sheftali52

Ah Dragon--you couldn't stay away! Overseas, Sheftali used local time, except at work, we used Zulu time. I found it interesting that in German, 7:30 would be said as "halb acht", which I took to mean "halfway to eight", but really is "half past seven." At least that was my understanding. (This from a gal who grew up without daylight savings time changes in Hawaii).

Dragon

Good to know.
Ok, I'm really going to bed (FOR REAL) this time. If I don't get to sleep I'll be absolutely useless in the morning (I mean more useless than usually, dragons do not like mornings!)

marius

sheftali, yes I do enjoy things spiritual. Sounds like sheftali does too? And, yes, deep connections with nature, all my life. However, with people too.

The other day, took daughter-in-law to a brunch. We had girl time and then back at her house, just hung out a while. The littlest said to his sis, "Want to go play ...?" She said, "Well, I want to spend time with grandma right now."

THAT melted the old heart, especially as I never wanted to spend time with my grandma when I was twelve! So, not sure what a spiritual moment is, but that was one for me. : )

And now, sweet dreams to all.

sheftali52

Sweet dreams, Dragon. When Sheftali was stationed in Greece, there was a civilian Greek lady working at the base who was in charge of Customs. She was a very dictatorial person and loved the power she perceived she had. We called her the Dragon Lady. Military folks had it hard at the time in Greece, when it came to Customs. We had to submit a list of all the valuable things we brought into the country (as shown on the mover's manifest). And when we left the country, we had to show (by means of the mover's manifest) that we left the country with all of the same things. And, if we bought, say, a watch in the military store, that got reported to the Customs office, and we'd better leave the country with that watch as well. I guess the theory was that they didn't want any of us military folks selling stuff on the black market in Greece (American goods were prized items). Now, let's say the watch I bought at the military store stopped working, and I threw it away. Well, that was a BIG problem with the Customs office if I couldn't produce the watch for them to see--and I would theoretically be subject to a huge customs tax. Sheftali never fell into that trap, but she had to bail lots of troops out of customs difficulties. I learned to go the the Dragon Lady's office, schmooze her a lot, and I always got her to acquiesce. (Sheftali used to be quite a silver-tongued schmoozer--all for the troops, of course!)

At any rate, I'm sure Think Draw's Dragon is not anything like the Greek Dragon Lady!

sheftali52

And sweet dreams to you, Marius. Yup, Sheftali feels a spiritual side as well. That's one reason I loved the southwest, particularly when I lived in Tucson, Arizona. I loved the Indian, Mexican influences there, and I believed I could "see" and feel a lot of things in the desert that I haven't experienced anywhere else.

Your granddaughter's desire to spend time with you definitely qualifies as a spiritual moment. That she wants to spend time with you says voumes about you!

Sheftali is apparently anchoring the late night shift here on Channel Baldur. This thread is always full of life, and I'm sure we're all grateful to our host for keeping things hopping here with his wit and eclecticity (+5 for this non-word!)

sheftali52

voumes + l += volumes

marg

Dear Baldur..

I'm puzzling over something one of your listeners posted in a forum which I have principles about besmirching with idle chat (i.e. the TD Forum).

This listener said..
'They might come for you if I'm not careful, and the less we speak, the more careful I become.'

Please explain, since you are the game show host.. does this mean that if we all speak a lot, then we will be 'safe' ?

Who is 'They' .. are we talking matthew again ?

... and what ARE the secrets that will blow our little ThinkDraw world to pieces ?

Please don your Santa gear and present me with the answers, because I've been pretty good this year and I have an excellent recipe for reindeer stew that I think you'll like ..

matthew

Call me crazy... but I can picture Maddy & Ron being 'they'... Keep in mind, I am NEVER right about reading things like that...

I also remember a VERY similar remark made many months back about a secret that would ruin our little TD world... That secret was just a warped conspiracy theory and our TD world still lives on...

I personally am bored with conspiracy theories and their creators... (of course I say that after I hinted at a couple myself)...

Ah well... just got home from work... I will check in later to see if I am still bored with it...

marius

lol marg!

Sheftali, loved finding out that your name means peaches in Turkish. Remembered that's your name itrw. Bet that was a fun name to have in the military - seriously! And, enjoyed your story of the Dragon lady. Was there no way to give your Greek friends American-made gifts? Or you could give, but had to take the gifts back when you left the country? : )

And Tucson ... when I was there, I also "could 'see' and feel a lot of things in the desert" that I hadn't experienced, quite like that, anywhere else. There is most definitely a delicious feel to that area! Funny you mentioned the wonders of Tucson yesterday, as I'd just written my sister and said I'm going back this spring. Hmmm ... maybe I will!

... and speaking of how folks got their user names, will Dragon tell us how she got hers? And, hope the morning was not too bad for Dragon. Oh ... also, love to hear about your fella. He sounds like a sure "keeper" to me!

Baldur

Baldur had originally considered that matthew was behind the madness.
In fact, very soon in the game I sent a message to him through MySpace, the purpose being to let him know that I'd noticed our new correspondent.
In a way it was a caution that I was on to him.
However in the interim it seems to me that this is not matthew.
He is a bit more humorous than this. The sense of humor is missing here. What I feel instead is a desperation to be noticed. matthew never seems desperate for that, as he can achieve notoriety easily at his whim.
What seems to pin this on him is the timing of the messages, both are on this site at similar times.
I give matthew enough credit however to know that should he be behind it he would wake up at all hours only to post the oddly timed message.
If only to throw us off.

