so long

 

So Trista quit the gym this weekend.  She's not the first Corretti kid to leave the sport but this one almost feels like a death in the family.

Gym has been the heartbeat of her life since she walked in the door however many years ago.  13? 14?  At some point I've lost count.  It was Mommy & Me except Mommy & Us bc, you know, twins.  She loved it.  She jumped and ran & danced and swung.  It invaded her self.

Before she even turned 5, she was invited to team.  This invitation came with a side of TOPs, an entirely different program on top of regular team.  Strength training plus different, more difficult, routines except these were "sequences" and were meant to push further forward.  She atesleptbreathed gymnastics.  She'd practice for hours at a time & still come home ready for more.  Memorized skills/routines/sequences.  Pressed into handstand.  Again.  Climbed the rope.  Again.  Held handstands for countless seconds.  None of it wore her out.  She was always ready to throw on a leo & head back to the gym.  Meets began.  Practice continued.  Broke her arm & battled back.  

At the age of 7, she did her first set of TOPs testings & qualified as a Diamond - one of the top 50 7-year-olds in the country!  It was so very exciting!  At the age of 8, she qualified to travel to Indiana for further testing.  Missed camp that year by the smallest margin.  Vowed to get it next year.

More meets, more summer camps.  More practice...ponytails...leotards.  Always the leotards.  She competed 4-5-6 in one season and was so ready for TOPs testing again.  Except.  COVID.  And the world shut down.  There was only 1 level 6 meet.  There was no summertime TOPs.  There were Zoom practices & her Daddy built a bar for the floor, to practice handstands & pirouettes.  We already had a trampoline and Air Track.  We ordered a climbing rope for the back porch.  (It still hangs there, lonely.). Practices resumed with only a few kids at a time.  Schedules were screwy and homeschooling came in handy.  Gradually the world reopened & things resumed.  She was a Level 7.  She traveled to Boston camp with a friend.  Two Level 7 meets.  Push to 8 to finish that season.  

Two Atlanta camps in there, somewhere.  "Mean" Jacobo from TOPs testing was always glad to see her there.

TOPs was back.  Indiana again.  Qualified to B camp so Indiana again, again.  And then TOPs was over bc 10 year olds "retire" from the program.  On to Level 9.  And Hopes came next.  More skills.  Difficult skills.  A camp in Texas with National Staff.  Qualified Elite Compulsory for Hopes.  And then decided it wasn't for her.  Dropped back to "regular" level 9.  Level 9 Regionals took us to Tampa twice.

Then Level 10.  Twice.  And somewhere in there, she grew tired of the mental games.  Tired of structuring life around the sport.  Second year Level 10 brought illness and injury and missed meets and scratched events and suddenly all that was left was the whimper.  And now there is silence.

Gymnastics took her so many places.  She did so many things.  Met so many people.  It was life's blood to her.  And now tomorrow will be different.  And the rest of the week.  And the months ahead.  Something else will attract her attention at some point.  But for now, summer is coming.  Unstructured summer for the first time in 10 years - more, really, if you count the years that Auri was in the gym before she was.

There's grief in this for me.  Grief that, while she went out on her own time - not due to injury or the like, she's going out defeated with an air of unrest about the thing she gave her young life too.  She chose the path - we never had to push her to get into the car.  But seeing her feeling as if she's wasted all that time with nothing to show for it is agonizing.  We've had "big picture" conversations of late.  One day I hope she sees that picture.  I hope she sees all that she did gain from this thing before it broke her heart.  I hope that she can see what I do.  I hope that one day it will be remembered as a gift, rather than a curse. 

firsts and lasts

 i.am.tired.

