t&l,

I'm one of the "hitters", only because I haven't had a chance to stop and post - but I'm desperately trying to catch up the reading....and think I will have to go back at some point and read it all from the beginning in one big lump so I can digest it all.

But I understand you wanting validation of hits/responses. My version of it is being sooooo glad that you acknowledge when someone posts to you!

You're great at that. I get so irrrrrrrrritated when I post to someone and they don't even acknowledge that I exist!!!

Now I realize that's my problem not theirs, and I promise myself to stop posting to people who ignore me! But then, I find something to say that I can't resist, and promise myself that I'm saying it "for me", and it doesn't matter whether or not they respond....

Well I could go on and on........but I won't! So thank you t&l!

I enjoy your storytelling and your use of english. Maybe it's because I don't express myself too well in any language! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

When is the next chapter?

BTW, I have a question for you.

Since we're in the infidelity forum, what would you do if HP were unfaithful? Would you try plan A?

Just curious <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

I'm alone tonight because dds are visiting WH's dwellings for the first time. Makes me a little nervous because normally OW lives there although it is a secret <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

I'm worried about them, of course.

I'm not a hitter, I nearly always struck out.


Hey, when you live with a tar baby, it's nice to talk to people that actually listen to you.

AS for lots of hits some days, and few others - it is probably pure chance.

To answer your question, I work in retail - A small camping equipment store. Mostly spend time now at a desk ordering, doing adds, and talking on the phone.

I see song lyrics have meaning to you as they do to many others of us. I am sorry it was sad ones the other day. Here is one that has great meaning to me. Perhaps it will lift you as it has many others.

Where can I turn for Peace
Text: Emma Lou Thayne

Where can I turn for peace, where is my solace
When other sources fail to make me whole?
When with a wounded heart, anger, or malice,
I draw myself apart, searching my soul?

Where, when my aching grows, where when I languish,
Where in my need to know, where can I run?
Where is the quiet hand to calm my anguish?
Who, who can understand? He, only One.

He answers privately, reaches my reaching
In my Gethsemane, Savior and Friend.
Gentle the peace he finds for my beseeching,
Constant He is and kind
Love without end.


Have a good night.

SS

CSue -
rest assured that your posts are doing good, and keep at it anyway, you are needed. If you ever doubt it, just ask God to help you know, and keep on posting.

SS

T&L - I check your posts everyday, but don't often post to you. It is kind of like a bedtime story for me. Your are a unique and fascinating woman. I like that.

SS,

Thanks, I agree with you - you remind me why I'm here!

AD shouts "Present".

I did that once, before I started the second half of the saga. But I was thinking about doing it again, until that person a little ways back said that reading it all in one afternoon had taken 5 hours! Holy cow. You could read War and Peace in that length of time. Although in my case I guess it would be War, More War, and an Armed Neutrality. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />


A unilateral conversation is a lecture. Been the recipient of a sufficient amount of those to last a lifetime. Not that interested in being the giver, either. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" /> Inadequate opportunities for humorous vs. grotesque self-deprecation.


I know just what you're talking about, although I don't know that you necessarily obsess as much as I do about what might have been done wrong, to be so easily and completely ignored. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> It's happened to me here, on one other thread in particular...but you're right. Somebody will say something, and all your good resolutions to maintain a dignified silence go right out the window--because you're just compelled to comment. And to their profit, too, I'm sure!! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/pfft.gif" alt="" />

Thanks for stopping in the feminine hygiene products aisle. Welcome to my pad...

t&l <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

You remember back awhile ago I said there were some things that I wasn't going to talk about? Well, this is one of them. If HP ever decided he wanted to come online (or onanywhere) for help to deal with the demons that live in his imagination, I'd be happy to see him do it. But that would have to be his decision, his revelations. Basically, I have said earlier that I could've left my marriage with a clear conscience and a Biblical right to pursue the chance to marry someone else. Extrapolate out of that what you will. If he developed an actual relationship with another woman, and wanted out of the marriage, I don't think he'd have to ask me twice. I've already Plan A'd him almost to death for years, just to keep peace in the household. I don't think another one would work, if this one didn't.

It reminds me of the story of the old couple in their 90s who filed for divorce after 70+ years of marriage. When they appeared before the judge he tried to talk them out of it, but the old lady, especially, was adamant that the divorce be granted. Finally, he turned to her and said, "Ma'am, you've been together all these years? Why do you have to split now?" And she looked him in the eye as she answered firmly, "Your honor, enough's enough." No matter what happens, I have promised to pray for him until the day I die (or lose all my marbles, whichever comes first). But enough's enough...and that would definitely, positively, indisputably, indubitably, and without a doubt, be enough! I can pray from a distance, you know <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />.


I'm sorry. By the time you get this it will be tomorrow, and you should be able to lay your worries to rest...and, I hope, give them a proper burial!

t&l

You and me both.



Especially if they pretend not to notice that you're all covered with tar! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />


I don't know where it is, and lack the motivation as well as the time to hunt for it, but I once made a list of the story of my life as told in songs. It started with Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport, and went on through songs like Let It Be Me, Where Have All the Soldiers Gone?, Blowin' in the Wind, You've Lost That Loving Feeling, Unchained Melody, Ebb Tide, If You Could Read My Mind, Killing Me Softly with His Song, Time in a Bottle, And I Love You So, and so on, until it ended in Yesterday When I Was Young. There was hardly a cheerful song in the lot, and it must've had 25 or more songs in it! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> My list would end with another song now, though, and when I finish the Saga I'll put it down because it says poetically more or less where I've landed.

