Had a surprise visit today from two of the girls I went to Cuba with. One of them just returned after another semester there. It was good to see them, because really I haven't made any effort to stay in contact with anyone. That is a problem of mine staying in contact with people. Anyways the semester at the University of Havana didn't go so well this time. There is so much that gets in the way there such as spying and paranoia to the extreme. It reminded me of why I wanted to leave while I was there.

They told me that it is now legal in Cuba to have a sex change. This means that the procedure is covered under their universal coverage. Contradictions like these are daily. We talked about the change that many Cubans are craving and we also thought of the chance of too much change. We all agreed that McDonald's presence in Cuba would be horrific. It is so hard for me to imagine, but the thought of the golden arches in Havana is painful. Of course eating at the state run Rapido is a nightmare in itself. There was nothing to be enjoyed at el Rapido except the ice cold Bucaneros. Actually could be considered worse than the school lunches they serve the unfortunate children here.

I guess I just still haven't figured out an answer to any of my questions that I had before this experience. Cuba must retain its independence from the US and from any other country really. It was a terrible mistake on the part of the Revolution to become so reliant on the Soviet Union. The suffering they endured during the "special period" is still remembered by people my age. Then they served a ball of rice with a piece of candy for school lunches.


Sugar is the unsweet tragedy of everything about Cuba since 1492.

You tube sucks

I think that I have achieved success in making my own business. From my craigs list ad online I was able to find a woman who wants me to clean for 10 hrs a week. That in combination with the jobs I allready have will provide a very steady income until I graduate. Yay for me and creating a solution to my financial problems. Still I have a bumpy road ahead, but I think that I have improved my direction.

My new client is from California. I worked at her home today and cleaned two of her bathrooms and the kitchen while washing the bed clothes and making the beds. Not bad I would say for 6 hours considering I washed all the walls and stuff. She told me that in California they normally have the cleaner live in the house and that she has found that they don't normally do that here in buffalo. Maybe I will if I get booted from where I am living I'll become a livein Butler. This is the first time I have been asked to do someone's personal laundry. It seems so strange to me, cause for me I would never imagine anyone else doing my laundry. She has two dogs that are both fun and annoying. One is constantly running around worried and barking. Cuties though.

Now that I got some cash I can do some light Christmas shopping. Got a few ideas after window shopping in the "village". My friend wants this book:

A Guide to Elegance: For Every Woman Who Wants to Be Well and Properly Dressed on All Occasions



I called Talking Leaves to see if they had it. I couldn't help but giggle like a little girl as I read the title over the phone.

I'm back to working out again and have found that I am addicted. If I don't work out I get all this "body stress" and the only way to release it is to go to the gym. I have noticed there are several people who are addicted. This one girl is ALWAYS in the gym, she seriously can't stop. Tread mill, stationary bike, euliptical thingy etc. She is there for hours. Then there is this guy that always works out his top body but forgets about the rest. Any day now he is just going to fall over from being too top heavy. Thank god there aren't any grunters around anymore...

Its wierd that I stopped working out to begin with. It was actually painful my muscles going through atrophy.

Spinach is back and I'm loving it!

Yesterday I finished cleaning the apartment. You would think it would be quick and easy with a small place, but it isn't. The worst part is the rabbits hay that I have to pick up by hand cause it clogs the vacuum, but it still gets clogged and I have to stop and take it apart all the time. All the windows are clean except the outside panes which I can't get to. I cleaned all the walls including the ceiling of my bathroom...gross. Now I still have to caulk the shower and plastic the windows. These last two jobs both suck.

So yesterday I finally posted a craigslist ad about house cleaning. Got a response this am. It is kind of freaky. I don't know this person, maybe they will hack me to pieces for fun. He said he wants to work with me with the cleaning, which is fine, but again it freaks me out. My ad was ambigous to my sex, so maybe he was hoping for a sexy milf?

Today I spent hours cleaning, but didn't get very far. The mini-blinds have never been cleaned and had years of dust accumulated on them. Yuck. I couldn't stand it anymore and it was the first thing I wanted to do on the start of my vacation.



These blinds are so embarrassing. I can't believe I'm posting them on here.


Half way cleaned. Spent one full hour on each blind.


These dead crusty spiders I found behind my altar. It freaked me out, maybe they like the chanting and decided to die there.


Then there was a bat in the hallway that I saw as I was taking some garbage out. He was flying around and I screamed and ran inside. Actually I wasn't sure it was a bat at that point it could have been a bird. So then I had to go and open the door downstairs and then I was sure it was a bat. Here is him being bat like.



We had to poke him with a broom to get him to move. This was after creating a plastic shield to make sure he wouldn't fly up the stairs towards our apartment. He went into a fighting stance and then fell to the ground after a second poke.


I'm not sure if he was playing dead or what, but we got him in a box and outside where he is now on the front step. He must have been sick or something. Really they were very gentle pokes.

Went grocery shopping tonight and got some Celestial Sleepy time tea. I wanted the stuff (e:theecary), 231 had mentioned. The Yogi brand I guess is hallucinogenic and that was what I really wanted before going to bed.

so i'm drinking the tea and getting really tired, but I was all ready tired before. Working tomorrow and then have to do school work. Finals are next week and I have a paper, and a take home test to do. The paper is on a poem of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz



She uses a lot of Greek mythology. I have learned some of the myths this semester, but I want to to read about it more and in Spanish during the break. This should help me in my next lit class. Anyways, Sor Juana is hot. In 17th century Mexico women could either get married or become a Nun. She chose to be a Nun so she could continue to study. Eventually this Bishop got his panties in a bunch over her seeking spirit and asked her to stop reading and all that. So then she has the balls to write him a letter saying why she thinks women should learn. That is just so hot to me. I bet she probably was getting some sort of action in that convent. Maybe I should ask my teacher about that.

