it's a little clearer now

My apologies to my host, I was, indeed trying to post a widget for my trip. And it ended up here, so sorry, so sorry. Which was why I just blinked when Michelle asked me about the novelty theory. Which I don't have a clue about. I mean sure I could go Google it, but why?
Anyway, in 44 days and a few hours, we'll be in the Bahamas. Thanks for the loan, My Belle. And to think, all it took was a few bruises to convince you.
But don't forget to think about that new car, I might need it soon.

Holder & Richard are going to the Bahamas!

Yes, you guessed it............I had to give them all the funds in my savings account for them to stop the abuse this weekend. Apparently all they needed to purchase their air line tickets was $2.47. Can you imagine what I would look like if they needed $100.00? Just a thought! See below for photographic proof.........this picture was not edited.

Abuse of a guest!

Have you ever thought about going to the home of Holder and Richard to enjoy some good fun. Well, if you get these two too intoxicated, something like this may happen to you.

How did this happen, you may ask?

All I can say is that Richard gets rather upset when you kick his tail at football & broom! If you should upset little Richard, get he and his lovely wife a weeee bit intoxicated, and then begin to taunt him/them.....well then, that is when Holder gets involved. Not a pretty site at all. All I remember saying is "Please, for the love of God, put down the shovel...

Hong Kong Harbor....Victoria Harbour

Oh, yes there is a story to accompany this picture. It is a story of love, a story of mystery with a splash of fear and a dose of the Chinese mafia. Yes, the story is all in my imagination, spawned only by fragmented bits of reality, but what a story it is. . .

Time is short this morning, enjoy the beauty of the picture and try to imagine your own story!

Dreaming, dream, dream, dream!

Dear Santa,

I have been reasonably good practically all year!

I would love a built in dishwasher. Installation would be nice as well, I become easily confused. Could whoever installs it please fix the floor under the dishwasher that I have recently discovered is weak from the flood of water that currently comes out of the old dishwasher? Could you try and make certain that whoever installs the dishwasher and fixes the floor has a nice personality?

That is all I really want.

The kids have been good and, with more than a little help from friends & family, will have some really cool stuff under the tree.

Thanks!

Michelle

The little one...

This picture was taken in Hong Kong during our visit. (It is, to date, my favorite from the trip. It may only be my favorite because I have only received a few....
....HINT!!!!! <-------why do I even try that? The man doesn't know how to take a hint! I should give all four of my readers his email and let them pester him for the PROMISED pictures!)

At any rate.....The picture was taken at the entrance to the Ruttonjee Hospital. Only now am I wishing we had had the foresight to also have taken a wide angle picture of the entrance. This is where people went to find help, and I thought that it was just an alley, hidden between the fruit vendor and another market.

I was standing in what I thought was an alley, waiting on JJ to return from a "meat market" photography shoot. As I did for much of the trip, standing there and watching the lives of hundreds or thousands of people, pondering the essence of existence, mine and theirs, wondering what mattered & what did not.

This is one of the things that mattered. I watched as this little princess grabbed an orange from a basket, looked up, at the woman I assume was her mother, with a determination that is almost exclusively reserved for little ones, turned, replaced the orange and then decided upon this, the perfect orange. I fell instantly in love. With the orange or the girl? Perhaps a combination of the two. A princess and her orange!

As I stand there and try not to obviously stare, thinking of the thousands of oranges before, wanting to know the thoughts of this princess, transporting myself back to a time when all that mattered was finding the succulent, sweet and tangy pulp within and savoring it.

"What type of orange is that?" I ask the returning photographic genius. "I don't know." he says and starts to walk away. "No, look at her." and he does, and he sees.

What he sees? I can not say. Perhaps he sees all the oranges of his past or projects all the future oranges in his life? Perhaps he is allowed a glimpse into the quiet determination of my little princess, a reflection of self? Perhaps he too falls instantly in love.

Perhaps we two found help in an alley that was also the entrance to a hospital.

Well?

What is so intoxicating about intoxication?

Another one bites the dust!

This morning, on my way to work, I purchased a pack of cigarettes. There, now you know, and I feel so much better about being open and honest!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NOT.

