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On This Day: Your History

Started by claws, November 10, 2022, 07:29:22 AM

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Alex

29th November 2019: I asked Kristi how come she could hate roundabouts so much but love NASCAR, when essentially they are essentially the same thing.

29th November 2017: Kristi vetoed my idea of going to see Skid Row live on the basis that it was her due date and she didn't want to be giving birth at a rock concert. I however thought this was an awesome thing. Maybe not the Skid Row bit quite as much.

29th November 2016: My mother-in-law woke up from her double knee replacement surgery. Her shins had split lengthwise during the operation and she'd end up spending christmas in a recuperation clinic. I got to stand over her and insist that she did all her exercises and made sure they were all properly counted. I did not however feel brave enough to get involved in the argument between her and Kristi on how to decorate the tree. When I warned other family members about what was happening they all made the decision not to come around for dinner that night.

I did however make a bomb shelter under the stairs. Later on during out 2 month visit I'd fit shelving inside there and turn it into a pantry.

29th November 2010: The highest snowfall I've seen in my 20 odd years here fell. Work was cancelled due to it. I have only seen work cancelled three times due to extreme weather. Once was in the Falklands and twice on the Dambusters (the snowfall and back around Easter time it had been due to excessively high winds, which seemed odd as I'd previously had to work in a hurricane and this was merely a powerful storm and nowhere near as bad).
Hail to thyself
For I am my own master
I am my own god
I require no shepherd
For I am no sheep.

ER

November 30, 2020 Kept an eye on morning snow flurries while watching The Simpsons do an episode set in town, which was fun since it showed places I personally knew. Talked to the instructor who had been teaching my children Krav Maga before the plague, and he said he was still not doing lessons because of Covid. Went out and had brunch in her car with my cousin Alison, though we didn't really eat so much as chat---she's lucky if she weighs a hundred pounds---then I emailed a chaplain from an Air Force base in Utah who had done my family a nice favor during Covid, and topped off the day by beating Demon's Souls for the fourth time: still a rush after so many years. The month ended quietly, the house and outer world seeming almost preternaturally soundless.
What does not kill me makes me stranger.

claws

30th November 2021

Waking up to snow got me all happy so I took this pic.

Is it October yet?

Alex

30th November 2016: A discovered my favourite Choose Your Own Adventure type book author had died, a guy called Joe Dever. By sheer coincidence, I bought his first two books today and then when I looked at my memories, saw this.
Hail to thyself
For I am my own master
I am my own god
I require no shepherd
For I am no sheep.

ER

December 1, 1989 There was a fire drill at my school that sent us all out into the cold for half an hour, just before my paternal grandparents picked me up at the end of the day. Grandma sat in the back seat with me and braided my hair before we went out to dinner at a strange restaurant "across the river" called the Wigwam, which was in a part of town where they used to live from the late '50s til the mid-'60s. (I remember the interior was very, very cigarette smoky.) The aging neighborhood still had nice houses and pretty shops but was definitely going downhill. Everyone there was talking about the impending invasion of Panama, which my father had said was not about what the public was told it was, but he didn't specify what he meant. I stayed all night with my grandparents, one of my childhood's great joys, and lying on the floor with my elbows on the ground I read a book while my grandma watched Dallas, saying she also used to watch it when I was a baby and couldn't believe it still came on. I went upstairs to sleep in the bedroom that is my youngest daughter's today, and looked out the window with the light off, gazing into the dark woods, something I still love to do, because there's something tranquil yet eerie about staring off into a nighttime forest that is also staring back at you.
What does not kill me makes me stranger.

