MY TREE

I grew up in the small town of Winter Haven Florida.  It is located in central Florida and famous for Cypress Gardens and The Land of Lakes.

Our little house was located down the street from the local Junior College and across the street from a baseball park which had four baseball diamonds.  The park was not fenced in and we went there to play everyday.

My brothers and sisters and I often walked across the street to play baseball of frisbee or sometimes ran in the sprinklers in our bathing suits in the Summer.

Mommy sent us outside to play so that she didn't have to put up with us and sometimes I stayed close by just to be able to hear her call me or one of the other children.  More often than not, she wanted us to do something.  You could call it stressed out when it came to me because she often called me the most for some kind of chore and it was usually washing the dishes.

I was the youngest girl of the six children and the most reliable.  I knew better than to be out of earshot from her yell when she yelled for me.  It was yelling more than calling. 

If she didn't yell for me herself, she would send my sister outside to yell for me.  She always yelled, "Heather!, Mommy wants you!"  I yelled back, "What does she want me to do now?"  She answered, "She wants you to wash the dishes."  Of course she does.  I knew neither of my sisters would do it even they they were much older and I had to stand on a chair to be able to reach the sink.

So, I made sure I stayed as close to the corner of the park as possible.

I found a little tree not far from the corner and I would lay under it daydreaming of leaving home and never seeing my family again.  As I lay there, I would pull the grass out of the ground and watch the ants walk up and down the tree.  I was careful to look for red ants because they bite the most.  At the time I did not know that black ants bite too, but I found out later that they really do.

I watched the clouds roll by and listened to the small planes fly overhead. I often wondered where flew and how far.  As a young girl I didn't know much yet.   So wondering these things is normal.  

I claimed that tree as mine and nobody could have it; not even my siblings.

Soon I would hear the yell.  It must have stressed me out because I couldn't concentrate on anything else but her yell.

I found a little bit of peace under my tree and wished I never had to leave it.  I wonder what happened to it and if any other little girl ever found herself lying under my tree.

Those day were fond memories but only without hearing, "Heather! Mommy wants you!"

ONE GOOD MEMORY WITH MY MOMMY

 My mother wasn't the best mother.  she was bad and very evil most of her life.

To me she was kind and loving at times.  I was her special girl or at least she tried to make it seem that way.

Despite her bad ways, she surprised me sometimes when she spent a little bit of alone time with me .  Of course, I wasn't her only child but something about me made her act kindly towards me in a way that she was reaching out to show me she loved me.

I was 14 after we had lived in San Francisco for about a year since moving from Florida.

San Francisco was very different from the small town I grew up in in Florida.  I had never seen a big city and my mother often spoke of growing up in New York and telling us about tall buildings , escalators, buildings and shops everywhere. She talked about Central Park and how it was in the middle of the city.

San Francisco brought many exciting new adventures for all of us to experience.

As we began to get acquainted with and explore all the new places and things to see and do that we never imagined,  were amazed to find out that there was a huge park in the city called Golden Gate Park.  

We found buffalo roaming around a very large , fenced in area in the park.  That was hard to believe, but there they were just walking around living in the park.

There is Stow lake where people can rent pedal boats and row boats and take a row around the lake and see the turtles and ducks.

There is also a Japanese Tea Garden to explore the cherry blossoms and other plants and enjoy a refreshing cup of tea.

The memory I have is of the children's playground in the park where there was a Merry-Go Round that you had to buy a ticket to ride on. this was something new to my eyes. I knew since we were poor that I didn't ask my mother for a ride.  

Instead she surprised me when she bought a ticket for me.  My brothers were with us that day and they played at the playground and seemed content at their play.

My mother watched as I got on one of the horses and she told me to hang on tight to the strap. She said, "Grab the ring as you go around".  I didn't know what she was talking about so I looked around for a ring.  I saw what she meant when I noticed the other children reaching out to grab a ring off of a pole.

I don't know why they have rings to grab, I guess it was to have a fun ride and have some kind of a challenge. 

The little things she did with me probably made her a little bit happy.  She did seem happy that day just to see me on the Merry-Go-round.  I smiled and laughed as I rode and she waved each time I passed by her.  I waved back each time.

