Practising What I Preach...

@11am Thursday 17th November 2011, I sent out this message:

"To my Seattle friends... Please - I need help NOW.... thought I had the housing thing sorted out yesterday with the building manager, but the OWNER of the building doesn't want to wait for the money that was promised to hit my bank account so he can cash his cheque, and he won't accept a cash payment and says we have to leave by 12 noon... (and this is a week-to-week to arrangement so there is no lease and no recourse - he calls the shots)... 

He's adamant... says he'll call the police and impound our van if we are not out by 12... Boy is beside himself, as I am...

I need help moving us, the cats and stuff out and somewhere to "be" for a couple of hours to regroup... to find a place to stay and a place where I can write this court response which is due in tomorrow... if you can help in any way, can you please call me on ............."

Update - 1.05pm: Panic over, sort of... still have to move out today, but friend called owner and negotiated (how come men who bully women, back down when faced with another male?) that we have until this afternoon, when friend can come with truck to help us move our stuff/cats... 

And we have been offered a place to stay for a couple of days over in West Seattle...

And there I can work on this court response tonight, and caravan around the city to collect character references tonight and tomorrow morning...

There are unkind people in the world, like this man who would not live up to the agreement we had made with his son, who said he didn't care about our situation, that he was running a business and he wasn't interested in our problems...

AND as I said to the seriously freaked out boy - look how lucky we are that we have friends who care about us and are there to give whatever help they can.... see, WE ARE, AND WILL BE, OK...

Off now to shower and pack up... I am tired!

Exhausted Maenides on the Steps of the Temple of Amphissa (After the Dance), circa 1874 - Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema

and the thing to know in all of this,

is that what's happening in our lives,

is happening for billions of people around the world,

every single day... 

we are not alone... 

we are part of the 99%

 PS: this just landed on my FB page, from Michael Meade: 

"Through the exact twists of fate we find our own unique soul. 

Our true goal in life is to become that self."

 

 

How Low Can You Go?

I'm asking for prayers and good vibes... 

Son's father is fighting our proposed move to Australia in court... not only that, but he wants custody of him, claiming I am an unfit mother...

This from the man who has been kicked off five different domestic violence perpetrator programmes in five years... whose visitation access to our son is determined by how much progress he is making on said programmes...

And he's playing really, really dirty - I can't even read the court documents he filed in their entirety yet, they are so horrible...

I picked up the documents this evening - they were improperly served at the previous house we had lived in...

And leaving the house, the car in front of me had a bumper sticker in Yiddish, with English translation... it said "Have courage, be strong"... I hadn't even read the documents yet!!!

I  need to focus on filing a response to this crap - one of the hearings is on the 28th, I think, and I have 20 days to reply to the other motion he filed... and I have to file a request for the renewal of the Protection Order this week...

It's kinda hard to do the forgiveness thing when, just when I think I am there, more of this crap comes - but I guess that's the challenge...

And after tomorrow, I don't know where we'll be living.... the boy and I, two cats and some of our "stuff"... and our van with the window that was shot out September 2010 that's still covered in clear plastic sheeting and dragon-patterned duct tape!

The rent for the week-to-week motel we're staying at was due three days ago - the landlord is asking for it...

Son's dad owes me $1,500 and two clients owe me around $3,000; have been asking for them to cough up - no reply yet...  

I guess I now understand something about what life was like for the people who went through the Great Depression and World War 2... 

Though I still probably haven't got a clue what life is like for the millions in the third world, starving to death...

Well - I guess this all goes on tomorrow's agenda...

I have just enough gas left to get to my therapy appointment (lovely women who doesn't ask me to front up with the co-pays!); will use the hour with her to get my head around all of this...

PS:   As above, so below, as within, so without... the macro reflects the micro and vice versa...

It's 11.30pm Pacific Time here in Seattle, and I am watching the New York Police Department completely destroy the OccupyWallStreet camp... pepper spraying, hurting, arresting protestors and trashing absolutely everything...

It seems to me to be synchronistic that I got those horrible, hurting, trashing documents tonight and that we are facing homelessness tomorrow, in the same manner as OccupyWallStreet - which is standing up to governmental and corporate abuse - is being attacked/evicted by police...

As a Facebook friend said: "the empathic principal in action... seems to me that the line being drawn is spreading like wildfire... much violence is up, which is the sign of weakness and fear...sigh"...