where the heck are you, anyway? I know Wabbit must be back from the beach. Peaches clearly has nothing to do while DS is in suspended animation.

Bagz, are the kiddies back in school yet? Hope your family is doing all right; takes a long time to get over such a shock and it seems as though nothing will ever be the same again.

Thank you to Cherry for a lovely postcard surprise in my mailbox this morning!!! Looked like a lovely getaway spot.

We had a wonderful weekend on the sailboat. DD went off rock mining with a friend, so we were adults only for a change. The couple who joined us are always fun and ready for anything, so there was much merriment, many margaritas, good sailing, great eats and even some exercise thrown in. We stopped overnight at 2 different islands, just beautiful and appealing little places, great for a scenic walk. Both lobstering communities--Frenchboro and Swans Island and its Burnt Coat Harbor Lighthouse. Click the links for pics.

Geez, Peaches, light a fire under that boy!!

Later,
Kiwi

Stop having fun, will ya, Kiwi? You're making the rest of us look bad. Or at least until Wabby comes back and reports.

Boring, boring, boring here. On Sunday night ds6 got the same thing that ds9 got *last* Sunday night. Fever of unknown origin. Gone now. Very wierd.

Our neighbours invited us for a barbeque the other night and finally, finally, finally after 7 years of living next to them, asked us to use the familiar you form - "du" with them instead of the formal you form - "Sie". This is quite the event and involves lots of clinking of glasses and shaking of hands. They used to call me Mrs. Neighbour (I'm serious!) but now they just call me Sugar. How exciting. Also met the new people who moved into messie lawyer friend's old house. They are nice. They have two almost teenage daughters who play canoe polo (!?) - I have no idea what it is, but it sounds tippy.

Get this. Word is getting out that I enjoy giving bored teenagers English lessons. So this mom asks me if I can do French as well as English, and voila, I'm a French tutor. Amazing how it all comes back, n'est-ce pas? I haven't taken a French class since about 1983. Luckily this is the kid's first year of French so she doesn't know I'm faking it. Yet. By that time I'll be rich and be able to get out of here.

Bagzie, darling. How are you doing? Been thinking about you and yours a lot.

Gotta go clean up my kitchen.

Hope every one is well I am sick with tonsillits so just reading and wanted to say HI. Kids are in school tomorrow here. Yippie! WIll post when feeling better, Daphne

Bummer! Hope you are better tout de suite, to show off my high school French.

I'm very impressed, Sugar, you just glide from one language to another so gracefully This "du" business is totally beyond me, though. Can you imagine something comparable to that ever happening on this side of the pond? Like you go to a dinner party at your friends' house and they say "we've decided we'd like you to be our close friends now, what do you say?"

I'm making chili right now and it smells soooo good!

Kiwi

Hi cowsies, I'm back. DH survived a whole week with only me myself and I to amuse him. His happiest day was the one he did paper work from the office, and we drove around the little beach town looking for a place to fax stuff back to the office.

I'll be back later. I've got to do all the stuff that wasn't done last week when I was gone. Be back soon, just needed to say hi

Kiwi, I'm glad you like the postcard!

I confess, the ones bound to Germany and Canada are still here while I try to work out the whole postage thing.


Sugar P, congratulations on the du! I do know what a big deal that is.

Bagzzie, hugs to you.

Welcome back, Wabbit!

hi guys,just checking in ---today was another sad day--poor little patrick {five yrs} wanted daddy to take him to his first day of kindergarten,but we all went ---my sister and i and brother ,Marty----all our kids attend the same school-----my sis said she didn't really realize how hard it was going to be---needless to say,this is one rough road we are going down-----it means alot to check in and see how you guys are still sending me your sweet thoughts----thank you so much-----unfortunately i only lost my appetite for a few days---now we are cramming our faces with whatever anyone brings over---LOTS of food---they set up a Scholarship fund for george at the school where he was valedictorian and they are getting lots of pledges===there were over a thousand people at the funeral----it was great to see that so many others thought as much of him as we did.......

Bagzie, that just breaks my heart.

I just caught her online as she buzzed through on her way to the dentist.

Hey Wabbit -- Glad to see you survived vacationing with dh -- Good luck catching up on all the work.

Hi Cherry, Hi Bagz. What a difficult thing for those kids to go through. It's so good that you have a lot of close family to offer support.

I just spent way too much time and money buying groceries. Then I juiced some fruit (my juice extractor is my current favorite toy) and it tastes totally weird. An :apple: , some grapes and a bit of watermelon. I'm thinking it's the grapes that ruined it. You'd think juiced grapes would taste something like grape juice, wouldn't you?

Later
Kiwi

Hi Cherry! We have a Spirit Lake here too! It's the one up by Mt. St. Helens. Hey! there's no smilie of an erupting volcano!

Sugar, congrats on achieving "du" status. Does that mean that you can just pop in anytime to see them?