Just a little bit of happiness with my Mommy. A nice memory of her when we lived in San Francisco.

 

The Half Naked Neighbor

 

 

Neighbors and Parking

 

I live in a neighborhood that used to be very quiet and decent.   The neighbors did not make a lot of noise or disturb other neighbors.  People kept to themselves and I did not get to know any of them.

I live in the front apartment with a window facing the street.  I can see the other apartments and houses on the street and I can watch people walking their dogs and children playing nearby.

At first I thought I was finally free from the noisy neighborhood that we were in before my divorce and I could enjoy this new neighborhood with the feeling of peace and the newly found freedom from my marriage.  Neighbors in today’s times do not get acquainted or welcome new comers to the neighborhood.   They stay away, keep to themselves and never even say “Hi” when they see you walking by.

They are unfriendly and unkind and unwilling to show a friendly smile. I suppose that is the way it will be from now on. 

So, my story will show how people continue to act in the manners they portray themselves to be, and that is not the so-called “Love thy neighbor.”

As time went by I kept an eye on who was coming and going and moving in or out.

In the beginning of my living here in this cramped one bedroom apartment with my young son who was still in high school at the time I took time to drop him off at school early in the morning.  Thinking that I could park my car anywhere on our street, I parked in front of a big white house for only a few minutes after returning from dropping my son off at school  and when I came out of my apartment to get into my car to go to work I noticed a scribbled note on my windshield.   The note read “Do not park in front of our house; move your car because my wife parks here.”

Not only was the note there, but both of the owners of the house suddenly parked both of their cars one car in front and one car in the back totally trapping my car in so that I could not move my car at all.   Their cars were not there when I parked earlier so this was deliberate.

I was so angry I screamed at both of them and threatened to call the police.   I have never seen these people before and have never spoken to them at all before this.  The man yelled at me to move my car and I yelled back at him to move his truck and he refused and said his wife needed the spot, so I yelled at him and her words they didn’t like and she had the nerve to call my words not so Christiany and I yelled back, “what kind of Christian blocks someone’s car in so much as to trap them in so that they can’t even get out?”  These people have never even parked across the street nor did they have a garage or a driveway.   She never walked away from the front door to talk to me to my face and I called her chicken because she would not dare to face me. 

After my horn blowing and yelling for several minutes , he finally moved his truck and kept yelling at me as if it were my fault and I was the criminal.

I decided to park there anyway and every time I tried, he would automatically park his huge truck there just so I could not park.

So began the beginning of not wanting to know my neighbors.  I had to resort to parking down the block and across the street from my own apartment and yet, again, I found notes on my car telling me not to park in front of other people’s houses.  This was insane and illegal and harassment. 

I spoke with the police about it and they told me that it was harassment and I can press charges if I knew who put the notes on my car.

Well, the other times it happened I did not know who put the notes on my car.  The feeling I got from this was that of them being against me or people are outright mean and rude, selfish and very un-neighborly.

By the way, in the next few years, my son got his own car and we are allowed 1 parking spot in our carport at the apartment, so I park on the street everyday.  There is a parking rule that there is no parking between the hours of 2 AM and 4 AM in our city.

I have to prove to the police that I need a parking permit and they have to approve it and it cost $80.00 per year for me to park on my own street where I live and still struggle to find parking because of my “nice” neighbors.

I still feel the same and I stay away from all of my neighbors.  

I continue to get the feeling that I am not welcome in my own neighborhood even though I have lived here almost 20 years.

Parking is still a constant problem and I am getting older and nobody cares how much I struggle and how many times I drive around the block just to find a parking spot.  Most of the time I find one across the street or on the next block over and walk all the way back to my apartment with heavy bags of groceries and large baskets of laundry that I must wash at the laundry mat once a week.

The amount of time and all of the years I struggled through by keeping myself away from the neighbors I hoped to gain a sense of invisibility. 

I do not always keep my invisibility quiet; I sometimes say things out loud hoping to catch the attention of someone who actually cares about my struggling.

