Garazon’s Den

Parcel from Cyprus

Another parcel arrived today from Cyprus. :) I get so excited when these come in. Its mostly her clothing she has been shipping ahead. There’s no cheap way to get her things here and though the post may not seem at first thought to be the cheapest way to send it,  it actually is the least expensive of any of the methods I have looked into.  This should be the last of them now I think. Alison has been shipping a box or two like this about once a week now for the last four or five weeks. It’s always the most wonderful feeling comes over me when I get one of these. Just having her things in the house now are making it feel more like she’s already here. With each one that comes in I get more excited and the reality of our day finally coming close is setting in on me big time! We’ve waited nearly three years now for this, and I swear this last month seems to be dragging on so very slowly. The day just cant come soon enough for us now. Actually in just 4 days now she will be leaving Cyprus and heading to the Uk for about a two week stopover to visit her family befroe she’s heading on to become Mrs. Garazon! :) Whooo hooo! its almost here! love you Mrs. G XXXX

I used to think patience was one of my virtues and that anything good was worth waiting for, I still do believe that. but I have to confess my patience is being stretched with waiting for our I-129F (K1 visa) petition to be approved. Yes I know there’s a huge backlog and we have to wait our turn, but it just puzzles me sometimes how the government can be so quick to want and demand things on a certain time from its citizens or else face the wrath of fines or threats of punishments for failing to comply and yet at the same time can bide its time in providing the the services that those same citizens view as equally important issues to them.  For example, let your tax payment be posted one day late and see what happens! Or fforget to check the little box on your tax return stating you are filing jointly with your spouse, even though you have the spouses name and social security # and W2 listed on the return, and the govt will recalculate the return as yours alone and send you a quite official sounding mail stating you have 30 days from the notice to pay the reconfigured tax amount or face penalties up to x amount of dollars, possible jail time, and confiscation of property among other things. (yes this happened to me and I of course sent them a reply straight away begging their almighty forgiveness for not checking that freaking box and for assuming they had the common sense to realise it was a joint return when both of our names were on it and both signed the damn thing. Sheesh… ) sorry its still a sore spot with me almost 15 years later…

Well is it too much to ask for at least the same consideration when we as tax paying citizens want at least an approximate date to get an answer to our petition, or at least to get some other response than “the case is ‘pending’ ” ? Now honestly I realise there is a backlog and insufficient staff on hand to handle the amount of visa requests that have been submitted in record numbers this past year. On the other hand if i owe them back taxes(which I don’t by the way) do they give a shit if i have the money or not.. NO! … sorry again, just venting… and be prepared, it likely wont be the last vent either in this post ;)

Anyway I just think we are entitled to some semblance of human compassion if they realise that for two people who are truly in love to be separated any longer than we have to be is just morally wrong, plain and simple. Its not like we can afford to fly back and forth for visits every so often, and even if we could its not what either of us want. Do any of these people have the slightest clue what its like to say goodbye to te love of your life at the airport, not knowing when the next kiss will be, or the next time you can wrpa your arms around your other half? they are clueless in that area, or uncaring. maybe you think I’m being harsh as I do realise there are plenty of fraudulent applications made and for probably nefarious reasons too, but there still ought to be some kind of method to take the obviously genuine cases and take the as priorities. No I don’t profess to say how that would be ascertained, but I’m sure with enough thought about it something could be worked up. After all the US govt already has more information on me than I probably know myself! it started accumulating the day I was born didn’t it, with the birth certificate~ then when I was old enough to work, a social security number.. they know where I live, what car I drive, my email address, any criminal record or lack there of, you name it they know it, whether they say they do or not. Oh I’m just frustrated and venting tonight, missing Alison and wanting our days together to start now. Just hate this waiting or wasting one more day apart, even though we are always in touch one way or another, its not the same is it. All i would really like to know is about when we can expect a decision so that we can make some sort of preparations and get things moving. she has her house there to rent, her job to consider, her children and family, and then the actual move. And if we had some idea of a general date it would be of some help as we could at least maybe manage another holiday together if its going to be more than a few months, Yes she could come here on a travel visa for 6 months, but still when the petition is approved she has to be in Cyprus to get the visa! And its not like she could fly back and pick it up, she has to go for interviews and medical checkups etc, so that’s a few more weeks i imagine. Just doesn’t seem right to me to make us go through all this, and they say this is the easiest way to get your foreign fiancee here to the US legally so you can get married. for what its worth to them i am married to her already, in my heart and before God. Bureaucracy … baaaaa

