by the sea

Hello ! Sorry I haven't had the chance to read the previous 20 pages but finally got to see this last night. I was sooooooooo ticked off with PBS .. I catch the Buffalo NY channel for HD as here in Eastern Canada, although we're really close to flagship Boston, we only get a local Maine PBS station and it always seem to have high school sports on it ! Anyway, on Friday night, PBS kept the title off the schedule, kept calling it "To Be Announced" in one hour segments. I prayed it wouldn't interfere with recording and went ahead with it anyway,but, true to form, I got the last bit of New Years in Vienna .. and lovely and rousing it was, too .. and about 35 minutes of TAB. Rats ! Then on Sunday night, there it was in all its amazing completeness. I admit to needing a replay to get it all in perspective. Loved the atmosphere and the scary bride and Molly as a man .. anybody watch Murdoch Mysteries ? .. and Mary always fearless in the face of almost anything. Mycroft trying to kill himself with plum puddings was a bit weird and Sherlock going into drug induced hallucinations when he was only on the plane for 4 minutes was weirder still. But I was happy to see Moriarty again .. I love his Irish lilt. I was unhappy with Lestrade being downtrodden instead of his modern-day harassed. But, as noted, I'll want to watch it again and am sure to get a better understanding the second, third, fourth time. Debbie

Oops ! Off in the wilderness again. I was linking to images in my Photobucket account. It told me the picture was copied but when I got here, it did nothing when I tried to paste it .. it didn't say error .. but there was no response at all. I've attached photos in the past with no problem and can't imagine that I've posted so many that I've run into some kind of limit. I have trouble with the font selection/size now, too, though .. so maybe my settings are wonky. Debbie

Why won't it let me post a picture ?? I think I remember the process. Debbie

I understand that everyone has to make a living, but bomb fishing ?? That's unbelievably disturbing. :o Seems the baby koalas are coming out of their mother's pouches about now. Based on the look of this little guy, it's pretty hard work being a cute, cuddly baby. Never used to feel this way, but thank goodness he's in a zoo. Breaks my heart to think of these native creatures trying to cross a big Aussie highway. Passed a deceased raccoon on the street two doors down from my house when I drove to work this morning. I know they can be a nuisance but flattened by a speeding commuter is a sad, sad end. :(

What cuties ! Of course, this sent me right to Google and .. who knew ??? .. there are even two types of flying squirrels in Japan .. dwarf flying squirrels and giant flying squirrels. I have weird visions of Rocky wielding a samurai sword . Debbie

LOL ! Your horse appears to be giving us the raspberry here, Arcadia. He's probably saying to himself "look at all those silly humans out there waiting years and years for Sherlock to come back on the air. Don't they have anything better to do ??" ;) Debbie

Thanks, Martina ! :D Two of my favourite things .. well-dressed elephants and lazy dogs ! LOL ! I love this thread. Debbie

Awwwww...sniff Oh my! (Insert emoticon jumping clapping with heartshape eyeballs) = love it This is just wonderful ! I've missed the Cute Animals since I've been off the forum .. but thanks to Martina, I'm completely besotted with ZooBorns and check out the new babies every day ! Debbie

Thanks, Carol. I actually watched all 9 Sherlock episodes this summer .. I have a TV in my cave .. and am beginning to get excited about seeing some new stories .. even if it means hurrying on the winter season. And, believe me, I don't WANT to hurry on the winter season if it's anything like last year. Debbie

Hello everyone ! I popped into my cave several months back and forgot to come out. Probably wouldn't have .. ever .. but then I remembered that Mr. Cumberbatch was going to become a father and figured I'd check the internet to see if the joyous event had taken place. (This was in late July, so you know I've been out of touch.) I was delighted to find that he and Mrs. C. had a son and looked around some more to see what they had named him. I've been looking for a while now and just saw the name yesterday. However they arrived at it, I think it is a wonderful name. It has a lovely alliterative flow which actually makes CUMBERBATCH easy to say ! :D I know some very nice Christophers, too .. so I think they chose well. Debbie

LOL ! :lol: Just like people, the littlest one always makes the most noise and takes up the most space. Big guys just stay in the background.

