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Post by rikita on Oct 14, 2018 11:23:35 GMT 2
my mom visiting us more than six years ago, and we go to a restaurant and have something with asparagus (this was right in asparagus season) - i think to celebrate, as that was the first time i saw my mom after getting pregnant, the food is nice but i can't eat much due to morning sickness, and we talk about how we think it might be a girl, and how we think she might be red haired (the girl part turned out to be true, the red hair not).
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Post by Voy on Oct 14, 2018 15:35:58 GMT 2
Riki - that reminds me of meeting YOU - in a restaurant in Albany - and meeting this very young, very very red haired girl ! wow are things different now !
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Post by rikita on Oct 14, 2018 15:53:13 GMT 2
oh yes ... i was still at the beginning of my university studies then ... and still had the american boyfriend ...
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Post by tzarine on Oct 14, 2018 21:02:04 GMT 2
in paris, eating pain au chocolat & sorbet every day from christian constant turned out i was pregnant w tzarevich
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Post by tzarine on Jan 22, 2019 18:40:24 GMT 2
24 hours in taipei w the lads
we arrived, checked our luggage & went to taipei 101 which tzarevich loved. grabbed some pho @ the food court. took the subway (which hadn't been built when i was last there) to shilin market. ate & ate & ate. headed to the wonderful 24 hour bookstore eslite, hung out @ the cafe until time to return to the airport
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Post by tzarine on Feb 7, 2019 20:11:13 GMT 2
tzar & i were @ a b&b in ocean grove when there was a massive storm. other guests were frightened & gathered in the lounge. it was one of the glorious summer storms, full of thunder & lightning. the waves closed the beach the following morning. we had lunch @ the cafeteria, the sampler, decorated w vintage samplers
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Post by tzarine on Feb 9, 2019 0:05:08 GMT 2
tzar was teaching @ the university of texas for semester we went to houston for the weekend to watch the lakers play the rockets & see ravi shankar who brought his teenaged daughter, anoushka, who was a relevation!
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Post by slowcoach on Feb 9, 2019 9:25:11 GMT 2
Remembering what on Earth I was doing 40 years ago and with the help of the WWW I reckon I can work it out.
More soon? I hope so.
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Post by Voy on Feb 9, 2019 16:23:24 GMT 2
wow - Slow thanks for that memory jog for me ! Only two weeks late - I was in Bahrain, living at the Hilton until my rental housing was ready, when the Shah fell on Jan 16th. Pan American (RIP) with volunteer crews did round trips in and out of Iran with Americans and Europeans fleeing. Who mostly landed with one suitcase. My room had two queen size beds and just me. For about a week I shared it with a succession of women who had fled. An amazing experience, even for me - who was really completely out of the scenario.
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Post by tzarine on Feb 9, 2019 19:29:39 GMT 2
one of my early business trips, pan am was offering laminated business card luggage tags. not knowing how long i would last @ said job, i wrote my home address on one
i also remember twa & tzarevich getting plastic wings from the pilot
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Post by tzarine on Feb 13, 2019 0:10:09 GMT 2
lying on a bed w a bunch of mates @ oxford, listening to coltrane's naima
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Post by tzarine on Feb 13, 2019 0:52:59 GMT 2
on a business trip taipei, cancelling all meetings to go to the museum. my corrupt boss let this really incompetent nonchinese speaking girl head the delegation. she spent most of the time being sick @ the hotel. she had no clue about business practices in asia.
going out to the night markets w lin the manager of the hotel where the trade delegation was staying
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Post by Netsuke on Feb 13, 2019 1:03:35 GMT 2
Going with mum and dad and my brothers to see the new airport in Melbourne. You'd park pretty much anywhere on the grass and when you were inside the building, you could follow the passengers through another door and walk down to the planes to see them.
You can't do that now.
Everybody and his dog came from miles around to see the new airport. Previously people going overseas had to fly to Sydney first and THEN get an international flight!
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Post by tzarine on Feb 13, 2019 6:04:28 GMT 2
climbing w the 2 year old tzarevich through the woods near our apartment & seeing deer
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Post by slowcoach on Feb 13, 2019 17:54:31 GMT 2
I am pretty certain that I know what I was doing 40 years ago tomorrow.
