My father worked in concrete for 4o years. It’s all he’s done since he was a teenager. He’s worked for various companies, even started up his own company which dissolved when my mother left him. It did very well for itself. When I was little we weren’t dirt poor, but poor enough. My father and mother had health insurance, we were -okay-.

In 1984 or 1985, and I was barely a squirt, my father had a heart attack and wound up in the hospital. He had to be 34 or 35. While in the hospital, the nurses had left a heating pad on his leg full blast the entire night. It had burnt his leg so bad that the blood valves in his leg were virtually ruined. The circulation in that leg would be forever ruined and would eventually lead to what is now Phlebitis.

His leg is now permanently purple due to lack of circulation. Eventually, he had the same growing ulcer on his leg for 2 years straight before we were able to seek some medical help at the Johns Hopkins wound care facility in Baltimore. After unsuccessful skin graphs, they were able to finally clear up the determined ulcer and my dad would be ulcer free. For the first time in years he had a clear leg besides the purple tint.

The doctor told him he had to quit work, or he would indefinitely lose his leg. So we struggled for two years to get him on disability, which we finally got in 2002 after surviving on my $8/hour salary at the Veterinary hospital I worked at.

Disability still isn’t much, but our salaries combined is allowing is to live comfortably, and I am able to amount a small savings with my new job. His health insurance alone is $600 a month, because of course they will not give him normal health insurance for some unknown reason. He has no retirement, he has no money, he has nothing.

I was looking at his leg today, and I can see the ulcers starting to come back. The skin itself is starting to bubble and fester. I will provide pictures below that are not for the faint of heart.

I am deathly worried for my father. Farming is our way of life, and if he were to lose his leg and prevent him from being able to do all of the things he enjoys doings, it would kill him. I am praying for any sort of miracle that this doesn’t happen. I just want my father to be okay. The entire reason I moved back in was to take care of him after his stroke.

Anyway, to the pictures. They are pretty gross, and my good camera is broken, so the quality is pretty poor.

Picture #1
Picture #2
Picture #3
Picture #4

So add this stress on to some arguments with some friends, and another cryptic message from a friend earlier this evening, my vacation isn’t starting out so well.

“So far away”
Just recorded, nothing special.

Wow I’m feeling really lonely today. I really don’t like feeling this way, but it happens every once in a while. I guess I have to ride the storm, there’s always different weather on the other side.

I’ve been up since 4am, because I just can’t sleep. Too much on my mind to allow it to quiet. No weird dreams for me tonight I suppose. It’s been kind of a stressful month. Perhaps it’s starting to get to me. I can feel my brain trying to sift through all the things I’ve been dealing with, not sure how to fix them all. Overall I’m not bad off, so I’m not sure why it’s taking such a toll on me. I really wish people would stop adding more stress onto me.

I’m taking next week off of work. No particular reason, I’m not going anywhere. I thought about taking my father to Cunningham Falls or Swallow Falls, though neither of us has a vehicle that can really make either trip. The things that my mustang would come in handy for….

So I will relax, I will work feverishly on my MUD. I will spend time outside, I will read, I will clean, I will watch the new movies I purchased for myself. It will be a good week. Best of all, I will get paid for it. Some people have asked me to come visit, but I will most likely say no to all of them. I don’t want to visit anyone, and I don’t want anyone to visit. I just want time to myself. So do not ask me.

I miss the Grove. I haven’t been there since Midsummer due to lack of a decent vehicle. I will be going to the Lughnasadh ritual next weekend, but I may have to borrow a car even for that. Those people are my family, it’s a spiritual sanctuary. I miss them something awful, and I was browsing through old photographs of good times I’ve had there, and it brings back so many wonderful memories.

I had another dream last night that was in pretty explicit detail. I woke up and did some brief sketches of the scenery and will try to describe the rest here, though it’s slowly fading from my mind already.

I found myself at the bottom of a hole, how I got there I don’t think was part of the dream. Almost as if on a desolate planet, in an empty hollow cave with gutteral howls from its depths. I was there with many people, Chronarchy was one of them (why are you always in my weird dreams?), and some other people I don’t recognize. I’d say 100 people in all. At the end of the hole it opened up into a huge cavern. Very dark crimson, carved from the stone. To my left was a small ramp that lead into another room in the cavern, there were stone tables, where the majority of the people were sitting. Chronarchy was at one, displaying some clay trees he had made, like pottery. He offered me a red and brown one, but I had a brown and green one from him already.

The people weren’t really talking much, it was very quiet. So I went back down the ramp to the part below the hole, and I noticed while on the ramp, you could see through another whole in the ceiling of the cavern. Through that hole you could see a small cave with skulls, very gray, very dark, the walls covered with cobwebs and various pieces of something, flesh maybe, hanging from them. Every time I looked at it I kept saying “My god what did they do here?”

To the other side of the cave, also a very dark crimson, was another wall of cobwebs, stone, and possibly flesh and cloth. The walls were not solid, instead they were more like beamsor studs from ceiling to floor that you walked through. At the first layer of wall, there was a huge gray skull. I walked through one of the walls into the other cave and was greeted by another ramp that lead to what looked like a podium. But the podium had controls on it written in some alien tongue. Behind me appeared to be a screen of sorts to display whatever it is those controls did. As soon as you stood at the podium, it lit up as if the power was turned on. Of course I started pushing buttons…and then I woke up.

Still deciding if I can use this on my MUD or not.

Before my batteries died on the camera today, I was able to snag a half-assed virtual tour of our little farmette here. Includes pictures of our baby ducks and brand new baby bunnies.

Our Backyard
Our outside basement (I’d show inside, but it’s all dirt)
My Son often chases chipmunks into the wood piles
New baby bunnies
Our famous chickens
Our non-laying chickens
More decorative chickens
Dad spraying because the beetles are eating our flowers
Daddy’s Caddy
My dad is 6 foot, I guess that makes the sunflowers..?
Baby ducks
More baby ducks
We don’t need a huge garden for just the two of us
Our one goose, fox got the rest of them
Our goose again
Guinea’s are great to have roaming around, they eat fleas and ticks in your yard
Peacocks are hard to get shots of cause they are so damn hyper
Another shot of the peacock
My spiritual circle in the woods
One of our many tree swings
Our turkey
Our turtle habitat

I’ve uploaded a new layout, or am still in the process of uploading. Jen has been helping me out with fixing some cross browser compatibility flaws and some css errors with it. Hopefully it’ll be up fully shortly.

I was going to try to finance through Bar-none, but have been having difficulty getting the loan officer Lou Nickman, and the Dealer guy, Chris, together. The loan officer seemed a bit shady to me anyway, because earlier today when I called, he said he had called Crouse Ford 3 times to get ahold of Chris, but never could. But Chris has voicemail, and no messages were left So shady, yes.

Finally Chris got ahold of him for me, since Bar-none told me they would only deal with the dealership directly, and informed me that the only way Bar-none would finance me, is if I bought a car through Fox Chevrolet down in Baltimore. Which is retarded, cheap, and very assholish. But it’s how they do business. So obviously they will not be getting mine.

So I went up today to fill out another credit application with Crouse, because Chris is convinced he can find someone who will finance me. And my friend Angelo who works for a credit union, is also looking up some information for me.

When I was up at Crouse today though, Chris pointed out to me a 2005 they had brought back, black with red interior and fully loaded, so it was about 30k. Soooo beautiful, but I’m going to wait for my 2006.

le sigh.