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27509. PincherMartin - 7/1/2013 8:56:12 AM "And you do realize Downs Syndrome children are identified before birth, right?"
I did and forgot about it when talking about Palin. My mistake. That was very sloppy of me.
27510. PincherMartin - 7/1/2013 8:58:49 AM "Wow. I guess he turned into a pumpkin."
We have all day tomorrow, sweet pea. I'm giving Alistair the benefit of the doubt that he's running our bet on American time.
But don't wear out your jokes. They're generally not as funny the second and third time around. 27511. arkymalarky - 7/1/2013 9:46:01 AM You'd do well to heed your own advice, sugarfoots. 27512. alistairconnor - 7/1/2013 9:52:37 AM I have been busily cut off from the world over the weekend, moving. Only 100 metres, but no less tiring. I think I could do a movie scenario, "Three removals and a funeral". Nobody's died yet, but the possibilities are numerous : my favourite is tumbling down four flights of stairs then crushed under a huge and fugly piece of woodpulp furniture of unnamed Scandinavian brand.
I had help from various people over the weekend, notably my Better Half's son, with whom I lugged the two items that wouldn't fit in the absurdly small lift (110x70 cm) : a couch and the aforementioned hunk of rat-biscuit.
On Sunday evening, I took my daughters to their mother's place in the country, and her boyfriend offered me a choice of two tables for my kitchen (he's currently clearing out his mother's house). The one I chose is a thing of beauty : round with two hinged panels that fold down, made of walnut, not what I would call an antique but very old and rustic. And a couple of period-piece formica chairs from the sixties. Perfect.
So at 10pm I am illegally parked and manoeuvring this masterpiece onto the handcart. I wrestle it up the half-flight of stairs to the lift (the building dates from 1960, and the lift stops in between every second floor, so you always have to walk up or down half a floor). After twenty minutes of wrangling, I persuade myself that the thing will go in the lift if I remove the cotton-reel-sized extensions that have been screwed into the bottom of the feet. It's that tight. So I fetch a screwdriver and a hacksaw (because one of the ancient screws is ununscrewable) and noisily remove these extensions. Bearing in mind that the hall lights time out every three minutes or so and I have to climb half a flight to turn them on again. More wrangling, and no... still doesn't quite fit the lift. I toy with the idea of removing the hinged panels, which would do it, but only manage to unscrew one of the six screws on the first one I tried. Then, a brainwave : the table is extendable, I undo a couple of hooks and I can pull it in half!
Well, it extends and extends. 140 cm in diameter, it must be over 2 metres fully deployed : my flat is too small, I'd have to clear most of the furniture out of the living room to use it at full extension. And to split it in half, I will have to knock out a couple of wedges. All beautifully crafted hardwood, the mechanism is a marvel.
But the wedges aren't giving in easily. After ten minutes of tap-tap-tapping with a hammer, I'm slowly getting there, and a guy comes out of the ground-floor flat to point out that I'm being noisy : it resonates, and it's now 11.30. 27513. alistairconnor - 7/1/2013 9:52:52 AM So I put the thing back together and resolve to lug it down to the cellar, where it won't be in anyone's way, until I can find some labour to hump it up the stairs. Did I mention, it's solid walnut, and unsurprisingly heavy? Then the guy comes back out of his flat, and says which floor do I live on? I tell him 7th, with a wry forget-about-it grin. OK, let's go, says he, and go we do.
The good thing about hardwood well-weathered furniture is that it won't fall to pieces at the merest bump, and even if you manage to dent it, no mean feat, it's all in character. We reach the 7th floor without incident, I thank him warmly and he goes to bed : it's midnight.
And I can finally head for the former flat to put a coat of paint on a bedroom door : I'm handing back the keys tomorrow morning. 27514. arkymalarky - 7/1/2013 10:01:02 AM "Come on, this is not a hard question."