"meet season" for two different sports has me worn and weary.

perspective change.

today was the last day i have to drive to tuesday wrestling practice with a "rookie" wrestler.  next season will bring only open brackets.  and he'll be 13.  what.

today was the first day that she "caught" her pak with her chest.  oh dear.  that might mean a bars scratch this weekend.  but so what, who cares?  plenty more bars to swing.  plus that catch led to a height measurement.  1/4 inch in 7.5 weeks?  that might be why!  she'll be 13 in a minute too.

debates about spring breaks.  high school credits.  jobs and when to leave them.  THAT baby will be 17 in a blink.  time is drawing short.

tuesdays have been chaos since the carpool fell apart.  it's 9:16pm & dinner is still in the oven.  so what.  who cares?  there's no bus to meet at 5am.  schoolwork will hold for an extra hour while we sleep.  

time is fleeting and these babies aren't keeping.

not so long ago
but maybe longer than that
because as time flies faster and numbers rise
everything slips away into the fog

but at some point back there
when so much seemed
difficult
and gray
and black
and dull

i could curl up and cuddle with my words
seek my solace in their release
revel in the fleeting permanence
of their meanings
pour my pain out in paragraphs
and slip sadness into sentences

phrases and a jumble of syllables
absorbed my anger
and breathed into my bitterness
hope and promise of a
tomorrow that felt differently

but yesterday was 20 years ago
and i lost my box of language bandages
left behind in the daily business of 
everything and
everyone but
not ever enough me.

temporarily
until one day it showed up
peeking out from behind hurt feelings
and so i opened it back up
tore open a wrapper
and exhaled into the therapy of
lexicon

which welcomed me back with open arms
and said where've you been, old friend
welcome home
sad to see you but glad you're back.

 a fucking mess.

that's me.

I don't trust anyone.  or anything.  and when I THINK I'm finally making break throughs with people and my own stupid mind, I am betrayed.  or what I consider betrayed.  and then I'm all "fuck YOU" again and it's over.  not quite before it started.  but close.

I'm over.it.  all.of.it.  I can't decide if it's that I don't know how to be a friend.  or if it's my expectations that are too high.  as in expecting from others what I'd give to them.

what has happened to people?  what has happened to ME?  

it's really just easier to be alone at this point.  I can't decide if there's a lesson in that or not.  possibly there is.  I'm going to act on what I think that is.  maybe if I do that, peace will come elsewhere.

maybe. 

well hello there.

so i'm kind of thinking maybe some things should move over here, away from fb. and so here we are. back again. maybe to stay. but we always say that, don't we?

there's a new hashtag about. maybe you've seen it? #crazymother or #crazymothers. it's →this←

and this BOTHERS me. i'm listening to it again here, now, as i write. it makes me weepy. here's my connection to it: almost 22 years ago, my first (bio)child had the DPT and slept for 24 hours. i had to force her awake to eat. a few months, later, she had the second DPT and, i swear to you, she screamed for a week. this time she didn't sleep. neither did i. she screamed, i cried. best i could manage for her was about 20 minutes in the swing and then she'd wake to scream again. this time i reported to her doctor. P(ertussis) was taken off of her vaccine schedule. guess what? she didn't scream like that again.

vaccine-induced encephalopathy, she, at 4 months, would have been having horrid terrible headaches as lesions formed in her tiny brain. ever had a migraine as an adult? ever had to hide in your room for hours or days on end as you cried and cowered and vomited from the pain? that was my 4 month old daughter. but she was 4.months.old. she didn't know what terror was overtaking her. she only knew that she hurt and nothing helped. ah, but they've CHANGED that nasty old "P" vaccine. it's all better now. it's aP now. all better. except.

we continued to vaccinate. fast forward 12-13 years. another daughter. few months in, weeping eczema rashes on her cheeks. more months passed, highly reactive respiratory system. more months and multiple food allergy and asthma diagnoses. (but, but there's not a "P" vaccine anymore! and these symptoms aren't the same as your first daughter who had the "P" issue! so what's YOUR issue, lady?)

i cannot definitively prove a link but i do know that my least vaccinated children are my healthiest compared to my others and to their peers. and the literature supports that the symptoms/conditions that my second daughter faced/faces currently can be a result of vaccination. so. i'm just saying.
what if i HADN'T done what everyone else does, just because that's what you do? maybe neither one of them would have ever had an issue?

 i don't have this conversation often. i avoid it mostly. cause, you know, i don't want to be called a #crazymother complete with eye rolling and head shaking and glares. but i know what i've seen and i know what i've read and i know about screaming for a week on end and hospital stays for asthma and prescription costs and pictures of bloody weeping eczema cheeks and i know that, comparatively, i'm a "lucky" one. i still have my whole child.

