anything you're thinking about or is happening in your life http://www.dregston.com/boards/list.php?14 Wed, 08 Sep 2010 04:53:45 -0600 Phorum 5.2.7 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,32924,32924#msg-32924 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,32924,32924#msg-32924
There's not much that can be done for rabbits that are that far gone (we called a breeder to be sure), but I called the clinic to see how much it would be to put her down in case she didn't go quickly and was shocked at a quote of $170 for one injection. I have no idea what the usual rate for that is, but I guess since it was the weekend emergency clinic and they don't have regular patients they have to sock it to everyone that comes through the door. Is that fee typical?

By noon the last of her life was ebbing away so I took her to around back to her outside run, which was her favorite place in the world. My husband buried her in a field on the fairgrounds, with a little stone marker my daughter made.

Tinkerbell was one of my daughter's first 4-H projects, and she just morphed into a family pet. Most years she lived out back during the summer months and in the garage when it was cold, but this summer we never moved her out back because she liked the company of the family passing through so much. My daughter is understandably upset but I have to confess so am I. It always hit me hard when I was a kid, and I figured I would have outgrown that in the 35 years since I experienced loosing a pet. She was a good little pet and we're going to miss her scampering up and demanding to be petted every time we pass through our garage.

Did you have pets growing up? Do you have one now?]]> LisaRS Muse Tue, 07 Sep 2010 12:27:43 -0600 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,32905,32905#msg-32905 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,32905,32905#msg-32905
Out here in CO it's a cool, sunny 61 deg F, and the mountains are calling me....]]> JaneGS Muse Tue, 07 Sep 2010 18:51:52 -0600 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,32798,32798#msg-32798 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,32798,32798#msg-32798
1. Historically something major breaks down around the house right around the county fair. This year within a three week period you scored a triple play with the hot water heater going out, the computer totally crashing and needing replacing, and the electrical connector between the van and camper failing. You would
a) Start saving now for next year.
b) Start praying this isn't the beginning of an exponential trend.
c) Create a pool to predict next year's target(s) so your friends and neighbors can have a little fun at your expense.
d) Quit whining because at least the hard drive you hadn't backed up in way too long wasn't lost.
e) Other

2. Which kid deserves the biggest slap upside the head?
a) The one that leaves you sitting in the school parking lot waiting for him while getting a ride home with a teenage girl.
b) The one who was spray painting something while standing in the driveway near the house, the camper, and your van.
c) The one that informs you that his school jeans are too tight, three days after you told them to try them on and let you know right away because it was the last day of the sale.
d) The one who pulled a plate of homemade candy out of a box from his room...left over from last year's fair.
e) None of the above.
f) Other. Please describe _________________________________________

3. You are about to come home from your first solo camping trip and you have no camper brake lights or turn signals on a busy stretch of interstate highway. You would
a) Drive annoyingly slow so other vehicles avoid you like the plague
b) Pick up the phone and let your spouse know what you think of this intermittent problem not being fixed when they first noticed it.
c) Make an appointment to get it fixed as soon as you get home
d) All of the above

4. One of your teens has taken to speaking to you in 98% shrugs, silences, and scowls. In response you would
a) Carry on as usual
b) Appreciate the silence
c) Reciprocate with shrugs, silences, and scowls the 2% of the time he's actually speaking to you (typically when he needs something or has a criticism)
d) Do the unexpected to keep him off guard ie Loud noises and scary faces when least expected
e) Take pictures and video to use as payback at a future date
f) Other

5. You and your daughter come home from a camping trip and when you return and walk in the door you are greeted with
a) The cold shoulder from the rabbit who is mad at your for not visiting her with an apple slice and a pat every morning
b) A kid coming out the door crying "We're saved!", apparently a reference to the lack of meals throughout the weekend.
c) Silences, shrugs, and scowls.
d) An empty dishwasher and a sink full of dirty dishes.
e) All of the above

6. Your other teen has taken to staying up to the wee hours and chatting on facebook or other forums, leaving him tired and wanting to sleep in until noon. You would
a) Be understanding since you've done the same yourself, except for the sleeping until noon part
b) Pull the plug at 11pm
c) Do nothing and let him go as long as he keeps up his grades.
d) Set a time when the computer is off limits and check in the morning. If he's been on after that time, log into his facebook account and make a few posts, of course making it clear it's mom doing the posting.
e) Other. Please describe ______________________________________________

7. Now that your youngest is heading off to junior high you apply for a substitute position with a local public school district. During typical years these jobs are wide open and easy to get but this year due to major funding cutbacks the current openings went to teachers that were just released. You would
a) Search for a part time job outside the field of education because it's unlikely to get better any time soon.
b) Wait until the dust settles and call to inquire.
c) Drop names and/or call in favors.
d) Start an intense search for a more suitable job for one of your good friends, as she landed one of the few job openings and doesn't even want it.

8. In between fair week and your camping trip you scrambled to conquer the entire school supply shopping list but neglected to pick up a magnetic locker mirror, which is a rite of passage for girls entering junior high school. Now you visit every store in town discover that it's too late to find one so you would
a) Drive to a neighboring city in hopes of finding one before school starts tomorrow.
b) Order one online
c) Buy the green one, even though it clashes with her locker decor.
d) Tell her "I didn't have a locker mirror in junior high and look how I turned out."
e) Give it up. This is an epic failure of motherhood.

9. Nearing the end of the shopping trip to the many stores in town in search for a locker mirror, you're exhausted and stop at a bookstore cafe for refreshment. The brownie your daughter ordered tastes more like banana than chocolate and your blueberry scone was really awful. You would
a) Take it back and ask for a replacement
b) Complain to the manager that it was the worst bookstore cafe food you've ever had.
c) Take the blueberry scone home and add it to your survival kit, because surely it had enough preservatives to last a very long time
d) Consider it your punishment for not buying your daughter a locker mirror when you should have.

