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25701. Ms. No - 10/1/2009 5:25:07 AM It's the "one day at a time" strategy that seems to work best for me when the world gets overwhelming. 25702. vonKreedon - 10/1/2009 10:55:32 PM I've handed off my first set of content, attended my last meeting of the week and am getting ready for a long weekend of vacation cabining to celebrate my wife's 50th birthday! Whoo-hoo! 25703. arkymalarky - 10/2/2009 1:13:10 AM Oh, cool! Happy birthday to your wife! Hope y'all have a great weekend! 25704. arkymalarky - 10/2/2009 3:59:10 AM A front of sorts was really pounding us earlier, and I don't have a headache! Other than the first week after surgery, I've only had one, which Bob thinks is a first since he's known me (30 years). I can also bend over without misery for the first time in forever. I'm taking a yoga class starting in November. When I told my doc I wanted the sinus surgery I told her I never felt good--ever. Now I don't think about it. I feel fine all the time unless something specific is bugging me. Allergies are still there, but the unrelenting pressure and just generally feeling like crap 24/7 are gone. 25705. Ms. No - 10/2/2009 7:01:30 AM That's so wonderful to hear! 25706. Dubai Vol - 10/2/2009 12:21:50 PM Said goodbye to my wife this morning. We both cried, and hugged. Every fiber of my being says this is just wrong. Strangely enough, I feel better after telling her the things I've been rehearsing in my mind since Tuesday. Mostly soppy stuff. I told her she is my lobster, for example. Obscure? The flight back leaves in 8 hours, and it will be brutal. Fifteen hours nonstop Dubai to Atlanta, in a middle seat. The flight is actually overbooked, but I am checked in online and have my boarding pass printed. Now just wondering if there is going to be trouble over the saber in my luggage. German cavalry ca 1870, stamped "Solingen Luneschlosse" a fine piece of steel.
What, you don't travel with your saber? 25707. arkymalarky - 10/2/2009 1:21:46 PM Thanks No! Spoke too soon on the headache--woke up with one, but still the rest of the good stuff and the reduced frequency of the headaches makes the surgery WAY worth it. 25708. arkymalarky - 10/2/2009 1:24:15 PM Oh, man, Dubai. I really feel for both of you. Don't know what to say, but I hope things go well for you back here in the states. 25709. arkymalarky - 10/2/2009 1:52:43 PM obituary 25710. arkymalarky - 10/3/2009 10:16:43 PM Judith, gotta tell you--we should have gone to visit this summer--Jim said he and two friends of his were the only white people at the service, but it was the largest he'd ever seen. He said at least 75 people were standing outside the church. He's here now trying to keep his tears back. He was really close to her for a lot of years. 25711. wabbit - 10/4/2009 12:48:36 AM Arky, did you know this woman? Can you tell us about her? The obit leaves so much out. 25712. arkymalarky - 10/4/2009 1:18:02 AM I didn't, but our good friend (who just left) knew her well. I should have at least met her, and Jim always wanted to take us to visit her, but we never did just make a plan and do it. We're not neighborly with anybody around here, really, so we'd be dropping in on someone who didn't know us. Of course Bob's family knew her, but more his grandparents, who were dead before Bob and I met.
She's one of those amazing, independent, enduring rural people who lived through so many changes without ever really reacting or changing herself in response to any of them. 25713. arkymalarky - 10/4/2009 1:31:53 AM The reason I posted the obit, btw, was her amazing progeny, including a great-great-great grandchild. I know it's happened before, but I'd never seen it. 25714. alistairConnor - 10/5/2009 2:18:07 PM She called me when she got to Hong Kong, which is nice, except that it was 2.30am for me. We exchanged text messages at breakfast time when she arrived in Jakarta. She was waiting for a military transport to fly her to her destination in Sumatra.
She's got my Visa card. Hers crapped out last week. Luckily for me, she probably won't have many opportunities to spend money : she tried to reserve a hotel before she left yesterday, but there are none left standing at her destination.
After assessing the situation there, she will probably go on to Samoa, via New Zealand. On the way home she may stop in the Middle East to sort out the Iranian nuclear business, then to save Private Shalit.
Some of this is not true. 25715. judithathome - 10/6/2009 4:31:18 PM Arky, please send Jim our condolences; I know he will miss her daily...yes, we SHOULD have gone up the road to meet her, especially because Jim was so keen on it. I feel terrible about missing that opportunity.
She lived a long and productive life, it seems, and according to Jim, kept her wits to the very end. Can't ask for much more than that. 25716. judithathome - 10/11/2009 10:19:37 PM Christ, this place is dead. I hope it's because everyone is busy having fun! 25717. Dubai Vol - 10/12/2009 10:45:13 PM Well, not fun, exactly, but I did have a good weekend. Spent some quality time with Leo, the ginger tomcat from next door. He's a friendly sort, and was reasonably tolerant of my tendency to break into tears.
Also managed to realise that while I am accusing Nicola of remembering only the bad, I am guilty of remembering only the good. Fact is that I was miserable in our marriage: as much as I love her, and as much as I like her (we were best friends), being married to her made me unhappy.
So now I have to get to the point where knowing intellectually that I am better off without her becomes really understanding emotionally that my best friend and the woman I love is not the person I should spend my life with.
I know it's true, I just don't feel it yet. Meanwhile, I am trying not to cry in front of people, and mostly succeeding.
25718. anomie - 10/13/2009 1:40:12 AM I've been meaning to stop in here to wish you well while going through such hard times. Emotional stuff is so difficult because It's impossible to fix what you can't control. Thank goodness for poets and time. The first helps explain and express, and the second eventually soothes the roughness of it all. I don't know how old you are Dubai, but I can assure you that new opportunities will come around if you give it time. 25719. judithathome - 10/17/2009 5:54:52 PM I'm taking Chantix again to stop smoking and along with stopping the "pleasure" trigger I get from cigarettes, it seems to be stopping almost everything. I'm not eating as much and I haven't left the house in a week. We have something to attend today and I'm having to FORCE myself to go. I cancelled two things this week and Keoni had to go alone to them...I think he's glad he's working so much. ;-)
But it's working on the cigarette desire and that's what I'm aiming for...I'm hopeful that nothing will set me off to start up again like before. I kinda don't think anything will...I don't want to go through quitting like THIS again! 25720. alistairConnor - 10/18/2009 4:28:31 PM So, last Tuesday, we had decided to both take the day off work and do some cocooning, clean the kitchen, fun stuff like that.
She had a friend who had come to stay for a few days -- actually the aunt of my stepson -- so we had to take her to the airport on Tuesday morning. I miscalculated the time because of the rush hour, and she was at the new terminal which is about half a mile from the carpark, anyway the flight was closed and we couldn't talk her onto it. So we looked each other in the eye and said, why don't we take her home? (Actually another 24 hours with her would have been too long, she's nice enough but, um, she's an aunt.)
So we drove her home, to Barcelona. Only five and a half hours (would have been more, had we respected the speed limits scrupulously).
Got there mid afternoon, parked under the Placa de Catalunya, walked down las Ramblas, beer and tapas, to the port, then walked back, and drove home. One hour at destination, eleven hours driving.
We had fun. Made us feel young. And foolish.
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