swampy - ginger has a natural anti-pukey-feeling agent in it - I don’t know what it is, but on boat trips I’ve munched on candied ginger and it helped. I happen to like ginger ale - especially when mixed with rye.
Bobbio - I said Greensboro. You’re too far for a day trip if I were visiting my friend. Oh well.
Not really. Lunch in Rocky Mount?
Well, it’s going to be a while before I visit him, but I will keep that in mind
Whoa, today’s Monday? Now that I no longer have classes, I don’t have anything to help me tell my days apart. So sad.
Just got to NJ today. Took a bus from DC to NYC this morning and hung out with my cousins for most of the afternoon. Was curiously underwhelming - NY turned out to be a lot grubbier and crazier than what I’d expected, and the Rockefeller Tree was UGLY. We did have fun, though - went to some toy store that had 7000 dollar dolls and wallowed in cynicism.
Jahdra, those toliet rolls are adorable!
ah, youth. they expect so much. 
Haze, NYC is what it is, and if you were expecting the NYC of “Miracle on 34th Street”, well, the time machine hasn’t been invented yet. Snow helps, as does colder temps. Did you watch the skaters? and the Promenade is always nicely docorated. How about the Macy’s windows?
I did see the windows, and they were lovely. Actually, there were some moments when I felt I could grow to love the city. There is definitely something in the air that sets it apart from Chicago. And everything is oozing Christmas from its pores, and despite aforementioned cynicism the city seemed to pull it off with style.
It actually reminded me a lot of Seoul, a city which I have a love/hate relationship with, so maybe I’ll develop some love for NYC before I leave. 
My friend sent me some pics from my crazy weekend in DC, so I thought I’d share. I’m the one in the beige shirt.
Hi, folks! Have cold, due to nasty germ-infested father who cannot be persuaded to wash his hands anywhere near as often as he should. Am mooning over a boy. Am ashamed of self. Am saving pronouns for after the new year.
Hey gt! How’s it goin’? You’re way ahead of me–I’m still working on my cards. I might get them sent out before Christmas (or not). I’m trying to do something cute with the bunnies in teeny little santa hats. I might be up late tonight.
Yay, I’m finally making a name for myself. Sort of. :dubious: Here’s Monday’s pun, while I’m at it:
I should let you all know I’ll be absent the next few days, as I’m headed to Gettysburg, PA and the vicinity thereof. My ex and I are going to visit a mutual friend. Should be loads of fun. Meanwhile, in case taxi is reading this:
CONGRATULATIONS!!!
I must tell you all about the saga of my ears. I have chronic excessive earwax buildup (I can tell you’re overjoyed) and this time it got so bad I might as well have stuffed cotton balls in my ears. In fact, I tried those, soaked in hydrogen peroxide, to clean them out. Nothing. I went to my friendly neighborhood Ear, Nose & Throat Doctor this morning, and he used his fancy suction machine and now I can HEAR. I could hear a pin drop in Texas compared to what it was before.
The only thing for it is to start peroxiding my ears on a weekly basis to prevent it from becoming so built up and packed in. My entire ear canal was jammed tight. On both sides. Eesh. But it’s all better now. Thus ends the saga of my ears. Night!
I had the strangest dream tonight. This guy comes to my desk, demanding printed and bound copies of a 437 page document that looked suspiciously like a 10-K. He wanted 10 copies by 5 pm and it was 4:10. I tell him there’s no way that’s going to happen and he becomes enraged and forgets how to speak English, except to demand his copies. I frantically try to reach my boss to find out what I should do, and finally reach her at 7:35. She tells me to tell him to go to hell. I always have such lovely dreams on vicodin. Actually, it was more like a nightmare, since it woke me up. Every single thing that happened was wrong, and I couldn’t do anything to make it better.
I came home with a migraine and went straight to bed after popping a vicodin and that was the result. It’s still better than the migraine, I guess. I’m really hungry now that the migraine has eased up and the nausea is gone. I really want a pizza, but all the delivery places close at 11. Sigh. San Jose is like a great big cow town, they roll up the streets after dark. The Safeway down the street is supposed to be open until 2 am, but they aren’t always, and I don’t feel like getting dressed for a frozen pizza. I could drive to Race Street, that’s a 24 hour store. Still, frozen pizza.
