With all my speaking of stuff (the past, I guess, never leaves you). But I suppose the 'high' point for me it is that I should be able to be better than this. And everything, as I remember. Not going as to any of it right now, but we keep trying, yes? I lost a whole lot this year passed. A buddy, my youth, my thoughts about just about everything. But I can't believe it. I'm still here. And I can tell you right now, for sure, some Global Challenge won't be changing that in any number of amount of minutes. Nor will or what I did about it some 25 years ago, will make me a bit weepy or something. I'm not in that group going around. I'm happy, too, with the one I'm in - we don't fight about anything. I guess all I'm saying is that "Can we maybe all get over times, standings, and all that?" Maybe, just maybe, it's all about that we're alive and can still be here. God (and he knows that for sure) knows I can't. And He doesn't think I should.
I am so damned sick of all this scoring crap - just so you know. I've got bigger fish to fry now.

Hi All. I have just discovered this particular thread (am still scratching my head trying to figure out this site at times), and I think it is terrific. I often wonder what to put in my blog - mostly because a lot of "younger" people seem to read the blogs, and I've been looking for a forum for a bit more "grown-up" type discussion/release.

The lows have been a few recently - I went to an accident where a woman felt responsible for the death of her husband (she ran over him after he hit the truck), a guy who died at work from a nasty head injury, and a few other bits and pieces. I've been reminded about just how precious life (and love, more importantly) is. You really gotta grab that puppy with both hands. There are so many insiginificant things that we get bogged down with on a day-to-day basis, that sometimes we forget what is important. Love.

Good for you Gats, and who cares if you are Bi? Love is so precious, so rare, that why should you shut yourself off from half of the people on the planet who may love you, and who you may feel love for? Love is love - it doesn't care, so why should anyone else.

Oh - my highs. The smile of my son, the warmth of sharing a bed with my DB (Dearly Beloved, we are gathered here today....), and finding this thread.
Thank you.

Right, everyone, it's 'top this one' time....
I left early today as it looked like a wet one and I needed more time to get to my class on the other side of Hong Kong.I got on the minibus , found a seat and realised I forgot to put on earrings, but no big deal. This was a minute problem compared with the gigantic ones that followed.
I reached town early and decided to visit the school I used to teach at , chat with staff, hear all the goss etc. Then I heard mention of the dreaded red warning. Heavy rain and one should stay in shelter if poss. Children can go home if collected. I rang my centre and was told to go to teach my class anyway. As I left the school to get to my class , the BLACK warning went up (children have to be collected, no school buses will arrive, rain will be phenomenal). As my class was not far off, I decided to get on down there. Fatal mistake. The huge mid levels escalator was going UP the side of the hill, and I needed to go DOWN, by the steps. So I left school and set out. Within seconds my clothes were drenched, but I soldiered on as it was not far, halfway down I slipped in the wet, fell headlong and my glasses fell off and were lost for ever in the fast flowing stream alongside me! These were my spares as the others were in for repair. A passing gentleman(I use the term very loosely) was in paroxisms of laughter at the sight of the clumsy old *Gwaipor lying headlong in the wet road, and walked past ( shades of the Good Samaritan, eh?) Anyway I picked myself up and carried on, glassesless and soaked, bruised and all of a shake. I reached the centre and went in dripping all over the hallway. I was offered a toilet roll to mop myself. (Oh yes really)I called the boss on my mobile and he answered from the classroom and said they were waiting. I entered and dripped and sobbed and said I really couldn't take the class at the moment.
"Oh , sit down (where?) , take a rest, I will sit with them" said he. (Not oh heavens , are you OK and pouring me into a taxi, oh no), "Compose yourself and you can take over in a few minutes. " (&^%$??)
The deputy head arrived with another toilet roll , and a pair of tracksuit bottoms to fit an 8 yearold. No thanks, I think I will go home. "Oh OK , you can catch up the lesson you missed, next week." (as you see he is the essence of sympathy and kindness,not).
I left. My umbrella was nowhere to be found, so I bought another (at large expense) , in the shop next door to the school(they saw ME coming).I got a minibus to the optician, still dripping. I got my new glasses which she had made a mistake with and the bill was more than she had charged me, so I paid the extra, ordered another spare pair and left. I went to the market and bought a whole new set of clean dry clothes..... and got on the train for home.I thought I would phone home and ask for the hot water to be switched on and the kettle too. I reached for my phone.... gone!Argh!!!!!
I get home and called and the boss said "Oh yes, I did see a phone on the side in the classroom, I wondered if it was yours...." but he left it there.I will get it next week.I had a wonderful day. I am a bit bruised and I think I will bath and go to bed.I should have stayed in there this morning. *** foreign she devil

Okay, you win - what a shocker! Must be amazing rain to give out warnings like that (send some over if you feel you have spare, I think Australians would like to water their gardens again! )

Well, here is our system if it interests anyone.Rainstorm warnings

Oh Ren that's awful. Days like that are truly horrendous.

