okay. now, will someone please shoot me. there is a woman that i went to college with. she was (and still is) very smart, pretty, and humble. it was a small school and she lived on the same dormitory floor as my girlfriend. if you met her today, you could ask her what she does and she would tell you that she works in childcare. you would picture that she takes care of some kids at her house. yeah, right. she just got an offer of 1.3 billion to buy her childcare business (that is with a "b"). wow. i am done.

Wow,when you step aside for a couple of days it can be exhausting and just a little confusing to try and catch up.

For the most part the only thing we don't recycle here is "some plastics". So I break down boxes and sort glossy paper from white; newspapers from magazines, rinse jars throw out the lids. That sort of thing. There are marked bins at the transfer station (the dump) so you just keep everything in different containers at home and it's kid of easy. I guess we're lucky. The fellows up there are very helpful to me when I show up with tons of stuff and have to do it all myself. It costs $5. to leave a TV set.

Our first meeting at counseling is tomorrow afternoon. Hope Dave can get here, more crummy weather headed this way. I've been advised by several people to make contact with a particular local lawyer in order to protect my potential use of his services in case things do not work out. That seems like giving up precipitously to me. He's leaving here early Sunday to go visit his dad and then go skiing with some friends of his on Monday. Guess if he wasn't coming back for the meeting he wouldn't need to come home at all.

I'll be happily painting my bathroom this weekend. Maybe go out on my snow shoes. I've discovered Lyrica and it's been wonderfully helpful.

So much going on for everyone, sure hope you and your daughter are feeling better Karen. Weddings for you Lori are such good news. I'm glad that's all coming together. A blessing for sure. I was talking to a couple of my students today about my book of poetry and the beautiful way it is written and printed in both Hebrew and English. They were pretty impressed and intrigued.

kathi, i know that you did not mean any offense and i did not take any. she scared everyone there. i just think it is interesting that she is also a very special and wonderful person and probably no one ever figured that part out from recylcing with her. it would take more than a mind reader.

Richard, I didn't say she wasn't a nice person, just that she scared me at recycling. Didn't mean any offense.
Have a good day....Happy Thoughts....

karen said that she would only compromise herself so much in a relationship and i said that it is different when there are kids- really different.

I'm eating chicken soup for you today, too, Karen, so you should be doing well with all of us (or at least Kathi and me) eating soup for you. By the way, I liked that middle-aged song you forwarded to me!

Richard, you definitely have a way of putting things. I'm glad there's still hope for me even without the box-cutting skills. What did you mean about your kids? You don't compromise yourself for them? Are they still at home?

i can only say a few random things. karen, you know that you let go of a whole lot more than ALL of yourself for your kid's sake, as shakespearian tragedy as that may be and i can say that i am happily on the other side of that. lori, guys like a chick with skills. if you haven't got it with a box cutter, you thankfully have it with lots of other stuff. kathi, the woman who used to take care of recycling in spfld is a really amazing person. she absolutely was the recycling nazi, but she is really special- one of my favorite people.

It is getting colder here...by the end of the weekend it will be below zero....and windchills...brrrrr...my friend, who is on vacation in Hawaii with her husband and sons, called me to tell me how beautiful it was and how she wished her friends were there, too. I tried to get her to let me go in her suitcase but that didn't work out. She was apologizing that it was too loud standing by the waterfall and that they were going to the beach....she said it was so beautiful there...I felt real sorry for her and for me because I had to shovel...and was freezing.
Life is full of choices...sometimes we make good ones sometimes not. Feeling good about those choices is the bottom line, I would say.
Lori, I hope that your son and future will find much love and happiness. Enjoy the moment.
Karen, glad that you are feeling somewhat better....I had two bowls of chicken soup....one for you.
Richard, can't picture you as a clutter guy. I think recycling in Springfield is made a lot harder then it needs to be. The lady that used to run it scared me...I was afraid she would have you arrested if you didn't sort your stuff right....
Keep warm and snuggly everybody....Happy Thoughts..............

