Remember the 9 year old who was raped by her stepfather until she became pregnant with twins?

Well the Catholic Church has come out with a clarification of her case.

( And it's pretty much what you would expect )

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ICanHasCheezburger/~3/VwLEppudMRc/

http://icanhascheezburger.com/?p=168343

:: Gwen Cooper, series one, two and three, mood theme

{bored/curious/giggly}

{melancholy/okay/working}

here @ tryingtorevive

3/7/09 Arequipa-Puno
8am, and get on the bus that will take you out to railway where you will build 100m towards Burma today. More brown countryside, and in the distance, the mountains where young Juanita, so many years ago, was fed nothing but coco leaves, and chicha alcohol for days, so that she was drunk and drugged by the time her small skull was crushed. The priests believed that a last-second surge of fear would taint the body with adrenaline, so they drugged her. Apparently drugs and booze are not tainting.
Our Intrepid leader gave us all coco leaves the chew. They are chewed regularly by locals to help with all sorts of ailments, including altitude sickness. By this time, I'd had a headache for two days. I was willing to try anything.
Dry bitter leaves in the mouth, and I started chewing my cud. I was advised to keep the wad on one side of my mouth if possible. Pre-menstrually, I had a little gingivitis running around my mouth, making the left a little tender. I stuck the cud back there. Within half an hour, the left side of my face was numb, as though I'd been to the dentist.
PB spat out his leaves in short order, as they were making him feel ill, and that was the beginning of his altitude sickness. Little did we know that the leaves could bring it on as well.
PB also tells me that at some stage I wondered how the locals managed to iron the sides of the hills/sand dunes so flat.
Altitude is NOT a good thing for me. I get a mountain fixation and start worrying about them.
On to the highest elevation point at 4400 metres, and viewing of a lake which hosted some Chilean flamingoes on migration. Walking from the bus to the lake, and back again, left me definitely breathless.
As we travelled through the countryside, we saw vicuna, llama, goats, alpaca, and sheep. We stopped to photograph vicuna, and out of nowhere, a woman appeared, with her young daughter and lamb in tow. Suddenly, an array of woollen goods were on display.
Iwona and I were very taken with the lamb and took turns nursing it. When I put it down, finally, it ran straight to where Ken and Lyn were buying a woolly something, and wee'd on it. Lyn laughed. "I suppose that's real authenticity."
PB bought an alpaca beanie that makes him look like a pervy Peruvian Santa Claus. On cold nights in Puno, he would sleep wearing it. The hat would slip down over his eyes. He would wake, sure that altitude sickness had rendered him blind. Well, no better than me, waking one morning with my face pushed into the pillow and thinking I'd been rendered blind and unable to breathe.
No lunch this day. We were told to take snacks on the bus. We had enough to get by on, as long as we didn't mind lunch being chocolate, chips, sweet biscuits, and coco lollies. None of us women dared drink any water, despite needing it desperately. The last of us who'd peed in a ditch had had a bus load of tourists pull up right next to them in mid-bare-bottomed-pee.
We were then back in the bus and off to see the Sillustrani Funerary Towers. Not that I cared at this point. Nor PB, I don't think. I cared not for piles of rocks under which used to be dead people. But the dead people were removed to the museum, which we weren't to visit.
The most interesting part of the tour was while waiting for the local guide. Some children hopped off a school bus and seemed fairly interested in the curious white people. I introduced myself and got them to repeat their names to me. One pointed to himself and indicated he was ten. I signed 45. They marvelled that I was so well preserved for such an advanced age.
We took photos and they all crowded around to see themselves. They spoke some Spanish, no English, and mostly the local dialect. Quechuan? Cetchuan? Don't know now how it's spelled.
Nevertheless, I managed to communicate with a tiny girl. She and I sat out of general view of the crowd, and both sat on the ground. She waggled her feet right. I followed. I went left, so did she. Then I crossed my ankles. We mimicked each other for a while, until her friends called her to be in a photo, and I felt I'd soon attract the attention of others. A perfect quiet cross-cultural moment.
The trip around the funerary towers was good for neither PB nor I. We were both suffering altitude sickness and my body packed it in 3/4 of the way around. Dizziness, sweats, nausea, and shaking. PB was feeling mighty ordinary as well. I think it was only concern for me that got him to help me get down the stairs and back to the bus, where I was given coco tea and smelling salts. Why must my health create scenes like this?
I made a resolve to not deliberately put my health at the slightest risk to see a pile of stones ever again. I also thought that this was rapidly becoming the 'I See Dead People' tour. Mummies, funerary towers, Juanita, abandoned Incan cities, churches containing relics. Yep: I See Dead People.
A short way down the road, the bus stopped so we could all pay a farmer to pat his alpacas. Our guide helped me out of the bus so I could feed an alpaca and pet a couple of them. Two of the alpacas started to shag as Tomas posed with them. Bet he's got some holiday snaps to show his friends.
Another hour to Puno. Group dinner that I really didn't want, and then exhausted sleep. PB was not a well boy.

