Speedy's Cafe - General Chat about anything you like!

[besleybean]

Sorry mods, lazy posting and struggling to do so on my phone, again...

Also I sometimes feel I now only come here twice a year, to give you Speedy's updates!

Anyhow:

still there, with the memorabilia attracting Sherlock tourists.

Food as good as ever.

Chris, the owner, seemed quite chirpy and I said I hoped to see him on my next 6 monthly visit!

[Artemis]

On 4/12/2023 at 11:10 PM, Carol the Dabbler said:

But it occurs to me now (a few decades later) that she may have meant what she said quite literally, that *she* wouldn't have been able to bear seeing one of her cats wasting away like that.  Maybe she even meant to imply that she was impressed by what she interpreted as fortitude on my part.

This is a problem I often have with people.  I say things which are meant to be taken literally, exactly as they sound, but others read between the lines and hear another meaning entirely; usually one which is offensive to them.  It's very frustrating.    Makes me just not want to say things.

On 4/10/2023 at 4:28 PM, Carol the Dabbler said:

stories about accidentally meeting a famous person now and then, for example on an airplane trip.

Speaking of meeting famous people on airplanes!  I think I might have sat next to Craig Parker (the actor who played Haldir in "The Lord of the Rings") on my flight to Germany.  We happened to be reading the same book, and we struck up a long conversation about books and other things in general.  We talked for a good hour or two, it was actually a lot of fun.  Unfortunately we never exchanged names, so I've never been sure.  If it wasn't Mr. Parker, it was a man who looked and sounded exactly like him (which is also possible).  I wish I knew either way; I don't have many interesting conversations with people IRL.

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

14 hours ago, besleybean said:

I sometimes feel I now only come here twice a year, to give you Speedy's updates!

Anyhow:

still there, with the memorabilia attracting Sherlock tourists.

Food as good as ever.

Chris, the owner, seemed quite chirpy and I said I hoped to see him on my next 6 monthly visit!

Thanks, Bev -- all of that is good news!  (Would love to pop over for a Watson wrap, but there's a few thousand miles of water in the way.)

5 hours ago, Artemis said:

I say things which are meant to be taken literally, exactly as they sound, but others read between the lines and hear another meaning entirely....

I'm often misinterpreted as well, so maybe it all evens out when someone misinterprets me!  I don't think it's generally due to ambiguous wording, either, just the fact that people often say things that aren't meant to be taken literally, so what they say may be taken figuratively even when they do mean it literally.

5 hours ago, Artemis said:

Speaking of meeting famous people on airplanes!  I think I might have sat next to Craig Parker (the actor who played Haldir in "The Lord of the Rings") on my flight to Germany.  We happened to be reading the same book, and we struck up a long conversation about books and other things in general.

Sounds like you had a lovely time, regardless of who your companion happened to be!  (My flights are rarely that memorable.)  If he had an official fan site, you could try asking if he's ever read that book.  If he said no then you could be pretty sure it was a lookalike, and if he said yes you could follow up if you liked.  But looks like all he has is one or more unofficial sites -- though IMDb Pro claims to have contact info, maybe his agent's address.

I guess that's one dubious advantage of my not readily recognizing people that I don't know well -- I could happily chat with some celebrity, even one whose work I had seen, and it would probably never occur to me who they might be.  (Unless, of course it was a readily identifiable person whose work I was fairly familiar with.  I did recognize Alfred Hitchcock once, just from seeing him cross the street -- in profile, of course.)

 

[Artemis]

22 minutes ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

I could happily chat with some celebrity, even one whose work I had seen, and it would probably never occur to me who they might be.

Same here, under normal circumstances.  This trip was shortly after the second LotR movie came out on DVD, and being the Tolkien fan I am, I had watched those movies about a dozen times in recent months, so I was pretty familiar with every face in them, lol.  (Although, Haldir's limited screen time (and makeup team) gives me reason to doubt.  Had I been sitting next to almost anyone else from the film, I would have known without question.)