10. What would you do to survive the last 24 hours before the kids head off to school?
a) Make chicken. Use 1/2 cup wine and drink the rest.
b) Make rum balls. Use 1/2 cup rum and drink the rest.
c) Make barbeque sauce. Use 2 tablespoons of bourbon and drink the rest.
d) Abandon any pretense of cooking and go pour yourself a stiff one.]]> LisaRS Muse Fri, 27 Aug 2010 12:03:31 -0600 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,32751,32751#msg-32751 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,32751,32751#msg-32751
Now I get to pretend that I am on vacation for two weeks,(Emoticonvacation.gif) when in fact I will be working relentlessly advertising and promoting EU Law seminars the company is giving in NYC in October. Actually I like that work: it's real and literal and concrete, not an abstraction in sight.]]> Gina Muse Mon, 16 Aug 2010 18:27:16 -0600 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,32721,32721#msg-32721 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,32721,32721#msg-32721
Now, 12 years later, R. is demanding back child support, plus interest. I haven’t talked to R., but perhaps he was stimulated to sue because E. wanted their daughter (who is attending Harvard as a freshman next year) to pay for part of her tuition. E. is contributing $23.5k per year for Harvard as her half of the total cost of $52k per year, and Harvard has offered $5-$8k in student loans for the remaining fees, room, board, and tuition. E. thinks it will do her daughter good to accept a minor responsibility for financing her education. Since I haven’t talked to R., I’m not sure if this was his motive for the suit, although it was a point of contention between them.

I also have no idea what R. is thinking. When I knew him, he wasn't greedy or money-driven. and he's now a partner in a law firm, so I'm sure he's fairly rich. I work with E. (she’s been a colleague and good friend for 20+ years), and I used to be friends with R. (we played on the same sports teams together, etc.). It’s hard to imagine him lying on the witness stand, if asked if there was a verbal agreement to stop the child support. If there was any ambiguity, however, why did he wait 13 years to sue?

Here’s my opinion: R. is a complete jerk, a loser, unfit for polite society, and should be shunned and despised by all. R.’s current wife, if she fails to divorce him for his behavior, is a slimy, immoral, and despicable excuse for a woman. If I see R. (we run into each other around town on occasion), I intend to tell him exactly that (especially adding the part about his wife, since no man of honor would put up with that, although I’m guessing R. will). R. and E. also have a son who is graduating from college in a year. I have known the son and daughter since they were born and both are, as far as I can tell, great kids, and thoroughly ashamed of their father’s behavior. (The last letter from R.'s lawyer castigated E. for involving the kids, as if they were 6-year-olds. The truth is that E. hasn't involved them at all. The son knew about the lawsuit before E. did and is extremely upset about it.)

My personal opinion is that R. was a total loser to sue for child support in the first place – doesn’t any scintilla of manly pride suggest that he should support his own children (at least paying his half), especially since he was well off financially? However, that’s a minor transgression compared to the current lawsuit, which, whoever wins in the end, I find utterly despicable. I’m ashamed of having once been friends with this guy. If he goes through with the suit, I'm thinking of writing a "sleazy local law partner" article about it for the local newspaper, which has published aticles I've written in the past (although E. doesn't want me to, because it would humiliate her children).]]> Bruce Muse Wed, 18 Aug 2010 15:31:30 -0600 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,32675,32675#msg-32675 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,32675,32675#msg-32675
The park is also incredibly crowded so I'm surprised we saw any wildlife at all. Tons of people whose only interest was the number of calories they were burning, yapping away about work or bitching about their families, walking side by side on trails barely wide enough for two people to squeeze by going opposite directions and swinging their damned ski poles (they all have two) into your shins.


Not a Spencer level hike but we did about 6 miles altogether mostly on rocky terrain but we chickened out at crossing the snow field on a 35 degree scree slope. We did see pikas, marmots, golden mantled ground squirrels, a bear, pipits, and an ouzel (dipper). Some pictures from the flip-cam:

[www.flickr.com]
[www.flickr.com]
[www.flickr.com]
[www.flickr.com]
[www.flickr.com]

Cheryl]]> Cheryl Muse Mon, 09 Aug 2010 04:23:41 -0600 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,32640,32640#msg-32640 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,32640,32640#msg-32640
We are facing the possibility of my dad, who turns 88 years old today, having to contend with a mass that is noticeably growing in his neck, which he has ignored for 20 years. Being a doctor himself, he has always brushed aside questions about it with claims to have had it looked at by someone and it's fine. Well, at this reunion, the younger doctors in the family (my brother and son) noticed a significant change in size of the mass, as well as erosion of the stretched skin that covers it that is beginning to show signs of dying. They've taken on the task of trying to get his primary care physician to insist that he have a CT scan and fine needle aspiration of the mass. We know we're up for a huge fight, because my dad avoids health care and especially surgery like the plague.

So a bittersweet experience all in all.]]> Yiyi Muse Fri, 06 Aug 2010 13:08:38 -0600 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,32635,32635#msg-32635 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,32635,32635#msg-32635
Lisa, off to deliver caramels and glad all the preparations are behind.]]> LisaRS Muse Thu, 12 Aug 2010 19:04:30 -0600 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,32561,32561#msg-32561 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,32561,32561#msg-32561
kk]]> Snarkhunter Muse Wed, 11 Aug 2010 13:51:41 -0600 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,32548,32548#msg-32548 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,32548,32548#msg-32548
The day trip, as suggested by the Member Forum (i.e. you wouldn't catch me suggesting any such fool idea) was to go to Fanny's Farm Shop in Surrey. We have been there before and as it is near Box Hill we went that way home but didn't really have time to stop (we saw the view from the bus and I dashed out to buy ice creams.)

