Diz coughed it up. Or down.
Phew. He is breathing quite normally as of about 2 minutes ago.
In fact he is shouting his head off because he can see Mia through the (glass) back door.

A parcel I sent to the States seems to have gone missing. :(

I know that feeling Limes!
I can't count the number of times it's happened to me.
I think everything turned up eventually (the longest wait was actually my fault - it was sent overland because I messed up on the postage).

Does your recipient check their postbox often?
Not every Dwellar gets post through their door.

Oh - I sent some money to Jim (for UT's car) and as far as I know it NEVER arrived.
That was an obvious case of theft, either here or there :(

Yes, recipient is on the look-out for it. I remember now the box was (used) packaging from some firm with a name awfully like "communism" ... I joked at the time that it might cause a problem, and perhaps it has :(

I just got a virus on my work computer from a link posted on the Cellar. I was going to try to get caught up on work this weekend, but I've had to shut that computer down. I'll take it to IS on Monday and they'll probably lock me out of the Cellar.

oh no!!!!!!

that completely bytes!

Can you mark it so glatt co. can delete the bad link?

I think it was in Humor ... I put a note in the post under the bad post.

Dang, that sucks, HLJ. But surely they will block kuriositas.com, not the cellar? I'm not sure how they would even know that you got to the virusy link from here.

We have gotten viruses on two separate occasions from ads loaded on cracked.com, so I won't open their articles anymore, even though they are often quite funny.

Maybe I'll clear out my browsing history and cache before I bring it to them.

It's a little like closing the barn door after the cows got out, but I've deleted those links.

Thanks Mr. glatt.

Our Health insurance is going UP $85 PER PAY!!!!


it was already ridiculous. I'll be paying $257 per pay. Yes... I'm paid weekly.

I might quit this job over this.

Just tell them you don't need no stinkin' insurance.

Lewis: [to Bobby] Insurance? Shit! I never been insured in my life! I don't believe in insurance. There's no risk.

Jebus, man. That sucks awful! :(

So it's going up $4,420?!

That's a very steep increase. Did everyone in the dealership besides you just turn 65 or something?

Does it at least also cover your kids?

That's just...huge, to me.

wtf are people supposed to do? Work to live, live to work.

You can get an independent, fully self-paid, family insurance policy for less than that. Does the dealership even contribute anything? Will they let you opt out?

they pay half of the plan that has $5000 deductibles. if you opt for actual coverage, they still pay half of the cheapest plan amount. so they contribute $154 per pay. ( and I'm skeptical about the veracity of that )

Yes, shaw... this is the family plan covers my kids and jinx (we're still married)

When the divorce becomes final she's off... but the court may require me to pay her cobra. that would be even worse.

I think I'll go boil my bottom.

2 people got cancer, and somebody's kid has serious problems.

communism.

FTR - I do NOT work with Jim.
I has to buy my own when I lost my job. I've been paying $300 a month just for myself. Its almost 1/4 of my "income" right now.

My karaoke machine's not working. Grrrr. And it's Christmas karaoke night for my kids. >.<

The point of insurance is to spread the risk around so that local anomalies like this don't affect your premium. Sounds like your pool is way too small.

This isn't communism. It's the mongrel bastard offspring of a drunken one-night stand between dysfunctional corporocapitalism and half-arsed socialism.

or Insurance, for short.

This. Can you leave this scheme and join Clod's (or an independent one somewhere with a bigger pool)?

On the one hand, yeah. On the other, not if the changes to only 3 people's health have affected Jim's premium to this extent [/insurance nerd]

Mum has been hinting about changes in Dad's health for a while.
I've deliberately not pressed her as she's introduced them with downturned mouth and shaking head and "There's a lot you don't know."

It's not that I don't care - I do, enormously.
But I know she'll tell me at some point and I don't want to play games about it.

Yesterday, as we were out enjoying our family meal, Dad went to the toilet and Mum finally came out with the fact that he has been having prostate trouble. Serious operation style trouble. He has an appointment in the New Year.

Well, it's finally out.
At least I know.
His weight loss has been apparent for a while, so it could be worse.

Happy Christmas.

Hugs, Sundae, hugs.

The kitty snuff video.

I can't get that picture out of my mind, and I can visualize the cat in motion, though I didn't watch it.

I lost two cats in 2011. Cats I had for 17 and 16 years. I have no cats now. I cannot stand to see animals suffer. More so, even, when you imagine that the animal is in emotional distress. Maybe that's anthopomorphizing, but I don't think so.

And now all I can think about is that damn picture, posted for what purpose I do not know. Maybe it's a joke. Maybe the dead cat is made of rubber. I won't know. I won't watch it. But it's bummed my day out completely.

