Apropos of Nothing v.15

We came from here: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1101120/

This thread can't be derailed because there's no topic. HA!

Just for the sake of having a thumbnail, heeeere's Stella!
(I don't care if she's 'common'... I love her!)

And she is ever so nice pony.

And SK - why does your travel story not surprise me.

I think I will try not to replicate your experience - I will leave the trowel in the shed. (I'm sure I can find one out there......)

Stella is stunning. I like saying that. It rolls off the tongue.

LOL, Laurie, I don't think any of us are surprised at SK's travel tale. You certainly know how to spice up a party, SK.

Could you guys send us some rain, please? The storms keep circling my house, but not dropping anything here.

Wow, Summerkid - at least you got to sit in first class!! :) I've never gotten to do that...

The only significant thing that has ever happened to me in flight was on a trip to Paris. We were about six hours into the flight, over Greenland somewhere I think, when a lady sitting over the wing hears a funny noise, and gets the plane to turn around... Not fun. The whole trip back, the copilot sat in the lady's seat with his ear to the window... The rumor was he never heard anything. When we landed they had a maintenance crew investigate the plane for an hour on the tarmac, with us still on it... They gave the ok, and we started the flight all over again... The lady who heard the noise insisted on getting off however...

Zeesh, six hours into the flight is almost there! Or is for us, leaving from Philadelphia. What an awful experience! I hope you had fun in Paris when you got there, quand même!

I've never flown first class either. Curious minds would love to know what it was you were carrying, SK, but perhaps it's better not to ask.

LOL, GreenhouseGal!

Jeff and I got bumped up to first-class once and we were afraid to ask for anything, but the seats sure were comfortable and the leg-room was wonderful.

I flew first class once from AK to WA - it was great. Swore I'd never air travel any other way. Since then, have not flown very often, and always cordwood style. So much for promises to self.

Yeah, somehow that little thing called money gets in the way, doesn't it. We looked into business class the last time we flew to France, but we just couldn't justify spending that much extra money for a more comfortable seat and somewhat better treatment!

I have sat in first class on several occasions. It's huge fun and I highly recommend it, esp if you're not sitting next to a US Marshall.

I've always flown first class, can you imagine if I ever have to cram my spoiled little butt into an economy seat next to a crying infant. I'm obsessive about collecting airline miles, so always buy a regular ticket & upgrade. Plus Jack pops for at least business class when we go overseas because his 6'7" frame suffers otherwise.

I had 115,000 American miles that just lapsed because they don't really do the Portland-to-Chicago route. Very sad; now I'm starting over with United.

In a way, I think my upgrades have paid for themselves because guys with money sit in First Class, and I often come home with a new Web or editing gig.

Gwen, that marshal was CUTE! So was his buddy. I got an inside look at airline security. They wouldn't tell me why they were on that particular flight because that's sensitive info, but they complained that the terrorists know them a mile off because FBI dress code forces them to wear suits when no one else does.

I always figured the FBI suit thing would get in their way a lot...

I feel sorry for tall people in economy class... They always look especially uncomfortable. I'm 5'2 so I'm not sure the extra leg room would be worth the extra $$$ for me, but I think the seat being able to go all the way down would make all the difference in the world on the really long flights. I just can't sleep sitting up...

What I really would like is a private jet like Oprah... She says it's totally worth it.... heheh

Yes, it would be nice! No baggage and security lines, to mention just a few of the perks!

SK, aaaagh! lapsed miles!!! Nooooooo!!!!!
If you ever needed an excuse to send yourself flowers, there's one right there. One bunch of flowers and you've got another 1-2yrs (dep. on airline, of course) We will have to talk about this sometime...

DH happened on a fare deal (or error, possibly) once to fly to Cabo for a vacation trip with a couple of his buddies. RT First class for $125 ea way. Naturally, it would be for the trip without me.... I usually get stuck flying steerage, but I've cashed in miles for free tix a number of times, and also flown on vouchers. The only time I've flown first was a Denver-Las Vegas trip (an hour and a half flight-hardly worth it, but definitely something I could get used to nonetheless). I love traveling, but have yet to fly out of the country. It will happen, but I need to get skinnier first. The idea of cramming my not so little butt into an economy seat right now is not appealing.

I get to travel 1st class often because my client/friends are Alaska employees and give me upgrades. I sit quite comfortably though in coach seats because I choose window and put my Bose headphones on and sleep. Any long flights I must have drugs to keep my restless legs quiet.
It is good to be back in 3 G cellular!

Steve- you have restless leg syndrome? It was the bane of my existence for 30 years. Now I take Mirapex and it totally keeps it under control. :)

A bar of soap in the bed seems to make a huge difference with that and leg cramps, too.

A bar of soap...? o.0

Stopped by to harrass my tattoo artist again today. I've been waiting over a month for him to draw my design up. He's working on it now, and we're gonna do it tomorrow! :) This will be a cover-up of the one on my chest that has my first husband's name... boy, was that dumb.