I also want them to know that I am a human being and I do exist and I do need to feel safe and welcome in my own neighborhood.  I do not feel safe or welcome to this day.

 

The New Woman Next Door

 

There is a house directly next door to my bedroom window.  I say this because this house is the closest to my apartment.

The first neighbor was a man who kept to himself and was not noticeable.  He did not live there long and it didn’t make any difference to me.

Soon after he moved out a woman moved in and she seemed to live alone.  At first she didn’t bother me or my son until she began watering her lawn late at night and the noise woke me up and so I had to say something. 

I decided on my own to approach her after 10 PM while she was standing in the front yard watering the lawn.  I explained that the sound of the watering was disturbing our sleep.   She retaliated by yelling at me and said she had the right to water any time she wanted to and wasn’t going to stop.

 

I asked her to stop again and she responded the same way, so after that I finally called the police to step in to stop her.

 

I came home from work one day and found eggs splattered all over my bedroom window.

 

I found egg shells on the ground directly under my window.   I did some detective work and noticed the angle of how the eggs landed on my window was at a slant which determined that the eggs were thrown from her driveway and not as far away as the sidewalk or the street.

 

Someone had to walk up her driveway to throw the eggs.  I also knew that is was not a Halloween prank because it was 3 days after Halloween and young teenagers or children were not around this neighborhood. 

 

I called the police about this incident too and they told me to stay away from her and added that it was best not to approach anybody at all, not even knock on doors and be a good neighbor just to say hello. 

 

Retaliation is a major factor these days since violence is more common than not and the fact that the police are not very helpful with anything, they believe threatening me with jail just for calling them is supposed to stop me from calling them.  That is exactly what they did and keep on doing.  I am not allowed to ask anybody to keep the noise down or knock on their door just to say hi. 

 

What kind of world are we really living in?

 

The woman lived by herself for a few years and later a man moved in with her.

 

They did not bother me throughout the remainder of the time they lived there.

 

The Bedroom Window

While we lived here I was able to open my bedroom window and let in fresh air and sunlight.   I could listen to the birds and the airplanes and the rustle of the trees when the wind blew.  I felt the breeze and felt alive and I could breathe the fresh air in the Fall and enjoy the extra daylight in the Summer and see the moon as it rose up in the East.  It was a nice feeling and a homey feeling. 

It was my window, my very own bedroom for me to enjoy my living in.  After all, I was divorced and finally in my very own apartment for the first time in my life.  I was happy to have this fresh new experience in my late adult life. 

 

Only soon would some mean half-naked man take all of that away from me. 

We had moved in around 2004 and life was ok except a few hiccups like the parking experience and the noisy neighbors.  Then in 2017 “he” moved in.

 

The Half-Naked Neighbor

In early 2017 my son and I were having financial struggles, but still able to manage the rent for this apartment.   I had a brother who lived up in Northern California so one day I decided to go up there to try to live with him and look for a job just to get away from the Los Angeles area.

In the meantime, my son found some roommates he could share the apartment with. 

While I was up North, I was having some difficulty finding work and the town was very small so jobs were scarce. 

That idea went down the drain so I decided to return home.  I was only gone a few months so everything was the same.

 

I was back in my bedroom, still looking for work and home everyday since I was unemployed.

 

I noticed the woman next door was still living there so I wasn’t worried about any changes.

 

About a month after my return, I saw what looked like a moving truck parked outside the house next door.

 

As I looked outside I was shocked to see that the man who had been living there had already moved out.

 

Within a day the woman was gone too.

 

This was strange.   They moved out in such a hurry.

 

Wow!  Before the week was over, there was a strange man moving in the house and there wasn’t even a for sale sign or a for rent sign.

 

He showed up out of nowhere.  “Did he kick her out?” I asked my son.   He was just as surprised as I was and wondered the same.

I was outside and heard the man talking to some people and he was introducing himself as the owner of the house and that he just moved back from Seattle.

He saw me and said his name was Mark and he was there to fix up the house for his parents.  I answered politely by introducing myself and welcoming him to the neighborhood.

 

Little did I know that that was a mistake.   But try to be a good neighbor.  Why bother?

