h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Oh yes, simple things are always the best. I had lunch out downtown with a friend today. Sharon and I haven't got together for ages! We went to a Salisbury restaurant - a strictly Winnipeg institution, and had the original Winnipeg hamburger - a Mr. Big Nip. Raw onions and all. I have to brush my teeth before I go to work! We decided original is the best. Now I'm just killing the hour or so I have before I need to head to work.

Its a lovely day here. Cloudy and overcast, but comfortably warm. Its supposed to stay nice all week. This is the time of year when Manitobans turn to each other and say, yes, every nice day is a bonus!

Are the kids down there wearing dorm pants, printed flanelette pyjama bottom like pants that they wear everywhere? I got a pair yesterday, but mine will stay strictly around home! I just can't wear pj's to work! They are so comfortable! Its the second best idea teenagers have ever had. The first one was leg warmers!

Defintely yes on the dorm pants. My son is a legend at his high school over his flannel red pj bottoms with penguins on them and his slippers which look like clogs. My daughter rarely wears hers to school but that may change. The time all the kids seem to where them is on half days. It looks like everyone is going to go back to bed as soon as they get released from school...and they probably are!

Your lunch sounds delicious and fun. Today I microwaved a sweet potato(woohoo) and had some salad. Tonite we are supposed to go over to our friends house with the baby for pizza. We usually get together every other wednesday. Its nice cause it is normally just for about an hour. Last night Ali had her last regular volleyball game and they won beating my old high school at our court. It was so much fun and the girls ended up being best in their division. Since they are freshman there are no playoffs or medals or anything but there is the satisfaction of know they were the winners of their conference. They have one more game to play with a school that is out of their conference next week. Its been a great season for her and a great way to start high school.

Congrats to Ali's team! What a great start to her high school career! You son sounds like such a character! He's one fun kid.

My dorm pants are pale blue with red cherries on them. Sounds wierd, but they're actually rather pretty, and oh so comfortable. I find myself sitting at work thinking about getting home and changing into them.

We have another Saturday off this week, so they can complete the upgrade, and they're installing a dialer. I have mixed feelings about that - they have good and bad points. Anyway, my friend D and I are going to a fabulous toy store on our day off. Its Toad Hall, a really neat place with beautiful dolls, magic tricks, marionettes, and my favourite - Victorian doll houses and all the furnishings. There's so much to see there, I expect to spend a lot of time there. And they don't have a Barbie doll in the place! D's never been there, and we've been promising ourselves for awhile. Its in Old Market Square, an area of old buildings and interesting places to see, a few small art galleries, a great restaurant with murals all over the walls, an English pub, and Rag Pickers - costumes and odd bits of this and that. Movie companies use the area quite a bit, and its really unique.

D's a really nice person, and we just love her to bits at our house. All her life, anyone who's befriended her has wanted something from her, so she's suspicious of people who try to get close to her. Its taken a long time to convince her all I want from her is her friendship, and all I have to offer her is my friendship. She finally gets it! When we get a day off together I try to get together with her because she's just such fun to be with. Its so unfair what some people do to other people.

Dialers, yep, I know the pros and cons well. Well good luck with it all!

Friendship is a weird thing. I love to have people at my house for dinner. I love to have an impromptu dinner with lots of people. Sometimes it takes people awhile to get that they don't have to feel obligated to me in any way. That it is my pleasure, truly, to have them round my table. I am amazed at some people and their lack of generosity. I have one friend, who I really enjoy and who really seem to feel close to me who is a spoiled girl. She and her husband run amock with money, mom and dad pay their bills off. She just always expects things. She is alot of fun, and she has her good points, but she really can't be trusted to be there in a clinch for you. That is just how she is. The one time she did shock me was when she had a housewarming party. She did it mainly to get gifts from people. I overheard her husband say to his brother "yea, we are really disappointed, we had hoped people would bring us some top shelf liquor that we could use to stock our bar". Wow!!! There are some rare types in the world. I probably have been taken advantage of many times, however by living how I live I've also had the good fortune to acquire people that seem to be more like family now. I'm so glad that your friend is feeling comfortable. Sometimes one good experience with a true friend wipes out multitudes of bad experiences.

