Oh, P-C, that sucks. At least when I got my car broken into in Spain, things like iPods and Kindles didn't even exist. The most they got away with was a full bag of clean laundry. Which ticked me off a little at the time as it had my Christmas party dress in it, but still. I'm sure it all ended up at the local gypsy market then next weekend. (Called gypsy markets for whatever historical reason. Doesn't mean it was all run by gypsies or that I think they were responsible for the theft. There was 26% unemployment in that area of Spain; theft was a major problem while I lived there. My car got broken into three times, by house twice and I got mugged once. People were pretty damn desperate.) Chances are your bag is in a dumpster, but chances of finding it are pretty damn slim. I'm sorry for the loss of those items that had personal meaning for you; that is the suckiest part.

Yay for major editing gig, Strix! I hope word gets around and you get even more of them.

Aims, I got no advice other than to say listen to all these fantastic people. Truly, the hive mind comes through every time.

o_a, your condo is sounding really awesome. May it continue to bring you pleasure the longer you live in it.

Kate, my sympathies. I remember those days well; but not at all fondly.

Damn P-C. Sorry about that.

{{{P-C}}} I'm sorry; that really sucks.

P-C, I am SO sorry! That is awful.

I got my car stolen on Halloween night once, and then, in 1998, I got woken up to a call that my beloved dad had had a heart attack; they live 70 miles away.

I ran to my hoopdee and its window was smashed, glass all over the front seat and I just laid a blanket over the glass (I was in a blazing panic) and all that was stolen was about 76 cents in change and ONE Birkenstock. ONE. WTFF? Did I mention it was Februaru in Missouri, and I drove home without a window in about 20 degree weather?

I am really sorry, love.

I'm sorry, Sunil. One of the most stricken looks I've seen on Emmett's face was when they broke into our car just to steal his Gameboy. (And thank the gods that Emmett's life has been blessed enough that his worst traumas are Gameboy sized.)

It made such an impression on wee Matilda that she still talks about the Bad Men Who Took Emmett's Gameboy.

Fortunately, Tom W. stepped up very generously and he gave Emmett his own gameboy. A very gracious and kind deed.

Oh P-C. I'm sorry. That is awful.

So, hi. First, let me say I'm sorry for promising to come back and then disappearing again. There were reasons, though, such as friends having breakdowns and meltdowns, or the annual conference at work that was planned so poorly that I ended up working 11-14 hours per day (and I commute for 2-3 hours), 4-5 days per week (instead of 8-10 hours per day, three days a week). But hi, that got me a raise and possibly a bonus. I don't want to pat my own back, but I saved the day several times. Running sci-fi conventions for 5 years surely helped.

This is gonna be a long post. I read everything from July 3rd (kept thinking I'm so close to catch up on everything and resume to present tense!), but not the cat vomit talk. Apparently I do have a line, somewhere.

So, first thing's first...

{{{Nora}}}. And {{{zenkitty}}}. And {{{Maria}}}, and to {{{Cass}}} And a general {{{smonster's family}}} ~ma. And also for {{{Aims}}}, {{{sj}}} and {{{sj's family}}} and {{{Karl}}}, dear, I'm so sorry.

All kinds of loves and ~mas and thoughts to you, from many and different kinds. I just wish I could be on the other side of the Earth sometimes, making pancakes for you folks. People I managed to lost their brackets in between the different notepads files and the gmail draft I kept for reading Bitches are included here, of course.

bonny, thank you for the pictures of you and your dog. You posted them just when I needed to see something like it. The pictures of the hat are very nice, too.

Happy belated to everyone (I remember sj and Zenkitty, and I'm pretty sure there was at least one other birthday).

Yay Strix for awesome gig!

Dana - good to know about your heart.

Pix - sorry to hear about the budget cut.

Also...

Thank you also for your discussion on July 4th and patriotism (and Liese - you rock, you rock, you rock).

I also regard it as my job to stand inside the church and wrestle.

Replace "church" with Israel/Israeli "left", and that's me, at most times (though I think we're far beyond "left" and "right" at this point).

showers discussion

I was so confused for a few seconds. I have no problem with bath-loving people, but I really didn't get the hating of showers at first. Probably because that thing doesn't exist here. I don't know if it's because the tradition Hill mentioned or not;

if you talk too much about something you love or want, or you're too "proud" of something, you'll lose it because God will take it away from you.

I always thought that was more Murphy's Law thing than a God thing. The joys of growing up in an uber-secular house.

sink Lutherans

Have no idea what that is, but I prefer to leave it to my imagination as I keep imagining tiny Lutherans-leprechauns, hiding in sinks.

omnis - first, much moving~ma, you poor thing. Second, I saw your email, but still didn't have the time to read it. Sorry. Thirds...

if I recall, it was you wanting chains and basement

I looked, and it seems like it started here. Am I wrong? omnis_audis "Spike's Bitches 47: Someone Dangerous Could Get In" Feb 9, 2012 6:36:45 pm PST

liquid chocolate while chained....

A. are you nuts? Think of the stains! B. Personally, eww. I really dislike being sticky, and it's a waste of perfectly good chocolate. (It also took me three different attempts to do from "I really dislike being sticky and waste things that could perfectly fit in my month" to this version. I hope you can appreciate this).

