Welcome Everybody (Especially Newcomers)
to the Froggy Bottom Café
to the Froggy Bottom Café
Please introduce yourself if you haven’t so far.
Your host today is Maryb.
Your host today is Maryb.
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Newspapers are in their usual place next to the door.
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Please recommend (and unrecommend the Cafe/Lounge from earlier)
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4’s are appreciated.
Don’t forget to unrecommend the last cafe and recommend this one.
Hope you all brought your lemonade outside with you.
from your reply to kansas that hiking isn’t on your list of things we should do together?
The other thing that has occurred to me is that if you go visit your sister in Chicago and you have any extra time, an afternoon together at the Art Institute or the Shedd Aquarium would be a possibility (given enough advance notice).
Hiking isn’t my favorite thing if it’s hilly. I don’t mind it so much when it’s flat. Frankly, I don’t think you’d find me a very good hiking companion.
I can go to Chicago even when I don’t visit my sister. I love Chicago.
I think it would be fun to find some bed and breakfast in northcentral Illinois and meet there. Everybody would get there by Saturday afternoon. We could gab, go to dinner, gab some more, spend the night, get up, eat breakfast, gab (I don’t talk until after breakfast though), hang out, maybe take a walk somewhere scenic, and still be back home by evening.
Add a little hookah time and that sounds like my kinda meetup.
How are you, Indy?
So tired, but relocated without major hassle, thanks for asking. How are things progressing with the Love Shack?
Glad to hear relocation’s complete, Indy! Great news. Wish I could say the same — alas, the Love Shack’s still but a glimmer in me eye.
Thank you for asking. Soon enough, I hope to relay similar news to yours — either personally or via crowfeather.
You’re in charge of the hookah. But don’t tell Manny or he’ll be sad he can’t come 🙂
South central illinois would be closer for all of us I think. And there are some pretty places south of I-70.
Re: Chicago. I can easily do chicago in a day if I fly and ususally there are cheap fares so this is something we might think about doing in addition to the group meet up.
Yep, we don’t have to have one big meetup we could do multiple little meetups.
I’m going to be in Chicago over fourth of July weekend but that probably won’t be good. Our Italy group is doing a meetup. There are two people going who don’t know everyone in the group so they thought it would be good to all meet. Not sure what happens if they don’t like the rest of us. Guess it gives them time to back out. 😉
Anyway, I suspect I’ll be tied up with them. Usually when I go visit my sister I have a lot of down time.
But getting to Chicago is super easy and cheap, so I’m up for that. In some ways, Chicago might be easier for a bigger meetup, rather than the B&B idea.
I commented on that to IVG in the old cafe — it seems that almost everybody can get cheap fares to chicago. It’s too far to drive either (so long as I’m not doing it in a day) but I prefer flying into midway and just taking the train downtown.
I’m not available the weekend before the 4th anyway. It’s the third annual old college buds meetup.
What if I took the train to St. Louis, you picked me up and we drove on to the meeting spot? I’d help drive and pick up gas costs. On the previous thread, I inserted a comment about the town of Clarksville, north of you, on the Mississipi River. I have friends who live there and love it. 500 people, many of them artists. A tiny downtown, with galleries. And a charming B&B, according to the friends.
I must get out a map.
LINK: http://www.clarksvillemo.com/
I seem to have forgotten how to do links!
That works for me whether we go to Clarksville or somewhere else. Except Chicago because then I’d fly. 🙂
I did see your Clarksville post and responded. I haven’t been there in years but it’s only about an hour north of St. Louis. Bypassing the city, it probably wouldn’t be that much longer coming from Indiana, but I’d have to look at a map. You just have to find a river crossing if you want to cross north of St. Louis, but there may be a bridge at Clarksville. And it wouldn’t be too bad of a drive from Iowa if IVG wanted to come down.
In the winter Clarksville is the primo eagle watching locale. But let’s not wait that long!
but I was hoping for something on the Illinois side of St. Louis. That’s got to add an hour or more onto the trip.
that’s just stating your very rational desires. We can find something on the Illinois side. If kansas takes the train to St. Louis we can pick somewhere in the middle of Illinois — which was our original discussion anyway. And still do chicago some weekend either before or after.
You absolutely MUST whine if we start pulling you too far west! We can certainly find a spot more in the middle. I whined about Chicago because it feels so far north.
Here’s one exactly 1/2 way between Indianapolis and St. Louis (you’re near Bloomington right?)
link
I love it. Wouldn’t that be fun? Our own living room to hang out in.
Here’s a few more in the southern part of IL (granted, I have no firm ideas about the cities they are in):
Hidden Lake
Martin Ranch
River Rose Inn
That River Rose one is middlish. The Hidden Lake one looks nice but it would be a pretty long drive for us.
But I don’t mind coming over to St. Louis. I just want to stay within the four-five hour driving time.
and don’t want to host. I want to rest and relax. But there are all kinds of places on the east side, we’ll find someplace.
Done!
And I’m off to take care of my bunnies, birds, dogs, and cats! See you all in a bit.
Later MM!!!! have fun!!!
