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MY EX-WIFE diego santiago diego 2seaward@san.rr.com Wednesday, October 29, 2003 106745230970807094 2003_10_01_bubdaddy_archive.html http://bubdaddy.blogspot.com/archives/2003_10_01_bubdaddy_archive.html#106745230970807094 10.28.2003 The air here is thick with smoke. When the wind shifts, breathing becomes a task instead of the natural function it normally is. You don't really think about breathing until you can't, and then it becomes a matter of fear and urgency. I've seen fires like this one on TV in other parts of the world, and now it's my part of the world, and my part of the world is burning!! I'm glad to be so close to the Pacific......if the fire gets too close, I think that the only option we may have will be to jump in!

After hearing Laura calling her family to tell them that she was safe and well, I got a very clear concept of how alone I am. I didn't have anyone to call who would care whether or not I was well. Even I don't care much anymore whether I'm well or not. I'd prefer to be happy.

San Diego going up in smoke diego santiago diego 2seaward@san.rr.com Tuesday, October 28, 2003 106737323580183581 2003_10_01_bubdaddy_archive.html http://bubdaddy.blogspot.com/archives/2003_10_01_bubdaddy_archive.html#106737323580183581 10.27.2003 San Diego Fire

The day before yesterday, Laura and I were driving around in the hills and canyons that were the major sources of fire in the San Diego county area just one day later. It's a surprise to realize that what we saw and admired one day is what we watched on TV as it burned yesterday. It was pretty weird in La Jolla yesterday morning. Instead of feeling the cool air of the Pacific, we felt the very hot, very dry air of the desert. Added to that was the smell of smoke, and a threatening yellowish cast to the sky. The sunlight was being filtered through a large veil of smoke which came from about 20 miles inland, rose to 15,000 feet, then spread like a thunderstorm over the north side of the San Diego coast. Ashes fell like the tiny flakes of snow which predcede a snow fall. People wiped their eyes, and breathed through sleeves, caps, handkerchiefs, and anything else they could find to filter ash from the air.

Those who had been carrying a few things to their cars were gasping from even that small exertion. The smoke bit at their throats and lungs. It made their eyes water, but they were waving and laughing as they passed each other on the sidewalk, knowing that they were probably going to be safe, but nervously aware of the magnitude of the potential danger they faced. Their nervous small talk made them feel less afraid; less intimidated. When a person is being chased from their home by a 75 mile long wall of 100 foot high flames, they need to hang on to any shred of confidence they can find.

Laura and I went out to help her daughter evacuate her apartment which was in the path of the advancing maelstrom. All of the major roads leading there were closed by the police, so we went through the parking lots of large stores and emerged at our destination, feeling like lawbreakers, but happy to be there to help hoping that we hadn't just placed ourselves in mortal danger. We struggled with a few heavy items and quickly got out of there.

Thick smoke rolled down the canyons. Almost everyone had their headlights on. Traffic, which usually whizzes through San Diego at 95mph was was moving at half of that speed. For now, there was very little traffic on the freeway we were on, and we were happy the be making steady progress towards La Jolla, and the coast. Suddenly, huge orange columns of fire erupted on the left side of the freeway. It was a fire in the middle of a field, placed there by a flying ember. We underestood how fires spread so rapidly.More later! diego santiago diego 2seaward@san.rr.com Monday, October 27, 2003 106728199283332933 2003_10_01_bubdaddy_archive.html http://bubdaddy.blogspot.com/archives/2003_10_01_bubdaddy_archive.html#106728199283332933 10.24.2003 diego santiago diego 2seaward@san.rr.com Friday, October 24, 2003 106702169495618748 2003_10_01_bubdaddy_archive.html http://bubdaddy.blogspot.com/archives/2003_10_01_bubdaddy_archive.html#106702169495618748
A rainy day in Northern Illinois on Rte 22, heading East. diego santiago diego 2seaward@san.rr.com Friday, October 24, 2003 106701847531510809 2003_10_01_bubdaddy_archive.html http://bubdaddy.blogspot.com/archives/2003_10_01_bubdaddy_archive.html#106701847531510809 10.23.2003
Hi Aime! I took this on Balboa Island. Note the bright sun!!
Love,
Bub diego santiago diego 2seaward@san.rr.com Thursday, October 23, 2003 106695037021124733 2003_10_01_bubdaddy_archive.html http://bubdaddy.blogspot.com/archives/2003_10_01_bubdaddy_archive.html#106695037021124733 10.22.2003
Check out the hand on the left shoulder...........now it "loves" Wayne. Fickle hand!!
diego santiago diego 2seaward@san.rr.com Wednesday, October 22, 2003 106687760162384304 2003_10_01_bubdaddy_archive.html http://bubdaddy.blogspot.com/archives/2003_10_01_bubdaddy_archive.html#106687760162384304 I keep writing here because I hope that you can find this place, and see what I've written, and because I think it helps me to see my thoughts. Both seem to be "healing" effects that this writing has on me.