And actually, all that being said, it didn't occur to me until after we got off the plane who he (probably?) was and why he seemed so familiar.

But yes, famous or no, it was nice talking to him. 

 

[Fantasy Lover]

So normally I'm the person who apologises directly, but it happened twice now that I apologised for something that happened more than a few years ago.

In 2015 I had a depression and was admitted to a psychiatric hospital, a few months later my dad was also admitted but in a different ward. And his sister, my aunt, expected from me that I visited him, while I was recovering myself! We even had a row about it:

How I was selfish, how didn't care about him only his inheritance, that I abandoned him Etc. I tried to tell her that it was too difficult for me, but it didn't help. She said that I just needed to endure it, it ended in me threatening to go to cops and file a complaint for stalking, we haven't spoken since.

I'm feeling much better now and occasionally visit my dad a few times a year with my mother, a few days ago me and my mom came upon the house of a great aunt on my dad's side of the family by coincidence and saw the windows were shattered. So I phoned my cousin whom I have a better relationship with than my aunt if he knew if she passed away, he didn't know and said that his mom knew it. I waited with excitement for how would go, I hadn't spoken with her since 2015. It went well and that Thursday I finally apologised for it.

[Fantasy Lover]

The second time it happened went like this: in 2016 my friend Endy whom I mentioned before, there was charity hosted by a furry for furries to collect money for people with ALS.

So we went together, halfway through he wanted to go back because he was overheating in his suit. Tia volunteerd to go with him, I stayed with the furries.

He was pissed, he said that I abandoned him while I promised to be his handler. Which meant that I carried his stuff, and that I valued people I never met more instead of him and I know him since I was 8.

Then we had a huge row late 2019 with caused us not to speak to each other for six months. In April 2020 I send a message to his brother Tom to wish the brother happy birthday, and I asked If he was well and that I missed him. Tom told Endy and we reconciled and I apologised for the row and neglecting him back in 2016. 

[Carol the Dabbler]

13 hours ago, Fantasy Lover said:

... my friend Endy whom I mentioned before, there was charity hosted by a furry for furries to collect money for people with ALS.

So we went together, halfway through he wanted to go back because he was overheating in his suit. Tia volunteerd to go with him, I stayed with the furries.

He was pissed, he said that I abandoned him while I promised to be his handler. Which meant that I carried his stuff, and that I valued people I never met more instead of him....

I can see why you wouldn't think you were doing anything wrong, since he had a companion anyhow.  On the other hand, it's understandable that he was expecting to spend the day with you, and felt abandoned.  So even though I don't think you were intentionally inconsiderate, apologizing to him was the right thing to do, for the sake of your friendship.

 

[Fantasy Lover]

Did anyone watched the coronation? I did.

[besleybean]

No, I attended a Republican rally against the monarchy.

That's not U.S Republican!

[Fantasy Lover]

It's a pity they arrested the leader of the republicans, I thought the uk was a democracy, apparently not.

[besleybean]

Only in England.

In Scotland, we were free to protest...

and people still wonder why some here want independence!

[Carol the Dabbler]

14 hours ago, Fantasy Lover said:

Did anyone watched the coronation? I did.

I didn't -- was thinking it was tomorrow, but not sure I'd have watched anyhow.  (I do recall seeing photos of Elizabeth's coronation, though.)  What did you think of it?

11 hours ago, besleybean said:

No, I attended a Republican rally against the monarchy.

That's not U.S Republican!

11 hours ago, Fantasy Lover said:

It's a pity they arrested the leader of the republicans, I thought the uk was a democracy, apparently not.

Sounds odd to me as well, but this is the first I've heard of it.  On what grounds was the leader arrested?

[Fantasy Lover]

25 minutes ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

I didn't -- was thinking it was tomorrow, but not sure I'd have watched anyhow.  (I do recall seeing photos of Elizabeth's coronation, though.)  What did you think of it?