a whole lot of the other #crazymothers don't.

jump-start

interesting where a jump-start in faith can come from. in this case, the homegoing of a child born to this earth but not meant to stay. placed here long enough to crawl into her mama & daddy's hearts and curl up in a warm ball to create a space that will be hers everlasting. they sent her off home with open hands, yet grasping fingers. knowing so adamantly that she was going to glory only imagined but desperately brokenly brutally desiring her company here on earth. they know that she'll meet them again with blind eyes open & glory emanating from a face made whole by the end that was only a beginning. but they are human. selfish, hurting, broken humans with desires of this earth. if they can love, what barriers are there to me doing the same? jump-start. out of the brilliant black hole of loss and surrender. ljr 2.11.14 - 2.15.14

almost so long

17 more days until korea is in my rearview, so to speak. could be a few less. but we'll have to see.

i thought i'd be ecstatic to leave this foreign land. but i really can't decide if i am. i've been making lists & marking things off & adding things on...cleaning out cabinets & refrigerators & having the smallest grocery store trips ever. pitching things in the trash or passing them along. it goes on and on....

this was supposed to be a one year tour. "you can do anything for a year, right?" right. the least of which is turn it into two years. and three and four and two more babies and troubled teenagers and a new employer and strange adventures that we didn't imagine and now, four AND A HALF years later, off we go. home again, home again, jiggety-jig.

back to where we started. into the house we left, albeit with more members than we left with. and back to grandparents and other assorted family members, some blood, some not. and familiarity. and everything in our language, without accent or explaining twenty times so as to make ourselves clear. but also to the downfall of our country. and a president who cares not who he harms, only how many policies he can put his name to as his time grows short. and parents who are not raising their children, with the expected results. and a world who has forgotten its Creator, again with the expected results.

and we have five children to help navigate this world. two are well on their way to navigating on their own. i pray that they can avoid the pitfalls and whirlpools that lie in wait. three come behind them that we have what seems so much time to teach but in reality will pass by in the blink of an eye. and maybe this process would be easier here. but, as we've seen over the past year, perhaps not.

so as i tick off my list and think of new additions, tears well and subside with disturbing frequency. as happy as i am to return to where i came from, the relative unknowns stop me in my tracks, disrupt my sleep and gnaw at my mind. this is all i ever wanted, so someone tell me...why the misgivings?

crybaby day

or maybe it should read crymommy day. gah.

there is a couple at our church. they have been on an adoption journey for the past few years & it has finally almost fully come to fruition. they are in another country, their daughter is THEIR daughter & they are just waiting on the monotony of paperwork in order to be able to bring her home with them. they sent a video to church so that the church family could see who they've been praying for this whole time. and she is beautiful. and the love shining in their faces is beautiful. i believe those three people have been blessed with each other. what a wonderful gift!

and i cried about the video. cried because of the love shining in their faces. and for the little girl who only knew an orphanage and will now know so much more. and a tiny seed was replanted in my heart.

we had discussed adoption for our family. that, of course, was before squishy & skinny came to live with us. and then we cut off the road for any further squishys or screamys. and 5 is a BIG number. i think i had always planned for 3. i guess the 3 was 3 pregnancies. but then i got a bonus child of my heart upon marrying his father & pregnancy #3...well, God apparently had an extra youngun lying around that needed a home so he got tacked on as a bonus child of my body.

but so many babies out there have nowhere to go. i've followed my friend's blog since before they went to the other country & it is heartbreaking. there are pictures of little ones who have no mother or father to hold them. and her little girl has probably never had a "real" bath. she's clean but her clean comes from a washcloth, not from a bathtub full of bubbles & splashes & giggles.

ehhh. maybe this qualifies me as crazy. but my mom said that her friend, who had 4 children, told her over & over that once you got past 3, it was all insanity all the time so why not keep adding more? something to think about that may lie on my heart for awhile, to be sure.

and then there was a (post)secret (i hope that link works as my internetz have been effing with me big time lately. i'll be surprised if this even posts). wow. just wow. not for what the secret says but for what emotion it drags out of my soul. my babies came home with me. CAME HOME WITH ME. not many get to do that. so many get left behind to grow & heal. and mine didn't. cause God is good like that. but i'm still pained for the ones left behind. or the ones who never do come to an earthly home but instead go straight up to their Father. i can't imagine the pain.