 

I do know a few of the people in the apartment building that we live in so we were able to exchange information from time to time about what is going on and how things are in our lives.

 

Some had already met Mark and formed an opinion of him and it was not positive information.

 

I saw Mark outside of his house every day and he was usually half-naked.  He often only wore a pair of very short shorts and never wore a shirt.

 

He slowly began to fix up his house and he was often on the phone talking very loud to someone about repairing something. 

 

The other neighbors who lived next to him or across the street were getting acquainted with him as he told everyone he met that he was there to fix up the house for his parents.

 

My neighbors were getting the scoop on him as well.  They found out that he was a former policeman and a former fireman.  Strange that he was former of both occupations.

 

Why was he really here?  Why didn’t he work?

 

I guessed he didn’t work because he was home all the time.

 

It was none of my business but mysterious all the more. 

 

We heard him working day and night.  He did everything himself.   He began to get very noisy and bothersome.

 

Now he had several cars and a very long driveway that he could park all of them in.  He decided that he would park his pickup truck on the street and he took the front spot directly in front of my apartment. 

 

We thought he would change parking spots when he drove it sometimes but he never did.

 

He took that spot and would not give it up.  He exchanged the spot with his other cars sometimes and while he did not park there my son or I or another person would try to park there.  When we did this he deliberately parked his car in front of my son’s car and blocks him in so that he could not get it out at all. He parked in his driveway with the back of the car sticking out onto the street.  (Supposed to be illegal, but hey, cops didn’t care)  My son knocked on his door and asked him to move his car and he refused and threatened him and called my son a name that is not a name anyone would like to mention in today’s ugly world. 

 

My son had to carefully squeeze out of the parking spot so that he could go to work. At any rate he had to get out no matter what.

 

This caused us concern for our safety and we called the police about it and they would not do anything but ask him to move his car.  He reluctantly moved it later.

 

After talking to the neighbors I found out that he had pointed a gun at another neighbor and threatened that person for trespassing.   He put up a no trespassing sign on his lawn so now the police say that he can shoot anyone who comes onto his property uninvited.

 

He continues to park his truck in the same spot and added another car to his driveway and occasionally blasts his music from this other car, which is a convertible and he parks it directly next to my bedroom window.

 

 

 

 He stays up very late every night fixing something and talking outside on his phone next to my window.  This truly is unbelievable and annoying.  I have called the police on him several times and they refuse to do anything but ask him ever so politely to keep quiet and turn down the music. 

 

I told the police that I notice that he put up a camera and a light directly facing my window.  They said it is not illegal and I can put up a camera too.

 

That is not the point.  The point is that he is allowed to do this and he is spying on my privacy by doing this intentionally and getting away with it.  The light goes on several times most nights and shines very brightly into my window.

 

I am not allowed my privacy or my health or safety in my own home and now I am suffering without being able to open my window or open my blinds to look outside at all.

 

As long as he lives there I cannot live life in peace and healthy with fresh air and sunshine because he is allowed to destroy it.

 

I have to keep my window completely closed and blacked out.  I cannot enjoy my life the way I did before he came.

 

I am a prisoner in my own bedroom and the police let him do it.

 

He continues after 6 years to fix his house , dress half-naked , park wherever he chooses, threaten others and myself and my son, play his loud music and spy on me and shine his bright light into my blacked out window and talk very loudly on the phone outside his house constantly .  The man never shuts up nor has he ever worn a shirt with his skimpy little shorts.

 

I had brief conversations with 2 or 3 neighbors from across the street and they do not like him and tell me to stay away from him, he is a very bad man.

 

No joke, this man is nuts and needs to be locked up.  But according to the police he can do anything he pleases including dressing indecent everyday.

 

 

By the way, he even parked a NYFD fire truck in front of my apartment for about a year.  A real New York Fire Department truck actually from New York, sitting right here in California.  Maybe it was a 9-11 souvenir.   (JK)

 

Today he is still working on his yard in 2023 and he even planted two fire hydrants in his front yard and the rest of the yard is covered in black plastic.

 

To end, there is a large banner hanging from his porch that reads:  F’ Biden. 

 

Does this mean he is a nice half naked neighbor?