Now, a word of interest about your Auntie who should be investigated...................................


She seems to be of interest to the IRS. They're looking for people who know details of false claims when she deducted her trips to Europe as legitimate educational expenses. They know she lied to them. She's come under scrutiny.......I think that WAFLT would be concerned if Pam's tax evasion tactics were widely known.

What I want in exchange for normal relations with you. I also want EVERY photo your mother has in the house which I took, including ALL vacation photos and all photos taken by other of you and me. I do not want any photos with your mother in them. I want EVERY video tape I shot. I want ALL of my family heirloom Christmas tree ornaments. I also want ALL of my stereo equipment, ALL of my tools, including power tools, and ALL hand tools (including the ones that your mother gave me)(I know that she remembers them!! She GAVE those to me and they are still MINE!

She can choose to help her sister by giving me normal access to you, and by giving me my all of my things. (Her husband is welcome to continue wearing my underpants, sleeeping in my bed, and living in my house. diego santiago diego 2seaward@san.rr.com Wednesday, October 22, 2003 106684651372240669 2003_10_01_bubdaddy_archive.html http://bubdaddy.blogspot.com/archives/2003_10_01_bubdaddy_archive.html#106684651372240669 10.20.2003 Hi Aime,
I'm back just long enough to say that I love you. diego santiago diego 2seaward@san.rr.com Monday, October 20, 2003 106667761324450769 2003_10_01_bubdaddy_archive.html http://bubdaddy.blogspot.com/archives/2003_10_01_bubdaddy_archive.html#106667761324450769 Dear Aime,

Yesterday was your birthday
and if I didn't think about that
and remember your past birthdays,
I was able to get through the day.

I saw Julie Andrews in a bookstore
in La Jolla, and she reminded me of how much you enjoyed
Mary Poppins, and how you used to sing the songs from that
movie.

I have an enormous feeling of sadness as I write this.
It feels like it did when your mother committed her
crimes.

I miss you so much
and I hope that you never experience the pain
I am in.

Pam probably came down
and trooped around in her manly clothes.
I can't write this anymore.

diego santiago diego 2seaward@san.rr.com Monday, October 20, 2003 106666611766090473 2003_10_01_bubdaddy_archive.html http://bubdaddy.blogspot.com/archives/2003_10_01_bubdaddy_archive.html#106666611766090473 10.17.2003 THOUGHTS FOR AIME

I don't know what your mother told you
I don't know what you've figured out
I don't know anything about you anymore
I wish you'd write me a real letter
Or call me
Or just send me a picture.
It's taken me all of this time to figure out that you don't want to.
I used to think that you couldn't, but you know that you could
if you wanted to.

Now I understand that you don't want contact.
I blame your mother for that.
You and I used to be buddies,
and had a normal, loving , father-daughter relationship.
Your mother resented that and "poisoned the well"



I'm listening to "A touch of gray", remembering how much you liked it.
You used to come into my office and stand there and sing along.
Those were innocent times which I miss so desperately.

Two Mexicans are standing behind me as I write this.
They're changing the handle on the refrigerator door
As soon as I started playing this song, they began to speak in
Rapid staccato bursts.

I don't know anything about them either.
They might hate The Grateful Dead.
It's ok if they do.........
I WILL get by, and they WILL survive.

I don't know about you.
I don't feel that I know you
Anymore.

It hurts to know that I'm not a part of anything
That you want to do.
We used to do so much together.
We used to have fun together.

Now, I haven't seen you in so long.
What your mother did is so wrong.
I looked at myself in the mirror the other day
And saw that I'm getting old.

I thought about my life in Cali
You won't even call me.

