Monthly Archive for April, 2005

Cruise ship tragedy.

I should have gotten up and written this dream down as soon as I woke up this morning…. damn… now i gotta think hard to remember..

I’m on a cruise ship with a bunch of people I know from family. It’s docked and it’s late at night. There’s a celebration going on that night and the ship is there to help with the festivities. The decks of the ship are packed with people, the pier we’re docked at is packed. It’s the 4 of July!! (or at least it seems that way)

Fireworks are going off all over and people are wearing gold and silver party favors on their heads. It’s like a new years celebration!

I’m on the back of the ship, on the deck. looking over at the people on the dock which is on the right side of the ship. the ship is COVERED in kids too. They’re all sitting on the floor with their legs dangling over the side of the ship just having a great time. And I know who I’m there with but not sure if they’re all on the ship or on the peir. It doesn’t matter. we’ll all meet up at the end of the night.

My sister is there (on the ship) , my cousin “Picho” is there (not sure where) and Dennis’ aunt and uncle Daniella and Darien are there too. They’re on the dock i think but I know their 6 year old son Destin is on the ship. I think someone else is there too from my family but I can’t remember who.

All of a sudden the cruise ship operators decide to turn on the biggest display of lights on the side of the ship anyone has seen. Nobody was expecting it either so when the enormous display turns on, everbody was oohing and ahing and cheering on. It was beautiful! SO many vibrant colors and in different shapes and just magnificent! But as suddenly as the display was turned on, the ship jerked to the right. when it Jerked, the deck started leaning to the right and people started sliding. suddenly I looked up and to the left. There were people on the top level of the ship too, and one woman started to fall but hung onto a big white banner that was hanging on the ship. I could see her in mid air halfway down to our deck and struggling but she couldn’t hang on. More people started to fall from up there and maybe she was afraid they’d fall on her.. but she lost grip of the banner and fell down several stories to the pavement. The people down below on the dock started to panic and scream.

Next thing I know, I’m sliding down from where I was standing towards the edge of the deck. I was on my back now and sliding. People who were sitting on the edge which mostly consisted of small kids between 2,3 and 8 or so, started to fall off. I twisted to my left and grabbed onto whatever I could. there happened to be a peice of cloth covering the floor next to me, I grabbed it and it slowed my slide but not by a lot. I managed to stand up and walk away from the edge to save myself. I saw the one woman who was sitting on the edge with a black skirt on fall. and all the kids around her too.
I thought I saw my sister fall but I couldn’t be sure.

I walked inside where there were people sitting on the ledge of windows. some of them were falling too. It was terrible. I knew children were dying and I didn’t know if any of those were people from my family. I don’t think Jada was in the mix but I remember being extremely concerned and distraught over Dennis’ little cousin and my own sister. I didn’t know if they had fallen too, but I knew they must have. At least I knew that D’s cousin was sitting at the edge last I saw him.

Then the ship started to jerk in the opposite direction.

The captain decided to haul the ship away from the dock instead of trying to stabilize it where it was. If the ship had stayed it would have kept rocking left and right. We were being pulled but not by another ship or tugboat. there was a long blue ramp looking thing that extended out to the dark. We were being pulled by it and it was taking us to the ship yard. Everybody was now inside the boat and away from the ledges and windows. I looked around where I was but couldn’t find any of the people I knew.

We arrive at the boat yard and now i’m at the front of the ship, outside, looking down at the water over the very front of the ship . We were still being pulled. They pull the ship straight onto this blue platform a couple inches below water level. Once docked, they start to put us on smaller boats one group at a time to take us back to the scene of the accident.

Next thing I know I’m inside one of the little boats wearing a lift vest. It’s very bright inside because of the sunshine coming in through the many windows in the thing.. I look around the room and everybody looks very depressed. I’m sitting towards the middle facing the side. Sitting there with his back to the windows is one of my cousins we call picho. Picho looked tired and very depressed. He looks at me but doesn’t want to say anything to me. I get next to him and ask what’s up? He says how sad he is that I wouldn’t run off with him and decided instead to have the life that I chose. He loves me (not in a cousin way) and is miserable because of it. He gets a bit melodramatic and I feel bad for the whole situation but there’s nothing I can do.

As we approach the scene of the accident, this terrible sense of anxiety and depression came over me. I don’t know if destin is dead, I don’t know of my sister is dead. And it’s at this point I think my aunt Norma is also there and could be among the victims. I also realize that none of them (if alive) would know if i’m dead too or not. We’re pulled on to a dock that is a lower level than the one all the other partygoers were on. As I get out of the small boat and start to walk on the dock, I start to cry uncontrollably. I kneel down on the deck and put my face in my hands and just cried and cried and cried. I couldn’t move forwards, but at least if my family is on the deck and looking for me, they’d be able to see that I’m still alive. I looked up there a couple of times between sobs but I didn’t see any of them.