Fanny's Farm shop is a very quirky and rather fun place. I like it. Just not enough to want to endure the journey right through London. [fannysfarmshop.co.uk]

The trouble is, you see that it is due south of us. And as we are in North London this means going through or around Central London and then through the whole hideous wilderness of South London. And this is more than the prejudice of a confirmed North Londoner. There is a major traffic problem in the South. The most direct route, the old main route to Brighton, goes through Brixton and then a whole series of other choke points. When we went before it was horrible and took hours. So we came back via Box Hill because although that is a longer way round it is also better and faster roads.

So this time I planned to go via Box Hill. I even threatened to make them all re-enact the scene from Emma (like I did with the walking club). I figured we could come back that way too and it would not be so bad.

The bad news came two weeks ago. I phoned Fanny's Farm shop to give them some warning and they said that they could only manage fifteen of us at a time. The trip was inordinately, inexplicably popular and we had thirty odd people booked. Usually we get a lot of cancellations but had hardly any this time.

What to do? Taking half somewhere other than advertised was bound to cause ructions. In the end I decided that the only answer was to take a picnic, feed everyone and give them a cup of tea at Box Hill and then send the first lot over to Fanny's Farm while the rest enjoyed the views for an hour or so before exchanging. This seemed possible because one driver was K, my colleague at work who ran the computer classes and has been standing in for our boss recently and who has driven for us on and off for years. Also D, my practical worker who substituted for me when I was doing the MA has just come back from a spell off.

I thought I would send D with K's bus which would be filled with one group who generally like to go home earlier to the farm shop first, whilst I came over with the other two buses, which had the people who like to stay later, later.

What could possibly go wrong? Lots. I knew this wasn't a great solution but I couldn't think of a better one. Nor did anyone else have any suggestions.

Throwing a sickie and cancelling the whole thing might have been an idea.

So I started early for me buying bread and then making sandwiches and tea. Helped, it must be said, by two new volunteers who both arrived earlier than asked and pitched in. I made sandwiches for everyone because although I had realised that it would be better to send K's bus straight on to the farm shop, I knew that some people would complain if the other lot got free sandwiches and tea and they didn't.

Why did they have to come with us to Box Hill at all? Because neither K nor D were confident that they could find it. I printed out maps, went through it with D, traced the route in highlighter. I discussed the plan with both D and K yesterday. They would come with us to Box Hill then go on to the farm shop and then either come back to Box Hill or go home according to the time and wishes of their group.

So... K arrives with bus early and sets off I thought a bit early but I think he was just making sure he knew where he was going. I carried on making sandwiches and tea. We finally got ready and took cups, tea flasks, crisps, sandwiches and wheelchairs down to the meet up place. Just as we are setting out K phones. He is at the place he picks up most of his people, lets call it Fallowfield, but cannot work out how to open the side (passenger door) he has got the people on via the back, with difficulty but cannot open the door.

To be honest I am a bit put out by this. He is an experienced driver and I have never seen this minibus (we get them from a community transport outfit and he picked it up this morning). Why isn't he ringing them for advice? I don't even drive. Anyway I tell him to ring them and give him their number which he ought to have.

We get to the set off point and F another diver is there. I send him to get a couple of K's later pick ups to save time.

Once he is gone, K arrives. He showe me that the back lift is not working properly - hence the problems. He is right it isn't working right. We play around with the passenger door. I cannot get it to open. A few people go to the toilet.

F phones. One of his pick ups M was not expecting us "because I did not phone her." She has booked to go on this trip but because I didn't personally phone her yesterday to make sure she thought we weren't going. She needs ten minutes to get ready.

Then I notice that on the dashboard of the minibus is a big sign marked "door." Do you think, I ask, that the passenger door might be controlled by that button by the big sign that says door?

K looks at it. Gets the keys. Pressed the button marked door. The door opens.

The third mini bus arrives. More people start going to the toilet. We are now half an hour late for a late set off for a long journey. No sign of F. Eventually I phone him and he is nearly there so I harry people onto the buses. He comes. We put wheelchairs on but I keep hassling and eventually we set off. Nearly an hour late.

The journey isnt too bad until we get to Leatherhead. I wanted to go one way but F takes a different route that takes us into gridlock. Not his fault, just bad luck.

At about 2.00 we finally make it to Box Hill. I know that some of the people have now been on a mini bus for nearly four hours. So I run over to K's bus.

"Right!" I say, no doubt a little brusquely. "You know what you are doing?"

They both look blank.

"You are going on to the farm shop!" I say through grinding teeth.

"Oh... OK,"

"You know how to get there?"

"Um... not sure..."

"Look I showed you on the map. Here it is," I show the line I have drawn following minor roads for fifteen minutes or so to D again. Then I show it to K to make sure.

The head off. The rest of us get off the map and grab some picnic tables. Picnic tables, I should mention that I ensured would be there by the desperate expedient of using the Multimap "Birds Eye View" feature of ariel photographs.

Everyone gets sandwiches and tea. The new volunteers from Bulgaria and Eritrea respectively are inordinately helpful. After a sandwich and some tea I apologise to F for snarling at him when we got a bit lost on the final road up to the top of Box Hill.

My mobile phone rings. It is the other bus. They are lost. D tells me that K is in a petrol station asking for directions but that the trouble is that on the large scale map I gave her (along with the smaller scale one with the route traced on it) there are no names, just roads and they don't know what to ask for.

"Yes there are" I say. The road the farm shop on is named. Markinch Road or something." I am sure of it but do not have the map. My mobile batteries go.

I get the keys get my map (photocopies of the one I printed out for D) and there is the road clearly named Markedge Lane.

I phone her back on F's phone. Forbearing to swear, I point out that the name of the road must be on her map as I have photocopied mine from it!!!

