Crap…

Don’t you just hate it when things seem to be going so well, and then suddenly things start crashing down?

I was so happy for my friend, who was going to have a baby – only now, the news is that it doesn’t have a heartbeat, it will miscarry.

It’s been a few days since I’ve talked with my friend, I expect she’ll let me know what’s happening when she can.

So, it’s been a rather crummy week.

Top it off with somebody sending chain mail! Argh!

http://www.breakthechain.org/exclusives/aussiedentist.html

Dental Misattribution

(2/3/2003) In the days following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans were deeply touched by what appeared to be a global outpouring of support. Unfortunately, many of these essays, rants and commentaries have proven not to be the icons of international support they are suspected to be.

SAMPLE CHAIN LETTER TEXT

You probably missed it in the rush of news last week, but there was actually a report that someone in Pakistan had published in a newspaper an offer of a reward to anyone who killed an American, any American.

(Cut rest of chain letter junk)

END CHAIN LETTER TEXT

In the weeks following the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington D.C., the e-mailing American public was bolstered by several chain letters that appeared to be rousingly supportive entreaties from international authors. Under scrutiny, however, most of these proved to be misunderstandings (as in a 30-year old Canadian Editorial), under-attributed (as in a Romanian “Ode to America), or cases of mistaken identity, as in this one.

This essay was not written by “an Australian dentist,” but by an associate law professor at Virginia’s George Mason University. Titled “What is an American: A Primer,” it was published in the National Review on September 25, 2001. The e-mail version differs from the original not only in attribution, but also contains several edits and editorial comments and omits the author’s closing paragraphs.

We can’t be sure where the “Australian Dentist” attribution came from, but can safely assume it is another case of “False Attribution Syndrome.” Most likely, such an individual received the essay and forwarded it, inadvertently adding his identity to it. This is just one of the many hazards of forwarding chain letters. If you wouldn’t want to be accused of writing something like this, you shouldn’t forward it. Break this chain.

Category: America At War
References: National Review Online, Snopes.com

–

Please stop sending chain mail, and please look up these things on breakthechain.org snopes.com and truthorfiction.com instead of continuing the spread of this stuff all over the net.

Back At Long Last

It’s been a while since I posted.

The new year started out with some tragedies around the world in January, but now what’s on everybody’s minds is the winter Olympics, and Canada is doing extremely well!

I am more than a bit put out with the sore loser, whiny attitudes so many people have about the Canadian men’s hockey team losing out to Russia.

So they lost. That’s just one team, one sport. People, dry up and look at the rest of Canada’s victories – they count every bit as much as the men’s hockey team, and more, Canada is not sufficiently represented by men’s hockey. Every sport, every victory honestly achieved, counts.

I wanted to write the news station that broadcast all those snot-nosed sore losers and put in my two cents and tell them to suck it up and move on – it’s not the end of the world!

Somebody sent me another chain letter yesterday, which I thoroughly trashed in a fit of frustration. Forwards kill intelligence, I’m sure of it.

After that, it was out, and I could go on to other, more cheerful things like church band practice!

We’re doing “Days Of Elijah” “Be Thou My Vision” “Majesty” and “Awesome In This Place” as gathering songs on Sunday.

I’m glad we’re doing “Be Thou My Vision” in its original 3/4 timing, the gathering bands have been doing that and “Revive Us Again” in this syncopated 4/4 time, every time they do these songs – and it just bugs me. So, I asked if we couldn’t try something different from the usual style they seemed to have adopted for those hymns and play them straight.

We are doing it straight, but a little quicker – cool, I’m fine with that. Because sometimes mucking with the timing doesn’t work.

Fonda stayed at my house for a while after dropping me off, I invited her in to see Abby. Her response was very enthusiastic, and priceless! Hehe!

The chinchilla was pretty good about being held by a stranger, though it took a little time waiting for her to get over her shiness enough to come out and investigate. Abby didn’t stay as still in Fonda’s arms as she does mine, but I think she held more still with Fonda than she did with my niece Lindsay the other day. Abby holds very still in my arms and dozes off. Absolutely amazing for a chinchilla, they’re not usually that calm and into being held and cuddled. And she’s still posing no problems with shedding, so I’m very glad for that and hope it stays that way.

It’s been snowing here, finally! Days of snowfall, now that it’s getting late in the winter. All the nice weather had me a little worried that we’d get a cold, wet summer again. Last June was terrible! The rain was welcome at first, but it had gone on and on, so much that some homes were being flooded. And that is not cool!

Lindsay came over the other day to quilt, and she had supper with us. That was fun, like the times she spent here at Christmas, working on a quilt. Now it’s a different one, and she’ll be coming over to work next week as well. Cool.

Now that I got the smallish stuff out of the way, what I’ve been meaning to write down and hadn’t got around to logging in here until now, is this!:

My cousin, Sylvia is a grandma! The little boy’s name is Carson and he was born Feb. 13! Congrats!!

Also, it’s been confirmed early this week that my friend Sandi is pregnant, due some time in the fall! Wow! This is really unexpected, because the little one is going to have an 18-year-old sister! 18 years is quite the age gap!