I thought that a time might come
When you decide to call me
And someone would tell you diego santiago diego 2seaward@san.rr.com Friday, October 17, 2003 106641775839677001 2003_10_01_bubdaddy_archive.html http://bubdaddy.blogspot.com/archives/2003_10_01_bubdaddy_archive.html#106641775839677001 10.16.2003 In 3 days, it will be YOUR birthday. You're a junior in high school now. It is so amazing to me that your mother stole you with lies. You're probably doing pretty well, I think. I don't know. I think about you daily, wondering how you are.

I think that if you wanted to have more contact with me, you'd find a way to make that happen. You don't seem to want to.

Happy birthday anyway, Amy.
I love you.
(signed, Bub) diego santiago diego 2seaward@san.rr.com Thursday, October 16, 2003 106635316398514066 2003_10_01_bubdaddy_archive.html http://bubdaddy.blogspot.com/archives/2003_10_01_bubdaddy_archive.html#106635316398514066 10.14.2003 Five days have elapsed and everyone seems to have forgotten about Governor Schwarzenegger. I forgot about him too until I came back here to see what I'd written.

Listen to the mellow doo-wop sounds of The Clovers.............

I'm going to write in another blog called Vinny the Fuse Box..........


Yesterday morning, slow rivers of fog moved inland through the city streets while the bright southern California sun shone on the tops of the trees which lined the same streets. If it hadn't been real, it wouldn't have seemed possible.
diego santiago diego 2seaward@san.rr.com Tuesday, October 14, 2003 106615922634434370 2003_10_01_bubdaddy_archive.html http://bubdaddy.blogspot.com/archives/2003_10_01_bubdaddy_archive.html#106615922634434370 10.9.2003 I've been reading other people's blogs, following some of their links. I've learned that there are other intelligent people out there. Why can't I find any of you at 4-way stops signs? Using turn signals? On the California freeways? Uh oh...I said California. That means Kollyphonya, and dat meance Ahnold. No more about Arnold....I have to stop. diego santiago diego 2seaward@san.rr.com Thursday, October 09, 2003 106571565411280114 2003_10_01_bubdaddy_archive.html http://bubdaddy.blogspot.com/archives/2003_10_01_bubdaddy_archive.html#106571565411280114 10.7.2003 Since the world is talking about Ahnold, I decided to write about Marcella and Marco, and their decrepit world



We live at “In Eden”**, an aging white apartment building less than 2oo yards from the Pacific ocean. A lemon tree grows outside of our kitchen window. It prevents the people walking along Prospect Street from looking in. A huge bird of paradise tree obscures one of our bedroom windows, and the other is blocked by a clump of loquat trees. It’s ironic that we’re afforded so much privacy by such lush vegetation. We have no bedroom door.

Of the nine windows in our small apartment, only one can be locked. Five can be cranked open, but not cranked shut. Three can be cranked shut, but not open. Only one can be opened and shut normally…..but it’s not the one which can be locked.

The vegetation provides so much privacy because the gardener won’t cut it back. The landlady won’t pay him if he does. She won’t pay him if he doesn’t.

He uses a lawn mower, a weed trimmer, and a leaf blower, and he wears bright orange goggles, and ear protectors like they wear on the deck of an aircraft carrier. He also wears bright red articulated knee pads. He has the loudest gasoline powered tools in California. In one hour, he makes enough noise to have harvested half of Nebraska, but all he has to show for it is a modest pile of clippings battered from their stalks by his noisy, smoky, blunt tools. His leaf blower is so old that it wheezes most of the time, then produces an occasional, severe straight-line gust of wind, scattering leaves and clippings in all directions. Unaware of this pattern, he attempts to “round them up” again, scatters them again, and again, and…..

I think his bright orange goggles make dog poop invisible……he doesn’t see it, and so he never picks any of it up, but if he doesn’t see it, why doesn’t he ever step in it??? I wonder about this.

Our apartment is number “12”. The number one is affixed to the door by a single screw which is rusted into arthritic immobility. The number “1” has rotated sideways, and now our apartment is “minus 2”.


** (Deliberately clumsy statement)

Our maintenance man, Marco, is an affable, middle-aged stoner from Lemon Grove. He is without a clue about most things, but is always cheerfully ready to dismantle, or smash anything under the pretext of repairing it. We love this guy! Our kitchen faucet had suffered abuse at the hands of previous occupants. The end of it where the water comes out had corroded, or someone had twisted something off of it (or Marco had “fixed” it).

I asked Marco to look into the matter, and he said that I would have to speak to “Marcella”.