Now as to the soul wrenching secrets that would rock our world... who can predict them?
If it is some horrific condition of her life, some disfigurement, some personal calamity that has her in hiding from the world she may find that our sense of empathy has been slowly waning.
At first my reaction would have been different, now it would be tinged with enough disbelief and doubt that my sympathy would be only cautiously bestowed.

'They might come for you......', my question here is 'why?'.
Because we are harbouring her?
teasing her?
encouraging her?
discouraging her?

No, this mess is of her own making. If there is something we shouldn't know..... don't tell us.
If she or some one she is close to is in danger, and she has unsupervised internet access, she should use it to get help.
We are not the able to help an anonymous person in a far off land, as good as our intentions could possibly be.
When any of us has offered moral support we are left to believe that we just don't understand.
Truly we don't, and can't.

Anyone care to tie up any loose ends that Baldur has left?

Baldur

It's time for 'Cooking with Baldur'

On this morning's episode let's bake some cookies.

BALDUR'S TRADITIONAL GINGERBREAD

In a mixer combine:
3/4 cup of soft butter
3/4 cup vegetable oil
2 cups granulated white sugar
1/2 cup molasses
beat until well combined
add:
2 eggs
beat again until the eggs are incorporated.

In a large bowl combine:
4 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons ground cloves
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg
1/2 reaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon dry mustard powder
1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper

Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix just until a smooth dough is formed. There should be no unincorporated ingredient.
Wrap the dough and refrigerate it for at least an hour.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Farenheit
Working with 1/4 of the dough at a time, roll it out rather thin on a lightly floured work surface.
Cut the dough into decorative shapes and place each cookie on a nonstick or lightly greased baking sheet, placing them about an inch apart.
Bake for 5 minutes for smallish cookies, a bit longer for larger ones.
If you wish to hang these cookies as decorations take a drinking straw and use it to puch a small hole in the top of each cookie as soon as they come out of the oven. They will be soft for only a few moments.
Allow them to cool on the tray for a few moments and then using a spatula transfer them to wire racks to cool completely.
These get very hard when they cool.

Makes a lot

Baldur

This recipe also works well for building gingerbread houses.
Make a cardboard template for each piece, trace the shapes on the dough and cut them out.

As the dough bakes it spreads a little bit, so as soon as the pieces come out of the oven, place the template over the baked cookies and with a sharp knife trim the pieces back to the required shape.

Robindcr8l

AMEN, Baldur, to post 4810. And thanks for the recipe!

Dragon

I second Robin AMEN to post 4810. Baldur (as usual) has managed to very succinctly (+5 if I spelled it right) boil down an issue to a few simple and very true sentences that bring it right to the point. Well said.

Marius, I'm glad your grandkids like spending time with you. Some of my fondest memories of my childhood are those with my grandparents. I always enjoyed the time I spent with them and am still fortunate to have 2 of them still alive and healthy so I can still chat with them.
I mentioned a few pages back that there's no great story on how I choose the name Dragon, just an abiding love of all things draconic and the fact that I was born in the year of the dragon. As for my fella, I'm thankful every day I'm with him, he's definitly a keeper.

Dragon

We've heard how marius and Baldur met their spouses, I'm don't recall if I've told you how I met mine.
My friend at work and her husband were moving. It was Nov or Dec and was quite snowy but I don't think it was horribly cold that day. Anyway, I was helping them move and there were a few others there helping as well. The only one I didn't know was this very tall (6'7) fair haired fellow who worked with my friends husband. When they fed us dinner the table had already been packed so we all sat on chairs in a circle in the empty living room balancing our plates on our laps and I was sitting next to this tall fellow. We got to chatting and found a common love of sci-fi among other things and I remember thinking how sexy and attractive he was, darn it why did he have to have a girlfriend. For New Years Eve the same freind and her hubby had a very small get together, indeed the geust list comprised of:Friend and hubby, Dragon, Tall Fellow and his Girlfriend (and their dog). It was a fun evening though as usual Dragon had no one to kiss the New Year in with. Much to my surprise, not long into the new year my friend told me that the Tall Fellow and his girlfriend had broken up, appearantly it had been coming for some time and was not all that shocking to those that knew them. Notlong after that Tall Fellow asked my friend if it might be alright if he asked me out on a date, she immediatly asked me if she could give him my phone number. I was trepidacious (+10 points) but I agreed and we went out to Boston Pizza and had a lovely evening. Our second date we went for a walk around the ponds at a local park and got ice cream. So that's how it started for us and it's now been better than 2 years. So that's a lesson to everyone out there, good deeds can in fact wind up leading to good things. Next time your friend asks for help moving, who knows, you might just meet your soulmate.

Shanley

Quite frankly, I think the whole purpose of getting a nickname is expressing your opinion while staying anonymous. I can understand that using multiple accounts on TD can be disturbing when voting more than one time, trying to underrate and offend other participants, but as this is not Maddy's case, I really cant understand why is everybody so keen to know Maddy's secrets. Honestly....i couldnt care less if she was the Pope himself. It doesn't help/bother me. :-??

Baldur

The problem is actually that we don't want to know the secrets, but they keep getting waved in front of us.

Baldur

One good way to keep a secret is by not advertizing to everyone that there is a secret.

matthew

Wait... Maddy is the Pope? That might explain the "They" that would be coming for us...

"Father, Son & Holy Ghost"???

Shanley

Lol, I didn't say that. )