Ok, everyone, just a little reminder - I'M STILL HERE!

You! N-E-A-K! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> You quit giving away the ending! How do expect me to ever maintain any suspense if you're going to go blabbing how it turns out. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" />

Oh, by the way, did I ever mention that she is Neak the Second? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> Neaksis says I have to say I was just kidding. OK, I'm just kidding...says Neaksis. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Well, THAT was fun.

Good night all,

t&l

I suppose I deserve that after some of the mean stunts I played on my younger siblings, one eerily similar to that. I forget the details now, though I'm sure Neaksis will be on later to set me straight, but my brothers and I told her she was the replacement child for her older brother that had been eaten by the Dumpster Monster at my dad's shop. She still remembers the poor kid's name...

My second-youngest brother helped her with her homework, and she was nearly grown before she found out that the brown spots on bananas were not caused by tarantula bites, and that Maine was not the largest state in the Union.

I can't criticize him too harshly, since I convinced my next-youngest brother that I could fly. (I could climb trees really fast. "Ok, just close your eyes. If you peek while I'm flying, I won't be able to fly any more and I will fall to the ground and get hurt and it will be all your fault. You don't want that, do you?") Then I couldn't unconvince him when I tired of the joke. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

So really, it's only fair that I at last discover the truth about Neak the First...

Tommy. His name was Tommy.

I am wondering how it is for Neak, and Neaksis to read this. Perhaps you already knew the whole story?

T&L,
You are quite a person. I have lots of questions, but you will surely answer many of them as you contnue, so I'll hold them. I still have one - do you, or your H have any hobbies? Not once a year stuff, but things you do regularly?

SS

It was pretty shocking the first time I heard it, but I've had oh, must be around 15 years by now to get used to it.

Hobbies? What fun to comment while she's still asleep... She is an awesome, professional-level seamstress. She makes beautiful Hawaiian clothes for us, and hot little dresses. (One combo, a hot little Hawaiian dress, which I wore the other day while in St. Louis, garnered quite a bit of disgruntlement from AJ after the rep for Castle Medical Center in SoCA spent his time with us trying to look down the front of said garment. It was the purple dress with the white jacket, Mom; didn't remember to tell you till now.)

And puzzles! T&L is a master puzzler. A puzzle isn't suitable hard unless it has at least 5,000 pieces and lots of snow. (Though she might settle for a leopard print motif if that's all there were.)

Dad likes camping, photography, guns, computers, and TV. Very little middle ground exists between Mom and Dad in their hobbies. Any middle ground would have to be created, not just discovered.

Oh, wait! I just thought of something! THEY BOTH LIKE TO EAT CASHEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You and me both! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" />

I am reminded of a Dr. Laura show I heard a long time ago. The mother called in. The daughter was an adult. There were a few minor problems in the relationship, but the mother said the daughter was her best friend.

Dr. Laura immediately said that she was and would always be her MOTHER! She could NOT be her best friend. That as a mother, there are just somethings that you don't share with your daughter.

So, yes I was curious about how the kids might feel reading all of this. Personally, I'd need more counseling. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/pfft.gif" alt="" />

Susan <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

Neaksis, does Tommy still torment you, are are you to old for that now?

Neak,
I see more than one in the family has the humor gene.
As for hobbies - how many total kids are there in the family? I was just thinking..............

BTW, I am gathering information - sometimes my mind can actually put it together and come up with something useful.


Susan,
I was going to say someting about you needing more counseling, but perhaps I should just say "HI" and leave. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Hi -

SS

Susan - if this story had another ending besides the one it did, I would probably still be in counseling for it. Instead, I am left feeling so blessed and special, that God had a plan for me even when I was very small, and placed His hand over me to protect me in a very marked way. But I'd better stop there or I'll give away the ending even more than I already did just by being alive.

