Okay, Okay, Okay!!!!!

Okay!!! I don't know if it is Nunnie and her "Nuns of the Big House" ... or Marsha ... or who .... but someone out there is praying for me to be filled with forgiveness ....

It is the oddest feeling. I mean .... I have been so hurt by Georgia and Pam and Christie and Paula ... so hurt that it has been difficult trusting other friends in my life. Yet .... over the past couple of weeks I have had this overwhelming feeling of forgiveness.

Mind you, these ladies have not asked for my forgiveness .... nor do they probably think they have done anything they need forgiveness for .... nevertheless, they are forgiven.

I don't know if I will ever TRUST them again. I don't know that I will ever have a NEED to trust them again. I'm not going back to SBDO. Just planning to move ahead. Move on.

My "Apologies to WineFairie" post has attracted LOTS of attention, but no comments.

Anyway .... whoever is out there praying for me .... GOOD JOB!!

Wow ..... this has been a most wonderful Summer.

Tonight was my last night of Summer Tutoring .... Starting Monday I am back into the long evening hours. School starts Monday, but I am already getting booked up in the evenings ... and that is a good thing!! It is how I make my living!

Anyway .... this Summer has been just wonderful. I made enough money to keep from having to dip into my savings. I wasn't able to save any .... but didn't have to borrow from savings ... so, I guess I broke even! That is fine!

I have felt so relaxed this Summer.... not a great need for naps ... I would go to bed at night and read for a hour or so ... wake up in the morning when I wanted to .... I swam and tanned and read and played with plants and tutored! And played online.

I did NOT exercise .... and I need to get back to doing that ... but this Summer has been most relaxing and nice. Just thought I would share that!

An Apology to WF ....

My Dear Winefairie ....



I would like to apologize to you for the wrongs I have done to you of which I am aware.



I apologize for asking you and Catmadam to take your attacks on Bree off the Message Boards and into email. Apparently that was very offensive to you. I did not mean for it to be.



I apologize for then announcing to the people left on FP that you and Cat left because of me. Although I thought that to be the case, apparently my doing so made you extremely upset with me.



And I apologize for writing to 3 of your friends and asking them if they noticed or thought you were behaving differently from your normal self. I was not trying to smear you, honestly.



Congratulations on your new home. I hope it is going well.

Sincerely,

Cincin

I Did Something Stoopid ....

Given the online tensions I have experienced this year, I decided to run a Yahoo Search on my user name and see what it brought up. The results were good. My homepage ... my blogs ... various places I have posted comments, etc.

Then I got the "brilliant" idea to run a Yahoo Search on Winefairie. And that's where I found the inner circle of people who led to the downfall of Fool's Paradise.

Mind you, this "SparkPeople" group of "Lost Fools" .... as they called themselves (then they got angry if anyone else called them that) .... doesn't seem to have been very active since January of 2007 .... but it is the membership which is very telling. And I am not saying that Winefairie started this "SparkPeople" group ... in fact, it looks more like Q-Ball was the ring-leader there ... it was just my Yahoo Search for Winefaire which brought it up.

Now I know who the elite inner circle was. And who the rejected outcasts were. It is the middleschool lunch table thing all over again.

Now .... maybe some of the missing ladies were invited, but decided not to join? That is possible. Where is RH? Nunnie?? T4? Sparkle? LindaS? Sweeney?????? Belly? Sunshine? Looney? Knitnurse? Purpleangel? Skater? Sailor? Me?? Bree? Lilaz?

Or are these the people who made Fool's Paradise "No Fun" anymore and the reason Cat and WF and Caterry and Q-Ball stopped posting. Gilly and Do continued to play everywhere and tried to maintain friendships .... Swillow hadn't been around for quite awhile. Not sure why she left FP in the first place. And Sizz was playing both ends, it seems.

Well .... seeing all these faces and names of people who were once very dear to me made me sad and angry and a whole bunch of other emotions .... I do see that the group didn't seem to stay active for very long .... maybe they found somewhere else to go? Maybe Q-Ball did set up a message board and they are there?

But suffice to say that I wasn't invited to any of it. It appears I am among good company of un-invitees .... but still ..... pfffffffttttttt ....

And here I am thinking about trying to start a community in iVillage where ALL the old Fewls would feel welcome .... although there would be 2 Rules which all would have to follow ....

Rule #1 ..... BE NICE.
Rule #2 .... See Rule #1.

