Summer Flu And Blog Cramps

Barbara: I was doing so well. I felt awesome. The summer has been divine; hot, sunny, carefree. I was getting lots of writing done. My time has been both frivolously and well spent. And then it hit me: achy, crampy joints and muscles, sore tired eyes, heavy chest and itchy throat. What was this, I asked myself??? How was it possible to be so healthy and upright one minute and then positively legs-cut-out-from-under-you flatlined the next?

I crawled into bed—oh the muscle/joint aches were the worst—and succumbed to sleep. But then I woke and discovered I … couldn’t do anything. Couldn’t read, not even your wonderful blog posts, couldn’t (oh the frustration) write, couldn’t enjoy a lunch of Vietnamese noodle soup with my hubby (I love Pho Tai, it must be the best, cheapest comfort food known to man, but what, oh, what was this flu-ridden lack of enthusiasm?!)

24-hours later, the achy joints finally abandoned me (I guess they couldn’t take all the whining), but the fatigue and discomfort linger on. I can’t sleep for all the hacking. It’s a fucking cold, people! Why do I feel so helpless? But it’s also summer and who wants to be forced inside on a summer’s day when there are so very few of them? (and no, neither walks in the sun or half-hearted workouts have managed to “sweat it out” of me.)

And then there was this: this blog, with its funny, sweet little face that I just wanted to pinch and pat. 

Remember this?

And even so my daughter and I decide we’re going to play with it a bit, just check out some options (you know girls and their makeovers), and all of a sudden “apply” gets hit and we have crap on the screen and we can’t get the old face back, try as we (she) might. Our lovely readers have already mocked and kindly advised me in the comments’ section, bless their hearts (that’s for you, Karen), but there you have it: blog re-boot by fire. Thank god Deb was sweetly gracious about the whole thing and tagged along on the now-necessary task of a complete overhaul. (is it just me or is Blogger offering fewer template options??? And some really weird neither-here-nor-there colours…)

Just so you know, there have been a few issues working out the width of the new columns so they fit into all browser pages, so please let us know if it’s getting cut off on one side or the other.

Anyway, big thanks to Stefanie for her patient re-tooling and mocking up of the new masthead. Deb and I just love it. Hopefully you do too!

Middle Ages Milestone

Art by Deb's finger

Happy 1st Anniversary, The Middle Ages! It has been an amazing journey filled with new friends and old, and fraught with venting, kudos and wonderings. And we have loved every single minute of it.

Which is why we are sad to say that we have to hang it up. We’re not saying forever. In fact, we NEVER SAY NEVER. But with personal and professional commitments, we are finding ourselves overwhelmed and we both know that is the last thing any of you dear and darling followers would want from us.

So what we have done for our last (for now) blog-post is to compile a little story, each of us taking one sentence from our random archival blogs, trying to give them a flow. Each sentence contains a link, so any sentence you click on will take you to that old blog-post chestnut. We hope you enjoy it.

And please know that at this point the only words we can manage are:

April Fools Day!

As if we would ever leave!!!! Who the heck would we prattle on to?

The part about today’s post is true however. But it is in honour of our 1st anniversary, not our departure. So enjoy. You are stuck with us.

Love, Deb and Barbara

Deb: Dearest Blog Readers, 

Now that I know what I was missing, I ask myself: how could I have gone so long without this???!

I keep telling myself that there is nothing wrong with me just because I engage in verbal solitary intercourse, is there?

I’m a bright girl! I’ve been well edumacated!

But I faked it, faked it up, faked the “love”! 

Oh well—I guess that’s the difference between fantasy and cliché! 

It can take me way back to my days as a child.

Nothing worse than a teenager with a good point. Should be against the law.

Human beings at their best kill me. Their capacity for compassion and empathy is bigger than air. And when we are lucky enough to witness it or be a part of it, we are filled to bursting.

After all, it’s like that scientist said: there is greater diversity in the DNA of a handful of snails than there is in the entire human race!

It makes up wonderfully for all the times we cry for sorrow, doesn’t it? 

Oh and P.S. while I am writing this, the thunder and lightening is cracking in the sky! 