4/7/09 Puno
Today was meant to be a 7 hour boat trip on Lake Titicaca. I knew the night before that I couldn't face it, and had decided to opt out. PB had hedged his bets until he woke up feeling like a train wreck and went down to make his excuses.
I also had my period. Oh joy. After several months of barely-there-let's-hint-at-menopause stuff, I was experiencing Niagara Falls. The light pads and tampons I'd brought along would not do the trick.
Come 9am, I went to the local chemist, armed with no Spanish, and an air of desperation. It was easy enough to mime altitude sickness and the lass behind the counter got out both that medication or something for traveller's diarrhoea, figuring the gringo had one or the other.
Then I had to mime what I needed(a packing case of tampons, my own bed, and a hot bath, with plenty of lavender oil and a couple of Cherry Ripes, along with a good fat dose of pain killers). I greatly entertained all in the store with my antics. "Pssshhh, pssshhh!" I hissed, whilst making vague hand gestures near my crotch.
Incontinence pads? No.
Urinary tract infection? No.
Thrush? No.
Finally, after much hilarity all around the store, she led me behind the counter and got me to point at what I wanted. All customers nodded knowingly. Ahhh, si, si.
What are dignity and privacy? I don't know any more.
I went back to the hotel, wondering if I had a sign on my back that said: "La Tourista Idiot". Or perhaps "Mime School Failure".
I dosed PB and told him to stay in bed and just have his man flu. After years of a child who liked to fake illness to get out of school, my response is to say 'if you're sick, lie down and be sick, and don't fanny pretending to be well'.
While I read 'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies', drugs and sleep worked their miracle on PB and he arose, ready for mild tourism.
Our Intrepid guide had organised a taxi to take us up to La Condor, the huge statue that stands sentinel over Puno. It is a lookout point where we could get good pictures of Puno and the lake.
The taxi driver got lost 3 times on the way to our hotel. He had to ask for directions 7 times on the way to La Condor, asking old women, police officers, other taxi drivers, small children, construction workers, and passing dogs. There was one mild hill the taxi would not climb so we slid back down and had to try another street instead. We got to see the back streets of Puno, where houses were being carved out of the rock and ground.
As I chugged past in the dusty, grinding taxi, children who'd possibly not ever seen a redhead waved, and I felt like the Queen, waving back.
We reached the lookout with some relief, and our taxi driver told us proudly he was a native of Puno. If I were him, I wouldn't bandy that around. I would have said I'd only arrived half an hour ago and didn't know the area at all.
He explained about La Condor, saying the word 'mirror' many times, but I could not understand exactly what he was getting at. A beacon for ships? Perhaps, under certain light conditions, and times of year, the sun hit something on La Condor and sent a beam of light to its companion on another hilltop, La Puma.
Did we want to go see La Puma. PB initially said yes, but I said that I wanted to go back to the hotel. I had visions of a ten hour journey through back streets as our driver tried to find his way. I had visions of being kidnapped and no one knowing where I was. No thanks, I have a pressing appointment with the town square and journal writing, and people watching.
With only one wrong turn, and several pauses while the taxi driver looked both ways doubtfully, we were deposited back 'home'.
The afternoon was indeed one of sitting in the sunshine, me writing, and PB shooing away shoeshine boys, shoeshine men, women selling woolies, and small girls selling finger puppets. "No gracias" was starting to become a way of life.
When I decided to go for a stroll, PB went back to the hotel to have a sleep. I quickly became lost, and Puno is the only city where I felt uncomfortable or in danger. Off the main drag, Lima St, Puno is a jigsaw puzzle of grey back streets, all doors shut, all windows barred, and only the occasional person walking past. I looked incredibly touristy, and felt small and vulnerable. I could not find Lima St or the main square. Each turn I took seemed to take me further into no man's land.
"Perdonne?" I asked several people but they brushed past me, almost pushing me off the narrow footpath. Then they would turn to size me up and keep walking. When I looked back again, they disappeared into a silent doorway. Once, two other heads stuck out and stared at me.
My heart started to race.
Then I saw a thin teenage girl in a hurry.
"Perdonne, senorita. Lima Street?"
She thought about this a moment, then nodded and walked me all the way to Lima St and the main square.
I could not say 'gracias' enough. She did not pause for a tip, but went about her business. Goddesses bless that girl whose name I will never know. She saved a nervous tourist from a panic attack.
I all but ran back to the hotel and crawled into bed with PB, who must have wondered why I was so insistent at burrowing into the curve of his body. We slept for a while and then he crept out to meet the returning 'boat people'.
He came back to tell me that we were all catching a public night bus to Cusco. 10pm. Oh joy. I think for the first time, I hated this tour, hated our guide, hated Peru.
But the alternative was to rebel and be stuck alone in Puno.
I got up, packed up, and reported for dinner and bus.
If my period was already doing its heavy duty thing, it thought the perfect time to pass clots and go thoroughly berserk was on the bus. I longed for terrorists to shoot me.
At some point, the bus went off road, as we had to avoid road works. Nothing but excitement on this tour. Good thing I didn't read the itinerary. I assumed it was all part of the experience.
3am into Cusco and falling into bed. Blankets on the bed heavy enough that I couldn't move if I wanted to. It was like being covered in cats. I slept like the dead.

