so let's see
well first things first...miraculously the internet is working again. we didnt really do anything on sunday. just mostly sat around. a few people went downtown (portland) to watch the superbowl with another team at a bar. tzippi came back so we picked her up from the MAX (lightrail) station. so then we went to the library and then to hollywood video (we rented smokey & the bandit and saved!). then back to the lodge and it was tricia and my weekend to clean so we did that. then we watched smokey and the bandit.
so we were working at a new site called Valley Catholic today and yesterday. it is on land that's owned by the Sisters of St. Mary of Oregon. they have a school, a nursing home, and other things on their property. we were just removing as many blackberry roots as we could out of the area right next to Beaverton Creek. we also found at least 50 balls (baseballs, wiffle balls, and tennis balls) buried underneath the roots in different places in the mud, that was weird. tomorrow we go to a new site.
today someone from the Clean Water Services came and talked to us about other projects that they have in the area. it's interesting because they are in charge of wastewater treatment and the protection/restoration of watersheds.
and on a totally random note i have become obsessed with reflections. i dont know why. but i just love to stare in the water as we drive past and look at the reflections of the trees and the houses moreso than i like to look at the real things. it reminds me of the book that i read last spike about the woman who was obsessed with sea glass. she would walk along the beach and stare downwards searching for it and her husband made some comment about how it was pretty but then she was missing all the other things that were going on in the world.
so i've read three books lately. i re-read Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt because the last time i read it was in 12th grade. i read it to refresh before i read the sequel.
'Tis by Frank McCourt
there is no official synopsis written on the book but basically it starts where Angela's Ashes ends. Angela's Ashes was the story of Frank and his life in Ireland and 'Tis starts when he goes to America. I liked the first one better but that might just be because there were more characters and the second book is just about him. but there were a few very funny parts in it. like a part where a friend of him carts a slab of meat around with him and gets yelled at in the bar for having it on a stool because it's dripping blood on the floor. so he puts it in the bathroom and then a guy goes in there and comes running out and yelling that there's a giant dead rat in the bathroom. so then of course the guy with the meat got kicked out of the bar.
Sickened by Julie Gregory
A young girl is perched on the cold chrome of yet another doctor's examining table, missing yet another day of school. Just twelve, she's tall, skinny, and weak. It's four o'clock, and she hasn't been allowed to eat anything all day. Her mother, on the other hand, seems curiously excited. She's about to suggest open heart surgery on her child to "get to the bottom of this." She checks her teeth for lipstick and, as the doctor enters, shoots the girl a warning glance. This child will not ruin her plans.
From early childhood, Julie Gregory was continually X-rayed, medicated, and operated on - in the vain pursuit of an illness that was created in her mother's mind. Munchausen by proxy (MBP) is the world's most hidden and dangerous form of child abuse, in which the caretaker - almost always the mother - invents or induces symptoms in her child because she craves the attention of medical professionals. Many MBP children die, but Julie Gregory not only survived, she escaped the powerful orbit of her mother's madness and rebuilt her identity as a vibrant, healthy young woman.
Sickened is a remarkable memoir that speaks in an original and distinctive midwestern voice, rising to indelible scenes in prose of scathing beauty and fierce humor. Punctuated with Julie's actual medical records, it re-creates the bizarre cocoon of her family's isolated double-wide trailer, their wild shopping sprees and gun-waving confrontations, the astonishing naivete of medical professionals and social workers. It also exposes the twisted bonds of terror and love that roped Julie's family together - including the love that made a child willing to sacrifice herself to win her mother's happiness.
The realization that the sickness lay in her mother, not in herself, would not come to Julie until adulthood. But when it did, it would strike like lightning. Through her painful metamorphosis, she discovered the courage to save her own life - and, ultimately, the life of the girl her mother had found to replace her. Sickened takes us to new places in the human heart and spirit. It is an unforgettable story, unforgettably told.
this book takes #2 for the worst child abuse that i've read about...the first being A Boy Called "It" by Dave Pelzer. the abuse described wasn't as bad as i thought it would be...the mother was more of a hypochondriac towards her children and reading more into symptoms that the child might have had. it didnt seem that she was actually causing the illness in her child. it was an easy read though which was good because i had to read it fast because it was so disturbing at times. the worst part was that the mother actually had foster children given to her! that was crazy.
and now looking up the disease online i've found this website: http://www.msbp.com/ interesting.
