What's On Your Mind Atm??

Started by PearlThompsonsBloodflower, January 03, 2018, 22:52:40

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MeltingMan

Quote from: C*rlsb*rg webshopWe are creating a new and improved digital experience with an extended product range. We thank you for the interest and look forward to welcoming you again in the summer of 2021.

Come on...😕
En cette nation [Russie] qui n'a pas eu de théoriciens et de démagogues,
les pires ferments de destruction ont apparu. (J. Péladan)

SueC

I'm sorry, but I can't help myself: Look at today's birthday list!   :beaming-face

QuoteUpcoming Birthdays: Robert Smith (29), Stieft (45), Angelmc (27), Giuseppe Eisonhawk (46), laurent m (54), Saanm (51), bobcat (45), Shelbie (28), Elphenor (27), Fangler (49),

Are we time travelling? Or is this because the tribe with that surname is so enormous?  :winking_tongue
SueC is time travelling

SueC

We thought it was wet here.  (It is, you can't go anywhere without gum boots and I'm struggling to keep my animals on drier land because the soil is totally soaked - everything is either waterlogged or inundated - though we're too far upslope from the creek to have any flood risk. I've never seen the land this wet in the ten years we've lived here, and the rain just won't stop. I'm probably going to lose fruit trees at this point because they don't stand more than 72 hours without oxygen to their roots unless they are dormant, which they aren't yet.)

Victoria got all our wet weather systems with interest after they crossed the continent - and then some. Livestock are basically standing in lakes and some are drowning. The various donkey charities in Victoria and NSW have been relocating donkeys to higher ground, some by barge. See this film:

https://www.facebook.com/DonkeyWelfareWithHeart/videos/please-help-support-the-donkeysthe-flood-waters-have-risen-again-access-to-the-h/1334175286968279/?__so__=permalink&__rv__=related_videos

 :1f62e:
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SueC

It occurred to me for the first time ever today that crustacean rhymes with bus station.

Also we have had over 40mm of rain in under 24 hours today with at least another 20mm forecast tomorrow and more rain the following day too. So tomorrow everything will again be inundated or waterlogged. The rivers were already higher than I have personally ever seen them when we crossed three of them on Thursday.

We've had wind gusts over 80km/h this evening - very tough wind chill for animals tonight and sheep losses to hypothermia expected. Our animals have shelter belts but I feel sorry for the many that don't.


THE CRUSTACEAN AT THE BUS STATION 🦀

There was a fine crustacean
At Waterloo Bus Station
His name was Mr Crab
And he came in a cab
After a scrumptious Devonshire Tea
He was returning to the sea
Quite looking forward to the ride
That would return him to the tide
He was missing the little fishes
And had lots of watery wishes
When you next stand beside the sea
Remember Mr Crab for me!

SueC is time travelling

MeltingMan

In remembrance...

Quote from: WikipediaOn 22 June 1941, Schellmann was probably the highest profile German casualty of the opening day of Operation Barbarossa. Schellmann shot down a I-16 fighter and then collided with the I-16 near Grodno in his Messerschmitt Bf 109 E-7 (Werknummer 4189—factory number).[35] According to Trigg, Schellmann was rammed by an Polikarpov I-153 piloted by Lieutenant Kuzmin. Kuzmin was killed in the collision but Schellmann managed to bail out over Soviet territory but was never seen again. In this account, he attempted to make his way back to German lines, was captured and later killed by NKVD troops.[36][37][38] Major Woldenga then again assumed command of JG 27.[39]
En cette nation [Russie] qui n'a pas eu de théoriciens et de démagogues,
les pires ferments de destruction ont apparu. (J. Péladan)

SueC

Soccer versus tennis: Soccer has, what, 22 people and only one ball? Tennis is so much easier to watch. Two people, one ball - simple. Even when they play doubles it's still an acceptable person-to-ball ratio, plus each pair of people can only move around on half of the court. Soccer, OMG, it's like swarming ants going all over the place... :1f632:
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Ulrich

Quote from: SueC on July 02, 2021, 15:10:27Soccer versus tennis: Soccer has, what, 22 people and only one ball?