So Morwyn was diagnosed with Addision disease a few months ago. She has to get monthly injection. She also have lost all her undercoat, making her looking rather small. She's good day to day though. In fact, we took the pups to hiking today and they had a great time.

Zooey & Emily Deschanel mood theme here.

Zooey & Emily Deschanel mood theme here.

Breakfast at Baldies.

Transport Chris' new bike to shop for final adjustments,

Taiko for work on Hiryuu San-dan Gaeshi

Fremont Chili Cook-Off and Firefighter's Championship.
Missed out on the winning Chili as it was all gone by our arrival.

Shopping for critical need cat food.

Chris dropped me home then went out grocery shopping, then made dinner.

We've spent the evening catching up on Kings and catchup on Facebook & LJ.

Character on screen (talking to musician buddy: "Remember the old days, huh? Banging away on that old Fender."

Me: "Yeah, I couldn't afford a guitar."

Character on screen: "His will insisted that they bury him with his violin."

Me: "It was in a terrible state by the time they finished digging the hole."

I now have a...well, no, not a plot bunny, because I don't have a plot, but a feeling that there really should be a Charmed/Kindred: The Embraced/Poltergeist: The Legacy crossover*--too many of the same stock shots of San Francisco, I suppose. The first two both have a lead character working for a local newspaper that's owned by a rich and charismatic person, and it seems to me perfectly logical that Julian Luna (the vampire Prince of SF in Kindred) should have set up the Luna Foundation (from Poltergeist, the front for the Legacy) as a way of dealing with all the other occult nonsense while he maintained the Masquerade. And that none of the Legacy members, or the Charmed Ones, would necessarily know anything about this.

