Thanks for reminding us about the dance thing Weaver. I can just see 2long shaking his finger (and lots of other things) while the room echoes with "Staying alive!! Staying alive!!"

Wow, the things you can imagine in your mind's eye.

SS

Oh geez.

Now I'm blind.

Thanks SS.

LOL ...........

Thanks Kimmy, you made me laugh.

Halloween was good?

SS

Got an intractable question about life, love and the universe?

Get all the answers, to six significant figures, on http://www.geeklogik.blogspot.com/

Kind of useful, if you ask me.

So GC, did the baby make his appearance? The lasagna is a great idea. My ex and I ate a lasagna for a week at one point in DD's early life. It saved us. Well, okay, it didn't. But it kept us from being very hungry.

Another thing to think about is stuff that your SIL can eat and drink one-handed while she's nursing the baby. Figure out what finger foods she likes that are healthy. Good choices might be grapes, cherries, apples, baby carrots, string cheese, raisins, nuts, soy nuts, trail mix. If you made up a dozen "lunch boxes" for her with finger foods like that inside, she'd be set for a week on her own, which will happen sooner than she wants it to. (Avoid stuff with lots of chocolate in it -- some babies get wired when their moms eat the stuff.) Bottled water is good for similar reasons, too. Oh, and individual size portions of cereal -- those 2 ounce cups of Cheerios and Total, for example -- would probably be helpful, too.

It's also worth remembering that basic things like showering, going to the bathroom, and changing clothes become a production all on their own. If they don't have a bouncy seat yet, offer them one for the bathroom. They won't have thought of it... but they'll probably appreciate it if they have it.

Weaver, you're going west? I thought GB was east of you? Or didja decide that Oshkosh has more opportunities? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Hi SS. You made me laugh with your image of 2Long, but Kimmy made me laugh more. Kimmy, if you need a seeing eye cat, I've got a... cat. You can have him cheap.

Hi FF! Sounds like a fun trip. Hi Appy! I like your web site. In six significant figure glory.

My life is very good, thanks. My parents were here for eight days and bought me many things. I'm used to it, though, and had cleared out space for most of it.

And then I went to see HoFS last weekend after not seeing him for 2 weeks. By the end of the two weeks, I was hallucinating him. Interesting experience, that. The first few hours with him were almost like we were strangers who are in love. Funny, after so long, to suddenly feel as though he's unfamiliar.

We raked leaves and talked to God, cooked food together and slept together, and spoke quietly about important things. It was good, restful time. I miss him a lot right now. This is another two week gap, and then we have a long stretch (from before Thanksgiving to after New Years) when we'll see each other every weekend. I think we can do this for a while, if we see each other every weekend. Less than that, though, just aches and aches.

These election results won't be any different if I go to sleep, right?

J, I had that separation from my ex for a year before we were married. It felt like *torture*. We'd bawl like babies when we had to go our separate ways. But I knew it would be a time I'd look back on fondly, which, after we were married, I did. More than fondly. I used to feel lots of nostalgia for that time.

My nephew was born a little past noon today by C section. All's well.

The other day my folks called and I mentioned I was going to the store for lasagna stuff, and Mom said, "Don't! I already made two huge ones." I made enchiladas instead, but not the good kind. The boring kind that pose a minimal risk of producing funky breast milk or heartburn.

I've got Where the Wild Things Are (which won't be much use for a while), a CD of Jacqueline du Pre playing the cello, two pans of enchiladas, and I'll collect more stuff on Friday.

I'll head over to see the kid on Saturday. They live two hours away.

GC

Congratulations Uncle Gray. I LOVE that book you chose. I remember it from my childhood.

Hi TT! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> I think that is a great choice for a baby gift book too.

Appy, you truly are a numbers guy, aren't you? I love that show Numb3rs. Have you ever seen it?

And speaking of coffee... saw the rat this morning for the first time since he did what he did a year and a half ago, when I stopped into the gas station by my office for coffee this morning. What a nasty little rush that was. He slithered out the back door as fast as he could upon spotting me. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

JJ, I am east of GB in the Upper Peninsula. Actually quite a bit northeast on the Canadian border.

You know the hours you first spent with Hof after being apart for two weeks was described in Journey's "Faithfully" when he sings "and I get the joy of rediscovering you".

GB says that if we weren't long distance it never would have worked at first because I was so hurt that I needed a lot of opportunity for retreating. I didn't realize my woundedness was so obvious to him, but he said he knew. He said it was all over me.

Learning to trust, and learning to be open again is not an easy thing to do, but with the right person it is possible.

Weaver, we've got a weather station in your town that always shows different numbers than our model predicts. Go fix it will ya?
GF

Congratulations, GC! Have a wonderful time on Saturday. Tell 'em we all said good luck. (I'm sure they'll think all your Internet buddies are weird beyond belief, but that's all right.)