So eventually we gather up all our waifs and strays and set off.

To be fair to K and D, as we make our way I don't get lost but I can see how the map I gave them was inadequate. There are several small turnings that are not marked on it that could make you go wrong.

But we arrive without major problems. They are just getting read to leave. There is something like a traffic jam of cars leaving the car park, clogging the narrow country lane. I get in to see how they are.

Not happy. A couple of ladies from Fallowfield are clearly very unahappy. They bristle at me and D says "I think we have lost a few friends."

I ask if they are confident that they can get home and K and D say yeah, as it is London. So they head off. For all I know they are still travelling.

So... our lot buy stuff. Before we left Box Hill, as it was so late, I suggested that we just stop to buy stuff in the shop and not get into getting tea etc. So people buy stuff but the shop is still busy and there are queues. Some people drift back to the buses. I am just rounding up the rest when I come across one group of four who are sitting at a table with a large pot of tea.

Anyway, we get everone back eventually and after another two hour journey across London deliver everyone home.

But I am really pissed off. I knew this was going to be a problem but it was much worse. Some of it is clearly my fault. Not being clear enough, not getting a better map sorted out. Not being both firmer at times and less cross at others.

But something that bugs me is people expecting me to sort things out that I am not in a good position to do so. Why phone me when lost? How can I help when I am miles away? Why ask me how the door on a minibus I have never seen before works?

But most of all it is those set, upset faces of the members who were really fed up after being driver around for hours. I uncerstand why they were unhappy, I really do. But I just don't know what I could have done to make it better.

Well I do. I should have told them that they couldn't go to Fanny's fucking Farm shop.

On the way there, stuck in traffic outside Leatherhead. I turned round to the people in my van and said.

"If anyone at the next Member Forum asks why we are always going to Hertfordshire (just to the North of us above London) This is the reason!"

OK, rant over. Time for another beer.]]> Spencer Muse Sun, 01 Aug 2010 09:07:03 -0600 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,32477,32477#msg-32477 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,32477,32477#msg-32477
Also I have been neglecting work a bit - what with the graduation, my mum and sister coming to stay and then an immediate and tough four day walking excursion, it has been hard to keep up with work stuff. I am almost glad to have a chance to catch up but now the housing association want to do various stupid things to my flat which means I will have a whole new lot of disruption to deal with in the next couple of weeks.

Sigh.

Still, the last bit of walk went well. The weather was pretty horrible but I managed to make my objective all the same, which was a big relief as this leg involved going over the top of the biggest mountain in England outside the Lake District. Actually I traversed round the very top but it didn't help much as I got lost in a bog.

But despite the rain, pain, misery, exhaustion, frustration and general horridity I quite enjoyed it. At any rate I saw a mole, a stoat and two red squirrels so it cannot have been all bad.

I doubt if I will do the blog updates on this leg before the weekend as I am still doing the last leg. Suffice to say that the Yorkshire Dales and North Pennines - both new to me - have some really fantastic walking. I am a bit regretful that I have ignored them in favour of the Lakes and Highlands of Scotland until now.

Still, better late than never.]]> Spencer Muse Thu, 22 Jul 2010 14:19:32 -0600 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,32459,32459#msg-32459 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,32459,32459#msg-32459
"This pragmatic approach resulted in the committee declining to craft revisions even in response to many issues that were on the approved list."

A person who has read a draft has suggested that "committee" should be changed to "committee's". I don't think that right, but I'm not really knowledgeable about grammar and solicit informed advice.]]> Warren Muse Wed, 21 Jul 2010 16:25:22 -0600 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,32411,32411#msg-32411 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,32411,32411#msg-32411 iwl.me]]]> Patti Muse Wed, 21 Jul 2010 05:51:56 -0600 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,32282,32282#msg-32282 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,32282,32282#msg-32282
I'll be back on line Saturday, I hope.

Yrs aff'ly,
Linda]]> LindaFern Muse Thu, 01 Jul 2010 17:29:40 -0600 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,32272,32272#msg-32272 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,32272,32272#msg-32272
However, with the spousal unit in San Francisco for a conference and her with no major projects out on the farm, we were able to meet up Saturday night for dinner at an Indian restaurant then stay up half the night drinking wine and catching up. Sunday we did some shopping and browsing and more yakking until we were both hoarse. Monday we picked up the granddaughters, the youngest of which I haven't seen since she was about 1 month old (she's in preschool now) and spent the day with them lounging around the apartment complex pool and (just for a change) gabbing away. The youngest was supposed to have surgery Tuesday but it was canceled so my friend's daughter, who had taken the day off, joined us at the pool and out for ice cream and the whole nine yards. Since she and her husband both work it was a great treat for the girls, having mom home and not having to spend the whole time cooking and doing laundry.

I even got my shopping done and we went over to the Cabela's store just across the state line where my friend was able to find a birthday present for her newest "grandkid", Leo the springer spaniel puppy. And they had a "buy 4 squares get 2 free" deal at the fudge counter. Our choices: vanilla moose tracks, rainbow sherbet, peanutbutter/chocolate, vanilla caramel praline, cappuccino, and something like moosetracks but with peanutbutter fudge bits instead of marshmallows. Thank goodness the girls and their mom came to help polish it off.

Really a nice weekend. I hope she can come down and see how we fixed up the house before we have to sell it.

Cheryl]]> Cheryl Muse Thu, 01 Jul 2010 10:16:32 -0600 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,32259,32259#msg-32259 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,32259,32259#msg-32259
I got back from the latest leg of my big walk on Saturday. Just in time to watch England play Germany. Lucky me!

I have this week and the weekend to sort out everything I can at work, sort out my flat and get it ready for my Mum and Sister who are coming next Tuesday. I have taken Thursday and Friday off, Thursday to do something with my Mum and Friday for the graduation ceremony. Then a meal with more family and friends at a local gastro-pub.