Yikes, ren ! I can't imagine such a dreadful morning (and I've had some doozies!). All I could think was how you probably haven't felt so safe hopping in your bathtub for a very long time. And *thumbs nose* at the mentioned "good" samaritan, too. If that is the sort of person who makes life good, well, then it helps me to remember why I stay in a lot.

One little (hopeful) giggle did eventually come after reading your wet adventure ---> I went down to do laundry a few hours ago and discovered this rather large puddle on the floor down there. First thought? "Omigod! Ren's been here and I missed her visit !"

OK, probably not so funny...

Sounds horrid, but I did smile at the 'I called the boss on my mobile', in fact I chortled!

Never mind dear, you can chat to me tomorrow and that will make you feel so much better.

Now my sort of low, my @$*&* computer has been acting the fool for about six weeks and now has reached the stage of not being the slightest bit amusing. I only bought it two months earlier and I cannot afford to pay for another as I still am not working. It is now in 'hospital' and the only good news is that they have managed to copy off the files I didn't have backed up, including all the most recent photos I have taken but haven't transferred to cd yet. Just as well I hadn't thrown or given away my old one so at least I am not offline. If this one packs up before I get my new one back I still have two more!

Sort of good, I think but will let you know later, a cousin I only remember seeing once, and that was when I was about 13, is going to phone me this evening. Should be interesting.

Why I don't make plans

I deliberately didn't say in my blog I had two filmings for different Sky channels booked this week as by my age I realise nothing is written in stone (try buying a house in England...) and after a call they would be late the ordeal started.
Firstly an hour late, then two, then finally after sitting here all afternoon (besides a walk in the park when I knew they weren't coming for an hour) they called from Leicester (100 miles away) well not exactly Leicester but they'd left at 2pm and by 4.40 were still somewhere between Leicester and me, nearer to Leicester.

It turned out we had possibly Britain's worst ever traffic jam, though it didn't make the news at all. A lorry fire closed the M25 at Reigate about 10am, and the traffic was backed up almost as far as Leicester, which is 100 miles away. It reminded me of the day I waited for my extra kitchen delivery the day after the nearby to Leicester warehouse had burnt down and I didn't find out till 6pm after another day doing nothing. At least they sent me a small refund after waiting 6 more weeks for my cupboard doors.
The only small possible benefit now is I was expected to film a hypnotic regression on someone I'd never met or knew a thing about and then an interview on the subject. I have a major filming on Monday with someone who is my best subject and I think that will give me more material for their blind test as many of the reports give related information you can check with other hypnotic subjects.

Also I realised I wasn't the poor sod stuck in a car for 3 hours going nowhere on the hottest day of the year, compared to them I got off lightly.

Oh Ren, that's awful! I really feel for you.

Another filming is now complete, doing the same hypnosis routine on a different person for Mystery Hunters, which is on Discovery Kids both sides of the Atlantic. I'd never seen it and I asked when the programme was on, the answer being about an hour before I asked.
It turns out the presenters are pretty big celebrities in Canada (at least) where they came here from, and I just turned on today's episode to see the same person who was sitting in my chair yesterday presenting a programme on TV. So now I'm even mixing with celebrities!
Has anyone else seen Araya? He's on every day here so I'm interested to know if anyone's actually watched him as he's also been in some major films and other series.

My high/low is all kind of puzzlingly mixed up in the same thing. I was talking to a friend the other day, a fellow who has excellent medical insurance as he works for the city, and he had been feeling poorly so visited the doctor. Who sent him to another one. And another. And so forth. His insurance actually authorized a final total of $10,000 worth of doctoring to find out that he has acid reflux? That's it? 10 grand for such an irritating thing, yet surely not so dire to endure OR difficult to diagnose as to add up to 10 grand! High point from it? Jeesh, I guess I'm lucky I don't have that OR, better yet, already know what I have.
It's no wonder that medical attention costs so much for we commoners when insurance companies let rates jack up to that point to diagnose heartburn (and, yes, I do know that acid reflux is worse than heartburn ).....

My chin is on my chest here Gatsby, I have acid reflux and it cost me the then equivalent of about £26 to diagnose. It was a number of years ago so obviously cost considerably less. It was one trip to my GP.

I visit a site for people who have or have had heart valve replacements or repairs and I am always staggered to hear what it cost in the US. I had my surgery privately so know exactly what is charged here. Also, I had eleven days in hospital whereas in the US they throw them out after about four or five day sunless there is a problem.

A high(ish), I was hat hunting last week and ended up buying one I like but not thrilled with, today when I was killing time I went into a shop which used to sell hats but had stopped (so I thought so didn't go in last week), but they hadn't stopped at all and I found a very nice hat and matching shoes and bag. All I need now is something to wear with them!

What about going au natural?

Quote:

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What about going au natural?

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Omigosh, Skunkee, perish the thought. The mind boggles!
Maybe wait until Sue finishes growing her hair, it is only ear length at the moment. Maybe then send her to Coventry?

But does she own a horse?

I guess I might look quite something in just a hat, shoes and carrying a matching bag!

I have just spend half an hour with a charming doctor, first he said it was nice to meet me, then said, that he thought he had seen me before. Yes, he got me ready for my angiogram last year, very nice man. I suppose that has to be my high, meeting a very nice man.