Marcella is a horror. She’s a weathered old woman who wears black pants, a black zippered jacket, and a black baseball hat with red piping, and tennis shoes. Her hair is long, thin, sparse, and dyed an anemic, unnatural, faded orange. It looks “weedy”. She looks like she’s been exposed to too much radiation. She’s the landlady. She’s the landlady from hell.


We told her about the sharp faucet. A sharp faucet? Who’s ever heard of a sharp faucet? It’s as improbable as cutting yourself with a balloon, but she WAS the landlady of a sharp faucet! And it was her responsibility to fix it.

She disallowed our comments, but two days later, sent Marco to install a plastic faucet.

When we met her to settle the issue of plastic vs real faucet, she seemed to be a saddened, disappointed, put-upon sweet old lady trying to do her best, and we left feeling bad for the old girl, but still wanting a real faucet. The old, floppy, loose, corroded faucet had failed, and we thought she should replace such garbage in order to maintain her property, keep us content, and uphold the best image of La Jolla as a perfect place to live.

That’s what we thought.

Days passed and Marco said she was not going to buy a real faucet because she thought the used plastic faucet she had gotten from the Habitat for Humanity junk store was good enough.

After looking at plastic faucets in Home Depot, we decided to accept the junky faucet, enjoy our new life in La Jolla, and dismiss Marcella’s craziness as symptomatic of the poisons which had destroyed her brain.

What was taking shape was only the beginning of a prolonged, painful conflict. Pirates should have decorated their flags with her face!

We asked her to replace our white, rusting, dirty refrigerator which was keeping our food warm for us. She told us that it worked and didn’t need to be replaced. I told her that it was a white, rusting, dirty crock pot. After jousting with her for a few days, we got our new fridge. Marco showed up beaming his warm smile, happy to get an item off of his “to do” list, confident that he had the solution. He landed at the foot of our steps with a black leviathan refrigerator on a dolly. There followed an epic struggle, but he finally wrestled it into our tiny kitchen. The weight of the huge refrigerator smashed three ceramic floor tiles as it was fought to its final resting place.
It was a very large, black, two door side-by-side, refrigerator-freezer with an ice maker and a water dispenser built into the door of the freezer. We had never even imagined a black appliance before! When it was plugged in, the lights flickered, and then dimmed, and stayed dim. After four days, it started to get cold, and we started to feel that we were going to be able to enjoy the beauty of our new surroundings in the jewel of southern California. We asked Marco when he was gong to connect the water dispenser and the ice maker. He shuddered and left quickly without saying a word.

It was never connected.


Remember, Marcella wears black pants, a black jacket, a black baseball hat, and her hair is orange. She looks like a Halloween thing, or a scary tackling dummy used by the Princeton football team. The door to her apartment is black. For her, black appliances must the norm. Hers is a dark world of fogs and shadows, and I really don’t want to try to imagine the things she must see whirling around in the gunk of her mind.


Under the pretext of being the maintenance man,Marco had probably been in our apartment and had stalked spiders across the walls and into corners, and then painted over them, into the walls forever. Life was standing on his throat, and he probably needed to kill some bugs to avenge his low station in life. There were patches of glossy paint where he painted over years of dirt and smudges, and he even filled nail holes with thick, cheap, cream colored glossy paint instead of spackle. In the kitchen he applied flat paint to glossy walls. His mind was as loose as the tiles.

Heavy, old paint oozed into power outlets and light switches, filling and embalming them. The old, thick, shiny paint sealed them forever, and the light switches were permanently “off” when the paint dried.

Whatever havoc he had wrought on our future home was acceptable to Marcella as being “cleaning, painting, and refurbishing.”

He had tracked sand across the floor, so we got our Swiffer out and began “swiffing”. The sand came up, but it didn’t. It was persistent sand which resisted every attempt to get it up. It fought being vacuumed and seemed to scatter before the tools which were designed to gather it up. It was my first and only encounter with self-procreating sand.

Finally, I realized that he hadn’t sealed the new grout around the kitchen tiles, and it was turning to sand. With the broad happy grin of a true idiot, he confessed to having done that (or not having done that). When he ran out of grout, Marcella wouldn’t give him money for more, so he mixed dissimilar grouts and whatever other things he had until his mixture seemed pasty enough to squish between the tiles, and now it was all decomposing into sand. The tiles began to leave the floor.
Our kitchen floor was moving the same way that people in the east think that California moves all of the time.

