Because what I really needed was an eleventh cat... (UPDATED)

UPDATE: So several hours later, after the rain cleared out, I heard someone outside shouting "Blue Eyed Brownie! Blue Eyed Brownie!" over and over. Immediately the kitty jumped up and started looking for a way out. Not that I'm entirely thrilled about giving the obviously underfed and fleabitten cat (at least I Advantaged her) to her owner, but the woman seemed thrilled that I had her. Although she also said that I've probably spoiled her with fancy catfood, and if the cat wanders back down here, I can have her. I made a point of saying But I already have ten cats! although once you reach double digit felines, what's one more anyway?

...look what showed up on my back porch this evening during a rainstorm:

Anybody want a cat?
I'd say she's 6-9 months old, and she's really sweet.

my life in waycross

This week and next week I am "teaching" several classes at Waycross College while one of the instructors is out of town. I place "teaching" in quotes because what I'm actually doing is checking roll and showing movies. It's pretty boring - especially when I have to watch stultifying films such as Altered States: A History of Drug Use in America three times in a row. But it brings in some needed extra cash.

Extra cash is definitely needed when one doesn't have health insurance. Lack of health insurance is probably the biggest drawback of my life plan, as health care costs in this country are ridiculous. I had minor surgery on Tuesday - an outpatient procedure to remove to moles from my left arm for biopsy. I also needed a tetanus shot. Not only did all of this amount to a whopping $335 (even with the cash discount - yes, they charge the insurance companies more than they charge those of us who pay out of our wallets) but if they come back malignant (no physical harm!), then I'm going to have to pay an extra $50 because they charge more to get a malignant sample biopsied than a benign one. WTF? Nothing like setting the costs of procedures after the fact. Sheesh. And of course now I have unpleasant stitches (here and here if you're interested, but they're gross) which hurt like hell. Yay. Also, feel free to shop at my store and help refill the coffers of the unemployed and health-care-less Jane :-)

Mom and I went and looked at a house today. It's for sale for $500, but the buyer would have to move it off the property. As we should be closing on the eight acres any day now, we do have a place where we could put said property. My mom knows a guy who moves houses and who said he could move it for about $3200. Less than $4000 isn't a bad price for a house... although obviously any house being essentially given away for $500 is going to need a LOT of work...

Now, one of the first things you might notice is that this house used to have a pyramid roof, but the top has been lopped off. Apparently the mother of the owner did that years ago because she thought it looked better. Someone would definitely have to see whether or not that alteration has led to structural instability or roof leaks.

The space under the pyramid is roughly 900 square feet and consists of four rooms. That's the original structure. To the back of the pyramid/square were two additions (connected) where the bathroom and kitchen were located:

The two rear additions - kitchen on the right, bathroom on the left.
Sadly, both parts of the rear addition are in terrible shape - especially the kitchen.


Additionally, the corner where the addition meets the original house on this side of the house was poorly done and leaked (and still leaks, I suspect) tremendously...


...leading to horrific water damage on that corner of the pyramid/square.

The rest of the pyramid/square seems to be in decent shape (assuming no structural damage resulting from the tip of the pyramid being snipped off), but would require a lot of work nonetheless. My opinion is that the rear additions should be left where they sit; there's nothing in them worth saving. Now, obviously a four room pyramid/square with no kitchen or bathroom isn't exactly livable... but it would be years (given the rate mom and I work) before the front part would be ready. Perhaps at that point we could hire someone to build some quality rear additions. Although I'm thinking we're going to pass. I'll let you know if we change our mind.

Floridian Road Trip Weekend

Friday afternoon I left Waycross and headed south to visit Melissa and Alex, who live in Orlando. It was an excellent trip - especially since I hadn't seen Melissa and Alex since July 2006. While there, we went out for really delicious food: Indian, Mexican and Korean - heavenly! In addition to ethnic culinary pleasures, Alex has recently decided to take up baking, and his creations are fabulously scrumptious. We didn't merely eat our way through the weekend: we also went to Wekiwa Springs (which we were unable to get into back in July 06) and we saw King of California at the Enzian (we'd actually tried to go to the Enzian back in July 06 only to find the show sold out...) Wekiwa (also sometimes spelled Wekiva) was pretty, although I have to admit that I prefer Ichetucknee. At least at Ichetucknee you can hike along the river if you don't want to swim in the springs or canoe/tube the river. At Wekiwa, it seems that your options are limited to swimming in the springs, or hiking through pine forest nowhere near the river. And really, if you've seen one Floridian pine forest, you've seen them all. Unless said forest goes along something scenic, like a river. Meanwhile, I have nothing but positive things to say about King of California - it was hilarious and well crafted, and I highly recommend it.