Sunday night at about 11pm after (e:mike) left I smelled gas in the house. Since all other apartments are empty, I assumed a pilot light went out on one of the stoves in the vacant apartments. I went across the hall into one of them to check it out. It smelled obnoxious. That stove is electric/gas so has no pilot lights that need to be lit. Then I thought it could be coming from downstairs, but no, those pilots were lit. Then I thought there could be a leak in the gas hose of the oven accross the hall. We decided to call the National Fuel gas emergency #.

They came in about a half hour. They wouldn't ring our doorbell or call us to let us know they were here cause it could have blown us to pieces if it was a gas leak. Luckily we heard them pounding on the door downstairs. They came in with this detector and found high levels of Carbon Monoxide in the vacant apartment. We took them downstairs to investigate the furnaces. CO is odorless, but there was some obnoxious smell that the guys said was from improper combustion. He traced it to an old water heater from 1984 and a furnace that when he opened it spit out flames rather angrily. The inside was filled with black soot.

They shut the offending machines off and left. He told us if it was him living there he would open up the windows to let it air out. We have a CO detector but never plugged it in. How stupid is that? It is now plugged in. We didn't use it before because we were afraid it would malfunction when we weren't home and drive the rabbit insane. Me and Mike were tired that day...it just could have been the CO.

My lights have been flickering. Shouldn't really have my computer on with them doing that, but I need it.

There is a large piece of roofing on the front lawn

When the wind gusts i can feel the house moving. Maybe I should get downstairs if ever we were in a really bad storm? There is a cellar door just like at Dorothy's house in Kansas on the side. Forget going down there, I would go to my neighbors first. My basement is too Blair Witchesque.

Time to worry about my paper again. I'm writing about the War of 1898 against Spain. Manifest Destiny and all that fun stuff. One of my sources has to be in Spanish, which is fine, but they don't have a wide selection at the Buffalo Public Library or Buffstate. I don't know what to trust on the net and I haven't found anything through database searching via my school's library page. My teacher gave me some videos on the subject to watch, but my VHS player likes to eat tapes.......so.... I can't watch them. Actually I watched one at my neighbors house while she was gone but now she is home for the weekend and I don't want to force her to watch a boring war movie. I like watching documentaries, but not the ones that dwell on battle scene logistics for too long. I like the ones that focus more on causes and effects what people thought and all that. Paper due Tuesday...procrastination bad. I could have done interlibrary loan if I did it sooner.

There was an article today in the Buffalo News re: Coffee & fire
See
for background info.

Fine imposed in case of Elmwood Ave. fire
By MATT GRYTA
News Staff Reporter
11/29/2006
    Former Buffalo businessman Lon Coldiron was fined $5,320 Tuesday but spared a jail term in connection with the mysterious fire that destroyed his Elmwood Avenue coffee shop and killed his dog two years ago.

Erie County Judge Timothy J. Drury, however, denied a request from Travelers Insurance that Coldiron pay $283,500 in restitution.

Coldiron, 40, was found guilty in May of attempted grand larceny. A jury that deliberated four days couldn't reach a verdict on a felony arson charge.

Michael McCabe, chief of the district attorney's Arson Bureau, told Drury that prosecutors would not retry Coldiron on the arson charge.

Drury pointedly turned down Travelers' request for compensation from Coldiron for the amount it had paid to Ramesh Chainani of Amherst, who had leased the three-story Buffalo building to Coldiron.

Both the judge and prosecutor noted the insurer "cannot lawfully request" restitution because Coldiron, recently fired from a trucking industry job, was not convicted of setting the fire.

Drury ordered Coldiron to perform 100 hours of community service over five years while on probation, pay $320 of his court fines within a month and begin making $500-a-month payments until the full court debt is covered.

David G. Jay, Coldiron's attorney, told the judge the case was his client's first involvement with the criminal courts.

Noting that Coldiron had taken the stand in his own defense, Drury said he agreed with probation officers who found the former businessman to be "a good candidate for probation."

Coldiron was rescued from his third-floor apartment above his business during the early morning fire.

After sentencing, Coldiron said he will appeal his conviction, contending he never attempted to collect insurance.

"I still say that I'm innocent of the charges of which I was convicted. I am a good guy," he said.

He noted no flammable liquids were found linking him to the fire.

Coldiron said Chainani, his former landlord, had sold the property at 718 Elmwood for about $180,000 shortly after the arson in addition to collecting the full insurance coverage.

He also claimed arson investigators ignored "evidence of a door jammed open" that he said suggested intruders had torched the building.

On the witness stand in May, Coldiron denied any involvement in the arson and told the jury he had been receiving threatening telephone calls for weeks before the fire.

Prosecutors presented evidence that the state Department of Taxation and Finance had been hounding Coldiron for $24,000 in overdue sales tax payments. He also had casino gambling debts, had only $800 in the bank and took out insurance policies a month before the fire, prosecutors said.

Coldiron insisted his landlord had forced him to obtain the insurance and said he never attempted to collect on those policies.

He also insisted he had expected to work out his tax problems with the state and had been confident the coffee shop would have become very successful.

I'm so angry that the arson investigators never contacted me and this guy is lying through his teeth. Things possibly could have been different if I had testified. Yet even after trying to contact them, they never questioned me once.