unbelievable loss...

my uncle Hans passed away monday morning. he was 57 years old. he had a massive heart attack and died instantly. he leaves behind two grown sons, a wife and a young grandson. He was a very strong-willed man with a good heart and deep love for his family. he went on a journey of self-discovery and travelled to china to learn chinese medicine. he came back to the U.S. in late 90's to practice acupuncture and herbalism. he has given acupuncture treatments to just about everyone in the family (including me and johnny).

uncle hans loved the children in our family so intensely. when i was little he used to pinch my cheeks and nibble on my nose and just squeeze me hard. he had such an exuberant laugh and a bright smile. he was a humble man, with personal turmoils that he struggled with but never troubled anyone else with.

uncle hans never stopped trying to improve himself. he practiced calligraphy and studied medicine in his spare time. he had a small acupuncture practice and helped run a dollar store with his wife.

i regret that i didn't spend more time with my uncle. we used to have family gatherings around the holidays and the favorite thing to do was sing karaoke. uncle hans was the only boy among his siblings and the only one to pass on the family name to his sons.

i'll miss uncle hans very much. he was the man of the family and always available to help. i'll miss him.

trying not to drown

in self-pity and pessimism. it seems like we are just simply screwed. everyone is having a tough time, everything is lousy. there is just a few precious drops of hope that evaporate as each day passes. could it be that we have to hit rock bottom before we get a break? in any case, things need to brighten up soon - i hate this feeling of failure. i am still happy and grateful for the people around me but right now gas being $4.89 is making it really tough to do anything. it's making me mad, too. did you know some gas stations will charge you an extra .07 cents a gallon for using your card at the pump? is that freakin' evil or what???

johnny's dad gets better one day then gets worse the next. it's bewildering.

do you know what it's like to live in a place where the daytime heat index reaches 95 degrees with relative humidity of 59%?!? At night the heat goes down to 78 or so with the same amount of humidity. it's the closest thing to hell on earth - especially if you have big boobies. i want a big de-humidifier for our apartment.

there's an empty house right next door to johnny's parents that i have actually fallen in love with. i keep going over there to snoop around and i just LOVE the backyard - it's like a secret garden. i have to take pictures and upload them for you to see...

swept away

this would be funny if it wasn't so tragic.... our beach house that we rented for the wedding got swallowed by the ocean. apparently the last few storms really took a toll on hunting island, which has been eroding away quite fast for a while now. they revitalized the beach by dumping more sand but the south end of the island just gets dissolved regardless. there have already been several cabins lost to the sea, and the one we rented just recently. so, we'll have to move to another cabin - unless we want to wade out to our old one.

there... and back again.

we were gonna move. but at the last minute, we decided it wasn't the right time. so we just visited beaufort - again. and for just a week, but it feels like longer. it's hard to get on the internet out there! by now, the dogs are used to driving for hours, eating meals in the car, playing at rest stops and staying at their cousin's house. it's like a traumatic childhood, huh?

we are still moving, though. we just needed more time to see how things played out. living day-to-day. it's hard to make decisions when you have so many options but so very little resources. it's like the toughest game of chess you ever played - with your future at stake. what's ironic is that i feel more in my element now than i did when things were stable. i'm used to moving around, temporary living arrangements and traveling. it makes me wonder if i am even well-suited to the american dream lifestyle of living in a house with a new car, 2 kids and a dog. i think i might have been a nomadic mongoloid in a past life. i dont mind the idea of living in a yurt and living off the land actually. ok, snap back to reality.

we are also still getting married. neither one of us has chickened out yet, so that must mean something! Except now we have to pay for everything ourselves and the theme of my wedding went from beach to bohemian over the course of the last couple weeks. i found a dress to wear for $49 from a store in the mall. i'm going to keep it a surprise from johnny but i can tell you that it's a cute dress. not a wedding dress in the slightest, though. kim was dissappointed - she wants there to be more lace and silk and ruffles. she wants shoe-dress-hair coordination going on and i don't even plan on bothering with shoes. like i said before, i just want my guests to be there, food and drink, and someplace for us to sleep (even if it's under the stars in the sand). i'm pretty excited, i think it's going to be the best day of my life.

johnny's dad is doing much better. he's got his own room on the 7th floor and he can talk. maybe he'll be well enough to come to the wedding, but i'm not going to count on it. i'm just happy he's still with us.