The new tat, by the way, will be a dahlia. :)

Dare I ask what one does with the bar of soap...???

You may dare to ask. One simply inserts it between the sheets or under one's pillow. Some people apply it directly to the area that's cramping, but others find that just its presence at the foot of the bed or even under the pillow is sufficient to prevent cramps. There are whole threads about it on the internet (of course!). I read accounts where the soap seemed to stop working, but a fresh bar brought results again, OR the person discovered that the soap had fallen on the floor, and replacing it back in the bed did the trick. One of our friends told us about it because it worked for her, and my husband tried it and found that it cured the cramps, too. I know - weird, huh?

Edited to add: By the way, some people say that Ivory and Dove don't work; others say that doesn't matter. My DH just grabbed what was left of a bar of Le Petit Marseillais soap that we brought back from France, and it seemed to have the proper effect.

This message was edited Jun 9, 2010 9:46 PM

...huh.

I think I'll just stick with my Mirapex. hehe. ;)

Soap's cheaper, and with fewer side effects, I'll wager! If it works...

Tonic water works good for leg cramps. Drink a few sips and you're good to go. It's the quinine.

Greenhouse gal, tell me about your trips to France. I have two children who would live there if given half the chance. My daughter is job hunting and hoping to find something with a company that has offices in France. She's been there twice. My son, who has been there once, is trying to find a way to avoid college next year and go to France instead. Do you travel there for pleasure? (Note that the only time I have been to France was as a child. Kids spend semesters in France to further their education. Mothers stay home and work for money to send kids to France. What is wrong with this picture?)

Apropos of nothing, I forgot to post the latest photo of the fence screening the pot ghetto and work area. We had one day of sun and used it to work on the fence. So sad. Next we have to do the roof over the entry way. Then I need to find old doors to use for the gate.

That's looking SO good, Pix! Awesome! :D

GG I thought maybe you carved the soap to make it take away your cramps. LOL

Looking great, Pixy!

Pixy, what a gorgeous place you have! It does make me homesick for the PNW!

Re France: I had always wanted to go there, and tried to get my mother to let me get involved in Experiment for International Living when I was in hs, but it never happened. I started off as a French major in college but then realized that I didn't want to teach or translate, so I switched to psych instead. My DH didn't like traveling so I figured I'd never get to France, at least in THIS lifetime, but after we retired he seemed to feel differently about it.

Then I had an email friend on a painter's list I belong to who was moving with her husband from MA to Southwest France to retire. A group from that list went over to attend a month-long workshop, and she gave us an open-ended invitation to come visit her ourselves any time. So the following year we went; I arranged a flight so that we would arrive in France on my birthday (early October) and hers is the following day so we celebrated together. Our friends met us at the airport in Toulouse and had arranged to let us use their country house for our stay while they remained in their town house on the other side of a mountain range. They showed us all around and gave us tips on where to go on the days that they had other things to do. We had also arranged to return via Paris (we took the train from Toulouse) and spend a few days there.

Having people who lived there to introduce us to the area was the best possible way to get to know it, and we had a wonderful time. The following year we went again, this time staying in a gîte in Couiza, and had our ten-year-old GD meet us after a week, in Toulouse. We took her to Carcassonne and Coullioure and then by train to Paris and she had a ball.

We haven't been back since but I'm longing to go! Our friends have since moved to the Dordogne but we have other friends we've made in the original area (in the Aude near Limoux) so we have two sets of people to visit if we make it back. I don't think we'd do Paris again, though. We're basically country people and Languedoc-Roussillon is much more our speed.

I have lots of books about the difference between our culture and the French, that would be good for someone to read if they were contemplating a move. We have found people there to be really friendly, with the sole exception of a few waiters in Paris. People on trains and in markets were open and chatty, and we loved being there. We even thought about buying a house, but it would be too expensive just for vacations and our place is really hard to leave because of the chickens and other animals. However, there are definitely cultural differences which would be unnerving without some warning, and it helps to know what to expect in terms of socializing (or not socializing) with the French.

I was able to write off much of our trips because I painted from the reference photos I shot there, so that helped. But it was a wonderful experience and I would encourage anyone to try it.

What makes your kids interested in France? Mine have no inclination to go there, and I wasn't able to imbue them with any of my francophile tendencies even though I tried to do that! Seems like yours were more impressionable?