Sandi has been really into birds and bird breeding, but now she says she’ll have to sell quite a lot of them to make room and help with the expenses of the baby. What a change this is going to bring. Kerry, her husband is dreading the diaper expense most, Sandi said he found that the most urksome when April was a baby.

Now, for some online fun.
Odeo.com

Another Interesting Program

On the radio this morning was a Hanukkah version of the Nutcracker, as far as the music goes, and there were some similarities in the plot.

The girl Sarah in this case, gets a special gift from her aunt Merriam who apparently turned out to be Moses’s sister, I’m not sure how that happened, there must’ve been some time-traveling going on here as well. Anyway, instead of a nutcracker, it’s a golden dreidel, I believe that’s a book of some kind, with words and letters that have special meanings.

There were other children there, including Sarah’s brother. They snatched the dreidel from her and started playing with it, spinning it around.

Sarah fought with them to get it back, she lost her grip, it went flying and cracked her aunt Leah’s big TV screen. That crack would later become a portal for Sarah to enter the dreidel’s magic kingdom, similar to Marie/Clara’s entrance into the Candy Kingdom in NC. The evil mouse king is replaced by a king of the demons, he and his hords pose a threat to anything and anyone they can get their grimy little hands on.

The demon king captures Sarah’s dreidel who has been transformed into a beautiful golden-haired girl in this kingdom. Sarah meets up with the Queen of Sheba, who is married to King Soloman, and they all set out to rescue their daughter (the golden-haired dreidel) But along the way, Sarah gets very tired, falls off her camel, meets a peacock, and then The Fool, who it turns out, isn’t so foolish after all. He knows how to outwit the demons, and he helps Sarah to do just that.

When they answer the demon king’s riddles, he says they can have the driedel Sarah wants, but she has to choose the right one or else she’ll end up cursed to dance madly around forever just like they are.

Very interesting!

After the program, Mom came back home, and then we went out to a Vietnamese restaurant for lunch.

I have not been in a Vietnamese restaurant and disliked anything I’ve ordered yet!

After that, we did a little shopping. Mom needed a cartridge for her printer, and I needed some blank cds.

We bought those plus…

I bought a dvd of “How The Grinch Stole Christmas”

Mom bought me a neat little hot cocoa set, two tins one with a package of hot chocolate in it, the other turned out to have some really yummy little cookies, and a tiny wisk and grater – how cool! Also two nice sized mugs came with it. All for like $6!

I bought her a microphone for her computer. I told her I needed another one because one of mine was broken and the other distorts too much. Only when we got home did I give it to her with a “Merry Christmas! Hehe! She laughed “You brat!” Roflol!

Btw, my mics are all working fine. But I had to think of something. Lol.

She has the new msn messenger 7 now, and that has this niftiest voice feature, you can send voice clips to people and if they have msn 7 they can receive and send voice clips back. One of Mom’s friends has the new msn, she sent me a couple of voice clips one day. so I thought this meant it was time for Mom to get a mic, and that’s something she wasn’t likely to get on her own. Now she and Lois will be able to voice chat.

The voice clip feature is so cool for another reason, I believe you can use that feature in an msn conference. That’s better than the old and less reliable voice chat msn had and still has, where you click on “Start voice conversation” or whatever that menu item is now.

With a voice clip, all you have to do is hold down the f2 key for a few moments while speaking. It allows you to talk for about 15 seconds I think, and if you want to say more you have to release the key and press and hold it again. This is probably to keep the files being created and sent this way from getting too large.

So, all in all, a good day so far.

Wow!

Another treat!

I turned on the radio tonight and heard a radio play. It was, of all things, Pierre Berton’s “The Secret World of Og” I remember reading that in grade 5, so it was wonderful to revisit another classic kiddy story. And I enjoyed it as much now as I had then. I had forgotten a good deal of it, but had remembered there was a girl named Patsy, a few other siblings, and their baby brother Paul nicknamed the Polly-Wog, who had gone missing down a tunnel that was in the bottom of the playhouse.

The other children were, from oldest to youngest: Penny, Pamela, Patsy, and Peter. Paul would’ve been probably just about a year, he couldn’t walk until the end of the story when he took his first steps.

Well, he had gone down the tunnel, and the other children followed suit, looking for him. As a result, they ended up in a world of little green people – the world and the people were called Og. Og was their language, and the only word in their language. But some of them had learned English, and they lived in a curious state of pretence. They lived out comic book adventures, taking stuff from the real world above to help them do it. A skipping rope one of the kids had lost was going to be used in a hanging, a capgun used in a shoot-out, that sort of thing. But they didn’t know the toys, and even little babies that wandered down the tunnel would be missed by the outside world.

The children were propelled through an interesting western style comedy adventure involving a jail house, spies, the threat of a trial and capital punishment, a shooting by capgun, a market where the cat had been taken and was on sale as food along with some live rabbits. The cat was rescued by one of his owners.

The children kept losing each other as well throughout this neatly twisting adventure.

The Ogs had very big imaginations, and when they panicked about the “Snake People” on the attack, it turned out to be nothing other than Patsy and her pet gartersnake, Snavely. Hehe!