Haze, the first time I was in NYC I was surprised by how small Rockefeller Center is. Later I realized that in movies they usually show it from a very specific spot, making it look bigger.
That’s one cool thing about traveling and living in different places. Before I lived in Philly, references to “the Hill” meant “some posh place”, now it’s a specific posh place. When Mom’s watching CSI Miami, she expects me to provide running geographic commentary, which is a bitsy of a pain because I’ll be washing the dishes and she’ll call me like she just got gutted by a large troll with a two-handed axe, and she just wants to know whether a specific building is or is not in the photographs I took :smack: I say it’s a bitsy of a pain because, even though I do tell her to cut it out, it doesn’t bother me half as much as when she calls me like that because she forgot to grab the remote before nestling down (Mom doesn’t just sit down, the process involves two or more pillows, an electric warmer, a footrest, a tray, a pack of cards and the two remotes). We’ve reminded her a few times of the boy who cried “wolf”, sometimes we go on slow-down strike for a while, waiting until we’ve finished whatever before we… walk… slowly… to wherever she is, and then she usually cuts it out for a while. Is it normal, having a pampered mother? I mean, one’s supposed to have pampered babies!
Last Saturday, the Three Kings sent a page ahead of time with a GPS for me. After all, who needs a GPS more than a Spaniard with barely a word of German who lives in German-speaking Switzerland and works in Germany, eh? At least I speak English and some French… Anyway, the GPS doesn’t seem to have the exact same notions of “left” and “right” as I do, it’s got problems with those places where for example a road splits in three and all go right: no matter what lane you have to take, it says “make a right”. Today I was driving to work, following its instructions (now that I know about the sides problem, it works pretty well) and this woman at the Swiss-German line didn’t like me. She spent ten minutes checking my passport… I wish I’d known she was going to take so long, I would have switched the motor off sooner.
The Swiss don’t give me any trouble. The first time, I had my 40CHF in hand, to pay the yearly road tax; the guy told me to park and come back, I did, he gave me the sticker for the car window, I gave him the money, byebyehaveanicestay. Yesterday, the soldier saw the sticker, asked “any merchandise?” in German, then again in English, byebyehaveanicestay. Not only is 40CHF pretty cheap as a “whole country, yearlong permit for using the highways” but having the sticker says you “belong in Switzerland and you’re a law-abiding, tax-paying citizen”. Or at least, your car does 
For some strange reason, when the burner cycled off just now, I woke up. The cablebox was dark and everything was eerily quiet. So I got up to do some “recycling” and decided “heck, I’m up, I’ll see what’s going on in the MMP”. But that means I now have to stay awake (foolish me) because if I go back to sleep now, I’ll sleep thru my alarm.
Nava - how long is your cross border commute, and how long will the Swiss company keep you stationed in Germany?
Jahdra - drug induced dreams are usually very weird, but yours seems quite grounded in reality
I have a lot on my mind - a friend recently had a lumpectomy, and since the doc didn’t call her right away (instead he waited til her appointment this past Friday to talk to her) we all figured the news was good. But it isn’t. The have to go in and remove more tissue, then the results of that biospy will dictate whether she needs chemo, radiation, both, or more surgery.
LiLi - saw your answers elsewhere about the t-shirt question! I saw VNV Nation earlier this year in Nottingham, but didn’t buy the new CD until I was over in Antwerp recently in my favourite CD store. It’s actually quite hard to find their stuff over here, none of the mainstream stores stock it, along with most of the other stuff I like. So we went over to Belgium and called into FatKats, where I picked up “Matter and Form” as well as an interesting Front 242 CD with several different mixes of the same song.
I remember seeing “Das Ich” long ago at (I think) the second EuroRock festival in Neerpelt. They were a really odd bunch and I swear there was a song in there about chocolate beer, or maybe that was wishful thinking! Well, it was early evening and we’d had a few…
Current favourite is Funker Vogt, so much so that I very nearly almost ordered some FV coasters online. Fortunately good sense and the lack of alcohol stayed my hand.