Weaver, I get it now. I always imagined you over near Houghton for some reason. If you're so far east, I've probably been fairly close to where you live, though not for a long time. When I was in high school, my parents took our sailboat up into Lake Superior to Sault Ste Marie once. It was a loonnnnnng trip from my home town. We had fun that trip, if I remember right.

Which is different from the trip where we were stormed in on Rock Island, which is at the very tip of Door County next to Washington Island, and we were there so long that my brother and I finally had to take the tiny little ferry through the 8 foot waves to go get food on Washington Island (we took the "taxi," which was actually a tour but the lady was nice to us and stopped at the grocery store at the end of the tour and waited for us while we bought groceries and fuel for the stove. On the way back, so much water was coming over the dock that we lost a bag of groceries someone set down and had to go fishing for whatever we could get. Nearly washed my brother into the water, too, and he wasn't little.

And that's different from the trip where we got stormed in in Naubinway's "harbor" with a south wind pushing all of Lake Michigan up our butts and then it snowed when we got to Mackinac and I came down with Mono.

And that's different from the trip where it took 17 pounding hours to cross the Lake back home and we nearly killed ourselves in 15 foot waves off of Rawley's Point.

Did I mention that my dad just bought a new sailboat after 15 years of not having one? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> Apparently he doesn't remember what sailing is actually like. *sigh*

It's not broke Gray, it's just not configured correctly. Perhaps you could get Appy to work his number magic to account for the position of the lakes in relationship to us. Also the bad karma coming off one of the islands. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />



Why oh why couldn't I have been on these trips? How exciting they must have been!

My dad had a sailboat too, but he wouldn't let me sail it until I read this silly little sailing book he had. And of course me being me, I refused. Alas, to this day I know nothing about sailing.

You dad sounds like a cool guy, JJ! Glad he is enjoying life, how lucky for you and the family. You don't know what it means to have mentally/emotionally healthy parents with a zest for life still. Of course being alive would be a start as well. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I bet the glaciers are really pretty in the afternoon sun! I love the contrast between the aquamarine blue ice and the orange clouds...


I'm only just starting 2 see glimmers of this kind of communication with my W lately. It's so hard sometimes for me, what with all the other stresses going on in our lives, 2 stifle my own tendencies 2 read her pain the wrong way and assume something I shouldn't or needn't.

We ac2ally have had some interesting conversations about a few Dr Phil episodes that we've watched 2gether, including one about infidelity last night (though I was interrupted having 2 take a check from a movie location scout for some filming coming up next month). And the infidelity thing on the Today show this week (though I haven't been home by the time they air).

We had a particularly interesting convo about the difference between romantic love (the feeling of being "in love") and real love. Even agreeing that love isn't a feeling, but a choice.

She still does try not 2 talk in the first person about our experiences. It's going 2 take a while.

-ol' 2long

Congrats Gray.

For a cool book DS recommends The Leaf Men, and anything to do with dinosaurs.

When DS was about 2 he decided he wanted to collect dinosaur alphabet books. You know, A is for Anchisaurus (I think Apatosaurus has been demoted back to Brontosaurus, again.) He still has about 50 in his room and he will not get rid of them.

About that weather station, just tell weaver to set her coffee cup somewhere else.

“Also the bad karma coming off one of the islands.”

LOL. Weave, continental scale Feng Shui is not my forte.

2L,

"She still does try not 2 talk in the first person about our experiences."

This is so deja vu it's positively buoyant.

I read somewhere that Harley said sometimes it is so difficult for certain personality types to accept blame in hurting another that they have some kind of self-preservation or defense mechanism that helps to deflect it from themselves. Because it may destroy them, accepting what they have done. And in certain personality types they just cannot accept that they have effed up.

So maybe this is a gradual process where the formerly wayward spouse can deal with what they have done inside themselves first, in the way of the third person type convo's.

Seems like a very fragile ego type thing to me, probably resulting from very low self-esteem.

Ever know anyone who just cannot accept any kind of critism at all, even self critism?

Part of that complicated fog stuff I suppose as well.

Appy:

There was another interesting convo this morning, where I said that I believe that many (most?, all?) people essentially need 2 be "subjected" 2 painful experiences in their lives in order 2 grow as individuals. I suppose that I, like her, "avoided" using the first person in describing why I feel this way, though I did conclude that I have had 2 learn the things I've learned the way I did (and I have referred specifically 2 the infidelity in the past).

It came up in a convo about movies and the people who make them and the audiences they're catering 2. Movies are mostly written by "kids" for "kids" (young adults) about subjects like sex and passion. Cheating is an obviously passionate topic, one that is rampant in young 2 middle age adults - the ages that thrive on the drama that is passion, without realizing that they simultaneously attract and even invite it in2 their personal lives (and when it hits them, it devastates them because it isn't simple entertainment anymore - it's personal, painful, and life-changing).

