WHAT MADE YOU GRIMACE & GRIT YOUR TEETH TODAY?

Good for us readers of this thread, bad for you. Sorry to hear it. (And the caterpillars, too. That's part of why I like my veggies non-organic and pesticided.)

Not so much that I'm pleased to have stuff to gripe about, k.
I meant it would be great to hear more from you!

But reading your gripes about your housemate ....
I found myself wondering how old she was.
I mean, constantly forgetting to turn off lights despite being reminded, breaking stuff & leaving it for "the fairies" to clean up, taking over the kitchen for most of a day without checking to see whether you might want to use it, too .... etc ..
I found myself wondering if she's had much experience of living with others (not her family) before. She seems to not have much idea of give & take in such situations.
Certainly not much fun for you, to sort of have to train her on how it's done.

HM is quite young. Yes this is about not knowing how to share space. Plenty more issues along those lines with this one. Mostly it doesn't bother me. I'm not sure about ADD. I think it's possible, and I work with kids who are diagnosed with it.

It's hard to find older people who want to live in a rental space. Even given how expensive it is to live in this area.

Anyway.... glad to see you all.

Well, technically this just became yesterday -- and in spirit it is, too -- and it's also amusing me and not much of a gritter, but...

Last night I came out of a show to find a parking ticket on my car. Cited for no parking any time, $30. I looked around. No "NO PARKING" signs on my side of the street. Looked around again. Same deal. There were a bunch of us parked on the street, all ticketed. It's possible the curb was red, but it was piled over with plowed snow that was now frozen solid, so no way to tell. A contestable ticket, I think.

Thing is, the ticket only records only the first half of my license plate number -- which is a prefix I've seen a lot of around town -- and misidentifies the make of my car. So I'm not sure if I ignored this ticket that they would ever be able to trace it back to me.

Maybe it's a bullshit ticket and the traffic cop knows it, but catches hell if they don't write tickets on this street?

I dunno. Will have to figure out how I want to handle this...

You'd be off free here, I believe, because of the misidentification of the car.

Good luck!

That's ez to beat; just begging for a dismissal.

Just introduce your Registration Certificate into evidence
and show the court that the charges are against a different license plate number
and against a different make of car, NOT YOURS.
In other words: the accusatory instrument alleges that
a different defendant was guilty, not u.

The accusatory instrument exculpates u.





David

I'm thinking this should bve a license plate or a bumper sticker. A button at the minimum...

I'll second that, patiodog!

The cruise ship off of (well, close to) the island of Giglio, part of Tuscany, going down inexorably on a reef for not yet proven reasons, captained by a guy I take as italian that sounds like a fool but maybe there is still a chance he is not the out and out liar I take him for*, with passengers that seemed to have fended for themselves with spare help from captain or crew; that is the impression in reports - except one guy who stayed to help people get out, and was recently rescued himself. We don't know it was only that guy that helped.

* Captain quoted in one piece I read as saying the power failed and then the ship had big noise (or something like that); passengers saying there was a big bump and then the lights went out while dishes plummeted. Captain going on about they're being 300 meters from (rocks) per map; reports of cruise boat routines (routines!) to do a dip/bow to island communities.

This is just hours after I finished Rita Levi-Montalcini's excellent autobiography, she being a science nobel prize winner (nerve growth factor) who endured a lot of whoohah as a girl born in the victorian era in Turin, eventually having labs in St. Louis and Rome, but doing some of her early work in her bedroom hiding from the nazis in Florence. Anyway, at the end of the book, she goes into the negatives and positives of italian behavior re science funding, interesting to me as one more piece of the puzzle. Italophile that I am, I've read endless accounts by italy interested writers, including italians, about the place being Dysfunction Centrale, my words for it. Sometimes there are good points to that, as she describes, but this present occasion seems like a prototype scenario re poor ship driving.

The book, should anyone be interested, is "In Praise of Imperfection".
I take it she's still alive, re wiki - born in 1909.

All cars and the trucks besides me (on the inner lane) moved this morning, when the lights changed to green. All, besides the one in front of me.

So I 'touched' it a bit. ('Tried to push-start it, the policewoman later said.)
Normally, I would have said "sorry" [and '****' to myself] ...

But this young lady insisted to call the police. There wasn't more than one hard to see teeny scratch on the bumpers (my number plate got re-desigend a bit). It wasn't her car, she said, and that she had made bad experiences before ...

So I had to pay 35 Euros to the police. She had to pay 10 Euros .... because she had forgotten her driving licence at home (and it took some time, until the validity of her licence could be conformed - that it had been issued in Hamburg was no problem but that it was issued with her maiden name ... And that will cost her an additional administrative fine .... which makes me grin a bit).

