I'm sure you'll find the right house eventually, Patti. Enjoy your time in DC. Don't think about houses while you're there!

Passover is coming up for us next Saturday. We're going to Avi's sister's house, but there's all kinds of family politics going on at the moment--someone is always mad at someone else in his family--so I'm not sure yet who else will be there. Why is acceptance so hard? We all want to change people to make them like ourselves.....

I'm so sorry Lori to hear that things are so difficult at the immigration office. It must be terrible that he has to go back to Israel and wait again. It doesn't seem like it should be this difficult to have the correct paperwork. Yet it seems as though this particular individual is being impossible on purpose.
Our house buying life is all screwed up again. We keep thinking we've found the right one but it doesn't turn out that way. I think this is the hardest move we've ever made and yet, we've done it many times before. There is a glut of available properties but not in our price range/desires.
I'm looking forward to spending a few days in DC in a week. It'll take our minds off all this I hope. We'll be right back into it though as I have to go down and see a house that we put an offer on, contingent on my having seen the house and consented to the purchase by the 26th. I've only seen photos you see. In order to protect the house from possible sale to others we put this weird contract on it. We've already starting walking away in our minds though. It's just not the right one. We come back on the 24th. Yikes.

Yes, I agree, that First Love story is one we need (want) to hear.

I don't have any boa stories, just another bad-ending story at the Immigration office. We went again this week without an appointment, but with the lawyer (or actually an associate of hers who works in her office). This woman managed to get us in without an appointment, which seemed like a good sign. We met with the same officer who made problems the first time. I was afraid to breathe, but it seemed to be going well--until he got to my sister's birth certificate and again found it unsatisfactory. The other time he complained that my parents' names weren't on it. This time my parents' names were on it, but it was from the hospital, not from the Civil Registry office, and a hospital certificate isn't good enough. I think it's ridiculous, but he wouldn't budge, and when we asked to speak to his supervisor, that didn't help either. She backed him up. They also didn't think we had enough proof that my sister lived in the U.S. for at least 10 years--despite transcripts, etc. It's such a headache to get citizenship that we feel like giving up. On the other hand, it seems stupid to stop in the middle. Anyway, Eli is flying back to Israel on Sunday. The Immigration dept. will send him another invitation to come in about 3 months. If he decides he wants to go ahead with it, we'll try to get all the required documents, and he'll come back for the interview. It's just really maddening that the lawyer didn't do a better job of making sure everything was ready. I feel bad that Eli came to the U.S. especially for this, and it didn't work out.... Oh well, enough complaining, I guess. I have a hard time accepting reality sometimes.

Okay, good story Richard. All the right elements were there; interesting subject, suspense, humor, imagry ..... BUT, you are talking to a bunch of women and you cannot just drop a tease about your FIRST LOVE and not give us more! We want to know about that tail, uh tale!!!!

Ever since I moved here I have been meaning to start a list of all the things that I have heard the traffic reporters say are blocking at least a lane of the highways around Atlanta. There has been a wide variety; refrigerators, ladders, mattresses, dead animals (and I mean a horse), truckloads of goods. Its just amazing how stupid people can be when transporting things. Well, today took the cake. There was a baby zebra found injured grazing next to the interstate. He had apparently fallen out of the back of a trailer, but no one had claimed him. He has now had surgery and is doing well. I guess its never too late to start that list.

One of my boys is coming home for the weekend. Unfortunately, its going to be cold and miserable.

kathi, thanks for taking the time to read my story. you are right that birthdays sure do beat the alternative. i will be spending mine with my first true love. how sweet is that?

Richard, I think you need to write a book. You certainly can weave a tale! I am glad that my cat and laptop triggered that memory. Are you preparing for the big birthday weekend? I know that Pat's birthday was in January...Richard and Lori in April...Mine in May...Karen's in August...
I love birthdays....a little old lady once told me...."It beats the alternative honey"....

