My blogging efforts = FAIL?
I'd almost forgotten of this creature's existence until a new co-worker/friend took it upon herself to read it a few weeks ago, and came in the next day quoting my own words and anecdotes to me. (Shout out Roisin!) That inspired me to re-visit/re-read the blog, and realize that it was high time to either lay it to rest or jumpstart it. I'm hoping for the latter, but only the next few weeks will tell.
An awful lot has happened in the nine or ten months since my last post--mostly good, some mixed and a little bit bad. Since January 2 we have been in Nanaimo, a mid-sized town on the east-central coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Thus far, it's proving to be a pretty good choice for a new home--and feeling even more so now that summer weather is belatedly showing its fair face. As a little group called The Weepies sing, "I was made for sunny days..."
Once I decide where to start in recounting the good, bad & ugly, I'll be back. Thanks for your patience and love to all!
30 July 2011
06 September 2010
STUCK
Is this life?
A semblance of one, perhaps...but these days even that seems like a stretch. The phrase "going through the motions" has never resonated so strongly with me in all my (almost) four decades.
I want
A semblance of one, perhaps...but these days even that seems like a stretch. The phrase "going through the motions" has never resonated so strongly with me in all my (almost) four decades.
I want
- to wake up refreshed instead of exhausted
- to smile at the thought of a new day ahead
- to remember dreams, rather than nightmares, from the night before
- to make plans for the future that might actually happen
- to feel I'm growing and making progress, not regressing and fading away
- to know that my love and I are safe and free
22 April 2010
Why have I chosen life outside the U.S.?
In case anyone was wondering why I've chosen to make my life hard, in many ways, by living in Central America, this story gives a pretty good explanation why.
When we were in the U.S., I enquired several times with different financial institutions about the possibility of adding E. either as a co-owner or beneficiary of an account. Nothing doing. Even less possible to have her on record as co-owner of our condominium. Numerous stories about lesbian and gay partners (defacto spouses) being denied hospital visitation rights--not to mention decision-making ability--gave me nightmares.
I ask again: just whom would it hurt for us to have these rights???
When we were in the U.S., I enquired several times with different financial institutions about the possibility of adding E. either as a co-owner or beneficiary of an account. Nothing doing. Even less possible to have her on record as co-owner of our condominium. Numerous stories about lesbian and gay partners (defacto spouses) being denied hospital visitation rights--not to mention decision-making ability--gave me nightmares.
I ask again: just whom would it hurt for us to have these rights???
18 January 2010
Thanks, mom!
This is going to seem like a ridiculously trivial subject to write about after more than three months away...But you've gotta start somewhere.
At the moment, adding to the varied collection of jobs I've held (no standard-issue CV for me, no sirree!), I am working as a temporary administrative assistant for a Danish/Indian firm that's overseeing the installation of 11 wind turbines on the road between Rivas and the Costa Rican border. So far, going into week 2, I am being vastly under-used, but I'm not complaining because a job is a job is a job!
This morning my boss asked if I could go into town to pick up some supplies. No problem, I said--I just need a vehicle. This being a construction site, essentially, almost all of my co-workers are driving pickup trucks. Very new, relatively fancy pickup trucks of course. How happy I was to be able to hop into the truck and go, without a second thought except for the fact that I'm still not quite as comfortable driving large vehicles as I am small ones.
In one of those random moments that highlight differences between U.S. and European habits, I realized that my boss hadn't even asked if I could drive a manual transmission car; he just assumed. And I thought, thanks, Mom! For insisting on teaching us how to drive a stick-shift, on the theory that it was better to be prepared in an emergency situation to drive whatever was available. It's been a very long and sinuous road since that time of creeping down Vermont Avenue in the old rusty-red Chevette...but with this and many other skills my parents imparted, I rarely hesitate to keep moving, even when it's not clear what lies around the next corner. So I'm feeling grateful on this fine sunny morning in southern Nicaragua.