But I was also referring 2 my experiences posting 2 the "OW/OM" board on loveshack.org a while ago (without naming it specifically). These people seem 2 "need" 2 go through the pain of being an OP in oder 2 grow up (and also seem 2 be resisting it kicking and screaming and insisting that there's nothing wrong with what they're doing - they really can't face it and so can't know at this point in time - so it was a waste of my time 2 try 2 reach any of them). Like some of us BSs need 2 be betrayed in order 2 "wake up" 2 there being a problem with the M. Sure, it would be far preferrable that we could learn our lessons without hurting or being hurt so deeply, but the simple fact is that we most often don't learn if we're not thrust in2 a painful si2ation where we have 2 in order 2 stay sane. Like expecting 2 understand calculus by watching it applied a 2ple of times. Won't fly. You need 2 take the courses, do the homework, study and take the tests. ...and then practice!

I said all this stuff this morning. It was interesting noticing my W listening 2 me.


Related topic: Why is Brittney Spears' DV such big news? She's certainly no role model for young girls or women - she's 2 s2pid. And she's not interesting 2 thinking adults either - she's got decades of handling tough experiences in an admirable way 2 go before she's got a shot at wisdom. I just don't get it. ...besides, she sounds funny.

-ol' 2long

I don't know much about all that stuff 2long - but I know I like sitting by the fire. Sometimes it seems like the older i get, the less I know.

Hi Persons !!!
(SS waves )

SS

Appy, that was a truly wonderful turn of the phrase.

Weaver, it wasn't exciting. It was cold. And wet. And hard, godawful, miserable work. It was days when I was so cold that when we finally reached safe harbor, I went and stood in the shower for a solid 45 minutes and did not warm up until close to the end of that time. It was barfing over the side of the boat at sunrise. It was coming into harbor after a long, hard day of work and having to start all over again doing the work of tying up and putting away the sails and airing out the cabin and cooking and going to get a shower to get the crud out of my hair. It was learning that you can freeze solid in the middle of July on a sunny day while you're getting a sunburn.

Some people love it. Me? I've politely declined to set foot on a sailboat for 15 years.

However, I do have to agree with you that it's good to have active, healthy parents. I never really thought about that being unusual. And yet, my parents are 68 years old. My dad's finally (after needing to for at least 45 years) going for a sleep test tonight. Tomorrow they do the pre-op for surgery he has to have on his hand. (One of his fingers is permanently cramped inward because of some skin thing that thickens up and limits the motion of the hand.) Still, he lifts weights and rides his exercise bike almost every night. He's also still the president of his company (he'll retire when he's 70) and chairs a non-profit foundation in my home town.

My mom runs her 1.5 acres of gardens and hundreds of houseplants without any help from anyone (except my dad mows the lawn and takes care of the roses and orchids). She has a very active social/political/charitable life and manages to also do the family's financial management. I think she still manages finances for my three siblings -- I finally took my own over when I was 32 or 33. She's slowing down a little, too, though. She's started to walk in that way that older people do when their joints hurt.

My parents visited at the end of October, though, and after a week DD and I were so tired that we wanted nothing more than for them to go home so that we didn't have to keep up with them anymore. They can shop and repair things like no one's business. I have no idea how they manage it. In comparison, I am a completely lazy bum.

2long, I don't think there are glaciers in the Upper Peninsula. I could be wrong, but I -think- all the snow melts at some point each summer. Usually about July 15. it snows again in August, but there is that brief period of clear ground...

Hi J,
Greetings, and salutations.

Warm wishes and happy holidays.
Merry Christmas, Happy Halloween, and A joyous Thanksgiving to you.

Also wishing you spare time, spare change, spare ribs, and at least one quiet evening this week.

SS

2long, I agree with all you said about thinking it's romantic or passionate until you go through it.

I don't understand about the media attention most of the young singing "stars" are getting either, and I don't much like it as I have a 12 yo trying to copy them.

We belong to Spiritual Cinima and get some pretty good movies in the mail now. Thinking type movies and feel good movies.

I remember when I was little my Dad just hated Jane Fonda, with a passion. Of course he was in Nam for two years, was shot down and MIA for awhile, also of course had comrads who were POW's, so now I understand it. But back then I didn't, and we never mentioned her name in my house because it upset my parents so much.

Every generation has it's own challenges I guess.

JJ,

My daughter is reading a book at school where they have 7 years of rain followed by 1 hour of sunshine and then another 7 years of rain. Can you imagine?

It's a Harry Potter type book I think and think I'll try to read it after.