Like I said just venting tonight out of frustration of not having my angel in my arms yet again one more night. it does make it easy to see why there are so many illegals here in this country though, a whole lot easier to do it that way it appears than the route we took :(

so just in the event anyone from immigration should ever read this , I really don’t fault the govt (too much) , I just want my wife by my side, I miss her. please help us and HURRY!

Well i try to keep positive and keep patient , we both do. Sometimes it gets us down a bit, but never enough that we aren’t still amazed and loving each other more with what we have. We try to keep humour in our relationship too, its a large part of it. we always still find things to laugh at and lift each other up. So in that vein I thought I would post this email I got from somewhere, not sure now where it came from or who sent it, but it made me laugh and although its written from a British perspective I think you could change the particulars in it and it would sound just like it was written here in the States..

Dear Minister,
I’m in the process of renewing my passport but I am a total loss to understand or believe the hoops I am being asked to jump through.

How is it that Bert Smith of T.V. Rentals Basingstoke has my address and telephone number and knows that I bought a satellite dish from them back in 1994, and yet, the Government is still asking me where I was born and on what date?

How come that nice West African immigrant chappy who comes round every Thursday night with his DVD rentals van can tell me every film or video I have had out since he started his business up eleven years ago, yet you still want me to remind you of my last three jobs, two of which were with contractors working for the government?

How come the T.V. detector van can tell if my T.V. is on, what channel I am watching and whether I have paid my licence or not, and yet if I win the government run lottery they have no idea I have won or where I am and will keep the bloody money to themselves if I fail to claim in good time.
Do you people do this by hand?

You have my birth date on numerous files you hold on me, including the one with all the income tax forms I’ve filed for the past 30-odd years. It’s on my health insurance card, my driver’s licence, on the last four passports I’ve had, on all those stupid customs declaration forms I’ve had to fill out before being allowed off the planes and boats over the last 30 years, and all those insufferable census forms that are done every ten years and the electoral registration forms I have to complete, by law, every time our lords and masters are up for re-election.

Would somebody please take note, once and for all, I was born in Maidenhead on the 4th of March 1957, my mother’s name is Mary, her maiden name was Reynolds, my father’s name is Robert, and I’d be absolutely astounded if that ever changed between now and the day I die!

I apologise Minister. I’m obviously not myself this morning. But between you and me, I have simply had enough! You mail the application to my house, then you ask me for my address. What is going on? Do you have a gang of Neanderthals working there? Look at my damn picture. Do I look like Bin Laden? I don’t want to activate the Fifth Reich for God’s sake! I just want to go and park my weary backside on a sunny, sandy beach for a couple of week’s well-earned rest away from all this crap.

Well, I have to go now, because I have to go to back to Salisbury and get another copy of my birth certificate because you lost the last one. AND to the tune of 60 quid! What a racket THAT is!! Would it be so complicated to have all the services in the same spot to assist in the issuance of a new passport the same day? But nooooo, that’d be too damn easy and maybe make sense. You’d rather have us running all over the place like chickens with our heads cut off, then find some tosser to confirm that it’s really me on the goddamn picture - you know… the one where we’re not allowed to smile in in case we look as if we are enjoying the process!
Hey, you know why we can’t smile? ‘Cause we’re totally jacked off!

I served in the armed forces for more than 25 years including over ten years at the Ministry of Defence in London. I have had security clearances which allowed me to sit in the Cabinet Office, five seats away from the Prime Minister while he was being briefed on the first Gulf War and I have been doing volunteer work for the British Red Cross ever since I left the Services. However, I have to get someone ‘important’ to verify who I am — you know, someone like my doctor…
who, before he got his medical degree 6 months ago WAS LIVING IN PAKISTAN…

Yours sincerely,
An Irate British Citizen.