On Saturday it is my Mum's birthday so I am cooking a meal. My sisters are taking her out to see a show and so I am hoping to do a big production number while she is out. She knows I am cooking her a meal due to us not thinking it through beforehand but we are trying to play it down in the hope of wowing her when she comes back from the show.

But I have not had my usual chance to obsess about it. And I will really only have Saturday to shop and cook, So it won't be that complicated. I am going to go for a Spanish theme. The only really new dish is mini shrimp (that is, tiny morcambe bay shrimps, not what people call shrimps in the rest of the world) tortillas. I have not got the recipe right but can experiment a bit at the weekend.

My mum and Sister go the following Monday, I have a big day trip on Tuesday, and then a very early morning train back up to the Yorkshire Dales for a four day leg of the walk.

So it is going to be frantic and I am a bit worried as I have a very hard day's walking to get through this time.

The last leg went well, with beautiful hot dry weather. We are getting near to drought conditions in much of Britain. Because it is June it still looks green but the streams and rivers are very low if not dried up completely.

I walked three days and went through some beautiful country. The limestone uplands of the Yorkshire Dales National Park is completely new to me. But I had knee/leg problems which worries me as the next section is going to be tougher.

On the other hand, the names are some of the best yet. For example, I will be going past Pendragon Castle in Mallerstang

Even better than abandoning Hope in Derbyshire!]]> Spencer Muse Mon, 28 Jun 2010 17:33:05 -0600 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,32156,32156#msg-32156 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,32156,32156#msg-32156 www.cnn.com]

Reynosa is about 10 miles from my hometown, yet the drug cartel activity and violence depicted here seem like they are in a different world. I don't know if we have particularly good border protection or local police, but my personal world is untouched by this thank goodness.]]> Yiyi Muse Tue, 29 Jun 2010 14:21:49 -0600 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,32094,32094#msg-32094 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,32094,32094#msg-32094
There is always the option of donating them to our local library who sells them to buy more books. Or they could be put on eBay, but I was not up to that task. Then Alexandra pops up and volunteers to put them on eBay and Sarah’s could teach her how. We said that it would make a good summer job for her and she could have all the proceeds. She was tickled to get the ‘job’. She has only put up a few in the last couple of days and it will take her all summer to get it done.

Just in case any of you are in the market for a book, I wanted to let you know about her job. You can check out what she has done so far, and do check back each week for more items.

You can see the items here: Books on eBay

Please feel free to pass the link to include folks in your circle of friends who might be interested. It looks like Sarah started her out with my Jane Austen books, but there are all sorts of others coming up. We thank you for looking.

Yrs aff’ly,
Linda]]> LindaFern Muse Tue, 22 Jun 2010 11:56:16 -0600 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,32042,32042#msg-32042 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,32042,32042#msg-32042 Just remember, it's written for my friends and family. My youngest reader is thirteen, and the oldest, as far as I can tell, is 86.

[canajunadventures.blogspot.com]

I'm not expecting responses here.]]> Caroline Muse Sat, 12 Jun 2010 10:40:20 -0600 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,32028,32028#msg-32028 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,32028,32028#msg-32028 Yiyi Muse Tue, 15 Jun 2010 16:51:11 -0600 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,32005,32005#msg-32005 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,32005,32005#msg-32005
The council that has the vacancy has an online form which you can register to save and go back to. I did this and spent a fair bit of the weekend working on my application - apart from wheedling people here to help with upgrading the blog...

So anyway, having a bit of quiet time today at work I decided to do a bit more. But when I googled for the job it was no more. A bit of investigation came up with the puzzling info that the closing date was 9th of June. But I had been sure that the closing date was the 18th.

Perhaps you had to register an interest and I had missed that or something, I thought? After a bit of hassle I found a number and rang the HR department. After a bit I got put on to someone else.

Very sorry, he said, the vacancy is no more.

I had not missed anything on the form. Nor had it been sneakily filled by an internal candidate.

It had been cut!

So the Tory cuts have started and the council cut this job before even filling the vacancy.

Oh well, I suppose it serves me right for laughing at my big sister being made redundant! :(

But bang goes what looked like my perfect job. I am not a happy bunny today.]]> Spencer Muse Sun, 13 Jun 2010 15:19:12 -0600 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,31924,31924#msg-31924 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,31924,31924#msg-31924 "Life is largely a matter of expectation." – Horace
My father worked for an airline; we travelled rather a lot as a result, and somehow I got into my mind the idea that air travel was a complicated business, details were important and like a Boy Scout, it was important to ``Be Prepared``. From him I learned about secure suitcases, and about the importance of packing a toothbrush and a spare pair of underwear in your carry-on baggage. In my twenties I pooh-poohed his teaching a bit, and managed to be casual about flying, as it had got so much easier, but more recently, as I am older , airport security is more intrusive, and I set off the beeper with my knees, I`ve gone back to his way of thinking. Flying is a big deal, and if I am not prepared then I have only myself to blame. I still tend to work myself up into a bit of a state about preparing to fly, and although I know that there always comes a point where I realise that I have my ticket, and my passport and a credit card, and nothing else really matters, I still pack my carry-on with enough for an overnight.


