| March 26, 2004 PNM says that now that LiHeap has helped it proves I'm in a desperate financial situation so now they can honor my doctor's letter and the form my doctor sent in. |
| March 15, 2004 8:36 a.m. And, Wells Fargo took the $5 charge (plus tax) off my account for the statement that the PO returned as undeliverable. I have to check on my change of address... I think it was supposed to work by now. But anyway, this is totally great. |
| March 15, 2004 12:07 p.m. By the way, my kitty is all well and happy again. I was worried that she was sick because of how sick I've been. She's been coming to me and putting her paw on me as if she were a wise old friend, lending support. So I thought maybe she was getting worn out with me being so worn out. (Right now my ear is ringing so loud, and my arms and legs are so tired -- because I don't get enough sleep -- I get a few hours, but none of it is deep given that I have to leave the telly on and I am aware of different news snippets throughout the night.) When I went out to get coffee,I so wanted a garlic and an onion -- but I thought I should get her a can of Fancy Feast, which she totally loves, because I thought that would reassure her. Well, it's gone up enormously in price, making me wonder if lots of people aren't buying the beef ones anymore now that we've seen pictures on telly of what the cattle that go into it may look like... and so in consequence of the loss of sales of beef, the chicken etc has all gone up. |
| March 15, 2004 12:32 p.m. Last night I saw that my statistics for this page were really weird. The statistics showed more people coming here from my NewWorkingWell page, than had even been to that page. Wondering how that could happen, I called Yahoo! tech support and got Andrew, who was very nice. After he was off the line for a few minutes researching the problem, he came on and told me there were two things... But, literally, that's as much as I could grasp. I had to explain to him that I have brain damage and it's really hard to get two things into my mind at once. He was really nice and tried again. I still could not get it, and in frustration told him he really should look at my Fingernail page because it was just so irritating not to be able to do something simple with my mind like accept two things and put them together and have an answer. It wasn't anything tricky that he was telling me, I mean I used to love Wittgenstein, so if I could get that and love it, then two simple things about web pages is not beyond my intelligence. It is, however, beyond the one third of my working memory that is all I have left. Sadness. |
| March 15, 2004 12:42 p.m. Which reminds me, only two people have ever gone to any of my shopping pages from here. I have a designation in the link so that all the shopping pages accessed from this page have separate statistics. So for sure I know that only twice has a shopping page been accessed from this page. And, no one has donated from here, either. But in any case, I'd much rather people shopped. (Oops, by "donate" I mean via the Amazon buttons, only. Because Renee sent me a check for $25.) |
| March 16, 2004 7:09 a.m. I hope I get the $85 from Habitat Resale back soon. That's the money that I paid for the used washer just before the handy man fixed the one I had, or appeared to fix it.I have only 3 sheets of paper left. |
| March 17, 2004 5:15 a.m. I'm up way too early -- I can't sleep because of the noise (which yesterday I thought was going away because it was less loud; I could hear the birds outside yesterday. And, I'm anxious about the 9a.m. appointment with a handy man to see why the washer is still leaking and fix it. The noise in my right ear is loud again. But maybe it's because I'm so tired. Also, maybe I can't sleep because of the foreclosure which I think is especially tricky because of my Chapter 11 Plan and saying I wouldn't get behind again. It's upsetting that the company that is foreclosing, GE Capital, violated the automatic stay during my bankruptcy, but the lawyer said they didn't because of some complicated thing, but then after I settled she said she thought I was right that they had violated it. That means she was lying to me until she got me to do what she wanted. Which just so confuses me. I mean why prosecute Martha Stewart for lying and destroy her whole business (which reminds me so much of IRS destroying my business for $4,000 which IRS was wrong about me owing) when lawyers and IRS in my experience lie all the time. If the GE Capital lawyer had not lied to me, I would have had a margin to protect me. It's like they did what they did knowing that in the long run they could get my home. That is a devastating thought. Yesterday I took Office Depot the empty ink cartridge and got free paper. |
| March 18, 2004 I filed a US District Court case based on Americans with Disabilities and Title 42 Section 1983 against the court and judges that keep not following the rules and leaving me without any way to do anything in court. I just would not be in this horrible devastating poverty if I could get due process in court, but I can't get any remedy when the court won't follow the rules because I am just too mentally disabled to be able to cope with that. |
| March 19, 2004 The man who was going to serve the summons wasn't able to and that was lucky because Rain, who goes to the college near here served them for only $7 each. I called Judge Hall's secretary to say that the service would be made. After filing the returns, I checked Judge Hall's list of hearings: my case was not there. |
| March 25, 2004 PNM put another disconnect on my door. I went to Human Services and they paid $100 through something called LiHeap. |
| February 23, 2004 Washing machine for tenants: $255.95 tax 16.29 Tests to see if there's another pit: 250.72 owing on first tests: 192.04 Still owing on pit excavation: 7,500.00 Support condo foundation; fill top of pit: 1,000.00 Washington Mutual mortgage arrears: 4,200.00 Wells Fargo mortgage arrears: 5,600.00 Pay back second to American General: 12,000.00 Mend car so oil leak stops making me sick: 75.00 Credit card: 300.00 |
| February 17, 2004 Amount needed: $31,689.24 Sent copy of Link to Karyn; try to figure out how to receive money. Set up Amazon account: literally breathing better! |
| In February my doctor wrote PNM a letter saying I was under her care for medical illness, that I couldn't work due to medical illness, and I needed the gas and lights, but because it wasn't on PNM's form, it didn't count, and the PNM agent I gave it to, didn't explain or help but rather was snide to me... which I guess is because brain damage doesn't show... it's not like being on crutches... though it can lead to exactly that because of how it screws up balance. Since the URGENT notice, I got PNM's form, took it to my doctor, and her helper faxed it in. Whew. Now, I'm just hoping the pain that feels like the start of sciatica goes away -- |