I've never heard the song from which those words came, so I'm not familiar with the melody. But the words are lovely, thank you...and considerably more cheerful than the ones that I posted!

Kind of like a Grim Not-So-Fairy Tale?


That's very nice of you to say. I've been interested in you for quite awhile, especially after I saw your picture on the photo page. (I'm a big chicken, myself.) I guess it's because it's always nice to be interesting to the people who interest you! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

t&l, the Human Sedative

And accounted for. I saw earlier that you were online so very late at night, but we were inundated with a flood of pregnant women at the time, so I couldn't post right away. You need to get more sleep, sir. Do you know how bad chronic sleep deprivation is for you? Can you recognize hypocrisy when you hear it? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

t&l

T&L - (squidges) Just because.

Good morning, dearie.

- Kimmy

t&l,

Thank you! I feel better now!

By the way..."Tar Baby" is one of my boys favorite stories. My husband really plays it up so the boys howl with laughter!

Living with a tar baby - wouldn't be so fun! I haven't thought of my father the same since I've seen you use the term for HP (who as you know reminds me of my father).

Side note - my father has failed to return any of my calls or even READ any e-mails I've sent to him for let's say 5 weeks. We live over 600 miles apart....so I haven't been able to figure out a way to get him to un-ignore me...

I've been wondering what I might have said and done that offended him becuase there's nothing more powerful than silence right! One e-mail I sent even had the title "Results from my echocardiogram". And still he never read it. Sheesh!!!

So finally on Labor Day, I called him again...well he answered the phone!! And we had a nice long talk. He said he was so glad I called etc....only with my father he taught us long ago that he doesn't like to talk about "unpleasantries". So the well trained daughter that I am....didn't even mention all the ignoring! I'm just considering myself officially "un-ignored" - until the next time!

Good morning to you, too. Or in my case, good night. I am SO sleepy this morning. I kept having to slap and jostle myself (not to be confused with slap and tickle!) on the way home to keep from going to sleep (after the M&Ms ran out! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />). I am going to bed muy pronto today, that's for sure.

On the way home today (before I started running on fumes), I was thinking about what I said re HP making his own revelations, and got to pondering what his version of the Saga might be like. For one thing, coming as it would from Tar Baby, The Great Clam, it would be considerably shorter! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> Like this. "Didn't know her very long. Got married anyway. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Didn't turn out so well. But still married. Don't know why. Glutton for punishment, maybe. Always been fond of Fenton stickers though. Could be it!" <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />

t&l

P.S. Thanks so much for the squidges! Um, what are they, anyway? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Hope you are able to spend a suitable amount of time today basking in the warmth of your good fortune!! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

t&l

I LOVE Emoticons!

T&L

I totally missed your answer to me in my e mails! Just read it now.

I understand, I extrapolate well. Maybe someday you can add that chapter, if it's not too painful.

About last night, well... I guess I can lay my worries down for the moment. The girls didn't have much to say <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> as usual, but at least it appears that OW wasn't there and the evidence of her living there wasn't too obvious.

Still, it worries me that they don't say much about the whole situation. They probably talk to their friends. At least I hope so.

I'm off to bake a cake for work. Being the boss is not always easy <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

Squidges are better than hugs but not kissy/schmaltzy. They're fun. They're comforting, and they are friendly and kind. Like homemade warm cinnamon rolls with drizzly icing.

Not to be confused with "squidgy feeling", which is how your mouth and teeth feel if you've ever tasted government cheese.

One's a noun/verb, the other adverb.

Capice?

(giggle)

Speaking of song lyrics, every time I hear this on the radio, I always think of you, even before I knew this much of the story. It always makes ME cry and I've never dated an army man.


"Travelin' Soldier"

Two days past eighteen
He was waiting for the bus in his army green
Sat down in a booth in a cafe there
Gave his order to a girl with a bow in her hair
He's a little shy so she gives him a smile
And he said would you mind sittin' down for a while
And talking to me,
I'm feeling a little low
She said I'm off in an hour and I know where we can go

So they went down and they sat on the pier
He said I bet you got a boyfriend but I don't care
I got no one to send a letter to
Would you mind if I sent one back here to you

Chorus: I cried
Never gonna hold the hand of another guy
Too young for him they told her
Waitin' for the love of a travelin' soldier
Our love will never end
Waitin' for the soldier to come back again
Never more to be alone when the letter said
A soldier's coming home

So the letters came from an army camp
In California then Vietnam
And he told her of his heart
It might be love and all of the things he was so scared of
He said when it's getting kinda rough over here
I think of that day sittin' down at the pier
And I close my eyes and see your pretty smile
Don't worry but I won't be able to write for awhile

[Chorus]

One Friday night at a football game
The Lord's Prayer said and the Anthem sang
A man said folks would you bow your heads
For a list of local Vietnam dead
Crying all alone under the stands
Was a piccolo player in the marching band
And one name read and nobody really cared
But a pretty little girl with a bow in her hair