moving

johnny and i are getting ready to move down to beaufort by september 1. we've packed up most of the house and now we are just waiting to find someone to rent our house and get a job. the job market right now is terrible, we have put in countless applications for all kinds of jobs and nothing. we really want to have our own business but can't find a bank that will accept our souls for a few grand. we are just going to have to ride out this economy and trim down our lifestyle to the bare minimum. we'll have most of our stuff in storage and live out of a few suitcases while we stay in beaufort.

i plan to help out johnny's family as much as i can and try to make a few bucks wherever possible. i'm going to put my energy into cooking nutritious meals and keeping everyone as healthy as possible. i'm going to be pinching pennies everywhere and keeping my ear to the ground for any opportunity that may present itself.

the bad news just keeps rollin' in, though. johnny's dad finally lost his leg to the staph infection. the poor guy was on vancomycin for weeks in the hospital but his left foot did not improve. to keep the infection from spreading, they amputated his leg below the knee. just when we thought he was improving, he's actually taken a turn for the worst and now all we can do is hope and pray. i know he's not my dad, he's not even my father-in-law yet, but i consider him family and i care about his well being a great deal. i don't know if i can ever forget the time we spent visiting him in the hospital, most of which he was sedated for. the last couple of days we were in savannah his dad finally awoke and was aware of the people around him. he couldn't speak with all the tubes, not to mention his weakened state, but he tried to communicate with us with great effort. it was kind of heartbreaking to see him trying to tell you something but not being able to understand him at all. his eyes would plead but his mouth could not form the words.

he was parched and begged us for water but we could not give him any for fear of pneumonia. we were able to swab the inside of his mouth a little bit and he had some relief. it was kind of funny because he would moan "aaahhhhh" "ahhhhh" cause it felt so good to have a cool damp cloth wiped over his face and inside his mouth. we were all dressed in gowns with gloves and masks and took turns talking to him and tending to him. then, he looked at me intently and said something which sounded like "ooo betty" over and over... i finally figured out what he was trying to say - it was "your pretty". i tried to keep tears from rolling down my cheeks because i couldn't believe he would spend his energy trying to tell me something like that. he was saying it like it was imperative that he tell me i was pretty. or maybe it was the antibiotics talking... anyways, i'll never forget that.

then, not too long ago, i found out from my real dad that things weren't going so good for him either. he had gone out of business. nobody was going on vacation it seemed so his timeshare and travel/vacation business went under. i had called to ask him for money to help pay for the wedding. how awful did i feel?

to me, this is like the depression. it's the time of my life where i will look back and be thankful for the things that i did have. it's a period of time where you have to find inner strength and courage. and it's only a period of time, not a lifetime. i know there are many people who suffer worse conditions, worse tragedies, and nobody to turn to. i am so very thankful to have friends and family there for me.

gettin' hitched - plan A

smooshie's first outdoor sleepover. he's scared witless. 03/10/05

our wedding is coming up real fast, and even though we've got so much crap going on in our lives, i am not stressin' my wedding day plans at all. the only thing i'm concerned with is getting the beachhouse paid for and making sure everyone has food to eat. that's it. i don't give a flyin' shit about anything else. i don't care what people wear, what i'm gonna wear, what colors we are going to decorate with or anything like that. mother nature is going to provide the lighting, the venue and there's no way i can top that with some silly streamers.

we decided to have our wedding on Hunting Island for many reasons - first of all, we love that place. it has a lot of good memories for us, going to the beach and camping out. i'll never forget the time i took shai and jess and syrus (he was our only dog back then) camping out there with johnny. we drove all the way to the campsite and got there just in time to use the last hour of sunlight to set up camp. we got everything out and was trying to quickly put the tent together only to realize that someone forgot to pack the damn tent supports. johnny had to drive all the way back into town to buy us a new tent at wal-mart. meanwhile, shai, jess and i built a campfire and waited in the near-dark. syrus was so scared out of his wits (he had never spent the night outside before) he wouldn't leave the circle of light thrown by our campfire. nearly caught his tail on fire. it was hilarious. we cooked sausages on the fire and syrus toughened up a little bit to protect the sausages.