| April 11, 2004 Now that the ringing takes so much energy, I can't really keep this page up. That's because it's much harder to remember things when I'm coping with the sound that sometimes is as loud as an alarm. Some things I want to record are: American General has been great. I tried really hard and paid them $90, and when I did they said they wouldn't charge me interest till I'm back on my feet. That sounds hard to believe. Maybe I misunderstood Julie. But in any case, they aren't accelerating the loan. I have used a small amount of money to buy fish fries from KFC. Over time, buying KFC fish fries has brought me good luck: once, because I went to my bank to get $5 in cash to buy the fish fry, I discovered that I had an overdraft as a result of confusing two checks that were exactly the same amount. I was able to enlist the help of the bank people and I wasn't charged the $30+ NSF charge because I transferred $23 from my credit card. Another time KFC forgot to give me tartar sauce; when I called them they said they'd give me an entirely free meal to make up for it, so I had that yesterday and I was so happy as that is my Easter celebration. And, in order to go and get it, I had to get gas. It was snowing (which is great since we've had a long drought) so I decided I'd get the gas at the close but higher priced station, which is a big extravagance. When I went there I found several quarters and a dime, so the stop turned out to get me more gas for less. I think that the message for me is that I'm being rewarded for taking care of myself. For so many years I was inclined to think I couldn't afford anything for me, but when I saw others wanting things, I would spend what extra money I had to get things I thought would make someone else happy. At Christmas I took my extra $15 and sent some really cute soaps to my cousin's grandchildren. But then a long past check went through my account and the situation deteriorated into the eventual "need" for this page. When I later asked my cousin and my brother each for $25 because of how desperate I was, they refused. So now I think that all the times I bought things for my brother, they were clearly not appreciated. Nor I guess were the things I've given my cousin and her children. I do think and believe that the B12 information that I've been sending around is appreciated, because it impacts health. So what I'm praying for is the means to continue to live simply and work at expanding the number of people who understand how B12 improves health. This Easter I am praying that we cause fewer deaths and less injury in Iraq in this coming year. And that the injury that IRS does to people here is equally reduced so that people can actually enjoy their lives in the pursuit of happiness rather than in deadly fear of American government decisions and behavior. |
| March 15, 2004 10:51 a.m. I just drove all the way in for a meeting that didn't happen because the woman I was supposed to meet was sick. I was a bit devastated to have spent all that gas for nothing, except I found this quite neat hair thing that looked like garnets, but which most likely weren't. When I gave it to the receptionist, I asked if I could have it if no one claimed it. She said yes. Then I saw this neat stone by it that looked like a foot and it had, "HOPE" written on it. It was larger than a pebble, but not much. I commented on how neat it was and the receptionist said I could have one because her friend made them and gave them to her to give away -- so I chose the one that looked the most like a natural type fetish, Zuni fetish. So, I can't complain, and I can celebrate -- to which end I'm having a cup of coffee. |
| March 15, 2004 8:25 a.m. Major Happiness!!!!! Someone ordered something from one of my pages, in fact there were 3 orders for 4 items. I haven't yet figured out if the orders were placed yesterday or the day before, But I have just got to say how grateful I am to the Realtors who ordered. I am pretty sure the orders came from some of the Realtors I have been writing, encouraging them to look at my Fingernails page, so this type of brain damage won't be in their future. Who ever you were that bought, you have brought major tears to my eyes!!!! Thank you so much. I'm also glad you are taking real steps to avoid the unpleasant outcomes of low B12. (But since this page isn't linked to that one, I doubt you will read this, which has become sort a journal.) Oh, gosh I'm happy! (And I am so crying.) |
| March 14, 2004 I just found a quite remarkable web site: www.abchomeopathy.com (abc of homeopathy) Linda Van Camp, who studied homeopathy in England, once said that during the 1918 influenza epidemic, homeopathic doctors lost vastly fewer patients than allopathic doctors. When I was looking for something to stop the ringing in my ear I found this site, which is especially cool because you can enter symptoms and it lists "remedies". Because I had the experience with my friend, Linda, I was able to see trends among the remedies it listed for me. The site had lots of suggestions for "insects crawling on skin" which is one of the most disturbing sensations I experienced before my B12 malabsorption was treated. (Regular doctors didn't take it seriously.) |
| March 13, 2004 6:36 p.m "Warnings" about the dangers of low B12 -- in case that wasn't clear above. In my mail today was an envelope addressed by me; inside was a pleading file-stamped, "MAR 09 2004." Because the pleading came as a surprise, I was reminded of x-rays (of which I had no memory) being in my medical file. Each set of x-rays had to do with something serious: in one case I had fallen (about two years ago) and totally blacked the right side of my face, sprained my right wrist and I forget what else; in the other case the x-rays showed that the fibroid I'd been worrying about had calcified, which I was very interested in knowing because the fibroid had been the size of an advancing pregnancy. But, no memory despite my interest. NO MEMORY. I wondered if someone concocted them to weird me out. You see, even seeing the x-rays, there was NO MEMORY. Actually, I asked my rehab therapist about that on Tuesday last when I saw her, "How can I have no memory when it was a physical thing I did and I was really interested in it?" She explained that it was an experience I had, but which my mind had not "encoded," so when I want to think about it there is no access to it due to the lack of encoding. I also explained how without being able to remember it at all, it felt as if someone could have put the records into my file, and that I could see how someone with brain damage might become paranoid when they didn't have functioning memory to fall back on for reassurance. She said, yes, that is a problem for people with brain damage. And, a word about the ringing, at the moment it's the sound made by high tension wires, or sometimes by lots and lots of cicadas. It is very wearing. |
| March 13, 2004 11:30 a.m It's like there's this flood of hopelessness. But, I have my mind made up to keep sending the warnings because in January when I started this project my cousin who's married to a trial lawyer sent me a critical letter and didn't support my shopping pages and I got so depressed I allowed myself to give up for awhile. (And I got sicker.) I am beginning to recognize that I have been in a precarious position ever since I lived in England (except that when I was a Realtor before IRS put me out of business I was just getting a toe hold on security, but then IRS put me out of business). I am beginning to recognize that my descent from prosperity dates from having my son without marrying. My mother said, almost 31 years ago, that I was never to return to Wisconsin and she refused to visit me in England when John F. P. Hudson, the man I was living with, offered to send her a ticket. I am reminded of when someone in my Polish grandfather's family died, my mother angrily commented that my grandfather's sister had to get married. Since she had not married until she was about 39, I was shocked that my mother was harboring bad feeling. But now I begin to see that once I had my son to take care of, I was restricted in earning a living and my family really did not want me to come to them and I did not, with the result that I became a member of the vastly too large poverty group: mothers with children. The question arises, are we more supportive of someone with AIDS, than of mothers who do not have the imprimatur of a man? The book I wrote, Go, deals with some of the associated problems, fictionally. But I have not been fortunate to get it published... yet. |