I'm back on the eating right bandwagon. I got a 2 mile walk w/ Leslie Sansone tape that I did this morning too. I made it 1.5 miles, then I got something under my contact lens and had to stop. Excuses, excuses!

I can't begin to catch up on everything so I'll just say hiya to everybody!

Check out my new number

160

My dog has a bum leg, so I can't go for walks. Talk about excuses

My mail's going flooie. I actually got kicked off a mailing list I'm on because my mail bounced. I'm gonna haveta kick some butt.

Has anyone been watching US Open Tennis obsessively? I can't do anything else. http://www.usopen.org/news/photos/im...6006fa482.html

Kiwi

Hey Kiwi, I've heard lamer excuses than that. That sounds like a pretty valid story.

My 'lil sis and her husband have separated It was her idea. I hope she's not making a big mistake. My sisterly advice was that I thought she needed to think long and hard about it. That I know lots of friends who were divorced and were sorry that they didn't try harder. Especially when there is a child involved. They're going to counseling so I hope they can get things sorted out ok.

I haven't watched the US Open even once, Kiwi, but I did watch the final 1/2 hr of American Idol. Does that count for anything?

Sugar, you're such a woman of the world! The only foreign language I know is how to order a cervesa in spanish.

Guess what next week is??? It's rodeo time again! Time to fit into those jeans again! Time to party, party!

i gotta tell you.

First, I walked out of the doctor's waiting room after an hour wait. I saw other people come in and go out and they had a sign saying to tell them if you were waiting over a half hour and I did tell them. Then I decided they were too busy to help me and left.

Then I went to the dentist who decided with me that the crown wasn't right and he sent it back.

Then ... this is the weird part ... I go into this Winn Dixie in the a very affluent neighborhood by the water here and I'm second in line. In front of me is a young woman with her food in a basket that you carry. She squatted on the floor and turned away to look at candy and the cashier took the basket, held it about six inches off the counter and turned it over!! Stuff rolled everywhere. An onion escaped to the floor and the cashier picked it up and SLAMMMMED it down on the counter. CRASHHHH. The girl did not see any of this. The bagboy did and we exchanged non-committal looks and he walked away. I started backing out, having decided to go another line, and she yelled at me, "MA'AM YOU CAN COME RIGHT HERE." I shook my head no and never looked back. It was like Candid Camera but no one laughed.

I love you Bagz. There's TOOO much bad going around. Herbie's brother has 2-3 weeks to live; my editor has an inoperable tumor on his brain stem; my boss went to the beach with his kids and a little 5th grade friend who ran out in front of a car (but he's ok after a stay in the hospital); a former co-worker's 43 yo husband died last week of a brain tumor something. No wonder I'm depressed. I'm glad the little ones have all the aunt/uncle love to add to mommy's.

That's what ALL the supermarket cashiers are like here! And there are no bag boys. You have to pack your loot yourself. I mean, really. That was rude of the doctor to keep you waiting. Medical professionals have no shame.

There IS too much bad going around. How come awful things have to happen to nice nice nice people? Not fair.

I don't want to complain, but I'm doomed. You know I had to get that old filling taken out and a nice shiny new plastic one put in? Well...I went back there last week and told them when I bite down on the new filling, it hurts, and when I drink a hot drink, pain shoots up the side of my face and stays around for two minutes. They said "Oops! Looks like we need to try another sort of plastic. Come back next week." So this morning I go and she pokes around and asks me to describe the pain again. Then she says "Oooooooh! That sounds like nerve inflammation. We'll have to open the whole thing up, put some stuff on it and then see. If it doesn't get better, we'll have to do a root canal. Sort of difficult 'cause that tooth has three roots, but really not a problem." I asked her if I could give birth to twins instead.

So now I have a temporary filling and have taken masses of pain relievers. I know, I know, I'm a baby, but I don't usually have problems with my teeth.

Some dentist in Germany have a "Dr." before their names and some don't, but they're all dentists. Go figure. For instance, my dentist is called Dr. G, and his wife who is also a dentist, is just called Mrs. G, but they let her drill around in my mouth anyway.

Tomorrow is ds9's class picnic. We all have to go somewhere on a train and have fun at a man made lake. Should be marvelous.

Well, since everybody is sharing their bad news. Here's mine - DH's brother has been diagnosed w/ lung cancer. We'll find out today how bad it is. He has DD's 12 and 14 still at home, and his daughter from his first marriage has just had his 1st grandchild last week. (I'm a great aunt again!)

My dentist wants to do a couple of crowns on me, too. I'm holding out as long as I can. I was totally disillusioned when I was talking to a dental hygenist (not my dentist's) and she told me she got bonuses when she could talk patients into having extra crowns done. Who can you trust now days?

The grocery clerks here are so perky they're annoying. If you have a little card, you get the sale prices on some things. When they hand you your receipt, they always tell you how much you saved with their discount card. "You saved $5.78 today, Mrs. Wabby". I always want to say, "funny, I thought I spent 200 bucks".