February 15, 2007 ~ Thursday @10:07 PM
Gracias Doctor Linda ~ One day follows another. I will blog this with this post to your blog and my blog-journal when I send this Email out back to you. If I get enough posts we may have the makings of a real book by you! I myself especially appreciate your comments about live in Israel and the Israeli people.
I bought a headset and microphone that I will be using soon for online chats. I will Instant Message you so we can attempt to communicate via IMs.
I got some of my things kind of split up between my stuff here. I have access to two bedrooms. Here at Barbara's where I have my computer-command post and then I have some of my stuff like books and clothes over my Cousin Mark's place.
I have been renting a room from Mark for $425 per month for a few months now, but I have Free Internet Connection here over Barbara's and John's place. So I got back and forth. My whole concept of what a home is has gotten kind of skewered after all I have been through these last few years.
Cousin Mark's former old lady and her daughter moved out of his place awhile back last year, but the daughter has not moved a lot of her stuff out yet from her former bedroom that I sleep in from time to time, especially on weekends. Awhile back Mark said that moving out of Barb's and Greg's place would help with my spiritual growth... but I wonder if instead I am really going to end up helping him with his.
I know my Cousin Mark has gone through some emotional grief over this long-term relationship that came apart and I have been giving him time to come to his senses and do what he needs to do to get closure over his old breakup and the daughter's moving out, but again, it has been a few months now.
Him and the young daughter about puberty age got really close in a father-daughter way, but she has not tried to contact him since the break up so I suspect there is more going on thar I am aware of in the mix. He has I believe a couple of grown daughers from a previous marriage.
Bear in mind that Cousin Mark was with the mother and her daughter for about ten years. He still maintains his stable and strong sobriety, though he is kind of strung out on going to A.A. Meetings and A.A. events in Sacramento and in San Francisco, even after over 10 sober years. Thus, a lot of his life revolves around A.A. in one way or another.
Plus, of course his work with animals as the Kennel Man at Loaves and Fishes and all his good animal work is one of his greatest arrests. That is all up to him and I am not doing his own inventory. However, he needs to move his step-daughter's stuff out of the room I am renting and it seems he is avoiding the ordeal of closure over the whole relationship and its aftermath.
Usually when I go over the house he is going to one A.A. Meeting or another and we rarely have time to communicate at his place. I cell-phoned him today about the need for me to have a dresser for my stuff and mentioned how I have not fully moved in yet. There is a dresser there in 'my room' but it is full of daughter's stuff and she has other girlie stuff in the room that does not fit my image at all.
Bear in mind that my rent here is relatively free over Barbara's as all of the money I get for being on paper the official Health Care worker for Barbara I just hand over to them. I still help out some here, mainly washing dishes and easy stuff.
Did not mean to dwell so much on stuff, but maybe I needed to do so to help release some psychological pressure about some of my key relations. I am highly aware of how 'all our relations' is paramount in our lives. Plus, how many of our problems come from not handling our relationships wisely and discretely.
My job goes well and I know I do excel. It is a hard relatively new position but I believe I do well. I'm a natural.
