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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 11, 2020 5:49:15 GMT
What a magical mini-movie, Questa!
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Post by questa on Jan 11, 2020 12:53:55 GMT
My time in Indonesia was like that...hundreds of mini-movies.I actually told my friends back home that it was like "living in a postcard".Every now and then I miss my life there but it has all changed now. Even the lovely distant volcano erupted and is now different.
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Post by kerouac2 on Feb 7, 2020 11:47:34 GMT
I can only get consolation from material things since nobody loves me.
So I was happy when Deutsche Bahn finally informed me that they are going to cough up 34.95€ as compensation for my disrupted return from Berlin on December 19th.
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Post by whatagain on Feb 7, 2020 14:36:31 GMT
We all love you here.
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Post by Kimby on Feb 7, 2020 14:44:51 GMT
My (sole-surviving) sister will be popping in for brunch on Sunday in Florida!
On Wednesday we two survivors will be flying separately from Montana and Wisconsin to Arizona for what was supposed to be a visit with our youngest sister and her husband.
As the widower is too broken up for company, we are making it a short sister-retreat with an even shorter visit with our brother-in-law.
He wants to cook a meal for us, as he’s missing cooking for his wife. I hope that our presence isn’t too upsetting for him, as we 3 resemble each other in many ways.
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Post by kerouac2 on Feb 7, 2020 15:44:02 GMT
I think that your brother-in-law will benefit from your visit, Kimby. You'll have so many things to talk about, and maybe even spill some things that were secrets. With a little luck, you will all be able to laugh rather than cry.
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Post by Kimby on Feb 7, 2020 18:23:06 GMT
Laughing is a given, in our family. We are especially good at irreverent humor. When one of Ricky’s colleagues texted me of how often Ricky spoke lovingly of her sisters and how envious that made the colleague, I shot back “We have a vacancy...”
Fortunately this colleague loved it, appreciating that my humor and Ricky’s are very similar.
I will need to keep it in check around the BIL, who is very fragile, though hopefully less suicidal than he was immediately following her death.
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Post by mickthecactus on Feb 7, 2020 21:50:59 GMT
Humour is vital even black humour.
Well done you.
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Post by whatagain on Feb 8, 2020 15:10:30 GMT
Life doesn't take us seriously so why should we not laugh at it ?
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Post by Kimby on Feb 8, 2020 16:16:21 GMT
More black humor. When the Kobe Bryant helicopter went down my response was “Well, that will knock Ricky out of the headlines...”
...which of course her death wasn’t in them. Except in library journals. My sister was a pioneer of sorts in the transition of libraries, collections & archives from paper to digital.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 8, 2020 22:20:00 GMT
I guess it's there every day in your own personal headlines, though.
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Post by lagatta on Feb 9, 2020 1:51:31 GMT
The VERY black comedy "The Death of Stalin" became a huge underground hit in Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union. Even among families who lost loved ones to the dictatorship. There were always jokes, sometimes very vulgar ones, about dictators, although the penalty could be death.
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Post by Kimby on Feb 9, 2020 10:37:29 GMT
Loved the Death of Stalin!
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 12, 2020 4:46:50 GMT
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Post by whatagain on Feb 13, 2020 6:02:48 GMT
I was in the fast train from airport to city centre of Vienna yesterday. This controller came and seeing me engrossed in my book started to discuss and say that books are great. Very smiling guy. Buch is Abentauer im Kopf or something close that I could follow with my mangled German. Then upon arrival the guy takes the micro and tells us we have arrived, to be sure to take all our belongings with us : suitcases wife husband children raccoons snakes etc. Fun. Nice. The guy gave me a smile for at least 5 min.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 13, 2020 15:25:56 GMT
Lovely, Whatagain. It's great when people not only make their jobs more enjoyable, but share their cheerful outlook with others.
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Post by rikita on Feb 16, 2020 16:07:40 GMT
So I was happy when Deutsche Bahn finally informed me that they are going to cough up 34.95€ as compensation for my disrupted return from Berlin on December 19th. did you also have to fill out that annoying document, though? i keep postponing it. supposedly from next year it will be possible to ask for the compensation online ... hope that will happen, i don't like filling out paper documents ...
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Post by kerouac2 on Feb 16, 2020 16:34:51 GMT
I filled it out on line but I had to print and sign it and then I mailed it to them. But then they wrote to get further details, and I had to write back, so it cost me two international stamps, which have now risen to the outrageous price of 1.40 since the post offices are going out of business.
