Kiwonk, in this area we have TONS of guys go to Iraq. The entire county just about. Local agencies collected toilitries for them as the govt is too cheap to buy them deodorant and little toys like yoyos (but not balls .. nothing that can be innocently thrown and stuffed with explosives) and phone cards becasue they don't have their own phones and the govt is too cheap to let them call without paying.

I have a sheep story. Went to dinner at friends and she was remembering a childhood friend who had a beagle and a sheep. The sheep followed the beagle. Unfortunatley, the beagle chased cars and the sheep chased cars and a drunk ran him over.

Bagz you are such a good American-promoter. I will remember your prayer. But the good thing is that some of the people in the group understood and emphathized and made me feel better. .... then .... there was the one biddy who said about herself, "I don't have that kind of problem. I'm well liked."

But it's a great Bible verse, isn't it? Gives you permission to *****. I will use it with my Pentecostal friends. BTW, the woman I ate with owns a book store and says the erotic-romance books are best sellers with the women who never cut their hair and wear ankle length dresses.

Bye you little sweeties.

Say that out loud, it's wonderful! I like Eula.

I know one of those ladies who never cuts her hair and wears ankle length dresses -- only I'm pretty sure she avoids cutting her hair not for religious type reasons, but because she saves absolutely everything and she can't part with her hair (no pun intended), and she wears ankle length dresses not for modesty reasons but because she is shapeless and it's just easier. In fact if I were a little crazier and less conscious of myself and my appearance (such as it is), I would be her. For a while she obsessively played a game at the video store where you put a coin in and maneuvered that claw around to pick up stuffed animals, you know the one? She won most of the stuffed animals and supposedly gave them to children in the hospital or something, but I suspect they are in her attic.

The reason I know this much about her is because she is the mother of one of dd's friends. She's actually a very overprotective mother in addition to all of her other lovely qualities. Her kitchen is the reason my kitchen isn't any worse that it is. Every surface is piled high with food packages or papers or projects or junk and it has a cloying sweet disgusting smell. She is truly the person who but for the grace of god or good fortune go I.

But I'm glad to hear she enjoys erotic romances.

Wow, can you say "denial"?!!

Kiwi

For me, the phrase "well liked" leaves much to be desired. I bet she has all her "friends" listed in alphabetical order in a notebook somewhere.

Peachy darling - I think the best thing to do is to be yourself. If they like you, they like you, and if they don't, they can stuff it, right?

Painty - are you doing hormone replacement or anything? I would think a lot of it would have to do with hormones. But what do I know.

And as for Kiwi's observations on sex: you've been looking in our window again, haven't you, dear? Ha ha.

Bagzie - I bet the Americans will tell all their friends about your shop and the rest of them will come up dragging sacks of money with them. There's still lots of summer left, and lots of people like to travel in the fall when kids are back in school.

Ugh. I'm so lame today. No motivation at all. But I have figured out that if I don't get some of the crap out of my kitchen, it's going to implode and they'll need three days to dig me out. The kitcheny part is sort of organized, like all the pots and pans and stuff are in the right place, it's just the periphery that's awful - magazines, books, stray papers, pens (none of which work), ETC. I need an office. I keep having dreams that I open a door in a hallway in our house and find three rooms I never knew we had. I've had this dream twice now. Think it means anything?

What a great dream! I think it means you are ready for changes. I've been having dreams about dogs and I've decided this means I'm ready for a new dog. Hey, they're our dreams, they have to mean what we want them to, right? Otherwise we'll fire them.

I spent a few minutes clearing off my dryer the other day. ~sigh~ If I could just keep doing something like that every day, I might get somewhere. You should see my desk, absolutely jammed full of cr*p.

Sugar, you and I are leading one of each other's alternative lives; that explains the similarities. Don't you remember the time when you wanted marry an engineer and live in the woods?

Later, gators
Kiwi

I think Kiwi is right. Your subconscious is telling you there's more space to work with right where you are if you'll just open that door. New opportunities await. Hooray!!!

Yes, I will be myself. The facilitators are wonderful. I told the wife that I didn't think I'd come a second time because I wouldn't be dealing with my actual divorce but with someone I practically lived with but didn't marry. She said, "That's the same thing except you probably didn't divide property." Very sweet. Old well-liked biddy didn't seem to be able to grasp it when I revealed this in the group but everyone else was fine. It's very good really.

Sugar, I want your dream. Last night I dreamed that I was in a huge, crowded room and there was a drawing. I knew that I was going to win, and the prize was a new Toyota pickup and a gopher elimination system that was guaranteed to work. The person handing out the prizes was my father, and I won. Now I dare you to analyze that one.

This is what I think about the magazine controversy - Hand it over with the rest of his mail, make the comment to him that his magazine seems to be using some pretty lame tactics to increase readership by selling with sex, and let it be. He's 17 years old and unless he's been living under a rock could probably tell you things about sex that even you don't know. I try to teach respect for women - more important than any other quality in a man, an not something that a magazine article is going to influence one way or the other.

Re: the weight gain/libido controversy - I don't know nuttin' about any o' dat. Anyway, nuttin' dat I want to discuss on de world wide web.