After a little while I got up and walked towards where the dead bodies would be. I stepped down into this concrete platform the ship was sitting on when it was docked there. The only thing left were body parts, blood and gutts. I felt that very soon, I’d be able to see that Destin was still alive and that he was still with his parents, but I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure about my sister either.

But I almost got to find out their fate when I woke up. That was early this morning about 6:45 am.

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hired some help

Don’t know if anybody remembers back (this time last year, actually) when I embarked on this mission to overhaul my back yard.. And we did it.. But we have let it slide again. At least the back yard has grass, and it isn’t as bad as it was before we resoded but there are weeds.. lots of them in the back yard AND front.

I’m just so amazed our HOA hasn’t sent us a warning yet. It really is looking like some trailer trash people live at our house. We still have that gaping hole, we have plywood leaning up against the front of the house, over grown hedges, so on and so forth.

Well, I’ve finally accepted the fact that we bought into a house we just can’t maintain on our own. There’s just too much to take care of so I hired us some help this week.

The dude passed by our house to look at it yesterday morn. Then when I spoke to him he sounded like maybe he bit off more than he could chew. the property’s bigger than what he’s used to working on, but he’ll do it anyway, he says. $75 / month and he’ll come out every other week. This is what he quoted me BEFORE he got to see it and something tells me he wishes he’d seen it before giving me a quote. LOL!! If he had up’d the price I still would have paid it. I dunno if I should pay him more anyway.

anybody know what lawn care usually goes for? I’ve got no idea. I didn’t even call anybody else. Just went wit the first guy i saw in the newspaper.

anyways, it’s really bad and there’s a lot of work to do. I think i’ll snap some before pics of it so I can compare when he’s done.

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Trying to cut TV outta my life a little bit.

Yeah, I’m a TV addict and over the last week I’ve been trying to cut it out a little. On the days I do, I find i have all this extra time I didn’t realize I had before. Like yesterday. Dennis was already asleep when i got home so it wasn’t difficult. I left it off. Didn’t get back to it till 9pm to see showdogs moms and dads. (waste of my viewing time, btw) But I managed to get all the unopenned mail and paper clutter off the kitchen countertop. And trust me , there was a lot of it.

The problem with turning it on, is that it’s addicting and difficult to turn it back off. J actually had a little tantrum when she went for her dvd’s and handed one to me but I wouldn’t put it on for her. But she got over it. Now that I think back on it. I probably should have let her see it.. but I dunno.. the damn tv is on all day with D anyways.

So, I’m going to keep up with it. (the not watching so much tv, i mean) but it won’t be easy w/ D, I don’t think. I had it off one day this past week and he was the first to turn it back on. He’s always got his face in one screen or another. If it’s not the TV, it’s the laptop.

tv turnoff week is April 25 - May 1, 2005. We’re going to attempt to do it. That week without power after the hurricanes was not so bad. Sure it was hot and sweaty but the best part was just sitting around talking and playing cards. I wanna try to capture some of that again.

Back from the trip.

I wonder if I have some kind of virus in my body or something because I keep getting these tiny blisters on the fingers of my left hand. I thought that I could just be getting bit by fleas or something, but then why would I get them only on one hand?

anyway…

we got back from our little trip to bradenton today. It was alright. Not as bad as I had made it all out to be. I turned it into this big production that it wasn’t. The long ass drive wasn’t even as bad as all that. somehow.. it didn’t feel as long as it was. But I still don’t think taking all these days off and having to pay good money to put our dogs up was worth it. I wouldn’t do it for my own family, anyway. But I never once said a negative word about it to dennis or anybody. These are thoughts I kept to myself. I think next time I might put up some kind of fight tho. damn! 4 days, 10 hours and 60+ bucks in bording fees. oy vey!!

Going on a trip tomorrow..

.. and i really wish we didn’t have to go. It just seems silly to me to have to take a collective 4 days off work to go to a going away party for someone who’s going to move to another state for a new job making tons more money than me. so hoorah for her, right? I mean, i’m glad for her and all but dam, an entire weekend, 10 hours of driving, 4 vacation days down the drain, just to celebrate something so … dumb?

I dunno, it might be a while before D gets to see his aunt again but still… rahhhggg!!!!

whatever.. it’s late, i’m tired, and we still need to pack. It’s time for bed. If i’m lucky we’ll be able to drive back sunday night.

g’night.

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