In the end, the kids all found one another, and made an agreement with the Ogs that they would not tell anyone else about their secret world, in return for the Ogs never using the playhouse tunnel and pilfurring their stuff again.

The cd can be ordered online at I hope that url is right.

Christmas

It was a beautiful Christmas – two days worth!

First of all, I’ll begin by filling in a little of the day before our Christmas celebrations.

The night before Christmas Eve, I watched more great shows, one was “The Year Without a Santa Claus” where Santa almost took a year off because of his cold, and dampened spirits over so many people not believing and caring in him or Christmas any more. It took Mrs. Claus, a couple of elves, Jingle and Jangle, and baby Blitzen–sorry, Vixen? One of those two reindeer, searching the world for someone with the Christmas spirit. There was rivalry between two brothers who controlled the weather, one who liked to freeze everything, and one who heated things up.

Everybody had misadventures and there was quite a bit of humor and some touching moments along the way, but in the end, Santa recovered, and did not miss a year of rounds after all.

During that hour long special, I held Abby, yes, the entire time! She just dozed in my arms throughout the show, and that is just about unheard of for a chinchilla to be that calm! She is very, very playful in her cage, but she is so laid back when being held, it’s just amazing! And she is still not posing any allergy problems for Mom, God willing I sure hope it stays that way!

Then, “Christmas Carol” came on. That is one of my favorite movies of all time!

We celebrate Christmas with the family dinner and gift opening on Christmas Eve. For dinner, it was turkey with all the trimmings, and man oh man, was it delicious!!!!

I was busy making cds throughout the day for everyone, it was something I’d planned on doing, but thought I’d wait until then, to give myself something to do while waiting for things to start happening around here.

Everybody started coming over later in the afternoon, and my nephew Brad worked until 6, so we didn’t have dinner until he got here, and that was cool. Would not want him missing it!

Then we had a dessert which was a type of Italian ice cream that has less fat than regular ice cream but tastes every bit as good if not better. I’ll tell you, it sure beats all heck out of that soy tofu crap! There was a chocolate log made of this ice cream, and it had little bits of chocolate and some licorice tasting ice cream in there as well, and these delicate Italian wafers that looked sort of like tiny waffles.

After our dessert, we opened the presents.

I had Brad in the Christmas box, and I got him snowboard socks, made of this absolutely wonderful, thick, soft material. They should feel extremely comfortable to wear.

Dad got me in the Christmas box, so, from him, I got one of the dvds I wanted! “Christmas Carol” YES!!!!!

There were so many other gifts exchanged outside of the Christmas box as well. Elaine and the girls got tickets to Tommy Hunter’s performance for my parents. That’s going to take place some time in February, and also gift certificates to this Italian restaurant they really like. La Luna Rosa I think it’s called.

Colin got a hermit crab from Lindsay. He named it The Cheat. Yes, ‘The’ is part of his name.

Hmmm, I can’t remember what everyone got, but in my stocking, there was a small container of these great hazelnut cream chocolates that I won’t try to spell the name of. They’re advertised on TV at this time of the year. And they are great!

I also got a lipstick, a package of Irish cream hot chocolate, “Homeward Bound” 1 and 2 dvds.

The other gifts were a box with three nice looking tins of gourmet hot chocolates – one is Belgin dark, the middle one is milk chocolate, and the other is Swiss white chocolate. Cool! I also got a vest, but it will need to be exchanged for a different size, or maybe I can get something else – hmmm.

We took a long time to open gifts because we did the organized thing where you draw numbers, and whichever number you are, that’s when you open your gifts if there are any for you. And there were, for everyone, especially for the younger ones.

My number was 2, so I was second. And this is all after we had done the Christmas box and stockings.

My sister Audrey was second LAST at 13, and I didn’t think she was going to survive the wait.

Mom really liked this method but Audrey wasn’t keen on it, and I’m not sure what I think of it either. I could go either way and do this or go the chaotic route and everyone open their stuff all at once. But this numbered organization enabled everyone to show the rest what they received. So everyone in turn got a little undivided attention during their time to open and show their presents.

Then after that, we sat and chatted, and of course, laughed. We always have a blast when the family gets together, and especially for the biggest highlight of the whole year, Christmas!

But Christmas didn’t end there, we still had the actual Christmas day yet, and we have traditions then as well.

In the morning, we go to the church service, then we make the rounds to everybody else’s homes in the family. So, after church, we went first to Anitra and Michael’s. Anitra gave us some of her ginger snaps, and wow, were they good!!

From there, we went to Audrey’s for a while, and got to see the new car Brad received from his parents! It has a lot of power, you can hear it when he starts it up.

then to Elaine’s. She was listening to the cd I’d made her when we went in. Her place echoes a bit, so it sounded almost like Lindsay and Anitra were reciting something in a school or church. The cd was of them – and me, putting on a Christmas program for our family in 1987. They were just little back then. It’s really neat listening to their voices and comparing them to the way they sound now. I can tell it was them, but they sounded well, like little kids. *Grins* It really is cute and I’m so glad I got that put onto cds for prosperity.