ER

December 2, 1997 My dad called to tell me there was a shooting at a school in Kentucky, and said he figured college shootings were going to be the next copycat thing, so be careful, but what exactly did that mean? I think it just meant "I love you." I wrote a paper on Jason from Greek mythology, and entered into a standoff with my roommate, Jackie, over who was going to clean our kitchenette: all forty square feet of it. We ended up dividing the chore down the middle, then made butterscotch pudding (oh, how wholesome!) and watched a Barbara Walters special about "Interesting People of 1997," whom I didn't find interesting at all, leading Jackie, who was into fame and movies and the like, to call me a "celebrity snob." Funny, back then I disdained celebrity culture, but it's been a long time since I have even known who most famous folks nowadays are or why they're famous, they come and go so fast and seem so interchangeable. (I bet Jackie still knows.) Before bed I talked to my boss and found out I was going to have to go to Boston in a few days for what amounted to a training assignment, news that I found both exciting and frightening, but which underscored what I already understood: I was destined never to have a normal life. To me a "normal life" is a sort of holy grail, a Shangri-La that likely doesn't exist for anyone, but it's something I've often thought about and envied.
What does not kill me makes me stranger.

ER

December 3, 1994 Threw a frisbee for my doggie Charlotte Sometimes, and kicked away crisp leaves stuck in the back fence while waiting out in beautifully warm weather for my best friend Gina to come over so we could go see Interview With the Vampire, which I, a fan of the book, would soon think was a dud. We came back and played Scrabble with her almost thirteen-year-old brother, Mark, who spelled mostly pseudo-invented dirty words like "backbang", then he walked Charlotte Sometimes with me out in the gloaming to a creek where we skipped rocks in the dimness while we talked about what crimes we thought we could get away with committing. (Him, stealing a police car; me murder of a complete stranger.) At home I talked to my mom about Christmas, then kissed her goodnight and went up to my room and sketched out a Ouija board I halfway contemplated making for someone as a present, since what says "Joy To The World" quite like a device for talking to the dead? Thought about what I was going to say in confession the next day, and since the usual priest was old and semi-cloistered, felt an amusing temptation to try to pass the plot of Stephen King's short story Nona off as my life. Instead decided I'd go straight and just tell about how I was knowingly allowing my best friend's brother's crush on me to cultivate, though why this would be a sin, I'm not sure. Stayed up with Charlotte Sometimes to watch Green Day on SNL, which was hosted by Roseanne (whatever her last name was then) and painted my toenails orange while I did, though since it was winter no one was going to see them.
What does not kill me makes me stranger.

ER

December 4, 2010 My mom came over and talked boy names with me and taught my daughter how to say the word "brother." In secret I paid off a small loan held on the house of someone I knew in Texas, because he wasn't in the best of health and the debt was crippling him. I got the lender to tell the person he was forgiving the loan, because I didn't want him to know I did it and then make it become a big deal between us. (It was only around seven grand.) He soon told me, "I don't know why but the fella who held the loan I made on my house suddenly told me he considers the debt wiped out. I'm so relieved!" Ironically, in three years the person whose loan I paid off ended up severing ties with me for what I thought were unfair reasons, cutting off a decade-old friendship cold without another word, but I don't regret what I did for him, and was glad that back then I was able to do things like that, when now I don't have the means to just hand out that kind of money without consequences.
What does not kill me makes me stranger.

Alex

4th December 2020: I had to point out to people that a Faraday cage might not be the answer to their problems with the government snooping on them. I resisted the urge to point out that a tin foil hat would act like an aerial though, making it easier for those mind-controlling signals to be broadcast to them though.

Hail to thyself
For I am my own master
I am my own god
I require no shepherd
For I am no sheep.

ER

December 5, 1993 I'd been seeing what'd happen if I fasted to my limit, it had barely been a day and a half, but when my dad found out, he proceeded to literally pick me up, walk me to the refrigerator, set me down and say, "You're going to eat now." Then he stood behind me til I did: so much for that science experiment. That night the local PBS affiliate had a club of people who dressed up as Klingons answering the phones during a pledge-a-thon, and I kept calling up and going, "Hi, can I talk to Worf? Hey is Chancellor Gawron around? Tea, Earl Gray, hot. Make it so!"  Life was funnier before *69.
What does not kill me makes me stranger.