Sounds like quite a cat, Arcadia. Like lots of eccentric people, he'd be fun to be around. I'd love to have seen him running away from the preying mantiss. Remember Buffy The Vampire Slayer's preying mantiss ?? .. the substitute teacher mating with high school boys ? She was scary ! :D Debbie

Ha ! Love it ! Poor baby :( Angus got pretty sick from the bee. We called the vet's emergency line .. of course, it was a Sunday and this was before they opened the 24/7 veterinary clinic in our town .. and our vet told us to give him children's aspirin, so off to the pharmacy to pick these up and try to feed it to the dog who was showing all the signs of a psychotic break at this point. I'm sure his overwrought humans weren't helping. It was one of those life experiences we all could have done without .. but Angus stayed away from most buzzing things after that. Debbie

Ditto with dogs. Moved into a house with an amazingly lovely bed of lily-of-the-valley in the back yard and diligently uprooted as many of the plants as we could 'cause my 11-year-old Cairn Terrier, Angus, had never been turned loose on his own before. In the new house he had the run of the yard and dogs will eat anything and we'd heard that lily-of-the-valley was especially toxic to dogs. Every time he headed in the direction of the old flower bed I was terrified he would find a new plant to munch on. But, you know, he never actually went as far as the previous home of the lily-of-the-valley. Maybe he had a better sense of the toxicity than we thought. He was a smart guy but not smart enough to not eat a bumble bee ! Debbie

That is absolutely fabulous, melys94. Thank you for posting it. Debbie

Aha .. sweet furry person. Look at those eyes ! Yes, we have many versions of the lottery .. I know somebody who actually won $3,000,000.00 ! I dabble but so far no success .. apart from the occasional free ticket. I'll keep trying, though, with visions of happy dogs running in my (new) big backyard to spur me on. !! :D Debbie

Oh dear, poor you . Our Basic died last October, and we were painfully reminded of Heinz Rühmann's quote, "You can live without a dog, too, but it just isn't worth it," every day, when the house was unbearably empty. :( Had a sad, lousy Christmas, and then finally caved in, and well, here's Lilly: lilly.jpg Cats are adorable and everything (although our neighbour's cat is definitely trying to prove otherwise right now, since he's pissed that his noon nap space has been ursurped by a dog again :lol:) but to most dog people, they just aren't, well, dogs. Congratulations, Martina, on the new addition to your family. Rottweilers and Pit Bulls are outlawed in parts of Canada because of their stupid and otherwise useless owners, but I've said it before and will say it again : I've never met a dog I didn't like .. including Rottweilers and Pit Bulls. And I am a dog person. I have a very elderly person at home .. not overcome by dementia or unable to do things for herself but with fairly serious mobility issues. There are just the two of us and I work all day while she is home alone. She really misses the dog but at this point couldn't even let one out to water a bush. I get both barrels every night when I get home because she's lonely in the house by herself. But .. if something happens to her, if she needs hospitalization or outside care, I don't have any one to look after the dog. A cat would obviously be a better option .. company for my senior and able to be on its own if the house is empty .. but, damn it ! .. I'd rather have a dog ! Debbie

Although my mother assures me there was a cat in the family when I was born, I don't remember it and I'm sure it wasn't around by the time I was old enough to have things register on my memory. I don't know any of the details .. what kind of cat it was, what its name was, what it looked like, whether it was male or female, how old it was. So I have no personal experience of cats .. I have two colleagues who each have two cats and they tell wonderful stories of all the furry antics. Personally, I'm fiercely drawn to dogs and have been lucky enough to share my world with three wonderful canine companions. Since Hamish went over the Rainbow Bridge almost two years ago, there's been a huge empty space. My current situation doesn't permit another dog .. but a cat might be possible, since I understand they are pretty self sufficient. I'm torn, though, between my wish for animal friendship and my natural inclination towards doggy society. So, basically, I'm doing nothing ! Debbie