Sounds odd to me as well, but this is the first I've heard of it.  On what grounds was the leader arrested?

Like besleybean, I'm a republican. A monarchy is outdated, archaic and a waste of taxpayers money that could have gone to the NHS and the poor. I only watched it because of the bragging rights to the generation that is born now.

Also, it's unclear on what grounds the leader is arrested. But I've heard (idk if it's right) that England has passed harsher anti protest laws, my respect for England has gone ever since they want to change the Equality Act to excludes transgender and non binary people, and because of the harsher anti protest laws it's even lower.

[Carol the Dabbler]

I've done a bit of reading on the arrests, and it turns out that they started shortly after Elizabeth's death, when people started speaking out against Charles becoming king.  As far as I can tell, the demonstrators have been doing things like holding up signs, calling out slogans, and sometimes booing -- none of which is violent.  Admittedly the booing is impolite, but I'd hate to live in a world where rudeness is a crime.

If my understanding of the matter is at all accurate, I am shocked and concerned.  If the government / police were concerned that demonstrations during the coronation would give the world a bad impression of the UK, I wonder if the arrests may cause them to look even worse.

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

It's been a quiet couple of months here in the Speedy's thread!

I have apparently discovered, quite by accident, why I had been having so much trouble sleeping the past few years -- namely my computer.

The problem seems to have started while I was taking care of Mom in her last few years.  At first I chalked it up to the stress of being responsible for her safety round the clock, but she passed on several years ago and I was still having major problems falling asleep and/or staying that way.  I had even put all my devices (computer, phone, and tablet) on the "bedtime" setting (pinkish display tone) more or less 24/7, mostly to protect my eyes against the reported dangers of blue light, but also with hopes of sleeping better.  Occasionally I would have a really good night's sleep, but mostly not.

Meanwhile, my computer (a laptop which I currently use as a desktop) had begun having problems.  I got the memory expanded and the hard drive replaced with something larger, and it's better, but was still crashing at random intervals.  I finally decided maybe I shouldn't be leaving it turned on all the time, so I started turning it off around supper time and leaving it off till morning.

That was several days ago, close to a week, and I've been sleeping every night!  I can't think of anything else that's changed.  I've been going to bed at around the same time as before.  I still use my phone and my tablet quite a bit after supper, looking things up and/or playing games.

It occurs to me that -- near as I recall -- I bought that particular computer right about the time I started taking care of Mom.  So maybe it's something about that particular model or even that individual machine.  Or maybe I've developed a problem with computers (but not tablets or phones) in general.  Right now I don't care.  I'm just enjoying the sleep!

The computer still crashes now and then, by the way.

 

[besleybean]

I have always had trouble sleeping, since I was a kid.

I follow all of the advice of having no electronic equipment in my bedroom...

I don't even read before bed.

I try to convince my body that the bedroom is for one thing alone: sleep...

but it raely listens!

[Carol the Dabbler]

I know the feeling!  Unfortunately there are probably at least a million reasons why a person might have trouble sleeping, so you have my full sympathy.

I'm now thinking that the reason using the computer keeps me awake (whereas using my phone or tablet does not) is simply that on my computer I'm far more likely to do things that require concentration -- writing replies, doing searches that require deductive input, etc.

 

[Fantasy Lover]

Does anyone know a person who has like a PHD or something and yet does something that makes you go: how are you so effing stupid? Case in point my mother: she became a real penny pincher ever since corona, and she wanted to renovate her bathroom. So she posted an add on Facebook for someone to renovate her bathroom and pay them under the table (which is dumb), someone came to see the work that needed to be done and confessed that he was still waiting for people to pay their bills. If I heard that, alarms would go off because no one would be stupid enough to pay for a renovation if they didn't borrowed enough money. But mom hired him (which is dumber), and of course my suspicions were correct, he barely did any work and the delivery date kept being postponed and unfortunately my mother kept waiting and waiting instead of kicking him out. Finally, she did so and then..... she asked asked AGAIN on Facebook if someone could redo the work that wanker did 🤡👹💀👿😡🤬😠. Thankfully, the replacement was decent. Keep in mind that my mother studied law. 