I’m up and caffienating. I’m attempting to go in and stay all day today. We shall see. I feel a lot better and figure with daytime cold stuff I can make it. If I think I’m too germy I’ll leave though. I think I had a grand total of about nine awake hours all day yesterday, so I should be all slept out right?
Ok, off to read the paper and purty up.
I might be back…again, we’ll see what craziness this week brings to the igloo.
What a cute sibling story, and Happy Birthday to the young Shibblet! It’s so nice when the kids like each other, many wishes that this camaraderie lasts through adolescence.
Lovely kids FCM, your daughter has the same kind of “Feed Me” gathering as we have going on here whenever anyone consumes anything. #3 had the same reaction to your cat as BibKitty, “Mom, that cat looks like a cougar!” Beautiful cat, but only the back of Bernie’s head. 
(Bernie is the dog’s name, right?)
Great quiz bobbio! I haven’t peeked in the spoiler box, but I have deduced a handful so far, at least I think I have! I’ll try to work on it some more before I check, and you know that I am forwarding this to my super intelligent Dad!
I thought the joke was funny too, rigs, and I will forward that to my silly Mother!
Sorry li-li, my mind is blank and I am running on auto pilot. I extended an invitation to a family friend, and he accepted, and who knows who will just drop in, and I wish someone would come over here and take charge. Any takers? Oh, and your joke also goes to Mom!
Hey db, I got lost last week, what happened to your leg? Also, does Maggie Wonderbeagle have regular liver function tests? Poor girl, and best wishes to you both.
welby I have the lights in regular Christmas colors, but I found some fabulous garland in two shades of pink/mauve, and hope to find more next year! Pink lights would be so cool with the pink/mauve garland…I am in the process of whipping the house (well, a lot of whipping skiffman , figuratively speaking, up on a stool with a hammer and tiny nails ) into an explosion of Christmas. Part of it is because Christmas here is on both December 24th and January 7th (Russian Orthodox), and partly because it is so dark here now, barely 6 1/2 hours of daylight and counting down until December 22nd, when we begin to gain daylight again.
Oh, and Taters I still want to have a white tree decked in red, purple and gold. It probably won’t happen as long as any of my kids are still at home (little traditionalists!) but it’s gonna happen someday!
The temps are supposed to rise to near freezing, show in the forcast along with high winds.
I have super fabulous news, but the washer was improperly loaded and there is a flood to be controlled, so I guess it will have to wait until tomorrow, er, later today. Everyone who is under the weather, best wishes for a speedy recovery. It just ain’t right to be sick on Christmas!
Howdy kai I sit here on pins and needles (I shoulda unwrapped this new shirt better, HAH!) awaiting your super f-aaaaaa-bu-lous news.
Ok, so here I am at work. So far, I’m not hackin’ and coughin’ near as much as I was, so maybe I’m less germy today. How you feelin’ rigs? I have decided that some activity would help today. Then again, I’m still sorta germy so maybe most folks will just leave me alone lest I hack all over 'em. Hmmm… maybe I should just send out a general email that says… “I have the sick and I ain’t afraid to use it!”
A cookie to the cool kid who can remember where the phrase “the sick” comes from. That’ll separate the oldtimers from the newbies.
Is there a pronoun shortage I should know about about? No one told me.
Jahdra, vicodins are lovely for migraines. They do produce weird dreams, but anything that makes the god-awful pukey wishing-to-die pain go away is fine with me. Glad you’re feeling better.
I hope all the Sickies are feeling better.
Just a quickie this morning. I’m off to the orthodontist and then power Christmas shopping. I’ve bought NOTHING.
Bibs, report on your Operation Santa? :dubious:
You know those nights when something -a noise or the cats fighting on the bed or something, wakes you up at oh, let’s say…3:12 AM, and you can’t get back to sleep?
:dubious:
My birthday was yesterday too! My mother made me this insanely rich chocolate cake - I’ve been trying to give pieces to people since I know there’s no way I’d be able to finish it before it got old and dry (ew). She also made some shrimp etouffee that won’t have a chance to go bad. Mmmm, shrimp etoufee. I braved the crowds to get my dad Sense and Sensibility on dvd ($10 at Bestbuy!) and am still working/waiting on Mom to tell me something she’d like.