We talk about losing our pets. We know how much it hurts, even after a lot of time has passed. This posting was, at best, insensitive. At worst, cruel.

So I didn't put this in the thread because frankly I don't like to open it and look at that picture, and I don't want to draw any more attention to it.

You'll forgive me if it is a joke video. All I can imagine is what it says it is.

And it's heartbreaking.

That is all.

I think it's just a vid that Classic saw on facebook that he'd found very sad.

I know what you mean though. I keep seeing a flash of it. Horrible. Might be worth sticking a warning in the title, just so people know it's not a joke thread. I realise the title doesn't sound very jokey, but you never can tell with internet stuff.

I didn't watch it either. But here's how to think about it, IMO.

We imagine that our pets have human-level consciousness and emotion, and they just don't. Whatever the living cat is "thinking" in that video, s/he is not as horrified or worried as we would be, if we were in that situation.

Pearl lived with Bean for 5 years. Three days after Bean died, I had a moment and I asked Pearl, "Where's Bean?" -- and heartbreakingly, she looked at the door where he would be returning, if he could.

But then I tried it again three days after that, and she had no reaction at all. If she had any level of self-awareness, she must have thought, "New pack, new situation, this is what we have now, And I'm perfectly OK with that, because I have very little long-term memory, so I live in the 'now'."

It is weird to think of it because we humanize them; but if we die in a household with our cats/dogs, and they have no other food source, after a few days they will start to eat us.

Maybe so. But that looked like a cat in deep distress at that moment however cats experience distress.

My old cat did that to me one time when I was breathing funny. I think it's mostly instinct.

I didn't watch the video either, because I'm not supposed to from work. I'd point out that often, our imagination is worse that reality. You may find that if you watch the video a few times, you'll be desensitized to it and it won't bug you as much. Easy for me to say, since I haven't seen the video, but it's quite likely. When I see video of the planes hitting the WTC now, I feel pretty much nothing. I was pretty overwhelmed when I saw it the first time.

When I was in my teens we had two westies. They were four years apart. When Wellington started to become infirm, losing his sight and hearing, Dudley became his guide. He'd circle him and nudge him in the right direction if he was about to walk into something, or if he was drifting too far in the wrong direction. Wasn't even a herding breed.

When Wellington died, Dudley pined for a long time. Initially for almost the entire time. Went off his food, cried and whined, howled, went to all of Wellington's spots and lay down in them. After a couple of days he began to settle down a litte, but he still had times when he was really unsettled and seemed to be looking for Wellington. At particular times when he would have usually expected Wellington to be by him, like feeding time, and walking time. And bedtime too. He still whined sometimes at bedtime, even a few weeks later.

I understand that about animals. I suppose we could get into an argument about what animals 'feel' but I know that I have different feelings on the subject than some. It's much too sensitive a subject to broach with my friends who feel otherwise, for me.

But I should desensitize myself? No, thank you.

Some people should 'sensitize' themselves.

I'd hate to think if it were a dog video.

classic, sorry, really. I know you didn't mean it in a bad way.

I'm in a bad place, and that was just too much.

I watched it about 2/3 of the way.

the cat seemed to be kneading the dead one like they do when they nurse... but then, as he continued to do it, then checked for breath.. i wondered if the cat were performing cpr instinctively. he's pushing and pushing on the spot just behind the forward arm, where the heart lies on a quadrupedal animal. and he's sitting on him the whole time, which I also found odd.

I think he was trying to keep him warm as well.

But even we mighty humans didn't know about CPR until the 1900s, didn't even know about the nature of the heart and bloodflow until when, the 1600s? If anything, it might have been a kind of instinctive first aid.

It was yesterday....but when I was at work, I caught a familiar figure and motion out the corner of my eye....an old man hunched over leaning on his shopping trolley, arms crossed over it, with a great big head of grey thick hair and a solid figure. I swung around with a big grin to greet my Dad, to see that it wasnt my Dad (of course) but just another older man.

Im sure he wondered why the smiley girl's demeanor changed so quickly.

I miss my Dad

Oh honey :comfort:

Aww girl. Maybe you were supposed to see that to rekindle some special (happy) memories. There are angels among us

It's awful when your brain is overtaken by your emotions and you just totally forget for a second that someone is gone. It's happened to me before too, so I know how gut wrenching it is.

Sorry mate. :(

Thanks guys :)

Because I am so much younger than my siblings and stayed close to my parents, I think its hit me a lot harder than them and my Mum was just relieved when he passed - so none of them can understand why I still spontaneously burst into tears.

Like down fishing with the kids, I'll tear up because he would be so proud of the dedicated Fisherman Tyler is becoming and I am sad he's not here to enjoy this part of their lives.