Your toy shop sounds lovely!! I love to browse around places like that and quaint areas. One place you would like is at one of our musuems. They have the thorne miniature rooms. They are miniature rooms completely furnished decked out. I used to LOVE going there as a child. At this musuem, they also have a fairy castle. I'm including a link I found that has some pictures of the room.
http://www.berezin.com/3d/Kupjack.htm
The images are not that good but you can get an idea of how detailed these teeny tiny rooms are.

This weekend is an odd one in our house. It is homecoming weekend. THe big dance is saturday. Ali is going with a group of girls and Burke is taking a new girl from a neighboring suburb. It will be their first date. He and his long time "off again, on again" girlfriend seem to definitely be off. On a sad note, Steves mother died on Wednesday, she was 86 and had been ailing for some time. However, she was such a strong presence it took us by surprise as we just assumed she would live forever. She was a lovely lovely person so strong and never complained. Steve has to fly to Utah (where he grew up). He and all 10 of his mother's children will be there to see her off.

I'm sorry to hear about Steve's mom. Please accept my condolences, and pass them on to Steve.

All I can say about those miniature rooms is WOW!! They are so beautiful, and there's such a degree of detail! At Toad Hall they have a general store set up. The date would be around the 1930's or 40's. You can look along the shelves and see familiar brand names from childhood. I'm sure glad I'm not the only little girl who never grew up!!

We've got such a strange day today. Its really warm, but you need a sweater, and its so windy! One of those days when you don't know what to wear.

You are describing our weather day today! It is going to be in the 70s, but it is chilly this morning. It was chilly last night. I'm wearing an oversized sweater (it is one my friend Becky has left at my house for years) and I needed comfy this morning. We can dress very casually at work and I sure needed it this morning. Was a very busy weekend. Ali looked absolutely amazing in her homecoming dance wear as did Burke. Burke's dad was adorable, Ali and her girl group were so fun to watch. Both kids had a tremendous time. I had a very relaxing saturday nite to myself but it was hard to relax as I was so keyed up from the day. On Sunday morning I woke up with the most miserable migraine. I had a friend coming in town on Sunday nite and I had promised to pick him up from the airport so I was really regretting that. However I got up, picked ali up from her overnighter (all the girls converged on one house after the dance and for once it was not mine!)took alot of aspirin and laid back down for a few hours. Got up and made the kids a nice hearty lunch, and then relaxed for a bit more. My headache was not as severe but I felt like a wet dishrag. Did pick my friend up and go to dinner, however I don't think I was a stimulating a conversationalist as I could have been. I think it was the emotion of the week (closing my folks house, Steve's mom dying) and the excitement of the weekend with homecoming that all mixed together to give me one enormous ache in the head! This morning I just feel dragged out. I was going to take the day off, but I have sooo much to do that I know I would regret it.

I'm glad you looked at the rooms. THEY ARE INCREDIBLE!! It is a very mother-daughter thing to do when you are a little girl. We would take the train downtown, look at the rooms and some paintins and then have a light lunch at the cafe. We would be all dressed up (gloves and hats as well!) and it would be all very civilized!

They bury Em, Steves mom, today. The whole clan of kids got in town yesterday. I think it was a good decision to let Steve go on his own. He and one of his sister's Linda are on their own and acting just like they did when they were in their 20s. Also, some of his friends have been in contact and I think its good for him just to be Steve instead of Ali and Burke's dad.

When there's a crisis in Gord's family he goes to Brandon on his own, too. The last one was almost 2 years ago. The middle brother had a heart attack at the mall, and I sent him down to be with his Mom and other brother. Bill was in hospital for months. He recovered from his heart attack, but got some sort of infection. The oldest of the 3 boys is a worry-wart "pain in the a**" to quote Gord, and they have a limited amount of time when they can get along. They're very close, love each other, but Jim drives them all crazy. Gord and Jim have taken sibling rivalry to a fine art!