He returned yesterday to repair his grout work. It can never be repaired. It has to be destroyed by a competent person, and the debris hauled away and hidden so that Marcella can’t find it and have him install it elsewhere.

Marco arrived with a huge plastic bucket, some big sponges, a few large bags of powdery stuff, and a few tubs of something white and viscous. It looked like he finally had the right combination of tools and chemistry to keep our tectonic tiles from shifting.

He even had his own articulated knee pads on, and was wearing his best idiot’s grin. I wanted to believe that he was about to do something correctly.

Monthly power bills were always double what they were for our neighbors. If we ran the microwave in the morning and turned on the toaster, the lights went out! If we ran the toaster and tried to make coffee with Mr. Coffee…………the lights went out! If we checked our email and tried to make toast……..the lights went out. We learned that we could only run one device at a time, or……….the lights went out.

This time, Marcella was ready to fix the problem. Her solution to the wiring problems of her ramshackle building was to say “Don’t use the microwave to cook”, she said. I asked her what else we would use the microwave if it were not to cook with. Her craggy face rotated on its jowls, and her expression said that she was so much smarter than we were. “Make your coffee on the gas range”, she snapped. “Shouldn’t use the toaster”. she observed, “They use too much electric”.

If she owned Buckingham Palace, she would still be a hillbilly. She is like Gollum from Tolkien’s novels. She is always taking and coveting and demanding. Our power went off at exactly 6:00pm every night, which is when the timer turned on the exterior lights on the building. Could she be tapping electricity from our apartment?

We've moved, and no longer see her. I miss Marco though. He was unfazed by life, poor as hell, always smiling, and always willing to smash anything in order to fix it. diego santiago diego 2seaward@san.rr.com Tuesday, October 07, 2003 106556049933755924 2003_10_01_bubdaddy_archive.html http://bubdaddy.blogspot.com/archives/2003_10_01_bubdaddy_archive.html#106556049933755924 10.6.2003 Arnold has been in this country long enough to lose that thick Germanic accent. Why, with all of the speech and dialog coaches in Hollywood, and in the rest of the USA, hasn't that musclebound booby tried to sound more like he belongs here???

San Diego's new stadium is called Petco Park. It's only a matter of time before sportscasters, news people, and regular people start calling it "The Dog House"

Naming sports arenas after corporations is already a disgusting trend in this country, but naming a major league ball park after a place which sells diapers for dogs is nauseating! diego santiago diego 2seaward@san.rr.com Monday, October 06, 2003 106549007433439050 2003_10_01_bubdaddy_archive.html http://bubdaddy.blogspot.com/archives/2003_10_01_bubdaddy_archive.html#106549007433439050 10.5.2003 Yesterday, while assembling an entertainment center, I realized that Amy has had uncounted opportunities to contact me and communicate with me, but has never done so unless she felt compelled to exchange perfunctory, impersonal information in hopeful anticipation of receiving money from me. I've tried EVERY possible way I could think of to let her know that I love her. I've tried to make contact with her, and tried to enable her to make contact with me.

I've actually believed that her mother had threatened her, and scared her so much that she was afraid to make contact. I'm certain that she did, but Amy could have contacted me if she wanted....for any reason.

I believe that her mother and her aunt Pam and Wayne have have re-indoctrinated her and turned her against me, and I'm very hurt and disappointed with her for surrendering her love and principles so easily.

diego santiago diego 2seaward@san.rr.com Sunday, October 05, 2003 106537568169508239 2003_10_01_bubdaddy_archive.html http://bubdaddy.blogspot.com/archives/2003_10_01_bubdaddy_archive.html#106537568169508239 10.3.2003 Laura loves her little dog, and maybe someday, God will show me why. Until then, I think that dogs are a self-inflicted hardship, sort of like poking a hole in your car tire every morning. You have to fix it before you can get anything else done, and then you spend the rest of the day dealing with leaks!


THE DOG:

The dog sleeps, snores, and passes foul gases all day. Anything that's comatose, incontinent, and farts is as good!

The dog only likes the person with the food, and once the food is gone, so is the love and devotion.


diego santiago diego 2seaward@san.rr.com Friday, October 03, 2003 106523152654460853 2003_10_01_bubdaddy_archive.html http://bubdaddy.blogspot.com/archives/2003_10_01_bubdaddy_archive.html#106523152654460853 Buy GhostSurf Pro Buy GhostSurf Pro