King Solomon's Choice...

 

Up at 5am, out the door by 6.45, child in tow...

 

Long day in court...

 

Representing myself in this relocation trial which has morphed into a custody battle...

 

Learning on the fly how to ask witnesses questions and to cross-examine with a specific goal in mind... 

 

No real idea how I'm doing vis a vis influencing the judge... 

 

Think I am making some headway undoing some damage ex's attorney has tried to do and forcing his witnesses to back-track, admit mistakes... 

 

Back to the salt mines for more tomorrow afternoon...

 

Setting the intention that the universe fills my coffers with moolah overnight, so I can get to court and back - gas money and ferry fare home!   No idea how that's going to happen AND it will!!! lol...

 

Namaste - sweet dreams all...

Oh - and so grateful for loving friends - especially CHRIS S today... boy and I are blessed...

 

 

 

 

Sahila Once More...

... is grateful to all her friends who made it possible for her (and the boy and the cats) to have a quiet, comfortable weekend to recover her sangfroid...

and who said lovely things about her in character references...

... she feels almost human again... 

and it's Monday tomorrow...

and, seeing life has not magically resolved the issues in the past two days, it's "once more into the breach, dear friends, once more..."

from Shakespeare's KING HENRY V:

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;

Or close the wall up with our English dead.

In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.

Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height.  On, on, you noblest English.
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war.  And you, good yeoman,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.

I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start.  The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'

although, perhaps she might try a less aggressive approach...

What Was That About...

... "a warrior accepts that she can never know what will happen to her next"!?... 

Weird two days...

Thought I had the housing situation covered for at least another week... ah, no, wrong... 

Apparently the fairies got together overnight, whispered in the building owner's ears and nixed that plan - shades of Robbie Burns' "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft agley."

So, we got evicted on Thursday... guess no lifetime is complete without that experience...

Horrible on the one hand (harsh building owner who wouldn't abide by the agreement I had come to with building manager - his son), and heart-warming on the other (with people offering and giving help when I reached out)...

AND we're staying with friends for the weekend and will tackle the issue of housing on Monday...

AND I missed a court filing deadline yesterday (Friday) - couldn't get into town on time and then couldn't get the Court's e-filing system to upload my documents! -  but ex's attorney has agreed to a continuation, without me having to fight for it...

AND we had a civil conversation that was quite informative...

So...

While he is very anxious about all of this change, boy is pleased to be where we're at physically - he has a real live human playmate in the house and the Wii to spend hours and hours on! 

AND the cats are just doing their usual thing, including Mork getting himself stuck up in the ceiling between two floors of this house...  The offer of food finally convinced him (reluctantly) to let me get him down...

AND many kind people showed they care about us and said/wrote lovely things about me in their character references - THANK YOU...

AND, I guess I'm being shown/am living the truth of what I profess/preach/am focused on teaching my son about being in the NOW... where, in this MOMENT - which is all we have - Life Is Beautiful

Namaste

Sahila

PS... trying to be subtle(!) in this post - let me know if you get what ideas the "mice and men" quote also refers to... AND if you can, please watch the movie at the link - it's worth every moment...

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."

 

 

Don't Know Whether I'm Coming Or Going...

1: It's almost the end of mid-winter break and the boy has been home; we've had fun with play dates and movies (The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and some of the Star Wars series), haircuts, hamburgers and shakes and some new clothes... boy got spectacles and while he won't say they help him see, he wears them everyday - puts them on when he wakes up without being told...

2: Am 99.5% moved out of the old house (now dealing with messiness in two places) and the former housemates have been horrible AGAIN, despite the apology one of them made... in my book, 3 strikes and you're out, so I'm done - not spending any more emotional energy worrying about retrieving anything amicable out of this situation;

3: Am watching the beginnings of revolution around the world and here in the US and am excited, but am sitting back observing, waiting to see if/when serious push back from the authorities will begin and what form that will take;

4: Am wary of what's happening now, because I have the same feeling I did when Obama was elected - better the devil you know than the one you don't and I could tell he wasn't 'real'/didn't have the personal power to walk his talk... 
  

Always felt the 'powers that be' behind the scenes pulling strings, thought it was better to have a black man in charge than a white woman... and having a black man in power has made absolutely no difference at all... in fact, I don't think this country has changed direction - in my view it's going further and faster down the path begun by Reagan in the 80s...

5:  Have lots to write about, but no real alone time to marshal those thoughts into coherent posts - maybe after this last push to finish the move, and the boy going back to school...

6:  Am still confused about what is the next step... stay here or go back to Australia... will continue with the paperwork for the move next week and we'll see how it plays out...