Hunting Island is also really close to johnny's family. they all live in beaufort which is a short drive from the island. savannah is only an hour away so a lot of my friends from college can come to the wedding. Hunting Island is also the most beautiful place on the east coast, in my opinion.

there won't be very many people at the wedding, mostly close friends and family. i don't expect much more than 40 people to show up. my sis and her kids will be there. hopefully shai will be there (she's coming from india!). of course, kim's gonna be there. most of johnny's family will be there, too. my real father will be there as well.



i rented out a pavilion right next to the beautiful light house. it's a small pavilion and i'm only going to decorate it with some twinkling lights in the rafters. i'm going to serve normal food, not lttle puff pastries filled with foi gras or some shit like that. we'll have carolina bbq and maybe some pita pit food :) if all goes well, we might even have live music provided by johnny's nephew david. he plays drums. the pavilion is just steps away from the beach, where we will have our ceremony. we don't have a pastor or reverend or anything like that. our good friends vanessa and andrew will be marrying us, and i can't think of anything better than that.

these are the days of our lives....

sometimes my life feels like a soap opera. my mom is definitely a soap opera character. she's very proud, commanding, manipulative, and sometimes just plain crazy. one day she's happy, sweet, and fun to be around. the next day she's stabbing you in the back with an ice pick and watching while you beg for mercy. my stepfather, on the other hand, is her complete opposite. he's very meek and kind of simple-minded. he wouldn't dare talk back to my mom. naturally, she walks all over him. she's got him by the balls and he's pretty much her slave. at any given time of the year, family members from my mom's side of the family are quarelling. right now, my uncle and youngest aunt are not speaking to my mother. neither am i. my sister managed to escape the drama that is our family and moved to texas.

i wont air all our family's dirty laundry, not because i care but because it's just too much shit to write down. let's just say we got some serious history. especially me and my mom. our relationship is, to say the least, contentious.

we have had knock-down drag out fights in public places, screaming matches during family gatherings, and serious amounts of time not talking to each other. the funny thing is, out of all the people in our family, my mother and i are the closest. only because i'm the only person who has been able to put up with her shit and defend myself. it's really sad because i'm sure that we aren't really as close as a normal mother and daughter.

regardless of all the stuff that has happened between us, i always end up coming back to my mom. it's a very masochistic habit that i totally recognize but can't break. she's my mother. i kinda hoped that she would love me unconditionally and be there for me when i needed her. unfortunately, those are the last two things my mother does - love unconditionally and be there for me. whenever i got into trouble, i had to turn to everyone else but my mom. she would never help me out of any situation or sympathize with me. her advice to me was always tough it out.

well, i believe that we have finally reached the last straw.

when i told my mom that johnny and i were going to get married this october, she was not happy at all. she told me she was disappointed in me. that we would never get anywhere together and our future is not going to be happy. i wasn't prepared for this reaction, so i couldn't really say anything. i couldn't believe what i was hearing. but it all makes sense. me marrying johnny just doesn't fit into her grand scheme of things. she wants me to get licensed, start a firm and basically be her in-house architect. kinda like she has her own personal assistant and aesthetician and lawyer and doctor. she knows that if i marry johnny, i might just decide to get pregnant and have a family and ditch my career. well, she's absolutely right.

what she said to me hurt me pretty bad. it felt like a cold knife in the heart. i expected her to take over my wedding planning but now she might not even attend our wedding. i am pretty sad that she's taking this route, but in a way i should have expected it. she did this to my sister. i almost forgot how hard she tried to get paula to leave bobby. i forgot how hard it was for paula to tell mom that she was pregnant again. why does our mom have to be like that? paula is happily married with two beautiful kids. i'm pretty sure i will be, too.

so, johnny and i decided that we want to be happy and surround ourselves with family and friends we love. there's nothing keeping us in atlanta. we are coastal small town folk. we like our funky smelling air and sand in everything. we like south carolina barbeque and big open skies. we are moving back to the coast - savannah. we'll be close to beaufort and it's a place where i would like to have kids. our dogs love the beach and so do we.

our wedding is october 18, 2008 on hunting island beach. it's going to be a very small wedding.

puppy trippin'

don't let this face fool you.

having a puppy is probably the next closest thing to having a hyperactive toddler. we love our little step-puppy Nadia but that dog can get into some serious trouble. first of all, she likes to chew on everything. rugs, pillows, extension cords, furniture, everything but doggie toys. which is fine, louie went through the same exact phase (he ate a chunk out of my backseat) but nadia scared us to death with her mischevious puppy antics friday morning.

i got up to let the dogs outside and since it was so cool i decided to keep the back door open to air out the house a bit. then i went back to my bed and rested while waiting for johnny to wake up. a few minutes later, i hear nadia playing happily with something on the back porch and i look over to see her chewing on a plastic vitamin bottle. i went over and took it away from her. the label was practically all chewed off, but i made out the name of the supplement which was 5htp. 5htp is a seratonin booster. I noticed the cap had been chewed off and there was a bunch of gooey capsules stuck to the bottom of the bottle. i threw it away. i laid back down for a bit.