Sleeping, eating, exercise and Guitar Hero

At this time these are the only activities that I have found that actually accomplish keeping my mind off of the "omnipotent" cigarette.........and that, my friends, is one hell of a sad state of affairs!

I have heard the stories of people smoking one and then putting the rest of the pack in their pocket, and then toting that pack around with them for the next 20 years, if only to remind them of their commitment to stay away. I can guarantee you only one thing....had I kept a pack around, if only to remind me, that sucker would have been destroyed in a tragic fire by now. I'm not talking about the kind of fire that is accidentally started, this fire would have been encouraged and restarted at least twenty different times.

Here is my least favorite questions thus far: "So, Is your house like, spotless, when I quit smoking I scrubbed everything in the house, anything to keep my mind off of smoking?" To which I reply: "Hell no!" Honestly. All I want to do is eat, exercise and play Guitar Hero, nothing else is stopping the monster inside my head.

Ole brother of mine was putting on his shoes early this morning...and I asked: "Are you going out or just to the dump to haul off the trash?" to which he replied with total dead pan: "I would love to just go out, leave for a few hours, but alas, there are two little boys sleeping in the next room, whom I love, and don't want any harm to come to, I must be here to protect them." I smiled, and then asked him to buy me some cigarettes while he was out.......then told him that I would kick his tail if he did.

It is like battling depression and heroine addiction at the same time. It is truly frightening to find out just how addicted to smoking I had become.

Earlier I mentioned the cigarette as being omnipotent, and in the nicotine addiction riddled mind that is Michelle I, at times, believe in these powers. I could handle this ______________ (<---------here you can insert almost any situation, good or bad) a whole lot better if I could smoke just one. I have given the cigarette powers for which it was not designed, or was it?

OK, I tried it cold turkey, and that frightened most people. Went to the store and proudly proclaimed "I need to purchase some patches before I kill someone!" Somehow, that was not all that funny to the store employees, sometimes these lines are just much better in my head......The patch helped the first couple of days, it was kind of like being on speed (from what people have told me, not personal experience), which I thought was helping, now I am not so sure. I think today we are going to go "nicotine free", what really is the point in substituting one for the other, the point here is to be free from that addiction, not to place it in a more socially acceptable, and possibly less deadly, form. The point is to be free, and, honestly, I still want to kill people with the patch on, so why not go for broke?

What is the point to all of this in a post? It is, well, multifaceted, in a way, I am looking to accomplish several things.......Writing is also one of those things that has always, in the past, helped me to enter into a different perspective, a different world of sorts, and that is always a good thing. If I write about some things I am taking away their power to destroy me, or so I believe. Finally, now you know, not that I am a wimp and having a hard time with something that I should have done years ago, but that I am no longer a smoker. Feel free to remind me of this in the future.

I may delete this post...

Testing the water...

How it will all end
It really does not matter
Just want my friend

So, no worries about kicking it any time soon!

You'll die from a Heart Attack during Sex.

Your a lover not a fighter but sadly, in the act of making love your heart will stop. But what a way to go.

'How will you die?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Some days...

It just does not seem worth the effort. Yet, I shall continue to try, possibly fail, and try again, to the end.

Hong Kong was amazing

And I do not have pictures yet....big hint to those readers currently in China! Without the pictures I do not feel like writing about the adventures.

General observations:
Busy
Crowded
Beautiful
Incredibly nice people
Wonderful food
Me - Master of the chop stick
JJ - Master of the foot massage
Fast Drivers
Fun on a bus
Temples and their burning incense
Begin the process of no-smoking
Shopping
Haggling
Most Popular is yummy
Picture menus
Metro
Metro
Pacific Coffee has the best coffee on the planet - puts that other star studded place to shame!
Avenue of the Stars is a must at night
Chin Li Nunnery, Lotus Pond Garden and Nan Lian Garden = peaceful perfection
Largest/longest escalator, wow

Communication

What an elusive thing...

She: Did you find any French books at that store?

He: No, all they had was Chinese books in French.

She: Isn't that what you were looking for?

He: No, I wanted to get some novels in French.

She: You mean French novels?

He: No, I don't care what language they were in originally, translated into French would be fine.

She: So, you didn't like any of the novels they had?

He: I just told you...They didn't have any novels. Just books on how to learn Chinese, written in French.

She: Hhhhmmmmmm...