| March 13, 2004 Ringing is wearing. Feeling in my chest like ice. Scared. Sending out warnings about low B12. If I were healthy I could protect myself. But even minimal court things aregoing to be hard with this ringing which takes so much energy, and I can't replenish my energy by getting good, sound sleep. My kitty is sick today. No idea why. Worried. (She's my friend.) |
| March 12, 2004 Ringing in right ear incessant. Washing machine problem unsolved, tenants more irate. How did it not leak after tightening loose fitting (we tested it) but did leak when tenants used it? Sore throat, feeling really sick... plus ringing is SO unnerving. I can't sleep with the ringing -- even leaving the telly on I only sleep a few hours. But at least I don't have a headache today. Foreclosure papers delivered Tuesday, the 9th. Wednesday I was able to see doctor without having to pay right then, she diagnosed tinnitus and prescribed, but it hasn't helped and ringing is so wearing: noise is piercing into my head and boring right in to my brain. I remain grateful for lights and heat, especially since I have chills again today. |
| March 5, 2004 1:15 p.m. Well, I was tempted to say there wasn't a miracle, since the washer started leaking again. But I withstood the temptation and am clear that it is a major miracle that the handy man kept my gas and lights from being disconnected. So, I remain grateful!!! However the washer is still a problem. To make clear what this kind of prolonged stress does to people (I've not had a secure life since 1994 when IRS wrongly put me out of business), I will mention some health problems which are a result of the IRS abuse I suffered: I have a ringing in my ears right now that sounds like water running, the constant nature of it since it started two days ago, is very disturbing. Yesterday the nerves in my right thigh hurt so much I was sure I was getting sciatica again. Today they just feel like a sunburn. There's the cognitive dysfunction which makes me bump into things. I don't have any balance in the dark, which has to do with the nerve damage. The amount I need may have to be revised to again include the washer... |
| March 2, 2004 2:41 p.m. Miracles are the most amazing things. Yesterday I went outside to enjoy the sun and met a man doing maintenance next door. Later, while I was out, PNM came to shut off my gas/lights, but the PNM man talked to the handy man whom I'd told I had things I needed done, but didn't have money, was sick and couldn't work as I did before IRS put me out of business. He said IRS was putting a lot of people out of business right now. I was shocked because evening news says IRS behaves better now. He said he understood how hard it is when you are a small business. Today he went to my rental with me and fixed the old washer, so the new one won't be needed; he thinks he can fix the oil leak in my car. He charged me $5 today. Miracle: one man stopped my gas and lights from being turned off, solved my washer problem, and may solve my car problem... Just like that, in the blink of an eye. Don't you think that's a miracle? I do. And I am so grateful. So, the revised amount I need is: $31, 092.76 |
| .. |
| March 2, 2004 Amount needed: $31,365.00 PNM left cut-off notice on door yesterday. I may be eating uncooked oatmeal. I don't have balance when I can't see; my balance deteriorated from living in the hydrogen sulfide. The shingles was just getting better, but when I'm scared my nerves hurt more and my feet feel like they've got frost bite... and I am scared. (Karyn doesn't add sites to her page on Tuesdays, at least not to the bold ones for two weeks. But I think people who want to help a young girl who spent a lot on herself, may not want to help an old woman with health problems.) Yesterday I so wanted to bring a clear plastic storage box here from the condo, but I hit the doorway with it and broke its side: I can't control where I walk which is distressing. The Modest Needs guy said I needed to be a better salesperson and he refused to admit that nerve/brain damage interferes. Being faced with living in the cold dark scares me. (So do I think it's a good idea to send 87 BILLION to Iraq, no, I don't.) I am desperate because IRS took my business and made me sick in ways that dramatically reduce my ability to make a living now. That, I think is disgusting! ( I could either buy a washing machine or pay my utilities; my contract with my tenants requires I provide a washing machine, so I used the money for that, but it felt bad to spend so much for an old washer.) If I still were a Realtor, I wouldn't have to beg... and begging is a poor substitute for being able to take care of myself! |
| February 27, 2004 Amount needed: $31,365.00 $25 arrived in the mail. I need a PO box but am reluctant to spend on a box... The $25 came from someone who knows me and my home address. $995 rent from tenants (an hour ago) - Ocwen mortgage ($620.) = $375. Because I didn't have $178.73 to pay PNM yesterday, PNM says they are going to shut off my heat and lights despite my doctor's letter saying I am sick (shingles and hydrogen sulfide related medical problems) and need heat and lights. So if that happens, then no more internet and a lot more pain. I kept a different arrangement with PNM for $39 today. That leaves $336. $995 is my only known income - so I need a loaves and fishes with the $336 |
| February 23, 2004 Amount needed: $31,391.97 The amount went down by some in relation to the tests, then went up to include the unpaid amount for the first tests. Starting to put amount in each report box (like this) |
| February 22, 2004 Amount needed: $31,299.24 Yahoo! can't make the counter work -- Visitors to this page to date: 41 (shown in web statistics) Clicks on businesses linked to my sales pages: 10 Orders/Sales: 0 After Modest Needs looked at my application for help, I saw I had a 4 where there should have been a $, to mend my car oil leak. So that's gone down from 465, to $75 because Modest Needs eliminates anyone who doesn't ask for enough (I had asked for 65). |
| I have questions: How many people has IRS put out of business during this recession? What's up with giving tax breaks to the rich and putting the poor out of business? who's making these decisions? |
There are no words for IRS abuse! ................ |
| For Blog Bits Please scroll down |
| Updated: February 18, 2007 |
| I want to turn things around but during the time that I don't have the means myself to do that, and during the time that the people who should be paying for the things that are driving me to desperation are not paying what they owe, things are getting catastrophically worse, day by day -- I need help turning things around. Send me a dollar, it will go to good use, and tell someone how dangerous old privy pits are, how dangerous too little B12 is, and how despicably IRS behaved. (I wrote this almost a year ago. |