I can sympathize with the headache. I don't get migraines, but sinus headaches. I hate having to go to bed with one. I can sleep it off with tylanol, but I wake up so moggie and drained, I never seem to wake up entirely. Makes for a long day.

On Saturday an old friend called out of the blue. We'd lost touch, and with one thing and another, both of us busy, time just slipped by. Shirley's husband passed on in April, and she completely remodeled the house. Her address book had got into a box, and she just found it Saturday, so she was calling people she hadn't talked to in awhile. It was great to catch up. And I got an e-mail from an old Navy friend in Halifax who volunteers at the Navy museum. I'm going to put Harley in touch with him. Harley's such a military history buff, and a contact at a museum will be good for him. I remember Wes as a good sort, and I think Harley will like him.

Sounds like the kids had an awesome weekend. Our high schools don't do homecoming, don't know why. The only formal dance is Grad. Its too bad - the kids don't get much time to learn social graces. Gloves and hats - at last I've found someone else who experienced that, and liked the civility of it all.

It was just a charming time. My mother was a very proper northshore (very upper crust in chicago)girl who attended swanky all girls academys. She ended up marrying an italian working class guy from New Jersey, but was very strict in our upbringing about the social graces. We spent many a weekend having to be dressed up in our finery and obeying the rules of society. I really did enjoy some of those times. Glad that I don't have to do those things constantly but also do enjoy when I get to go to a real classy dress up affair. I went to the ballet a couple of years back and it was so fun to dress and act in the manner that I was brought up. Like a step back into time!

That will be great for Harley to have a contact at the local musuem. You never know where your contacts are going to take you. Networking, even casually is so important. I think its great for people to have people in all walks of life, ages, backgrounds, etc. You never know where your life will be taken.

I'm hoping to get out of here at a fairly decent time as I've got a couple of loads of laundry to attack, plus I want to make the kids a good meal. Honestly I'm also hoping to have this all done in a decent amount of time so I can take a glass of wine (probably not the best for post migraine) and my book into my room early and relax a bit. This is one of those rare nights that nobody has got anything going on!

Familys are something else. Steves is so large and it is always chaotic when people get together. There are also so many personalities and so many strong ones that I usually keep a low profile and go with the flow.

Just got a call from my sister. She has been living in the south and southeast for years. She moved up to tennessee which was about 8 hours away and recently got a job and has been in training in cincinnati which is about 5 hours away (via car). Well, she just found out that there is a strong possibility that her store will be in Lansing michigan (she is in retail) which is 3 hours away!! I'm over the moon! It would be amazing to have her so close!!

That's going to be so great to have your sister close. We're only 3 hours or so from our families, but we're all so busy. My brother and sister-in-law have a 26 foot sailboat, and spend every possible weekend on it from late May to September long weekend, then they go out West to visit their sons and families in Calgary and on Vancouver Island, so we still don't see much of each other.

With an empty nest, I get to spend quiet evenings with my knitting or a book, rarely TV, except for a few favourite shows, or I play on the 'net. Maybe I'm just getting old, but I prefer the warmth and comfort of just staying in.

I haven't been to the ballet in years! We have the Royal Winnipeg Ballet here, and a big ballet school, but I always seem to be too busy to get to a performance, or I'm working! The joys of doing evenings and weekends!! Same with the Winnipeg Symphony. Gas Station Theatre is only 2 blocks away, but they never have anything on when I can get to it. That usually amounts to me going by on the way to Subway and seeing a poster for what just finished!

Harley learned the importance of networking early - probably from a Mom who does it constantly! Network-network-network, you never know when you're going to meet a kindred spirit, or just someone who has the information you need!

I'm a huge fan of networking. Mainly cause I just really love to meet people. I've been very lucky to maintain some good friendships and sometimes even when I lose contact with people (such as you!) am fortunate to get them back. It is so nice to have friends, isn't it?

Staying home and in is really getting to be very attractive for me. I remember when the kids were smaller and I would think all of the the nightlife fun times I was going to have when they were older and I had the flexibilit to do it. But now the desire is not there. I do enjoy a dinner out with friends, but I also am loving being home. We have so many projects to do in this house, I just can't wait to get it more comfy and homey.

A couple of years ago, a friend bought me fabulous tickets to see Swan lake. It was an amazing interpretation of it. I was practically sobbing through the entire ballet as it was so beautiful. It was such a good time. We were all dressed up, we had a fancy dinner and champagne at the civic opera house in the lobby.

Tonite is Ali's last ever volleyball game as a freshman. They have already won their conference so this game doesn't count but knowing them they will still put their heart and soul into it. Afterwards I think I'll spend some time at my mom's apartment continuing the unpacking. My sister did get alot accomplished, but there is still sooooo much to do!

Swan Lake - one of my favourites! The first ballet I ever saw was on TV (!) when I was pre-teen. It was Romeo and Juliet, and I sat and watched it with Mom. We saw Evelyn Hart in her first roll as prima ballerina, and she was amazing! We lived out in the country, some distance from Winnipeg, and didn't get the chance to actually go to the ballet, so it was a rare treat, until I was older. Growing up that far from a cultural center, we took culture where we could find it. Mom had had a classical education, including singing lessons, and exposure to ballet, opera, symphonies, the lot. We went to events whenever we could in Brandon, the nearest city. We did get to the symphony, and lots of live theatre, and even the odd opera. Like you, we got all dressed up, and made an evening of it. One of the thrills of my teen years, was a musical workshop held in Brandon. Mom was involved in a mass choir, conducted by her old singing teacher. Dad and I went to the final concert, with a junior and senior symphony orchestra, and this amazing choir. We were so proud of Mom, and we took her teacher, Lola out for lunch after the concert. She was lovely! In school I was always in choir, and Mom and I had some lovely times singing around the house. I couldn't match her voice, but we had fun singing together.

Thanks to the internet, I'm finding lots of old friends, and its so great to get caught up on their lives. I hate losing friends, and its so exciting to find one again. I'm glad you came back, I'd missed our chats.

Me as well. After my younger brother Glenn died, life seemed to whirlwind out of control. Shortly before his death my dad was diagnosed with Parkinsons disease and had a rapid decline. However my dad bounced back and we had a few bonus years with him. My mom's mental health has always been something shaking so dealing with her dealing with all of the above was a challenge. Luckily my brother, sister and children were amazing throughout all of it. It seems to be true, whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger!

We are a singing household. My dad used to sing constantly. I was always in bands when I was younger. My kids sing all the time. They turn on their music and sing away. My son sings this song from the disney flick "mulan" that is hilarious to watch. He is very dramatic and does all these movements. It makes a house much warmer when there is music, in my opinion. We often sing around the table when we have a houseful of people.

We are supposed to have very warm weather this afternoon. I'm hoping I can go out at lunchtime to see the warmth! We have just been swamped with work that I've barely had a moment to myself. Good thing I strive under stress!!

I have a sign somewhere I swiped from an office in Comm School when I was in the Navy. Its a little cartoon guy in an old fashioned paper press. He's squished between the boards, and a huge screw is drawn on top of it. the caption says "Go ahead and turn it, you s** of a bit**, I work best under pressure". It makes me a little sharper.

We always had music in our house growing up, with my brother and I both taking lessons - me on accordion, Jim on clarenet. I gave it up - too big a work load in high school, and something had to give. Jim switched to drums, becoming the best drummer in southwestern Manitoba, at one time. Mom had a trained mezzosoprano voice, and she was always singing. I tried to keep up, but my voice was nowhere near hers! Dad had played violin, guitar and drums. Besides all the music, I was a Highland dancer, and where Jim had to give up the drums - drummer's wrists, I can still dance, so I won! Jim now plays guitar. Harley took lessons on spinet organ, and can play that and piano, and now he's learning guitar. I work a bit on a soprano recorder, but I don't devote nearly enough time to it to get good.

At last our dialer is working! We brought up the whole call floor on dialer tonight, and it worked! We still have some minor bugs to work out, but at least we can get people working! Our people like it, for the most part. We've had so many shifts cancelled while they tried to get it working, payday was a little slim. Now we have to catch up on our projects.