Which is why I went to my sister & family to watch, they have a telly with big screen...

In general, I do not watch a lot of sports on tv at all.
The holy city breathed like a dying man...

MeltingMan

A Freudian term that has been repeated so many times that I don't want to pronounce it anymore. Has to do with this painting
(by J.W. Waterhouse).

En cette nation [Russie] qui n'a pas eu de théoriciens et de démagogues,
les pires ferments de destruction ont apparu. (J. Péladan)

MeltingMan

🚲 Germany is developing into a bicycle-friendly nation - more people use bicycles all year round, also in everyday life. That's positive. But there is still a lot to be done. I hope the next government sticks to this concept. It remains problematic where the traffic density is very high and cyclists are not allowed to use the sidewalk. That is still the case regionally. For our neighborhood I heard that the traffic should be diverted. That is very good for the quality of life of all residents, in the long term. Hopefully I'll see it again. 🚲
En cette nation [Russie] qui n'a pas eu de théoriciens et de démagogues,
les pires ferments de destruction ont apparu. (J. Péladan)

SueC

FOR ALICE AND ROB, WITH LOVE AND THANKS

What's on my mind this morning is that a dear long-time friend's time is running out. She is in a coma and not expected to live more than 48 hours. Alice is 88.

She got gestational diabetes with her last child and has been managing this condition for decades, living life to the full regardless. In recent years, the diabetes has become more debilitating and she's had spells of feeling very poorly. On the weekend, she decided she'd had enough and she stopped taking her diabetes medication. She is at home and surrounded by family. It is a peaceful way to go and it's typical of Alice that she remains the author of her own life right until the end. We all love Alice.

I met her around the time I turned 30 and was agonising about how old this was. Meeting her soon set me right, and I've never bothered with "OMG-how-old-am-I" again. Here was a truly vibrant, thoughtful, wise, compassionate, creative, contrary, funny and beautiful older person who didn't conform to any of the standard stereotypes of what older people are supposed to do - she was simply who she was. She wasn't an age, she was Alice; and that was the first of many important things she taught me by example over the subsequent two decades.

Alice came with Rob - the two had just retired from farming in Kojonup and moved to town. I didn't learn for a number of years that the reason for their retirement was that Rob caught a virus randomly that impaired his heart, so that even small exertions like walking up the stairs now caused him to run out of breath - and for an energetic person who'd always darted around like one of his sheepdogs, that must have been very difficult. You'd never have known talking to him at his house though - he was perpetually cheerful and ready to laugh, full of stories, reading detective books, pulling people's legs - especially Alice's. She'd come in with a bunch of flowers purchased at the florist's, and he'd say, tongue firmly in his cheek, "How much money have you spent now, woman?" She'd reply, "Well, Rob, dear, you knew when you married me that I am high-maintenance. I'm keeping all the receipts to put in your coffin and you'll be well-cushioned."

Rob had a workshop under the house and made beautiful and quirky things from bits of old farm machinery and general scraps: Comical animals, candle holders, miscellaneous useful things. He made a wrought-iron gate as a present for one of his friends, and he taught me how to use an electric drill - a skill I'd missed out on because of notions of gender roles. One week later, Brett and I were building our farm shed from kit.

When we'd bought our smallholding, Rob gave us an old adze he'd used for decades to make post-and-rail fencing. We planted over 5,000 native trees and understorey plants with it over the next handful of years. When we look at our tree lines, we think of Rob, and of all the trees he and Alice had planted on their farm, albeit with the help of actual machinery!

The year after I met Brett, Rob got a new breadmaker from one of his grandchildren. I'd had many a slice of fresh spelt bread from his trusty old breadmaker at this point. He said to me, "I love my old breadmaker, there's nothing wrong with it, but my grandkids are going to be sad if I don't use the modern thing they gave me. Would you like my old breadmaker? You're getting married, now you'll have two people to eat bread and it will be worth it." So I started baking my own bread - and that same year Rob and Alice signed the paperwork as official witnesses at our wedding, because who better was there to ask than those two, married longer than anyone else we knew and fabulous people.