Mom is so sentimental that listening to it brought back the memories, and hearing how sweet Anitra and Lindsay sounded as little girls, nearly made her cry. Hehe! Second time on Christmas day.

The first time she melted was earlier that morning when reading this beautiful ABC book Lindsay had got her as part of a Christmas gift. In this book, Lindsay wrote things to go with each letter of the alphabet that was about her special Grandma, including some really cute and hilarious memories.

Actually, I blubbed in church too, so Christmas Day saw a few tears from at least a couple of us. The song “Mary Did You Know” is a real choke-up song as it is, but when he said we should listen to it being read out loud, and put our name in place of Mary’s, it was like – ouch! *Sniff*

Well, back to our visits, after we were done at Elaine’s, we went back home for a while. Barb had brought stuffing over the day before, so Mom could bake it and we’d bring it along with us when we went for dinner at Marvin and Barb’s Christmas evening. And wow, that stuffing smelled sooooooooooo good in the car on the way there!!!

We had dinner there, Barb’s parents were there as well, but Al, her dad, who is 87, wasn’t doing too well after dinner and had to go lie down. He was okay after some time, but still, it’s hard on the nerves, especially for Colin I’m sure, at his age.

We visited for some time, and went home. I crashed for a while, having suddenly gotten cold. That’s because I’d left my housecoat down in the spare room this morning, so it was freezing when I went down there to change, and put it on. I just crawled into bed and zoned out and warmed up.

Good Entertainment

“Santa Claus is Coming to Town” came on, and then “The Happy Elf” Both of them really cute shows! How could I forget “Coming to Town”’s Berger-Meister, Tupper the penguin, and the Winter Warlock (He prefers to be called simply ‘Winter’)?

This show started out with Santa as a baby, found by the Cringle family, who were elves. They raised him to a fine young man. But his giving spirit and unusual wardrobe caused some problems in the form of a few stick-in-the-muds of the community, and the evil town mayor, Berger-Meister. He outlawed toys, claiming they made kids self-centered – yeah, as if he wasn’t? I think that was the reason behind it, I didn’t see the show from the very beginning, but remember it from previous years.

Santa had to invent ways to sneak toys into homes, therefore, the chimney, and hiding toys in stockings.

The Winter Warlock started out wicked, but I believe one of Chris Cringle’s unexpected gifts melted his cold heart. He was already a good guy by the time I turned the show on tonight. It was his magic corn that enabled the reindeer to fly.

The Happy Elf was about just that – a very happy elf named Eubie, Who was put in charge of double-checking Santa’s Naughty Or Nice List. Then his curiosity about a town full of naughty children lead him on a mission to put them on the Nice List. The town was appropriately named Bluesville. The adults were stern and sad. The children were naughty, surly roughnecks, and the Bluesvillians were very tough nuts for Eubie to crack. In the end, it took not only Eubie, but his good friend Gilda, and once rival now turned friend Derek to help out.

They made a Christmas decoration out of Bluesville’s famously useless inflamable coal. They gave it to Molly, the first Bluesville child who was not always nice, but had given Eubie the time of day, so could be reached. Molly, according to plan, took it to the mayor and held him to the promise of letting the town have a Christmas tree in the town square. At first, the mayor tried to reneg. But the sight of that star tree topper made him remember happier times of his childhood when he still knew Christmas. Then, he had a change of heart.

In the end, the three courageous elves, Eubie, Gilda, and Derek had succeeded in turning the town around, and were rewarded with positions as Santa’s Slay Crew for Christmas Eve night.

It was the first time I ever saw that special, and I believe it was a relatively new one. I loved it!!!

On a Much Lighter Note

I meant to write in here yesterday, but was too busy checking out the Christmas specials on TV, and then answering email.

Last night, the Casper the Friendly Ghost and Yogi Bear special came on. I hadn’t seen that in years!!! I’ve seen the other Yogi Bear special several times in recent years and really like that one as well. But the one with Casper I only had a dim memory of it, where Yogi and his friends were setting up Christmas in some house, and Casper was there, making friends.

That was as I recall, all right. Very cute!

Peanuts have several great Christmas specials, I saw one earlier this week and another one later on this week. If you want good Christmas classic TV, YTV and Teletoon air the honest to goodness kiddy shows that now seem mostly absent on most regular TV stations. I think the reason for that is precisely because there are now kiddy stations that cater to a young and young at heart audience.

Tonight, I watched another Christmas special I hadn’t seen in years – the Chipmunks’ Christmas! I didn’t catch the beginning of it, but remembered the part I came in on tonight, where poor Alvin was in dire need of “MONEY!” to buy a harmonica for the Christmas concert. So, I didn’t see and don’t remember how he lost the first one.

It just makes my night seeing my beloved kiddy Christmas classics!

Also, tonight, there was a live ladybug in our house again, would you believe it!? Here it’s December, and we have ladybugs crawling around! Neat-o!!!

Dinner was good, shrimp-fried rice, and I had fish in batter. It’s ‘clean out the fridge and make room for Christmas stuff’ time. So, the rice was left over from yesterday, and we finally got the fish out of the freezer too.