Phoebe: Grams, you never mentioned all this stuff about vampire clans in the Book of Shadows!

Grams: (dismissively) Oh, my dear, I never bothered with politics.

Watching too much television? Moi? You decide.

*No intention of writing it, though. Anyway, ffutures probably already has.

HOW_2745
Originally uploaded by how3ird.

The photo walk was a LOT of walking, in balmy 86° sunshine, pretty blue sky with whispy clouds. We started at the silent film museum, formerly Charlie Chaplin's Essanay Studios, walked under the RR tracks to the railway depot and toured the SF Railway Museum's display of half a dozen historic cars, then hoofed it across to the other side of Niles to the dog show at the park.

There's a separate small set of photos here of the Railway Post Office car.

1/7/09 Nazca-Arequipa
My notes say: a fucking 12hr bus ride! I cannot disagree with that. It still sticks in the memory and the craw.
"What to say about this but 2 billion miles of brownish-grey sand dunes reaching up forever and pretending to be hills, brown bare mountains, long skinny stretches of road?"
Lunch in Puerto Inca where the house specialty was goat. Sigh. Already I am sticking things into my gullet that I would not have dreamed possible six weeks ago. A heavy, dark meat that did nothing for me but make me even sleepier.
Not enough toilet stops, but there are those out there who are convinced my bladder is the size of a blanched almond. There are never enough toilet stops and I'm sure XP retains fond memories of our bonding moment re peeing in the dark at Confest.
We ladies are reduced to being excited if the toilet has a seat or toilet paper. Never mind both. That's a holy grail that is not achievable in Peru. Forget adquate flushing, cleaniness or lighting, or somewhere to wash your hands. Oh, how we envy the men the ability to stand up. Squat toilets suck. I always manage to pee sideways into my shoe, on my trouser leg, or somehow, bewilderingly, straight forward onto my knickers and pants(re Hawaii, and again Peru). What the hell is wrong with my plumbing? I squat down and turn into a lawn sprinkler.
Into Arequipa in the late afternoon. PB and I had dinner with Mika, missing a group dinner. A pleasant vegetarian place that made excellent soups, and hot green vegie dishes. Mika and I are in love.
After dozing all day on the bus, I am ready for decent sleep.

2/7/09 Arequipa
PB and I are in separate beds, and not very good at it. Our respective ages add up to 98. We both sleep alone most of the year. And yet we turn into sooky pusses at being separated for a whole night. He gets up to go to the toilet, comes back, gets into bed with me till I throw him out. Vice versa. It's quite pathetic and sad, really.
I seem to remember, at one point, being 3/4 asleep and PB sitting on the floor with his head under my hand. I think I thought he was the cat and petted him accordingly. May have even pulled his ears the way Baby likes it. At least he didn't curl around my hand and kick it with his back feet, claws out(Baby and Penny) or give me love bite(Angel).
This is the morning where I start thinking I'm on an enforced march across Singapore a la 'A Town Like Alice'. "You vill get up, you vill do ze enforced tour, you vill like it, you vill drink 2 litres of vater and zere vill be no toilets for you."
PB and I hum 'Colonel Bogey' and chat about the Kokoda Trail, the Burma Railway, and bridges over the river Kwai.
Our first stop for the day was the local market where we were instructed not to bring our purses as there would be no chances to buy anything. So close to all that lovely fresh produce. Fibre-giving apples, bananas, passionfruit, oranges. So close to underwear that could cover me head to foot. Oh, the dried frogs I could buy, the llama fetuses I could own! I was particularly taken with the shaman's corner, where there were 'sexy perfumes' that would make you smell like you'd just done naughty things with a snake(naked lady and snake on packet), and sex teas, as well as strange-smelling herbs, and the ubiquitous coco tea for every ailment under the sun. One shaman showed me a preserved snake on a stick and made me shriek. She giggled.
Then upstairs to see the flower sellers, and one woman said that they all had to arrive at 4am to get set up. Not so different from the Vic Market, then. All under shelter but the roofs had big sloping gaps. I was surprised until I remembered how little rainfall was expected in a year. Desert area, Satya. Der.
Back into the minibus and off to see a church. Another church, Jesuit this time. The dome inside was highly decorated. The Jesuits went to the jungles and came back with their minds swarming with images. The dome reflects this and each cornice features a Peruvian face. The overwhelming colour of the dome is pink, but is so busy that one could spend hours examining it. How to make the church appealing to the locals? Give them what they were familiar with.
In one corner of the chapel was the reliquary and actual bones were on display.
A pleasant enough town square with a strong Spanish influence. Several old men were placed around the square with old portable typewriters in their laps. One could get a letter or important document typed up for a few sol.
I think I recognised my second typewriter. Possibly that very one. I seem to remember donating the poor clapped out thing to some overseas fund.
Then, back into the minibus(yar, get along there, mules!) and off to see the convent, whose walls were outside our bedroom window, and whose bells woke us faithfully at 6am.
The convent was created by a rich widow, who I suspect, wanted to escape from the world. She founded an order of nuns who were cloistered. Second daughters as young as 11 were sent to the convent to become nuns because it was considered a free pass into heaven if you had a nun in the immediate family. First daughters were to marry off well.
These young girls were confined to the novices' quarter, and to their rooms for approximately 20 hours a day, being let out only twice a day to recite the rosary from paintings around the courtyard. For 2-4 years this was their life. Then they became full nuns.
Later on, the convent also opened a school, and girls as young as six were sent there to be taught how to be good wives - cooking, sewing, etc. Enough reading to recite a few prayers. And if you were a second daughter, often, from there, it was straight over to the novices' quarter.
I felt for these girls and could feel their suffocation, and hear their weeping.
As we toured the convent, I kept noticing the red geraniums planted everywhere. I pulled away from the group. Mum had red geraniums in her back yard. I sat down and took some blooms in my hand, and burst into silent tears. I felt her with me, and I missed her so much. She never got to see me go overseas, do what she dreamed of doing but never did.
Possibly the suppression of the convent linked to what Mum probably felt most her life, but she was there so strongly and I just wanted to lie my head down on a bench and be with her and say, eventually: "Look where I am, Mum. Peru. Who would have thought? Look at the good man who brought me here."
But the tour moved on, and I had to suck up my tears and move with it, even though I was hollow inside and needed time in the sunshine and the stillness of the convent.
Out of the convent, as the nuns were not allowed to do, and I skipped the group lunch to find a cafe with PB. There, I ate a simple toasted tuna sandwich and it was the best thing I'd ever eaten. I wanted three more but didn't want PB thinking I was a tuna pig. Nor did I want to eat too heavily.
Our guide showed us the factory outlet for baby alpaca knitwear and we all learned the difference between the good stuff and the cheap stuff. I love my alpaca socks, even if they do smell alpacary when washed.
Most of the group went off to the local ice museum in the afternoon to see Juanita, the tiny ice princess who was found, sacrificed and preserved, high in the Andes. I was intrigued, but the morning's emotional moment had left me tired. I opted for sitting in the main square, catching up on my journal, and feeding the pigeons. Many pigeons, who aren't too fussy to climb on your arms and peck popcorn out the packet. PB dubbed me the Bird Lady of Arequipa.
I then doused myself in hand sanitiser.
That evening, we returned to the vegetarian restaurant for excellent savoury crepes, followed by a chocolate crepe that came with two scoops of icecream, and a glace cherry on top of each scoop.
We looked at the dessert. We looked at each other.
"I wish Shorty were here," I said.
"Boobies!" said PB.
'Boobies!' is Shorty's catchcry.
Delicious dessert, once we spoiled the booby perfection, and we rolled home to our separate beds.

