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Post by kerouac2 on Oct 26, 2019 13:40:53 GMT
It sounds like you were actually allergic to nicotine touching your skin, Questa. (Your lungs have that protective coat of tar on them.)
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Oct 26, 2019 14:01:26 GMT
I don't miss smoking most of the time. Occasionally I have an irrational urge to go buy a packet...but thankfully my inherant laziness prevents me from dragging myself to the local shop.
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Post by fumobici on Oct 26, 2019 15:00:37 GMT
Cigarette prices are astronomical here.A packet of 40 JPS (John Players) costs $AUD 50. and goes up twice a year. Do people grow their own tobacco? Is it allowed, or is it treated like growing illicit cannabis? At those prices, it could be quite lucrative to supply a black market, even using hidden indoor grow spaces, that would be impossible to ever eliminate. If Aus weren't such a geograpically isolated island, such taxation wouldn't even be remotely possible to effectively enforce.
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Post by fumobici on Oct 26, 2019 15:07:27 GMT
Ah, one of the famous sex strikes... Those make me laugh. Never going to work, because I don't think there's really much difference between men's and women's sex drives in general. But women are definitely massively smarter about leveraging those of the men by maintaining the myth that its men that really want the sex.
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Post by fumobici on Oct 26, 2019 15:10:05 GMT
I'm annoyed because I just spent almost a month in Italy and couldn't even make a few days to be a tourist due to other stuff involving Italian bureaucracy.
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Post by htmb on Oct 26, 2019 15:49:35 GMT
Fumobici, I only had a tiny little taste of Italian bureaucracy (or, maybe it was free enterprise) this trip, but it seems to be a big surprise when things actually go right. I had to send a letter from Florence to Tampa. It was supposed to arrive within two days, but none of the obvious services said it could be done. My hotel contacted someone who said they could arrange it, though the hotel staff had their doubts. The courier showed up: no uniform, no scanner, no official vehicle. Seemed like just a random guy off the street. He had a pad with a duplicate form to be filled out. I figured I was setting myself up for a petty personal trauma, but had no other options.
The letter which, amazingly enough, I could track online, went Florence, Livorno, Brussels, Madrid, Miami, Tampa. It made it within the time allowed. I could have bet it would never be seen again.
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Post by whatagain on Oct 26, 2019 20:59:47 GMT
Hihi. I get her same feeling when I get my keys at Milan malpensa. Going there on 13 then again on 27. I love Italy. But I think bureaucracy is well described by Donna leon in her books. And the women are very well dressed and men have beautiful shoes. And the wine. Ok enough said. I love Italy.
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Post by lagatta on Oct 26, 2019 22:00:48 GMT
The men are at least as well-dressed as the women. Though I remember despairing at the ugly puffer jackets that caught on there some time ago. Obviously we have to wear hideous outerwear when it is -20 (imagine Winnipeg - Winterpeg - where -40 is common!) But except atop high mountains, it never gets that cold in Italy. It gets damp and chill, but good woollens take care of that
I'm going through odd feelings. My slightly older brother died suddenly. Now, before you haul out the hankies and expressions of deep sorrow, my brother was very violent and beat the bejesus out of me, one pushing me down a flight of stairs (he was much taller and larger than I was, or am). He also destroyed my schoolwork, paintings and poetry. I left home as soon as possible. My mother, widowed, simply could not deal with him and was afraid of him. I saw him as infrequently as possible, the last time being my mother's funeral some years ago.
I feel an odd mix of relief and emptiness; I loathed him but this means I have no nuclear family left. My cousin in Gatineau, the Québec town across the river from Ottawa, phoned me to convey the news.
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Post by Kimby on Oct 26, 2019 23:03:09 GMT
As we age our circle of family and friends grows smaller. Except for those with children who make more children, and those who are gregarious and make new friends easily all through their lives. I am neither of those, so my world is populated with fewer people every year that passes.
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Post by mich64 on Oct 27, 2019 0:44:11 GMT
I am sorry for your feelings of emptiness Lagatta and for how your brother treated you. Did you have other siblings?
I have 3 sisters and a brother, I am close to them all. Military children, we grew up relying on each other, we still do.
My mom has been dreading her sisters illness, COPD and she is not doing very well recently. My mom has 5 other half siblings but has never met them (her choice) but feels if her sister passes she will have lost her family even though she has 5 children, 11 grandchildren and 7 great grandchildren. Even people who have many that surround them, they can still feel, or be scared of loneliness.
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Post by lagatta on Oct 27, 2019 0:55:16 GMT
No other siblings but close to some of my cousins. Yes, military families are in a particular situation as they have to move around according to orders. I do have cousins in families of 12 and 14 children, in more rural areas of Québec and Eastern Ontario. But those who had children in turn have had far smaller families.
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Post by kerouac2 on Oct 27, 2019 5:05:36 GMT
I am not close to my brother and have no first cousins, each parent being an only child. If my brother dies (he is older than me), it will just feel like the end of a chapter. I have not seen either of my nephews for years, so none of us miss each other, and their California lives do not compute in my mind. I'm sure they feel the same about me.