So, except for the email forwards and animal welfare/animal rights jerks on a list I quit, today has gone just fine.

Yeah, I quit this pet related list I’m on because lately people have been doing the one-upmanship thing, trying to show who cares more for the animals *rolling eyes* and that always means putting down someone else for not doing things their way. That’s all part of being an animal welfare/rights nutter. I don’t allow that bullcrap on my pet list – the first sign anybody is down on someone else for anything animal related, and they’re gone. Well, this wasn’t my list, and I’d had enough, so I was gone this time.

Now, there was another Flintstone special on, but I couldn’t get into it because it was one of the later ones, with a different voice for Fred, and I just can’t quite get into that. The voice was fairly close at times to the original in the series, but not quite.

Now, the programs have probably changed, so I’m going to run down and see what’s on.

Oh, before I do, a cute Abby moment:

She likes to rearrange her stuff, and that sometimes means spilling her food. I really should try to attach the dish to the wire. Anyway, I heard Abby playing around with the bowl, so went over to check it out to make sure she hadn’t spilled it all again.

She hadn’t, the bowl was still right-side up, and there was a little food in it.

And then there was Abby herself, sitting up pretty with her front paws straight out like a puppy begging for food. Cute!!! She’s easy to play with when she’s like that, because she tries to catch my fingers with her mouth or with her paws first, then her mouth. She just sits there and keeps trying to get me as I gently nudge her and make my fingers move quickly to keep her playing.

I’ve Had It! Stop It!

Chain breaking sites:
http://www.breakthechain.org
http://www.snopes.com
http://www.truthorfiction.com

Simple archiving of email junk:
http://www.chainletters.net/
http://www.forwardgarden.com/forward/118379.html>

Please take the hint.

Chain mail is junk. All chain mail is junk!

I don’t want it! I don’t want any of it!

I’m embarrassed that my friends keep buying into it, and insulted they think I’m fool enough to believe and want it as well.

I boil over whenever somebody gets hoodwinked by chain email that plays on their religious sentiments to get them forwarding something that is incredibly lame and most often distorted and untrue, whiny, self-righteous and judgemental as well.

I’m sick to the back teeth of seeing anti-Christian attitudes displayed as a backlash because so many Christians let themselves be manipulated into passing on a piece of dreck that did a number on their heartstrings!

I don’t need or appreciate all the hugawars, friendship balls, tired pithy sayings, sucker-punching sob stories, stale jokes, and all manner of fwd being circulated everywhere.

I’m offended that my friends think this dreck passes for communication and keeping in touch and that it’s good enough for me, and all the others in their address books.

I hate being just another number on so many address book lists!

I detest seeing my friends get used as tools to send on spam. I’m disgusted by their willingness to be used and fooled in this way!

I’m hurt they don’t take my objections including plenty of debunk sites I’ve repeatedly sent them as a hint to wise up, stop sending this crap, and send real email instead!

I’m extremely offended when they abandon me in favor of sending stupid forwards to other people!

I’m so frustrated with their attitudes and excuses for sending chain email, and their refusal to stop spreading junk all over the net!

I left a few uhm…chat *cough* lists and written off some people as good online friends because I’m sick of chain mail and people continuing to spam mailboxes with it, and then getting all huffy when I post debunks and objections to it.

I don’t want this junk and I wish you people would get a huge clue, instead of simply nixing me from your address books and continuing to send junk to other people who are probably just as enamoured with it as you are, take the time to kick the forwarding habit, and start writing real honest to goodness emails, even if it’s just short notes letting me know you’re thinking about me!

Don’t send me chain email about friendship or anything else!

Be a friend, break the chain email addiction, and send your own words, please!.

I want your own personally written emails, and even real news bulletins you sometimes send from actual legit sources. I want emails with actual web sites you like.

I don’t want dumb chain mail that’s trying its hardest to make me cry or go “Oooooooo-Aaaaaaaah-OMG!” “How profound!” “How wonderful!” “How sad!” “Amazing!” “I MUST pass this on right away!”

Because guess what? I won’t. I’ll just throw a fit and get mad that yet another friend fell for yet another stupid forward – again and couldn’t be bothered to send me email unless it is a stupid forward!!

And tacking on one or two words of your own to a fwd does not make it a personal email!

Browse the email junkyard and the forward garden to your hearts content if you like that sort of stuff but keep in mind it is junk that is at best, silly, and at worst, malicious emotional manhandling – and please please please please PLEASE! Don’t pass it on! Don’t pass it on! Don’t pass it on!