Hope everyone is having a great Saturday!!!! Just taking it easy today and not doing much of anythig. You all know how unusual that is for me. LOL I guess I will have to do some house work later today.
to take a bunch of pictures of the diva dogs and post them.
LOL I would have to wake them up.
You can then get up close shots of their cute little faces!
Heya RF!!!
Hi there!!!! I refuse to take their pictures where they are sleeping right now. It would show how much house work I need to do. LOL
That’s funny. 🙂
It would be if it wern’t the truth. I am not the best at keeping up with house work and with two dogs….. well it ain’t pretty. LOL
If you fill the frame w/ the divas’ faces then we won’t see any of the background! 🙂
LOL Olivia… I keep suspecting, with your penchant for close ups, that you’re somehow related to Norma Desmond! hehe… google that, babe if you don’t know who she was.
Well, have to run now, folks, my sister just showed up to get me off my duff here. Catch all you folks later!
actually since O is behind the camera, we’ll need to call her Cecil B.
As our lovable resident geezer NDD would say. See ya!
to say hi because I seem to have been talking all around you today but never with you.
Hi Refinish. By the end of the day I’m sure you will have accomplished much, in spite of yourself!
LOL Trust me there is quite a lot that needs to be done here at the house and I just realised there is an ice-cream social I have to attend tomorrow.
I just got booted out of the last cafe as I was posting a comment to WW… kept getting a “server was reset” message, so I have no idea if what I said got posted. And now I can’t get back in there… oh well. Hope I haven’t offended some b-gods somewhere, somehow.
Oh, and howdy ho, Refinish! Haven’t had a chance this week to shout ya out down there!
maybe it was when I was editing it to mark it closed.
That must have been it, since I just went back and saw that my comment posted after all. This has happened a few times recently, and always puzzled me. Anyway, no problem now… continue to discuss amongst yourselves …. hehehe
Don’t we always? LOL
Hey there, IVG — just saw your post.
(My type of internetz connection is a notch below dial-up. I use a foot pedal.)
All I can say is, thank the gods & goddess you haven’t had him for the whole 20 years.
though he is a really nice kid, he just has this annoying way of inviting himself over at the most inopportune times! I think C is just going to put on Pom Poko (a great Miyazaki film) to entertain him. If I get annoyed I’ll just come up here and hang out in the lounge. Hehe
All the more reason for me to head back later after my ‘whatevers’.
What’s the deal with the kid? Is he not popular with his own peer group? (Forgive me for assuming you & your man aren’t 20 years old.)
LOL… he’s an only child born to a mother much older than most for kids his age. Had the “sheltered life” until he went off to business college, and I don’t think he has a lot of friends there (I sure wouldn’t!) and he likes hanging out with us old guys. Normally I wouldn’t be so pissy about this, but I had such short notice and had other plan(t)s that will be disrupted, thus my grouchy attitude about the whole thing. Plus, C doesn’t even get home until about 8 from work, so I’ll be grilling right up till dark, not something I really enjoy doing. Oh well… it’ll work out ok, even though I sent C off this morniing in the midst of my grumbling… he just doesn’t consider the implications of saying “sure” so easily to people when it doesn’t involve him having to do all the work, LOL.
Ah, yes, typical couples stuff. I seem to recall that tune.
Are you & hubby the only ‘elders’ the kid enjoys? One does wonder, in that case, what he sees in you ..
😉
I can get it in fine. In fact, I just answered your comment. Are you able to see your individual comments or do I need to repost it.
It worked fine when I went back in, Andi. I even posted a comment to yours, so weirdness resolved. 🙂 Beautiful ferns btw! I may have to take some pics of ours today.. the ostrich plumes just broke ground about 3 weeks ago and now they’re past 4′ tall already! Have to move a few of them too, they’re spreading fast.
Andi’s image really is pretty amazing — such an absolutely lush green! The Emerald City plus. Astounding color!
Golly.
Actually, I answered you answer — just to say that my part of Indiana is pretty and to insult northern Indiana.
We call the area where I took that picture fern gully — it’s about 50 feet wide and a half-mile long and it’s all looks like the picture. It’s the only place around us that looks like that, the rest of the woods have a typical understory.
on my way out here in a bit. Though I can’t imagine for the life of me why you’d want to insult N. Indiana! hehe… never been there, but I sure like the looks of your area! You and Jim are very lucky folks… and the dogs too… (btw, snoozing dog pic imminent here)
I know I’ve got other, better pics, but just can’t put my finger on them right now so this will have to suffice for O and RF. Here’s the Queen of Everything lounging on the bench on the front porch from last summer…
almost
Sweet images! They look so comfy & warm.
Personally, I wish the resident felines were in the same mood — but no, we’ve got to hop in & out of the window beside my desk, which must remain open (naturally) to allow in the soggy draft.
Hopeful is the most restful dog in the universe. He has two speeds: infinitesimally slow and infinitesimally slower. The cats could use him as a landing strip and he’d never notice.
LOL!
That’s an image I’d rather not comtemplate too much, actually. The kitten’s grown rather .. large.
🙂
we haven’t had nearly enough pictures of sniff today.