| Needed: To win in the 10th Circuit and Foreclosures . . . . . . . . . . . . Originally: $31,390 My name is Karen and I am telling the stories that make up my life. This page didn't start out that way, though. In the beginning it was a bit of campfire in a dark forest time. The sun had long since set, my back was cold; hungry wild things were closer than dawn. Less poetically put, my condo had been built over part of an old privy pit, my rental income had become a trickle, the condo developer's lawyer threatened to sue me, and, ending on a poetic note, a pack of foreclosure attorneys were circling. In February, 2004, I needed a washing machine for my tenants and begged for help, thinking that $1 from 31,390 people was all I needed, for everything. (My friend Wylene had sent me the idea, based on a Karyn who had bought o lot of Prada and had begged for money, successfully, to pay her shopping bills.) Now, anyone who's ever read comic books, and I had a huge collection given to me when I was in hospital as a kid, knows that action is the answer. There's a lot of action that requires a super hero, so I suppose if one had read my page, I might well have been saved. But my favorite, the hero I believed in, was Straight Arrow, who to my understanding, defined his power in terms of Truth: he did not speak with forked tongue and it was this complete oneness of character that gave him infallible aim. "I could do that," I thought, back when I was a kid. I remember being devastated twenty years on from being a kid, after I had my abortion. I remember buying a silver, Indian made tie tack patterned on a fish skeleton, artfully bent to look like a broken arrow. I wore it in one or the other of my ear lobes for years, answering a denim and lace older lady on the Plaza, "I haven't lost an earring, I'm wearing a tie tack." Perhaps a cosmic goat's head had been disguised as the tie tack, because it stuck. I don't know where it was when I bought my condo, but when a privy pit was discovered to extend under the bedroom, the tie tack was a weight on the deep red, silk gauze curtain I'd hung in my condo's Feng Shui wealth corner. Strangely enough, during my childhood Grandpa had often said that anyone who walked barefoot in the grass after it rained would never get arthritis. So, when I moved into my home whose back yard had fifteen goats' heads for every blade of grass, I spent months removing them until I could walk barefoot after it rained, so as to protect my joints. Imagine all that care being consistently directed to the contact points between my bones for fifty years, while for at least half of that time I should have cared about the painful contact between my favorite belief and my actions. But I'd acted so swiftly that I'd not felt any psychic arthritic twinge to warn me: I had flown to Mexico City to have my abortion after Bonnie had gotten me the phone number of the clinic from someone she knew who had gone there. I knew the person's family business and trusted that she had chosen the best. As soon as I had the number, I had called, made the appointment, arranged my travel and by changing planes at the border I had brought the cost within the range of my savings. It was so quick and fluid that nothing about it suggested arthritis. Nor till now had I thought anything of the sort. On the plane I had read a book on education being individually tailored in the future. As a sixth grade teacher at Cristo Rey Catholic School, here in Santa Fe, this greatly interested me, though it sounded fanciful because I had so little knowledge of computers. I sang to myself, "I can see a new day, a new day dawning free." I was full of hope. In Mexico City, I waited at the hotel the clinic had said to use. And waited. About 11:30 p.m. I was told a car had come for me. When I went outside, I found a dark car with darkened windows, and in it a number of young women. As we rode, someone said how reassuring it was that the doctors were all from the medical school (I forget now whether they were student doctors or teacher doctors). I said I hadn't known that, thinking how I'd asked, When? Where? How much? Said, Yes, I'm coming, and abruptly hung up. On the winding drive to the clinic, which we all agreed was meant to confuse us so that we couldn't say where it was, we saw celebratory signs for the Olympics which were being held there. One of the young women mentioned how expensive her flight had been, how much more it was than the abortion would be. "Oh ho," I thought, "She got a better deal on her abortion, because mine's definitely going to be more than my flight." When we got to the clinic we were ushered into a large, clean room with comfortable chairs and sofas, art on the walls, and were offered something to drink. There would be interviews, we were told. It was a slow process, waiting for the interviews, one by one, to be completed so that we could learn what was next, and when. When my turn came, I went into a small office lit by a small lamp on the wooden desk. The man who interviewed me seemed kind. When he asked about my health, I told him that when I had my appendix out and when I had my tonsils out, that I had bled a lot because I have a vitamin K deficiency. I said that for my appendectomy they'd had to take me back to surgery and I ended up having more than twice as many stitches. I said that for the abortion they should give me a vitamin K shot. He wanted to discuss this a bit, but in the end he seemed fine with the precaution. Then, there was the question of paying. Before I had gone in, I had decided to tell him that I knew the other women were paying less, and I wanted my price lowered. So, I followed through. "No," he said, "That's not possible, the price has been fixed. We have costs." I repeated what the woman in the car had said. He said I didn't have to have the abortion, and I said, True, I could leave. He said, "Okay then," meaning I could leave. So I left his office. I remember wondering to myself what on earth possessed me, "What if I don't have the abortion?" The only answer I made to myself was to picture me back on the plane, flying home, still pregnant. I did not think about the words that had come to me when I conceived, "What a groovy little girl." Nor did I think back to how I'd begun to feel that while men came and had orgasms, women had the most incredible feeling when they conceived. I settled back into my place in the waiting room where the other women were discussing their apprehension and explaining why they were having an abortion. I sat quietly, wondering if I was having an abortion. Though I was solidly encased in my thoughts, I heard the youngest woman, a college student, saying how someone had given her mescaline and she had "no idea how it happened." I remember her having a helium filled balloon, but I don't know now if she had one or if I saw her that way to match her story, though I didn't doubt she had taken mescaline. When the staff began calling women in, one by one, I wondered if I would be called. I was very calm, probably because of the perspective I'd taken: I was wondering if, rather than worrying about. I was called, and after agreeing to be examined I was told that I was farther along, and that it was usually more in that case, but that they wouldn't charge me more. I hadn't realized there were levels of abortions, but I knew they were right about how long I'd been pregnant, so I was glad they were still going to do it. I said okay in a quiet, but firm way. The doctor said, "Usually the number of months is discussed before a woman comes to the clinic." The air seemed heavy and I didn't feel like talking but he was waiting for me to say something. "I wasn't on the phone very long," I said. "I asked how much, when was the soonest, got an address, and I hung up." He said