Here are a bunch of sites, a lot of them express my own feelings about all fwds while generally taking the emotional power out of them. Read these, get guilt-free, stay immune from the power forwards may have had over you. Get smarter. Don’t send forwards! Don’t feel bad about not sending forwards! Be strong enough to inform your friends and help them help stop the spread of stupidity on the net!

http://www.lewrockwell.com/barnwell/barnwell70.html http://www.technomom.com/writing/forwards.shtml http://www.rediff.com/netguide/2002/may/31glurge.htm http://soundoff.pbwiki.com http://www.signposts.org.au/index.php/archives/2005/10/31/christian-glurges/ http://www.angelfire.com/geek/arvay/resignation.html http://www.breakthechain.org/gj.html http://www.snopes.com/glurge/glurge.asp http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/~watrous/gullibility-virus.html http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/archives/0109/techwhirl-0109-00668.html http://www.rossde.com/frauds_n_hoaxes/hoaxes.html http://cactus.eas.asu.edu/partha/Columns/03-12-Lies.htm http://www.ccnmag.com/story.php?id=17 http://www.escapeschool.com/3-TheSpamGuide.shtml http://www.technomom.com/geek/hoaxes.shtml http://www.northstarchapter.org/Articles/Articles%20of%20Interest/ehsclass73_Jan30_2000.htm http://www.eff.org/Misc/EFF/?f=email_facts_of_life.txt http://www.georgiagasprices.com/Forum_MSG.aspx?master=1&category=1176&topic=138121&page_no=1&FAV=N http://www.breakthechain.org/psych.html http://www.digitalcatharsis.com/blog/000452.html http://www.djron.com/jokes/chain.html http://www.compufinity.com/help_email_hoaxes.htm http://www.zeewebnet.com/support/spam.htm http://www.phoenix.edu/students/future/oldissues/Fall2002/Chain.htm

About Prayer Chain Mail:
http://truthminers.com http://truthminers.com/hoaxarticles/chain_mail.htm http://www.moongate.ro/chainletters/en/explain.php http://www.csicop.org/chain/ http://stuff.mit.edu/people/rei/spir-lure.html http://adjunct.diodon349.com/Attack_on_USA/chain_letters_and_those_neverending_forwardings.htm http://www.breakthechain.org/psych.html http://www.csicop.org/chain/

Great Couple of Days

Yesterday was my last day of work before the holidays, which have now begun.

The class demonstrations went very well. There were three classes I didn’t play for, one was a little kiddy class that is so short that music isn’t required, so nobody played for that. A cd was used for their dance, and the music was the Sugarplum Fairy.

Then came the demo put on by the jazz dance class that comes before the three ballet classes I accompany. This class did a combination to a funky Christmas medley. Then their Christmas dance was done to this nifty remake of the 70s song “Car Wash”! Cool!

And on a side note, Mom and I went shopping today, and guess what we did before hitting the mall? Filled up with gas, and went through a car wash! Lol!! Abijah! (Our word for weird coincidence)

Getting back to the demo, after the jazz class, the ballet 3 class did several exercises, and two dances. One in what’s called free movement style, I think that’s a sort of modern ballet. That one was done to “Carol of the Bells” which I played.

The second dance was their Russian character dance, that is, Russian almost folk, but still balletic – sort of – I think…? Hmmm…Not sure. She was going to use a cd, the Russian dance from the Nutcracker, but it somehow got scratched. So, I got to come up with Christmas music for that as well. The Nutcracker version would’ve been different from their regular set exam dance since NC was a very fast 4/4 time all the way through. The set exam music starts out in this sad sounding 3/4 and then goes into a giddy 2/4. Since Shana had decided to have the kids do it one day first with the exam music, then to whatever music I could come up with, I decided it was best to try to find two Christmas carols with the same time signatures as in the exam dance music. And it took some concentration and sifting through my mind to figure out which carols would meld together reasonably well. In the end, I chose “We Three Kings” for the beginning, and “Dec The Halls” for the lively section of the dance. So that’s what they did their Russian dance to at the demo.

Then came the ballet foundation class, that’s a mix of grade 4 and 5 work. They did a few barre exercises, and then one Christmas dance. This was another one with changes in time signatures. For that, and given the description of the type of music Shana was thinking of, I put two tunes together from Christmas choir from several years ago.

The last class I played for was ballet 4. They did several exercises in the center, not at the barre, and two Christmas dances. One was their Scottish mazurka, the only Christmas tune I could think of that would fit the style of the exam music was “Oh Christmas Tree” Interesting conglomeration of nationalities, huh? A mazurka is a Polish dance. But this was a Scottish Mazurka, and yes, the original music really does sound Scottish…With a Polish rhythm. So now with “Oh Christmas Tree” we got some German in there too.

The last dance, therefore the last thing I played yesterday was for the grade 4 Russian character dance. I used “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” for that. Hehe! It works out so well for that dance too.

Mom said it sounded like I was in fine form from what she heard. Hehe! I was.

I’m definitely feeling like I’ve come around, finally. I’m sorry I couldn’t do these last few months over again without the depressing torture that was having to give up Misty.

Oh, speaking of critters, I’ve started paying Mia attention once again. Mia really misses me when I dont give her attention for a while, whether it’s because of being sick or just emotional troubles. I brought her to work with me yesterday, and of course, being Mia she charmed everyone! And when I took her out of the pouch, she wouldn’t stop giving me licky kisses. She even lightly chewed my fingers at times, a sign she really really REALLY misses me.

Now, she’s in her pouch around my neck, and it’s dark outside. She should be wanting to go back in her cage but doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to do so today. What a Mia!

