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Froggy Bottom Cafe
Welcome newcomers! Please introduce yourself
Come on in!
Coffee & Tea under the window, platters of treats on every table
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Newspapers are in their regular spot next to the door
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Please recommend (and unrecommend the Cafe/Lounge from yesterday)
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May the 4’s be with you
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Good morning – Good afternoon – Good evening for down-under!
Plan Arctic Oil Drilling Dropped!!
~ Posted earlier :: House Leaders Postpone Vote on Budget Bill ~
House leadership dropped its plan to allow oil drilling
in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as part of the budget bill.
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Another link to Ghostdancers Way, Infidelpig and BooMan’s Place ::
The Two Wolves Within
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
▼▼▼ READ MY DIARY
Goodmorning! Goodmorning!
I’m so glad to see that news. And I will skip out for a few minutes to read your diary.
Would you like some coffee? Cereal?
Good morning, everybody!
Oui, your beautiful wolf photo reminds me. . .a few weeks ago I was sitting on a patio in Sun City West, Az., with a lot of people at a birthday party for a 90-year-old. There was a fence around the patio and beyond the fence a golf course. All of a sudden, up strolls a coyote! It walked within a few feet of the fence, stared at us as we stared open-mouthed at it, and then meandered away to lie down on the grass.
P.S. If you want to know where Bush’s unmoveable 35% is, I can tell you they’re in Sun City.
We have quite a few around here. We see them along our road and in the woods (though the dogs make them keep their distance). They don’t seem to be afraid of people at all.
We have lots of coyotes where we live also. We’ve seen them strolling at the edge of the yard and we hear them at night, singing, singing. Also, they are quite large…size of a German Shepherd. Quite impressive.
pronounced “yo-tees”
they get fat and sassy, living amongst the suburbs, snacking on kitties and puppies.
To infidelpig’s Two Wolves. Reminded me that I hadn’t hotlisted it.
I’ve been missing through most of the last week. I hurt my back last Friday (I’m just fine now — hot pads make a world of difference) & just haven’t been able to post (although I think I more-or-less kept up on reading.
One thing I didn’t do was welcome the new arrivals. And I want to do that now.
I’m katiebird, the Saturday host and I’ll be around most of the day. I originally came to the Booman Tribune at the suggestion of a good friend during the time of the pie wars. At that time there was an
. And that was a wonderful place for newcomers to get to know the regulars and each other.
But the Welcome Wagon was always more than that. It was also a place for everyone to unwind. Rest. Talk Off Topic. Giggle. Cry. And the Froggy Bottom Cafe is an acknowledgement of that broader need. This is still very much the
but it’s also part of the heart of the Booman Tribune.
And we can’t wait for you to join us!
Please reveal yourself and say,
Did I blow the margin?
Maybe I should start over?
No, the margins are okay. Good morning to all! Feel better KB!
I’m fine, Really — the pain was all last week.
What I’m doing is scanning an old family photo album and reading a trashy novel while I monitor the Cafe.
Or a sweet snack?
Coffee for me, thanks!
Good Morning!
I’m up finally. Gooserock let me sleep in until a decadent 9:00!! My cold is much better.
I’m glad your back is all okay now, KB. I liked your fancy writing this morning.
Welcome Newcomers. This is a great place to say Howdy.
Here’s a little feeling better greeting card — the next stage of midwestern fall which I think of as the geometry of fall because when the leaves are mostly gone, the shape of the land is so wonderfully exposed.
Thank you! This photo is lovely and you’re spot-on about being able to see the lay of the land. It’s lovely secret is hidden behind lush green growth all spring and summer and then in the autumn it bursts through saying, Ha! Ha! Forgot what was here didn’t you? And then snow shows the outlines and crisps up the edges as it lays down a new white mask. Wonderful!
You must be feeling pretty good because that was a wonderfully evocative piece of writing.
Thanks for the kind comment. Beauty is everywhere so it’s easy to talk about.