I like this one.
yes, that shows real personality. But you seem so far away from him, looking down on him.
I know maryb likes pix of Sniff, but we really don’t get to see enough of Hopeful and Giddy. 🙂
Now that I’ve decided to use my blog on myspace to publish Weird Anecdotes I can’t decide upon the order of the stories. Should I go chronological? By topic or theme? Should I start with “My Night with Jim Morrison,” draw in lots of readers and then let them grow frustrated when no other story is quite as outrageous as that one? har.
I’d appreciate any advice anyone offers…
Hey there, sjct! I went over to check things out (my first visit to myspace) — unfortunately, thanks to the creakin’ hamster-wheel that is my ‘netz connection, I couldn’t see your post. Offhand, though, I’d go chronologically — that way you’ve got the underlying narrative of the passage of time.
that slooooow the down-load. I’ve made my page minimal just for you. 😉 Other people have monstrous backgrounds, flashes, slide shows and music cluttering up their spaces. The blog entry “Everything I know About Men and Sex” is also extremely long and that makes it a bitch to load. In the future, I’m going to break essays down into parts to speed up the load time.
The blog entry “Everything I know About Men and Sex” is also extremely long
sounds like bragging to me
I just went and scanned but the one part that caught me is – Don’t Rely On Men. I preached to my daughters while they were growing up to get their education and a good career. To make sure that if anything ever happened in their lives, they were sure they could rely upon themselves.
Like I said, I just scanned, but I intend to go back and read.
Not bragging, just opinionated and long-winded.
Thanks for your kind consideration, dear. I’ll be sure to head over there when I can. I’m interested in finding out about your night with Jim Morrison, (as mine involved falling asleep before I saw him).
🙂
Yes, indeed. Just click on my UID and scan back thru my diaries…
My God, girlfriend — that’s just incredible enough to be totally believable!
Especially to those of us who have experience with extremely wasted men & their astounding weirdness.
Thanks for remembering & sharing with us. Lord knows, not all similar memories are so clear (for better or worse)!
I look forward to reading more at your site.
I agree with WW. Have it go chrono.
I just went to your space and it’s looking really nice.
I’ve kept the layout clean and haven’t activated more than a third of the bells and whistles available. Some of the spaces I’ve clicked on automatically give me a migraine.
I like the idea of theme.
I’m finally back. Anybody around?
Glad to see you back, FM! I’m headed out soon, but I did want to thank you for sending over that sunlight. It’s now fighting its way through these clouds .. unsure as to the outcome ..
Well I was outside with my newspaper trying to fan it your way. I guess this metaphysical stuff really works. 🙂
Glad to hear it’s clearing some for you.
from the rampaging hordes once again?
And you’re so good at the sunlight thing that it stopped here on its way to the catskills.
You won’t believe this, but 5 miinutes after they left, I had another brother and nephew show up. They were only here to visit my Mom, but I had to run and pick up some fried chicken and stuff. They’re gone now.
At the moment it’s just my Mom, George, Cat, and me.
I’ll keep the paper handy in case ya’ll need more sun. 🙂
With all this practice you could open a Bed and Breakfast.
You know something funny. One of my bosses one time told me I should go to a school for butlers. He said I would be an excellent one.
Don’t know how he got that, since I was working in an office doing environmental stuff.
Well Mr. French, with your propensity for napping you’d have to have a very tolerant employer.
That’s the reason I need to be rich.
Oh to nap and dream the days away with nary a care.
Tom is doing his usual and prowling around the neighborhood.
FM’s the best, ain’t he?
I think so. 🙂
Yep, it definitely works. Again, I thank you. The day the sun breaks all the way through these clouds is the day you’ll hear me whoop clear down in Alabama.
I’m so tired of the chill already! Night temperatures here are set to dip into the 30s this week. Can you imagine?
Nope I can’t. Especially since it’s supposed to be 93 here today. But, at least we’re not having temps like Manny.
To be honest, I wouldn’t either. I’ll be happy to take a little excess heat from you both, though.
Word is that our higher elevations could actually see snow.
The Mother is not happy, methinks. The children aren’t behaving.
Methinks the mothers is about to give the children a spanking that will last for a very long time.
Oh, yes. Absolutely.
Meant to say, I wouldn’t want Manny’s temperatures either.
I tend to wilt once the mercury hits 70. One does get used to these wintry minus-‘teens ..
Well that’s the reason air conditioning is a way of life down here.
Uh Oh, just thought up my next million dollar idea. Air conditioned riding lawn mowers.
We actually have those up here, FM. They’re called goats.
🙂
Already thought of that, but my Mom wouldn’t have it.
… in the northerly direction. thanks. 🙂
Just for you Olivia I’m breaking out the electric fans and having George wag his tail too. 🙂
Although, I bet George is a pretty happy camper w/ tail wagging all the time. All you’d have to do is position his rear northward. (And that doesn’t sound good, but you know what I mean LOL.)
Don’t worry. Before I let George do that, I’ll give him a really good bath and I think I have some corks around here somewhere. 😉
Please unrecommend this cafe on your way to the New Cafe .