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Post by kerouac2 on Oct 27, 2019 8:59:50 GMT
I have found over the years that I am eating less and less beef. I'm not sure why, because years ago I could not afford it as much and yet I bought it anyway. It just seemed to be the thing to do in a normal lifestyle. And of course it tastes good, at least to us beefeaters. Years later I moved on to poultry and there was a period when I could have eaten chicken for every meal even though it would have to be prepared in different ways. I am now more and more in a fish phase. About 50% of my meals are based on fish. Then again, I do eat vegetarian meals more and more often, sometimes without thinking about it and sometime with a conscious desire to do so. Probably all of us are evolving over time and I doubt that it is a trauma except in the families where there is nutritional conflict. (That would be just about every family of more than three members.)
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Post by bjd on Oct 27, 2019 9:28:54 GMT
I have noticed too that I/we eat less read meat than before, often going for several weeks without having any. One of my sons who thought it wasn't a proper meal with no meat when he was a kid now eats very little. To the extent that the pediatrician told him he should be giving more red meat to his little boy -- because of the protein, I suppose.
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Post by lagatta on Oct 27, 2019 12:25:58 GMT
Yes, and the sausage I ate recently was a small one; in times past people would have eaten two or three of them, provided they had the means (money and availability, as opposed to relative poverty and rationing). I do think this is a social change, and will probably modify average diets without the supposed wars between red-meat faithful and militant vegans. I love fish, but sometimes it's expensive. I have no problem eating frozen fish.
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Post by mickthecactus on Oct 27, 2019 13:07:41 GMT
You must have strong teeth.
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Post by kerouac2 on Oct 27, 2019 14:09:56 GMT
I actually knew someone who ate frozen fingers straight from the freezer. Ah, university days...
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Post by lagatta on Oct 27, 2019 16:49:50 GMT
Fish, or human?
No, my teef are very soft and I have to be careful what I eat. I don't mean "soft food", but things such as some hard nuts.
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Post by kerouac2 on Oct 27, 2019 17:07:49 GMT
Oops, what happened to the word 'fish' in my post?
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Oct 27, 2019 17:11:25 GMT
We rarely eat beef..I did stop buying it altogether but my beloved missed his roast beef dinners and fillet steak specials so I now buy it occasionally as a treat. We eat a lot of poultry and vegetarian food. I'm not a fish fan and have a shellfish allergy...
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Post by whatagain on Oct 27, 2019 17:45:24 GMT
Something Yeump will never have. A selfish allergy.
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Post by onlyMark on Oct 27, 2019 18:30:48 GMT
Less than one in ten of my meals will involve meat, even though where I am is some of the best beef you can find, and at a reasonable price. My problem is that I will very easily gag if the meat is too chewy. As for eating the fat, the same thing happens. If we eat fish it's when we go out for a meal, if we eat beef, it's fillet and I cook it at home. Chicken hardly ever puts in an appearance. I'll eat cheese until the cows come home and probably half a dozen eggs or more each week.
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Post by mickthecactus on Oct 27, 2019 18:58:34 GMT
You’re all beginning to sound a bit superior for not eating meat.
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Post by kerouac2 on Oct 27, 2019 19:10:19 GMT
I still love meat, and in terms of beef and pork, the more fat the better. If I am dining with a person who trims off all the fat, I will not hesitate to ask them for it.
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Post by onlyMark on Oct 27, 2019 19:36:54 GMT
"Jack Sprat could eat no fat. His wife could eat no lean. But, together both, They licked the platter clean."
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Post by lagatta on Oct 28, 2019 2:14:23 GMT
Odd how families revive when there is a new death, even if they have no relations or very poor ones. Another cousin phoned me. I'm fairly close to the one in Gatineau (Québec town opposite Ottawa) but this one, part of the segment that somehow made their way to California; I haven't seen her in years and she is religious, also drives a huge SUV. (any of you in remote areas who drive one are forgiven; she lives in a suburb). I suspect that people in most countries in the world have a relative in California.
Obviously I wouldn't tell her how much I detested that violent brother. I feel nothing, not even relief as I don't see death as a punishment; we all die. And I'm certainly not happy about it; at one point I was afraid he would come after me but certainly no more. I'm not at all obsessive of such matters.
On a related subject, an aunt of mine is now 103. She's a miserable cuss who is only interested in making money and didn't help my uncle out when he was falsely accused of a crime (he was found innocent later on, after a short stay in the slamer), but it is pleasant to have good genes in the line.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Oct 28, 2019 15:10:10 GMT
Not superior Mick...I think that we have all listened to the advice we've been given to cut down our red meat consumption for health as well as environmental reasons
Diwali celebrations last night...fireworks going off from around 1730 to 0300. Dog barked entire time. We are SO looking forward to the next 2 weeks....not.
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Post by lagatta on Oct 28, 2019 17:43:33 GMT
Fortunately the nearby South Asian population is safely across a railway viaduct, in the neighbourhood just west of mine. So if I want to go see parades I can, but we won't be disturbed by a lot of noise.
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Post by kerouac2 on Oct 29, 2019 14:09:27 GMT
My kitchen is being ravaged by the two guys replacing my water heater. It sounds like they are drilling through to the next flat.
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Post by whatagain on Oct 29, 2019 17:20:27 GMT
I bought a new chainsaw. My wife is bandaging my left hand. Sometimes she thinks I am hopeless. So tomorrow I'll buy new good leather gloves.
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