I wonder if it’s ever possible to be thoroughly prepared for a vacation; I certainly wasn’t for this one- not thoroughly. First of all, we were not sure that it was actually going to happen until just before it did. Secondly, details were few and changing- one minute we might be going here, another we weren’t. Things were open and fluid, and even targets and horizons shifted and blurred. Did I want to do an Angels and Demon’s Tour? Actually, I didn’t…Dan Brown is a crappy author, and if I was going to spend time chasing Raphael in Rome it would not be just so I could follow Tom Hanks’s footsteps. Besides, I had a bit of a prejudice against the Vatican itself- as an enormous, over-decorated extravaganza best left to others. So What DID I want to do in Rome? I wasn’t sure. How many days did we have? Actually, at the beginning, I didn’t care what we saw and did. I was just overwhelmingly aware that the last time we’d done a trip in these circumstances, I met my better half on a cold, windy day in England, and discovered him to be frazzled, under weight, and greyish-looking. This was actually HIS vacation, and what he wanted to do was far more important than what I wanted to do. He really deserved the decompression time, and if he wanted to spend three weeks sitting on a beach and drinking beer, then that was what we would do. (He didn’t, as it happened.) If he wanted to abseil down a cliff, then I would hold the rope, or sit at the bottom and do vegetation sampling; if he wanted to rent a mountain bike, he could leave me on a rock to draw the houses and count fishes. In the end he didn’t want to do either of these things, but I had to be prepared for it. What I really thought he would want to do is a lot of pointing the car up the road and seeing where it got us- something that I enjoy very much, but if you don’t have something to point at, and you don’t know where you are going to be spending the next night, then you can miss out on some really good stuff.So even though we didn’t know what we wanted to do it was up to me to find out. But where, exactly, should the car go?

As it happens, , BH is currently working with Italians, which is probably how he chose to go to Italy in the first place, and of course , the Italians took a patriotic and professional interest in where to go and where to stay. I knew what that meant- we’d be bound to stay in at least one B&B run by somebody’s mother’s cousin, and treated like royalty, enveloped into the family and over-fed, and be given wine to take home. And because these Italians are Carabinieri, everything had to be just right, and heads would roll if we expressed any kind of dissatisfaction. So I knew we had to be on our best behaviour, too.

I was also in charge of packing We were meeting in Frankfurt- or maybe Rome- and hiring a car- that much I knew. I was going back to Canada first to reconnect with the kids and the dog, and to work on the garden, before flying out from Ottawa. I had to pack for two people for three weeks, in three different climates, and had to include clothes to garden in, and a shirt and tie for the Lord and Master, because something about our accommodations had firmed up and- terrifyingly, really- we were staying in a special place as the guest of the general himself. Um…. Then there was the fact that I could only take one case and one roll-on and I needed my laptop, and was ordered to bring the GPS, and the credit cards were just about to expire, and the kids were stressing about final exams. Stress. I don’t have high blood pressure, luckily, but if I did…

Then just as I thought I had a handle on everything, the Army here in LA decided that I was old enough to have a colonoscopy and I needed to present myself at such and such a time... No particular reason- just that I was old enough. I agreed, because they are a good thing, really, and a life-saver, if you might need one. But I began to dwell on it, and anyway, I had no reason to think there was any medical imperative to get it done now. If they found something serious, it would stop me having a vacation! Then they cancelled my appointment and rescheduled at the last minute, and the new appointment of the “procedure” clashed with some tying up of volunteer stuff that I was doing. I just had one of those “Stop the world, I want to get off!” moments, pulled myself up to my full five foot two and told the Army to sod off because I was too busy and would talk to them after my vacation. After I’d done that, I started sleeping properly again, and managed to pack a bag or two.


By that time I had also got a handle on where we were booked in to sleep (more or less), I had realised that Venice, Florence- in fact the North- were not on the Itinerary . We were going south, and though Rome and Naples were there, the rest was new to us. A few little whisperings settled in my head, and I decided that, since I’d missed them last time, I wanted to see The Romans. I’m not much of a history whore, really- I can never remember the lineages of kings, and the machinations of great families, and I’m not suckered by historical romances into thinking that the past was anything but dirty and inconvenient. The Lombards and the Borgias would have to wait. When we got to Rome it would be the Coliseum and The Palatine first, and the Vatican was not a priority. Except maybe St. Pete’s, because there’s another Michelangelo pieta in there… Pompeii? Yes, and Vesuvius, or at least Solfatara. And plenty of sunny, fishy, tomato-y pasta, please. Two words also kept repeating: Mezzogiorno, and Risorgimento. The first means mid-day: it also means siesta and it means the South of Italy, the land of poverty and emigration for so long, and more recently the recipient of Government concern and re-organization. I wanted to see what was happening there, since Berlusconi had made such mention of the south so often recently. Risorgimento means “resurgence”, and to me, that means General Garibaldi, who gave 1,000 men a shirt and unified Italy, and afterwards had one of my favourite biscuits named after him. I decided I wanted to know more of the General, and of Victor Emmanuel, the king. But other than that, it would be at the whim of my husband, and what we found when we got there. The day before I left Canada, My Friend Val thrust a guidebook into my hand, and at Ottawa airport I picked up a small phrasebook to read on the plane, but other than those, and a small sketchbook –journal, I had no preparatory materials at all.



Well, we arrived, and we saw, and we did, and we had a good time and came home in one piece, but in retrospect, some things could have been prepared better. I picked up some guidebooks along the way. We finally managed to download the whole of Western Europe into the GPS after trying unsuccessfully to purchase the chip, and life was considerably easier for having a good map, especially in the cities, but there were things we found out too late that might have been worth looking at. I did find the Risorgimento, and “cucina poverta” and “Agrotourismo”, and I have decided that my favourite emperor is Trajan. And we found castles and pirates and kings and courtiers too. And we found that the Internet and Cell phone coverage are both not nearly as available as we had assumed, that German was more useful than French in getting the meaning over, and that although the showers were always great, baths were non-existent. But we certainly enjoyed ourselves, we didn’t get robbed or attacked, and we survived to tell a whole bunch of tales.