Hurray for the dialer!! Great it is all working and you can get back to normal working conditions! Today we have a company team building event in the afternoon. We are all going to play whirly ball. You are on teams and everyone gets in a bumper car and you have this little basket thing you catch the ball in. I'm not sure the object yet but I bet I'll find out. They will feed us and give us liquor and then after that it is on to a local bar. Luckily, all of this is right by one of my train stops so it is easy to hop a train to get home. Should be fun!

We have alot of instruments in our house. Both kids play the piano and our piano is about 100 years old. It is an upright baby grand that we inherited from a friend of my mothers. It cost us about 250 dollars to reburbish this beauty. Ali plays the flute and saxaphone, Burke plays the guitar. So we have piano, flute, saxaphone, accoustic guitar, electric guitar and who knows what else is in the offing?? I play guitar as well and was a trained ballet dancer. I took dance lessons until I was well into my teens abandoning it for high school and the pompon squad!

This weekend will be fun. I'm looking forward to relaxing with family and a get together tomorrow during the day with a group of friends who have small children. My one friend has this party every year and the little ones come dressed in their halloween costumes. Just adorable!

What a wonderful piano you have - a treasure, as well as a marvellous instrument. I have one of Harley's guitars here, awaiting instructions about what to do with it. He bought a second hand one in Halifax, so I don't know what to do with this one till he tells me.

My best friend in school took ballet, and had a closet full of beautiful costumes. With my dancing there was only one - my Highland dress. I still have my last dance kilt, safely tucked away in my cedar chest. Harley wore it a few times - he loves to go kilted! When he moved on he brought over his kilt, sporan and kilt stockings. That was the emotional part of his move. I made his kilt and knitted his stockings. The sporan is an animal head one, a thing of beauty. I expect I'll have to ship them to him by Spring! There's a big Highland gathering in Nova Scotia every year, and he'll want to go dressed appropriately!

Busy weekend for me, with, hopefully, 2 shifts to run. Monday and Tuesday my plan is to knit up a storm, relax, maybe spend some time with friends.

That children's party sounds like fun! The best part of Hallowe'en when we lived in a small town was seeing the little ones in their costumes when they came to the door. In an effort to keep Harley out of trouble I made him stay home when he hit 16, and help me at the door. He was a sucker for little pink bunnies, all the time complaining that he hated little kids! He still had a costume, his favorite was a Grim Reaper, with a black cloth covering his face so he looked invisible under his brown robes. Scared the kids silly! Gord always did a fancy carve on a pumpkin - haunted mansions, skinny cats, witches, and we put it in our front window. This year I'm off work Hallowe'en, but I'm thinking of putting a costume together, and going up to work with candies for the shift. We always dress up for Hallowe'en, and this way I won't miss all the costume fun. I'll disrupt the shift for an hour, then go away!

That sounds like great fun!! I love halloween. Last year the baby across the street was dressed up as a seed packet. We have alot of kids in the neighborhood and I enjoy seeing them all dressed up. Ali will go out with her friends and I know that Burke will be running around the neighborhood trying to scare kids and cause harmless trouble. He won't go out until after the little ones are done, but he and his friends like to cruise around town and feel like they are wild ones. (About as wild as they get is toilet papering houses) I love to do some baking and just have a good time with it all.

We go to the highland fest every year which occurs here in June. It is a day of scotch taste tasting for me, wandering the wares, watching the heavy games and then an afternoon of rugby watching. It is usually very hot and wonderful to see everyone dressed in their kilts. Lots of fun for us all!

Well, I've got the meatballs simmering for the party this afternoon and then this evening I plan to put on a pot of chili and watch the White Sox in the world series. My dad was a big white sox fan so this is sort for special. Of course the last time the white sox was in the series was the year I was born. My mom tells me that she was very irritated as she had just gotten me down to sleep when the air raid sirens went off in the city to celebrate the sox being in the series. Ali is off to see the stage musical of the movie "footloose" in the city with friends, and Burke is going to go see a new girl that he recently started dating. Busy night for us all! Tomorrow I'm hoping to spend some time with my goddaughter outside at a pumpkin farm or something like that. Its been a couple of weeks since I've seen her and I miss her like mad!