The letter carriers now have to visit the elderly, deliver meals and medicines, bring cash and do all sorts of other things since there are so few envelopes to deliver.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 26, 2020 17:34:12 GMT
A couple of days ago I located a friend who I knew as a child. Her family lived down the street from ours when we lived in Madrid and the ages of three of those kids coincided with that of me and my brother, so we all played together all the time.
I knew the patrimonial part of the family name, but couldn't remember the rest. Since my friend was known by a nickname, I tried looking her up under her real name, with no luck. Trying again with the nickname, facebook gave me one choice with a mini-profile picture showing a very attractive blonde woman. Really, it did look like her, but so much time has passed. I clicked on that person and nearly fell over. Her big profile picture was of her whole family taken right around the time that I knew them, so that it catapulted me back sixty years. (We left Spain in 1959.)
Anyway, I sent off a Friend request which a day later was accepted. I then wrote a message briefly bringing her up to speed on me & my family. This morning I got the most beautiful, long letter from her which included a recent photo of her & her sisters. Really, I'm misting up again just writing about it. It was so gratifying to learn that she too had carried the memories of our childhood friendship for so many years.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Feb 26, 2020 17:48:12 GMT
Oh that's so lovely. I'm glad for you Bixa. Hope that you will have a spiffing time catching up I lost touch with my bestie Pat (Myrt) in the early 80s when we moved to Leicester and she moved to Norfolk. She had a very difficult time around then and we completely stopped communicating. Then when youngest left home and hubby had a yen to enter the computer age we bought our first computer and set it up in the bedroom vacated by the son. The first thing I did (after being shown how to use it) was join friends reunited...found my school, my year and there she was...in her profile she had typed "LIZZIE! WHERE ARE YOU?!" So glad I found her again, she's blooming marvellous
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 26, 2020 17:58:23 GMT
Thanks, dear Cheery!
I hope one day Pat/Myrt will have the time & inclination to post on anyport again. She's just the loveliest person and so interesting.
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Post by questa on Feb 27, 2020 0:17:10 GMT
My best friend and I met when we started nursing together. Our surnames both started with W so we were rotated through the training modules together. Same sense of crazy humour but always in a drama could work together like reading each other's mind. Graduated, she married and went off to be a missionary. I went off to travel and nurse. Lost touch as you do
Skip 34 years. I am sitting in my little restaurant in Bali when 2 aussie lads came in for lunch. One had cut his foot. He asked where I had trained...turned out my BF was his aunt. We exchanged letters and still do, with me playing Devil's Advocate to her cheerful resistance.
We meet up annually (1000 km away) This May I am sharing a small cabin with her on a cruise.
Roll back the years...
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Post by lagatta on Feb 27, 2020 2:41:57 GMT
Such splendid stories!
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 27, 2020 3:18:15 GMT
Aren't they?! I think Questa's story wins simply because of the amazing "what are the odds?!" aspect of it. But I absolutely adore that Cheery found "Lizzie Where are You?" on her friend's profile. Both are deeply gratifying in the wonderful happy ever afters.
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Post by questa on Feb 27, 2020 5:28:51 GMT
We have a small population that moves around a lot. We also have a fairly class-free city where a bus driver goes to the opera and a racing driver turns out to be a girl. You have heard of the 6 degrees of separation? In Adelaide it is regarded as 4 degrees of separation.
That is what my best friend's boss heard when he played golf with the Lady Mayoress last week.
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Post by whatagain on Feb 27, 2020 9:14:40 GMT
I absolutely love this thread.
And because of it i sent a sms to friends i dont see often.
I just wrote 'i am missing you. We must meet'.
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Post by mich64 on Feb 27, 2020 17:28:48 GMT
It makes me so happy to hear when friends reconnect after searching for one another!
I recently received a friend request from one of my favourite co-workers. We worked together 35 years ago until she moved away for her dream job as a flight attendant. We might be able to see each other this summer and I can not wait to talk to her about her life since and all of her travel experiences!
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 27, 2020 17:54:24 GMT
Whatagain ~ Mich, that is exciting! I imagine you'll be able to hold your own in travel talk, since you've taken some awfully interesting trips. I'd be curious to know how much actual traveling in terms of seeing places that flight attendant get to do. I imagine they get good deals for flying, but if you're in the air all the time, do you want to fly to a vacation?
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Post by mich64 on Feb 27, 2020 18:31:41 GMT
Yes, I am eager to ask her about that as well. The young man that I know that is now a pilot has not had the time yet to take advantage of his discounts either than quick trips to Toronto but his mom has used her family discount twice so far. I imagine they get good deals for flying, but if you're in the air all the time, do you want to fly to a vacation?
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Post by kerouac2 on Feb 27, 2020 18:34:42 GMT
Just say the magic words "zed fares" and we airline people start babbling.
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