Prayers and Blessings All Ways ~ Your True Friend, Peta
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Linda Whittaker <olsvig2000@yahoo.com> wrote:
Hi everyone,It's been a quiet week for me after the stress of last week. A nice trip down to the Dead Sea last shabbat to take in the tail end of the annual general meeting of our denomination in Israel. They held the retreat at Almog, a little kibbutz next to Qumran, overlooking the Dead Sea. The air was delightful after freezing in Jerusalem these last several weeks, and I was refreshed by the subtropical flora and birds. There was a lot of socializing going on, and I quietly kept to the sidelines, that's not my bag, but I guess it was the main occupation of most of the participants. A lot of our guys are very poor, and seldom get out of the house. It doesn't matter where you take them as long as they can pull up chairs and talk....I expect the Tel Aviv landfill would work just as well. Still, they were happy and that's what mattered.Back to work and I had interesting news. Since last November I had been trying to meet with the director of our computer services because we need some things to protect and advance the data system I manage. Like, new computers and new software, approval to hire a programmer, etc. Regular development and maintenance stuff. The head of computer services is a new guy (they built a division around him for politcial reasons), he doesn't understand computers too well, and he's very much the bureaucrat. So for four months he didn't reply to my requests.I finally told my boss that I am running out of things to do if I can't work on the system, and I can't work on the system unless we upgrade because it is about to collapse. I itemized that with full technical details. HE contacted the computer services guy and again got frosty silence. It went to our division head and he started kicking ass also. NOW we got a response because it is on the same bureaucratic level, division head versus division head, and he is all smiles and happy to cooperate.Oh man, I want to murder the guy, and I could too, the twerpy little Yemenite bastard. Computers do not respect rank or paka-paka, and for computer services we do not need crap like this. We need problem solving abilities. The whole organization knows we got ourselves a lemon here and people who work with computers are really unhappy with him. However, it's not for me to fire the guy and get somebody competent in the job, so if I have to down tools later in the year because my system no longer works, I'll do that. It won't be the first time. Usually the screaming that results from the loss of my services is enough to get things done without me doing much in the melee.Meanwhile, I'm revising taxonomic lists because it is something I can do on my own without additional funds. It's nice quiet work and I'm happy with it. We are also preparing for a major field exercise (31 people registered) to test a European field mapping methods. This is also fun. We are doing the last preparations now. It will be a little tricky because we are introducing an international method. While Israelis like international things, they also want to be in control of them. (In other words, give us your booty and then keep your mouth shut.)So we have to be careful about explaining the nature of the cooperation on this--e.g. "this is a new method being used across Europe and the inventors have brought it to us to see if it will also work in the extraordinary and special conditions of Israel. They are waiting breathlessly in Holland to hear our words of wisdom on the system. So we want to record all your pearls as you test the system." Hey, that's not just my cynicism speaking--that's the advice of my native Israeli colleagues on this trial. We won't be sarcastic in the presentation, of course, but that's the general idea. You gotta understand the egos are a lot bigger than the land area here, and use that fact to advantage.....What else. It's the start of the crazy season here. Winter is ending, spring is beginning, and of course there is a flashpoint for the young men with overactive glands to have some fun with riots and mayhem. This time it is the bridge repair of the Mughrabi gate at the Temple Mount. The old bridge collapsed a couple years ago in the rain and there is salvage archeology going on before a new bridge goes up. It's outside the Temple Mount but the Moslems are having blue fits. The Israelis are going "what's the fuss, it's just routine maintenance work, and it's not even in your area so why the hysterics?"Okay, both sides are bullshitting, per usual. There is in fact no real cause for hysterics, the work IS outside the Moslem area. However, the Temple Mount is alwys a sensitive area, and no Moslems are involved in the work, so they don't really know what is going on. The Israelis set up three 24-hour video cameras at the site so people can see what is going on via the internet (www.antiquities.org.il) which is really grandstanding to the west. Not many Moslems are going to be able to deal with that kind of high tech. Turkey came along with the most intelligent suggestion I've heard on this--send some Turkish Moslem archeologists (and they have very good ones) to check the site and report on it. That would for sure be helpful, but now the Israelis are hissing about national sovereignity. In sum, it's just another Middle Eastern pissing match among the males in springtime, no substance whatsoever, and the testosterone is so thick you can smell it on the ground. Idiots on all sides, and the longer I'm here, the dumber they sound because now I know the script.Whoever gave us the reputation for brains should have set major qualifications on that statement. It is true that the Israeli will use the best technology, the greatest speed, and the best accuracy to shoot himself in the foot, but he is still shooting himself in the foot. We don't have wisdom, we just have cunning.Oh well, I'm at my cynical worst these days. End of winter cabin fever. I am looking forward to the beautiful spring, with its riot of flowers and sweet blue skies. While the people of the Middle East will drive a normal person stark raving mad, the landscape is one of the most wonderful in the world. Enjoying the Mediterranean landscape is what keeps the little sanity I have left after 25 years here, and spring is when it is most awesome. I'm champing at the bit and longing to be in the field, away from the nutcases.shabbat shalom,Linda
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