14 years later, Rob's beloved old breadmaker still makes our bread, and we get our flour from a farm just up the road from where he and Alice used to farm. We think of Rob each time the fragrance of baking bread fills our house, and when we tip a loaf of bread onto the cooling rack, and when we see guests enjoying a slice of freshly baked bread made from local wholemeal stoneground flour and extras like sunflower seeds, walnuts etc. Just like I used to enjoy that treat at his place, and from the same breadmaker.

We buried Rob a decade ago. He made it to his 80th birthday party in good spirits and soon afterwards was hospitalised with pneumonia, not for the first time. This time he had an embolism while there, and didn't come out again. At his funeral, hundreds of people took turns putting eucalytus leaves on his coffin - a coffin made from the same rough wood as is used for woolbales, and delivered to the chapel on the back of a farm ute, in line with his wishes. And then everybody rallied around Alice.

Alice missed Rob terribly and always carried a picture of him in her purse wherever she went. Nothing ever filled that specific void for her, and nothing ever can. She learnt to live with it, which is all you can do. There was consolation in her enormous extended family, in her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, a vast proportion of whom are interesting people doing creative and worthwhile things. And of course she continued to have an ultra-active social life with oodles of friends, participating in all sorts of mental and physical stuff including Tai Chi and University of the Third Age (academic lectures for seniors).

Only a couple of months ago, on a trip to town, walking up York Street, we spied Alice in an eatery, sitting by the window, and went in to say hello. Bear hugs and lively chatter followed. And we laughed, all three of us, because it was always like that. With the best people, you will share your laughter and your tears, your joy and your sorrow, your successes and your stuff-ups, and each other's books and music - and Alice is that type of person. She's also the type of person you would bump into impromptu in town on many occasions, because she seemed to have a talent for being in several places at once.

I'm thinking of Alice, slipping away now, and how I'll miss her, as I miss Rob. I'm thinking how grateful I am to have known both of them, and how they changed my life for the better in so many different ways, both by their friendship and by their example. I carry both of them in my heart and always will; they continue to affect how I see the world, and there will always be a bit of them present in the work I do and the choices I make, and particularly in consciously working on kindness, which both of them embodied so well.

Farewell, Alice. ♥
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Ulrich

Sorry to hear this.  :'(
The holy city breathed like a dying man...

SueC

Quote from: Ulrich on August 31, 2021, 09:29:03Sorry to hear this.  :'(

Brett came home last night and told me Alice died.  :'(

Glad it was peaceful. Am so going to miss her.

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SueC

I was just going to add...

About Rob and Alice, and why I wrote that post above. It was such a fantastic thing, knowing those two, that I just wanted to write about it, because I think stories like that are positive for a lot of people who read them. I love reading stories like this, and I'll write them when my own experiences permit it! ♥

It's like telling their story also makes them alive to other people who never knew them. Back when Rob died, I wrote five pages in my paper journal and then, a few months later, gave a copy to Alice, who loved the word portrait of him and how he'd touched our lives. Because when you've lost someone, you treasure memories of wonderful aspects of a person others saw as well. And because you begin to realise that in some very real ways they are still there.

Alice was dying when I wrote that piece about her - she would totally have approved. I wanted to write it when she was still alive, and managed to do it - by a couple of hours, she died by morning. It's therapy and honouring a life at the same time. Brett and the person who told him Alice was in a coma immediately talked about what a character she was. Have you ever seen Chocolat? She was a lot like Judi Dench's character in that. Heart of gold, sharp as a whip, funny, unconventional.