Friday was Melissa's birthday. Alex baked her a cake.


Melissa and Alex are having a baby girl!!! :-)


Alex bakes cheddar pennies.


This cranberry-apple pie, made by Alex, was possibly the best pie I've ever eaten. He also made fresh homemade whipped cream to top it off.
Yum, yum, yum.


Likewise, his bread was was simply delicious as well.


Melissa and Alex's cat, Henry


And their cat Henrietta


Wekiwa Springs

This dragonfly hung out on my leg for a while at Wekiwa.

I left Orlando early Monday morning and drove to Tampa, where I spent some time with my dad, and got to see his new Harley:

I was feeling pretty sleepy by the time I left Tampa to begin the five hour drive back up to Waycross. I made it to just south of Gainesville, FL and then decided to stop at a rest area for some rest. And slept for a little over an hour :-)

Of slum lords, infernal beepings, and flower transplants

I had yet another creepy-old-guy encounter today. And no, not with Ronnie. I guess first I should give you some background. Here in Waycross there are two people whom my mother and I consider to be Slum Lords. They own a lot of properties that are in terrible condition. Now, if you're planning to run a rental property, it has to be up to certain codes. If you're planning to sell a house, it doesn't. These two chaps offer people (generally very poor people) the opportunity to rent-to-own these houses. It seems that the general expectation is that eventually these people will miss a payment and get evicted, and they can turn around and set up a rent-to-own scenario with someone else. And getting the properties up to code? Hey, that's the responsibility of the new "owner."

One of these slum lords is (outwardly at least) a fine upstanding pillar of the community, who lives in a big house in one of the nice neighborhoods. (He owns the houses located next to and behind me.) The other... well, I don't know where he lives, but people who've had dealings with him tend to consider him a dirty old man. When my mom was first looking for a place to either buy or rent when she first got a job up here, he made her a skeezy offer of the wink-wink-nudge-nudge variety. Apparently this slum lord owns a property on my street from which the residents have just been evicted. He and some people were there today cleaning out the crap that had been left behind, and he decided to come over and introduce himself.

Now, Ronnie might be somewhat crazy with a tendency to get naked at inappropriate times, but he never came across as creepy or threatening - at least not when he was fully clothed anyway. This guy, despite being a grandfatherly looking (80ish?) old southern boy in a shiny new pickup simply exuded creepiness. He didn't say or do anything inappropriate (other than being somewhat of a close talker), but nonetheless I immediately suspected that he was the dirty-old-man-slum-lord whom my mom had told me about. (This was later confirmed.) He wanted to know if my mom and I owned that house over on... well, let's just say over on that street where mom and I own another house. He said he'd heard a school teacher had bought it. According to my mom, he'd been interested in buying it, but the people who'd sold it to her hadn't wanted to sell to the dirty old man.

Changing topics... three nights ago I was awakened from a deep sleep (and that's pretty hard to do) by an incessant beeping. Beep, beep, beep, pause, beep, beep, beep, pause... etc. It was the repetitive nature of the sound that disturbed my slumber. It sounded like a fire alarm with a low battery. I waited for the owner of said alarm to change or remove the battery. No such luck. The incessant beeping wouldn't stop, and it was right at a frequency guaranteed to give me a headache. This afternoon I realized that it was coming from inside one of the empty houses across the street. While my mom and the neighbors looked on I entered the house (there was no breaking; the front window was already shattered - I simply stuck my arm through the jagged hole and undid the lock), took down the fire alarm (well, mom did that, as she's taller) and ripped out the battery. No more beeping. Thank the gods.

And lastly, mom and I dug up and transplanted some fall daisies, goldenrod and foamflowers into my yard this afternoon. We also planted a crepe myrtle which had been sitting out back in a pot for ages. Planting the crepe myrtle we ran into a bit of trouble. See, my house (build in the late 40s or early 50s) was built on top of the foundations of an older house which had burned down. Apparently the foundations from the old house stretch out under my back lawn. Nothing like trying to dig out bricks coated in concrete with a shovel... Assuming the plants take (fingers crossed!) I'll get some pictures for you. They're all looking a little wilty right now though.

Reflective (yep, time to vote again!)