IAM feeling better. I’m thinking about the huge pot of vegetarian veggie soup I’m about to put together….veggie plus fish. My pots of soup always grow and grow as I keep adding goodies. This will be my first batch with tofu.
Haven’t ever tried tofu in soup but I have several good tofu recipes, most of which came from the various Moosewood cookbooks. If you like to buy cookbooks and don’t have any of those, they are very good. I know you are trying to work on your cholesterol, so you might especially be interested in “Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites”.
Here’s a lesson for you — when you go overboard partying on Marmotinis
you’ll spend the next day sleeping it off.
This business of waking up bright and early for breakfast is too much!
Marmotini or no marmotini — I wanted my breakfast hours ago! Did the dogs wake you again?
Have you crawled back in bed, or would you like some coffee?
The dogs got me up about 5:45 but I was mostly awake anyway. I consider it a special day if I sleep until 6:30. I have completely lost my ability to sleep in.
So are there big changes going on at your library that you had these microsoft software presentations?
I went back to bed myself. And had a nice nap.
No, we don’t have big changes, I was just interested in how those programs had been updated. And since it was free & in a theatre about 2 miles from my house I went.
Today’s thing is that I want to scan this album of childhood photographs. But, I think the photos should be transferred to something acid-free and safer — Since I’m messing with them anyway.
And I might need a better scanner. But first things first. (I’ve got to get this done, I’ve been keeping this album for way too long)
I did a bunch of photos from the 20s, 30s, and 40s for my mom and then got them printed for her. I’ve got a decent image editor (paint shop pro) and so I was able to clean up scratches and spots and crop them to a standard size. They came out very good.
Here’s one of my favorites.
That’s a great photo.
And I use Paint Shop Pro also!
(my sister-in-law just left after a surprise visit, I’m sorry I left for so long!)
I’d scan it in so you could see how bad it was. I won’t pretend that it wasn’t time consuming to fix them up but the end results were really satisfying.
Do you remember what dpi you used? I’m wondering if I need a new scanner, I’m just not seeing the sharpness of the originals.
I did them at 300 dpi.
Far left is your mom, right?
She’s the one with the horrible haircut (which she obsesses about to this day) in the middle but I’m really curious — why did you think she was the one of the left?
Recently, you put up a ‘fun’ diary with lots of photos of yourself ranging from childhood to early 20s. I don’t know how to find the diary, but from my memory of your photos, I guessed that you resembled the girl far left the most (as a youngster). And no, it’s not just the blond hair!
Thinking about it again, I think I perhaps see your mom’s eyes in the photo you posted of your engagement, I think.
but what threw you off is that I “take” more after my dad’s side of the family than my mom’s.
And I thought it was going to be because Alice (the one on the left) has a rather snarky look on her face.
BTW, on finding old diaries, the easiest way to do it is to select “Search” on the upper right-hand side, then go to the Find dropdown window and change it to “Diaries By” and type the person’s user name in the Containing box. If it is a pretty old diary, check the “Search Archive” box. Then select the Search “button”.
in the ‘pathetically funny-looking kid’ competition. Congratulations — you’re still the leader!
p.s. do you happen to know what kind of car that is? Kewl.
The car is a 1925 (give or take a year or two either way) Reo.
(Actually, alice is kind of cute — it’s mom with her awful haircut that is my competition but I’ve still got her beat by furlong at least.)
How do you do large quantities of old photos besides scanning them one by one?
My mom is fretting about what to do with her old pics to make sure all 8 of us get some, and rather than splitting them up I thought it would be a good idea to put them on a CD. But my scanner must be crappy because when I scan photos that aren’t even old it looks all streaky and blurry.
Also, does anyone know how to transfer videotapes to DVD?
If the photos are black and white, you could gang scan them (put as many as would fit at a time on the scanner bed) and then crop them into separate images in your image editor. If there isn’t a huge variation in color saturation and balance, you might be able to get away with doing this with color photos as well.
If the image looks streaky and blurry, there is definitely something wrong with you scanner. New scanners however are pretty reasonable — you can get a decent scanner for $100 – $150.