Alex

5th December 2013. After a hard-fought ebay bidding battle, I finally won something I'd been after for a long time. Alas, it turned out my bidding nemesis was my wife who was trying to buy the same item for me as a surprise.

I think you can safely say I was very surprised.

I was also sent home from work this day due to a gout attack. I had to pull my shoe off and when my co-workers saw just how big my toe had swollen up, it was generally accepted that there was no way I was getting that shoe back on. Since it was snowing and blowing gale-force winds I was quite happy to be stuck at home and not working outside.

5th December 2015. We had Sean and his girlfriend Holly around for some boardgames. We played Dead of Winter and if only we'd been able to survive one more turn we'd have finally beat the game.
Hail to thyself
For I am my own master
I am my own god
I require no shepherd
For I am no sheep.

Trevor

5 December 2013, the day Nelson Mandela passed away.

I am glad that he is not alive to see how the ruling party which he was the figurehead of for many years has decimated our country with their corruption and greed 😦
We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness.

ER

December 6, 2006 I woke up at 2:22 AM, freezing and started to wonder if the furnace was out, so I got up and walked down the hall to see if my friend Gina, who was living with me for a few months since coming back from Merida, Mexico, was cold, but she was sleeping and I figured it wasn't right to wake her up, so I headed downstairs on my own. People are always commenting on how this house is by a large, concealing woods, and how isolated it is despite being close to the city, and how it's the most perfect layout imaginable for some latter-day Manson clan to come announce they're "doing the devil's business," but I've always associated the house with happy times and have never been afraid. I went to the basement to look over the furnace, which was fine, and the heat kicked on even as I was down there, so back up I went, realizing only after I was again in bed that I'd left my door open, and conceivably someone could have made it cold to lure me out and then sneaked into my room and concealed himself, and I got this notion stuck in my head to where I couldn't relax until I got up and looked in the closet and under the bed. Then I then started pondering the eighty-plus years of people sleeping in that room, and all that'd gone on in there, and I laid awake till I don't know when, after four, certainly, with these sleep-depriving nocturnal thoughts cantering through my vibrating brain cells.
What does not kill me makes me stranger.

Alex

#43
7th December 2013. My diary for today reads: "On the negative side of things today if your wife tells you, you don't need a piece of paper to make a list on because she has her head, the thing not to do is write your list out on her head.

On the plus side, if a woman is coming at you with a knife just hand her a loaf of bread and some butter. Her instincts kick in and you'll be perfectly safe. And have a sandwich as a bonus."

Later on the same day, Sean was round visiting us. After visiting us for six months, he finally noticed the sign on the mancave door that says "If small children (or Sean), are in this room please put all the swords out of reach." It was printed on black and white on a piece of A4 paper so his failure to notice it says a lot about Sean. He indicated that he found this offensive His next action was to pick up an LED torch, turn it on full beam and attempt to stare it out.

Which I feel demonstrates perfectly why I needed the sign.
Hail to thyself
For I am my own master
I am my own god
I require no shepherd
For I am no sheep.

ER

December 7, 1995 Michael Jackson was in the news after apparently falling unconscious making a TV special, and that left people saying he was a drug addict. My boyfriend was off college for the semester, about two weeks before I would be on break in high school, so I took him a goofy end of term present, this rubber replica of a $10,000 bill that said "Stretch Your Money" on it. He said thanks, then awkwardly said he had something to tell me, and I thought uh-oh, and he said, "Bad Goofy on my shoulder wanted me to tell you later but I thought it was more gentlemanly to tell you now in case you wanted to cancel tonight and storm off once you heard." His news was just that he was going to Florida for basically the rest of the Christmas season, so he could be with his mom and sister. Oh well. Hey, I didn't storm off....
What does not kill me makes me stranger.