Thanks Wabbo. Nice to hear from the voice of experience. I'll probably do that.

OK, Peach, but I still need you to analyze my dream.

Do I remember correctly that you're not on best of terms with Dad? I think the dream is an expresion of an inner desire for that to change. For him to be a dad who cares for you more than anyone in the whole drawing.

I still have that problem with my mom so I may be projecting. I still resent the cousin-devils for saying mean things about me AND DS because I was not a good daughter to my mom and they were such wonderful niece/nephrew-devils. But no matter how kind they were and no matter how rotten I was, it was ME not THEM who wanted her love.

A gopher elimination system is so practical. Congratulations on putting useful details in your dreams.

Wabbit, I think that's what you call a win-win situation. Heck, I don't know what it means, but to follow my theme of the day, I will say it means that you are ready to get what you deserve from your father.

My vet is retiring next week. He has been trying to sell his practice for several years and nobody wants to be a vet here. So we will be stuck travelling somewhere between 40 and 75 minutes to get to a vet. I am covered with cat hair. I will be taking the other cat tomorrow. I used to take both of them at the same time for their shots and exams, but it always took me waaaaaaaay too long to get both of them into crates, and I was usually late, so this year I decided to take them separately and so far, it was much easier. Of course, after next week, that won't be remotely possible, as it will then take most of the day to get them to the vet and I certainly won't be doing that twice. I might as well live in Siberia.

Kiwi, the Remote

Speaking of cat, did I mention I hit mine? I have never before hit a small creature but they're tearing up my carpet and one put a claw into me. So I chased them around, hit their rumps and sprayed water in the face of the bad bad one.

Later, I went to trim the claws of one of them. I have never before been able to. His long fur covers the claws and he wiggles and I can't find them, etc. so I carry him in. This day .. the day of the crazy human .. he held perfectly still til I was done.

I have no dreams to remember.

Oh you have dreams, Peach. You're just repressing them. Let's analyze that.

Actually, my Dad and I are on speaking terms now. Very minimally, but I did go to their house on Mother's Day for my dad to cook me waffles for the Mother's Day brunch. It's just that we now have a very strained relationship. He's never apologized to my DH and I can't really forgive him for that. Maybe I want him to give DH the Toyota.

Kiwi, why would anyone want to buy the vet clinic, when they could just open their doors and have all the business in town? It's not like they'd have any competition. We have vets on every corner around here. There's even a couple mobile vets that will come to you. Maybe I should tell them about Maine.

Wabby... I like your dream.. If it's underground it might be subconscious and maybe your dad will help you get rid of the vermin in your subconscious. Wouldn't that be cool?

Peaches, I'm glad most of your group is listening attentively to you... Stick to your guns.

Kiwi... hope you get your extra rooms and that they are beautiful. If I got extra rooms, I'm sure they'd just have more "stuff" in 'em. Hope your cats learn to love the trip to the vet.... Would they stay calmer if you played Mozart or Vivaldi in the car?

My cat has decided that glasses (tumblers/highballs etc, not readers) are for her and is constantly folding her ears back and putting her whole head inside them, but then tipping them over. DH whacked her a pretty good one... and, I must admit, she hasn't done it since.

I wonder if I'd been whacked at the right time (and then cuddled with after) I wouldn't still be capable of eating whole containers of food.

I have homework to do after oncologist visit. You can read more here under "Processing."

Must go get water. Am sunburned from weed pulling yesterday. Miight borrow DH's truck tomorrow and get dirt and mulch so that I can replace the dirt that replaced the weeds with something pretty.

I see that Painty is still new enough that she doesn't have us all sorted out. Sugar gets the new rooms, not Kiwi. So .. for Painty .. here is a primer.

• Sugar is our baby. She's beautiful, brilliant and lives on the other continent. She can argue with school officials in multiple languages and does so when appropriate. She is FROM the most beautiful place in the world. Her idol is the butcher's wife.
  
• Bagz is from the foggiest place in the world. She is an artist and her home is always decorated for the season. She swears, drinks too many margies, never misses church, joins her kids in singing along on the radio, and she's a fan of underage performing boys. She talks cute like Sugar.
  
• Lush, who has abandoned us, WAS tons 'o fun. She would regale us with stories of Satanella, her child's teacher, or what was happening at BINGO, where she volunteers in exchange for school tuition discount. Everything in her house WAS the color of oatmeal. I think that now it's eggshell. We loved her. *sob* She did not talk cute.
  
• Kiwi lives in the woods. She reads, understands computers, has looooong hair the color of amber and is a kind, supportive person when not being sarcastic. She and her dh like to travel by boat. Her dd is widely recognized for her singing and guitar-playing abilities.
  
• Wabby lives far away on the Pacific Rim. Like me, she works, but, unlike me, she owns the business. Wabby is known for her beautiful garden. At her and her dh's business, they hire lots of men. (what a good idea!) and once an Elvis impersonator said she was purdy. I had planned to meet Wabby this summer but changes get in the way.
  
  Now, I must go. We have other people like Cherry who has red hair and accomplshes far more than I can tell you. She does't post much though. Also, we have Muffin who has turned her life around. She posts about twice a year.
  
  Bye. Must go.

Are you on vacation or something, Peachie?