Tag Archives: Kangen

December Update

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Balls at LACMA

Art?

A lot of things have changed since my last post so will attempt a catch-up and update everyone!

At the moment, I am down in SoCal staying at Ryan and Les’s apartment. Mostly here to see my boys and grandboys but also it’s an attempt to miss some of the nasty weather that is happening – and will continue to happen – for the next few months.

But getting back to where I left off…

In a bizarre twist, Chris is back on the periphery of my life – as a tenant in the condo! He had agreed to quit claim it to me as he has no interest in keeping it. When I found out that I may be able to do a loan mod on it, Susan and I spent a day cleaning it up and getting it ready to rent. I took the keys to the property rental people and was getting ready for them to go through the process and find me a tenant. That day, I got a phone call from Chris, asking if I had rented the place yet. And that he was interested in taking it! Immediately! Which meant that he had been asked to move out from his last place/relationship. I was astounded and backpedaled a bit and said I would think about it for a couple of hours and immediately called Susan! We discussed it and agreed it would work – but ONLY if he paid full rent and a security deposit up front and signed a lease. Which he did!

So now both rentals are occupied with rents coming in on time. The Port Angeles house paperwork should be completed and waiting for me when I get home later this week and hopefully, progress is being made on the condo. I am making increased payments on the house on the water to catch up with payments I missed when I so unexpectedly landed up there again, and so far, have managed to do that.

End of the World Burger at Umami Hamburgers

End of the World Burger at Umami Hamburgers

All this means that I have to live extremely frugally and I really hesitated coming here but as my ultra-generous son insisted and has treated me royally while here, I am so glad I did. We have spent some wonderful time together here at the apartment and yesterday at the Los Angeles Contemporary Museum of Art and eating amazing Umami Hamburgers. Later today we will take a walk over to the Farmers Market which is just down the street. We went last week and I was amazed at the variety and quality of the produce and food. Fun!

I’ve been driving Ryan’s extra car that he is in the process of selling, and have been up to Apple Valley to see Cody, Mel and the little boys a couple of times. What little characters they have become! Oliver is four now and Everett two. He is such a cutie and all boy! I will go up there on Christmas Day.

Also went down south to Cardiff to see my dear friends, Steve and Cathy. Those people are salt of the earth and I so love seeing them. As usual, as it is now a tradition, they took me to Fidel’s restaurant where we had a lovely Mexican dinner and a nice surprise when Brynn (their daughter) and her husband Garth and their very new twins and 2-year old showed up as well. Spent the night and headed out early as Ryan and Les were expecting a delivery at the apartment at 11. I was expecting traffic but so far, on all my little forays out into the hustle and bustle, the only time I have hit the dreaded LA traffic was when I left for Cardiff and it took me 45 minutes to go a couple of miles!

I had an amazing Kangen water experience. Ryan doesn’t have a machine – yet – so I was drinking their filtered water for the first few days but I started getting headaches and not feeling so hot, tired and just out of sorts. So I checked around and found a water store not far from here and she agreed to let me have water whenever I needed it. So took a quick drive over there, filled my two 5 litre bottle/bags and my drinking bottle. Within three minutes of inhaling almost a full litre, my headache was gone! Now that is no coincidence! And I found a place close by that actually sells it for a buck a gallon so I won’t have to be without while here any more.

What a relief!

I think the best part of being here is seeing for myself that Ryan is healthy and that he is pretty much completely healed. He has such a positive attitude and has done everything he was told to do by his health professionals (not all Western medicine :) ). So that sets my mind at ease and I can go back up to the cold in a few days, knowing that when he tells me he is doing fine, I can rest assured that he is.

 

Still Here

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coyote puppies

Three of the pups on the bank

Well, I’m still here in the dreary Pacific Northwest and it sort of looks like I will be here – again – for a while.

As you know, Chris did a skipping act out of here, leaving the house and cats and an awful mess. The physical messes are cleaned up but his departure really and truly screwed me up financially, which I think was his intention. There is no way I can hold onto the house myself so it looks like I am back to the “stay here until the banks take it’ mode.

It’s not all bad! With summer supposedly here – we’ve only had a couple of days of sun and temps over 65F (18C) – and the flowers are battling to bloom, I am enjoying being in one place for a while and not living out of a suitcase. Although all my “stuff” is still in boxes in the attic and I haven’t decided if I am going to take them down – or not!

