I am so very sorry about your grandmother, Dana.

This is cool - Winston Churchill worked to rescue thousands of war horses post WWI. He was Secretary of War and was enraged by the condition the horses were left in.

really? on Christmas Eve he finally dies

I'm pretty sure this was a true story and I actually feel awful even saying my thoughts out loud. I do think it is interesting that people die more around the holidays.

ION, I am 9 months pregnant and tired. A lot. My kids, however, are not tired or pregnant and are really sick of just hanging around the house. I've been looking for activities that keep them busy and happy but don't require much from me. It's sort of hard. There is a mall with a great indoor playground in Denver and I might be desperate enough to drive up there but not until tomorrow.

He didn't come to my house--I went to his. Where we met by the side of his apparent car, with the window broken and glass all around. If he is the thief, he now knows the laptop isn't immediately useful, as well as the bit about telling me the dumping is on camera makes absolutely no sense.

Yeah, I'm pretty cavalier about my personal safety, but nothing about him sounded like he was angling for more access to my property.

Well, my brother lost that battle sooner than I thought: his household now has a new cat. Backstory is that they had to put their (really, PJ's) cat to sleep a month or two ago. It was really hard for PJ and the boys. For a long time, no one really wanted to get another cat, but in the weeks before Xmas, the boys started asking for one. And then PJ's grandfather died and she really missed having a cat to cry on (my brother purring and doing catlike rubs against her and drawing a cat on his hand amazingly was not the same.)

My brother was adamantly against it (which is really funny, because all of their cats have been his fault) but I knew it was inevitable, whether he was convinced by the time it happened or not.

SIL just put a picture of a cat on their couch on fb, titled "Newest family member."

Hah.

Ha!

Dana, my sympathies, and wishing comfort and strength to you.

I have a suspicious, paranoid-leaning nature. I've worked hard to get away from it, to the point that I now *choose* to not believe the worst of anyone or a situation till I have some confirmation. I'm also the most gullible person alive, and so I've built a wall of skepticism against gullibility. Prove it and I'll believe it. I can't imagine allowing myself to continue through life as paranoid and gullible as I started out--I wouldn't be able to function. So I've no doubt I get ripped off when I could avoid it. But it's a decision.

2012 is a very pleasant place--so far.

My grandparents died within six months of each other -- my grandfather as much of a broken heart as anything I guess. It was damn tough on my mother and aunt, so Dana and her family have my sincerest sympathies.

I have a suspicious, paranoid-leaning nature. I've worked hard to get away from it, to the point that I now *choose* to not believe the worst of anyone or a situation till I have some confirmation. I'm also the most gullible person alive, and so I've built a wall of skepticism against gullibility.

My friend Alison is like this. When she and her husband came to visit SF we were walking around North Beach and were standing outside some house admiring the architecture. And the owners came home and invited us in to check the view from the rooftop deck, and we were all like, "Cool! Let's see San Francisco from the top of this hill!" and Alison was shooting us glances indicating that these guys must be serial killers and were obviously going to kill us. She even made sure to take pictures of them when she was on the roof so that when the police found her dead body there would be evidence. OTOH, she was too polite to not to go up to the roof of the very nice people who were simply house-proud and not murderous in the least.

But I always loved that she took pictures of the Not-Murderers as evidence to be found with her corpse.

But I always loved that she took pictures of the Not-Murderers as evidence to be found with her corpse.

Were these sneakily taken pictures with a spy camera that they wouldn't find when they rifled her dead body for valuables? Because, as someone who more often than not does go into the stranger's house--that's a really dumb plan.