SS - T&L & Dad are the parents of 4 wacky children. I mean that in a good way. There is me, 33 y/o, married, 3 children, then Neakbro #1, 30, cohabitating, only cats, no kids, Neakbro #2, 28, divorcing, no kids, and Neaksis, 26, never married but very cute, 3 adopted children. Our main interests are as follows:

Neak - Writing, of course, music, photography, baking
Neakbro #1 - Computers, physics, and geology
Neakbro #2 - Biology, especially bugs, photography, and music
Neaksis - Gardening, interior decorating, music, crafts, gourmet edible plant recipe experimentation

As I was typing this out, it occurred to me that both parents enjoy music. Occasionally Dad has consented to help out in a program, and we have made byooteefull music together. So if only they could eat cashews while they sing together...

I'm glad you are SS ... because so far, this story is leaving a very bad taste in my mouth .... being completely honest here.

I am withholding anything but that remark for now.

I want to be completely honest, too, without starting an avalanche. This is the story that was asked for. This is the story of T&L. I don't think it's possible to appreciate the person she has become without looking at the person she once was. Though not perfect even yet, she has changed almost beyond recognition from the person who did these wicked things. But there I go giving away the end again.

Dealan-de, Neak. We are all in the chrysalis stage. Someday we will become dealan-de.

Some of us use it in righteousness, too.

Understood Pep.

Neak,
I was meaning (blush) there are four of you, maybe they do have something else in common.

SS

I am not seeing wickedness. Something else entirely. Try not to come to your mother's defense because it might interfere with anything real she and I might be able to build ourselves. OK?

It's very hard to hide from children the fact that they live in a hostile, angry, bitter, environment, with two parents who spend most of their time at each others' throats. However excellent our facade was in public (and it was excellent!), it was certainly "let down" at home! I think Neak has known at least parts of "The Rest of the Story" for longer than 15 years, since that would have made her 18 at the time she first found out anything at all and I don't think that was the case. Certainly when they were little, all the why's and wherefore's weren't trotted out for their inspection, but as they grew older they began to understand more about the reason things were the way they were. I don't usually tell anybody much when I'm struggling with a problem, but once I think I've got it figured out I'm generally willing to share it if I think knowing about my mistakes might help somebody else to avoid making the same ones. And who would be more deserving of that kind of help than the people for whose very existence on this planet, I am a responsible party? If they knew nothing of this story, I do think this forum would be perhaps a bit of a public place to hear it for the first time, but it's really not news to them and as Neak said, how it ends is really more important than how it got there...or something like that! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />


Before I take a few minutes to finish the previous episode, I will answer your question about work and hobbies. I work 72 hrs/wk. almost every wk. One is a regular full-time job with benefits; the other is per diem, so I can work 3 days a wk. if I want, but if there's something else I really need to do (like Neaksis' birthday in September) I just schedule me an extra day off. We do 12-hr. shifts and I do 3 each at the 2 different hospitals, one 30 miles away from my home and the other 51.5 miles away. During those 2 commutes of either 60 or 100 miles/day I have the only real private time of my life, especially if I leave my cell phone off. I was truly touched when, before my mother died, she expressed concern that I was going to work myself to death. That Susan, Queen of the Lazies, should ever be thought to be in danger of death by employment was really very flattering to me. Certainly I never heard any such worries expressed during the days of my misspent youth, and quite frankly, I was quite moved. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

I'll tell you a little more about why I work so much later; it's enough for now to say that I'm hyperemployed, and so really, any hobbies are mostly theoretical at this point, since I don't have time to do them. I have several Hawaiian outfits cut out; this is the 2nd summer they've been waiting to be sewed and I've got to get them done or the kids will have outgrown them by next summer. Let that give you an idea of how much too big they were when I started! When Grandma makes you something, you're going to get your money's worth out of wearing it! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> I pretty much limit myself to 1000 piece puzzles, no matter what Neak says. I've got 5 or 6 that I've never done and just don't have time to do...but the 3,000 piece picture of a mountain and the sky reflected back in the surface of a lake pretty much cured me of anything over 1500 maximum. And no more lake reflections, either, thank you very much. I like to grow flowers, but only my rose bushes have survived my neglect through the years. I play the piano and the organ, and when Neak was at home we did lots of piano/organ duets for programs. All the kids play instruments and I miss the days when we'd all go together to do church programs. (This was while HP and I were squabbling at home. Think about THAT the next time your church has guests for a special program!!) I like to read. I believe that already came up. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