At the moment, adding to the varied collection of jobs I've held (no standard-issue CV for me, no sirree!), I am working as a temporary administrative assistant for a Danish/Indian firm that's overseeing the installation of 11 wind turbines on the road between Rivas and the Costa Rican border. So far, going into week 2, I am being vastly under-used, but I'm not complaining because a job is a job is a job!
This morning my boss asked if I could go into town to pick up some supplies. No problem, I said--I just need a vehicle. This being a construction site, essentially, almost all of my co-workers are driving pickup trucks. Very new, relatively fancy pickup trucks of course. How happy I was to be able to hop into the truck and go, without a second thought except for the fact that I'm still not quite as comfortable driving large vehicles as I am small ones.
In one of those random moments that highlight differences between U.S. and European habits, I realized that my boss hadn't even asked if I could drive a manual transmission car; he just assumed. And I thought, thanks, Mom! For insisting on teaching us how to drive a stick-shift, on the theory that it was better to be prepared in an emergency situation to drive whatever was available. It's been a very long and sinuous road since that time of creeping down Vermont Avenue in the old rusty-red Chevette...but with this and many other skills my parents imparted, I rarely hesitate to keep moving, even when it's not clear what lies around the next corner. So I'm feeling grateful on this fine sunny morning in southern Nicaragua.
11 October 2009
Fool me once, fool me twice
When I am on my home turf in the U.S., I consider myself to be a fairly "together", competent sort of person. I have my moments of forgetfulness or carelessness, but they're not too frequent, and the consequences are minor.
I see no particular reason why this should vary due solely to a change in location, but it seems to. It's as if I leave my brain at the border. Well, this particular border (U.S.-Nicaragua) at least, since I have successfully traveled to some 15 other countries without incident.
In the past five months in San Juan, I've committed a fair number of garden-variety gaffes, like locking the keys in the car; getting another key stuck in the lock of a gate; scraping the paint on the car's sideview mirror while parking really poorly; being cheated on prices at the market; and so forth. Nothing to stop the earth's rotation, and easy enough to overcome after a day or two of mentally berating myself.
Yesterday was different. I'm filling in for the weekend at the Internet cafe where E. works full-time, providing coverage for her co-worker who's on vacation. Long story short, a group of three thieves came in last night around 7 p.m. and managed to distract me well enough to make off with one of the laptops. The good news: the boss was more than understanding, saying that he was surprised it hadn't happened before now, and that were he working here, he had no doubt he would have been scammed multiple times. Also, though crime is definitely on the rise here--as is true worldwide due to economic conditions--Nicaragua differs from most of its Central American neighbors in that actual armed crime is still relatively rare.
The bad news: the scenario of how the robbery occurred was eerily similar to an incident 4 years ago when I was robbed at the real estate office where I worked at the time, which by the way was only two doors down from here. And yet, my instincts failed me again. "Me agarraron dormida," (they caught me asleep), I would say in Spanish. To put it mildly, I feel incredibly stupid and embarrassed.
I am generally a trusting person. I don't think my trust rises to the level of, say, Anne Frank ("In spite of everything, I still believe that people are truly good at heart")--I've had enough kicks in the pants to be a little more jaded than that--but for the most part I find it spiritually healthier to give people the benefit of the doubt. I have exchanged words with afore-mentioned boss more than once when he has gone off on a profanity-filled rant about the thieving, useless, lazy, dishonest Nicaraguans. (Um...why do you live here if you hate the people so much? I don't see the point. But I digress.)
A good part of my upset about last night's incident has to do with my own wounded pride. I have, up to now, thought of myself as a pretty savvy or street smart kind of person--this after my globetrotting and living in a number of big cities both in the U.S. and abroad. My time as a consular officer in Santo Domingo was particularly instructive. During my first year, in the course of interviewing more than 10,000 people for tourist visas, I heard volumes' worth of tall tales and inconsistent stories, and examined reams of fake documents. This turned me into a super-suspicious person--enough so that I was ultimately compelled to quit the job rather than lose my soul to the darkness. In my second year, when I worked in American Citizen Services, one of my major duties was to help out fellow U.S.ians who got themselves into jams in the Dominican Republic--both victims and perpetrators of crimes, mentally or physically ill people, deadbeats or otherwise destitute folks, and so on. There were some doozies, and I hoped that I would never personally have need to visit an ACS unit overseas.