how is a cat's head sleeping on a laptop like a boas head that is asleep on a life insurance salesman's lap? the answer is that it is not the same whatsoever. i will tell you why. a seventy-four year old man once sat next to me at a bar in a relatively deserted town. it was a town that saw it's last renovation during the california gold rush. that's right, not much new had happened since then. we were sitting in the bucket of blood saloon and i am serious. the delta queen was just next door and some other saloons you might have heard of were nearby. you remember the tv show, bonanza? at the start of the show the guitar played- bling da-da bling, da-da bling, da-da bling bling. bling da-da bling, da-da bling, da-da bling bling bling. then a map of virginia city would burn up in front of your face and the stars of the show came individually riding in on horse back. the gent and i were sitting in virginia city. it was a cold february evening and i could have tied my car up to the hitching post outside if i had a rope. the place really hasn't changed in its look. there were big nevada snow flakes coming down about horizontal to the ground and moving at about the same speed as the tumbleweeds that rolled along beneath them. no kidding. there were two things i found strange and one of which was just plain disgusting. as desolate as that town was, there were hundreds of dune buggies that rolled through town for a dune buggy luv fest scheduled for the weekend there. they all had that hotrod look and they have these fifteen foot fiberglass poles with a little triangular flag at the top. these are mounted coming up off of their bumpers. they swarmed like bugs and would then disappear. none of them were drinking at the bucket of blood. it was just me, the old guy, and the bartender there. the truly disgusting thing was that i went to the bar where the dune buggy drivers were hanging out to get the best steak in virginia city. that was long after my education in the ways of a boa and the heartfelt moments at the bucket of blood. i walked in to a crowd of smokers at the bar with super steaks. i ordered a beer and (of course) a steak. i like 'em medium rare, on the rare side. you get more flavor. every man, woman, and child in that bar was smoking cigarettes, cigars, or just breathing out a lifetime of smoking both. if someone asked my if i was in beijing, i would have said, "yes." i am telling you what. i could not see dick in there and that is when i still was one. well let me tell you the breathing in there was tough and the steak i ate was impossible to taste. at one point, i used one of those crocodile dundee knives and chopped it into a paste that i snorted up my nose hoping to find some soft tissue that still had taken sensory exception to all that damn smoke. disgusting. that's what. however, my evening had not started there. as i told you, a lonely man of seventy-four years of age sat next to me in the bucket of blood saloon and he told me most everything about his life. i bought the beers to show my interest and love for the guy. the bartender bought a couple, too. well, it turns out that the old guy immigrated from ireland about thirty years earlier. his irish bride came with him and they had settled in las vegas. his wife had worked in a vetrinarian's office back then. she had died about ten years prior to my meeting her husband and i could tell that he still missed her something fierce. well as it turns out, there was a time when a guy who had a snake act on the strip in las vegas came into the veterinarian's place with his anaconda and boa. both were sick. he dropped them off there to see what could be done, but he never came back. maybe he had hit the wall with his snake act. it is logical to think so. well, the snakes' health improved and my older friend's wife brought them home to there house in las vegas. the anaconda spent all his time in the bathtub and i have to believe they had a second bath where they could wash, because he basically just stayed in the bathtub. somehow, the anaconda grew from about 24 feet to 30 feet in length over the course of his visit with my irish friend. it may be as obvious to you as it is to me that jimmie hoffa was about six feet tall and one gulp of the anaconda could explain where his sorry ass ended up. this part is just not known. the boa entered my irish friend's house at fourteen feet stretched, muscles relaxed, with no constrictions. he was given the name of rufus. rufus grew to about eighteen feet as time went by and i know what you are thinking. hervé villechaize could explain the difference in growth, but i was told that rufus had a healthy life style that was built on rodents. well here is the thing. one day a life insurance saleman comes to the house. my friend did not notice that rufus' bedroom door was open. as they discussed the possible benefits of life insurance (and i am telling you that no money would have ever paid for my friend's loss), rufus came out of his bedroom. he cozied up to that life insurance salesman and he put his head where rufus liked to put his head. i had to ask for clarification here, because i was not sure where that might be. rufus likes armpits and a deep penetration of the crotch where blood comes closest to the surface and where human's provide a special warmth that is number one with reptiles. i was told that this has a soporific effect that had put rufus into an almost instantaneos state of sleep and relaxation. further clarification made it clear to me that rufus had not picked the life insurance man's armpit. well my friend was just barely becoming aware of all this and the life insurance salesman was all knees, elbows, and a shaking ass on his way out the door. so i think you can see that the effect of a boa sleeping on the lap of a life insurance salesman is quite different different than a cat with his head sleeping on a laptop. the laptop cannot run. as a matter of fact, my laptop sits patiently while i wrap this story up with a bow. love you all. peace. richard

My cat has decided that he likes me tonight...and is sitting next to me in my chair with his head on the laptop while I am trying to type...its a little difficult but amusing. Can you believe he slept through American Idol....haha.
It was a beautiful day here. Up in the 50s and sunny. The snow is melting out of my yard, except for the huge pile in my flower garden where the plower moved the snow....there is also this little river running through it and down the yard where we have never had water running. Finally, I think Spring is here in Vermont!
Happy Thoughts everybody.....................

I'm glad it went well, Kathi. That's pretty amazing that it's going to be in an Australian newspaper.