The White Sox have won 2 games! They don't have much of a solid history of making it to the World Series, do they? For that reason, I'd love to see them take it. Fingers Crossed!!

We used to go to the Highland Gathering in Selkirk, outside Winnipeg, every year. It was a day of watching Highland dancing, pipe bands, traditional food, and the heavy games. One of Harley's friends was one of the top pipers, and another was in the amateur heavy games. We spent the whole day, then usually went out for supper before we went home.

Days off now. I haven't done anything so far, except laze around, and play on the computer. At some point I have at least 2 loads of wash to do, and Gord wants a shepherds pie for supper, so I have to go to the grocery store.

Its cold and damp here, but the weather's expected to improve later in the week. Of course, once I go back to work!

Isn't that always the way? Gets nice as soon as you have to be indoors?

I'm over the moon with the winds. What a horrid night they had last night. One of my friends (one of the basketball moms I go to dinner with) was at the game yesterday. She had a marvelous time despite the weather. That is what everyone is saying! I thoroughly enjoyed watching it. It is sort of like living in a fairy land!! Looking forward to tomorrow's game. Its just good fun because anything can (and will!) happen in the games!

Yesterday was lovely. We went apple picking at a small orchard, my family and my goddaughter's family. We stopped at a few farms that had autumn festivals and then went back to my house for dinner and apple brown betty with ice cream. We watched football, played with the baby and then the white sox game. The baby is over 6 months now so she is really starting to get a sense of herself. She certainly has a captive audience when she is at my house!

My day started out with a hitch. My train was 30 minutes late, and it was cold outside. So I've been feeling like I'm 30 minutes behind. I feel like I've had to run all day just to catch up. Hoping to go home, do some laundry, eat a light dinner and then just get under the covers and try this again!

You're probably celebrating - THE WHITE SOX WON!!!! Isn't that great after 88 years!!

Back at work today. The dialer went down last night, but it seemed to be performing okay today. They figured it was going to come online and be just fine. LOL - been there, done that with new programs. Its at least 6 months debugging! Gotta laugh - even though I suppose its not all that funny!

I was looking at the webcams of Halifax this morning. I'd watched a container ship being loaded on the camera outside Harley's window yesterday, and today I saw it pull out. I waited about 15 minutes, then picked it up on another webcam of Halifax harbour, and watched it till it cleared the Narrows and headed out to sea. It was really neat! You just can't conceive of the size of those things! When I went back to the first webcam, another container had moved in, and they were off-loading it. Wilma missed them, thank goodness. They had a huge amount of dammage in one last year.

I sent Harley an e-mail and told him, and all I got back was a joke! It looks like he still has way too much time on his hands!!

YES WE WON!! It was wonderful. I really am enjoying the win. It is hard to believe it actually happened. Unfortunately I was out of town on business thursday, friday and saturday and did't get to enjoy the parade and all the fun. I sure enjoyed the game on Wednesday!

I was in cincinnati and it was gorgeous. I had driven down, it is about 5-6 hours. It was a nice drive seeing all the trees changing colors. Almost looked like a picture you see on a jigsaw puzzle! While I was down there I met a woman who had come down from Winnipeg! She works at a market research company, Ipsos Direct and she was down for this conference. She is going to be in town in chicago in two weeks and we are meeting up for dinner. She is originally from scotland but has lived up there for 16 years. Small world.

I love webcams, don't you? It is really nice to see what your friends/relatives can see in real time. I had a friend recently go to South Carolina and stand on a pier and wave via webcam. That was alot of fun.

I'm suffering this terrific head cold. My throat glands are swollen and I would give anything to have a nice relaxing day in bed. However I need to drive into work to get a few things done, and then I need to go over to my mom's house to do some cleaning. Hopefully I'll be able to have this evening to my own family!