When I was robbed in SJDS the first time, I chalked it up as one of those things that was bound to happen sometime in the course of my travels. But really, these latest thieves must have thought "it was like taking candy from a baby" as they laughed their way off to the black market trading post. And I don't blame them. I am 99% positive that if the same folks had come in when either E. or her co-worker had been on duty, they wouldn't have even tried.
So now my question is, how many times do I let myself be duped before I wise up? How do I find the middle ground between ingenuous and mistrustful? I thought I was there already but facts speak for themselves. Ergh.
I see no particular reason why this should vary due solely to a change in location, but it seems to. It's as if I leave my brain at the border. Well, this particular border (U.S.-Nicaragua) at least, since I have successfully traveled to some 15 other countries without incident.
In the past five months in San Juan, I've committed a fair number of garden-variety gaffes, like locking the keys in the car; getting another key stuck in the lock of a gate; scraping the paint on the car's sideview mirror while parking really poorly; being cheated on prices at the market; and so forth. Nothing to stop the earth's rotation, and easy enough to overcome after a day or two of mentally berating myself.
Yesterday was different. I'm filling in for the weekend at the Internet cafe where E. works full-time, providing coverage for her co-worker who's on vacation. Long story short, a group of three thieves came in last night around 7 p.m. and managed to distract me well enough to make off with one of the laptops. The good news: the boss was more than understanding, saying that he was surprised it hadn't happened before now, and that were he working here, he had no doubt he would have been scammed multiple times. Also, though crime is definitely on the rise here--as is true worldwide due to economic conditions--Nicaragua differs from most of its Central American neighbors in that actual armed crime is still relatively rare.
The bad news: the scenario of how the robbery occurred was eerily similar to an incident 4 years ago when I was robbed at the real estate office where I worked at the time, which by the way was only two doors down from here. And yet, my instincts failed me again. "Me agarraron dormida," (they caught me asleep), I would say in Spanish. To put it mildly, I feel incredibly stupid and embarrassed.
I am generally a trusting person. I don't think my trust rises to the level of, say, Anne Frank ("In spite of everything, I still believe that people are truly good at heart")--I've had enough kicks in the pants to be a little more jaded than that--but for the most part I find it spiritually healthier to give people the benefit of the doubt. I have exchanged words with afore-mentioned boss more than once when he has gone off on a profanity-filled rant about the thieving, useless, lazy, dishonest Nicaraguans. (Um...why do you live here if you hate the people so much? I don't see the point. But I digress.)
A good part of my upset about last night's incident has to do with my own wounded pride. I have, up to now, thought of myself as a pretty savvy or street smart kind of person--this after my globetrotting and living in a number of big cities both in the U.S. and abroad. My time as a consular officer in Santo Domingo was particularly instructive. During my first year, in the course of interviewing more than 10,000 people for tourist visas, I heard volumes' worth of tall tales and inconsistent stories, and examined reams of fake documents. This turned me into a super-suspicious person--enough so that I was ultimately compelled to quit the job rather than lose my soul to the darkness. In my second year, when I worked in American Citizen Services, one of my major duties was to help out fellow U.S.ians who got themselves into jams in the Dominican Republic--both victims and perpetrators of crimes, mentally or physically ill people, deadbeats or otherwise destitute folks, and so on. There were some doozies, and I hoped that I would never personally have need to visit an ACS unit overseas.
When I was robbed in SJDS the first time, I chalked it up as one of those things that was bound to happen sometime in the course of my travels. But really, these latest thieves must have thought "it was like taking candy from a baby" as they laughed their way off to the black market trading post. And I don't blame them. I am 99% positive that if the same folks had come in when either E. or her co-worker had been on duty, they wouldn't have even tried.
So now my question is, how many times do I let myself be duped before I wise up? How do I find the middle ground between ingenuous and mistrustful? I thought I was there already but facts speak for themselves. Ergh.
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