I love the cat and the toaster ! Reminds me of my new breadmaker. My Little Hairy Hamish (RIP) was still quite young when I got a new breadmaker. I thought it would be lovely to wake up to fresh bread, so I set the timer on the breadmaker to 3.30 am and went to bed. Well, at 3.30 am, the thing started to work, as promised, but poor Hamish must have thought we were being invaded but dog-eating cats from outer space or something and he ran howling through the house. Took him days to get relaxed at night again. Poor baby ! I never thought I'd be freaking out the dog ! :o Debbie

Oooo .. birds ! I love birds ! I'm gonna bore you with pictures I took yesterday out my kitchen window. Mr. Cardinal Mrs. Cardinal We're so completely covered in snow here .. more than 3 meters fell in roughly 3 weeks .. if it weren't for the birds, we'd probably forget that there was actually colour in the world. Bless them .. I even have a video of a woodpecker having lunch ! :D BTW .. did you know that a Canadian Beagle named Miss P. won best in show at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show last week ? You go girl ! Debbie

Another baby hedgehog !! Debbie

LOL ! T.o.b.y., give me your address and I'll send over a tanker full ! It's snowing again already and most of us are now going around saying ... "another 35 cm ! Pfft ! Who cares ??" I just went out and bought a bus pass, so when public transit is back in operation .. the mayor has declared a local state of emergency and the buses were grounded .. I'm gonna strike a blow for the environment and join my fellow commuters in the claustrophobic, over crowded Champlain Express bus. (I'm not really a big fan of buses, but I guess I can learn to handle it. ). BTW, we've had our share of rain, hail and sleet as well. Fortunately, we avoided the mud ! Debbie

This is the rant thread, right ?? Here in Saint John, we have had 128 cm (50 inches) of snow fall on us in the past 7 days. Couldn't get out of the house yesterday. Have amazing pictures of my ploughing guys clearing my north driveway ... skinny buddy standing on the top of the snow shoveling it down to his more substantial colleague pushing the snowblower. Took them more than an hour for one driveway .. I have two .. Can't tell you how I've berated myself for that stupid decision ! My south driveway is 2/3 full of snow well over my head and my neighbour, who happens to sell blades to municipalities for their large snow ploughs, drove by me, trying to shovel a path to my bird feeder, in his 4X4 Silverado (truck), and hollered out "two more storms and you won't be able to get a car in that driveway !!". Thanks a bunch ! I wonder if he thinks I didn't know that ?? And we all thought last Winter was terrible ! Sorry to rant about that which cannot be fixed but if I hear one more person say "it is what it is", I'm gonna scream ! Debbie

Trying not to be judgmental but not succeeding , I tend to think that surgical measures for weight loss are cheating. Maybe because I grew up in an environment where accepting responsibility for your actions was the ultimate achievement ... I still tend to think that you get fat because you eat too much and the only way to lose weight is to actively work at it. Logically, I understand that there are many reasons for obesity and whatever works for someone to reverse that situation should be acceptable, as long as it doesn't ruin your health in other ways. But years of training make it hard for me to really go along with that ... I say hard but not impossible. Maybe I'm getting mellow at long last. In any event, I'm currently overweight, know what I have to do to change that and just need to get my head where it needs to go. Sounds easy, doesn't it ? Debbie

T.o.b.y , I appreciate your rant. Sneering sales persons are seriously aggravating. Personally, I wouldn't say I have the greatest physical self-image and I work in a room full of women who really talk a lot about dieting and exercising and camouflaging ... one of them has even had surgical stomach intervention. She's lost lots and lots of weight, too. I can't seem to motivate myself the way they can ... and actually do for short periods of time ;) ... but I find the older I get, the less it bothers me. My colleagues are all pretty fashion-conscious as well and I know I look like a bag of old clothes but given the opportunity to join the Cloud Appreciation Society (I'm a member in good standing) or buy the latest chic garment from the local knock-off store, I'll pick the clouds. I know I should weigh less than I do, but even my doctor doesn't bug me about it any more. I think I'm too formidable for her !! :lol: :lol: Debbie