Wanted to wish you all well, Have a happy Easter guys!

Thanks, Doc. So, this week, my cat Blur is getting his eye removed. His big, expressive eyes have always been the feature people first comment on when seeing him. After the Shreck movies, kids said he looked just like Puss in Boots. He has Glaucoma in his right eye, causing it to be rather too large at the moment. He's lost sight in that eye completely, so I don't think he'll really notice the change, except that he will no longer be in constant pain. The main problem I'm having is sourcing a feline eye patch. I'm looking for something in the skull-and-crossbones variety, but so far, no luck.

have you tried searching etsy.com ?

Yeah, I'm trying to work "he is risen indeed" refrain into this post. Thanks, Doc, many more to you. Ether Bunnie was good again this past year, leaving me alone. But instead I slept through the proverbial bar b que with the new daughter in law sans husband but with two add/adhd grandkids in tow. Marvelous day. One of us could knit the eye patch quicker you think? And I thought i promised myself obscurity after April first...

obscurity is for the flippant and cynical. being and remaining present, that's a better promise.

MINDFUL in the moment, all we have, no regrets no expectations just the now now NOW. Sometimes it however difficult to be aware that one is aware of being aware in the present.

speaking of being and remaining present, are you ever gonna finish that scrabble game?

i've wanted to but it's, because whenever i read what you wrote i get butterflies in my stomach, and i want to suggest something inappropriate.

that's my strategy-- i figure if i can keep you distracted i might actually win a game once every few years.

I'd rather act inappropriately than win the game. and, do we have a shipping date for candy? and, again, anybody seen Droopy? I will be in Albuquerque, Seattle, and Oakland next week...wishing contact with the sorabjite world.

i can let you win, just not in scrabble.

Danielssss, No, I haven't heard anything from him as far i am concerned. maybe lost job? or his S.S.D. benefit got cut?

pepper, he might actually be holed somewhere with a flat tire and a botle of good cheap vodka, but we do miss him don't we? I'm making assumptions of course, but nothing wrong with stepping/wheeling out for a few months. Would like to do that myself I think.

why do i get the feeling you're gonna start singing to me in a barry white voice?

nah, too obvious. how about instead i sing you some Al Green?

what a great song! thanks, sarah.

If anyone has droop's address I can check in on him.

Antigone, don't have his address nor his real name, maybe, you can ask Mark? Yes, I am concerned about him....

Tiggy,I know Droopy lives in Fort Worth and I'm pretty sure Spider has his snail mail.

snail mail? wtf?

Snail mail or smail (from snail + mail) is a dysphemistic retronym — named after the snail with its slow speed — used to refer to letters and missives carried by conventional postal delivery services. The phrase refers to the lag-time between ... wiki doc you are onanother planet...Chicagoland?

yup- suburb of chicago.... we called it "'burb"

it's hard to believe how little has changed in two years.

happy happy bunnie!!!

happy happy bunnie!!!

i wouldn't even have known it was easter had i not gotten an email from my sister. it's my niece's birthday; they took her down to the family farm for the weekend, along with 8 of her friends. my cousin, who lives there, raises chickens. in the early morning they dyed a batch of farm-fresh eggs and put them back in the coop. they brought the children up "to see if the chickens had laid any eggs." my cousin came out of of the coop with a basket of easter eggs supposedly laid by her chickens especially for my niece. the children oohed and aahed; except for the oldest of the bunch who questioned if they were real. my sister sent me a picture of them arranged on the ground in a patch of prairie verbena.

Had beautiful Easter weekend. Hope everybody else did as well! I went through the RCIA process this last year to convert to Catholicism, and was confirmed and took my first communion on Saturday night, Easter Vigil. That service, and Holy Thursday's service were so beautiful. I feel fulfilled now.

my favorite piece of easter art.

Easter in NZ, its autumn, although we had four really nice days. We get Friday and Monday off as public holidays so a sweet four day weekend and two four day working weeks. when we were in the US we were talking with someone who said he gets two weeks off a year. In NZ you get four. How many public holidays do you get?

Less than ya'll. :)

Really though, how many? We get Waitangi Day, although if it falls on a weekend its not rolled over to Monday, two days at Easter, Anzac day (although again not mondayised), labour day, then xmas and boxing day and new years day and the day after, so nine public holidays - oh and a regional holiday so 10 - ours is November, but Wellington is January. Is that a lot?

oh god ya'll - I swear andrew wanted to kidnap these girls who were from the south - I swear I saw drool when they were talking to him... ha.

Wow, that's disturbing, blindswine!

Public holidays off depends on where you work. If you're a state or federal employee, you get 'em all. But private sector depends on your employer-I get 6 public holidays: New Years, Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. but I've also been with my company over ten years, so I get a total of four weeks paid time off as well. They discourage you from taking it all at once, of course.

in hawaii even when i worked in the private sector we got a ridiculous amount of state holidays off. all of the regular national holidays, including columbus day and the sort. but also the hawaiian holidays like king kamehameha day and prince kalanianaole day. hawaiians value their free time. vacation time varied quite a lot from employer to employer. in texas it seems like the average is 3 weeks paid vacation a year and a handful of "sick" or "personal" days.

texas is evil.

I will be coming home from Costa Rica and spending about 3 hours at the Dallas/Fort Worth airport tomorrow hope I get home before the tornadoes come.I could have came home on Fri. the 13th but I wanted to be safe. God I can't wait to see my grand kids, one week was a vacation, two weeks is torture!!

I get the week between Christmas and New Years off and a week in April, when the public schools are closed (this coming week, the week of Patriot's Day in Massachusetts). I also get two weeks of vacation time that I can take whenever I want, as well as eleven holidays, and the day after Thanksgiving. It's a decent amount, for a child care position around here, and if I stay where I am for a few years, I'll earn more vacation time. There are some centers that are closed for every school vacation week, and offer more time off in the summer. On the other hand, some centers stay open between Christmas and New Years. There's even one center around here that offers a total of two sick days a year, which seems pitifully few to me (I get seven, I think, plus personal and professional time).

droopy, I agree with your comment,"texas is evil." I think I will call my sister about the jobs down there. Currently, my job isn't any good anymore, got tired of not getting raise , no job review for the past 5 years. Ka-put!

Well, usually in Illinois, if you are a new employee to a employer, usually, you get a week of vacation after one year of your employment, after 3 years, you get two weeks, however, after ten years, you get three weeks. Unfortuneately, I waited for another years to get three weeks vacation, because of my anniversaary didn't fall on my company's anniversary. What a crock of bullshit! Yes, B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T!

One thing I miss about my old job was the vacation time. It was residential treatment, four ten hour days, including one on the weekend, and someone had to work holidays. I got three weeks vacation after my second year, plus since we worked the holidays, we got to take another day off when we wanted to, which amounted to two more weeks of vacation. AND, all of that time carried over to the next year. In my last couple of years there, I took multiple two week vacations, time off to see family for Passover, weddings and bar mitzvahs, and still got paid out for a month of unused time when I left. The work was hard and the pay was for shit, but I wish more jobs offered that kind of time off. It was damn good for my mental health. This year, I used up half of my vacation time going to my cousin's bat mitzvah in Norway and staying home for two days while my girls had February vacation. Saving the rest up to get a week off to take them to Cape Cod this summer.

Crap. I hate when the formatting gets wonky like that.