Dear So and So

[emily_in_nc]

Yep - and she obviously didn't expect you to respond to her. Not that anything good would have come out of that...

Exactly. As I rode away shaking my head I said (under my breath). "Yes we do, B*TCH." Not loud enough for her to hear, but I have to admit, it did bother me for the first half of the ride, for some reason. I realized I shouldn't give a rat's azz what a clueless loser like her thought, so I moved on to more productive thinking for the rest of the ride, while filing the experience away to add to this thread later.

Ignorant people who think they know it all just irk the he** out of me, though. Thanks for the support, friends!

[Pax]

Dear Weather Gods,

More snow, seriously? Just stop it.

Thanks,

Ready for summer

[Catrin]

(I somehow posted this in the meals thread, unsure how that happened, so am moving it here where it belonged)

It is sad to lose two special women in a week's time. Both are in my church, and indeed I was present when they were formally brought into the Orthodox Church, both were over 70 at the time. These ladies were like my surrogate mom and aunt, and one of them just remarried less than a year ago! One was buried last Friday, the other died that same day and her funeral was yesterday. They will be sorely missed, two classy ladies with a kind word and generous heart for everyone they met and were more alive and vibrant than many half their age. I aspire to be like them should I live so long!

[skhill]

And on the topic of funerals... I didn't know the gentleman well, just to say hi and chat a bit at coffee hour at church. But everyone who knew Charlie knew his dog Bitsy (an elderly black lab). He didn't bring her to church on Sundays, but did to his bible study on Tuesdays! Bitsy was included among the survivors in the obituary in the newspaper, and quietly sat in her reserved pew at the funeral this morning. She even came forward at communion, and received a blessing.

There was something else notable at the funeral: a pair of armed, uniformed fish and wildlife officers. Charlie had been a lifelong hunter, and had long worked with the dept of fish and wildlife on a variety of programs, so the officers had the honor of carrying the urn. Guns and a dog in the cathedral, what a day. And there are supposed to be real live camels showing up for Epiphany tomorrow...

[OakLeaf]

Oh, I'm so sorry for your losses.

I received the news that my high school typing teacher died last month, and even though I hadn't had any contact with him since I moved away from that school in 1974, and he married his widow after that, I was moved to send her a card. When my 12-year-old self learned that typing was a required subject I thought it was silly ... how wrong I was. Next to reading, there's NOTHING I learned in school that I've used so much in my life as typing. What an outsized influence that man turned out to have on my life.

[Crankin]

I can relate to the above, Oak. A few months ago, one of the Social Studies teachers from my middle school (the one I went to, not the one I taught at) died. He was not my teacher, but I knew him from student government. He was my former boyfriend's teacher and coach. I often thought this man disliked me and viewed him as typical jock guy. I also thought he was old when I knew him.
Turns out, he had worked for very many important social justice causes for his whole life. And he was the same age as my dad, which means he was in his forties when I knew him. I messaged my former boyfriend, as he lives in another state, and he was quite upset when I gave him the news. I guess my 13-14 year old self saw things in a rather distorted manner.

[skhill]

Dear makers of treadmills and other cardio equipment:

Don't you realize that the calorie counts you insist on showing are incredibly inaccurate? The only way it would have a chance of reflecting reality is if the user keeps her hands firmly placed on the heart rate sensors at all times, which of course is not practical when running. And anyway, why do you think that even an accurate calorie count would be of any use? If you're eating real food (food that doesn't come out of packages with (inaccurate) calorie listings), you're not going to really know how much you're taking in.

If you feel you must make calorie counts available, how about hiding them down some menu and leaving the display space for something useful like pace.