With all the flooding of the last few days in Iowa and other midwest states, this song has been on my mind a lot. I’m sure most of my readers are familiar with the Led Zepplin cover which is probably the best known, but searching this morning for a YT vid to post, I found out that the song was originally written in 1929!  here’s this from Wiki: “When the Levee Breaks” is a blues song written and first recorded by husband and wife Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie in 1929. The song is in reaction to the upheaval caused by the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927.  With that information I found this recording of the original.. 

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Our thoughts and prayers go out to all affected by this terrible event.

Smoke update:  Saturday- June 14, 2008

We had probably the worst smoke from the wildfire in Hyde County than we have had since the first 2 days of it starting. You could smell the smoke inside the house this morning, and just to walk outside would leave you with burning red eyes from just a few minutes out in it. It seemed to get a bit heavier too the closer I got to work, so I used my cell to try and get a couple of pictures, and it really doesn’t do it justice but you can get the idea as normally about this time the sun has been up about an hour I guess and usually its good enough light most headlights are off, but you can see here they were needed this morning.

This next shot is just crossing into Dare County across the Wright Memorial Bridge. I fight that glaring sun very clear morning and its hell to see the traffic lights normally, even at the light. Well the smoke was  thick enough this morning to block the sun a great deal and you can see how the smoke just envelopes the whole region.

This last photo was around 5 PM this evening with me just turning down the road I live on, you can see the smoke is still heavy in the air, but decreased some. not a lot though. The smell stays with you and just hangs in the air. Thankfully the wind seems to be shifting some as I write this and its clearing off a good deal now. More pics coming if we have any more rough days like this.

Update: Pics From Saturday, June 21, 2008

On the way to work Saturday morning around 7 am (yes I am always late for work!) The smoke was heavier than I have seen it since the fire started. Thankfully its not been so bad for us here with the way the wind has been blowing but I do feel really bad for those right near it having to suffer through this for such a long time. Although the fire is well contained, about 70%, just the nature of it, being more or less one huge pile of peat, is going to have this thing smoldering for weeks. It would take many days straight of a good soaking rain to even put a dent in putting it out completely. This time of year the odds are against that happening.

Just about a week ago a lightening strike in the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge sparked a fire that has to date burned about 42000 acres in Northeastern North Carolina. There’s a great deal of information and some very good links at this site, InciWeb, so I wont bother to rewrite all the many details. Suffice it to say its still not contained (40%) thus far and its effects reaching way beyond the area that is burning. This picture is from my front door in Grandy, NC yesterday afternoon on a day with cloudless skies. that isn’t just a summer time haze but smoke from the fire itself reaching us, and it got even thicker as night fell with the way the winds shifted. Needless to say with temperatures near 100 degrees, it was miserable to have to be outside. And several smoke warnings along with the heat advisory have been issued since this fire began. The photo of course doesn’t do justice to the acrid thick air that burns the eyes. I cant imagine what its like for the firefighters there on the scene.

We’ve had some relief today with the wind once more shifting and coming from the northwest, and this cold front that passed through last night has really cooled things off as well so its been a very nice day. Well the bad news is this fire is in an area that basically is a big pile of peat moss which will smolder and burn fro possibly months to come, It would only take a deluge of rain for several days straight to come close to getting this thing completely out. Not likely to be happening anytime soon. 

I remember last Wednesday morning and walking outside on the deck after i woke up and seeing the area around here very smoky and thinking too myself someone was burning leaves or trees stumps, that sort of thing which is sort of common in a rural area like this with fields being cleared and such, but then it occurred tome being that early no one would likely have been up long enough to have a fire causing that much smoke, so my next thought it was a house fire nearby but I hadn’t heard any sirens or anything like that. Well like i say its sort of common to see smoke in the area as it is legal to get a burn permit around here for clearing land. Well i just took it as a good reason to stay inside for the day and be lazy :)  It really wasn’t until the next morning I was waking up and getting ready for work that I checked the news and found out it was a wildfire and one expected to grow. I wish I had thought to get a picture of it then as it reminded me of driving in the mountains when the clouds are hanging low and its resembling a fog.  By that afternoon the wind had shifted some and it wasnt so noticeable. So its been like this a week now depending on the wind and what area is having to deal with this. I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of it here either. Not that I am hoping to get any more photos by any means, but if it gets bad again I sill post a few.   