 

 

The End

 

                                                                                       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 1973 LAKE WALDENA FLORIDA

I rode my bike through the woods to find a small country store.  

It was the Summer of 1973.  My mom and my siblings and I altogether at camp Lake Waldena.  

We were moving away from my childhood home in Florida.  We would camp at the lake for the entire Summer.  Unlike the other families that spent their vacation time at the lake for a few days or a few weeks, we were actually living there until our Mom found a place to live in the town of Ocala.

We only had the red bike that we shared.  Since it was my bike , I rode it the most.

The only place to buy groceries was at a little country store about three miles away from the camp down a dirt road in the woods.

I could have gotten lost if I left the road.  The trees were very tall in the sky and there were many of them surrounding me.

I was eleven years old and unaware of dangers like animals, fires or the boogie man.  I loved riding down the dirt road always careful of bumps and large rocks and holes.  The forest was endless and a bit scary.

I finally found the store.  It was like Ike's store on the Walton's.

It had most of the groceries that I needed.   I carried them home in the basket that was attached to the front of the handlebars.

Living at the campsite in one tent altogether is not fun. We had sleeping bags and cots and it was very cramped.  There were seven of us total.  Six kids and our mom.

The lake was okay for swimming and my sister liked fishing more than swimming.  She caught some fish that we could cook and eat.  Back home, where we used to live, we never had any kind of fish other than fish sticks.  So actually cooking fish for the first time was a messy struggle to learn how to cook  and a new experience. 

Thunderstorms came and went often.  they were more scarier since our shelter was only mode of cloth and a zipper for a door.  Thunder and lightning hit very hard and loud for several days.

We were running out of food and we had to wait for the storms to pass then we could ride the bike down to the country store again.  My sister and brother went with me this time.  My sister rode the bike and my brother and I walked.

Our other siblings chose to stay at the camp with mom all the time to play and swim.  

When the rain stopped the weather was warm.  The ground dried quickly and the dirt road was muddy in some areas and hard and dry in other areas.

We couldn't  stay at the campsite longer than they allowed.  

School would start soon and we had to find a home to live in and it had to be big enough for the seven of us.

Our time at the camp was unique in a way that other families could not understand.  It was our survival when we needed it.  Visitors wondered why we were there so long.  My mom simply said we loved camping and wanted to enjoy the summer. 

We knew the real reason and I knew that mentioning the real reason would not be understandable and very complicate to explain or be believable.

In the next year and a half I would ride that same bike down an actual highway to the only 7-Eleven that I had heard of for the first time in my life, near the next tiny town we moved to.

How do I get my Blog noticed?

How do I get my Blog noticed?

I have heard about blogging for many years now, but I cannot get anyone to read mine.

Does blogging still exist? 

There was a time when the Internet did not exist and suddenly , poof!  Here it is.

I had to learn many things about it as well as everything about a computer.  It was a great struggle for me so I went to college to learn about computers.   

My children were in high school at the time so they already had a head start. they knew how to turn the computer on and began learning how to download.   I hadn't a clue what downloading was.  Then they talked about uploading.  Now , I was really confused.   Not to mention the catastrophy that would happen if I simply pushed the off button on the computer to turn it off.  

The Internet was the strangest thing in my mind.  What is this thing?  My son explained to me that it was something that connected everything and everybody to the world.  He too, was confused about some things like messaging.   Messaging was a new way of talking to anybody people did not know personally and sometimes they would "pop" up on the screen and say something and he would not know who the were or where they were at or from.   Messaging did not use real people's names so we never knew who we were talking to.  

Messaging over time got dangerous and old.   I used to message people all over the world and I found out that it was not a good thing to do.  

So, later I heard about Blogging.  What a word, Blogging!  I asked about it and most of the people I asked had no idea what it was.   I still do not know anything about it , but here I am doing it.   

I need to understand how to get people to read it and how to make it work for me and I do not want to pay for it.   I am not rich and therefore, I simply want to write a blog and hope it gets noticed because sometimes I have plenty to say and sometimes I have nothing to say.

I am an average person who has a job and nothing more to do except go home, eat and go to bed.   That is pretty average.