All i know is, big hole in floor going to a garage, where vapors could seep up and kill me

You say hole, I read basement opportunity.

I also saw this and thought of bt: [link]

I don't know if you're one of those people that retreats further into your shell if someone pokes at you to get stuff done or not

A friend did this for me last week. This was VERY helpful. I'm going to use her kind services again.

I'm being a motherfucking adult in a T-shirt that says "BITE ME!"

Storytime: The 4-5 online boards of BtVS fans in Israel decided to (continued...)

( continues...) throw a party back in 2003, when the show ended. One of the attendees was a guy in a Bite Me shirt. Towards the end of the night (well, closer to the morning), a girl decided to act according to his t-shirt's instruction (not anything serious, didn't even left teeth marks). He came to me, all puzzled. Not to justify the girl's act, but he really couldn't see a connection between the party's crowd, his t-shirt and the girl's actions, who saw this as an invitation.

Some highlights from the past month in my life:

Dating sucks. But dating a jackass is worse.

That. I had several dates in June, no jackasses, and all close but no cigar. I actually started to have doubts if I'm being too picky, until a friend who heard about one of them, realized she know who he was (and that she was also in love with him) replied instantly with "Shir, he's so out of your league!". Made me feel all better about rejecting the "well, he was nice, but I can't say anything else positive about him" folks.

One time my dad basically told me that women will corrupt me and turn me into a drug addict.

I suddenly feel like I understand a lot more the entertainment industry.

The other day I was reading my U.S. trip journal. Wow. I was so jaded. It's written almost as if someone bleached every shred of compassion out of me. I now understand why I was considered as "blunt" - it wasn't being Israeli abroad, as I suspected at first. It was about being me, then.

And I nearly killed my dad yesterday. Still on the angry/tired trainwreck with him. He's playing with his meds, and it's hardly fun for the whole family. I'm not home much, so my mother and sister get the most of the fun pack, but in many ways it's like raising a 5 year old. Only 5 year olds learn and grow, eventually, or so I've heard. I need to work on my "I'm listening and talking to you because I respect you and we're sometimes under the same roof, but not because I agree with your attitude toward things" approach, it was a long year and he is really on everybody's nerves.

And there were those Afghan Whigs shows here, last month (AKA, things I didn't expect to be present in, ever). I feel like I used up all of my vocabulary and 87% of internet pixels to talk about it already, so I'll just say I'm so, so very grateful and lucky for friends who get me interviews and introduced me to band members and say so much nice things about me to them. I'm still mind blown when I think of it.

And. Last but not least: Any chance I could use your help, American Buffistas, and especially Buffistas in Florida? I want to track down a phone number or an email address (preferably the later). It's my dad's cousin, which my family was last in touch with in 1986. In May I finally managed to drag my dad to Yad VaShem after years he talked about it, and we found there tons of fascinating documentation about our family, which raised, in turn, a lot of new questions (we spent 10 hours just on 5-6 family members. The documentation of the Red Cross is simply amazing. Every survivor in the database has a file with the route s/he went through the war. Every ghetto, concentration and death camp, with how many years/months they've been there. I never knew any of them - I was one year old in 1986 - but it felt so extraordinary, holding the hidden life of a family member in a shape of a paper form from an old archive, with just a few lines that answer so many questions and raise new ones. I want to come back for more, and track back the roots of my families. The Red Cross database is amazing enough to allow me to find out things such as this, and track them back to the mid 19th century).

I searched for my dad's cousin Facebook profile, but I only found one on linkedin which I couldn't get access to. Yellow Pages gave me two wrong numbers, and one number that always goes straight to an answering machine (and I'm *not* going to leave a message on a sensitive matter such as this; "hi, you don't know me, but I'm the daughter of..." and etc.). I don't even know if my grandmother's sister is still alive). (continued...)

( continues...)

I'd be happy for any advice, input or help in finding her contact details. I don't know if my grandmother's sister told anything to her side of the family, but my grandmother and grandfathers said nothing about the Holocaust. There were only ghost stories in the air, and the parts of stories their children got when the grown-ups thought they don't understand if they'll speak in Hungarian/Polish/German. And now, after decades, we know more - but not enough. I now know that my grandmother's sister and her parents were in Płaszów ghetto and later in Płaszów camp. I know that my grandmother's sister escaped that camp. I know that my grandmother managed to hide until '44 (we have no idea where), then was sent to Auschwitz for a few months, and was sent again for a work camp in North Germany in the summer of '44.

And knowing all of this, with the documentation is... well, it leaves The Afghan Whigs experiences in the dust. It is simply an amazing feeling of wonder and amazement. I'm so glad we went there.

So, yeah, I think that message is long enough as is, so I'll stop here.

Please remind me this post if I'll ever thought "oh, there's only 250 new messages in Bitches and I have a spare hour". Because it rarely works.

(Edited for grammar, as usual)

I, humm, wow. Three posts, really. First time that happens to me here.

I'm going to put the keyboard away from my hands for a while. I think this will be safest for all.

I, humm, wow. Three posts, really.

Impressive! That's the way to make an entrance. Welcome back, Shir.