Hell’s Half Acre

i swear, the hardest part of writing an update is the start. making my way to the site and putting words to keyboard. I’ve been sick. A freaking-GAIN and I’m pretty freaking sick of being freaking sick. i picked up some stomach thing that laid me low and had me clicking over the options in my head; amoebas? typhoid? other bacteria? something insidious that I’m unaware of? and nothing really materialized. finally, when the cramping had subsided enough i dosed up on garlic and that seemed to have beat it back a bit. the boys caught the first cold we’ve had in over 3 years and jamie and i have been beating it back with raw garlic. everytime i feel a bit sniffly or scratchy throat i pop a clove and i’m good to go. the boys were down for a couple days but honestly, i’m not sure if it was pure sickness or the excuse to play Runescape hour after glorious hour.

if i thought i could get away with it, i think i’d stop right here. but the wrath from the western CONUS would be palpable all the way down here. don’t know what a CONUS is, do you? i’ve been reading weather blogs since June/July and FINALLY figured it out last night. CONtinentalUS. I know what shear is and why it is important (wish it were high right now), what steering currents are any why they are important, the lowest pressure reading from a hurricane (Wilma, 882millibars), how troughs and fronts affect our weather and why, sometimes, we really really really want a trough and all kinds of other useless information unless you’re in the land of the hurricane that i’ll stop boring you with. (grammar mavens recoil in horror at the preposition ending the sentence)

i woke around 4:30 this morning and tried and tried to go back to sleep but it was useless. monkey brain got hold of me and i bounced from issue to issue. finally i booted up the laptop and watched 94L. after that grew tiresome i gave into guilt and this is the result.

not one of these paragraphs will transition to the next. you’ve been warned (but alas, not forewarned). this is also what posting without coffee looks like. be afraid; be very afraid.

ellen has hacked away at so much of the front of her head of hair that she repulsed herself. i think we need to put some mirrors up. she actually has a BALD spot. the kids all go through a phase of cutting their own hair but hers pains me so with her amazing curls (and now, lack thereof). my folks are planning a reunion picture and i think they might decide to put her at the back of the photo, behind the tallest of grownups, where you might be able to see a one of her teensy feet poking out. if you ignore the bald spot, it isn’t so bad though, she still has lots of long curls. she loves the length of her hair and has been waiting forever for it to get long. both she and Pike have hair that grows at glacial speed so it took forever to get long. the curls didn’t help much in the length goal either. why she then decides to hack away at it is something i will never understand.

we have been getting thunderstorm after thunderstorm the past couple days, but managed to time our laundry such that the backlog was almost completely washed and dried. jesse has a lonely pair of shorts that simply will not dry; they keep getting hit with shower after shower. i really hate hanging the clothes up as the fire ants seem to have established many little summer villas along the length of the clothesline and depend on my visits to feed their expanding families. i’ve tried standing on concrete and stretching way out to the line but i always end up with 3 or 4 bites each time i hang up a load of clothes. i could (blah blah blah, i mean really, who cares???) hang the laundry over concrete but it doesn’t dry as fast as the line over the villas. there. i finished that boring story. phhhhbt.

if i never get another mosquito bite again, it will be too soon. it isn’t just the endless itch and scratch and bite again but the lingering fear of dengue…

the palapa is really coming along well. i almost wrote “bodega” as that is what everyone calls their cement room, but honestly, ours is so much larger than a bodega (storage room) that i really need to stop calling it that. jamie and i were furniture shopping recently; the salesperson asked jamie what the furniture was for and he replied, “the bodega”. ummm, no, dear. i corrected with “la recamera” (bedroom) and the confusion on the face of the salesperson was gone. i mean really, who looks for furniture to decorate their storage room? we now have two futon/sofas in there, an TV stand like thing with 4 cubby spaces and a nightstand/bookcase/computer desk on wheels. the girls have almost completely taken over the TV stand thing and converted at least two cubbies to Polly Pocket homes. i got a stand for the bathroom and we now have a place for towels that Jamie and Sissy are slowing taking over with clothing. (the sky is now light enough that it is lighter outside than basking in the glow of the laptop screen inside. i suppose civilization is just around the bend; coffee and all, and i may begin capitalization soon.)

I’ve spent the last couple days researching prices and finding lots (as in a package; not simply many many) of books for the kids. I really like the Sonlight curriculum as it is enormously literature-based. If you live in the US and have library access, you can do it really cheap as much of their literature is classics and Newberry winners. Librarians LOVE Newberry winners. I believe that Sonlight may have been (all the RV retirees’ eyes are glazing over; here’s a hint; I’m going to blather on about books for a bit so why don’t you just skip to the next paragraph? toodles!) targeted to missionaries living outside the US and they do a good business with many ex-pats. It is also a very religious curriculum with many of the books based on the lives of missionaries and turning the indigenous to God. Not so much my cup of tea but to be fair, they list books on many different religions. It is obvious that the slant is “Christianity is correct” but it is also very easy to simply omit those books. My California sister will be very happy to know I have a large spreadsheet organizing all the books in each level with prices tracked by Ebay auction, Amazon, Powell’s and Half.com. My best scores, however, have been on the Well Trained Mind swap board. Which is a very long way of saying that boatloads of books are on their way to my sister’s house and she may very well refuse us entry after all the crap we’re sending her way.

We’re changing our US address. If you need it, please email me. I had meant to do it last year but never got around to it; we rarely make use of our mailing service (to actually forward our mail; it generally sits there for months on end) and when we do, they almost always get something wrong. It helps that the new place is about 1/2 the price. As for email, I really have no excuses. I try and I do feel terribly guilty, but my inbox is a picture of horror.

Jamie and Sissy have moved to the bodega/recamera and it has been so nice to have them out of the trailer. For the first time in 3 years, I can walk from my bedroom to the bathroom and not have to crawl over a queen-sized bed in the process. Can’t go around it; must go over it. Without waking the occupants. I’m guessing they are loving the space of two double beds as the sofa/futons we bought make lovely, comfy, non-sofa bed with a bar in your back, cushy beds. The room has become a wonderful evening spot; we have room for games and cards and spreading out. They are also no longer cramped in the trailer and, I imagine, are loving the space at night. The hands-down best part of this is that if I wake at 4:30 am unable to sleep, once I give in to being up for the day, I can make myself a cup of coffee without bothering anyone. And that, my friends, is what we, growing up in Alabama in the 70’s called, “living like white folk”. Such luxury!

We really only need to finish painting, contract for kitchen cabinets (we may have Jorge do this while we’re gone…still thinking (which honestly, only leads us to indecision)) , install a tinaco (big black storage tank for water which I hope will double as a solar hot water heater) and figure a way to chlorinate our watersupply, move the electric outside the recamera and foam the access door closed and maybe something I can’t remember.

We haven’t taken food down to the Costa Maya for a week; I got sick and then the boys got sick and then Ellen decided to have a birthday. Well, she WILL. She has been counting down the days, and yesterday, tired of waiting for her birthday, decided to time travel. She changed her question from, “is it TWO more days til my birthday, Mom?” to “Pretend it’s tomorrow! When is my birthday?!!” (the correct answer is TOMORROW!!!)

Today we head to Costco, as she is desirous of smoked salmon on her birthday (which really is tomorrow) and to pick up supplies for what may be our last run to the Costa Maya. If I am unable to spend all the money you all have donated so generously to the relief efforts, I’ll post a poll so you can decide what should be done with the leftovers. I’m guessing that most of the people who donated probably died of boredom before making it this far in this post and will need a short, succinct post with a poll. I’m pretty sure my Mom and Dad are still alive. But I’m an optimist.