Kate's On Line Journal

[kate]

From page 8, Post #71

Vicky, I remember laughing out loud at this one:

. . . when Bri was in kindergarten. First day of school: she's excited, she's thrilled, she can't wait for the bus to arrive...and then she finds out she has to get off the bus AT SCHOOL. She thought she was just going to ride the bus around. NO WAY was she going to SCHOOL!! We had a "discussion", and off she went. Day Two: she's not eager. I'm cheerful as can be. She misses the bus! Hmmm...delaying tactic. Not to worry...Mom is CHEERFUL. I drive her to school, and pull in right behind the bus. She begins protesting. I tell her to go on, she'll have FUN, she'll have a GREAT day... "But, Mom!" No protests, I tell her. Go on...

I'll never forget the sight of this little girl trudging up the sidewalk, her oversized She-Ra back pack banging on her back...I smile, thinking someday we'll laugh about this. The bus in front of me pulls away, and reveals a huge statue of the Virgin Mary. Oops. Wrong school!! I had dropped her off at the Catholic School!! Oh my god..now I have to get her back! She's probably already learning her Hail Marys...

She comes back to the car; I'm apologizing PROFUSELY...She just looks at me and says, "I tried to tell you!"

Oops! Wrong school! I think it's the image of a giant virgin mary that makes it so funny.

[lilsister]

Bernadette, the "tattie pie" recipe is about page 48. Deb

[darkeyed_daisy]

This thread is like reading a good novel and having a cup of your favorite coffee....

Sounds like a good idea for a book....

A group of friends brought together by circumstances beyond their control but have persevered and shared laughs and life moments together.....hmmmmmm

Yall have truly blessed my heart although it has taken me a few days to get through it....

[cheesecake]

Friday night--

Hi, guys. Okay, I'm kind of sucking as a moderator on this forum, but my intentions are to improve radically this week.

Martha, don't you dare go away! You're the sass and grit of the Caregivers screen, and we need you.

Vicky, what news on the apartment?

Jackie, we miss you!

Starbuck's update: LOL! This week has been a complete rush. I learned to tend bar 30 years ago for people who liked to sneak a dollar beer or two at lunchtime . . . now I'm being a barista for upscale types who think nothing of spending five bucks for a milk-chocolate syrup-whipped cream-caffeine-driven lunch buzz. And, I'm supposed to be working hard at creating that special "Starbuck's experience" for every one of them.

Today I did the completely dumbest thing.

We have these whipped cream dispensers, see? And every night they have to be emptied and refilled. So, I innocently unscrew the top of one of these things without first squirting out the contents . . . can you picture what happened???

Kate, with whipped cream all over her clothes, face, hair! Whipped freaking cream all over the twelve kinds of syrup bottles! Whipped cream all over the tasteful lighting fixtures! Whipped cream all over the tastefully colored walls! Spectacular mess!!! I could not stop laughing. I am not making this up.

[img]/forum/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img]

And how are you? Can I get you a beverage? [img]/forum/images/smilies/smile.gif[/img]

One of my all time favorite posts by Kate. Very visual. When we met this spring, I could see the whipped cream everywhere.

[chick]

Hope everyone had a wonderfully gobblely weekend!

Lilsis/Deb: A belated birthday to you missy!

Kate: Great idea about the thread. I've mostly been a lurker on this thread, but have found the sincerity and authenticity of the friendships here very warm and such a wonderful reflection of what this site can be.

Marm: Sorry to hear how rough things have been. Hope things will soon be better for you and family. It'll soon be a new year....


Hope all is well with everyone.

Oh. ps. martha. I JUST saw Julian's picture on the Wall of Hope the other day. It was just nice to see.

[martha]

Oh. ps. martha. I JUST saw Julian's picture on the Wall of Hope the other day. It was just nice to see.

Hi Chick -- hope all is well with you.

Edited because I found the link -- duh. Having a REALLY REALLY REALLY blonde day/week/year/life.

[chick]

martha,

I found it also, so here is the WoH link to Julian's picture for anyone who wants to see it. Great looking dogs too!

[kate]

Feb 20, 2003, post #172, page 18

Here's Cheesecake with a memory she made 3 years ago:

I am in search of my sanity...school was cancelled again for tomorrow. The Army came through and helped clear the street today. The snow banks are 8-10 feet high. They are hoping the rain will melt the snow and then hopefully tje kids will return to school. The banks are Soooo high they are worried about safety as the kids wait for the buses.
The 5 year old went back to daycare today. I am not sure who was happier, him or me. He really missed his friends.
The kids painted the snow banks using food coloring. They made rainbows in front of the house...made me smile.
I think on Monday the silence in the house will be maddening. The time together has been priceless.

Painted snowbanks! Snow so deep the Army has to come and clear it away! See, this is why I love journals . . . it's those little details that would be lost forever.

[cheesecake]

LOL, I remember that long weekend. My husband started smoking after being snowed in with our teen age daughter. He hadn't smoked in 11 years, he has still not kicked the habit. Damn snow. Those rainbows were pretty though.

Where is the thread where folks chose celebrity look alikes? We only had mental images of each other. Now that was funny.

[cheesecake]

Bernadette, the "tattie pie" recipe is about page 48. Deb

I looked 4 times going forward and backwards and still no luck. Can you give me a post number?

The more I read back, the more this should be put into a book.

[kate]

Remember the Dogger Training Ranch?

So, it was the end of what had been a snowy winter, and lots of us were going bananas . . . Kathy and Martha started talking about the need to wean their over-dependent spouses. Things were out of hand! Cathing in the family room! Using the wives as waitresses on a 24/7 rotation! Sooooo not cool.