Somehow with all these different natural disaster type of incidents occuring with so much frequency lately; floods, tornados, fires, earthquakes  I am always thinking of this line from the Cowardly Lion in the “Wizard of Oz” - “Unusual weather we’re having, ain’t it?”

Say a prayer for the family and friends of Susie Pratt a longtime friend who lost a hard tough fight to cancer this last weekend. She and Gretchen were best friends. close as sisters.

Cynthia Susanne Pratt  Susie

December 5, 1949 (?)  - May 2, 2008

Cynthia Susanne Pratt WILLIAMSBURG - Cynthia Susanne Pratt, 59, a loving wife, mother and grandmother passed away late in the afternoon May 2, 2008, after a long and valiant battle with cancer. Always a generous soul who loved sharing with those less fortunate, she will be greatly missed by her family, friends and the community. A native of Chesapeake, she was born in Norfolk to Ernest Cola and Grace Thomas Harding. She is survived by her husband of 40 years, Jim; son and daughter, Jaime and Casey; granddaughters, Alexa and Ramsey; sisters, Sharon Palmasano of Ortanna, Pa., and Ann Goodwin of Elizabeth City, N.C.; and brother, Phillip Harding of Chesapeake. A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Friday in Twiford’s Funeral Home on Battlefield Boulevard, Chesapeake. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that any donation be made in her memory to Autism Speaks at www.autismspeaks.org.

Published in The Virginian Pilot on 5/6/2008.

An online guest book has been set up online if you wish to post a message to the family. Thanks for the contributions to maintain the guest book permanently.

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.” (Proverbs 3:5-6)

JM on YouTube, Sound of Silence
This is one of my favourite songs by Simon and Garfunkel, and a great job by JM, Alison’s son, performing at ‘Spotlight’ a small show for amateurs , run by the Premiere Society, a cultural society in Limassol.

As special as this day of Love is my Beautiful Brit, no holiday will come close to the happiness we have found in each other on these dates. From the 5th of April in 2006 to this very day each has been a celebration of love beyond compare and I thank God and our angels for you my darling. Your name was written in my heart a long time before April 2006 my love, it was written the day I was born! We have always been together, destined from time beginning, always loved each other and we will always will. Happy Valentine’s Day my Beautiful Bride, I love you! XXXX
Chester XXXXX

Happy Birthday to my Beautiful Brit!

Have a great day my Love. Wish I was there to celebrate with you! Next year my angel we will do it up right! :)

Love you buches baby! XXXXX

Chester

We decided on Saturday to take a break from the tourist thing as well and spent most of the morning just around the house taking it easy. I finally met Churchill, the now famous Cyprus tortoise appearing on YouTube (along with a short cameo appearance by Benji and Natalie’s fingers.. I think!) Well he even came out long enough to pose and fill up his tortoise belly on some very good tomatoes, he’s quite an eater! And I remember Alison saying she wasn’t sure if it was a male or a female and with a little online research the gender confusion was all cleared up! :) The weather was still hot and we decided it would be a nice day to have a trip to the beach. There was a short trip or two to the store to pick up some nibbles before we got the car loaded and then we were off to get wet. It would have been nice we said to head down to Curium, but with us traveling so much the first couple of days we settled on something maybe a bit closer and a bit more secluded, Governor’s Beach. Well we didn’t want to scare the masses with the bright white body of mine! lol

the pics for this post are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/garazon/Day4Cyprus

From the website: Governor’s Beach is located midway between Larnaca and Limassol and its sandy beach and shallow crystal water it’s ideal for families with children, but also for romantic couples. (hey, that’s us! )

The name Governor’s Beach comes from the British Colonial days when the Governor used to come for a swim.

