. It was the end of July when she first joined us back in 1994. It was the end of July when she first started working for Pinal country. And it is the end of July that we have just spent our first night in the new house. It was kind of creepy, not hearing familiar sounds, and being in a mostly empty house. But it was an initiation. These cycles we see could all be co-incidence, as the mind seeks to find patterns in things. For it may only be similar to the way the mind likes to see things in mottled wallpaper, wood whorls and clouds. Still it's a fascinating game to play 'connect the dots' with visual data or events.

 

July 30, 2000 - B

"X-Men"

Ever since we'd learned the X-Men movie (based on the comic book series), featured Patrick Stewart, (who played Captain Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek, The New Generation), I'd been keen to see this movie. Laura was, as well. After a report from Anton and Cynthia, who said it was good, we scraped together the shekels to see this movie.

I'd not read the comic books, so I had no idea of what to expect, except a classic battle of good over evil. That there was, certainly enough, with Stewart playing the Good Guy. He is Professor Charles Xavier, wheelchair-bound but possessed with strong telepathic powers. .He is mentor to a group of other mutants, who have as their chief enemy Xavier's rival, and one-time collaborator, Magneto. Magneto (played by Ian McKellen) and Xavier make an intriguing pair of opposites. The reason is Magneto's desire for revenge upon humans. Some humans do not tolerate mutants and rather than seeking to educate them, he merely wants revenge. Not that he didn't have reasons to be angry against them. An early scene shows his parents being separated from him when he was barely a teenager by the Nazi's in 1944. As his mother frantically sobs, out of reach beyond a large metal gate, he also wails and screams, and mysteriously that gate seems to bend and twist. This is the beginning of his magnetic powers.

The mutant powers first show up when they are young teenagers. One such young teenager is named Rogue, who first learns of her powers the first time she kisses a boy. His face starts to crack and he goes into a coma. Upon learning she has the dangerous ability to absorb the power of anyone she touches, Rogue heads for the Canadian wilderness. Perhaps she will be safer there. She is very engagingly played by Anna Paquin, who portrays her confusion and earnestness very well.

Just a young girl she is, and yet her powers are desired by Magneto, who wishes to transform hundreds of innocent humans into mutants. Nevermind the process will kill them. Thus the movie is off and running.

It's confusing in parts, but otherwise, it's quite entertaining. It's not epic, like Gladiator was, but X-Men is definately worthwhile seeing on the big screen.

 

August 2, 2000

"Weary"

My computer's new digs

I can hardly believe it. We are mostly all moved into the new house. I sit at the computer, all set up here in its new corner. The phone lines will be set up tomorrow, so there is no web access yet. But mostly everything essential is here. Bouncy, baudy Renaissance music is on the stereo, the fan is blowing cool air on me, and the progress cheers my weary bones.

And weary we are! Every time we move, I hope it will be the last time. The toll has been hardest on Laura. I wish I could lift more of the heavy things. Fortunately Laura's son's Anton and James came this morning to bring the largest items over. The rest of the things can be sorted at a slower pace. Laura, after some stabbing heart pain scares, realises she needs to take things a little easier. Only the problem is, what she calls 'rest' would be busyness to someone else.

All under the guise of 'rest', this afternoon she put the shelves in the bookcase, arranged the books on them, set up her computer and printer, and put together a chair! She's so sore she can hardly move, but that doesn't stop her.

(Should you wish to see that "Three Graces" statue closer, I speak of it in the January 16th entry. Also, the lady to the right served as the inspiration for this picture I drew back in 1998.)

 

August 4, 2000

"Give Me Windows"

NEW view from computer area

When Julia and I got back from our sojourn to Tucson (more about that later . . .), I was surprised to see my computer had been moved out of the living room and into the kitchen, facing the kitchen window. To make room for this, my sewing machine had been turned to meet the window at a 90 degree angle, instead of parallel. Apparently this is necessary, for otherwise the phone man would have had to put in new lines underneath the house and that would have cost an additional $130 bucks!

After the initial shock, I like the new view. I am insisting, however, that the griddle, which is presently near the computer, be moved to some other shelf. Laura understood my objections, and griddle will be moving. I have access to the web. I can read my favorite journals. I can get e-mail. I am happy.

This new view reminds me of a poem I wrote when I was in my early twenties.

LET THE LIGHT Oh give me windows, large breathing wide. Let me see sky, the eye of God; And let the light, the bright,   the holy light illuminate all behind window and wall. JAL, 1979 or 1980?

 

August 5, 2000 - A

"Hanging In There"

Julia, HANGING in there!

The herniation in her neck is small, so the doctor wants to try other methods before going with surgery. The neck traction device, shown on Julia in the picture above, is being prescribed for ten pounds of weight (water poured into a bag up to a line indicating ten pounds) three times a day, at thirty minutes a stretch. It's helping some. She can lift her head more now. On the seventeenth, she sees the doctor again, and we'll know more then.

 

August 5, 2000 - B

"Past What Meets The Eye"

I cannot believe this impartial surface. Things do not look as they seem. Why, under the layers, there is truth. I'll peel back until I find it, down deep past what meets the eye.

So how is it I cannot trust the surface? What lies beyond that is not immediately visable? With what fingers do I reach it? It would seem them, I must shut the physical eye and open the spiritual one.