Then dogger steps in:

Ladies , i have a . . . suggestion , send hubby out to stay with me for a while , it would be a pretty crooked real estate agent [ no shot intended at you] , that would describe my house as fully accessable , if you have an ''accident '' it is either clean it up yourself or live with it and if you want to eat , it's ''catch and kill your own '' . i am envious of the lucky spoilt husbands of you ladies .

lol, the thought of sending recalcitrant men out to the aussie wilds still makes me laugh--

Martha was not about to let this opportunity slide:

Hey Dogger, how about we leave them all home and all of us come stay with you instead?

Ha! But then she has another notion:

While don't you open a DA training ranch where we can send them and you can educate them in the ways of the DA world. I think that would be a marvelous idea and I might even promise to send him with a roundtrip ticket. Maybe.

(Note to DA fans--she's using shorthand for disabled, not talking about our fave knucklehead down in Beaumont)

And he replies:

Martha , your thoughts on a DA training centre are too late . i offered but because there did not seem to be much interest i have since changed my mind . i have now decided i will open an intense training centre for young , nubile , attractive , inexperienced , nymphomaniac devos ! and charge them like wounded bulls [ both financially and physically ] for the experience . move over Hugh Heffner !

and signs off in his own gentlemanly way . . .

thank you
dogger

every day i wake up is a good one .

Oh, Lord, just go read it all . . . starts on about page 20, post #199

[betheny]

Kate-

I'm in. I had to hunt for my favorite exchange in The Sanctuary. You may remember it. It had to do with Frodo and Sam. I got a little misty when I went back to find it. What a Lord of the Rings dork.

Cheesecake-

pecan pie, bourbon sweet taters = post # 480

The turkey turned out great this year. My sister-in-law cooked it. In Kansas.

[lilsister]

And I suppose she lives at the end of the yellow brick road?

[cheesecake]

If that's what the birthday girl wants, I think maybe she does!

Hey Sis, I got the pics of you and Jim from DC 2005 developed and have a copy for you. PM me with a mailing address will you?

Doesn't anyone sleep?

[dogger]

Kate , I went back and read through those old posts on ''The Training Centre'' . It was a trip down memory lane . I could not help but laugh at the image of Jackie's suggestion to Martha about slinging Julian in a hoyer lift so he could paint higher up the walls . I also found a post of Vicky's about having to dig up a septic tank that reminded me of something that happened to me not long after .

When ''Dogger's female pleasure and recreation centre'' failed to get any applicants [of young , nubile , attractive , inexperienced , nymphomaniac devos or carers needing a break from dependant husbands] , I decided to list my property for sale . I had Artin , Bartin and Fargo [the 3 (mon)stars] out here for school holidays when the agent rang to say that he had a prospective buyer who wanted to do an inspection . They were to arrive at 9 am the next day to have a look at the land and house . So I marshalled the troops to bring the house back into some type of chaotic disorder .

Things went pretty well and at 5 am next morning when I got up I thought things looked pretty good considering the house was inhabited by a bachelor and three 8 year old kids . I delegated breakfast duties and we got through the joys of washing up etc without more than a couple of minor skirmishes and no broken crockery or war wounds . It was about 7am , about all I had left to do was give the stars a few social pointers , like telling Lulu that while our visitors might like to meet Freddo and Kermit [her pet green frogs] , it was probably best not to expect them to actually touch them or to tell them that she'd caught them in the toilet bowl . When speaking of toilet bowl .......

One of the boys came out of that little room with a puzzled look on his face saying , ''Dad , I think there's something wrong with the toilet , the bowl is close to overflowing .'' . Now given that the trip out my place was about 90 minutes over some rough roads I don't think it was a giant leap to work out that , a) there would be a few bladders feeling the effects of the tea drank with breakfast and b) it would not create a favourable first impression , particularly on the women in the party , if when they asked if they could use the toilet [unlike US homes a lot of Ozzie homes only come equipped with one throne] , I vaguely pointed to the great outdoors and said '' there are 20,000 acres out there and millions of trees ; take your bloody pick! '' .... So with the clock ticking on our 2 hours left in hand , a digging and pipe flushing expedition was speedily mounted .

I quickly diagnosed the fault as being somewhere in the pipe between the septic tank and the sullage pit where [in theory] the discharge was meant to disperse into the soil well away from the house . I started digging while the boys hooked up a hose for me to back wash this drainage pipe . Lulu was in heaven ; you should have seen the numbers of green frogs living there ! She was so busy catching them that she had to resort to giving them numbers for names because she quickly exhausted Frog names that she could remember from story books .

Now cleaning out septic lines is a job that an AB would have trouble doing without getting a bit dirty . Picture if you can a quad who has to be either lying or sitting in the sullage pit to get the job done , with spasms kicking various body parts into places and stuff that is what Lulu describe as ''a bit yucky'' . Lulu was also busily policing my positioning on the ground in case I might inadvertently end up on top of those of the frog population that she had to still catch and name . Anyway after a bit of a blurt and cough from the pipe I was rewarded with a strong [in strength and smell] flow of sewerage that signalled the problem was solved . I only used some mildly colourful language about the fact that only a small portion of this sewerage had managed to miss hosing me down . For some reason the kids didn't want to stand as close to me anymore , Lulu even lost interest in the frogs in my vicinity .

As I headed for the shower [with the kids still strangely maintaining their distance] I made them promise [by a threat of no soft drink when it was beer o'clock for Dad] that they would not mention anything about our morning's little challenge . I'm sure potential buyers don't like the idea of possible ongoing septic tank problems .

I was out of the shower and dressed just as the agent and prospective buyers pulled up . There was one moment that shook me a little , someone asked Lulu ''what have you been doing '' . ''Catching frogs'' she innocently replied '' Dad showed us where there are lots of them this morning '' .

Thank you ,
Dogger