Governor’s Beach also offers the spectacular white rocks area for those who like snorkeling, boating, fishing…or have a nice walk in one of the many nature trails on the hills near by, or on the beach watching a beautiful sunrise. There is a great selection of nice restaurants, where you can enjoy your lunch or dinner sitting under the trees… just a few meters away from the crystal water of the Mediterranean Sea.

The most memorable thing for me about Cyprus and the Mediterranean , besides Alison Michelle of course! ;), is the water! I was awestruck from my first sight of the colour and how clear it is too! I literally could stare for hours at it as the blue seems so intense and its just beyond description. Well we got there and got ourselves a bed and umbrella and laid back a while to soak up some sun and just enjoy the warmth and the sounds of the sea. This was actually where I saw the most grass I had seen in one spot in Cyprus since arriving! just above the beach is a grassy area where you can get a bed and umbrella if you don’t care to be right on the sandy beach itself. The sand is quite a bit finer than what we have here and its much darker too! I think a lot of the darker sand is caused by some many islands in the bed being formed by volcanoes so naturally its going to be different than our light coloured sand. well it doesn’t feel like our sand either, its softer in a way. We finally decided to test the water and see if it was warm enough for a swim, which as it turned out was lovely really. a little cool at first, but it didn’t take long to get used to it and the hot sun above made it feel nice. Well its shallow for a good ways out and we had to walk a bit to get shoulder deep. and that is when I had the most amazing site. Being up to my neck in the sea I could look down and see my feet through the water! Stunning! I was really amazed and had to laugh out loud! Well you would have to see the water in the sounds here in NC to appreciate it, you can’t put your hand but a few inches below the surface here and it disappears from sight! very murky looking, even more so once you have been in the clear water of the Med. It makes you wonder how a place where civilization has existed for centuries more than it has here can be so clean and clear still! Well I guess ours isn’t really dirty, just has more shallow quiet parts and a lot of vegetation and trees around which drop the leaves into the water and add more particles, sort of like a strong brewed tea if you will! Instead of tea leaves its pine and poplar and oak and maple leaf tea! Anyway we had a very nice swim and I really would be tanned by now if I lived there in Cyprus as I would live at this beach if I could! Marvelous! We went back and laid in the sun for quite a while longer before heading back home, were we laid down again and tried to take a nap! Its hard work laying in the sun don’t you know!

Well being in a lazy mood we didn’t feel to fix supper so it was out to eat. We went to a place called Pizza Express… well we have a place named that here in the States but its nothing even close to the same as it is there! Here it conjures up an image of a cheap pizza shop that has maybe a dozen different combos of pizza and beer or soft drinks, maybe a salad bar.. ;) well this place was looking like one of our fancier restaurants. It was a two story type place, the center being open and you can look down and see the crowd and tables below and they have a live band or some type of entertainment playing in the evenings. The night we were there it was trio singing a lot of various style songs, from rock ballads to reggae to soul and jazz… they were quite good and we had a very good view. The food was pretty good, but for the price I think it could have been better! Alison ordered a chef’s salad I think it was, well it was supposed to have some chicken or meat of some kind, but I think she only had two or three little bites in the whole thing! and it wasnt that big a salad either! Well they have all sorts of things on the menu, from pasta to meats to pizza.. well me not being up on the fancy names of things I just got a pizza. I can’t remember the kind of pizza I ordered as they had dozens listed, and not of the toppings we think of here! So I just ordered the one I thought would be the least surprising once it arrived! it was pretty good I guess but then we were both hungry too and would have eaten anything! lol Anyway we had a nice time and enjoyed to sit with each other and listen to the music, and of course exchange a kiss or two.. or three or four… and to be sitting so happy with each others company. well that was the best part of the evening! We really didnt stay out so late and headed on home. I think that was the night we sat to watch some dvds we hired from a local shop… guess he specializes in bootlegs as none of the three worked at all! Well one did fairly well but hung up a bit! Well that was day 4 spent… maybe it was a quiet day, but one of the most wonderful of my life as I was with my Cyprus angel again all day long! My heaven! I love you Alison Michelle! I do! :) XXXX