On the videotape to DVD, the first thing you have to have is a DVD burner. If you don’t have that, you aren’t going to do it yourself. And if you do, it’s probably part of your computer system which means you need someone who can figure out to hook things up. The easiest thing to do is to take them a video service that transfers video (and 8mm if you’ve got those) to DVDs.
Video service? What do I look under in the yellow pages?
I do have a DVD burner but I only have 2 videotapes of my kids when they were little and I’m really scared that I’ll accidentally erase them!
Look in the yellow pages under “Video Tape Duplicating & Transfer Service” and “Video Taping & Production Services”
Thanks!
There’s a small plastic tab on the spine of most videotapes (just like the old audio cassettes) that can be pried out with a key or pen or something, and that will prevent the tape from re-recording if someone tries on accident. And if you ever do decide you want to tape over a tape where you’ve pried the tab out, you can use a little piece of regular gift-wrap tape to cover the hole and that will make it recordable again.
I finally did pull off that little tab recently…but I’m still afraid I’ll screw up somehow and break the tape or something.
This is a new thing to see you here on a weekend. Your social life as boring as the rest of ours?
Even more boring. 😉
Impossible.
I’m very fortunate to have a nice place to live with plenty to do in it, but whenever my roommate leaves town I wind up almost totally trapped here. I can drive a little, but the constant fatigue and some of the neurological/neuromuscular symptoms mean I usually shouldn’t, and all my offline local friends have moved, so I don’t even really know people around here anymore. A couple acquaintances but no one I really like.
Like kansas, though, I was raised an only child (my half-siblings grew up in a different house) and one does tend to learn to entertain one’s self that way. [insert your own masturbation joke here] 😉
Call some of your local Photo Labs/Processors and camera stores. The good ones (read independents) usually offer scanning services and can transfer just about everything to disc. Plus, they have very good equipment, can do a lot of ‘clean-up’, and the quality is generally very good.
It can get a bit pricey, but, if you have quite a lot to do, and need multiple copies, it generally is reasonable. Perhaps that way, all 8 of you could have copies of everything…maybe share in the expense…
Hope this is helpful.
Peace
Hey, I just noticed there are two blue dots in the background. Does this mean you have a twin, or is it just more proof that when a person drinks too much she sees double?
but question we should probably be asking is “who is the Red Dot?”
The really sinister ones are the green dots with the single red eyes.
is that they taste like crap. Think they could use klamatas instead?
Don’t you pick on my dirty little olives…one is even wearing red f-me heels, you know!
the shoes made me think of this funny article in the Guardian on the travails of translation in which the author Scarlet Thomas tries to, among other things, figure out how to explain “kitten heels” to her Russian translator.
And think ahead about how to handle Festive Food?
Or forget all about it and hope everything works out OK in January….
It seems like those are the usual choices. But is there a way to set our minds so that we’re both prepared and can forget about food issues? I think there is.
Are you worried about gaining weight over the next couple of months? How have you handled Holiday Treats in the past? What works best for you?
And if you aren’t in the habit of worrying about it, how has that worked out? Are your good habits so engrained that you just don’t give them much thought? Do you have any tips to share with the rest of us?
I was born into a metabolism that absolutely refused to enlarge me beyond the dimensions of the median human male for 45 years. I heartily recommend it next time you have a choice, the male or female version. If I spent excess time eating, I’d spend excess time pooping. No worries; I was still able to wear my ‘wedding dress’ kilt 15 years after we were married.
I’m still pretty much a stick figure which I know annoys people who have to fight serious tens and scores of pounds. But now I get the basketball tummy about which the doctor is Not Amused. Puget4 got a worse scolding that tied some past troubles to the weight issues, which makes it more serious than the typical preventative program, so we’re on the weight wagon from here on out.