Welll ..... I am still going to attempt to start a community in iVillage. And if I can get it approved, I am still going to invite all people from SBDO-FP to join me there. Everyone will be welcome .... but the 2 Rules must be followed.

A full one-year membership to iVillage which blocks ads and pop-ups and allows full access to the Message Boards and all they offer is less than $40 a year. SBDO costs between $84-240 a year, depending on when you joined!! iVillage offers Diet and Health boards along with about a zillion other boards .... (phew ... the Love & Sex Boards have some real eye-opening topics!! Yikes!!) .... I have spent several months on these boards trying to get a feel for how they work ... meeting people .... visiting communities ... finding friends .... etc. When I opened a thread there several months ago about relocating Fewl's Paradise, I basically barged into someone's home and set up a camp in their living room!! I didn't realize at the time that is what I did .... but now I know that is what I did!! I apologize to members of the Laugh Yoursef Well/Coffee Shop Chatter Community!!!

When and if I do set up a community, it won't be in the diet and health area anyway! Although I do really like the titles of some of their communites!

New Comments Today ....

Here are some comments I got today on this Blog ... from Ms. Anonymous ... and if you check the Site meter you will see that whoever it was now has an "Anonymizer" which hides her IP address and location .... LOL ....

Thing is ... she just can't hide her attitude!!

Here is a compilation of today's posts from ONE person .... in the order they posted them ...

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Caterry's Gift to Me ....":
I love that saying. It's called humor. I don't think your friend meant anything mean by it. You seem to have a real chip on your shoulder. Lighten up and try to have a sense of humor and you might enjoy life more.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "EVIL .....":
I feel really bad for you and wish you could quit dwelling on negatives.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "What I did ....":
I stumbled upon this site by accident, but I'm getting the biggest kick out of you trying to figure everything out. A PI you are not. ha!

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Glass and Plants ...":
Looks cool out there. What all are you growing?

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Out of all of those comments ... I found the last one to be kind and friendly and I responded in kind.

The other comments just confuse me. Why is this person pretending like she doesn't know me? She spent around 1/2 an hour on my Blog ... reading 16 different pages .... this is someone invested in me somehow. I am fairly sure of who it is ... but given the lengths she has gone to hide her identity, I'll leave that be. However ... any other people who knew the members of Fool's Paradise, and who know me ... can probably guess who posted the comments above.

What amazes me is that they call me sad and miserable ... yet they continue to pursue me. It is fascinating!

Lord .... If I can't Be ....

Lord ... If I can't be Rich in $$, please let me be Rich in Friendships.

Lord ... If I can't be Witty, please surround me with people who laugh anyway!

Lord ... If I can't be Sane, please let my friends be Slightly Off-Kilter, too!

Lord ... If I can't cry when I need to, please let my friends tell me heart-wrenching things which MAKE me cry!

Lord ... If I am crying too much, please let my friends make me laugh until my sides hurt!

Lord ...

Caterry's Gift to Me ....

Back in November 2006, WF, Cat, Caterry, and Sunshine came to see me on a Saturday afternoon. Little tokens of friendship were exchanged ... Candles and magnets and keychains, etc.

Caterry's gift to me came with the statement ... "I hope this doesn't make you mad or hurt your feelings" .... Oh-OH! What sort of gift would do that?

Well the magnet she gave me had the little prayer "LORD, IF I CAN'T BE SKINNY, PLEASE LET MY FRIENDS BE FAT!"

Okay ... well ... 'tis true that I can't be skinny .... so I hung the magnet on my refrigerator .... shrugged my shoulders ... and went on. Caterry, by the way, is very tall (my height) and skinny, although she thinks herself to be overweight.

But the magnet caught my eye the other day ... and I got to thinking about my friends. Okay so most of my skin friends are overweight. La is not (NO, Really!! You are NOT) and Diana is not (and she eats!!) and Caroline looks great, and Sueann is skinny .... but all my other female friends and my spouse, and myself, and some of my friend's spouses are overweight. I'm sure our Drs classify some of us as "obese" ... some of us as "morbidly obese". So .... thanks for the magnet, Caterry ... it seems to speak true.

Then I thought about the women I met online .... on a Diet/Weightloss website, no less. They varied as much as my skin friends .... from Skinny ((Gilly .... Sweeney .... Caterry ...)) to morbidly obese ... ((that would be me and anyone bigger than me)) and all weights and sizes in between.

