Cinderella,

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

you're welcome. wanna help me get everything ready for trunk or treat. gotta leave w/in 1.5 hrs. have tons of 'parts' but no organization or vision. little things out of control.

Hey All!

A nice Fall day here but very windy.

The boys & I have pretty much stayed home this weekend, outside of some errands & some studio time, & been cozy with the wood stove going & watching stuff we've recorded from T.V. Quite, uneventful weekend which is nice.

I'm wondering if I should buy a new wood stove, maybe someone here has some advice. The one I have is tiny & is probably 30 years old. I have it in my fire place. Does pretty well once you get it started but I'm wondering if a newer model would be more efficient & put out more heat to the rest of the house & worth spending the money on. I have oil heat & would love to avoid huge oil bills this winter. I bought one cord of wood & don't intend to get more.

Oh, the REALLY good news? The results of all the STD tests came back negative. Yipee! While this would have proven ex's infidelity I never wanted to have it confirmed in that way.

A Guitar Center opened near by & I brought oldest son there for the grand opening on Thurs. I bought him a $160 amp for $50 & twelve packs of strings for the price of two. Boy do I love a bargin. The problem? Oldest son has spent MANY hours playing around with it. If I hear Crazy Train or Iron Man again I think I'll throw it off the roof. Even the stuff I do like is so loud at times I want to scream. I just keep repeating, must be supportive of the music, must be supportive of the music...

Oh wait, here's something funny. Some of you may remember I was to go on a date with a man who was half an hour late then called to ask where I was when he didn't find me at the restaurant. He got irritated when I refused to go meet him & when I said maybe another time he said "No I don't think so." & hung up. Well, at 9:45 last night he calls to ask if I want to meet him for a drink as he just got done with an event in my town. Yeah, don't think so. Sheeesh.

Has anyone heard from Todd? It's unlike him to be so quiet for so long.

Oh and good news, nams.

LOL "don't think so". Well done, good answer.

Hi Nams,

Sounds like you have had a delightful weekend. I love nothing better than cuddling up by a fire. The most amazing wood stoves I have ever seen are in Germany. What floored me was they would put on only one log and it would burn all day and heat the entire home. Regarding your pottery do you have a site that I can look at to view your potttery? I would love to see your work. I guess the bright side of your gentleman caller is that at least he thought of you. What a flip thinking you would run out and meet him - takes all kinds hey!

Todd,

Thank you for your list of wines. I will be sure to try them. I especially want to try the Caymus Conondrum just because I love the name! By the way - where are you?

Luna,

Thanks for pointing me in the direction of your sig. line. I did the math and okay, I will stop complaining, but I think Cinderella is the grand prize winner! I'm also glad you posted your story it does help somehow to know you are not alone in the infidelity world.

Jen,

Is your daughter still in America? Thanks for the link to the N.Z. wine, I thoroughly enjoyed your wines while there.

Cinderella,

I was so saddened to read your story and I wish you happiness in the future.

Pio,

With your comment regarding people being snobs that will not drink cask/box wine. I can remember having a wine snob at my home and decanting the cask wine so he wouldn't know it's source, he acutally thought it was a good year! Guess most people are like me, after the first glass who cares !

Regarding the email I received. I think I posted at the time that the sender wished to remain anonymous and I gave my word. One thing I will say though is that as far as I can see there was no wickedness behind the email. The sender really did have the best of TKO at heart. My reaction was extreme and due to my emotional state. I am a guest here on your thread and if you wish to know any further details please feel free to contact me.

BigK and Steph.

Thanks for your best wishes for my dinner with H. You were right BigK and it was an effort at instigating R. He even took me to my favorite restaurant, a very romantic setting in Old Town. Todd would have loved the mariachi music. My H is gorgeous hunk of a man that can certainly turn on the charm and of course knows what buttons of mine to press. He reminds me of Disneyland, it's fun to go there but after two days you have had enough and are ready to return to reality.

I still insisted he move out yesterday. My boys seem to understand and accept the situation fairly well but of course hope we R. It was a rough day.

Hope you all had a good weekend. Beth.

Well I don't want to be the one to start any rumors but I understand that ToddAC has gone down to the Bahamas for a few days to stake out surveillance locations for video and photo shots of WW's upcoming vacation. At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

No 2regret,

I simply don't care that much. It is your decision. Just don't let someone run you off for no good reason. I am a little curious about the mechanics of it though. Say I send someone an email and say "hey I know I'm being a jerk and all but I expect you to give me your word that you won't tell anyone else what a jerk I really am". Just seems unfair and if I could spell presumptuous, it would be that too! I will say though that anyone who thinks cinderella is a winner is seriously misguided. Poor girl. After that much time I think I might need to "be alone".