"Listen to your heart". If I read that in a book, or hear it in a talk, or even hear it in a reading one more time....POW! Right in the kisser!
If I listen to my heart it goes da-dum da-dum da-dum. I hope it does, because if it's going boom chucka wocka-wocka then I need some serious medical attention.
If I listen to my heart, I chuck out the housemate and move my son back in part-time.
If I listen to my heart, I even pack up my house and move overseas for six months, provided I can get there by boat, not plane, and I'm not clear that many freighters go from Melbourne to Vancouver. And then I would cry for want of my boy, my cats, and my girl.

"Do what you love and the money will come." This was first said to me by a woman who enjoyed a little part-time business as a tarot reader, whilst comfortably supported by her nicely-off husband.
I do do what I love. I also need to eat.

Still crabby, and now I have Godzilla battling a metal monster on the Wii in the front room. It's loud, and every time TB asks me to play, I don't know which buttons to push, and Godzilla whops the arse off me. How come I have to a Mothra-larva while he gets to be something huge with sharp claws. What's a larva going to do - lick him to death?

A great feature in this month's NOVA magazine with a woman who learned yoga in Changi, and brought her practice back to Australia, and at age 91 looks wonderful.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ICanHasCheezburger/~3/9qSIrcz0chM/

http://icanhascheezburger.com/?p=168574

I'm looking for a mood theme, using pics of the band Aiden. I've never found one, so I don't know if it even exists. Any help would be appreciated.

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( download link and instructions @ staticlost )

:: Gwen Cooper, series one, two and three, mood theme

{bored/curious/giggly}

{melancholy/okay/working}

here @ tryingtorevive

We just sent in a venom order form. I love my job. (It's for someone's allergy shots. "Mixed vespid." Sounds like a salad dressing! Worst. salad. dressing. ever.)

Today is full of very, very chatty customers who wish to kill time in my air-conditioned store instead of venturing back outside. I just had a 30-minute conversation about carrying cases for gum brushes. It concluded with this exchange:

"Would you like a bag?"
"Oh, no, I'll eat it here."

(They didn't. I was so disappointed! Also relieved that I didn't have to practice my rusty Heimlich maneuver skills.)

My room is an oven in this heat. Last night I woke in the middle of the night when my radiator boiled over (I assume) and gave up and went to lie on the tile in the kitchen for a couple of hours until my alarm went off. Ick! But the sunshine is so cheering that I cannot complain. Well, okay, I just DID complain, but I feel sort of sheepish about it, at least. This weather seems to me to call for over-priced fair food, and I'm thinking of going to Playland, the local dinky rollercoaster emporium, on my day off on Monday. Not for rollercoasters, you understand. Blarf! But for spinny rides and corn dogs.

Playland never used to seem dinky until Amy took me to Cedar Point. Spoiled! So I am going back to Cedar Point in August for the er, reunion tour! Planes! Trains! Gondolas! Funnel cakes! I am getting maybe a teensy little bit super excited. This time around I won't be a post-Worldcon zombie, either. Not that an amusement park demands full mental attention, to be fair. (Hyuk, FAIR! GET IT?) Especially when you drag along (kicking and screaming! Honest.) an expert tour guide. Amy is like an amusement park sommelier. "Ahh, spinny, medium velocity, low height, 7 out of 10 on the vomitrocious scale... here is your ride menu, madam! That will be 3 pixystix, please."

I bought some sparkly orange nail polish with the intention of painting my right index fingernail so I would remember not to cut it. (I need a long nail to play clawhammer banjo.) Disaster! My teenaged cashier struggled and failed to contain her laughter as I mal-applied it, lost half on the heat-sealer, and then accidentally dissolved most of the rest. She tells me all I need is a base coat and a top coat to prevent such tragedies, but I am suspicious that nail polish is just a bad idea for my profession. Oh well. Maybe I'll just paint something orange and sparkly on my new banjo case.