he understood, he would induce dilation. Though I remained determined, I felt queasy when he was finished. I don't remember whether I walked or was taken by wheel chair from the procedure room to a long, wide dormitory room where many of the other women were already in bed, but no one was sleeping. Of all the hushed talk, the only things I remember hearing were a dark haired woman saying she was from Arizona and that she taught P.E., and a blonde girl with a southern accent saying she was Miss Such-and-Such state at the Miss America pageant and that her boy friend was going to be a doctor and he was so concerned about her. "You're awfully quiet," one of them said to me. "Umm," I murmured. Earlier on, the apprehension that I might not have an abortion had made me quiet. When the apprehension left, the quietness did not. I thought about planning to tell David on New Year's Eve, and about the party at Bonny's -- her stories of Buffalo, her black Afghan, biting people he didn't like -- and me deciding to pull Buffalo's tail to see if he would bite me. When I did, Buffalo looked at me like I was someone he was going to have to protect. At the end of the old year, before midnight, we had Lobster Thermidor which Bonny said was going to be the best we'd ever had because of her years of practice when she'd lived on Martha's Vineyard. Bonny was quintessentially self-confident, I liked that about her. Less than an hour into the new year, David came on to her. That's really all there was to it, he didn't follow through. If I had told him on New Year's Eve the way I had said to myself that I would, he wouldn't have done it, at least not then, and I wouldn't have seen and said to myself, "I'm going to have an abortion." Dilation would take many hours, we could go to sleep, they'd said, adding that we were not to be surprised or worried by cramping. It was the dilation. I remember it was a long, very dark night and when dawn came the light had a grainy quality. It took much longer for them to begin the actual abortions than any of us had expected, but finally we began to be called, one by one. When my turn came, I somberly went along. The doctor gave me a vitamin K shot, my feet were in the stirrups, I was holding myself still in my spirit when screaming began and the doctor replaced the instruments on the tray and left the room. During a long wait I wondered what was going on and tried to stay centered in my belief this was the right thing to do. He apologized when he came back, saying there had been an episode with the girl before me. He said this was only the second time it had ever happened, they had to call her parents. He said he was sorry I had to wait. "Do you want to go ahead," he asked. "Will she be all right?" I wanted to know. "What happened?" "It's too early to tell. She didn't really want an abortion." I was callous then, and thought only that she should have figured that out before she had it. "Are you okay?" he asked me. "Are you ready to go ahead?" I looked at the white shelf that ran the length of the long window, I looked at the plant sitting on it, "Yes, I am. Yes." When it was over and I was back in the dormitory, there was the quiet of finality and relief and a sense of we. We lay in bed waiting for more of it to be over, for it to sink in. When all of us were back, except for the one woman, the doctor came and made a visit to each of us. I was at nearly the end of his visits. When he came to me he leaned over and said, "Don't worry, you'll be able to have children." He hadn't said that to anyone else. "Thank you," I said, really meaning it. Many of the women had to use the bathroom because of bleeding. But I never bleed at all. If there were three drops, I don't remember them, and I don't think there were. However much vitamin K they gave me, it was enough. All that was known about the girl before me was that it was the girl who had been so close to being Miss America; she had totally "freaked out" -- a break with reality -- "not reconciled," the doctors said, adding that they weren't sure she would come out of it. She had changed her mind after it was too late. The clinic wasn't sure if they'd have to send her somewhere. They were worried. We were worried for her, too. While it seemed our spirits had been blanched, we could see through the large sliding glass doors that outside there was sunshine. It was the girl closest to the doors that I remember talking first, about something other than our experience or how one of us had broken. She wanted to know if we'd heard about the flea market, or the pyramids just out of town. We exchanged slips of paper with our names and the phone numbers of our hotels. Some of us planned to go to the flea market together the following day. When we were driven back to our hotels, it was unremarkable, at least for me. The night I had arrived, before the abortion, I had gone out for a meal and had been surprised at how different the food was from that in Santa Fe. I had been surprised at the generous use of sesame seeds. This night I did not feel like going out; I felt like sleeping. When I awoke it was a new day, looking sunny and beautiful. I dressed, put on my strappy orange sandals and went out in search of something to eat. I had never seen anything like the fresh fruit stands where they offered to squeeze oranges for you on the spot. Or did you want melon, strawberries, guava? When I finished my orange juice I met up with the mescaline woman, and her parents, and we went to the flea market together. Because I had a friend who was a jade carver, and because I loved opal, I was drawn to the jars of opal fragments in water, brilliant in the sun. They looked like so much opal. Perhaps if I had purchased a good quality opal instead, or come here for a holiday, not an abortion, I would not have attracted the pickpockets. But as it was, one jostled me while the other took my wallet, thick with paper mementos, addresses, little written dreams I carried with me, and the money I had counted on to see the pyramids. It was classic pickpocket, just the way it's always described. Anyone could have been callous that I hadn't seen it coming, hadn't protected against it. "I've been pick-pocketed," I said, quite loudly. "Report it to the police!" said the young woman's dad. We parted ways then, as I went to tell the Mexican police whom I fully expected to retrieve my wallet. The police rewarded my faith in them with rapt attention and indicated that there was someone else who needed to hear my story. I went with them to their precinct and was telling my story the third time when I saw that they were all at least a head shorter than me, had much darker skin, and that their sole interest might be that I was a tall blonde American woman. I asked them to show me the way to my hotel, and wondered for the first time if any of them understood English. Clear that I had given up, they shook their heads sympathetically. When I look back, I think how like everything from then to now, that was. But I only knew the half of it. The young woman and her parents gave me $25, so the next day I thriftily went to the Anthropology Museum using one of the communal taxis that raced the length of the main streets. At the museum native flute music wafted into every corner and lifted my spirits. I was amazed by an extensive display of sculpted heads showing the distinctive shape associated with each nationality. It had never occurred to me that there were similarities of this sort within a nationality, but as I studied the display I began to be convinced: I knew enough