30 minutes later, i notice things are unusually quiet and just as i listen for the dogs, i hear a yelp. i called out for nadia (my 3 dogs were standing next to me) and no response. so, i figure she got stuck somewhere in the backyard or, (god forbid) she got hurt and can't move. so i immediatly fly into action, put on a house dress and flip-flops and go out looking for nadia.

i found her curled up in a patch of ivy amidst the bamboo trees, crying and looking like she's in pain. she wouldn't move. she had peed herself and was crying. i never seen a dog actually cry but she had tears rolling down her cheeks, it was pitiful and heartbreaking. i thought she might have broken a leg or something but she didn't seem to have any injuries. i didn't know what to do, so i picked her up and brought her inside where she continued to cry yelp and carry on. I could not find any clues as to what was causing her so much pain. i yelled at johnny to help me and we began looking for emergency vets and called mason (nadia's daddy) to tell him what was going on. we called poison control to see what effects 5htp would have on a dog and they didn't say much other than headache and being wobbly. poor nadia was quickly getting worse. we left for the nearest vet and arranged to meet mason there.

unfortunately, the vet we went to was quite ill equipped to handle this situation. they were a small private practice working out of an old house and they referred up to GVS - georgia veterinary specialists. we drove all the way there and gave nadia to the nurses. we really couldn't explain what was wrong with her so they explained the costs of looking at her and they took her to the back. mason was still on his way, so i gave them permission to look at her until he got there. i then realized i was standing in this really nice pet hospital in sandy springs wearing my house dress and flip flops, hair still messy and teeth not brushed. we waited. waited some more. the vet hospital was really really nice, with a greenspace in the back and artwork everywhere. finally mason showed up and i explained everything for like the tenth time.

my guess was she had chewed and swallowed something that was blocking her bowels or something like that. i was pretty sure the xray would show something crazy in her stomach like a kitchen knife or something and she would need surgery. i felt awful, just terrible. poor nadia.

finally the doctor came out and brought us to the exam room where she asked us exactly what happened. i explained everything with as many details as i could. she then asked if we had any illegal drugs in our house that nadia could have gotten into. mason and i looked at each other. i confessed to her that i smoke pot but the dog had no way of getting into it. (plus, i have seen the effects of weed on a dog and it aint nothing like that...) so she then explained to us that nadia was hallucinating. i was kind of shocked - i didn't know what to think. the doc said nadia's clinical presentation is that of a neurological problem - her eyes were completely dilated, she couldn't follow objects with her eyes and her blood pressure was high but heart rate low. all i could think in my head was, ohmigod, she's tripping...

so, what next? the doctor confirmed the effects of 5htp on a dog with the animal poison control and told us that nadia should be OK, she just has to flush the drug out of her system with fluids and take a medicine that counteracts the 5htp. we were quite relieved. after hearing that, we were so happy she was going to be ok that we couldn't help but laugh at the situation. i about had a heart attack thinking nadia was going to die and really all it was was a bad trip. johnny (trying to pretend not to be a smartass) asked the doctor if nadia would suffer from flashbacks.

apparently 5 htp is quite toxic to dogs and they can easily overdose with a small amount. it can be fatal... luckily she didn't seem to have ingested that much. mason took nadia home with some meds and nadia seemed to be bouncing back immediately. thank goodness!

beaufort & savannah

i swear i took this picture with my own camera. isn't beaufort picturesque? i love the lowcountry.

i just wanted to hop onto this porch and pretend to be scarlett o'hara for a while...


look at this big old canon. it's old. really old.

downtown beaufort. in its entirety.

a quick snapshot of savannah river as i fly past on talmadge bridge. nice shot, eh?

wtf kind of caterpillar is this? johnny claims that it is covered in poisonous thorns that hurt really bad if you touch it. he thinks that about all bugs, though...

a better shot of downtown savannah from the bridge. i can photograph at high speeds, woo hoo!

talmadge bridge. gateway to south carolina.

the wheels on the bus go 'round and 'round!

the dogs have gotten quite used to riding in the car. actually, they kinda love it. all of them like to stick their heads out the window. bibi likes to sit up front, lean her right arm out of the window and rest her paw on the side mirror (which she ended up breaking off). syrus balances himself by propping up a back leg against the seat. louie just sits like a little kid and stares out of the window.

syrus is very alert in the car. he can recognize where he is going when he sees the following landmarks: McDonald's = cheeseburger. winding road through neighborhood = lake. horse farm = uncle jimmy's house in beaufort. short drive through beaufort = beach. speed humps = home. talmadge bridge = auntie kim's in savannah. he gets all excited and starts whining and jumping all over the place. it's really entertaining.