Good thing you kicked him out - that could have been you.



Does he now feel sorry for you?

ToddAC lays (lies?) on the sofa and free associates.

The last few days have been eventful. I had a headache for a few days which would not go away. Then the nosebleed started. It would stop for short periods of time and then start back. I awoke a couple of days ago with an intense pain in my left calf. I begrudgingly called one of my docs. Predictably, he wants me to go to the ER to be “checked”. This particular doc is mindful to be careful while I am careful to be mindful. We are not exactly like oil and water but close. Perhaps I am hydrochloric acid. I quiz him: do I truly need to go or are you protecting your malpractice premiums? You need to go. That is doc talk for I am worried about increased malpractice premiums. So I didn’t go. I sought and got his concurrence, although he was not happy, to give it overnight and see how things go. The calf pain vanished and the nosebleed stopped. Of course, I had fainted by then, but the nosebleed stopped. Headache persisted. Finally today, DS3 takes me to the ER to have my headaches inspected. Everything is fine just as I suspected. Dam* docs!

Since so many members are bored with discussions of magnetism and electricity, I will move on. I will just say that magnetism was my first love. It is fascinating. Okay, yeah, I will stop. I would like to digress into the realms and remnants of economics however. And, as fate might have it, this discussion has a point. The first point is the concept of Marginal Utility, a/k/a The Law of Diminishing Returns. Here is an example. A ten year old boy walks into an ice cream shop with $1.25 in his pocket. He wants a double scoop of chocolate ice cream. It is twenty five cents per scoop. He gives two quarters to the man for a twin scooped cone. He thoroughly enjoys the ice cream and the cone. He thinks for a minute and decides to buy another double scoop of chocolate. He enjoys it, but not as much. The man asks him if he would like another double scoop of chocolate. The little boy thinks and replies: I would but I only have twenty five cents left. The man says: tell you what I will do. Since you love ice cream so much, I will sell you a double scoop cone for twenty five cents. The little boy agrees and sits down to enjoy the cone. Only this time, he doesn’t enjoy the ice cream as much as the second double scoops and certainly not as much as the first two scoops. He has to labor to finish the ice cream and cone. He sits for a moment, gets up and tells the man bye. The man says: don’t you want some more ice cream? The little boy allows that he is now broke. The man says, tell you what, I will give you a double cone of chocolate free. The little boy sits and just stares at the ice cream. For some reason, his excitement has waned. It is pure ****** just to lick the ice cream. His stomach is full, his eyes are full, and for some inexplicable reason, he just doesn’t enjoy this cone as much. He manages to finish and the man asks if he wants another free cone. The little boy shakes his head and walks out the door. This is the Law of Marginal Utility.

Every product and service has a demand curve and a supply curve. There are individual demand and supply curves and aggregate curves. I will discuss aggregate curves. The amount of variance in demand plotted against price, which is determined by the demand supply relationship, is called elasticity. Most goods and services have elastic demand curves, that is, when the price goes up, demand goes down. As prices decrease, demand increases. If the demand for a product or service does not vary with price changes, the demand curve for that product is said to be inelastic. Makes sense. The best example of a product with an inelastic demand curve is gasoline. Despite all the furor over MPG, hybrid cars, bicycling to work, etc., historically, price changes in gasoline have not affected demand in any material way.

How does this apply you? The next time you hear a politician say that he wants to raise gasoline taxes in order to reduce consumption, and save the environment BTW, know that he is full of baloney. What he really wants is more money to run new programs because government, as we know it, has an insatiable desire to spend money. Many of you will recall the braggadocio of the Clinton administration, that Clinton “balanced the budget”. Sorry, he did not in any way balance the budget. He was a magician but only because of a slight of hand. What Billy Bob did was to combine the federal budget with the Social Security Trust Fund, which fund currently has a surplus. I say currently because as the Baby Boomer generation retires, supported by few workers hence contributes, the surplus will quickly evaporate. The problem with combining the budget and the trust fund is that nobody can now distinguish the difference between the two. Folks, if you are planning on a retirement paid for by social security funds and you are younger than 55 or so, forget about it. It will not happen.

DS3 spent the night last night and we had a ball. We had dinner and dinner again today. If you will indulge me, I am totally proud of and impressed by my sons. All three are confident, secure, have a great sense of humor and have manners. DS3 is so confident that he nudges against the fence which separates confidence from arrogance. Almost, but not quite. He and I discussed the SS issue at great lengths today. He asked, but what can we do? Here’s the answer. I have a sense that Americans are increasingly fed up with both major political parties. The Democratic party of today is vastly different from the same party during JFK’s era. JFK was liberal on Civil Rights, moderate on social programs, economically conservative and conservative on defense. The current Democratic party sits to the far left of JFK’s party. The Republican party has followed it to the left, stopping just about in the center. But remember, center has moved drastically to the left. Spending under the conservative Bush has increased dramatically. He has not used his veto power. All of this BTW, with a Republican congress.