The picture is relevant.
Thanks to many people who have taken the trouble to record dates and times of events on blogs, or forums, or personal web pages, I know that it was bitterly cold in the Northeast of England and it was snowing.
I remember that snowstorm well, so I know that for the 14th February, I was holed up at a hotel near Sheffield (Yorkshire) not going anywhere anytime soon, partly due to the drifting snow but mainly because we couldn't start the vehicles.
The diesel had "frozen" (turned to a greasy mush) in the fuel lines and that was that. It didn't get warm enough to thaw out that day.
Now old model diesels could be pretty primitive affairs in those days with a minimum of electrics and no electronics. It was not unheard of for drivers to light fires under their lorries to get them going. But that is not something likely to be appreciated on the driveway just outside of reception.
FWIW our particular vehicles were brutes to drive, ultra heavy steering (no PAS) and clutch, crash gearboxes with whiney straight-cut gears, unbearably noisy, and in winter bleeding freezing. The air brakes were good but that was about all that was.
So we were stuck, and so was everyone else, we simply stayed on in the hotel for a couple of extra days, which suited the hotel very nicely as the guests due in were not going to get there.
Well it was a couple of unscheduled days but there was plenty of stuff that needed doing to keep me occupied.
In the evening the guests, there were only about a dozen, congregated in the foyer/bar/reception area were there were some armchairs and sofas.
It was a typical commercial hotel so we were all itinerant workers of one form or another, but only one or our number, the mischievous one holding court, was a well known, writer, singer, critic and aficionado of things dada/surrealist.
I mean the character sat on the wall above, the improbable George Melly.
So finding ourselves in the "stuck in a hotel" scenario, so loved by authors of crime/horror/comedy tales, we kept ourselves amused.
I think it must have been the only time I have been in conversation with someone whose biography I had already read.
Here is the now late Melly, a few months earlier, reminiscing about the surrealists, mostly Mesens and Magritte, and generally being mischievous:
Working backwards I now know roughly what I was doing during the preceding week. Hopefully I will find the time.
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Post by tzarine on Mar 11, 2019 17:19:28 GMT 2
the thrill of arriving @ kaitak on a china air flight to write my thesis & start a year of travel
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Post by tzarine on Mar 20, 2019 18:12:27 GMT 2
i was invited to read @ "rape, revenge" when we went to the host's apt on posh 5th avenue, she insisted we sit on the floor. (turned out to be a wealthy hippy) i did read @ ceres gallery w tzar & w some rather awful "writers" but what i remember most was the art. little clay figurines w feathers sticking out of their bums
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Post by tzarine on Apr 1, 2019 17:52:15 GMT 2
hearing the roar of longhorn stadium on saturdays when tzar taught @ ut also seeing the mascot bevo @ the friday pregame rally a history of bevo jimnicar.com/ut-traditions/bevo/
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Post by auntieannie on Apr 27, 2019 19:55:46 GMT 2
seeing someone on the train today, reminded me of the first time I crossed paths with that person.
Let me explain. I do not know this person. And I am probably both horrible and cowardly.
The first time I met him, this man, seemingly in his forties, was sat across the aisle from me, opposite a young lady on her first week at college. It is quite obvious he's got some disorder similar to cerebral palsy. Although he's able to express himself, he's got physical spasms and his mental processes seem slightly limited.
So, this first time I met him, he was chatting to the young lady, trying to get her to have a drink with him. She was uncomfortable, but he was skirting the boundaries of acceptable. I'd like to think that I would have found the right words to stop his questioning of the young lady, should he have overstepped that boundary. I was ready to intervene.
Today, I hopped on the train and realized this guy was there. I passed by, eyes carefully unseeing. Then chose a seat. a minute or so later, he moved to sit opposite me. (train wasn't very busy). I studied one of my phones intently, then the other. Without preamble, he spat off a telephone number, stating "he wasn't joking, that he wanted me to ring that number. I said nothing. looked at him with mild, uncomprehending eyes. He stood up and went on his way. I breathed a sigh of relief.
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Post by Voy on Apr 28, 2019 15:55:26 GMT 2
well handled, Annie !