Today at the mall, I got to see some hermit crabs! Wow, are they neat! It just looks like shells moving around on the sand. I picked up one occasionally, and felt motion in the shell as the crab retreated. I let them crawl across my hand, and even got pinched by one! Hehe!

Lindsay came over and worked on her quilt, and then I brought Abby down for a little visit. Mom and Lindsay get quite a few little chuckles out of her, especially the way she pokes her nose out the side of her sleeping box.

“Mary’s Boy Child”

Hehe – That’s what’s playing on the radio right now – cool! And it’s a really neat Jamaican type rendition too!

I’m beginning to feel the Christmas spirit at last. It sure took a while.

Today is a week since Pam picked up Misty, and I haven’t heard back, so am assuming no news is great news.

Nothing much happening today, Mom and Dad are going to Colin’s hockey game. Not sure if they’ll go to the church choir concert after that or not. I’m not, because I missed so many rehearsals this year, I’m not ready to perform with them. And I’d feel rather silly showing up now just to listen.

This song rocks!

I groomed Abby again and she wasn’t ready to go back in her cage when I was done. She kept coming out to be held, yes, doing the Misty turn about on my arm.

Then I gave her a sand bath. Even after that she still wanted to come out.

Hmmm, this next song is boring. It’s one of those modern Christmas songs, by Brian Adams, and I have no idea what it’s called. Doesn’t sound Christmassy to me. So I’ll just wait it out or put on a cd.

Today is a very peaceful one.

Holy smokes – this next song definitely doesn’t sound Christmassy, though it is about Christmas. Rockin Rudolph or something like that. Hang on. Be back.

Okay. My cd player is playing “Building A Mystery” now, that’s not a Christmas song, but it’s okay. It’s familiar, and not just some song that tries to convince me it’s a Christmas carol.

Turned the radio back on. “Silent Night” That’s better.

Today

Work went great this morning. The demonstrations were short and went very well.

I brought Abby, and she was so good with people touching her. Everyone liked her. They were amazed at how soft her fur is.

Then, Mom and Dad went to my nephew Colin’s hockey game right after picking me up from work. In the meantime, my niece Lindsay came over again to work on her quilt. It’s been fun having her here. We chitchatted quite a bit, she is still fighting a bad cold and is seriously plugged up. It’s driving her nuts. I don’t blame her!

She was really cute this afternoon, getting into this bowl of little Dutch Christmas cookies Mom made. Only she ate a little more than she thought she had or should have, and, hehe! She was starting to look around for more to put into the bowl so it wouldn’t look like she’d eaten so many. The tin in the top part of the cookie cupboard had them all right, but these were a little darker than the ones in the bowl. However, I pointed out there was another container below that, and Lindsay was delighted, these cookies matched the color of the ones remaining in the bowl.

So, she took a handful and put them in the bowl to hide the evidence. I just stood around and laughed. She said “Don’t tell anyone.” I laughed harder. But I also told her I wouldn’t say a word.

So later on, when Mom and Dad came back, Lindsay’s guilty conscience kicked in and she confessed the whole thing! Hahahahahahahaha!!!!

Gads, that was cute! Mom thought it was too.

Shane came around to pick Lindsay up, but they didn’t stay for dinner this time. Lindsay said she was going to the walk-in clinic tonight. I hope they’ll help her, but don’t have much faith in these places.

Only one thing went wrong and really ticked me off today.
Another religious chain letter whining about how Christmas was being persecuted! Like, argh! Am I the only Christian on the internet smart enough not to fall for this crap, and the only one who has enough respect for myself and my religion not to make an idiot of myself by believing and forwarding chain mail? This one is particularly obnoxious because it urges people to mailbomb the ACLU with Christmas cards! Good – night!

Good Day

Friday the 16th was a good day, and I expect more of the same for the coming day.

Lindsay came over and worked on her quilt and then she stayed for dinner. We had hamburgers and potatoes. Mmmmmmmmmm!

She’ll be coming again to work on her quilt, and probably staying for dinner again. It’s always neat having people in.

Mom took Abby’s picture after supper, and when it’s online, I’ll show my friends.

Abby is so amazing for a chinchilla, especially a young one. She’s 6 months old, and very calm. She just sat as if posing for the picture, and Mom took about four of them.

Today

Well, I forgot the hot drink and everything else and simply crashed after writing in here last night.

I slept until just about now.

So here I am at the start of another new day, with a hot drink, and still gotta find something to eat, and emails are slowly coming in. Nothing interesting so far, and I have no idea what’s happening for the rest of today. But maybe I’ll go get some cash and some more shampoo.

Day Ends Well

It started out with that “Money Crop” LH episode, and ends with chatting on the phone with friends. I talked to both Maureen and Sandi tonight, and both are so supportive and understanding – they know giving Misty up has taken a terrible toll on me. Though Sandi had no idea what was even going on until I called her tonight.

We talked, laughed, and I even cried a little though think I managed to keep it together enough for neither of them to pick up on that.