The one step that’s made it easiest to do the others is the elimination of the light carbo’s: bread, potato, rice, desserts of course and fruit juices. We just use larger veggie servings in their place. It’s a little weird putting spaghetti sauce on green beans but the payoff comes within a few hours when any hunger pangs are mild, don’t intensify and so are easy to ignore.
The other steps are elimination of warmblooded meat and a serious reduction of oil including eliminating all mayo, butter and margarines. This also helps with weight reduction but the doctor says it only helps some people with cholesterol. Puget4 gets rechecked in Feb. and if there hasn’t been pretty significant progress they’re wanting to get her on medication then.
With our Canada emmigration project we’d have better chances if we’re not on medication. But they do a comprehensive medical exam so we won’t be able to hide a cholesterol problem if diet hasn’t controlled it.
Spaghetti squash. It’s usually available year round, the instructions are typically on a label on the rind (cut in half, scoop out seeds, then bake cut side down in a pan with a small amount of water), and it actually scoops out in strands just like spaghetti! Used to have it all the time at my best friend’s house when I was in junior high/high school; they’d serve it with butter and garlic, but I’ve heard it works great with spaghetti sauce. One of these days I’m going to try to make it for myself and the spouse…
is to not gain weight between Thanksgiving and Epiphany. That covers all the major holidays — and I figure if I can just maintain the weight I’m at, that’s a plus right there, and makes less that has to come off after the holidays.
Greetings Boomers, how is everyone today.
I’ll be back in a bit….
Looks like another fine day in the Foothills, high in the 50-60 range and a bit breezy. Snow forecast for Mon-Tu…we’re due.
Have a great one
Later
Peace
I seem to have missed some important stuff. Besides BostonJoe, we seem to have a number of other authors among us. Can anyone provide a list? I’d love to start making a collection. Maybe I could order some of them when I order Oh Pure and Radiant Heart?
Still very doggy at my house. Here’s the pics if anybody missed them. We’re kind of getting into a routine. Troy called to say he was in New Orleans and already has work. I told him he owed me some electrical work since his dogs ate a hole in one of my mattresses. Problem is, I can’t think of much that needs doing around here in the electrical department. Now if he was a plumber or a carpenter . . . .
No, no. No more of your very cute guests, it makes me want to go out and ask the dogs if they are lonely and need a new little nipper to harass them.
On the other authors, I am sure of two:
Kelly McCullough whose book isn’t out yet.
and Nancy Pickard (kansas) for whom you will need a small loan in order to buy all her books as this list of her books (which isn’t even complete) shows.
kansas is Nancy Pickard? How did I miss that?
apparently we’ve just discovered that you spend your time in the cafe napping 😉
Well, I’m a great napper, especially since menopause made it impossible to sleep more than 6 hours consecutively – but did not make it possible to function decently on less than 8 hours of sleep per 24. (Though I’m often being non-functional because my work schedule usually doesn’t provide nap time.)
I’m just so erratic in my FBC visits. I feel like when I was a kid and only got to watch the soap operas on days when I was home sick.
During the worst of mine, I didn’t sleep more than a couple hours at a time but now that I’m post-menopausal, I sleep somewhat better but, like you, I no longer sleep more than 6 hours. Unfortunately, I don’t share your ability to nap so I’ve adjusted to less sleep and not staying up late (so I generally miss all the after 10 EST fun in the cafe).
Ha, we should do FBC Digests, like Soap Digests. And NO, I am not volunteering.
I can’t get over the marvelous coloring of those dogs, JS. Like jigsaw puzzles.
Maybe he could wire your house to hang enough Christmas lights to power a third-world country??
Well, I’m not that into Christmas. Though I do like it when everybody puts up colorful lights. I haven’t done my house in years – maybe I will this time. I see the trendy thing now is LED Christmas lights – they use much less energy evidently. I was off wandering the internets looking for a link, but it seems they’re widely available – in theory. But I see also that lots of places are sold out, so if you want some of these maybe you should start looking now.