On arriving at Rome airport on the way back, I was persuaded to check in both the big suitcase and the roll-on bag, and we climbed on board our plane with nothing but Mike’s backpack and my purse. I’m really not sure how this happened, but it did. It felt really free and easy. We were late taking off and late landing because of bad weather in Germany, so I missed my plane. We said a hurried goodbye as BH ran to try and get his. The airport was chaos – there were thousands of stranded travellers hanging about, being shifted from one long line to another , and escorted through passport control (three times, for me!), and hours of waiting to know what the Lufthansa was going to do. People got cross, of course, and were rude about Lufthansa when it wasn`t really their fault, but through it all, I had a tremendous feeling of confidence that they would look after us. Of course, they came through, and I was booked into a hotel, with vouchers for supper and breakfast, and my ticket rescheduled for the next day. I was there in a short-sleeved shirt and capris and not even a change of underwear, or sweater. Nor a toothbrush. And my bags could not be released. But the hotel was lovely- great food, great sleep and I wasn’t cold, even on the bus in the morning. A good shower does wonders for the tired body, even if you have to climb back into the same clothes! At the Air Canada desk next day, I was asked if I had been charged for the extra checked bag- apparently I should have been, but I wasn’t. No matter. I was without it all the way back to Ottawa, where both bags arrived safely. I wonder what my dad would have said.]]> Caroline Muse Wed, 09 Jun 2010 02:58:51 -0600 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,31904,31904#msg-31904 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,31904,31904#msg-31904
They say that Education is what’s left when all that has been taught has been forgotten. Well, they SAY that.


When I was fifteen I went on a Grand Tour. I didn’t know it, of course, because it wasn’t called a Grand Tour; it was called the “School Cruise”. And it was to the various great places of the Mediterranean- Spain, Italy and Greece. Not everyone was allowed to go- you had to be fourth year or lower sixth, for a start, and it was to be a lottery if the demand was high. Well, there was no way that I was going to be left out of anything like that, come Hell or High water, and if it took giving up all my pocket money for a decade! I mean , I was already a seasoned traveller- I’d overnighted in Rangoon (how many people can say they have done that?) and I’d been to Guide camp in Surrey and I’d survived…. And, of course it was two and a half weeks out of school!

I got no resistance from my parents- we are a travelling kind of family, so they approved thoroughly. The lottery was agony, and I only just made it in- I took the last place. My best friend in the whole world wasn’t coming, and I was going to be alone with the school cliques- the Brainys who got 99% on their exams and argued the last point, and Bad Girls who wore lacy knickers and spent most of their time shoplifting and avoiding boys just like Isabella Thorpe did. And the sixth form- the ultra-cool, oh-so-distant sophisticates who never said a word to us worms. If you don’t really understand that, then go and watch St Trinians- we were a bit like that at Aldershot County High School for Girls, But that didn’t matter- I was going to visit the ancient world, and see sights, and … well who knew what?

Well, the two week cruise in the Mediterranean turned out to be about 1400 Hampshire kids and their teachers stuffed into a recomissioned troop carrier with no stabilizers called the SS. Nevasa, and spending more time at sea in late October than actually on land. Us girls slept forty to a room in the back of the converted hold, and I learned that the Bay of Biscay’s reputation for storms was well-founded and that they put boys in the middle of the ship because they had less tolerance to sea-sickness than girls. We passed Gibraltar in the dark, so I never saw it, and the half day spent in Tarragona was bus tour and bullring and a quick scrabble in the souvenir shop whilst it rained. I wasn’t particularly impressed with Spain. Except for the oranges. Then we were off in the boat again to Livorno.

A bus ride from Livorno took us to Pisa, where the tower was really, really “leany” and we couldn’t go up and drop cannon-balls off the top like Galileo, because it was too dangerous, but it was still pretty cool. I guess having 1400 kids inside the Leaning Tower really would have been a bit much for the poor thing. Then we were scooped up again and dropped in Florence, where big doors and a church in green and white stripes left me gobsmacked, but even better was a statue inside, called a “pieta” which was all white marble and made by Michelangelo, and was so beautiful that I cried. And then there was the “Uffizi” where , at the end of a corridor, carefully lit and all by itself, was this NUDE Boy, all in white marble and absolutely enormous! And beautiful. And made by Michelangelo. I came away with two 8x10 glossy photographs of the Michelangelo’s- both so beautiful that the brainys called them sick and the bad girls thought pornographic, but the sixth found very interesting, and we had a nice conversation on the way to the Ponte Vecchio where we couldn’t afford the glass mosaic jewellery really, but it was fun to look. So ended my visit to Firenze, and my induction into the Renaissance.

I’d actually managed to get on well with the sixth, who were not that aloof really, and who were “doing” a Commedia dell’Arte performance before we got to Naples. I had the part of Il Dottore, which is highly unromantic for a fifteen-year-old girl, but what the heck. We performed to the total bafflement of the rest of the attending schools- the Silesian College were really rather rude, but we decided we didn’t care about them, anyway. I remember it was hard to perform in a rubber mask when the stage kept going up and down in the storm.

Then came the approach to Naples. Vesuvius was letting off a bit of steam at the time, so we sailed in to port to a thunderstorm with pink lightning, which I thought extremely promising, but it meant that we couldn’t Go UP. Instead , they took us to a place which I was told was called Solfatara, where smoke- stinky, hydrogen-suphide-laden smoke- hissed up from ground that was hot under my shoes and where the earth bounced if you jumped up and down on it. Which we did. I was fascinated. For the life of me I cannot remember going to Pompeii, but I think we must have done, very briefly. Of course, I knew all about Pompeii, because we’d done Pliny in Latin class, and I knew about a mosaic of a dog, with “CAVE CANEM” written in it, which we didn’t get to see, so I might have been wrong.