It's funny how getting older changes your view of death a bit, or has for me anyway. It's no longer as tragic as when you're younger, although it's just as sad. But you see the ripple effect the person has had and how in many ways they're going to live on through the positive influence they've had on other people - with persons like Alice, and anyone who's loving and creative, really. It's people like this all along the road who got me over a horrible family life as a child, and it began when I was very little. And because I know I've had a bit of a ripple effect myself, especially through teaching, it's actually easier to accept that my time is going to end in the next 30 years, statistically. It's not a panic to think of it. The ripples are amazing - the positive ripples you can leave on other people's lives, and which they in turn then create in the people around them. Just this ongoing thing; and more profound than passing on DNA. And also the positive effect you can have on the planet by changing how you live, by planting trees etc etc.

I don't get the whole "life is so tragic" thing, clearly. ;) I don't have enough space and time to look at all the beauty there is - and that's OK. And that's not to deny that there's a lot of bad stuff as well, but you really can't let that win - and a very practical way not to let it win is to create good ripples. Even just smiling genuinely at strangers (you'll learn when to and when not to) can create a lot of positive repercussions you can't all see. Acknowledging other people's humanity, seeing them - for a minute, or for decades; it all counts.

Alice did things like this all the time - as did Rob. Is someone an a-hole to you or others? Go out of your way to to three kind things for friends and strangers, each time that happens. Fantastic antidote - instantly lights up the darkness the a-hole made. :smth023

And be kind. I can't remind myself enough. One of the things Alice set a fabulous example with. People don't live forever, but it's funny how character traits can be passed on like this, by people like her. ♥

You don't have to be perfect - you never will be. You'll still stuff up regularly, and some people are going to hate you whatever you do, but that doesn't matter. If you consistently care about how you are to other people and to the planet, and act accordingly, it's going to change things.


Rob, me, Alice the day Brett and I got married; 3rd of February 2008. Brett took this photo at their house when we picked them up to witness the paperwork and have lunch with us - which was a separate event from the shindig we had with friends in the evening. Alice had surprised me with a jasmine tiara she made from her own garden - it was perfect. The photo caught Rob at an unrepresentative moment - his smile would light up the room.


Also she signed our wall, for significant contributions to our house - in her case indirectly - Alice and I had an unofficial trip out to this block after Brett and I had seen it with an estate agent back in 2010. You can't get a feel for a piece of land sitting in a jeep with an estate agent in your ears, so she and I came back to have a walk and get a proper sense of the place. I'd asked Alice to come as an independent set of eyes and ears - and also because she'd farmed for decades, so her opinion was really worth having. Just like when I went to buy moss green sofas in 2006 and fell in love with bright purple ones instead and asked her to come look in case I was about to do something stupid...but she thought they were brilliant and she always gave her honest opinion rather than what you want to hear, so I got the purple sofas, and re-painted my rental at the time to avoid colour clashes. We still have them; in the living room of our farmhouse!

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MeltingMan

In the neighboring town, a street was closed for two years due to construction work. The result: the traffic in our neighborhood continues to increase. If I walk down the street, twelve cars overtook me in one minute (on workdays). I don't even count the trucks anymore. Then there is the tiresome subject of cyclists. Unfortunately, I have to put it that way. In some places the footpath is only one meter wide. I wonder why? Sometimes there is parking on sidewalks! As with living, we have a kind of displacement in traffic, to the detriment of those who do something good for themselves and the environment. The idea that cyclists should be on the road is out of date. You are reasonably safe on sidewalks, unless garbage cans are placed in an unfavorable way or a dog owner comes along. Isn't there room for everyone ?! Not in Germany. 🤬

PS: 45 million cars are registered in the FRG - and the trend is rising. That gives an area of about 270,000 km², three quarters of the area of the entire Federal Republic! Nobody will deny that the result is visible, to the detriment of pedestrians and cyclists, who are not represented by a strong lobby. Wouldn't it be fair to tax car companies (finally) and to forego advertising for cars / trucks? And that is just the beginning...
En cette nation [Russie] qui n'a pas eu de théoriciens et de démagogues,
les pires ferments de destruction ont apparu. (J. Péladan)

SueC

Sounds like you could use a helicopter, @MeltingMan!

Is the work finished now?
SueC is time travelling