I’m enjoying the wildlife – yesterday was so entertaining with the little coyotes playing on the bank across the water. It’s not just coyotes, either. There is the otter family that fish the estuary and pick mussels from the docks; the osprey who appears every evening around five to fish; the deer with her two fawns that I saw the other day; the raccoons; the bald eagles, kingfishers, hummingbirds, “swifty-swallowy” birds nesting under the dock ramps; the black bears and cougars that I haven’t seen yet! My own little nature reserver.

My new camera is quite amazing as I shot this video and am thrilled at the resolution. Although you don’t see the Mama in the video, she was sitting quite a long way away, keeping an eye on the kids!

Of course, now the trick for me is to make a living.

So…

I have started selling on ebay! I thought, “What can I do that won’t cost me anything to start, that I can do without any training, that will make me some money quickly?”

Then I thought of all Chris’ clothes and books in the garage. He spent so much money on clothes, always thinking he was so dapper, so I found a lot of Hawaiian shirts and some golf shirts still with the tags on. Photographed them – again, I love my new camera! – and posted and since then have sold one, bidding happening on the others and I have several more to put up there today. Whether this is the right niche or not, I don’t know but it’s a start while I figure out what’s hot and what’s not!

And I am doing the Kangen water business again, (this links to Jim’s site, as I don’t have mine anymore) manning the water stores in Poulsbo and Port Townsend. And there is a new one opening in Sequim which I will sit as well. The good thing about that is, it’s not that busy, there is wi-fi so I can still work, and when customers do come in and they buy, or try the water, they are mine.

And it gets me out of the house! So I won’t get cabin fever!

Mick has sold my little car in South Africa! An Indian fella bought it, came with cash in hand so that will be wired to me next week. Means I won’t be quite so broke, taking some of the stress off! Thank you, Mick!

Oh, and I filed a Small Claim against Chris, have sent the filing to him which has not acknowledged receipt of, which means he probably won’t show up and a judgement will be issued against him. How stupid of him! But it’s about time he was held responsible for his irresponsibility. No one but himself to blame on this one. I have done everything by the book, so there is no comeback.

As a friend said, “Time for him to ‘man up.’”

Heading South, Far South

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And the saga continues!

I don’t do waiting very well. I get frustrated, angry, pissed off, you name it. And when the waiting just seems to never end, I draw a line in the sand.

That’s what I had to do last week. The investors/CFO/powers that be in the organization have been dragging their heels (from my perspective) with no concrete decisions coming out of what seem like endless meetings. The word is later today, tomorrow, next week.

Finally, I thought at the beginning of last week, it can’t – or more specifically – I can’t go on like this, so I decided that Friday was my cutoff point. My finances had dwindled to minus nothing (is a double negative a positive?) and I was ready to tear my hair out. Thursday news was positive, the board meeting was supposedly showing some progress and we would hear something that day! Whoo hoo!

Friday 13th… I ask is there any news? No, not til Monday. I didn’t go nuclear. I just thought, OK that’s it. I’m outta here.

So I listed my car on craigslist (and might have it sold) told the bosses that I am packing up and leaving for South Africa. But I will continue to work with them, on a limited basis until I am paid. But I cannot afford to live here on no money. No one can.

Today, I showed the car to people who are very interested. I also took it to a dealer who will take it on consignment if it hasn’t sold by the time I leave on Wednesday. Chris will handle the sale for me from there.

All my boxes – the ones I packed to leave in September – are stored up in the loft so my photos and slides will be safe. Now all I have to do is weed through my clothes and pack up what I am taking and get on the Alaska flight to SoCal on Wednesday. I haven’t booked the SA flight yet as I don’t know how long I will stay in California, but Mick is ready to pick me up from the new Durban airport when I get there.

My Kangen water machine goes with me! Can’t live without it! I will need a converter when I get there though. 110v – 220v.

I don’t think I have ever been in such a squeezed spot in my life. Or maybe I have, when I was younger, and could handle it a lot better than I am this time around. But I sure as hell didn’t plan on this stress and angst at my age! I always thought I would be settled and comfortable and not worrying about where my next dollar was coming from.

So I will continue to work for ecology, just keeping things going and hope – actually that is Hope with a capital H – that the funding comes through and I keep working. But if it doesn’t, then I will have to reassess. And even if it does happen, I am planning on Country Life to see if I can work with them again. It would be so much fun to re-do the Zululand trips – 10 years later!

It’s not all bad, it’s just a readjustment all over again. It seems that I just get my head on in one direction and then everything turns around and I have to make changes! Sheesh… or eish… I don’t want to have to keep doing that any more! I want peace, consistency, warmth .. btw, it is going to be raining and snowing here for the next 10 days! Can Wednesday please hurry up?