It’s another day reminiscent of the famous ER season ending scene of George Clooney on a Seattle shore the year he left the show. We’ve been unusually cool the past week, in the 40’s which is more like winter weather, but as many of the rest of you chill out in the coming days, we’ll warm back up to the 50’s. Time to clean up our dinghy in preparation for the winter sailing season.
I think I need a Latin translation of “Sweater weather forever” as one suggestion for a Seattle coat of arms.
Puget4 is over the worst of her cold and may have an autumn leaves picture to share later. She was talking soup yesterday, for which she’s the family pro. So we have to decide if we go with another of my tofu-and-salmon 1/2-alarm chilis or maybe some kind of vegetable-dense dish of hers with seafood in place of chicken or beef.
And I get to have pickled herring for breakfast snack!!
Fall Scene on the ND Prairie
Greetings to all in the morning cafe, but I gotta run to see a cheerleading competition.
I love the patterns of farmland. Is very green part winter wheat?
Thanks for the compliment on the photo.
Re: winter wheat? The far away green could be winter wheat, but most likely the green is a combination of weeds and volunteer grain, as 100% of the crop does not make it to the bin. Another possibility is some sort of cover crop as gov programs require “summer fallow” not to be left “bare” through the winter. This is done to prevent wind and water erosion.
Also, another factor is that this fall our first killing frost ran 4-6 weeks late,”global heating?” So whatever germinated in late Aug early Sept has more growth than usual.
What a wonderful photo. Gamboling Deer. Not to be confused with “Gambling, Dear?”
ha ha, actually had both during my 14 seasons of farming on my own. The fall of ’80 we had blackjack for the first time in ND. My city friends were perplexed when I declined to play, $2 opening bet.
We had a crop failure that year, first time since the ’30s. So there was income enough to pay business expenses, but no income for family expenses/wages/etc.
Hence, enough “Gambling, Dear,” for one year.
That endless expanse of earth reaching all the way to the horizon makes my heart skip a beat.
Never thought I would miss flat lands stretching as far as the eye can see, but here in my part of NC it is really hilly and there are so many trees that you can seldom see more than 50 feet in any direction. For some reason that makes me feel claustrophobic. I miss the horizon.
Hey, come visit ND some time. Horizon we’ve got a lot of.
And as Michael Dorris (author, late husband of Louise Erdrich)once wrote, “… sunsets that will break your heart..”
Actually that view in the photo to the west is the “short” view. I’ve been trying to catch a good one to the SE, which is the longer view, but no luck so far. When I get that one I’ll hit try to remember to hit “reply” under Second Nature.
MN road construction workers couldn’t wait to get back into the trees… guess the open prairies gave them some sort of phobia. Whatever is the reverse of “claustro.”
Okay, the universe is trying to tell me something. (Because it’s all about me.) As of last night, I am re-reading my favorite Erdrich novel, Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse, because she’s the contemporary writer I most admire and I need some writing lessons and inspiration. After reading for a while, I got to thinking about her late husband. I was going to look him up on the web to refresh my memory about the child molestation scandal that preceded his suicide. Your mention of them is the second one that I’ve seen since last night.
Happy Saturday!
Day 3 of a five day vacation: Going to another ministerial assistant class shortly, then to a Tibetan Green Tara empowerment after lunch, a visit with my sister’s cat (they’re at the beach) and then hopefully to a contra dance (no, not like in Iran-Contra-it’s similar to square dancing without the weird outfits). Haven’t been contra dancing since I bought the house six years ago-too long!
In my family, we’ve found that scheduling fun games, card-playing, etc., for holidays help keep the overeating to a minimum and re-emphasizes the reason we get together.
And a most happy Green Tara Empowerment to you! What a day of diversity you’ll be having.
We have a lovely Tibetan temple in KCMo, converted from a Protestant church.
You are Nancy Pickard? I’ve already read some of your books! Cool. Don’t ask me which ones – I’d have to look at them. I know that must seem terrible to admit to an author, but I just have some kind of mental block about it. My friend Melanie used to go with me to book shop and follow along behind me putting books back on the shelf. “We’ve already read that one.” (We always shared books.)