Wasn’t that the most stirring storm? Nothing scary (unless you’re a dog), just lovely cracking and pouring, indeed! You see, we just shared that storm together—beauty. 

Today is one of those days where I find myself embarrassed for the weather. 

“Quit biting … Quit biting … Quit biting.”

It’s a cutting of the apron strings from the other side of the old cliché.

As long as we don’t let the power go to our heads, bwa ha ha…. 

As I watched the Queen approach, I thought of you.

So please, pray for him or think of him because he is our boy. Our boy’s first boy. He sleeps in our bed. He is our family and we are losing him. 

I always loved the age I was right then and there.

I just am. Spontaneous meditation. Joy. Joy. Joy. I am alive.

On our wedding day, I wonder how many of us really take it in when the phrase “for better or worse” is uttered?

My goal is to always try to find that good side.

The other day Deb bit my head off. True story.

I am not judging. 

And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere!

And gie’s a hand o’ thine!

And we’ll tak a right guide-willy waught,

For auld lang syne.

Barbara: Happy Birthday, Baby!

Hopefully, our poor taxed brains won’t self-combust in this new venture!

I am a chicken-shit. Simple as that.

Have you ever lost something that was really precious to you––and you can’t figure out how the hell you lost it? 

I have still not gotten over that utterly disorienting feeling of confusion I experienced on looking and looking and LOOKING at her and not understanding what the hell I was seeing. 

It took me to hit rock-bottom before I realized I had left myself without that precious life-preserver: a true girlfriend.

It was different for me, this friendship thing. I was the girl in school who had a gang.

I’m getting much better at choosing to embrace who I am over worrying about what other people think.

Sure, they should understand that people might indeed judge them, but they shouldn't live their lives making choices out of fear.

My older self would say that any good friends will do … as long as no one brings expectations or judgment or recrimination. They will fit together—maybe not perfectly or seamlessly, but willingly––because they need it as much as you. 

Why can’t I just say “Thank you” and leave it at that???

And I will share my knowledge with you. It’s not too tough. It goes like this. “Thank you”. 

It's All Fun And Games Until Someone Gets Hurt...

…is just our diabolical way of getting your attention so we can talk about an issue that is near and dear to us both: Comments.

Or more precisely: Commenter Problems. We beg you to bear with us as we sort this out with you. We love getting comments. Of course, every blogger does. But we’ve always seen our blog as a meeting-ground for likeminded (or at least, likeable) people and want the Chautauqua-members to keep chatting, as it were, and for them to not meet with frustrations as their comments seem to post then don’t, as the ugly captcha phrase at the bottom of the screen shows up out of sight and undermines their efforts, or as the Blogger boogeyman refuses to let them post at all because of obtuse i.d. issues. And all this inevitably happens after our (very dear) reader has gone to all the trouble to write a comment in real-time on the site.

Thanks to a resolute group of readers and friends, we have learned that there are two major issues: either getting a workable i.d. with which to post, or getting the post to stick.

For the first issue, it seems having a Google i.d. is the easiest. If the bugs continue, you can try another browser (Firefox seems to have the most compatibility problems with Blogger; Safari seems good for Mac users, and IE for PCs). Or (in one successful example) try re-setting your Google i.d. password.

For the second issue, we’ve tinkered extensively with the Blogger settings and hope this will help. There is no more captcha feature––which is designed to reduce spam. If we get a lot of spam, we may re-install, but for now we’re going to take our chances.

Here’s the fun and games part. Would you please please please humour us and come along for a bit of a ride so we can assess if any of you continue to have problems? Until our next post on Wednesday, would you mind trying to post just a one-line comment? We can fun it up by playing the comments like that old game where each sentence is a continuation of the last one, in a kind of random free-for-all story. If you need to try a few times to get it to post (like a few of our great readers), could you add that in parentheses to your post-attempts?

The more of you who participate, the more idea we have if we’ve worked out the kinks. If you’ve never posted before, think of it as a chance to break your commenting cherry. If you’re a regular, feel free to add to the story as many times as you’d like.

If it’s still no fun and nothing works, would you mind letting us know at “radeckiritesatgmaildotcom” (with the appropriate symbols, of course)?

And, please, nobody get hurt. Thank you so much.

Love, Deb and Barbara