people to recognize that what they were showing reflected my experience. I also remember a display showing a dig and how artifacts of different eras were layered with one type of thing at one level, and six or eight feet lower, under what they said was a slow laying down of dust, a totally different era of things; and a huge, round, carved Inca calendar which I suppose theoretically kept track of it all. When I began to get hungry I wondered what time it was and decided to ask one of the many workers who constantly swept the polished stone floors with mops that left the stone gleaming. I would try out my high school Spanish, "Que hora es?" I asked. He immediately looked at his watch and I was delighted at how well I could communicate when he. However when he told me the time, I realized I didn't understand, so I thanked him which I remembered how to do, and moved on. I also went to the area renowned for its shops. There I was mobbed by little boys who wanted to polish my shoes. I said no, because my sandals were made of a few tiny straps, but the children continued to press me, as if I shouldn't say no, as if I didn't know what I was talking about, to say no. I suddenly became very nervous as if my shoes were impractical, as if they thought I made bad choices, as if they knew I'd said no to my baby. When I returned to Santa Fe, my lights had been shut off. Later that year Cristo Rey was going to pay for me to attend graduate school in Las Cruces, but the children told me of La Llorana one day when they agreed they'd heard her the night before, weeping and wailing in the arrroyos and river bed near Canyon Road. "La Llorana," they said, "drown her children and now she wanders the arroyos and rivers searching for them endlessly and wailing for her loss." "What if they knew I was La Llorana, now," I wondered. Before, when I had looked at the kids I had seen their diversity of vision, which only had begun to seem shining and innocent now that I felt I would shock them if they knew who I really was. When they lined up to go out for recess or to come in from lunch, I felt they were a lively river and as if I were a ghost. I could not continue to teach. I turned down the offer of graduate school. When I had been in university, the head of the philosophy department had taken an interest in me. I'm not sure why. I once came so late for class that the were only five minutes left. I hadn't realized I was that late. What I had been aware of was that my skirt was way too short. I was very tall then, as I am now, but back then there weren't different lengths of clothing in the stores. I remember being embarrassed almost all the time because of how wrong my clothes fit. In the end, I opted for jeans and sweaters. I adopted a nonconformist attitude. I pretended I chose to be different. Once I bought this totally milkmaid, Polish sense of fashion dress that was a yellow and white gingham with great puffed sleeves. It was of course too short, but I loved it. When I walked into the student union wearing it, one of the SIASEFIs, that was the drinking fraternity, came over and hugged me. He said he'd never seen me in a dress, and I should wear them more often. That's the only time I remember wearing it. I was more comfortable taking the guys vegetables from grandpa's garden, then I was being hugged by them. I spent a lot of time with them because I didn't get along well with my mother, so I went out drinking every night, and slept in the library at school every day. I didn't "drink," though. I used to drink water. And I was dedicated to being a virgin. I used to carry my rosary in my pocket so I would be reminded not to do anything wrong. One night, at Little Joe's, the bar we all went to, one of the SIASEFIs told me that they had devoted most of their meeting that night to what I would be like if I weren't a virgin. He said that if I wanted to not be a virgin any more, he said this earnestly, that he'd be glad to... I said thanks, but I was fine. I thought of myself as a Gamma Delta Iota, God Damn Independent. So when Professor Zawadski wanted me to apply to graduate schools, I was thinking more in terms of being a switchboard operator. He was a great teacher. He would teach at a furious rate, working funny bits in that made us want so much to laugh, only he didn't slow down, so we couldn't if we wanted to keep notes. As I remember it, he liked Hegel really a lot. I remember asking him if we could hegel about my grade. In the same vein, I told him that I thought he must have been in the navy. I asked him if he had been, and he said yes. Why, he asked, did I think that. I said because he was so admirable. My senior year, when I wasn't on the Cultural Committee any more, and I was the student in charge of some off campus housing, a pilot apartment project, I set up some in-home casual lectures, more question and answer type encounters where the profs would come over and sit in a living room with a lot of the kids and answer questions. Professor Zawadsky was the first to agree to participate. I was really excited about the whole concept, and the kids came because they liked me and didn't want to disappoint. So, there we all were. Professor Zawadsky said he'd been in the CIA and would answer any questions we had. None of us had ever head of the CIA. Marianne Harrington, who was one of my favorites, had told me she wanted to be a professional ice skater. I had thought that was totally amazing. The idea of skating as a job had never entered my mind. Equally, when I was still in high school, a fellow I met at The Lakes had invited me to see West Side Story and afterwards when we were talking he said he was going to study to be an engineer. He was older than me. I said, Wow, I didn't know people went to college to learn to drive a train. First and last date. The only demonstration I remember at Wisconsin State University at Stevens Point, which is where I got my B.S., and where grandma and grandpa lived practically across the street from Old Main, was in opposition to increasing the beer drinking age to 21. So, against all odds Professor Zawadsky said he thought I should go to graduate school in philosophy. But, I'd only gotten to go to university because the principal of Maria, my all girls Catholic high school, with a convent across the street, had taken an interest in me and had gotten me a need scholarship from the Veterans of Foreign Wars. I had been grateful, but embarrassed. I wished my grandfather had wanted to send me to a good school somewhere. I wanted to live in a dorm with other kids. Meet people. Mainly, I knew there was no money for graduate school. My mother hadn't wanted me to go to college, so I was pretty sure she wouldn't be in favor of graduate school. When I told him I wanted to be a switchboard operator, he said that I should go to interviews. And he made me do that. He took an interest. What I learned from the interviews, was that the important part of a college education to most recruiters, was the fact you'd stuck with it for four years, right in a row. Of the jobs I was offered, the best was with Ma Bell, to be in management training in Green Bay. It was $525 a month, and free long distance. And there was the lure of the switchboard. It was fulfilling a dream, sort of. Which I suppose is how I came to be the night front desk clerk at Rancho Encantado after I could no longer teach 12/21/04 Bad day yesterday: court still refusing to accommodate my disability... mind would not work with fingers: But in my life, I carreid around iwth me the mother or them all, goats