all this to say that i'm ever so thankful for the babies i have. the ones i've carried & the one i didn't. and for their health & my health. but those babies who have no one to carry them have dug a hole in my heart. maybe one day it will be filled with one of them. who knows what life has in store? not us here on earth, that's certain.

shattered

happy mother's day.

would it have killed you to have said it?

efforts concentrated elsewhere

cause more stuff is going on over here than i can keep up with. so i'm not going to kill this blog off, exactly, just put it on an official hiatus (as opposed to unofficial?) for the time being. you can find me over there if you want me!

bad things come in 47s or something like that

what the crap, thursday? i mean SERIOUSLY.

so i woke up this morning. cause middlest wanted her hair straightened for cheerleading pictures. annnnnd no one else was up. yes, someone's alarm was playing music LOUD enough for the alarm to wake up the neighbors but no one in our house was awake. so i turned on lights & wiggled beds & such & everyone got up & started running. never a good way to start the day.

and littlest was a crabby patty about doing school. for some reason, the baby doll needed to come to school today. no she doesn't. yes she does. baby got grounded to the other side of the table. and littlest was still a crab.

and then i cleaned the living room floors. more on that later. just remember it.

and then i decided to go dye my hair. littlest was playing outside & had been out there happy for hours. HOURS i tell ya. so forgive me if i thought it was a good idea to sneak upstairs for a few minutes to attend to something for MYSELF for a change.

because then all hell broke loose. -ish. hair dye EVERYWHERE because for some reason i think it's a good idea to try different kinds. and none of them are the same consistency. and this one was the consistency of...oh, koolaid. heh. that was fun. and then comes littlest whining up the stairs. apparently the road had bitten her little knees & her little friend doctored her up but apparently the band-aids little friend used weren't up to littlest's standards. so she needed new ones. i pleaded with her to give me a few minutes so i wouldn't shed hair dye all over the house. she was content.

and then she was thirsty. and went downstairs after water. and apparently climbed up on the counter & helped herself to bandaids. and it really just occurred to me but i guess she threw the wrappers away because i haven't seen them lying around anywhere? hmm. good job. and then i discovered she'd been gone for awhile & went looking for her & met her on the steps & holy hannah! WHAT IS ALL OVER YOUR FACE? of course it was blood. of course. guess she joins her daddy & her bubba with the delightful nosebleeds. but then it was time to rinse the hair dye out before it ate my hair into nothingness. so here's a massive wad of toilet paper & please sit down before blood gets on more stuff than just your shirt & skirt & chest & face. and finally it stopped & the hair dye was rinsed out & back outside she went to play again.

and THEN i discovered that that little jackass baby weiner decided to pee all over my newly cleaned living room floor. and then not much later, he pooped on it. after being fine all stinkin day, he waited until the floor was clean.

and to top it all off, 1 was snappy for no reason. at least what i considered no reason. and apparently decided that spending the evening playing video games while the world spun on around him with cleaning & things was a good plan. not today, buddy. not today.

almost TGIF. but then another whirlwind weekend. but maybe next thursday will be better. but probably not since dear korea gives us a middle of the week holiday that the big kids get off of school. so thursday will be another monday.

who thinks i will lose my mind sometime in the next 19 years? cause, yeah, that's what i'm looking at, in case anyone missed that bulletin.


***oh, and p.s., more stuff than this went on today. in case you thought i had no right to gripe since my day seemed relatively empty if you were comparing catastrophes to hours. BUT IT WASN'T. the aforementioned events were the highlights.

also. does anyone else find it amusing that i posted something on my facebook referring to a group of people that are just exasperating as all get out & one of the group members responded to the post? clueless, i tell ya. just clueless. but i guess that's the way it is when you think you run the world. once you get yourself up there so high on the pedestal, i guess it's pretty hard to see what's going on down below. morons.

click, click, clique?

poor little neglected blog. sigh. i keep vowing to turn over a new leaf but every time i do, that little jackass flips right back over on me & i don't notice for about 2 months & then hey! yet another neglected blog post! shameful. just shameful.