Well, I know what you mean. I’m always buying books I’ve already bought. And for the ones, I check out of the library. Well, I just never know for sure.
When I did Reader’s Service, I was always so impressed with the patrons who pull out little lists of the books they’ve read, all sorted by author.
And mystery novels (bless their hearts) frequently have titles that all fit in the same slot in my brain.
kansas’ novels, however are the exception — every one stands out as a unique experience, you never will forget where you were when you first picked it up. And the memory of finishing — sadly, reading the last lingering word will remain with you forever.
When I did Reader’s Service, I was always so impressed with the patrons who pull out little lists of the books they’ve read, all sorted by author.
I keep mine sorted by year and I never take the list to the library — because I take my tbr list instead (which is organized by general fiction, mystery, sf&f, and non-fiction).
It’s wonderful what you can achieve when you are both obsessive and anal retentive.
Have you thought about renting yourself out?
Some people thing “What would Jesus Do”
Lately, I’ve been looking around my house and my life and thinking, “What would Andi do?”
And I’m not kidding. I have thought this 3 times this week.
I’m torn between feeling spectacularly complimented and completely terrified.
I hope you are going to tell me it was for things like “do I need a cute beagle” or “how do I get a skink out of the bathtub” or “what dpi would be best for these photos” or “which comes first — doing work or playing at the cafe”.
Hey, I sometimes manage to forget my own characters! One time a woman came up to me to talk about a book and she said, “I just love Miss Grant.” I smiled and said thank you, while all the time I was desperately racking my brain and thinking, who the hell is Miss Grant??? Finally I remembered she was one of my fav minor characters! (That reader’s enthusiasm inspired me to put “Miss Grant” in another book.)
p.s. katiebird, will you please be my publicist? You are soooooo nice!
Argentina 2, Enland 1
Awsome game. 20 minutes to go
3 minutes to go Owen ties for England
Dammmmmmmm!!
Fuckkkkk!!
Last minute England scores.
Sorry!
That is ok, that’s soccer and life.
It was an awsome game and the newspapers (Argentine of course 🙂 ] said that Argentina deserved to win. They might be just a little biased, but they said it was a super intense game.
Hopefully we’ll see them in the world cup
BUAHHHHHH !
Just dropping by to say hello. Yesterday was my husband’s last day of work. We have one week together before my leave ends. I have very mixed feelings about having to go back to work.
To compound that, I just learned that a student who graduated in June, a very bright young man, has been charged with a double homicide. Drugs really dragged this kid down into the gutter. His freshman year, his dad died of an overdose. I just feel sick.
Anyway, just wanted to get that off my chest, back to a little housework.
Oh, Toni, what a heart ache that is.
yesterday, so I am here quick and dirty until my overall view of the world improves.
Stay and have a good rant — good for you to do it; good for me to hear it — keeps me from being a complacent little snot.
Gee, I can’t imagine what there could be in the world to make a person feel out of sorts.
Cheers to you. (But don’t let that get in the way of a good rant!)
Getting a slow start today — since we’re going to be out late tonight at the hockey game though, probably a good idea.
We were supposed to go get our flu shots today (especially important for the spouse with all his public contact), but we decided to wait till tomorrow morning — the main clinic of the medical group we go to is having one from 10 to noon for those in our letter group (they do it by last name, just to keep folks from all piling in first thing in the AM; we’re in the A-L group). That gives us a chance to sleep a little later than usual, go out for breakfast (there’s a restaurant chain here that serves all-you-can-eat oatmeal till 10:30am — yummy and lots of fiber!), then get our shots. I’m extremely thankful for good health benefits; the shots are totally covered under the spouse’s health insurance. 🙂
So, main thing today is to go to the grocery store and pick up some food to take to the hockey game tonight; the team (San Jose Sharks) is sponsoring a food drive for Second Harvest Food Bank. When we went a couple of weeks ago, they were doing a children’s book drive, but we didn’t have a chance to go book shopping. 🙁
Okay, spouse finished showering so time to get stirring; I’m sitting here without my jeans on…
Yum…all you can eat oatmeal! I’ll bet they don’t get a lot of people coming back for seconds or thirds, I mean, how much oatmeal can one person eat?