Rome disappointed me. Well, not Rome itself, but what happened to us there. We were given a quick bus trip round the Coliseum in the rain and then whisked off to the Vatican where - and we were supposed to be really honoured by this- we had an Audience with the Pope. Now quite why an almost entirely protestant party of schoolgirls had to sit in the front rows in an over-decorated room, in school uniforms and cute boater hats purchased specially which were really, really, uncomfortable, and had to shake hands with a very little old man with very white clothes and very white, cold fingers, I never I did work out. Maybe it was for the Silesian College boys who were in the front on the other side of the room, I don’t know.But we were polite about it, and did as we ewre told- even the bad girls. And then they opened the Sistine Chapel especially for us, and we gawped at the dizzying gaudiness on the ceiling, which was, of course, Michelangelo, but not nearly so beautiful as white marble statues. We was gypped, in Rome.


We sailed past Etna in the sunshine- (Etna wasn’t doing anything interesting) and three times around Stromboli in the dark, hoping for a glimpse of lava, but to no avail, and then we headed out overt Adriatic to Delphi and the Oracle. The harbour (Ischia?) was too small for the ship, so we were loaded into little boats and for the first time I saw clear, turquoise sea and stones, and fishes! Then into more buses and we wound round the hairpins and through the olive groves to the amphitheatre. We must have been the last bus, because we arrived just as the Silesian College were finishing their Creek Chorus, about which we felt free to be really rather rude. So we jumped up and down on the seats for a while and tested the acoustics for ourselves. Then it was back down the hill in the buses, to buy cheap little copies of black and red Greek vases, and head for Venice. Guy Fawkes night was spent in a drizzle at sea, and we docked in Venice to thick fog and a Vaporetto strike, so no visit to Murano. We gawped at mouldy old churches, tried unsuccessfully to get a gondolier to sing, and got chased all over St Mark’s Square by a boatload of Argentine sailors, which was a bit scary, but we were okay, in retrospect. Then we flew home in the rain to London.

And that was how I got educated. I never told you, because I’d more or less forgotten about it, but in retrospect, I learned a lot. I’ve been back to Spain since and I continue to be vaguely unimpressed with it. I fell in love with turquoise sea and olive trees, and when I had the chance, I worked for three years at the Greek end of the Med and learned much of ruins and columns and Aphrodite. I’d do Greece again any day. Michelangelo encouraged me to understand the Renaissance, and I still think he’s Da Man- better than Rodin, and certainly better than Hepworth. But I’d never been back to Italy until now, and for that I blame the lack of Romans in Rome, and the Silesian College.

And volcanoes are really neat, you know.

The rest will be on my blog, eventually.]]> Caroline Muse Thu, 15 Jul 2010 05:30:15 -0600 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,31897,31897#msg-31897 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,31897,31897#msg-31897
To anyone who does not have access to Pant and who responded to my request for help, thanks very much. I really appreciate it.]]> Spencer Muse Fri, 04 Jun 2010 07:17:22 -0600 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,31864,31864#msg-31864 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,31864,31864#msg-31864
Suffice to say:

Spencer: Look for the brand name Marco Maci. And google the Foresta Umbra in the Gargano....
Ken:If Physics is everything, then geology is most of it.
Linda: So many stories, so little brain....most of them involve fish!
Jane: I have had eggplant more ways than I ever imagined...later I will tell, I promise.
Cheryl: we need to recap on Caponata.
Patti and Yiyi: hotel notes to follow.Lots of pictures, too.
Lisa: just you wait till I tell you how they make bread in Bari....
Warren: I slept in Casanova's bedroom...
Louise: Oh, I dunno, so much stuff... wildlife, recycling, and climbing volcanoes.
Linden:remember "Up Pompeii?" It was for real...
Everyone else I haven't singled out... I missed you all. I needed you there when it got crazy, and there was no internet access.... I've had a ball, but I'm glad to be back.]]> Caroline Muse Fri, 04 Jun 2010 10:23:45 -0600 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,31842,31842#msg-31842 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,31842,31842#msg-31842
At this point I'm ready for the tomato weather to start!


Cheryl]]> Cheryl Muse Fri, 04 Jun 2010 15:31:47 -0600 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,31792,31792#msg-31792 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,31792,31792#msg-31792
Wish me luck!]]> Patti Muse Sat, 03 Jul 2010 21:14:51 -0600 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,31731,31731#msg-31731 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,31731,31731#msg-31731 Yiyi Muse Fri, 28 May 2010 09:55:55 -0600 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,31703,31703#msg-31703 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,31703,31703#msg-31703
Not allowed to drive, I rang home, Rhys was there but his sisters had the cars, couldn’t get an answer from Shannyn who was only five minutes away (she always forgets to recharge her phone), got on to Rae, but she was in Nowra (50 miles away). With about 25 minutes until closing time for the RTA, the police called me a taxi which took about 10 minutes to arrive. I made it to the RTA office with all of 5 minutes to spare, renewed my licence (sympathetic cashier who was nice to me despite me keeping her back after closing time – bad photo), caught a taxi back to the car, all with Dael in tow. So rather than just the $150 for a new licence, I had $25 in taxi fares and a $422 fine. According to the 2nd taxi driver you get a week’s grace to renew your licence, so I was out by 2 days.

Such is life. I suppose a fine’s better than having an accident and discovering my insurance void for driving unlicensed. Next time though, I’ll know to put the renewal date on the calendar as soon as I get the reminder.]]> Narelle Muse Thu, 24 Jun 2010 16:05:24 -0600 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,31655,31655#msg-31655 http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?14,31655,31655#msg-31655 their screw up was anything but my fault. I think I made a friend for life by pointing out that I have a lifetime powertrain warranty meaning that they won't have to bear the full cost, only cover my deductible. The bad news is that I'm stuck with a little Nissan rental car until at least next Friday. It's actually pretty "peppy" but we've been having high winds which is no fun in a car in a teeny tiny lightweight car.

Cheryl]]> Cheryl Muse Sat, 22 May 2010 20:07:50 -0600