so i quit the homeschool group. (travelling circus, stop reading NOW...you're already heard it.)

it was a great group when it started. many different people, many different views, but all meshing together nicely. and plans were emailed & everyone knew what was up. AND THEN THE GREAT PCS EXODUS OCCURRED.

and the group changed hands and whee hoo, yippity yahoo, it all went to crap. for me at least. i'm sure everyone else is happy with it. cause they're a part of the CLIQUE. and i'm not. so poo on them.

i was always the awkward kid. the nerd kid. the funny-looking kid. the doesn't fit in with the "in" crowd kid. and i wasn't the kid that took it gracefully and went about with my other nerd friends, my other awkward, funny-looking friends. i was one who tried to fit in. and by doing so, probably signed my death warrant as the nerd kid who will NEVER fit in. i didn't have the right clothes or the right hair or the right attitude. or the right overly-permissive parents. i didn't have any of what THEY had. not that i care at this point. but back then it was hard. and it seeped into me and now it infuriates me when it happens again. because my 4th-9th grade self creeps out and pouts in the corner while the cool kids flounce around in their name brand clothes.

and that's where the homeschool group went wrong for me. i get that i'm not exactly part of the in crowd with my not-army family and my kids too big or too little to fit in with the mean age of the group. and i don't get all the acronyms and i don't feel the deployment pain and my life isn't totally bound by the rules & regs of uncle sam. but i'm here, with you, away from home, away from any co-op, looking for support in the jungle that is korea. BWAHAHA. shame on me for expecting it.

getting left out of the planning once is one thing. being informed at the last minute about a time change for someone who didn't even bother to attend the event-fine. we'll let it slide. eff me once..shame on you.

but for it to happen again. and for no one to deign to call me, email me, FB me for heaven's sake. for me to have to call around & sort things out from afar, eff me twice...shame on me.

i don't need it. i dno't need the aggravation. i don't need the competitiveness. i don't need the rearing of my childhood's ugly head once a month. i don't NEED it.

so have at it. with your meetings and your cookouts and your field trips. i'll continue on as before except this time without digging up aggravation meant to have been buried 20 years ago.

and if anyone reading this ever catches me acting like the ass i'm accusing these other catty women to be, please do slap me. heaven forbid i ever be an accessory to making someone feel as unworthy as anyone has ever done to me.

we interrupt our regularly scheduled programming...

to bring you this terribly depressing post. but it's 2:30ish am, no one else is up & tears are threatening to overtake me so what to do but share with the internetz!

leaving AGAIN. sucks. made so much worse by the anticipated absence of my friend. the military said it was their time to go so they did. and i got left behind. and i have SO much to be thankful for but sometimes in the midsts of grief and anger, it is so hard to remember. i left a sister behind, in a country where she is alone and sometimes happy. but i fear the loneliness weighs on her. and i am sad. i am leaving my family behind-blood and not. and new lives are forming while others are slowly coming to a close. and while i am overjoyed to see my husband and my kiddos, 5 faces that i have grown to love will be missing from the scenery. and the beginning of another period of loneliness threatens to eat me alive.

i know this is what we have to do. i know this is what God has put before us. but my human self is oh so doubtful of the plans He has for us. my heart aches. and the tears have begun to spill.

belize! - day four

so thursday. thursday wasn't much exciting. the usual feed birds, feed us, internet, feed us, feed birds, internet, dinner, internet, coladas, canasta routine. **i forgot about frappes! 2 different flavors of ice cream, frozen coffee, chocolate syrup, sprinkles, whipped cream. not much sleep for the night due to caffeine overload. but oh so good!** friday will be much better...ATM Caves is on the calendar! so instead i'll just expound on belize itself.

it's gorgeous here. and wide open. i've already said it once but this is just such a welcome change from crushed in korea of the gray/yellow/green skies depending upon what crap is in the air that day. so much space to raise children & let them run. as a child, i grew up in the country with plenty of room for running. and oh did i hate it. we were too far out from everything & it was miserable. but i see the logic of it now. perhaps at some point i'll have a yard for running. although by that point i don't think i'll have any little enough to enjoy it.