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

Good fix-it people are getting harder and harder to find, and if you can find a really good one, they're usually so busy that it's hard to get on their schedules.  It's especially hard to find a plumber or electrician who will do fix-it jobs, because most of them want do the installation work on a whole new house.

When I was looking for a plumber, a friend of mine (who is in the well-drilling business, so he knows a lot of plumbers) told me that a well-drilling friend of his has a brother who's a plumber.  So I gave the guy a try.  It took half a dozen appointments before he actually showed up and did the work, but he did a nice job and didn't charge a lot.

I'm glad your mom finally found a pretty good one!

 

[Fantasy Lover]

Has anyone ever felt happy for something, but at the same time felt sad? I've felt that way ever since Hanne and her boyfriend got engaged, I'm happy for them but at the same time I'm reminded that I could have been married for 2,5 years. And I know it's probably for the best that we didn't get married as she only loved me because she needed someone who did everything in the household and paid for everything. But the thing is, I have lousy love life. I've tried speeddating, dating sites, a blind date, dating my best friend. None of this worked out, and then I met my ex. And I was so relieved, at last I've found someone. I was loved for who I am, I wasn't rejected because of my straightforwardness, I was beloved. To find out that she only loved me because I had a lot of money on my bank account and I was willing to do everything for her. She took advantage of me, and that devastated me.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Life can definitely be a bitch!  But at least you now have some knowledge of what to be wary of, and you have a better idea of what you'd truly appreciate in a partner.

 

[Fantasy Lover]

Well my mom and I have a row with my mom's niece. How that happened? Well, my niece is racist. Having some people close to her converting to the Islam,  participating in the ramadan, choosing more modest clothes because those people met and fell in love with a Muslim made her bitter and racist. Instead of going like awww, the things people do for love. She was like Muslims are forcing their faith down or throat, as if the Christians didn't do the same thing for centuries. Guess she just doesn't understand love.

So she was saying stuff like: "the culture of Muslims is R word, in front of my mother, who is remarried to a Muslim. Talk about being able to read the room, if my stephdad was there he would have left her alone in the restaurant with her steak, but my mother isn't like that. My niece eventually apologised to my mom and told her it wasn't meant to be personal and that my stephdad was welcome the next my mom would visit her, yeah.... not going to happen.

I sent an angry text to her saying that the next time spouts racist bs me and my mom would leave, I told her she can shove her steak and called her a sour puss. I won't let anyone hurt my mother or insult my stephdad's religion. R word scoff, those people are moving haven and earth to help their fellow brethren in Marokko and Libië after disaster befell both countries, how are they R word? I will never understand racists.

[Carol the Dabbler]

21 hours ago, Fantasy Lover said:

I will never understand racists.

I find their point of view simplistic and counterproductive myself, but I kinda try to understand why they might be that way.

Many people have great difficulty understanding why anyone would disagree with them, because their point of view seems so obviously correct to them.  I suspect that's because they've always looked at things from a certain angle, so it doesn't occur to them that the other person might be a very nice person who simply looks at things from a different angle -- or that someone might agree with them on most things, even though they look different, etc.

Besides, it's probably human nature to distrust anyone who's not a member of your in-group.  (That distrust would have had real survival value back when members of the neighboring tribe might be out to kill you.)  Our parents may have encouraged us to ignore that feeling, or may have encouraged us to pay special attention to it.  Some people can later overcome the training they had as a child, but it's neither automatic nor easy.

If your mother's niece has seemed like a reasonable person in the past, you might try giving her another chance.  Try to understand her point of view (which doesn't mean you have to agree), and explain your point of view to her.