I've been watching the BBC's Love in a Cold Climate on DVD. (Based on the lives of those crazy Mitfords. )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_in_a_Cold_Climate
Absolutely delightful.
But ...
There are something like 8 episodes & for some unknown reason I can't get beyond the end of episode 4, no matter what I do!
I just keep ending up at the start of episode 1 again.
I want to know what happens next! (Like from episode 5 & on ...)
I think I might lose my mind if I keep ejecting the disc, then fast forwarding it again & again ... always ending up with the same result.
Agh! Thwarted again!
I might have to go to a DVD rental place & borrow another copy to put myself out of my misery.

I woke to the sound of a drill. That's right, the new neighbor was using a power drill to do who knows what.

Soon after, a few rays of sunlight came through the window...well, that's not possible. The weather forecaster predicted rain/snow/everything mix. I get mighty ticked off by incorrect weather reports. (not to worry, it has now clouded over)

Stephen locked my keys up in the truck. No spare to be found

is the car locked, too?

if not you can probably go through the back seat...

might be a second disk??

Yes, that occurred to me, too, margo.
But there were 8 episodes to choose from on that disc (according to the selection information at the beginning).
And no "disc 1" inscription on the box.
So I simply don't know ...
Will drop by the library tomorrow & check if there's a disc 2 available.
Oh the time I wasted trying to get to episode 5!
Terrific series (so far), I've gotta say!

I don't want Anyone ever telling me again that I don't know anything about children because I don't have them, and never wanted them.

It's a cool day here, about 60 degrees. I went to the pool when it opened at noon today, and the water was brisk, but fine if you're swimming/treading water. I was at the far deep end when a woman showed up with 2 kids, about 8 and 4. I didn't even notice them until I heard the little one start screaming "No! No, I'm going to drown!"
I looked over, and the 4 year old was in (who I assumed was) his mom's arms, wearing water wings, by the ladder in the shallow end. It looked like other little kids that at first are scared, then end up having a good time.

Except.....he never stopped crying, pleading to get out, would not let go of his mom, kept saying he wanted to go home, he was cold, he was scared and other stuff. This went on for more than 20 minutes. I paddled over that way to leave, and they were nearby me. As a last ditch effort I said something like "hey, these are magic swimming gloves I've got on. You won't go underwater when you have them on. Wanna try them?"
It was then I realized he was way to deep in freak out mode to be able to understand anything, or make any sense.
Instead of getting out, I hung on the side of the pool, and watched for about 3 minutes. All this time he kept pleading "Juaniita, let me get out, I want to go home!" I'm cold!" He was shivering uncontrollably, and this bitch was actually splashing water on his head, saying things like "Put you head back in the water." She actually took him out into the middle of the shallow end, away for even the smallest security of the side of the pool, swinging him around in circles, while he shivered, clung to her,cried and had eyes like saucers. Other people in the swim lanes where now all looking, obviously upset, but no one doing anything.

I said "Juanita....(she turns to me)....why don't you let him sit on the side of the pool and dangle his legs, get used to the water?"

She says back "I don't know why he's being this way. He's never been like this here."

Yeah, what, like last summer when he was three?

Then, this **** makes her way closer to the ladder, and he's saying "Let me go up the ladder" She's about 5 feet from it and she says "You can go up the ladder if you swim there, it's not hard.

I said "Well, he's scared now, let him get out. This is going to ruin his entire summer"

She says "I can't let him get out, I didn't bring a towel for him."

Holy ****.

I said "I'll give him MY towel. Give him to me."

I really couldn't tell you if she handed him over, or I just took the kid. I climbed out with him latched onto me. I wrapped him in my towel, sat him on my lap and held him while he shivered and sniveled. I sang him a song Natalie Wood sang from "This Property Condemned" and just said all kinds of nonsense things. He warmed up and I could tell by the glazed look in his eyes he was going to be asleep in about 30 seconds, and he was.

We sat there about 10 minutes, while that ******* bitch stayed in the pool with the other kid, as if she had been doing anything with him before, and he needed her.

I was prepared to sit there until she decided to get her fat ass out of the pool, but a guy shows up. I asked if he was the father, and he said no, a friend. He went and got a blanket out of the car, which thankfully was all warm from the sun.
The kid got wrapped up good, and was sat in the grass, where he sat looking shell shocked.

I couldn't even bring myself to look at that ******* ****, so I just left.

And this is someone who probably has or wants kids....and it's her "right" to have them.

call from retirement home earlier
hamburgboy back in emergency again this morning
2nd time this week
not back yet
grimace

oh, no....

sorry to hear that ehBeth.

Best wishes and healing karma flowing to HBG

urf...

((mr H))