head, childhood beliefs failed toflex my defining cactions. But at that point in my life that bent from childhood beliefs to I didn't have money to protect myself from the privy pit disaster because of the waste that is IRS. My life is not on good, firm ground since IRS wrongly destroyed my business. What is that, if not total, solid waste? (pun intended) IRS struck at Thanksgiving and Christmas of 1994. U.S. News & World Report used some of my IRS experience. Slowly but surely I've begun to realize that Turning It Around involves more than my bank account. When IRS took my means of taking care of myself, IRS was no less a health hazard than raw sewage. The hydrogen sulfide from the privy pit did a number on my nerves, but IRS and the poverty it imposed had already done damage. I have two rentals, am frugal and could make it... only... ONLY, my 600 sq.ft. condo was built over a privy pit. The condo association ignored me. I put all I had into digging the pit out; the association continued to ignore me; then there appeared to be a second pit or something toxic. When I couldn't pay the water bill at my income property, the City of Santa Fe (who shouldn't have permitted building over the privy pit in the first place) shut the water and my income off. The other owners found someone who said the problem was something else; they wrote him a check for $1,665.00 +/-; he wrote an article blaming and making fun of me; and I felt like everyone had read and believed it. I hated going out after that. I tried to sue, but my disability interfered and there was no accommodation by the Court. Yes, you've got it: this is about a LOT of you know what. You know what else stinks? IRS levying my commissions in 1991 and 1994 to pay for 1984 which I'd paid in 1985.That's how they destroyed my business. (U.S. New & World Report used my abuse by IRS in a story.) I filed essentially the same Third Party Complaint in each of the foreclosures. I posted the complaint on a page I call: Why I am in foreclosure. I believe the exhibits show that in view of the Condominium Act which I quote extensively, damages are owed to me. I am making some headway on getting accommodation in court. |
| November 11, 2004 I'm getting really close to saying something quite different here : ) |
| The reason I say that I have help constantly from the Loving and All Powerful is that a woman recognized my website address and ... that story follows: Sabra! A wonderful part of the Universe. |
| December 12, 2004 Because my muscles have been locking so much that I can't step over a cord that's an inch off the floor, I've been scared, plus I'd had muscle contractions in my back that were extremely painful, so I was very afraid of them happening again. Because I could continue to open my mouth, at least I guess that's the reason, the doctor's didn't think I had "Lockjaw". In this age of specialization, if there were a disease called, "Locked- muscles" they'd probably have gotten it, but there's not and they didn't. To some whom I had counted on for help, if the doctors said it was only muscle pain, then there wasn't anything wrong with me except that unless I got up and got busy, my muscles would atrophy. (I can laugh now that I'm better.) But at the time, I couldn't bend to open the faucet and I couldn't make a cup of coffee before my muscles locked enough to make me worry about air. Luckily I was given a caregiver for three hours a week, to shop, get stamps, bring in the mail, etc. But then the caregiver was withdrawn with only three days notice. (I'm getting the most dynamite meals from Kitchen Angels, that I am sure literally kept me alive, but I still need things: vitamin C, cotton, Epsom salt...) Since I also didn't have the antibiotic I needed, I went to abchomeopathy.com where I got little understanding until a member said she thought we'd met. "We've met?" I asked, disbelieving but wanting to be conversational. She described us exchanging cards and said she recognized my signature: So, she brought over a remedy which I accepted with gratitude, went shopping for me and told me who to call to get help through the county. I called and a wonderful woman from Adult Protective services came and I'm soon to have help again. (There may even be a health person who can come.) So, here's the thing, while I felt so alone when I was dropped, the Universe didn't drop me. The Universe provided. |
| www.health-boundaries-bite.com/Fingernails.html Your fingernails reflect your health -- Learn what warning signs to look for -- Karen Kline |
| It Made Me Feel So Good 12/17/04 A long time ago I lived in London with my little son. In the beginning we lived with a topologist (he said topology was the study of what's a knot and what's not a knot... mathematics) and things were great, but I began to cry after my mother said never to come back to Wisconsin because I hadn't married. The topologist who had suffered from depression before I had arrived, all smiling and happy, was unable to cope with me crying so much, so we began to break up. I didn't have any money left, having put the little I had into improvements in his house, and I didn't have anywhere to go, so I hired a lawyer from our babysitting group. I felt so good when I came from seeing him. I felt secure in the knowledge that he was going to take care of things for me. Eventually he called me to say that an offer had been made, that it was a good offer, the best he could imagine me getting, and he said he thought I should take it. So, I settled. When I went to his office with my little son, to get a check, I was told that the settlement had covered his bill. What does this have to do with health? Several things, actually. First of all, stress uses up B12, and that creates a feeling of depression. Meaning that if I'd known that when my mother disowned me, I could have had B12 replacement and not cried for a whole year and then some. Second, if I'd known about B12, I could have told the topologist to get some sublingual B12 and we'd probably be together today. Third, that lawyer reminds me so much of some of the doctors I've had. By that I mean that when they prescribed antidepressants, it had as much to do with my good health as the settlement did with my finances. I don't know why doctors are convinced that antidepressants are the end all and be all, while the same doctors know very little about vitamin B12, but I do know that the antidepressants have not been as good for me as vitamin B12. In fact, the antidepressants caused some severely bad side effects. So... I'm not all that trusting of lawyers anymore... nor of antidepressants. I loved the feeling of believing the lawyer was looking after me, but he wasn't, not really. I know I am interested in my own well being. I know I look after myself. The more that I know about health, the better it is for me. I keep a notebook, so that I can see what the outcomes of things are... the outcomes from taking B12 shots were dramatic. April 23, 2005 The last time I got rent was November 29, 2004. In December a friend sent me $100. In January I got my first commission check from my sales pages, it was for $36. This month, April, a friend gave me $75, so I immediately put $25 into my credit card so I could pay for my web hosting and stamps. But then my credit card was closed because I'd filed Chapter 13, so I couldn't use that money and I couldn't ask the bankruptcy court for help because I didn't have stamps. There was money to pay the $26 for this month's Pre-Paid Legal, which is good because it is very useful to have lawyers I can ask for