Sandi wants to meet Abby, and see Mia again. And earlier, I told Maureen I was taking Abby to the class demo Saturday morning. Maureen got this funny idea in her head, and said maybe I should put Abby in a tutu. Roflol! That would be cute and too funny!

Hehe – well, now that I’ve yacked the evening away, I think I’ll get something hot to drink, and give Mia her dinner, and call it a night. Abby got a bowl of food earlier, and it’ll last her the night, maybe even longer.

Sandi got two little cockatoos yesterday. *Grins*

Hmmm, getting tired, My eyes are running. *Yawn* Think I’ll be all right. Today has been the first good or at least promising day in ages.

Money Crop

I know, it’s been a few days.

A few days of I guess you can call it recovery, it’s taking a long time to shake this down mood that’s been torturing me for two damn months.

But I got a lift when a favorite episode of a LHOP re-run came on. “Money Crop” is, well, let me just paste the description from an online episode guide here.

From TV Tome:

20. Money Crop
gs: Alan Fudge (Joseph Coulter) Art Lund (Tom Jorgensen) Julie Cobb
(Trudy Coulter) Lew Brown (Leadbettor) Wayne Heffley (Mr. Kennedy)
John Pickard (Constable) Jocelyn Brando (Woman)

A college-educated farmer named Joe moves to Walnut Grove with his
pregnant wife. He tells the Walnut Grove-area farmers of a new
hybrid of corn that would produce good crops, to which the farmers
are very enthused. They decide to buy some of this new seed. While
on the way back to Walnut Grove with the seed, Joe gets into an
accident when his horses become spooked. The wagon tips over and Joe
is trapped underneath. Concerns over Joe’s tardiness gives way to
suspicions that he took off with the money. But Charles keeps a
cooler head and decides to retrace Joe’s route. Eventually, crows
flying over the area where the accident occured (some of the seed
had spilled out, drawing the black birds) help Charles locate the
accident and rescue a now-delirious Joe. While recovering at home,
Joe learns of the nasty attitudes from the area farmers (they were
beginning to verbally abuse his wife), and decides he’s going to
move. That is, until Charles shows him that the now-repentant
farmers are planting the corn. Joe is touched and decides his family
will stay.

b: 19-Feb-1975 pc: 1021 w: Ward Hawkins s: John Meston d: Leo Penn

NOTE: Like so many others who have been the focal point of an
episode, we never see or hear of the Coulters again.

–

That has got to be one of my favorite episodes in the first season and of all time. It’s loaded with suspense, interesting character conflicts, a plot to keep you on the edge of your seat the whole time, and it leaves the audience with a great feeling that everything has turned out well by the time the show is over. I call that great family entertainment!

Mom got her hair colored and it looks fantastic! Hehe

She brought home some chicken nuggets and fries from Wendy’s, for me, and a chicken mandarin salad for herself. Great! I really appreciated that too.

It’s quite bright out, but it is not warm.

I still can’t seem to feel Christmas this year, I was apparently missed at choir and didn’t go again last night – well, it’s the second last rehearsal before the performance, and my recording of the songs isn’t the greatest. So I can’t get a grasp on all the words from it.

A friend from church emailed me the other day, wanting to know how I was doing. and her dad, the choir director called to let me know when the last two rehearsals were, and that I’d be welcome to come, even though I missed a couple. I appreciate that a lot. I didn’t know I would be missed, quite honestly, but I didn’t go again – I just can’t seem to click into it this year. That doesn’t mean I’m quitting for good, not by a long shot. There’s always next year, and I should be in better spirits by then.

But a good half of the Christmas season has just been killed this year. I guess time will tell if I’ll find some Christmas spirit before it’s over for another year. But at least the little things like “Money Crop” and Wendy’s chicken nuggets are very welcome. Every little bit can only help.

Regular work is done for this year, I just have the two days playing for the Christmas demonstrations left. Then the studio is closed until January 9th.

“Where are you Christmas?
Why can’t I find you?
Why have you gone away?

Where is the laughter
You used to bring me?
Why can’t I hear music play?

-from the Grinch soundtrack, sung by Faith Hill”

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…

*Sigh*

I wish I could just drift off right here at the keyboard. The sun is coming in my window, and it’s reaching me here in this chair. Ahhhhhhhhhh – feels so good. I’ve just had a great, absolutely yummy lunch too – chicken wings and a drumstick, and seasoned and grilled potato wedges. Got it all from the deli at Safeway.

Mom and I went to the post office after getting my hair cut, but had to pass Safeway on the way there. And the smell of the food cooking was just calling us!

Well, now that I’ve eaten something extraordinarily yummy, and the sun is coming in, warming me, I feel content – for now.

I don’t usually take afternoon naps this time of the year, because the sun doesn’t shine down and warm my bed the way it does from mid to late February to late April and early May, or again from September to mid November. But once it stops warming my bed over winter. that’s when it reaches further across the room to warm me at the computer from late November to probably about mid January.

*Headdesk* Huh? Oops…so tempting to nod off.

Hmmmmmmmmh…Supposed to get colder again. Maybe if we have winter in December at Christmas, we won’t have it so badly in January and February. Wishful thinking.