The Island Collector
The Washington Post Express was just fulll of goodies today. One article reported on a thirty-something year old widow who has spent $33 million this year alone purchasing islands off Connecticut's coast. The Mattabesec Indians used to inhabit the Thimble Islands.
The islands were named in honor of Tom Thumb. Tom Thumb found love on these islands. In addition, and this is the part that caught my attention, legend has it Captain Kidd buried treasure on the islands. People have been combing the beaches for centuries but nothing has ever been found. Duh, the with a name like that, the man was no dummy.
Christine Svenningsen confides her reason for buying the islands is to preserve them. As an artist, Svenningsen is renovating many of the historic homes while adding her own signature by repainting the furniture in bright colors.
Its nice to know someone else is living my life. I think Christine and I could be very good friends. I wonder where I could meet a man who would leave me $33 million. If anyone has any clues please let me know. I promise you would all be welcome on my island.
6 comments:
This was my fave article in the Express today. Definitely makes you ask a bunch of other questions about this.
Boo...I'll keep my eyes open for your 33 million dollar man. As long as there is a little cabin on an island for the eccentric Aunt Rae, I will be more then willing to pass them on. :)
Duh. I am a total golddigger. I have never denied that. I guess a man doesn't have to leave me $33 million exactly. I could survive on a little more or a little less but nothing too drastic.
Besides who said I wasn't interested in making the money myself pissant. I plan to make my first millions, just so you know, in the upcoming 2010 Bond film.
Then we'll see who's calling who lazy.
You ARE NOT the real Indiana Jones and will never be. Why don't you get off your butt and earn a PhD?!
Well, Boo,
I've heard there were pirates in the Thimbles. Could it be so even today? Just hypothetically let's say you know exactly where this woman met her husband and you know everything she did after she met him [certainly someone knows all that, even if it is only herself]and you know that the figure of $33 million does not scratch the surface.... Who cares?
These stories are nothing to be jealous of. Often they are not even true love stories, more love-of-money + coercion stories. Pity both parties. And it does takes two to tango, by the way. But that does not necessarily mean it is a love match. Such stories commonly involve all sorts of sneaky business, just like piracy on the high seas. Some people get turned on by that. And others are vulnerable and stupid and get hooked by flattery or embarassment. The plotter bets on the target's basic good will, sense of decency, and lack of spine (as few people can indefinitly stand up to someone who really wants to destroy them has no scruples.) I would rather build my own business from stratch with honest sweat than go after a man or woman for his or her money. I would rather be poor. For these billion $$ windfalls to actually go down, a lot of hissy fits have to be thrown; a lot of plotting; many tiresome, juvenile, embarassing, spirit breaking temper tantrums bleated out by the plotter and endured by both parties and perhaps by enire horrified offices; many threats of various kinds; entrapments; coercions; families becoming alarmed; deliberate public humiliations designed to prey on the good graces of the target; even acts of violence/threatened violence, and or harassment; to say nothing of plays to the target's own greed: we ARE all most vulnerable where we live. Sweetness and light does not cut it. Such are the acts with which the ground is carefully laid, and in which the hypothetical "bodies" are buried. Not nice. Not healthy. You and I are better off without it. They would be better off without it too, poor people. Most men are not up warding off a woman who constantly makes a play for them in every way. Men are easily flattered and lead. So are women. That is human. Most women would not be up to it either, i.e. to warding off a constant unwanted suitor who is after one's money/perceived power and is very, very determined to the extent of making it the whole focus of their life. Frankly,most of our relationships/ marriages could not survive someone coming after our partner or after ourselves relentlessly. Unfortunately for any involved in such situations, capture/surrender is not necessarily equal to love and may lead to resentment and even to depression and poor health. No matter how they appear or what age they are (the people who come out of the woodwork, after money and power), they are not nice people or they would not be doing that in the first place. Possibly they could be very emotionally sick people who feel deep impoverishment within. I would guess that golddigging is more of a sickness and nightmare than a dream,from whatever cause it stems, though it may appear from the outside to give a dream existence. Likely it is a full time job that muddies the conscience and preverts ones emotions. So if one is set on following that line of work,first get rid of the conscience. Next, know that it is very hard work, much harder than making an honest living or an honest relationshisp. To succeed you've got to really want that gold a lot more than you want anything else and you have to be willing be to destroy the lives of yourself, your family, and of other people, even the lives of those you assert you love, in order to get their gold and keep it. Once you stake your claim the fight is not over. You have to keep on stomping vigilantly on the lives you trod over before, to make sure they stay destroyed: stomp on your own real life,on your mate Mr. or Mrs. Gold's real life, on their families' lives, on your own kids's lives if there should be kids, and on the lives of whoever else gets in the way of your insatiable need to have everything and all the power. It's a big job because there are more and more threats all the time, the more successful you are. So it's a big committment, that life style, if that can even be defined as "living". Think how much paranoia must be involved! But they are rich so, actually, even though they are paranoid, there really are people chasing after their money! And they know that for fact because that's how they got where they are..... It must be so tiresome. Would it make for a balanced personality? a happy life? sweet dreams? or any peace of mind at all, ever? Not even one honest good memory that can stand on its own as something that was natural and not part of a continuous plot? I guess it would help to be dillusional. Hopefully such people eventually glom on to each other in their in their mutual greed and find some fragment to care about in each other.
I was there and it wasn't nice, pretty, or about love. You may joke about wanting to get some man's wealth, Boo, but I doubt you really would want to prey on another person for their money or for anything else. That is not a good thing and it does not work out well. Better we each make our own way so we can respect ourselves and be respected by our own true loves if and when we do find them. At least each will know the other is not there to pick his pocket!
She is probably not better or worse or happier or sadder than anyone else is. There's only a little time for each of us. Don't waste it. Don't be jealous or brood. But, quickly, get to it and make you own dream.
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