It’s been overcast and rainy for about a week and a half now; interspersed with periods of sun briefly in the afternoons. It’s nice. I like the rainy, grey days mixed with the fine misting of raindrops on your forehead, cool temps and greenery all around.

I’ve been wondering whether I was going to have a serious problem with it being grey all the time, but so far so good.

Don’t get me wrong, now. I love the sun and I am very happy to see it when it peeps out every so often.

In Jamaica, it was an irritation unless you were at the beach. Speaking of which, I am finding that as much as I can smell the ocean here, I still miss Jamaican shores. Although that shouldn’t be surprising. I was born and raised in Jamaica. Sun is in my blood.

Why then should I be loving this place so much? I’ve been asking myself that each and every day since I first saw it last October when I visited my good friend Gail in Seattle for a few days.

I think it has more to do with the social aspects of the area than the weather. The weather is nice … Sure.

The REAL plus of this place, though, is that as an interracial couple, we get less stares than we have gotten anywhere else. Or at least it FEELS that way.  Maybe it’s that people are more friendly here. We get more “Hello” smiles than we’ve had anywhere else. In Texas, we just got stares, if anyone looked at all. In Kentucky, they mostly tried NOT to stare – and were pretty obvious about it. In Michigan, hubby’s hometown … While they don’t stare (or not stare), I stick out like a sore thumb. Literally.

Here, I just feel like there are FAR more interesting things to stare at than us … And no one really stares at the weird people – not really – because weird is normal here.

Hubby calls this state the hippy tree-hugging state. Actually, it kind of is. They’re so environmentally conscious here – all about recycling and bicycling and running/jogging and ‘park-and-ride’ing …

Yet despite all that … traffic is a B-I-T-C-H! Sunday afternoon on the I-5 can literally be a bumper-to-bumper experience. Yea – that happened to us.

Of course, I understand that its almost near impossible to live around here and not have a car. In fact, we went out and got me one since I felt so grounded all the time. But it’s still a little contradictory.

It doesn’t much matter if you live in the city – my friend Gail has a store and coffee shop and few restaurants within a block’s walk. But out here in the boonies … when the bus stop is about an hour’s walk and 20 minutes ride from home, and you have to do things like grocery shopping, etc … it just seems impossible to do without a car.

And cars are … Well, pollutants – no?

So much for environmentally friendly.

I so wish someone would come up with solar storage that is mobile and cheap…

Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn’t have been better to have gotten on-post housing. At least home would’ve been a few minutes away to bring the car home if I needed it. And then I bite my tongue and give myself a slap. On-post housing sucks – especially when they insisted on making us wait 6-8 weeks for a 2-bedroom house while 3-bedroom houses sit unused and available. And sounds as if that is the norm here too – empty 3-bedroom houses. How droll!

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#currents

I learned to drive on a 1971 Fiat 127.

The first time I got into the instructor’s car and drove up the street, he asked me “have you driven before?” Apparently, I was doing really well for a first- timer. Yet the only experience I had before that day was going through shifting motions on Mom’s Fiat and moving it around the driveway when she would allow me to.

“A natural” – my parents knew I’d be a serious driver from the day when I was 4 and ran out to meet Dad at the gate for a ride in when he got home from work. On this day, I gave into my urge to drive by putting his car into reverse from park. Dad was able to get to me and the car before it had traversed the whole roadway onto the opposite sidewalk.

I started official lessons early in the year – possibly February or March. I was taking the test in May or June. This I remember because I ALMOST had a clash with my exams and the driving test.

I managed to fail my driving test the first time around because despite bringing the car into  a parallel parking spot and positioning myself 6 inches from the wall and at equal distance at the front and rear bumper … I had hit the rear cone on my way into the spot.

Luckliy, I had done so well on the rest of the yard tests, that they determined when I came back to re-sit all I had to do was parallel park again and then do the road test – instead of starting over from scratch.

The second time around, I parked perfectly – albeit not as close to the wall.