Wilkes Creek
where we laid some mulch to stop tall grasess from continuing to grow:
digging up roots:
Valley Catholic
Beaverton Creek:
Before
After
some of the balls we found
Oregon Grape (the ex-state flower)
so we were working at a new site called Valley Catholic today and yesterday. it is on land that's owned by the Sisters of St. Mary of Oregon. they have a school, a nursing home, and other things on their property. we were just removing as many blackberry roots as we could out of the area right next to Beaverton Creek. we also found at least 50 balls (baseballs, wiffle balls, and tennis balls) buried underneath the roots in different places in the mud, that was weird. tomorrow we go to a new site.
today someone from the Clean Water Services came and talked to us about other projects that they have in the area. it's interesting because they are in charge of wastewater treatment and the protection/restoration of watersheds.
and on a totally random note i have become obsessed with reflections. i dont know why. but i just love to stare in the water as we drive past and look at the reflections of the trees and the houses moreso than i like to look at the real things. it reminds me of the book that i read last spike about the woman who was obsessed with sea glass. she would walk along the beach and stare downwards searching for it and her husband made some comment about how it was pretty but then she was missing all the other things that were going on in the world.
so i've read three books lately. i re-read Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt because the last time i read it was in 12th grade. i read it to refresh before i read the sequel.
'Tis by Frank McCourt
there is no official synopsis written on the book but basically it starts where Angela's Ashes ends. Angela's Ashes was the story of Frank and his life in Ireland and 'Tis starts when he goes to America. I liked the first one better but that might just be because there were more characters and the second book is just about him. but there were a few very funny parts in it. like a part where a friend of him carts a slab of meat around with him and gets yelled at in the bar for having it on a stool because it's dripping blood on the floor. so he puts it in the bathroom and then a guy goes in there and comes running out and yelling that there's a giant dead rat in the bathroom. so then of course the guy with the meat got kicked out of the bar.
Sickened by Julie Gregory
A young girl is perched on the cold chrome of yet another doctor's examining table, missing yet another day of school. Just twelve, she's tall, skinny, and weak. It's four o'clock, and she hasn't been allowed to eat anything all day. Her mother, on the other hand, seems curiously excited. She's about to suggest open heart surgery on her child to "get to the bottom of this." She checks her teeth for lipstick and, as the doctor enters, shoots the girl a warning glance. This child will not ruin her plans.
From early childhood, Julie Gregory was continually X-rayed, medicated, and operated on - in the vain pursuit of an illness that was created in her mother's mind. Munchausen by proxy (MBP) is the world's most hidden and dangerous form of child abuse, in which the caretaker - almost always the mother - invents or induces symptoms in her child because she craves the attention of medical professionals. Many MBP children die, but Julie Gregory not only survived, she escaped the powerful orbit of her mother's madness and rebuilt her identity as a vibrant, healthy young woman.
Sickened is a remarkable memoir that speaks in an original and distinctive midwestern voice, rising to indelible scenes in prose of scathing beauty and fierce humor. Punctuated with Julie's actual medical records, it re-creates the bizarre cocoon of her family's isolated double-wide trailer, their wild shopping sprees and gun-waving confrontations, the astonishing naivete of medical professionals and social workers. It also exposes the twisted bonds of terror and love that roped Julie's family together - including the love that made a child willing to sacrifice herself to win her mother's happiness.
The realization that the sickness lay in her mother, not in herself, would not come to Julie until adulthood. But when it did, it would strike like lightning. Through her painful metamorphosis, she discovered the courage to save her own life - and, ultimately, the life of the girl her mother had found to replace her. Sickened takes us to new places in the human heart and spirit. It is an unforgettable story, unforgettably told.
this book takes #2 for the worst child abuse that i've read about...the first being A Boy Called "It" by Dave Pelzer. the abuse described wasn't as bad as i thought it would be...the mother was more of a hypochondriac towards her children and reading more into symptoms that the child might have had. it didnt seem that she was actually causing the illness in her child. it was an easy read though which was good because i had to read it fast because it was so disturbing at times. the worst part was that the mother actually had foster children given to her! that was crazy.
and now looking up the disease online i've found this website: http://www.msbp.com/ interesting.
Wilkes Creek
where we laid some mulch to stop tall grasess from continuing to grow:
digging up roots:
Valley Catholic
Beaverton Creek:
Before
After
some of the balls we found
Oregon Grape (the ex-state flower)