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Sick & Tired

It’s the unpredictability that gets to me. Which, given that I’ve lived with not knowing how I’m going to feel the next day for over 40 years, seems a fair indication that I just can’t be taught. To be fair, I know how to live with a certain amount of unpredictability – the daily kind,…

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‘Salem’s Lot

Between Peter and I, there seems to be a cross-Atlantic trend towards reviews in the middle. Which doesn’t mean that we don’t finish the books, just that… Well, I’m not sure what it means. On my part, certainly a lack of patience appears to be the case. And a compulsive need to talk about a…

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The Bogeyman

When I was little, we lived in a tiny, one-story rowhouse. The living and dining room was a long rectangle that ran the length of the house and my room was down by the dining area. We didn’t get a TV until I was about seven – one of my earliest memories is watching Neil…

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50

All families have their myths of creation and building, myths that are retold, over and over again. All families have shorthand expressions, part of the fabric that binds them together. Expressions that, for the initiated, tell everything in a few words, but leaves everyone else baffled. For me, these three words sum up the perfect…

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Imperial Life

Kurt Vonnegut died this week and despite not knowing him personally and not having read any of his works for a decade and a half, I feel oddly bereft. It was good to know he was out there and now, he isn’t. I bought his last book, A Man Without a Country a few years…

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That Old Double Standard

Can we talk about Heather Mills? The – what do you call it? – estranged wife of Paul McCartney is currently dancing her arse off on Dancing with the Stars and many people on both sides of the Atlantic have decided opinions about her. Most of which appear to be negative, along the lines of…

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What Would Your Mother Say?

I’m big on etiquette. I realize this makes me sound as if I am an aging retainer to the Queen, but I grew up in a country where children are raised in such a way that should they at some point in their life be invited to have dinner with royalty, they can without embarrassing…

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Tri-Birthday/Tink Fest

We did the family Spring Babies festivities this weekend, celebration 3 birthday people: Ken, Janne and mor. The Tinks came, too. I’d planned to have the kidlings do the draw for Lynn’s Gift That Keeps On Giving, but… erm… well. The children were so cute and did so many new things I hadn’t seen before,…

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My Sister’s Keeper

For the past week, I have been completely lost in My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult. The book has been in my library for a couple of years – I remember hearing good things about it at the time, but the subject matter intimidated me. However, when I finished a book last week and was…

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Fluffy

It’s been a bit of a week. Between being very determined not to think for a while while waiting for the Humira to start working, having trouble reactivating the brain – DST is so kicking my arse – the wheelchair doing that interesting thing again with the spinning around in the middle of the sidewalk…

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The Power of One

A long time ago, I put Ken in charge of my opinions. For a while, I found it incredibly amusing to whenever someone asked me a question, look at him and say “what do I think about that?”. Yes, yes, I can see all of you rolling around on the floor laughing right now –…

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Wake Me Later

Daylight Savings Time started yesterday, three weeks earlier than normal and I don’t like it. Aside from the fact that if you do something twice, it’s tradition and you don’t fuck with tradition, I have a spring ritual. The year goes something like that’s: after the festivities of Christmas, you slog yourself through a cold,…

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