What wonderful experiences! I remain hopeful that my dh and I will be able to travel that way, although we'll probably be traveling by sailboat. We would love to sail the canals in France.
Both of my kids have always wanted to speak French and go to France so I don't think we had to do much to encourage it. They both feel a very deep connection with the country, which they expressed at a young age. We do have some french in our background, but not really much and it's pretty far back, so maybe it's other lifetimes that draw them in. Claire has a french name. When she is in practice she speaks almost fluent French and has a Certification in Business French which she obtained while studying in Paris. She learned the language in an almost uncanny way. She is so wanting to get a job that will land her a position in France so she can live over there. She absolutely loves Paris, as does my son. But I believe they would be happy just to be anywhere in France at this point. Claire is pretty aware of the cultural differences between our country and theirs, Andrew is less so, even though she spent 6 weeks there last year. Rather than coming back speaking the language, I fear he came back having taught people how to speak better English. The family he stayed with all spoke English and all the kids in the area wanted to practice theirs, so it made things hard for him! LOL! The only thing that made him want to come home was that he missed us. Thank goodness for that. After being home for a few weeks, he was ready to go back. When my daughter came home, it made her very depressed.

I'm interested in how people buy homes and retire in other countries. I always wondered how they could do that, considering that people need more healthcare as they get older, and they are not 'contributing' to the society in terms of work by that time. I figured immigration in western countries required very specific things in order to allow one to move there. Maybe buying property is one of those things?

Pixy, once you get the papers to indicate that you are actually moving to France and plan to stay there, you are eligible for health insurance. One of the friends I have there brought her mother over, and there was no problem with that. My friend thinks it's ironic that her mom, who was rendered far more conservative by her now-deceased husband, was totally against the health care reform Obama was promoting because she felt it was socialism, but all the while she was taking advantage of the very generous government-run healthcare offered in France.

One set of friends retired to France; with the other set, the husband is French but they were living in the US for a number of years before they decided to make the move.

I have seen canal boats on the Canal du Midi, and some sailboats. That would be a lovely adventure as long as you could map out places to stop for meals and provisions in sufficient detail. Have you ever read Narrow Dog to Carcassonne? It's very English, and quite funny, and tells the story of a couple who took their boat across the Channel and down the canals of France. Some of it sounded rather perilous, though!

I do wonder why your kids have that affinity for France. As I said, I tried with mine but no luck. Where did Claire learn her French? I can read it fairly well, and write it with help in specialized terms, but speaking it, especially in an informal conversational way, is hard because I don't know the more casual terms. I'm sure I'd pick it up being there, though.

If your kids love Paris they would probably not be satisfied in the countryside or in one of the smaller towns. Paris has its own magic, and either you're drawn by it or you're not. I liked it much better than NY, where I lived as a student, but it's still a city.

I've been given the very last-minute task of coming up with 'games' for the kids to play on the bus Saturday night on the way to grad night. I don't believe we have any prizes, so it has to be something that's just for fun.

I've asked twice if we have money for prizes but been ignored both times. Geesh!

One idea I had was to go around the bus and have each kid tell a memory (nice) he/she will take with them of one other student on the bus. Maybe a funny story, something they shared together, etc.

In past years, we played a 'trivia' game where we asked questions like who has the most body piercings, who is the oldest on the bus, has the most siblings, etc., and then the 'winner' got a cash prize. As time went on, we could make the questions specific so we could 'fix' it so that each kid won.

Any ideas for games/activities that don't require a prize?

Gwen, I'd vote for simpler games that don't require investing personal information.

How about a word game? One person could start with a word, the next person changes a letter and makes a new word. There must be a million variations on something like that.

I like collaborative games - you could ask the group to collaborate and come up with as many names of things as they could - presidents, songs by a particular artist, the years in which important events occurred, famous celebrity couples from history, etc.

All - the search feature is now up and running, in case there's anybody out there who doesn't know that. And if you look to the right of the search box, there's now a file folder icon. Pressing it allows you to tag and file pages/threads you want to keep track of . . .

I have a lot of friends in the Languedoc-Roussillon region of France & have stayed there for months at a time ... I've found the French to be tremendously warm & open, especially in the rural areas. It helps to speak the language.

The expectation for ex-pats is that they are spending money in the country while not hogging a job. And I believe that every 5 years you pay some exorbitant tax or else have to leave for a specified amount of time.

I always assumed that I would retire to the area around Pezenas, but I'm pretty happy here with my ocean.

Summerkid, how lucky you are! Isn't that a great area? Oregon is lovely too, but there's nothing like the French for gardens and cuisine and joie de vivre. I don't know the Pezenas area; as I said, my friends are south of Limoux in the Aude valley.

You're right, it definitely helps to speak the language. They really do seem to appreciate that.

My new dahlia tattoo is finished. It was the most painful one I've ever gotten, but it looks freakin' AMAZING. And best of all, the ugly one with 1st hubby's name is now gone! My tattoo artist is a miracle worker. :)

(will take a pic this evening, I'm still bleeding. LOL)

OOWWWWW!!!

Good for you pony. But OUCH!

Well, yeah... ouch... but it's worth it! :)

Here it is- please ignore the bruising around the edges. ;p

Wow Pony, that's gorgeous. And, as a fellow tatooee I've got to say - that's a lot of ink. To get that beautiful shading and deep color must have hurt! But it really is lovely.