Do I like any of these women more or less because of their SIZE? Absolutely NOT. In fact, one of the most beautiful women I know has no idea how beautiful she is. She is overweight. Her hair is brown/black going to grey. She wears little, if any, make-up. Life has thrown her many, many sadnesses. Yet her laugh is a melody. Her smile, sunlight. her advice, wise. Her kindnesses many. And she really doesn't consider herself beautiful .... which is probably one of the most beautiful things about her!

I wonder what she thinks when she sees pictures of herself.

So .... Lord .... if I can't be skinny .... please let my friends be REAL.

It isn't about weight. It should never be about weight.

Tom's Glasswork ...

Glass and Plants ...

Tom is really enjoying doing stained glass projects ... here is what he did this weekend ...



And I am really enjoying growing things!! All I have to do is look at my deck and I feel happy ...

Cincin's Philosophies II .....

The sound of Cicadas in the trees is good for the Soul ...

The sound of Windchimes in the breeze is good for the Soul ...

The sound of a Water Feature nearby is good for the Soul ...

The taste of slightly sour lemonade on a hot summer day while sitting on the deck in dappled sunlight and listening to all of the above is very good for the Soul.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Ha-Ha!! And it is football season!!! Yay!!

Go Broncos!!!

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Cats and Dogs and Pets in general are good for the Soul! Dogs who lay at your feet and cats who lay on your lap are Very Good for the Soul.

Riunite on ice .... very nice. Especially with pasta and garlic bread.

Nice emails from friends are good for the Soul.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

EVIL .....

Facing off against the Fellowship is the evil Saruman, once the head of the Council of the Wise, who has since succumbed to the dark temptations of Sauron’s power. Saruman wants Frodo’s ring and is willing to use his specially bred Uruk-Hai — grotesque, war-like creatures -- to get it. Perhaps no one could embody Saruman better than that long-time master, Christopher Lee. Lee had played many mythical creatures before but had never been involved with a project like The Lord of The Rings. "This is the outright creation of an entire world," he says. "It brings together history and languages and cultures and makes a dreamscape come true." Although Saruman lived around 7,000 mythical years ago, Lee sees his dark reflection all over the place in the modern world. "To my way of thinking, the evil that exists today isn’t that different from what you see in Middle-earth. People will always crave power and Saruman wants Sauron’s power," he explains. "To me, he is not just the physical force of evil personified, he is also very real."

From: http://www.lordoftherings.net/index_cast.html

So .... we are watching the LOTR's trilogy again ... on DVD. It is a wonderful story and was filmed magnificantly! As I am watching this I get a couple of email alerts that someone had commented on this BLOG. This masked commentator chose to comment on some old posts about Fool's Paradise on the South Beach Diet message boards. She claims to not know the people involved, but my guess is that she is lieing. My Site Meter shows her as being from Wilmington, Delaware ... but also lists her as being in the Central Time Zone. All that means is that her Internet Server is in Delaware ... but SHE is actually in the Central US. And I do not know for sure who she is ... but I am quite sure she knows of me and people involved in those posts. Her tone of ridicule comes through loud and clear ... and rings familiar.

So .... she brought back memories of things I continue to try to put behind me. But these things just happened a few months ago ... so their pain still lingers and pops up at unexpected times in me.

I am still trying to figure out why someone would want to take a "happy place" and turn it into a "dark mean nasty place". This theme pops up all the time in literature and movie and LIFE ... and I just don't get it.

But watching the LOTR last night brought home that it is mostly just about POWER. And the quote I copied above has parallels in MANY ways, as Christopher Lee commented. In my own little world it was the Fool's Paradise message board on the South Beach Diet thread which succumbed to the dark temptations of evil and power.

Saruman was once head of the Council of the Wise ... but that wasn't enough power for him ... he wants the one ring which rules all ... and he is willing to destroy friendships and kill innocents and yank huge strong trees from the ground and create evil creatures to do his bidding .... just so he can RULE ALL. Never mind that the ALL that he wants to rule is ugly and injured and limping along in fear.

And there is the evil eye of Sauron watching over everything and sending his negative energy out, pulling in the weak and spineless. And sometimes the weak and the spineless were actually people who ruled parts of Middle-Earth. People who had the power to STOP him, but chose instead to join him ... so tempting the lure of POWER ... and so terrifying the threat of becoming his target.

Gee what parallels could I draw from all that? Where do WF and the Cats and Q and the Admins all fit into the picture? Where do I fit in? Where do all the other members of FP fit in?

Does FP even exist now?? I wonder.