So, which is it?
a) Linguistic
b) Cultural
c) Sexual (as in different sexes)
d) Astrological (as in different "signs")

Words

There just are not any today, or yesterday, just a blank, posted the dribble of an entirely boring event yesterday, considered the same for today with little luck or true desire. There are some points in life where reflection is best done with pen and paper, now, I believe, may be one of those times. The reassurance of seeing the insanity or, for that matter, clarity, smoothly written in ink allows for a certain amount of reflection that is not easily obtained via any other avenue. Where is this all leading? Time well spent in quiet reflection, a sorting out of the images, impressions, thoughts, feelings, interpretations, losses, gains and current position within the universe without fear, within self. Finding the differences of perception and reality, and boldly stepping into those differences, that different world, that we all face each day a new, that will be the goal of the day, has to be, else face reality from a skewed position.

Monday Morning Blues

After arriving home yesterday morning here is a list of things that I did:

Scowl at ol brother of mine for keeping a messy house.....I had actually anticipated it looking a lot more "manly" and was pleasantly surprised to see only a few dishes in the sink, clothes (clean) on the kitchen table, shelves in need of dusting and floors in need of attention. Not bad at all, really, but I still had to give him the scowl, least he think I had changed totally over the past 12 days!

Begin the cleaning process with ole brother of mine.

Pick up the munchkins. They were full of questions about Hong Kong & our adventures. What kind of food did you eat? Did you buy us all kinds of cheap electronics? Where was the hotel? I don't know what else they asked me in the car...........as I was beginning to see double of everything on the road, having only little naps over the past 30 hours or so in transit, and wanting a cigarette badly.

Arrive back at home & passing out gifts (which they all loved - finally got it right) to begin the march of the drill sergeant: You clean that bathroom, you sweep the front porch, you fix the electric fence, you sweep & mop, you get out the vacuum............so most of this was done in an hour or so, helps to have so many of them at times.

Then off to a late lunch/early dinner............and where do they choose to dine? Only one real choice Hong Kong, this is a local buffet restaurant with some really nice eats among the rather boring. The daughter wanted me to show her my new talent with the chop sticks, challenged me to eat jello which I accomplished with great flare.

Stop at Home Depot to pick up a new electric fence thingie.

Back home so that they could fight over the computers................lay down on couch for just a second................MOM, wake up, we are going to be late!

Take the eldest to their fathers, return home to help the youngest finish up with the fence, OK, so I just stood there and watched him for a few minutes, making a suggestion or two.

Unpack & do some laundry, I can't stand too much clutter, my house is way too small.

At about 7:30 I found myself on the couch again with the youngest........dozing off. To bed for me.

Now I am ready to return to work..................I can only imagine what awaits me there, as I am not allowed to scowl at the boss for the mess he leaves while I am gone.

I hope to have the pictures from JJ in the next few days and then I will begin to tell you all about our many little adventures.

SMOKING UPDATE: The neighbor boy just called to ask for a cigarette....I gave him the pack that I purchased at the airport in Korea & informed him that his supply from me was officially over.

Home

And tired & have a million things to do................................more later!

Introduction . . .

JJ & Michelle would like to introduce you to the newest addition to the family:

Honk Kong Dou Dou was adopted/purchased on December 1, 2007 for the price of $30.00 HK. He will have many great adventures that I hope to share with you.

Hong Kong Dou Dou

That is the name of our new friend that I will give you pictures of later....today possibly. I have jet laggggggggg & Hong Kong is beautiful, totally packed with people, and some really good food, like I needed that!

Well, it is time for breakfast. Pictures & much much more.....later.

Food stuff

No word from Michelle yet, she's probably still gets her shirts laundered, so to speak. But I have her son, and he reminds of several things:

1. Some children do appreciate your efforts to feed them, not just bitch about it.
2. Boys talk just as much, if not more than, girls.
3. 3 is not a crowd, these kids are having a blast together.


Now, Michelle tells me she is going to try exotic food stuffs whilst over in the land of lights, or whatever it's called. Maybe even Donkey. Hmmm, what is the strangest thing you've ever eaten? I used to eat tripe stew alot, cow stomach for those not in the know. I wonder if the inside of our stomach looks like that? Stuffed grape leaves were a fave of mine....