OK, I'm back shortly. Mark, Paph schoseri is one I couldn't get for blood nor money, unless I paid a lot of money, when I was collecting species. I maybe saw it available twice, for wads of cash. This guy is little, but way stupid cheap, and I figured why not. I don't think it's a jacked-up hard to bloom thing (and I've dealt with those). Too much on-topic. Joaquin is a fantastic kitten-child and makes me very happy. The bitey thing is going away as he grows up. He retains his spotted gorgeousness. He's ever so smart (I refrained from swearing here so as not to get tossed off the forum, but really...). And not to be too off-topic on-topic (that kid of mine), what are we reading lately? I could start a new thread, but I don't wanna. I'm reading 'Tieta' by Jorge Almado, and not being thrilled by it-a bit ponderous and too many interruptions by the author to drop in his comments...I don't know. I'm liking the story but not the telling, and it may just be the translation. I had a lovely break in the tale with the 'Brokeback Mountain' short story (borrowed for a friend from a friend, and of course I read it first). A dandy story. You should probably all know that I get drunk and loaded (some of you may know what the loaded part is about, aside from the drunk) before these little sillinesses get written out. Chemicals happen. It's not always a bad thing. In fact, sometimes it's pretty good. At any rate... I'm off. Love you kids. -O-

I'm so sorry! Who would have thought about ducks doing that. They must have been looking for a heated swimming pool, I would never think about them being smart enough to figure out how to break in.

Well, DH picked up SS last night and had a long talk with him on the way home. Apparently it was all about wanting presents. BM dragged SS around to various relatives who, caught off guard, coughed up some cash in lieu of gifts (this is typical after his birthdays and such). BM asked SS if it was his choice or DH's that he not come up for Christmas, and SS said that it was his, that he'd always spent Christmas at home and he didn't want to not do so this year. After she told him that he had spent Christmas with her before (he has not, how can anyone not remember if they've ever spent Christmas with their own child or not?!) she asked him why he'd come up for New Year's then? At which time SS informed her that he wanted to see if anyone got him anything!!!! DH made SS call BM to apologize for that comment. DH said that as much as it pained him to do so, due to some of the horrific things BM has said/done to SS over the years, SS was clearly wrong on this one (his honesty not withstanding). DH also explained to SS that it was OK to want to see his mother, or if he's truly afraid of his mother then that situation is what it is - but it is absolutely NOT OK to say that he's afraid to go - unless he might get a present. We can understand and sympathize with the mixed feelings about BM. SS is constantly hoping that things will change and she'll "get better". That had been and I'm sure will be a problem; he'd get his hopes up and usually they were dashed. But this whole thing was not good at all. After DH and I beating ourselves up for a while wondering what we've done wrong, it finally dawned on us that SS has always been very generous and giving before and it's only been recently that we've seen any signs of, well, where he's behaving exactly like BM and SS18. We've no doubt at all he's been exposed to comments about what they can get out of people as it's brought up in almost any conversation with either of them. (As an aside, we found out BM is on welfare and is quite probably committing welfare fraud. Explains the whole "free lunch" thing....) Anyway. This new and un-charming mentality is going to be cut off hard. Our volunteering is going to change to become more focused; I'm looking at volunteering opportunities involving children with health/physical/mental/emotional needs. As DH and I said last night, nothing puts things into perspective like helping a child who doesn't care what, if anything, they get for Christmas but are just hoping to not spend Christmas in the hospital again, or to be able to build a snowman one last time. As for the whole modification in process, DH is pushing onwards at this time. His reasoning is that they might as well get all of this one-time mandatory stuff out of the way now; at any point in the process if any agreement is reached they can stop it. DH will be speaking to SS's counselor to see if her opinion is changed at all by this latest. Unfortunately it is now obvious that SS does not have the emotional maturity (understandable, he's only a kid) to necessarily have any significant input at this time. Even though we can win a bidding war for SS's attention, LOL, that is absolutely not not NOT going to be allowed to begin; not fair to us, not fair to crazy BM, not fair to SS - and then I'll end up with an adult SS like some of you have with an insane sense of entitlement ("Mattie, do you really need to spend that much money on your parents' funeral? Can't you just throw the body into a dumpster somewhere? Because, ya know, that much money would buy me a nice vacation and I'm feeling really stressed right now from all the pressure of keeping my 1.2 QPA in my fourteenth year as an undergrad....") LOL!

You didn't look hard enough. Look at the antlers, the cap with the shamrock, and there are the rabbit ears and Santa's feet are rabbit feet :o)