My high - even though my day has just begun I just had my truck looked at to see why it won't move when I turn the engine over. After much deliberation by phone with my Father-in-law we concluded that it must be the transmission. Just what I need to deal with on the eve of my big move. So this morning a mechanic came to my home with a wrecker and took a quick look at it and determined that the brakes had locked up from sitting in the drive for a few weeks and thanks to a weeks worth of rain the brakes just seized up. So now my Explorer is on the move again and I just saved a few thousand dollars in unnecessary repairs!

too early for any lows....

Didn't cost a thing - just drove it back and forth about 20 times in the drive to get the "sqeeeeak" out and it's all better. Now if I could just figure out a way to keep it from raining while it's in storage....

My high for today is that my husband and I are meeting some good friends that we haven't seen in awhile for dinner. We always have such fun with them and I'm really looking forward to this evening.

My low: Traveling down the interstate in Arizona, I saw a elderly couple standing beside the road watching their motorhome go up in flames. The fire department had not yet arrived and it was in full blaze. They had their SUV still attached to the back of the motorhome with no hope of getting it loose before the flames were put out, IF the flames were put out in time before it was destroyed also. I was glad to see the people out unharmed, but what a bad day for them. It was an older style motorhome and not some big fancy one.

Not posted in one of my "favourite" threads for a little while High of the last few days is the weather...the sun! Don't like to sit out in it (terrified of wasps and bees) but just nice to see it! Also one of my local libraries opened a garden there this week. I am a very regular visitor there...very near my home so one place I go to by myself...so me and Mum went to the opening. I've known the majority of the librians for most of my life, so they consider me part of the fixtures! In there so often that sometimes mistaken as one!
Life is fine for me and Mum. We'll never forget Dad, but at the moment everything is going smoothly

High from yesterday: we got rain. It only amounted to 0.31", but it's enough to stop the drought streak at 39 days.

Just wrapping up what turned out to be a most deceptively devestating weekend. Friday afternoon I drove my son and myself over to Presque Isle on Lake Erie to visit my in-laws who have a trailer set up at one of the local campsites. I arrived there at about 10p.m., unpacked, had a drink and went to bed at about 1 a.m. The next morning my father-in-law took his boat out at 6:30 a.m. to get in one last day of fishing. They've been up there for the last 10 days and still hadn't caught any walleye. He was out for 12 hours on the boat so my mother-in-law and I took my son out on one of the beaches on the peninsula to play since he couldn't go fishing with Pap-Pap. After two hours in the hot sun we returned to camp only to be notified that the family who stays right next-door had lost their 22 year old daughter and her 19 year old boyfriend the evening before when they were struck by a speedboat while riding together on a jet-ski out on the lake. What I was surprised by was that when I arrived the night before I saw the parents out walking their dog while I was unloading my truck. I even stopped to bend down and give the dog a scratch and say hello to them and they never even indicated that this had happened. We now know that the father was even there as his photo appeared on the front page of the Erie newspaper being consoled by the Coast Guard. My in-laws had just seen the kids before they went out in the bay and remarked how they were thinking about buying a jet-ski of their own. After this happened they said forget it.

I returned home tonight at 4:30 to find multiple messages waiting for me. One was that my grandmother died. While I knew that this has been a long time coming I didn't expect to take the news so hard. Her health had been failing for over a year and she had been praying for death for quite some time. I'm told that she went peacefully in her sleep at about 10a.m. yesterday morning. I haven't spoken to her in quite a while as I just felt I couldn't have this discussion with her again. I had given her "permission to go" as it seemed she needed to hear it but reminded her that it in no way meant I was wishing her dead. My own mother has been dead for 23 years now and she never got over having to bury her youngest child. Gram was one of the last connections I had to my mother, I officially outlived her three years ago and realize how young she was when she died. I bear a striking resemblance to my mom (an aunt used to run out of the room crying whenever she'd see me years ago) and I think we were able to be a source of support for one another years later. I now wonder which is worse, to be so young and die suddenly, unable to see your children grow and have children of their own or to live so long that you begin to feel trapped in a body that slowly begins to betray you. Currently she is in Elizabethtown, PA at the Masonic Homes, where she lived for the last 20 years. There will be a small memorial for her there and then she'll be transported back to Pittsburgh Thursday for burial in the family plot with my grandfather, great-grandparents and mother.

Through those tears I then returned the message from my Family Support Group key-caller and learned that my husband's unit suffered an incident in Afghanistan that injured one soldier and killed another. Names had not been released pending family notification but wanted to inform me that there would be a briefing tonight to release that information. The only "high" I can speak of is that I know that is wasn't my soldier as I had spoken to him twice this weekend. He never spoke of this incident as we had very little time to pass the phone around before we were disconnected. As I only returned home in time to get these messages as the meeting was beginning I couldn't attend and am holding my breath until I find out who was killed.

What was supposed to be a nice weekend getaway has turned into anything but. I just want to crawl into bed for the next nine months. How I'll get through until he's home for good I don't know.