The NFC B-Day Chat Thread

[DigMyChicks]

Morning all

Here's hoping for all the pain to go away

DMC that's a gorgeous picture

Thank you!

 

[drumstick diva]

Sounds like nail clipping is in order if you only tried once and she is 8.5 years old.

 

[JaeG]

DD I'm sure you'd love a ragdoll cat. They are super gentle (you have to protect them from kids as they won't fight back when little people pull or pinch too hard) and more like dogs than cats.

I'm going to say Merry (almost) Christmas now as it will be chaos in the morning I'm sure, and we are having breakfast, and lunch, and afternoon tea (if we have any room left) at my parents.

Enjoy your Christmas Eves you lovely people.


(not that it's going to be like this tomorrow, but I thought it was very cute)

 

[ShrekDawg]

Sounds like nail clipping is in order if you only tried once and she is 8.5 years old.

Yeah, I think I will try again. I never even realized you should trim cats claws or that you could. I am sure most people don't. I know all about trimming dog claws and how important that is but never thought of cat claws. I guess because they are retracted.

DD I'm sure you'd love a ragdoll cat. They are super gentle (you have to protect them from kids as they won't fight back when little people pull or pinch too hard) and more like dogs than cats.

I'm going to say Merry (almost) Christmas now as it will be chaos in the morning I'm sure, and we are having breakfast, and lunch, and afternoon tea (if we have any room left) at my parents.

Enjoy your Christmas Eves you lovely people.

View attachment 1623391
(not that it's going to be like this tomorrow, but I thought it was very cute)

I used to want a ragdoll and still some day do. That and Bengal. Those things are freaking awesome lol the cat not the tiger. Well, tigers are awesome too. Also want a Maine Coon. I have a lot of cats I want haha but for cats, I don't really get the whole purebred thing. They are so expensive and seems a tad silly when there are sooo many homeless cats and cats are all so similar anyway and most people just pet and maybe play with it so any cat will do. Not like a dog where there are so many super specific and individual/varied purposes for each breed and you might need a specific breed or trait. Although rescue mutts are awesome too and I will probably eventually have several but love and want a purebred too. Cats I can't really justify it. But I would love a Bengal some day. Would love a big cat too but exotics are illegal in MA and even if they weren't, I won't contribute to the likely illegal pet exotic trade or to keeping endangered animals in captivity and out of the wild where they belong. I think it's sickening that there are more captive tigers than there are wild ones. Plus of course the massive, massive expense for food and a suitable, super secure structure, and if insurance companies won't even insure people for having certain breeds of domestic dog (i.e. German Shepherd, pit bull, etc.), I can't imagine what they'd think about someone with a freaking pet tiger or lion or cheetah lol but maybe like a wolf dog or something some day but most likely not. Bengals are exotic enough.

 

[N F C]

Good morning to all and Merry Christmas to @JaeG!

 

[rjohns39]

Good Morning all

Merry Christmas @JaeG

 

[sharron]

Good morning to all and Merry Christmas to @JaeG!

 

[sharron]

DD I'm sure you'd love a ragdoll cat. They are super gentle (you have to protect them from kids as they won't fight back when little people pull or pinch too hard) and more like dogs than cats.

I'm going to say Merry (almost) Christmas now as it will be chaos in the morning I'm sure, and we are having breakfast, and lunch, and afternoon tea (if we have any room left) at my parents.

Enjoy your Christmas Eves you lovely people.

View attachment 1623391
(not that it's going to be like this tomorrow, but I thought it was very cute)

merry christmas jae

 

[sharron]

Good Morning all

Merry Christmas @JaeG

 

[DigMyChicks]

Don't forget to send the money to cover the taxes or legal fees or whatever so you can soon be rich beyond your wildest imagination!


It is beautiful. That kind of morning sky usually means foul weather coming soon but I don't see anything like that in your near future

Thanks! We have a change coming this week. We’ve had some pretty nice days here so it’s time.

Me too. Maybe our MRIs will give us and our doctors a shove in the right direction. I don’t know about you, but give me an enemy I can fight and I’ll battle with the best of them. But put me up against an unknown and I just seem to flounder.



Oh, that is gorgeous!

Jae, we want photos if weather conditions permit!

Thanks Blooie!

How about a long Christmas story? It’s about two little girls and a Christmas surprise.

We lived in an old farmhouse house about 10 miles from town at the time, and money was, as usual, very tight. How tight? Imagine an eastern South Dakota winter and having the power shut off for non-payment just a few days after Thanksgiving. Yeah, that tight. There was an old wood stove, so we could cook and had heat, but the two back bedrooms (Ma and Dad had one, the four of us kids shared the other) were too cold to bear so we “camped out” on the living room floor, around the unlit Christmas tree. We had one glass lamp that was always kept filled for emergency power outages, common during ice storms or wicked South Dakota thunderstorms, but they used it sparingly. Dad also had a rusty propane heater that he used in the garage, so he put that in the crawl space under the house and would go out in the cold, squeeze his 6’4” frame under there and light it periodically to keep the pipes from freezing. He wouldn’t use it in the house...too much risk of Carbon Monoxide poisoning....but he felt that the crawl space was ventilated enough for running it in short bursts. There was also an old outhouse by the shed, and we all quickly learned to pee only during daylight hours. It was spooky dark out there!