All I know is that recycling seems to be much harder in Vermont than in L.A. A lot more rules about how to put things in the can and what to put in the can. I feel like I need a doctorate in recycling when I'm there, like they might return my trash if it's in the wrong place. Guess that's why Vermont is such a clean state--especially with people like Richard picking up trash in the parking lot. I pick it up when it's in my driveway, but I think I'd be too grossed out to pick it up in a public parking lot. Good for you, Richard! And Karen part of the time!

whether you are in an action city or in a non-action city, my point is only this. you get to do the things that you choose to do because you can. you can choose to be the person that you are. i see a recycling truck come by my house and i can do the math. if i leave every box in an unbroken down state like my former squeeze, like her shoes in front of the stairs where we all walk, like every other damn thing that covers every horizontal surface- my calculator tells me that life itself is log jammed. this is a good thing if you would like life to stop and notice you. why is it okay for minimum wage people to live a log jammed life and it is okay for me as the former beholden to have lived the same minimum wage life in spite of my salary, but it is not okay for the queen bee or for real people with real lives? people with class do not have class because they have money. they have class cuz they know that it is a choice that they alone have the power to make. happy and classy thoughts. love, me

Good luck with the marriage counseling, Patti. It has definitely helped us. If there's good chemistry between you (both of you) and the therapist, it can really help bridge the differences. It's like having a good translator cuz men and women don't seem to speak the same language sometimes! Or maybe it's just an individual thing, not a gender thing.

Not much action here, Kathi. We'll be going to the Town Hall on Friday to witness the marriage ceremony for my son and his girlfriend. Her mother and stepfather will be coming from Maryland and also 1 of her sisters. She also has a sister here in L.A. who will be coming. Then my son is taking off to Las Vegas with her and her family. A different kind of action city. They like it there.

We finally had a chance last Sunday to go see my other son's apartment. He moved from Santa Monica to Venice recently and wanted us to come see the apartment. He lives with 2 friends. He really knows how to pick places. This one is one minute from the beach, perfect for him since he loves surfing. Right now he's still limping around after spraining his ankle, but he's not planning on being limited for too long. Anyway, it was good to see the sea. Here in the Valley where we live, it's just houses and houses..... Well, we do have some nice trees on our street.

Weather wise the world has turned upside down. Whereas the County used to get huge storms we often have the warning and not the reality. Southern Maine got hit hard again yesterday. Colin called last evening and said they are digging out from another foot and Dave had to close the SS Office early yesterday. We got a few inches but not big deal. the warning now is that the weekend will be hard hit up here again will may impact Dave coming home or going back. That's happened several times now.

The city of NY is banning planning bags, or at least they're trying to. Its mandatory in some cities here in the us to recycle the bags. They do not break down in the land fill. I have loads of fabric bags that I keep in the truck so I can take them in with me and use them instead of "grocery bags" Our family recyclables are taken by us each weekend to the transfer station where we have to manually sort them into particular bins. Not lids, rinsed out, separate cardboard from other papers etc. Its a pain quite frankly but I can't imagine not doing it.

Dave and I officially begin marriage counseling this Friday at 4PM. No matter how this ends up at least we will have given it our best instead of just going on. Too much pretense for me to give up my life here for the likelihood/possibilities of ending up alone in another town.

Since we have neither a snow delay or a stay home day, I guess I better get up off the couch. By for now...........Pat

Talk about excitement, Richard!
Action town of Springfield was all but shut down yesterday by the "big" snowstorm. We only ended up with about 6 inches. No school, which was great. Gave me that extra time to finally lug all the Christmas stuff up to the attic, do laundry, shovel, make baked beans, read a book, make a few cards (not to early to start those Valentine's), play on the computer....Way too much excitement! This snow is really snowman ready so today at school we will probably have to go out (as a class) and "play" in the snow....so I must remember my snowpants....
How much snow did you get Pat?? Seems the storm was going your way.....So far we have only used 2 snowdays (which we make up at the end of the year)...I like the delayed opening days the best!
Come on Lori, there must be something exciting happening in LA! You too, Karen, now that you are feeling better!
Have a good day everybody and Happy Thoughts............................................................

okay, not getting many comments on life in an action city. here is life in a non-action city. i woke up at about 4:30. it could have been the wine. it does that. i walked around the house to see if my cat wanted to try some improvised stanley cup activities downstairs. no cat. went back to bed. got up in time to put the recyclables out. my box is always trim with the paper and boxes broken down and packed tightly. my neighbors recyclables looked like shit. brushed my teeth, showered, and shaved. i have a new haircut that looks pretty good. i went to work and found some litter in the parking lot that i picked up and disposed of. i know that at least fifty people walked past the same filth and did nothing about it. my guess is that their recyclables look like shit, too. work was an email battle that raged until 6:00. it is all good.