Say: I'm so sorry. Or give a hug. Or write a card.

Blech! We had them in a garage, under a compost can. When we moved the can they went squirming everywhere! It was so horrible!! We had to get rid of them fast, and the only way was to squish them!! Ugh!!! I would not have believed there could be so many and that they would move so fast...

I have seen maggot squirm fast and they are horrible. But, I don't think they go squirming around unless they have been disturbed. Could that be right?

I was praying too and I am so sorry.

I can see how not staying, after a certain point, could be the best thing. With my kids, even when they were younger than seven, sometimes being on their own was more calming. Sometimes me being there was actually feeding into the problem and stirring it up. Jmho

Well... I try to hide from them that I think they are the most 1% top geniuses of the world, plus best looking and kindest and most sensitive... I'm afraid they would get conceited. ;)

I got three opinions from jewelry stores that advertise that they buy, but I was not happy with the amounts they offered, so I tried a high-end jewelry store that does consignment. That worked much better, as I eventually received two-four times as much, plus I was dealing with someone I knew was reputable in the community.

Was this story a BBC series years ago?

"Summer Jobs for the Environment" canvassing door to door for a political action committee, getting people to donate $35 to become a member. They gave us teens a "patter" speech and bussed us out to neighborhoods. But we did not know enough to answer any questions, and the victims did not know that we got a large cut of their money. They just signed up because of our nice innocent young faces. It was so hypocritical. It was awful. I lasted 4 days.

It was a horrible used Audi. It had been in a crash and rebuilt, but we were too naive to know it. it was on its last legs anyway. It was sold to us by an Italian Communist from Russia, of all people! After it bit the dust on the highway, and was a total loss, the guy who sold it tried to get us to hire him to repaint it. When we wouldn't, he got his elderly Mom to call and scream at us. Good times!

I finished The Brendan Voyage, which someone here recommended- it's about making the voyage described in St Brendan's Navigatio, in the 1970s, using only medieval boats & sailing technology, to see whether it could be true that Irish monks reached America. Very, very interesting! Reading children's version of St Brendan with my kids. Just began Why Homer Matters by Adam Nicholson- by coincidence he begins by talking about sailing in a wooden boat in the same seas! I am not well enough acquainted with Homer to know whether I agree with Nicholson's opinions or not- I've read the Iliad, but it did not really speak to me... I have put the Odyssey on reserve. Maybe it was the translation I used. Still pondering on TS Eliot's poetry...

When I was college-age, my friend's mom was able to bargain "two for the price of one" for her two sons at Harvard. Just recently, a friend was able to appeal her daughter's aid package twice until they brought it down to what her family could pay. Has anyone here done this? Does it often work?

First back up a generation... When my Dad went to college his Mom embarrassed him in front of his new roommates by going shopping for him and festooning the windows with curtains, and decorating everything, etc. So Dad swore he would never do that to his kids. So, they drove me there, put my suitcase in the room, and left. I was absolutely terrified and had no idea what to do. That evening while all the other kids seemed to be running around campus having a great time getting to know each other, I stayed in my room. So... I swore never to do that to my kids!! Somehow there has to be a happy medium.

Yes! This was years ago. I had to get a ball gown. It was olive green satin with a shawl drapy kind of huge scarf. I got my hair done in an updo at a salon. The wedding reception was super fancy. At each place was a golden 'show plate'- just for show-- they took it away before they brought the plates with food! There were enormous flower arrangements, like 3 feet across, on each table, standing on thin sticks so they looked like they were floating. My aunt said to me "you clean up good!" Hmmm.... Not sure that's a compliment to be proud of! But I am not sure how they indicated that it was 'ball gown" fancy instead of "dress up" fancy. I can't remember, sorry...

It was an ambitious movie, with an interesting idea, and the look of the movie was beautiful. The message was fine. The sadness was very moving. But I came home feeling sad and a little down and anxious. No, I don't think it would be good for a four-year-old. Imo.

Not a license plate, but I saw this and have to share: it was a bumper sticker that says: Don't blame me I voted for PUTIN (What???)

((Hugs))

Litt-ull Niss-a

Trying to articulate this clearly... I feel that I as a Northerner don't really have any right to tell Southerners whether to fly the Confederate flag or not. It's their decision.

As part of my exploration of plays-within-plays and plays which refer to other plays, I read Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. I was surprised how much it reminded me of Waiting for Godot. It was very clever, but I think I will need to see it staged before I can come to a complete understanding of it. As for It's Me Margaret, I skipped through it as a teen/preteen, but more because it was supposed to be some kind of forbidden fruit, than because I liked it. Not much in her experience spoke to me. I think the author's aim was to show kids that there were other people who struggled with difficult issues and growing up issues at that age. As for me, I did not have the same worries she had, and it had the odd effect of causing me anxiety, instead of calming it. ETA and now as a parent, as I think about it, I can not imagine leaving a daughter in a place of such confusion and sadness all on her own.

To me, it would really depend on the local studio. I would want to talk with the instructor and observe some classes before I made a decision. Likely it would turn out to be fine.

Julie, I am reading a volume called Behind a Mask- the Unknown Thrillers of LMA. It is 4 novellas. But there must be lot of other books out there- she was very prolific.

I've put a hold on The Brendan Voyage, thank you Kareni! I also put a hold on a book called Latin for Bird Lovers! I heard the author interviewed on How to do Everything and I thought, I will enjoy reading this person. Still reading Alcott's thrillers. Finding them quite engaging and fun, but wishing she could have combined her two genres into one spectacular one.

Still working on TS Eliot's poetry: looking up allusions in The Waste Land and also moving on to other poems. Speaking of thrillers, I've been reading Louisa May Alcott's bio and some of her thriler-type fiction. I read "Pauline's Passion and Punishment" and now I'm reading "The Mysterious Key." Very interesting to compare with her Little Women-type literature, which I am concurrently reading aloud to DD and DS! These other stories of hers do seem to be the kind of stuff that Jo March would write. There is a part in LW where Jo seems to be ashamed of it, but the biography I've read shows no sign of that at all. Interesting. The stories are thrilling and exciting, but there is an odd kind of innocence, as if the author had never experienced any of these shocking events she describes, as if it were a teenage girl's fantasy, not the writings of a grown woman. Also interesting to compare Alcott with these other real/fictional girls who grew up to be writers: LMAlcott/Jo March Laura Ingalls Wilder/herself LM Montgomery/Anne of Green Gables Kate Douglas Wiggins/Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and also: Edith Nesbit/Noel (though Noel is a boy, he seems to represent something of Edith when she was young) Can anyone suggest any others?

Noooo! Just. No!