Right now I'm trying to edit Neak's 2nd book so it can be published, but it's an incremental process that can only be done a little every day. Neak and Neaksis are SUPPOSED TO BE WORKING ON THE COVER ART. How's it going today, girls? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />I would love to travel--going back and forth to work, even though the miles add up quickly, doesn't count!) I would like to go white water rafting, hot air ballooning, and bungee jump at least once. But it's hard to fit that into my schedule, for some reason. So basically this is my life: I work all week. Friday I pay bills and mow the lawn and have Friday night off. Saturday night it starts over again. Hobbies? Sleep, maybe? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/pfft.gif" alt="" />


Well, I was going to see if I could post a photo, but I see that Neak has only gotten so far as to make an album named "thndrnltng" which has no pictures. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> So I guess the big adventure will have to wait a bit longer. Certainly this is not something I'm going to be doing on my own. Technology is neither my hobby nor my skill!


I'm going to take a quick break and go have some breakfast and get dressed. I'll be back in a few minutes, finish up the story that I left hanging, and then put on my editor's cap for the remaining half hr. I'll have before I leave for another busy day at the orifice.


t&l

The only Castle Medical Center I know is in Kaneohe. Do they have one in CA now? As far as the looking down the dress stuff, maybe he was giving you one o' them newfangled, painless mammograms...or in this case, a manogram. I'm sure it was nobody I knew. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

t&l

As long as everybody's being so overwhelmingly frank here, I will say that leaving a "bad taste" in anyone's mouth is not my goal, nor my desire, and thinking that this may be what I am doing is a real blow to the solar plexus. I have no ambition to upset, shock, or distress other people. Conversely, I have no desire to call down any additional trouble on my own head. It has nothing to do with the delicacy of my flower. It just seems like common sense to me not to make any more trouble for my life than I already have. Condemnation? Already had that. Repercussions? Ditto. Blame? Ditto ditto.

Maybe the Reader's Digest Condensed Version would be better and more appropriate for this place. I was really, really unhappy when I was younger. I have reconciled myself to my past, accepted responsibility for what I have done, and am doing everything I can to make my wrongs right. I do not want EVER to cause more harm to my family, or anyone else,and I pray every day that God will, in His mercy, restore and repair what I, in my years of thoughtless bitterness and rage, have destroyed.

t&l

Sugar booger...we ALL have pasts....I don't care who you are! Those who don't quit breathing when they hit puberty.

T&L

Maybe it's me ... but I feel so far that I have learned much of what you did in the past and very little about YOU the person .... and that is my bad taste.... WHERE are YOU in all of this wandering story??? (your past wickedness is pretty par with mine ... both children of the 60's .... know what I mean ... nothing very shocking there <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> )

I suppose it would be unkind to end this without finishing the story I left hanging. When I picked up the phone, my father was on the other end. They lived in CA 700 miles away from me and I'm not sure they even knew HP and Neak were on a trip. My father told me, "I don't know why, but your mother and I are strongly impressed that HP and Neak are in great danger, and we wanted you to know that we're praying for them." Even in my deepest fog, I knew, if I was praying to Satan and my dad was praying to God, which one of us would get their prayers answered!! When HP and Neak returned home, I found out that they had unexpectedly run into a violent storm while in flight, with so much turbulence that Baby Neak, who was sleeping on a cabin seat, was tossed up in the air and flung against the ceiling of the cabin. So Satan TRIED to answer my prayers, but God was greater. Neak and her father live today because God heard the prayers of my mother and father and sent His angel to bear them up in his hands. I am humbled by this, and for it my heart will always be thankful.

t&l