The amputated arm

I had a really messed up dream about my ex husband yesterday. His arm was amputated and I had to take it back to his body. So I'm walking through the suburban streets at night with this bloody arm, amputated at the elbow. Then it starts to move. It's grabbing my hand, and it's wriggling all over. And it's getting shorter! The bloody stump is moving down the arm until it's at the wrist. As it's getting shorter, it's getting stronger. It frees itself from my hand and hurls itself onto the hood of a car, bouncing onto the windshield, leaving smudges of blood. It then hurls itself into the bushes.

Remembering that I still have to get it to its owner, I pick it up and start to run with it. I see, in someone's driveway, a few guys shooting hoops, and there are about 5 dogs hanging around with them. They get the scent of blood and meat, which is now all over my hands, and they start to run with me. I wake up to me yelling at them telling them to go away.

Sometimes dreams make no sense at all.

The Death of Oscar The Grouch

Young enough to sell lemonade but too old for stuffed animals, I talked my brother and sister into gathering all the toys we no longer wanted to sell at the end of the street. I thought we could make money on pencils, candy, or erasers bought at my school's Secret Santa Extravaganza; anything that would buy us gum and magazines at the local old school strip mall. We grabbed a box from the garage and rummaged through our closets, blasting rows of toys to the side in search of board games, clothes, re-gifts, anything that we deemed unsuitable for our elder years.

There we were, standing at the stop sign at the end of the street with a sign:
25¢ per toy.

We stood, waiting for the first customer. Cars passed. We frequently assessed our goods, making sure it was all there, arranging it so it would look most appealing to prospective buyers. And then, a growling truck rolled up. It was a pick up. He stepped out, the strapping sixteen year old red head with eyes of diamonds, excited at the possibility of purchasing not one, but fifteen stuffed animals!!! He picked through every one, we said farewell to each, in gratitude that they were going to a good home.

Then, after choosing his favorites, he wrapped string around the neck of each animal, tied it to the hitch of his truck, and drove away, dragging each animal, by the neck, to his death. And who suffered the most? Oscar the Grouch. He bobbled to and fro, green fuzziness licking the gravel each time, seeming to say "you screwed me!!!" We stared, and our tears fell like the fall of burning coal off Half-Dome in the 1800's. Our memories, our pubescent childhood, all popping from the pavement as each waved goodbye, reminding me that I should have loved them more.


Watching each animal on a cascading line from the hitch of a big kid's truck, I saw each of my fuzzy friends blend into a tangled pulp of suburban hamburger for 25 cents a piece. I decided from that day I would love all my toys, even the ones I outgrew, so they could never again be pulled behind the obese gas guzzlers of sixteen year old boys.

Vegemite

Vegemite on toast. That's how almost everyone in Australia eats it. I have a British friend who had it on her breakfast table and I had to try it. Before she could tell me how to eat it, I dipped a knife into the tub and licked it. Pure salty, fermented-tasting yuckiness. I couldn't believe so many people love it. They eat it with cream cheese, with tomato, on toast, three times a day. But to me, a person obviously not raised on Vegemite, it tasted like gummy, resiny, yeasty, pasty bullion nastiness.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegemite

Similarly weird? Soursop, aka Graviola
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/images/Plate10.jpg

FEEEEEECKKK!!!!! FINALLY the day gets better.

I think I may have found a job!

This is funny even thoguh I haven't seen Avatar

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zaJdq0VUtk&feature=player_embedded

Days like these

Photo taken is of ACTUAL room in Yelapa, Mexico. (Just about a 45 min busride south of Puerto Vallarta) Today is one of those crappy days that will go down in history.

I have a dear friend who is deeply depressed about her divorce, a sister who wrote me a nasty letter telling me our relationship is one-sided and I treat her like shit, a friend I'm taking space from because he hurt me, ten unauthorized purchases in my bank account to dispute, a job to find (which is more agonizing every day), a court date in a week, a stalker (not a dangerous one) and a blackberry with a broken trackball.

Let's look on the bright side, shall we Regina?

1. I have family and friends who love me
2. I have my health
3. My parents gave me money for Xmas
4. I am living with my awesome friend Nicole and her bf for free
5. I have virtually no bills
6. I got to live in Brazil and not work for 7 months
7. I have an education
8. I have a skill I can take anywhere
9. I am a good person
10. I ignore anything anyone tells me that is toxic

These are all the things I forget to think about on days like these. I guess I don't have it so bad afterall. This too shall pass.

the fraud

So I am having to deal with identity theft. Just how I wanted to spend my day. I've been on the phone with various companies for hours, disputing charges made by the Portuguese "friend" I lived with in Brazil. Let's just call him "fake".

There are about ten bank transactions I never authorized, and they all lead to him, based on the email address associated with each purchase. He even tried to buy a $3600 computer, which fortunately, drew attention to my bank, who then locked my account so that no activity could occur. I ended up having a friend pay to fly be back to the States earlier than planned because I couldn't get any money out of my frozen account. He screwed up everything. I even had to live with a friend for 6 months when I returned because I was busy paying off debt from "fake".

How does he live with himself? How does he face himself knowing he is a phony, a thief, a person without ethics or moral virtue? Life is hard and everyone has his challenges. But to pretend to be a friend just to turn on them should justify some Karmic consequence. I hope he feels right at home hiding out and running from the deportation police in Brazil, the place that taught me to trust no one. Not even my "friends".