I have seen ads for How to Blog, buy my book, here is my website, and hey, none if it is free.  

I have  subjects I could write about.  

Today could be about the Pandemic of Covid-19 AKA Corona Virus.   Then at the same time , protests around the world about the killing of a man who is of color.   

A few days ago there was a 5.5 earthquake here in California.   Wow! that's a lot to talk about in the same month.   

Anyway, I hope that people read this and then I will know if Blogging actually works.

Cheers, until next time,

Heather 

DREAMS THAT REALLY DO COME TRUE

I just wrote about a mystery language.

I dream some things that come true and they are not related in any way to falling or flying or the sort of dreams someone retells to a shrink on a couch.

I dream sometimes about real things that will happen or have happened already in a short period of time.

I tell my dreams to other people and they brush me off by saying "Ok, whatever!"  I stop telling people about them mainly because I hardly know enough people to even talk to.

I can sometimes feel a certain feeling about a dream that I think may come true.  I hold on to the thought and think about it for a while.  I try to remember the dream and later when it comes true, someone may call it De Ja Vu.  I call it recalling what I dreamed when it is actually happening.

This is one example , now I may be called a liar, but I am not lying and this event did happen and the entire world found out about it. 

I was living with my husband and 2 children at the time and they were in their teens. They would understand what I was talking about and even my husband knew and did not care at all as I explained details of a dream I had very vividly and I explained that I had a huge feeling that this event would actually happen and in fact it did about 2 weeks after I dreamed it.

I could not tell anyone because I knew no one would believe me, and I was not able to stop the tragedy that was going to happen.

I actually saw in my dream a large, very rich high looking high school.  I say a large room like a cafeteria or a library.  The school was in a rural area far away from any big city.  I saw the children and the school and I saw 2 men in trench coats with rifles or very large guns.

They entered the large room and began shooting the students in it. 


Now it may seem as if I am making this up now, but in fact I am not.  I did not know at the time if this would really happen but I told my husband and sons that I believed this would really happen and I did not know where this school was or when it would happen.

Two weeks later, I was right.  The Columbine High School massacre took place and I could not stop it.  I knew ,but how could I tell anyone?  I did not know the when or where. 

My family did not care, so I dropped the subject. 

I still have dreams that happen to me personally.   I don't really discuss them because I find nobody cares and dismisses me.

Honestly, I need to get to know a few more people to talk to about such subjects.  I feel as though I am alone and real caring people are hard to find. No one will listen.

I hope someone reads this and does care and will listen.

mystery language

To whomever will read this:

Last year 2017 around the beginning of September I was asleep dreaming about speaking another language.   When I woke up I could speak this language and I can still speak it today , November 18, 2018 .  I do not know where this language came from or what language it is.  My native language is American English, and after living in Thailand for some time, I am able to speak Thai. 

This language that I can speak today is not familiar and I do not know what I am saying at all.  I ask myself what I just said and I seem to be able to translate after the fact that I just spoke some words, but I cannot automatically know the spoken words.   

I played around with the new language and found that I am able to sing any song that I know in this language.   I am not making it up , I can say anything at all and not know what I am saying and I know that I am not confusing it with any language that I have heard before. 

My thoughts tell me that someone from another mysterious source gave me this language.  I do not believe in aliens or ghosts or other spirits , but I honestly do speak this language and I have told people about it.  They are simpleminded, they have no thoughts on this and have no answers.  They don't even care.  I mean I do not know many people and the ones that I do know are not worldly and have not been to many places and so they don't quite understand.

I am worldly and I do know and I do understand.  I need an experienced and intelligent person to discuss this with in hopes of finding answers.   I do not think God has anything to do with this, so I am not open to that suggestion.   Where did this come from?   Was I chosen for some reason to have this language?  What use is this to me?

I am looking for answers and I hope someone out there can help me find them.

I am not lying and I can prove it by speaking it out loud so anyone can know that I am not making it up.   I have tried to Google it and have not found anything.

I know many people will think I'm crazy , but I can prove them wrong.   I only hope to solve this mystery by figuring out where and why this happened.

This is Heather Pasaphunthu