My mission is not to transform you from your current political leanings or to mold you into a Libertarian. My goal is simply this: demand honesty and accountability from your elected officials. How do you accomplish this? Ignore sound bites. Research information yourself. There are many sources, from as mundane as the congressional voting record to asking your rep the hard questions. America has been a great country for many years. Despite all the talk about the incredible growth of China, the US economy’s growth last year was bigger than the entire size of the Chinese economy. We are the world’s economic and military engine. The world watches the Dow, not the Euro stock exchanges. The world watches the Fed chairman not the central banker in Japan. We stand to loose our greatness. As we worry about who crosses into our borders, jobs are being sent in droves offshore. Even as our economy purrs quite nicely, debt is mounting, the social security trust is eroding and balance of payments is shrinking to our detriment. It is our country and we the people have the power if we learn how to wield it. Write your congressman or congresswoman and let them know how you feel. Demand an end to clever sound bites and attacks. Demand that government work together to solve our problems. Our sons and daughters depend on it.

Todd I hope you are going to get checked out by the doctor. That doesn't sound good.

Well, er, I was going to explain about Halloween in SA but now I feel somewhat "marginalized" or "diminishingly returned". Oh well...

Halloween is not directly a religious holiday so, within the confines of our "camp", we are allowed to quietly celebrate it. We might get some vandalism of the decorations. So far our 10 tombstones out front and two scarecrow/ghosts have held up well. As much as the Arab children might publicly protest Halloween, the seem to like the free candy well enough.

We went to a Halloween party of a friend of the DDs. There was a contest for best costume. We were not allowed to vote for our own children but, aside from that, I think DD2 won unanimously for her "sweet little devil" costume. Expat houses will have candy for the kids and parents will walk around with groups of children for trick or treat tomorrow night. It is my turn to sit out front and hand out candy. WW made two wonderful candy "bags". I'll have to post a photo. She made Frankenstein heads out of Nido milk cans.

The inside of the house is really decorated to the max for Halloween. It is so well decorated that a) DD2 cannot sleep out of shear terror and b) the house maid is convinced we are satanists. She and two friends held an exorcism while we were at the grocery store.

Christmas is a much more dangerous holiday and we have to keep that really low key. Usually any outside decorations will be destroyed. Last year I put a motion-activated camera on the front yard to capture who was doing the vandalism. When I showed the recording to security, I was almost arrested for photographing a Saudi without his permission. Somehow they totally missed the point of the exercise. Just another day in Saudi.

I recommend reposing on the sofa. It is grammatically much safer.

Hi BigK,

I got checked out today in ER. Everything is fine.

For some reason, reposing sounds dirty. Sounds like I am playing a role in an adult film......

Geeshh...Todd...you seem to be a fountain of...knowledge! Glad to hear you had a 'ball' with DS3..... I must admit...I also enjoy my boys' company...they are just too cute!


..I wonder who he takes after?



Pio....you are so funny...you know that....LOL!

Just wondered....isn't your Niccolo Macchiavelli costume a bit too subtle for the kids..... unless in SA philosophy is being studied in kindergarden!

Is one allowed to ask how are things with G....or is it off-limits?

I give, who?

Hey, my daughter won third place in the adult costume category at 'trunk or treat' at church tonight. She was Snoopy. And she took our dog, in her little yellow costume, to be Woodstock.

We won 'best trunk' with our full spread of goodies. An inflatable pumpkin that was about 4' in diameter. An inflatable ghost about 4' tall. A skeleton made of PVC tubing, some lights and halloween garland to decorate the inside of the trunk, a line of pumpkins - some lit w/ battery powered fake-tealights, a CD playing children's Halloween songs. The piece de resistance was the fog machine tucked under the car so there was fog swirling at my feetl I was the happy witch in my shiny sparkly witch dress, fishnets, birkenstocks, and snazzy fashion-statement black and lime green hat with sequins and netting.