The instructor almost failed me again on the road test – I was driving too fast. Test speeds were supposed to be 25mph – but I found myself hitting 35 and over very regularly. I think what won him over was that I looked fairly comfortable behind the wheel and was quite intimate with the road code (a lot of it is common sense, though, isn’t it? – I said.)

My first car, that was my own, wasn’t until a good 10 years or so later. With the help of my parents, I bought a Nissan Sunny. I remember feeling lucky because my Sunny had an advanced filtration system in the ceiling – clearly the previous owner had been a smoker – and the sales people hadn’t realized it was there until after the paperwork had been signed and therefore couldn’t charge me extra for it.

I’ve owned a few more cars since then – all of them ‘pre-owned’.

But yesterday, I became the first-time owner of a brand new car. Well, to be perfectly honest, the bank owns it and I am paying them to keep it parked in my driveway. But it’s still my name on the title. Hubby’s name is on it with me, but for all intents and purpose – it’s mine!

It’s a 2011 Suzuki SX4 Sport … It’s red (who knew?), manual transmission (6 speed), it’s comfy and it’s light … and I love it. Driving it from the dealership home (some 40-odd miles) wasn’t enough for me. I intend to take it out again ASAP.

Imagine that – I come to live in the United States and the first car I buy for myself is Japanese.

Heh – talk about back to my roots.

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No matter where I live, it seems I am to be plagued by Customs agents who have no common sense and no sense of respect for private property and no professionalism.

I asked my parents to send on some personal items to me and the best way we thought was to hold onto the items and once a complete box-full of stuff was ready to be shipped, to just send the box on via UPS.

Well

I was actually impressed that the box got here within 5 days – nevermind that the delivery guy took my outdoor mat (yes – THAT mat that we wipe our muddy, dirty feet on) and covered the box up outside the doorway. The first thing I noticed was that the box has been opened. Fine – I expected that considering it would have to come through customs to get to me… I expected them to open up to make sure my mother wasn’t sending me some drug or explosive or some other kind of contraband to sell or us … I get that.

So, I ignored that and opened up the box. Nothing was missing  – according to the inventory sheet Dad included, it was all there. Nice.

The ONE  item I REALLY wanted to get among them all was my old journal from Digicel – leather-bound and personalized with both my name and the company name. It had notes that I thought I’d want to have with me if I was going to continue in the Tech field. While flipping through, I noticed that the outside covers had 2 slits in identical locations – back and front. “Hmm”, I thought, “must have been packed badly and the hardcover books cos the old leather to crack and tear”.

I didn’t even think twice about it – I just went back to whatever it was I had been doing before. It wasn’t until hubby came home and I was showing it to him that I realized that the inside cover also had a slit in it … nay! a slit AND a TEAR!

As in, they sliced it open with a sharp edge and tore it apart.

I was so mad, everything around me was literally tinged with red. Hubby said “calm down -we’ll call UPS. see what they tell us” and I dropped it. I left it alone because I know if I even approached the subject before I was able to let it go completely, I would be a bumbling idiot.

The danger of that course of action, however, is that you forget. Well, thank you UPS for reminding me because yesterday, here comes an envelope from UPS charging me brokerage for the package. And here I go getting incensed again … because not only did UPS allow customs to destroy my property, but now they are charging me for it too.

Oooo… I was mad. Luckily, I had a number to call them. The delivery man came again another day; he asked me about my international package and I told him about the damage. So he quickly wrote down a number for me to call to claim damages. Which is the number I called with bill in hand.

Well, they were polite and commiserating – I’ll give them that. However, while the first woman told me she was going to make a note that the brokerage charges were pending the damage case, the second dude told me I would be required to pay them anyway.

BULLSHIT! I ain’t paying them jack shit until they either reimburse me for my damaged goods or tell me “You know what – let’s just call it even”. Fuck them. Rude.

Grrr… just makes me mad all over again. What bothers me most about this scenario is that had the Customs inspectors used their brain instead of their mile-long rule books, they would have realized that this book is unlikely to have anything hidden in the cover – book is years old, as can be seen by the writing in the book itself; but if that is not enough considering writing can be faked, the wear and tear alone is another clue. Don’t think that can be faked as easily. And if that is STILL not enough, the binding is intact – clearly hasn’t been tampered with.  On top of everything else, have none of them ever SEEN a leather-bound book? What the hell are you going to conceal in the cover of a leather-bound book? Furthermore, who would send an Italian leather bound book to Jamaica and then to the US along with other technical books in a box that is likely to contain contraband?

Nevermind all that speculation … just one answer will do “what the HELL could they be looking for?” is what I want to know.

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catharsis |kəˈθärsis| noun 1 the process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions. 2 rare Medicine purgation. ORIGIN early 19th cent. (sense 2) : from Greek katharsis, from kathairein ‘cleanse,’ from katharos ‘pure.’ The notion of “release” through drama ( sense 1) derives from Aristotle’s Poetics.

Nuff said!

…

The leaves are changing on the trees. It’s funny because I have been outside in the last couple of days, yet I never noticed the changes.  That is all part of me being un-observant. I need to be more observant. I need to get out there and SEE.

I need to wake up.

I feel like I am walking in a kind of dream or daze. As if life hasn’t really strated yet .. as if I am waiting for something. I know it’s a bad place to be in, and I know I need to find my way out of it soon.  I’m just not sure how to go about that. Yet.

…

So, Bear has picked up a very annoying habit. Not sure from where – he’ll just starting wailing at me when I go to the kitchen; this is at mealtimes too. So I go to the kitchen at 7ish to share hubby’s dinner and here comes Bear with his plaintive, old-man meow …. wailing at me.

And then Nala just climbed on top of my nerves by waiting for me to turn my back and then she stuck her mouth into my dinner plate and stole a piece of cheese-covered pasta. They both know that is a no-no, she waits until she knows I am not looking. Argh! So of course, Bear sees her do it, and proceeds to try and do it too … and I KNOW he knows better. Argh!

…

So anyway, tomorrow I get probed and prodded again … all kinds of tests and such so that these doctors can have all the images and tests on file to start out with. I guess I should have expected they wouldn’t want to trust the word of my own doctors … which is a little offensive, if you ask me – since our docs are among the best in the world. H’oh well.

WoW world is very slow these days since the release date for the expansion – Wrath of the Lich King – has been announced for November 13th. No one wants to do anything now …  Feels just like January 2007 when everybody sat waiting for the Burning Crusade to come out, just biding time with generic stuff. Well, it’s a full 5 weeks hence …. I guess I”ll just take the time to level another toon. My hunter this time. I was trying with my paladin – the first toon I ever took to 60 … but it’s so darned hard to level her these days that I think I am going to just abandon her and focus on the toons I now have.

Oh fudge it …. it’s not like anybody really understand what I’m writing here anyway – right?

I’ll catch ya’ll laterz.

YUSH

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And immediately thought of my mother … felt like my mother, probably LOOKED like my mother and certainly the words I WANTED to utter were exactly the words that she would use as well:

“Son? Before you go around selling donuts to people, I’d suggest you wash your face, take the rag off your head, put on a shirt instead of an undershirt thereby trying to look more presentable than you now do. That said, no, I will NOT buy donuts from you for your basketball team.”

My first reaction was to scream for hubby to call the police because the first thing that came to mind was a thug come to rape me and rob the house. What I said instead was:

“Uh …. not today though”

I have NO idea what my face said. All of you who know me personally will KNOW my face most likely said a myriad other things, probably not even remotely nice.

If that is a BAD reaction considering the times we live in, stop the world … let me get off.

Seriously.

The dude had this scarlet rag tied around his head, the corners of his mouth were caked with some white substance, he had on a black undershirt (or sweat shirt, as I’ve heard them referred to) and calf-length shorts … it made me scared and sick at the same time. I didn’t even WANT to look at his feet lest the downward movement of my head helped the bile to rise some more.

Hubby comforted me with the thought that THIS is how the youth dress now. Not much comfort at all, actually. It just made me feel even more sick.

Then to top that off, I go and hear about the man who molested a 9 month old baby to death back in Kingston.

What the hell … world’s going to hell in a hand basket.

/sigh

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