I havent recovered from the shock of Christmas without him I think...this was my undoing on Christmas morning

I'm not even playing that song. I know it'll floor me.

Oh, Ducks, honey. I know what that's like. That moment of false recognition. I still get it sometimes. Though less often now. From time to time I'll see Dad. Silly because he never lived around my town. Yet I sometimes see him shopping there.


And from time to time, I'll feel a rush of pride over some academic achievement or other, or a landmark passed, or even just a really clever idea for a poem. And for just a second I'm rehearsing the phonecall to tell him.

*hugs*

It does get easier. Takes time, but it does. Still knocks me a little off kilter sometimes, but the gutwrenching body blow that such things used to bring has softened a great deal.

I don't know what it's like, I can't even imagine. I feel for you, though, Ducks. I can't really add to anything already said but I hope your happy memories get you through.

:comfort:

My Mum features an awful lot in my dreams. I'm talking 2 or 3 times a week at least I have a memorable dream that she's in. The one i had this morning was incredibly vivid, and Mum wasn't even actually visible, but I was talking to her on the phone. Aden was only little and I was at my friend Clem's place and he was cooking dinner but it was late, so I called Mum to say I'd be home in a couple of hours. The funny part was, it was only me and Aden. No Mav or Max or Dazza.

It was a nice dream all the same though. There were other parts to it too, but they were kinda weird. Something to do with an agricultural show and animals getting loose and all sorts of weird stuff.

outch.

is that receant? for the first few years after my father died that used to happen to me a lot, sometimes when the resamblance was a real stretch of imagination in a 2nd look...

it really does get better. obviously different people might take it differently, but for me and hopefully for you, at some point "he'd be so proud, i wish he could be here" moments become just "he'd be so proud" moments, and you sort of get a little bite of that old satisfaction you would have had in making your him proud. it doesn't make much sense, but it works.

After an unprecedented streak of pleasant sunny days in PDX, we had a storm
come through with sleet and rain and snow and our house shook.
I knew something was wrong and set about looking for the cause.
It took a while, but I finally found what had happened.

My wife of so many years had done the unthinkable...:eek:
She had put Grampa's coffee cup thru the dishwasher !
Not only that, she admitted to actually hand-washing the cup to get rid of it's last bits of patina.
Now, it's just a plain glass cup, an ordinary, run-of-the-mill, crystal clear, cup.

Gone are the traces of fragrance and tastes built up over the years of loyalty and pleasure.
Fading now are the memories of cups, nay, pots of coffee of days gone by.

I could buy another cup. I could start over with this old, now plain, non-descript THING.
But the heart is gone. It would not be the same. What shall I do ? :mecry:
Oh, the humanity ... My God, think of the children.
.

I'm having a huge deja vu thing. Has this been posted before?

It only feels like it has been posted before.

A déjà vu is usually a glitch in the Matrix. It happens when they change something.

I saw Grandad's gate open the other morning.
Wondered if Dad had parked in there, but remembered walking past his car in the Close.

It took a few seconds (quite a lot in brain time) to scroll through - no he's in the hospital, no he's in the home, oh no, no, actually he's dead and that isn't Grandad's gate any more, even if it still the the number 3 my Dad put on it, and the hook and eye fastening to keep the gate open when you reverse in, and the plants we planted as a family in the garden (including a few hardy Australian ones in honour of Uncle Jim.

Losing a Grandad isn't like losing your Dad0, but even that can sneak up unexpectedly.

I dream about my Nan occasionally.
She's usually being quite nice.
I suppose she lives in the part of my brain that's pre-twelve, because I did love her back then.
Even in the dreams I pause and think, "Hang on, you're dead aren't you?"
I expect Grandad to make an appearance soon. And I think it will be pleasant.

Yeh he posted a pic about his coffee cup which was only rinsed - never washed.

Quite a kick in the pants, that.

*hugs Sundae*

Every cloud has a silver lining. Think of it as one less thing she can point to if she ever tries to have you committed. :p:

You may be able to restore the coffee cup's aura if you can get someone special to drink from it, someone so out of the ordinary for you that you wouldn't want to wash it afterwards (especially if lip prints are evident and you have a pic of the person drinking from it). The cup may have to travel to and from that person; but, perhaps some good Samaritan will volunteer to accept it as a noble cause. :)

Good luck.

I wish my little wolf was here with me. I miss him so very much.

The smell of him has faded completely now from his furlined raincoat.

He's still there, Dana. Believe me, in your every memory, your every pang of loss and, with time, your every chuckle at all your happy times. Where you are, he is.


Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

I know. I just really miss the smell of him. And being able to kiss his ridiculous brown nose:p

But it might make your new puppy nervous. :cool: