birthday books

Upon the occasion of his 11th birthday, we gave our older nephew THE SWORD OF SHANNARA, A PRINCESS OF MARS and the Complete Novels of Sherlock Holmes. He opened the Shannara book and looked at it with great dubiousness, proclaiming, “I’ve never heard of Terry Brooks.” “This time last year, you hadn’t heard of David Eddings, whom you now love,” I said. “Oh yeah,” he said thoughtfully. “How did I find out about David Eddings?” “Aunt Catie gave you the books,” my sister Deirdre said dryly, and he c said,…

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things

Husband: Your paycheck cleared. Please don’t run off to Tahiti. Me: It’s a magical place. * The other day a new friend came over and saw a portrait I’d done that’s framed and on the wall. She stared at it and said, “Who–who is that?” “Peter Wingfield,” I said, expecting to have to then explain that. “OH MY GOD,” she said, “I THOUGHT it was Peter Wingfield but that just seemed TOO UNLIKELY!” Clearly a good choice of friends. :) * I thought I had other funny stuff to post…

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The Bin Saga

Months ago we changed rubbish removal services and I asked the old company to take away their bins, which they were supposed to do within 10-15 working days. After two months of me reminding them, I sent a bill. Then I started sending a daily reminder. Monday: I’m disappointed to report the bins are still here. I got a cut and pasted standard “We apologise for the delay, I’ll send an urgent request” response to that. Now, I’d intended to just keep sending that again and again until they came…

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I love my parents.

My mother has just gotten a “Your Windows program isn’t working,” phone call. She likes to keep them on the line, apparently, so her half of the conversation is going like this: “Hello?” “Who is this?” “Oh *really*?” “My computer is already on!” “Oh no! What are you going to do about it?” “Are you sure? That’s astonishing, because I don’t use Windows. I use Ubuntu.” “It’s a different operating system. See, the thing is, Windows really *sucks*, so I don’t use it.” (Long pause, she reports in a whisper.)…

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Charity!

My husband is participating in a charity fundraising drive his work is doing. For every €250 he personally raises, he will have one quarter of his legs waxed. €1000 gets the, er, Full Monty, as it were. Go forth, participate in his, um. Nobility! Yes, his nobility. :) Please put “Go Ted go!” in the comments when you donate, so he can keep track of just how much he brings in, as several people are participating and a note is the only way he’ll know if his personal goal of…

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