it is dirty here. in the towns. people are litter bugs & there is dust & dirt everywhere. probably wouldn't work for my family of allergy fiends. claritin has worked for me while i've been here but my allergies are basic compared to 1 and littlest. mold & mildew flourish in this tropical atmosphere.

the heat is cloying and oppressive. humidity sits on us like heavy blankets. air conditioning is essentially unheard of. although the atm chamber at the bank has AC. you also have to slide your card to get in. i guess they don't want to pass out AC for free. i've been sweating since i got here. i'm growing accustomed to sweat running down my back & my front. and i seriously appreciate the shower at the end of the day. and cold water splashed on my face in the interim. nothing beats it.

bugs bite frequently. deet is nasty stuff but keeps the ticks & squitoes away. there's a strange bite on my foot-right in the perfect position to be irritated by my tennis & hiking shoes. finally got smart enough to put coconut oil on it last night & the itchiness has subsided immensely. haven't spotted any ticks on my self yet but sister has found a few. no clue if there is lyme disease carried around here or not. probably, as everything else seems to be.

there is poverty here. education is privatized & very expensive, which i gather leaves quite a few people out in the cold. reasonably certain the 2 night-time security guards here cannot read. it's sad, really. but it is a developing country so perhaps at some point things will be better & there will be more hope.

there is a mishmash of people here. many of the groceries are chinese. there was honey at the market with a german's name on it as the bottler. many american ex-pats everywhere. and the belizeans are black and brown. mayan ancestry shows in high cheekbones & foreheads. mennonites & amish walk the streets in long sleeves, long pants, straw hats. the only woman i've seen had on long sleeves & a black bonnet. i didn't see her lower half but i assume it was clad in a skirt.

when we entertained the idea of south korea, people said "why korea?" and i got quite a few "why belize?" when i entertained the idea of vacation. people should stop asking why & just do what they can do. once in a lifetime opportunities should not be passed up. fear should not keep people chained to their couches, cowering from what the world holds. americans in particular seem to stay walled in by fear and trepidation. been there, was that. it took me (thirty-something) years to venture out of my bubble. don't wait too long...life has a habit of passing us by.

belize! - day three

so...wednesday. things are possibly starting to run together due to 1-the lack of watch or cell phone with the time on it & 2-the nightly pina colada ritual. i figure i'll be back to the real world soon enough & will have enough time checking then that i shouldn't worry about it right now. so long as the birdies get fed at 8 & 3, we're good.

wake up, feed the birds (what time?...just making sure you're paying attention). head off to the market & post office. things are SO inexpensive here! we got what would probably have been about $60 worth of produce in the US or the commissary for about $15. amazing. fruit & veggies for the birdies. we then hauled it all home & made parrot salad. it involved large knives & cutting boards & a steamer. easy, mind-numbing work. chop, chop, chop. gracie took some pictures. that alleviated some of the numbness. for about 20 seconds. then back to work.

wednesday was also mouse cage cleaning day. (i think that actually happened BEFORE marketing. but like i said, it's all running together.) it is usually mondays but since SOMEONE had the audacity to disrupt the schedule with an airport arrival on monday, mouse cleaning got moved to wednesday. know how you move mice from cage to cage without getting bit? pick them up by their tails! there's a fantastic picture on facebook with me in my mask. CASA has its own mouse colony for when there are raptors in residence-no running off to the pet store or field here! just head for the mouse room! there are about 10 grown or juvenile mice & then about 10 babies of 2 different litters so varying ages. mice-meh. can't get real excited about them.

then it was lunch time & then a little later feed the birds (again) time & then we got to jump in the (air-conditioned HALLELUJAH!) peregrine fund truck to see some orange-breasted falcons. took a LONNNNNNNG ride on bumpy roads to a mountain. found what may have been some slash & burn farming right near where we parked the truck. that was quite mood-dampening. then followed long-legged & fast-walking yeray UP the mountain to a sink hole void of falcons. continued (puff, puff, gasp, wheeze) following him to another hole with a female on a nest with 3 eggs. he had a fancy-schmancy scope he let us look through. it's so amazing to me that these birds nest on the walls of cliffs. she was a pretty thing & we saw her move around a bit which was interesting. the going back down was much easier than going back up. natalie, of the not-as-long-fast-legs led the way. i was in the middle & felt as if i were going to be run over at any minute. we all made it back down safely & got back on the crazy bumpy road back home.

ate serendib for dinner...sri lankan food in belize? of course! i mean, i had to go to korea to try indian & thai, why not come to belize for sri lankan? it was pretty good. nice & spicy. didn't care much for the dessert-wattalapan, i think. it was advertised as coconut custard but seemed more like pumpkin pie. pumpkin, in my book, is nasty. no thanks. i tried to like it but just couldn't.

after sri lankan, headed back home for more canasta & coladas. we were hoping for tamarind daiquiris but there seemed to be a shortage of tamarind juice that night, so we stuck with old faithful. and it was just fine.

belize! - day two

really it's 6. i just can't get caught up!

so tuesday.... tuesday is birdie cage scrubbing day. i don't guess there's much that can be said to glamour that up. soap & water & scrub brushes & brooms. guess a working vacation can't be all vacation.

tuesday afternoon was a birdie surgery. a cattle egret (korea friends, think of the white birds we see all over the rice paddies) had come in - a week or so before i did - with an injured wing & some of that foam stuff you spray to fill in holes in your house all over his feet. natalie managed to get the foam off with tweezers, scissors & lots of patience but his wing still needed some attention. the veterinarian they use was coming out to the clinic to try to pin the wing. unfortunately, once he was sedated, they could feel around & find that the injury was much more serious than they thought and the decision was made to go ahead & put him down. it was kind of sad.

i did not even try to observe the surgery as i did not want to fall out on the floor & be in the way. so i spent the afternoon reading/sleeping in the hammock until it was time to feed the birds. i had agreed to do it in case the surgery wasn't over when it came time for feeding. everyone got food & clean water.

once natalie was done, we went into town for some pina colada supplies (that damn song has been in my head ALL.FREAKIN.WEEK.). and came back here for pina coladas & canasta. yeray, who works for the peregrine fund (click it to read about it) documenting orange breasted falcons in central america, joined us for coladas & canasta. he invited us to go hiking with him on wednesday to hopefully see a falcon or two and possibly some eggs. with that in mind, we went on to bed with plans to hop out of bed in the morning so we could get all of our work done in order to be able to play in the afternoon!

belize! - day one

it's thursday...i've been here 3 1/2 days. i can't figure out if it seems like more or less than that! and i've not been blogging like i meant to so i have to hurry up & catch up before more adventures happen!

the country is beautiful. so much more wide-open than korea with its buildings stuck on every spare patch of land that doesn't have a rice paddy. and so green! even in the dry season, it is green. again-better than korea that is still struggling to wake up from the cold cold winter.

so, monday. i got a wake-up knock at 4am. needed to be at the airport at 5:30 and with the unpredictability of dorchester rd. traffic, we wanted to leave 45 minutes early. we left 40 minutes early. good enough. the atm was uncooperative so that took a few minutes. and we finally made it to the airport. and i had checked in online & the curbside guy was fantastically high spirited for 5:30 am...sang me the "brandy" song as he tagged my bags. flight was early getting into atlanta & i had plenty of time to make my connection. flight into belize was about 3 1/2 hours & the water coming in was SO green. this internet here is awful so i'm not even going to try to upload pics. check my facebook-there are plenty there! upon arrival, customs was easy & she gave me a break on the duties for the donated supplies i was delivering. and then i got outside & natalie was nowhere to be found! so i sat. in my jeans in belize. whoo hot. and a taxi driver used his phone to call my sister who was running late! sheesh. what is new? there was a mixup on the pickup so she was late. but then she was there. it was a bit of a drive. i fell asleep.

upon arrival, it was about birdie lunch/dinner time. so we fed them. they get birdie salad, except for the egret who was in residence at the time. more about that & the birdie salad later. we then went fishing, belize/staples style. belize style means using a wine bottle with a hole punched in the bottom & filled with cat food/parrot food & then sunk in the river (we also used lines with small hooks baited with masa). staples style means we had no patience and didn't catch any fish. oh well. the water was nice.

on the way back, we decided to put gas in the truck. only 1 gallon, since everyone uses it. but we were going to use it that evening so we figured we'd put a gallon. $10 belize. exchange is 2-1. yeah, that's expensive! they have full service gas stations here. so we stayed in our truck & told the guy what we wanted. and then when he was done, the truck wouldn't start! agh! we waited a few minutes. it still wouldn't start. so we got a push out from the pump so we wouldn't disturb business. and then we walked home. and then that evening, we walked back out again. all the way to san ignacio. where we had some drinks & met an ice cream guy who makes guiness ice cream? perhaps we will see him at the market saturday. and then we walked all the way home because the taxis wanted $7 belize to take us home & sorry dude but we're on a budget! and then we fell down in our beds with mosquito nets so we could get up & feed birdies on tuesday.

numbers

6 errands run today.
40 kazillion strands of hair cut off my head.
1 airport shuttle ticket purchased.
1 monkey wrench in the machinery.
30 minutes of insanity stuck in a car with a bored 3 year old.
2 dishes for MOPS tomorrow not yet even started.
3 more days worth of school lessons.
4 more days til i fly.

still 2 cold feet.

oh korea

so i made it to the hospital today. just another stop in a long line of c.f.'s that occurred all day today. to include completely losing my shit, quitting school, broken closets & an apparent hep a vaccine shortage. such is my life.

journeyed out to good morning hospital to find the usual mess in the parking garage. managed to pull into a space forwards-big no no around here if your car is bigger than a matchbox-and just prayed i'd be able to get back out. met with my friend sunny at the information for foreigners desk who discovered that there was no hep a vaccine to be found at the hospital. of course there isn't. she did, however, make several phone calls to locate me a vaccine & found some at another hospital but sorry, there is probably no english department. greeeaaaat. chalk up another c.f. to the day.

she then escorted me upstairs and down a long line of chairs filled with staring koreans to the family doctor who spoke very good english but apparently thinks i'm going to BALI, not BELIZE. whatever. they both start with b? after determining that i weigh...oh, wait, i'm not saying that on here...a certain number of kilograms and figuring out that chloroquine must be taken for 2 weeks ahead of the trip & 4 weeks after & 3 pills at a time & so that makes...uh...24 pills, yes., and then repeating back the instructions for taking the pills, i had to walk back down the road...no, how do i say that?...hallway! full of chairs full of staring koreans to the desk. and paid a little bit (take THAT american effed up healthcare! and, no, i don't think obama-care is going to fix that problem) and then got my prescription & a map from my friend sunny for the other hospital with no english department, sorry, and my chloroquine to be taken 3 pills a day one time a week for 8 weeks that only cost me a little bit at the pharmacy across the road from the hospital, i went back to the parking garage to discover answered prayers as i could back into one space so i could drive forward out of the parking garage! yay! but now i have to go to no-speaky-engrishy-hospital. argh. did i mention that i was alone? going i knew not where?

but i had a map! from my friend sunny! and i found paris baguette & then as i passed the hospital, discovered that it WAS the hospital, and drove down some little roads (sorry adjashee with a cart that i followed for 5 minutes) and snagged a parking spot without a camera and then relocated the hospital on foot & yes, there is no english department, but we can say second floor! and i went to second floor with still no english but a text message on the phone (thanks, ladies at 1's office!) that got me a hep a shot! which wasn't cheap. guess 3rd time wasn't the charm. or maybe it was but for korea, not me. and i found my truck again on the 1st try and there was no parking ticket sticker on the windshield and i actually had the gps so i could get myself home again thank the Lord.

and the closet door is still broken, and my shit is still lost, and i still quit school, and there is still a hep a vaccine shortage in korea. but at least i got MY hep a vaccine and some chloroquine. and yet another step on the way to belize is down. less than 3 weeks. feet are still cold.

ohhhhh myyyy

tomorrow is my appointment at the byeongwon for a shot & hopefully a script.
here we go again with medical in a foreign country.
i'm not sure if it's a good thing or bad thing that i was able to identify myself to the lady on the phone & she knew who i was.
shoes are waiting for me in the states.
sunglasses will hopefully meet me there.
and i've definitely got the cold feet.
oy.