I make oatmeal for my husband and myself on Saturday morning, the only day he actually sits down to breakfast. I like the rough cut oatmeal, and then add lots of raisins and toasted pecans. This is not an unfattening breakfast, but at least it’s got a lot of fiber!
It’s a sparkling blue fall day here in NC, and I’m already forgetting how much I hate the summers. I love the weather here from October through April and then I basically sweat and swear and hibernate through the summer. Honestly, I don’t know why my husband doesn’t just smack me for all the complaining about the south that I do.
The prospect of spending Thanksgiving with just my husband and 3 of my kids is really depressing me after 40+ years of having 50 people spanning 4 generations gathered in one cramped house on that day. I’m not sure what to do to distinguish it from the other 364 days when I cook a dinner and we sit down to eat together.
Consider this an open invitation to anyone who wants to drive to Raleigh and come for dinner.
One of my dearest writer friends, Margaret Maron, lives just outside of Raleigh. Have you ever read or met her? She does a wonderful mystery series about a North Carolina judge. Maybe you could do what she does once a year and invite in friends and neighbors for a pig roast, although I have to admit she doesn’t do it on TGiving Day, and there is that business about being able to roast an entire pig outdoors, plus you’re probably now going to remind me you’re a vegan, in which case, ooops. But other than that. . .
Pig roasts are “it” down here, you can find one just about every weekend at churches, outside groceries stores, etc. I eat things with faces, just not after I’ve actually had the chance to look at the faces.
Even though I’ve been here for 3 years, we really have no friends and the neighbors are rather aloof. Or maybe it’s just us. I’ve been treating my time here in Raleigh as just a visit instead of a largely permanent move.
I always complained about having such a large family and couldn’t we ever have a quiet holiday?…and now the silence is just driving me nuts.
Oh, don’t I sound like Mary Sunshine? What a whiner…just virtually smack me.
I think it sounds really hard to go without buddies for so long. You need some pals you can meet for coffee. Wish we could order them up for you.
Btw, you’re allowed to whine. It’s the privilege you’ve earned for being so damned funny so often!
In my real life I feel the need to be funny to make up for all the times I whine and sulk. I’ll have to ask my family how that’s working for them. 🙂
Growing up with 6 sisters I never had to make friends, so now that I live on my own I just seem so inept at making friends. It’s like I scope them out and try to get up the nerve to ask some woman out on a “date” but I’m afraid she’ll reject me. Or worse, that she’ll like me and I won’t like her and then I won’t know how to “break up.”
Ok, enough whining.
I saw two of your books at Borders! It was so cool because I just happened upon them and then I was all like “I know her!”…which of course is a lie because I don’t know you but it was cool anyway pretending.
Do too know me.
I don’t make friends easily — actually I don’t like to make friends. I don’t even particularly like spending time with my family. So I’m guessing you are already much better at friendships than me. I just bring this up so you will have someone to feel superior to since I have always found it very useful when I consider any of my character flaws to go “but so-and-so is even worse than me.”
Andi…we could be friends because I hate to make friends too! I want to have friends but I don’t want to go through the initial getting to know you kind of thing that I find so uncomfortable. I wish I could buy some friends from a catalog or something.
You are still better than me because I’m not convinced that I even want to have friends. At least IRL. I have come to feel differently about friendships here at BooTrib. There are several people here that I think of as friends.
BooTrib is a great environment for people who don’t like the hassle and stress of friendship because there’s no pressure — if you don’t feel like being friendly or social or nice, you just don’t participate. And no one has to worry about whether a friendship is reciprocal because there’s nothing that anyone has to do to acknowledge a friendship. It’s friendship where it’s always in your control, friendship without most of the awkward bits.