One of the themes for JPG Magazine's Issue 14 is Emotion Capture, and I've selected Reflective, a shot of my friend Joanna, reflected in the window of the trans-Siberian as we chugged eastward across the plains of Russia. Either click here or on the image below to vote. Thank you so very, very much!

Fuzzy Blue Flowers

(pererennial ageratum, aka foamflower)

Halloweendow

Pension update :-)

I wrote about my trip to the Daegu branch of the Korean pension office back in early September. I was told to expect my pension money to appear in my bank account within two to three weeks. Well, after five weeks and no pension, I emailed my school and asked them to contact the pension office. Now I don't know if the two to three week estimate was really just a nice way of saying five to six weeks, or if the call placed to the pension office by my school kicked someone into gear... but my pension is here :-)

A book you must read. Now.

For my birthday, my Aunt Mary sent me a book entitled Three Cups of Tea: One man’s mission to promote peace… one school at a time. It’s the biography of Greg Mortensen, a former mountain climber turned philanthropist. His tale is phenomenal: he had traveled to Pakistan to climb K2, but like many mountaineers, was defeated by the mountain. On his descent, lost, sick, and disoriented, he wandered into a tiny village called Korphe. The villagers nursed him back to health and in exchange, he promised to return and build a school for the village, as it had none. Now, it’s not as though Mortensen was a rich man, someone who could easily afford to finance such an endeavor; in fact, it was quite the opposite. However, he persevered in his goal, and not only succeeded in building the school in Korphe, but he established the Central Asia Institute, which has built nearly 60 schools across the rural areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan, built libraries, trained and paid teachers, created women’s organizations, built water distribution and purification systems, in addition to numerous other projects outlined here.

The simple fact that one man intent on honoring his promise had the drive to achieve all this is simply incredible, and quite inspiring. However, that’s not the main reason why I say that you must read this book now. The book is fast-paced and entertaining, and a very quick read – yet that’s not why you should read it either. I think everyone (including those people who feel that all Muslims are trying to kill us) should read this book for a glimpse into the lives and characters of average people in Pakistan and Afghanistan. I promise what you will read will be much different from the average portrayal you see in the media these days. Yes, Mortensen was once kidnapped by Pakistani warlords. Yes, he had two fatwas declared against him. Yes, he was once nearly killed when caught in the crossfire between two bands of opium smugglers. But: he successfully worked with local leaders, both religious and secular, to establish schools which provided equal education to both boys and girls. He had religious Islamic leaders and Taliban representatives agreeing to allow him to build these schools, agreeing to allow the education of girls, agreeing to allow a secular curriculum to be taught at these schools. These people, so often demonized in our current culture, even went out of their way to help him reach his goals. He met and befriended numerous people who were so caring and wonderful…. and so peace-loving, and so dedicated to education.

The chapters which take place during and after September 2001 were unexpectedly powerful. Mortensen’s friends in a remote Pakistani village woke him up in the middle of the night with the news of the 9/11 attacks, saying over and over how sorry they were, cursing Osama bin Laden, whom they assumed immediately was behind the attack. Villagers, who had little to give, gave him eggs, insisting that he deliver them to the widows of the attack. These are not the images of Muslims that we normally see.

Mortensen discusses how the madrassas are able to recruit students into their schools in remote areas of central Asia very easily: these areas are incredibly poor. Many have no public schools, and most families cannot afford to send their children to expensive private schools. Meanwhile, wealthy wahabbi madrassas, funded usually by Saudi money, are able to pay for boys to attend – providing food, clothing, shelter and the promise of an education, albeit a religious one. Many of these madrassas serve as training grounds for jihadis. Students provided with the option of a free public school are less likely to enter into a madrassa. And certainly the students at the CAIs schools speak very highly of Americans!

One of the most depressing tales in this book was that when Mortensen’s work finally began to receive media coverage here in the US, he began to receive death threats from fundamentalist Christians – no doubt the type who believe that Muslims are the people who are trying to kill us.

I know this review is scattered all over the place. There’s so much in this book, and my simple attempt at summary hardly does it justice. Go buy the book and read it. Then give it to a friend. Education is the key.

A weekend visit

My dad and my brother Pressley drove up from Tampa this weekend for a visit. The weather was a bit dreary and rainy, so we didn't get to do too much... although we did make it to the Okefenokee Heritage Center in order to do some quality climbing about on the old train...

I love the OHC, but I really wish they'd take the Christmas lights off the train.


On the train's engine


ditto.


Ghost Train Caboose!


Dad & Pressley at one of the OHC exhibits


Such a sibling photo.


With my dad, brother and Alley Cat :-)