ongoing help in my pro se cases. Like my Chapter 13. I had $4 left, so I had my adult protective services worker buy me Epsom salts for $2.29 because my toe is still getting a bit puffy when I don't soak it, and the taupe/maroon lines have not yet totally gone away. Last week I tried to get help from St. Vincent De Paul so I could get my boiler mended at my rental, so I could have income again. But they sort of laughed at me that I wanted $3,400, even if I was saying I could pay them back from the first and last when I rented it. Well, not all, but I was thinking they'd only give m e part of it and then maybe I could talk the plumber into letting me pay over a few months, once I had income again. St. Vincent de Paul did give me a can of coffee, which was great, and a large pack of toilet tissue, which was so good, because I just did not have the money. I'm still getting meals from Kitchen Angels because I'm still too sick to be up very long, so I have a dynamite evening meal from them, and then I make spaghetti for lunch because I have a lot of it because that's what I asked for, for Christmas, for my food basket because I knew I could save it for a rainy day, in case times like this came up. And they have. St. Vincent de Paul, which is basically funded by Sunday donations at Churches, also said they would pay up to $250 for me to get the leaks fixed in my house. I have a leak under my kitchen sink, but the plumbers say they won't fix that because most likely it's from the dishwasher and they don't do appliances. I have a leak in the faucet to my bath, which I can't really hear because of my tinnitus, but which now that I've seen it, is pretty bad. (And yesterday the City said they wouldn't pick up my trash at my door the way they door for sick people because they didn't have a doctor's note from me, and because I owed so much money for water. What's interesting about that, in the Catch-22 sense of the word, is that I couldn't see a doctor because the doctors all wanted more money than I had. So even though tetanus is know to respond to antibiotics, I couldn't get them because you can only get them from a doctor or Mexico. And the website for Mexico said it would take several weeks for them to arrive. I had, when I read that, no idea that I would still be sick in April, 2005, with tetanus which I got in August, 2004.) And, a leak in my shower which I became aware of when I saw that my carpet in the next room was wet after a shower when I was finally able to take a shower longer than two minutes, because my tetanus was finally that much better. So, I called the plumbers in alphabetical order, except that I also called the plumber that had looked at my burned out boiler because the plumber is a friend of, and has a good working relationship with, my friend the Realtor who was showing my rental for me and discovered that the boiler was burned out. April 26, 2005 I was supposed to go to the doctor again today, but the doctor was sick, so I was taken by Adult Protective Services to get my senior card, instead. That turned out to be totally amazing because they were able to give me a check to buy food and necessities from Albertson's. I had been very worried about running out of Epsom salts. The line under my toenail is only a quarter of an inch long now, but I'm afraid that if I just trust it will go totally away, and stop paying attention that it will get bad again and I'll again get the very thin red lines under my fingernails which are apparently called splinter hemorrhages. The Senior Center also put me down for Meals on Wheels, which is good because once I get on their roster, then I can tell Kitchen Angels that I don't need them anymore. Kitchen Angels has been really good to me, and I loved the friendliness of the people who brought my meals. Plus the food is just totally gastronomic delights!!!! In October, when Kitchen Angels began helping me, I couldn't be up but a few minutes, maybe not even a whole two minutes. And, I'd lost all strength: when they handed me a bag with my meal, it just fell to the floor because I was no longer strong enough to hold it. Tetanus is a really shocking disease of the central nervous system. Which makes it sound as if... I don't know. It just doesn't sound the way that it is, which is that all of your muscles are affected because all our muscles are operated by nerves. Well, I just wanted to jot down what a good day today has been. February 18, 2007 For years I have wanted the chilly feel of a new place to live, before the utilities are turned on, when it's all hope and expectation. For the last couple of days my home has been feeling this way. My water heater is off, and I don't have the forced air furnace turned on. So in the morning, now that I don't have to leave the heat on so high all night, it's crisp chilly. And, I have that hopeful feeling. I am determined to write, and not just legal things. I used to say that the reason I write legal things is because I know someone will read them. But now, now that my site is getting 200+ visits a day, I know that people are reading what I've written and not because they have to. So I am hopeful and this feeling in my house is perfect. |
| Kitty |
| "Mad Cow" |
| 3/16/04 $650 Thank you! -30...brown rice, oatmeal & ginger -15...petrol,free Butterfinger -31...$3 worth of chicken thighs ..........@ .79 lb Happiness!!! ..........$9 lots of cheapest olive oil ..........$1 kale Major Happiness!! ..........$2 peanuts ..........$2 yogurt - Again, happiness! ..........$2 eggs I feel like I won a ..........Survivor reward challenge!!! ..........$2 grapefruit (4) ..........$1 garlic ..........$2 onions ..........$3 canned pineapple because it's supposed to reduce swelling - maybe the ringing is from swelling ..........$4 tax and where I rounded |
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| 3/17/04 -30...handy man checks out washer ..........it's the pump that leaks -194. washer on sale at Sears : ) Still need someone to deliver it. Only 4 hours sleep last night so not handling the noise in my ear very well, my forehead is totally furrowed -- as if that helps. LOL. Noise is very loud. |
| Turning it around |
| -30....Deliver/hook up washer -34....Color ink cartridge -82....Qwest: telephone -91.....Electric: condo so pipes ............don't freeze -150..file case re deprivation of ...........rights and ADA (Americans ...........with Disabilities -45...service of summons -10....Bad, bad, bad McDonald's -3......great fish fry from KFC |
| The Pits |
| December 4, 2004 I think I have help constantly from a Loving and all providing Universe which is at one with and is All Powerful |
| 3/12/04 I forgot to show $85 (2/28) for a washer at Habitat for Humanity's resale shop after tenants said old washer had to be taken away on the weekend. Shop sounded as if $85 was a donation if washer didn't work; it was $25 for delivery & $40 to take old washer. Scared.. $336 - $85 = $251 $251 - web hosting = $239 $239 - $43 = $196 (mend roof leak^: I thought it was $28) Petrol, vit.C, magnesium, food, loo paper, stamps, envelopes: $196 - $40 = $156 water filters $18 = $138 fish & kitty food $5 = $133 $5 fix old machine = $128 Credit card $22 = $106 Pre-Paid Legal $26 = $80 Bank charge $5 = $75 Things the $75 doesn't cover: $200+ for doctor & medicine $81.71 2/mo. phone $24 web $91 so condo pipes don't freeze |
| in progress, Plus, I had serious computer problems on May 5,6,7, and 8 and this page was badly affected because, I think, I'd been working on it. Below is how this page was before I added what is above. |
