Saturday, September 10, 2016

Party on! Bring a spoon!


Wait!  Here's the ACTUAL ice cream cake from today...



17 comments:

  1. listener--here are a couple of beginner fountain pens; I got a couple of the first one as freebies with orders; it is very inexpensive, and has a triangular grip similar to a Lamy Safari, which a lot of people like:

    Jinhao 559A from Goldspot Pens [Click]

    It writes well, and one cannot hold it incorrectly, so great for learners. The grip is a little small for me, and if one is constantly putting the pen down and picking it up (as I do for part of my work), the difficulty of turning it to the right angle if one picks it up the wrong way is a bit irritating. It writes well and is easy to refill.

    Here is the version of the Pilot Metropolitan I purchased (they come in a zillion colors and patterns):

    Pilot Metropolitan [Click]

    The brass body and cap, which gives it a heft I like, means that one must force the cap onto the body very firmly or it will fall off. If one leaves the cap off while writing, that is of course no problem.

    And on another note, here's [Click] an article with very interesting information on current US energy industry economics. I didn't realize that renewable power provided so many jobs; solar more than oil and gas, wind power more than coal. Already.

    --Alan

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    1. That Pilot Met looks good in Turquoise. :-)

      Great to hear that solar and wind jobs are are ahead of fossil fuels jobs now!! Yeah!!

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  2. ♥ Happy Birthday, listener!♥

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  3. YES! What puddle said!

    --Alan

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  4. If I may be allowed to continue the previous threads...

    My folks' was basically a jailbreak marriage for both of them, and they did the best they could to provide my brother and me with what they felt had been missing in their families. Years later, my mom realized how good her stepmother had really been to her, although it didn't seem that way at the time because she missed her mother so (who was carried off by the Spanish flu). But I imbibed a lot of life lessons (as well as behaviors) from my father without lectures; they say children learn parental role models very early--by three years of age or so. I will never forget when our daughter was young and for the first time I heard my father's words coming out of my mouth as I spoke to her! ZOT! My mother frequently scolded me for not getting grades as good as my father's, which upon reflection I internalized; but my father never said anything about it. Realistically, I have probably done him proud, but still...he couldn't see it, at least from this side of the veil.

    And isn't it amazing how siblings can be so different? Here, anyway. My good wife tells me that the differences that are so common here are very rare in Japan--it is probably because of the social pressure to conform. In the US no one would be surprised by one sibling being a physician or an engineer and another being a truck driver; in Japan that would be regarded as *very* strange at least.

    Well enough of that. We touched one another's nerves, listener, and this is a safe place to do it. All good. And I am sure your grandmunchkins will give you a very good grade in years to come. You are blessed with them.

    --Alan

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  5. Yes, a safe place here. I am grateful to Howard Dean for this place, and Renee, and to all of you for the kind heartedness here. ♥

    [LOL! My iPhone changed kind heartedness to kind hearted mess the first time I wrote it! :-D ]

    I'm not familiar with the term "jailbreak marriage" and after looking it up still don't feel enlightened. If you internalised your father's words enough that they came out of your mouth years after he had died, I wonder how much else about you also stems from him. I wonder if he too felt inadequate. It's harder to distinguish those things when you don't have the person before you to enable the discernment. I wonder what would happen if you lived the rest of your life your way instead of a way expected of you ~ especially as these are expectations as you understood them to be as a child, not in their rightful fully comprehended aspects, which only an adult can receive and convey.

    Thanks for your words about my grands. I'm finding as I muddle along that we are all beautifully imperfect, but if we act out of love then we'll be perfect enough...though others may not see that so much, out of their own imperfection. Ha!

    I find it a true saving grace that siblings are very different. ;-)

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  6. Here's the link for my non FB friends to a photo I just took of Nickie Kitty. It's more or less from above, so I'm afraid the angle may be a bit dizzy making. I had to snap it in a hurry since, if she so much as suspects I'm thinking of photographing her, she usually makes a quick exit before I can do the deed. So, I have to take what I can get.

    https://scontent.fbos1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/14232967_10208361441607351_4797036694264686750_n.jpg?oh=e9ce77e58c67933c9d59f3100744df66&oe=58800DE8 - Click

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    1. What a pretty kitty! She looks like she'd be so soft to pet.

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    2. Thank you, Susan. She is soft and silky.

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    3. Run away when you want to take her picture? Why are cats so silly?

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    4. LOL Bill. I don't know. Once I had her nicely positioned, sitting up against a red blanket on the back of the chair, and I actually had her in the viewfinder. It was a great picture. But just as I moved my finger to the "Take Photo" button (This is on an iPhone, remember, not a real camera), she stood up and started walking straight towards the lens. Very silly!

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