(And yes, you are someone I’ve come to think of as a friend but try not to let that worry you too much.)
I think you hit the nail on the head with your comment above….I am not a friend maker either normally and have never felt the ‘need’ to make one, they usually make friends with me in rl and yes it is so much easier having online friends, always supportive, never mad, if you don’t feel like being friendly one day you just stay off sites and then come back in whenever and it’s welcome back, not “why haven’t you called me.”
I too feel like I have friends on this site and many I care a lot about,and a heck of an interesting bunch of folks with the most diverse lives imaginable.
Gee, AndiF. I find this admission to be astounding! You are a VERY friendly and warm person. I don’t even know you yet and I feel like we could be buds if we ever met. I’m sure friends must flock to you….and I don’t mean casual acquaintances…I mean real friends. Is it the face-to-face meetings that are harder? Blogging has a wonderfully safe anonymity about it.
Thanks for saying that. I very much like the idea that we would be friends if we met. I don’t have many friends but I do tend to keep the ones I have (my two oldest friends have been friends for 40 years).
In my second “Re: Friendships” answer to SN I explain that I find online friendships to be very different. It’s not the anonymity but the lack of pressure — if you aren’t feeling friendly, you just absent yourself and no one is obligated to be “friendly” to you.
I also have to say that I have “opened” up a lot since I first came to BooTrib in June. I think that is the “fault” of the many good folks who hang out here.
And I was an only child, so if I didn’t make friends I had to talk to my dolls a lot and let me tell you, dolls are Republicans. Feed me! Clothe me! Protect me! Waa waa waa.
Teddy Bears are Democrats, of course, regardless of Teddy Roosevelt. Board games are Greens. I don’t know why. I’m not sure about Libertarians, but then who is?
Having now offended everybody I think I will go back to work. Hey, I’m from Kansas. It’s my all-purpose excuse these days.
So. Funny.
Maybe libertarians are Rock’em Sock’em Robots — no cooperation, just pure competitive battle where the loser gets his head knocked across the room.
Competitiveness, yes, maybe that’s why.
I realized afterward I didn’t mention Independents. But, then, I wouldn’t dare attach a label to an Independent. 🙂
Yes, we indys are the cheap dollar store toys; totally generic knock-offs of real toys. 😉
we are the toys that are so complicated that no one can ever figure out how to get them to work.
EXCELLENT!!!!
I love this place. I’ve never spent so much time with people who say things that I totally agree with!
And in fact what you said the whole thing, I’ve said, except that I have 4 sisters (and 3 brothers), not 6. And we are so close in age (when I was 5, I was the oldest of 5). I’m basically an introvert, so it’s always been easier for me to hang out with them (although for quite a while, the hanging out has been more telephone based than face-to-face).
And then I lost all the friends I did have after my divorce. They didn’t want to “choose” between us. Which is fine, but they kept telling him everything I was doing, where I was living, where I worked, what my phone number was. And he was crazy and had promised to kill himself on my front porch some day. And I just couldn’t take it anymore. And cut off contact with them, to try to keep that from actually happening. Because I had a choice too, didn’t I?
Anyway, lucky for me mr. katiebird came along — he’s even more introverted than me, but somehow we got together.
And eventually I eventually met (can I say?) who became (somehow) a good friend & brought me here!
The best small town in the world. For the first time in my life, I feel like I have more friends than I can count.
— And I totally have to apologise for disappearing. My step son stopped by and needed us to run errands with him. We just got back. But it’s been a weird day, one thing after another and not one of them planned!
the spouse and I have ever been able to handle is two bowls — and that’s if we know we’ve got a busy day ahead and won’t have time for anything other than a quick lunch. The fiber keeps us full, and we’ll add a side of some sort of protein (they also have a delicious chicken apple sausage, along with turkey bacon) which also helps keep us going till dinner.
Gosh, now I’m getting hungry…
the spouse and I have ever been able to handle is two bowls–“
Good thing I continued on reading the rest of your post. I sort of started out with the “wrong” idea.