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Post by Netsuke on Apr 29, 2019 2:06:51 GMT 2
what i remember most was the art. little clay figurines w feathers sticking out of their bums Lucky I wasn't sipping my cappuccino! That made my day.
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Post by Voy on Apr 29, 2019 15:33:01 GMT 2
With my friend Ginny, remembering the time our friend Carol, sitting in a very old recliner, tried to recline it - and it totally crumbled and went over backwards - leaving her trapped on her back in the wreckage - with her legs waving in the air. After the first shock, we were all laughing too hard to help her out .
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Post by rikita on May 28, 2019 1:26:54 GMT 2
yesterday suddenly remembered a silly story i wrote in my late teens or early twenties - about a girl going to her piano teacher's house, enjoying her way there and thinking about how glad she is to go there and how much she loves music, and then when she arrives there, before she enters the room, she overhears her teacher commenting to someone how she is expecting her next student (her) who is very enthusiastic, but unfortunately has no talent at all.
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Post by Netsuke on May 28, 2019 3:03:28 GMT 2
Rikita's post reminded me of the first poetry I wrote. It was about curry.
Hurry hurry hurry, My Mother's cooking curry. It's in the pot It's very hot. Hurry hurry hurry.
Hurry hurry hurry My Mother's cooked some curry, It's on the table, Come if you're able Hurry hurry hurry.
I was in grade three or four, so I was 8 or 9 years old.
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Post by Voy on May 28, 2019 3:54:16 GMT 2
Riki's memory made me think of something she might want to do when things have settled down a bit - knowing her love of music - it might be a really good thing to rejoin a choir, and sing regularly !
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Post by rikita on May 28, 2019 8:55:58 GMT 2
that is a good idea and i've been thinking about joining a choir before (and had already considered joining a friend's choir around christmas time, as they allow non-members to join them just for the christmas oratorio), but not sure i can do that, as most choir rehearsals are on weekday evenings ... i must admit i am not all that comfortable with a stranger as a babysitter, and not sure i can ask someone from my family to babysit every week, that's a bit much - and also, if i have a babysitter, climbing might still be my priority over choir, so maybe the choir will have to wait until a. is in her teens ...
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Post by Scrubb on May 30, 2019 4:14:52 GMT 2
Rikita, maybe you can get to know a teenager in your neighbourhood well enough to feel comfortable leaving a. with him or her.
I'm glad not everyone feels like you about it, or I would have been completely broke when I was a teenager! I babysat all the time, from the time I was 12 till I was about 19. It's how I paid for: - a bike, the summer I was 12 - a trip to BC, the summer I was 13 - all my clothes, from the time I was 13 - a trip to HAwaii, when I was 16
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Post by Voy on May 30, 2019 14:39:45 GMT 2
Scrubb - I think times have really changed - at least 20 years ago, I had a dinner party in NY, asked several couples - one of which arrived with the kid ! ( luckily still in a carrier but still. ) I don't think people do the babysitter thing anymore - why not? paranoia? a side effect of helicopter parenting? or - in fairness - lack of someone appropriate or lack of money? I dunno, but I never plan on having kids at a dinner !
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Post by Netsuke on Jun 3, 2019 2:16:54 GMT 2
a side effect of helicopter parenting? Voy, what's helicopter parenting?
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Post by rikita on Jun 4, 2019 0:37:48 GMT 2
i also babysat when i was a teen, but that was in the countryside and the families knew either me or my family - but befriending a random teenager here would seem very weird ... and i am not sure most would even be interested in babysitting jobs. the people who put up ads as babysitters are usually not teenagers but older, and i guess if i really needed one i could ask at daycare if someone recommends someone to me, and meet up with them ... but really, the idea of a stranger in my home alone with my child is not that comfortable to me, not necessarily because i think they'd do something bad to her, just because it feels strange, and because i think it'd be hard for her, and because when i needed one so far, there were always other options. and for some regular once a week appointment, it'd seem kind of expensive, too ... and again, it'd be another stress factor for her, when i think she has enough of those already ... don't think that is necessarily helicopter parenting ...
which doesn't mean i might not start with that at some later point, to really start singing in a choir or go climbing more often or whatever ... just so far, it didn't feel to me like something i wanted to do ...
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