7:  Miss my other children and wondering what it's like for my friends in Christchurch, New Zealand, with this horrible earthquake aftershock happening this week...   Floods in Brisbane, earthquakes in Christchurch - both places I have called home... hard times for many people...

8:  Had a melanoma cut out of my cheek yesterday; now waiting for the biopsy results to see if I need more treatment... melanoma is cancer - shades of the breast cancer journey repeating itself... had female relatives die of breast cancer and a grandfather die of melanoma... would be very weird if my former housemate and I ended up having a race to the cure/death of our very own!

9:  Been busy with education activism on the net; losing interest in challenging and countering the mis-information - a bit burned out, I guess.   More interested now in building something new, but where to start?

10:  Feel like I'm carrying a lot (have had to talk with the boy about us all being alone on our journey), but also am aware of the support I have been getting from some lovely, kind, caring people/energies in this and other dimensions... and so grateful for our warm, cosy little house to stay in... peaceful and calm...

11:  The weather too, doesn't seem to know whether its Arthur or Martha...  It's been trying to snow here for the past two days... lots of flurries but not a lot of it sticking around for long, and then sunny breaks...

All-in-all, a case of mid-winter blah!!!

As You Think...

...So It Is...

I've told the universe/Divine that if it wants to send me a message, it has to do it three times, so that I know I'm not just making things up...

Well, this song came my way three times in the past 48 hours, so am posting it as an antidote to the doom and gloom stuff...

WITH THANKS TO LENORE MAREE...

I'm being reminded to live my own tag line:  "As you think, so it is... Your beliefs create your reality..."

And no, I'm not saying Life is as schmaltzy as the lyrics imply, but there is beauty and love aplenty to be found... and I have lots of it expressing itself in my family and friends - I am indeed fortunate....

LYRICS:

Sunshine, lollipops and rainbows,
Everything that's wonderful is what I feel when we're together,
Brighter than a lucky penny,
When you're near the rain cloud disappears, dear,
And I feel so fine just to know that you are mine.

My life is sunshine, lollipops and rainbows,
That's how this refrain goes, so come on, join in everybody!

Sunshine, lollipops and rainbows,
Everything that's wonderful is sure to come your way
When you're in love to stay.

Sunshine, lollipops and rainbows,
Everything that's wonderful is what I feel when we're together,
Brighter than a lucky penny,
When you're near the rain cloud disappears, dear,
And I feel so fine just to know that you are mine.

My life is sunshine, lollipops and rainbows,
That's how this refrain goes, so come on, join in everybody!

Sunshine, lollipops and rainbows,
Everything that's wonderful is sure to come your way
'Cause you're in love, you're in love,
And love is here to stay

2/3 Done...

Move yesterday went relatively well, considering my state of unpreparedness...

Thanks to wonderful friends Chris, Charra, Brant, Cecilia and Paul, 2/3 of the furniture and boxes are gone, with the rest being done in slow time this week and a final push next Sunday, though I've paid our share of the rent until the end of the month...

Spent last night happy in the house we are minding for the next few months...

Though it will take a bit of getting used to the multiple clocks chiming cheerily on the 1/4 hour, the 1/2 hour, the 3/4 hour and the full hour!!!

Woke up today, very tired and quite sore... I feel old!

Will bring the cats and more of the food over this evening...

Lots of reflection happening in the process, and lots to write about...

But that's going to have to wait for a day or so, until I move my computer over... 

Since we're no longer 'living' at the old address, the housemates have turned the heater way down low, down to 55F in the daytime, and my fingers are too cold to type much...

The lovely owner at the house we are minding, has the thermostat set at 72F for the daytime... 

I'll be paying for the oil and power we use, but it's so nice not to have to argue about what's a reasonable temperature for comfortable Seattle winter living...

And one of the former housemates has just come through the family room (at the old house) to ask if I intend to use the internet here for much longer, implying I shouldn't because I'm no longer paying for it... I said no, I've  organised internet service at the new house starting tomorrow... I'll offer $5 for my share of the internet over 7 days, if they like!...

This morning, I've taken care of about half of the administration/personal business stuff related to moving house...

I try not to think about all the hassle and the circumstances that have surrounded all these moves in the US...

Otherwise, I just get plain pissed off... and that doesn't get me and Connor anywhere...

Kind Friends We Have Never Met...

A very kind Facebook friend and fellow public education activist - whom I have never met - knows I was born in Holland and miss Dutch food and traditions.

She spent yesterday in her kitchen making a traditional Dutch Christmas treat - Kerststollen - and she made one for me!!!   

It's travelling across country in the next couple of days for me and my son to enjoy...

This world is filled with wonderful, kind, thoughtful, giving people....

Thank you Conny...

Namaste

(the Divine in me recognises and honours the Divine in you)