Dad made it all seem like a big adventure, making a huge deal out of bringing in wood and pretending he was Charles Ingalls and we were living The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder. We always called my mother “Ma”, but he had to keep reminding us that he wasn’t Dad, he was “Pa”. I was Laura, Linda was Mary, Lori was Carrie, and Ronnie....well, he was Buford. He was always called Buford.

Dad got a nice, unexpected Christmas bonus along with his paycheck on a Friday..too late to get the power back on but he and Ma went Christmas shopping. His kids were gonna have a memorable Christmas after the last, uncomfortable weeks they’d had. He was always praising us for our “pioneer spirit” and said that they’d make it up to us.

They came home with their bags and teased us about “no peeking” at the Christmas presents in their room. I was - and still am - a notorious peeker, and had tape slitting down to an art, and they knew it. Before it got dark, Ma was back there wrapping while Dad heated a couple of big cans of Dinty Moore beef stew on the stove top. Late that night, when we were supposed to be asleep, Ma had the audacity to hide the wrapped gifts instead of putting them under the tree! How dare she? The light from that lantern was enough that I could see her stash two identically wrapped gifts in the built in flour bin in the cabinets. We never used it, but she was smart enough to put a stack of dish towels over whatever she’d hidden there.

That Sunday Ma and Dad went into town to pick up a few last minute items, and I dragged Linda into my folly. We opened that bin, and sure enough, one gift was for her and one for me. I got out the paring knife, carefully slit the tape and there before our prying eyes were two identical Instamatic cameras! This was long before clamshell packaging, so it was simply a matter of opening the boxes and marveling at us each having our own very real cameras. It must be remembered that until those marvelous gifts, Christmas for us usually consisted of a pair of flannel jammies, maybe some Presto Sparkle paints, and if they were particularly flush that Christmas, a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle to share. So finding real cameras was beyond imagining!

We had a field day!! We popped those little flash cubes on top, the film cartridges inside and took a gabillion photos of each other... funny poses, “professional” portraits, modeling poses...and then we managed to tuck everything back in the boxes just as we’d found them, wrap them back up neatly, and cover them with the stack of towels.

That Monday morning the power was restored, just a few days before Christmas. We were kept pretty busy catching up on housework we’d been unable to do without lights and being able to run the vacuum cleaner, remaking the beds with all the bedding we’d kept in the living room. I remember Ma, always finding the good in any situation, remarking that at least the mattresses had had a good airing out.

Christmas morning after breakfast, we all sat down in front of the tree. They usually started with the youngest opening their gifts first, then going up in age. I was always last. But this year, with her impish grin, Ma gave me and Linda our gifts first, at the same time. So we both opened those cameras, made the proper squeals of surprise, and then Ma said, “Now follow the instructions and we’ll finally have some Christmas morning pictures.”

Um, gulp. We’d already used all the flash cubes and shot up the film cartridges. Linda burst into tears. Me? Well, I looked at the disappointment on Ma’s face and the vein pulsing in Dad’s forehead, said my final goodbyes to the world, and waited to meet my execution. Ronnie and Lori just sat there, not fully understanding why they weren’t getting to open their presents yet. My eyes squeezed shut, waiting in dread. But I heard a snort, then another, and Dad burst out laughing. “Well, LaVonne, we gotta give the little scamps credit for finding a way to beat the boredom!” Ma didn’t find it so funny, but she nodded and then let the other two kids open their gifts.

I don’t remember through the years what other things Lori, Ron, and later on Bev may have gotten for Christmas, but I remember that Christmas clearly. Lori got a Chatty Cathy doll and Ronnie got an Odd Og. Real gifts...not jammies and paint sets or crayons, but real honest to goodness as-seen-on-TV things! And no pictures of that amazing Christmas.

Awesome story!

I dis some photo restoration with photoshop. It was an amazing process!
View attachment 1623240

This is one I fixed. It had a rip and gravy stains on it. This is my Grandpa Bill, The older boy is my Father and the younger boy is my Uncle Bill. Picture would have been taken in the early 1940s

Very neat picture!

DD I'm sure you'd love a ragdoll cat. They are super gentle (you have to protect them from kids as they won't fight back when little people pull or pinch too hard) and more like dogs than cats.

I'm going to say Merry (almost) Christmas now as it will be chaos in the morning I'm sure, and we are having breakfast, and lunch, and afternoon tea (if we have any room left) at my parents.

Enjoy your Christmas Eves you lovely people.

View attachment 1623391
(not that it's going to be like this tomorrow, but I thought it was very cute)

Merry Christmas Jae!