Well we recently finished a six day Eid holiday and stayed around the house – mainly because we had no exit visas for our passports. Couldn't even go to Bahrain but, then again, I understand the queues at the border were five and six hours long most days. So we stayed around the house and did all sorts of chores, repairs, Halloween decorations, etc. In hindsight, maybe six days "alone" with gemela was too much too soon. On the last day we had run out of necessary things to do so we started scrapbooking. She did the creative part and I did the math and trig. At one point I noticed that my glass was sweating on the table so I removed it and wiped up the water with a towel. When I did that she said "and get your glass off my table!" (which I had already done). I got quiet for a couple of minutes and then told her I was tired of her and wanted a divorce. She said I was going overboard for wanting a divorce because of a comment about a glass. I said I couldn't care less about the comment. I wanted a divorce because she had cheated on me, lied to me and continued to cheat for the better part of a year. She did not make me happy. I was much happier when she was in Mexico than now and I wished she would simply be gone forever. She did not make me happy in the least. I wanted to be happy again. I missed love and she had stolen any chance of love from me forever. I couldn't stand being around her.

She said she would not give me a divorce. She was committed to giving everything she had to make the marriage work. She said we needed time but that she had faith we could work it out. I replied that neither one of us is happy and we don't love each other and I asked what I had done that was so bad that she got such pleasure out of continuing to make my life he11. Why did she get such pleasure out of making me suffer? I'm not sure but it is possible that I may have LB'ed. I did ask her about the phone calls to BF right before the PA started. I asked what advice BF had given her. She asked why I wanted to know. Way wrong answer. I reminded her she had promised to be radically honest and answer any question even if she saw no benefit in telling me. So she screwed up. I felt it was a harmless question in that it avoided the A entirely. She said BF told her not to do it (I suspect she is telling the truth in that).

Anyway we didn't speak much the rest of the day except for essential scrapbook talk. The next morning I had to go to work but I woke her up before I left and repeated that I wanted a divorce. I don't think I added much new to the discussion so won't go into details but we argued for about an hour. I did bring up again her stash of love letters and photos when she told me she wanted to put the A behind her and that she was sorry for what she had done. I said people only keep a scrapbook of things they want to remember – not things they are sorry about and want to forget. I begged for a divorce. She said she wanted to see it through and salvage the M. She said she never valued our M like she should have and she has learned that.

I don't remember much of the rest of the day. Oh yes I do. She called in the AM and told me she needed 200SR to pay to a friend to get her caught up in the birthday club since she had been away for a few months. At lunch I asked her how I could know that money didn't go for phone cards. That was her MO – find a way to need unaccountable money and use it to buy phone cards. She said that had not occurred to her. She said she would get the money back and quit the club. I said that was typical P/A behavior on her part – find a way to make me the bad guy. I told her to stay in the club and give me a D because our marriage was not worth 200SR. Not much more discussion. She says she just wants me to be able to trust her again and will do anything or give up anything to help me do that. She has some nerve!

I did go home early with the idea that we could finish our "discussion" before the kids got home from school and settle on the divorce. Well we never spoke. We both went upstairs but we ended up taking naps. She went to pick up the DDs from school and then helped them with their homework. After we got the kids to bed, we did talk again. I told her that I hurt and she had no idea how badly she had wounded me. My only crime was loving her and she had ripped my heart out of my chest, proved to me she was a cheat and liar and I would never trust her again. For her part she said she was extremely sorry for what she had done. She doesn't know why she did it. Doesn't want to be that kind of a person, etc. She said she has tried to tell me that she is sorry but I always say I don't believe her. I said she should tell me that every single day until I do believe it. I told her she had destroyed my self-esteem and all I wanted to do was die. I no longer had any reason for living except for the DDs and my death would benefit them more.

I am pushing her away with everything I have and she is hanging on, holding me, kissing me, trying to reassure me, promising me eternal faithfulness. She says she knows I have bad days and would give anything to know what to do to help me. She says she feels unworthy to be with me. What gall!

Anyway things have calmed way down. I think what we are doing wrong is that we are not really communicating. She did make an IC appointment which I had asked her to do. Maybe the IC will recommend MC. I don't know. I will say that for all my anger, I focused almost exclusively on how I felt and I don't think I DJ'ed much, if any. I'm not even sure I LB'ed that much. Basically I focused on how this had affected me. I think I had a lot bottled up inside and I just blew (and blew…and blew).

My honest opinion is that she is finally getting the big picture. My honest opinion is that she is sincere. I seem to be the obstacle right now. I think she needs to remain consistent and maybe even need to put up with my negative attitude a bit longer. I think she owes me that. I guess I feel like she needs to put in some effort to prove she still belongs here. For my part, I need to give her that opportunity. I do want to and will work hard to try to. We just need to talk more.

Hmmm....two birds? one stone? What brilliant idea! And, if WS says anything, just claim it is Halloween decoration! Genius in its simplicity!

Hang on a tick. How to explain a ghost with spangles? Gotta work on that one...

Wow Pio. Is this all just a test so you can gauge if Gemela is really serious about recovery? Have you ever given her Josephs letter? Pepperband bumped it on the "Just Found Out" forum so it's near the top.