It's a stupid one which can only result in reductio ad absurdum. Anyone with two braincells to rub together can see that. But of course you can't. Just as you can't see that we here live very involved lives, intellectually and otherwise, elsewhere. It is you who has been the bubble boy. What you see, narrow as it is, is the sum total of your reality. Sad. 27515. alistairconnor - 7/1/2013 10:02:10 AM Ah yes, Pincher Martin and our bets. It seemed important to me five years ago, and I've been thinking (not that I've given it a great deal of thought) that I'm going to have to bite the bullet and pay up. If only to spare myself the tedium of his braying about how right he was and how wrong I was (although the past five years have clearly validated my vision of the world and invalidated his).
But then I check The Mote and I see he's spent the weekend ... being Pincher Martin. And, let's be frank and get straight to the (Godwin) point : being Pincher Martin the fucking Nazi. And I don't believe in rewarding that sort of behaviour. I apologise to all for the unpleasantness he has brought here; and I apologise in advance for his forthcoming hissy fit. But after all, all the furniture here is washable. Pincher Martin can go fuck himself. He's not getting my money. 27516. arkymalarky - 7/1/2013 10:02:57 AM Hey Alistair! I have a friend who said his next move would be to the funeral home. I think he's moved twice since saying it. 27517. arkymalarky - 7/1/2013 10:06:03 AM You're certainly not responsible for his bad behavior. 27518. bhelpuri - 7/1/2013 10:07:49 AM Beautifully expressed, dear AC. Please let Monkey Boy fuck off. Maybe blow the cash when you come visit me, it'll be glorious. And grown up, don't forget. 27519. alistairconnor - 7/1/2013 10:21:55 AM Bhel, I've only skimmed the weekend's posts, but it's a shame you feel you can't share your writing here. Everyone has their own rules about openness and privacy, I suppose I never felt I have anything worth hiding; I can dress that up as a political position about transparency, but, again, that's a personal thing, and people can have both good and bad reasons for being anonymous.
We definitely need to talk about dates, seasons etc for a visit. 27520. bhelpuri - 7/1/2013 10:45:02 AM Yes, we will meet again soon AC. Looking forward to it very much.
My position re Internet visibility is exactly the same as when we met in NYC, with Wabbit. In my opinion, that long view has proven correct and justified. Do recall that I asked you a long time ago to disallow search of this site...
27521. iiibbb - 7/1/2013 11:23:01 AM After my grandfather died, my grandmother expected it to be here last year of life for the next 20+ years. 27522. iiibbb - 7/1/2013 11:27:20 AM Judith and I have had some disagreements about guns and seem to manage to not call each other names. 27523. iiibbb - 7/1/2013 11:29:46 AM And they make her quite angry... Yet, no degradation of civility.
so I still think that given all of the things we can test the unborn for... More parents would choose a transgender over a fuckwit like PM 27524. judithathome - 7/1/2013 5:56:04 PM Ha!!! 27525. judithathome - 7/1/2013 5:57:05 PM round with two hinged panels that fold down,
For futuew reference, that type of tabel is called a drop leaf. 27526. judithathome - 7/1/2013 6:03:04 PM reductio ad absurdum
When I was in high school, we had to write a short piece of fiction, put it in a folder and illustrate the piece on the cover.
I wrote something extremely witty (so the teacher said) and did a cubist collage out of scraps fo paper, twine and a few other intersting things laying around on my desk.
But I didn't have a title and finally went to the dictionary for one and landed on "reductio ad absurdum"...
Ended up with an A+, I might add. 27527. judithathome - 7/1/2013 6:40:56 PM Gads..."future" and "table". Can you tell I just woke up?
Anyhow, just trying to get this back onto the innocuous blather we are so used to. Not up to PM's standards of excellence but what the hey......... 27528. PincherMartin - 7/1/2013 7:24:53 PM LOL !
Good show, Alistair.
I bet that was very hard for such an honorable man as yourself to decide you couldn't pay our bet. It took real courage, my friend. Other honorable people would have just taken the easy way out, kept their promise, and paid the wager.
But not you. You thought long and hard about it, and decided you couldn't reward such "behavior". But then you're always thinking about the high road.
And I'm equally sure you would have thought just as long and hard had you won our little wager and turned down my Nazi money. Just as I'm sure you also would have declined to gloat about winning the bet.
You're such a good man, Alistair. It's must be tough to be such a high morals in such an ugly world. Your children can be proud they have such a father.
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