The Hall of Fire

Sass, I don't know what vison got, but what they load me up on is mostly dexamethasone, and yes, the doses are very high—you start high doses a day or two before chemo, get a load of them IV with chemo, and then taper off afterwards for a few more days. Though vison probably got still more, as she w...

Hobby, now Whistler's never going to figure it out.

GRIFFY!

No board is complete that is not graced by a beast of your fabulousness!

Welcome! (Sorry to be late, but I have no computer at the moment and must wrestle this one from the kids to be online at all.)

We had a whole basement full of those potholders, Jn.

I think someone needs to ask Whistler some very pointed questions. I have a feeling he was suddenly struck wiith an inspiration as to how he could finish his Christmas shopping early.

Wilma!!!!!

So good to see you over here! Welcome!

Plus Voronwë keeps changing his mind about the paint colors.

Hi, Lalaith! Welcome! And everyone else I've missed—too many. It's good to see so many wonderful people and cephalopods gracing these halls.

I love the game of baseball. I just have trouble caring about the teams. I really do love it. My town has a class A team that plays in a 1938 stadium where they still change the scoreboard by hand, where most fans sit on bleachers and buy peanuts and beer and at the seventh-inning stretch we all sta...

My Swedish-ancestry aunt gave me a "Lucia crown" for my daughter to wear at Christmas that has little batteries and electric candles—much safer, no doubt! As the oldest (only) daughter, she is supposed to get up first on Christmas morning wearing the crown of candles and wake everyone up, ...

And . . . not to be irreverent, but I have certainly felt as Mary obviously does when the baby finally fell asleep!

You should write them well in advance to let them know you're coming, Whistler.

Well said, Frelga! Especially considering that when she talks about "helping things grow," I feel sure that in her position as Princess of Ithilien that would mean supervising the planting of many, many gardens and founding many houses of healing. She would not have been retiring to plant ...

And with the credentials you have earned, tp, you can make a huge difference, once you find the way that is right for you. That must be a wonderful reflection to make.

Edit: to remove something that looked like a slam that wasn't. I am inattentive.

I agree about the framing—although the composition looks balanced, I can't tell which part of the painting we're "supposed" to pay more attention to. And no, I did not get any of that subtext, Whistler, though I would have noticed that to me the woman looks, not bored, but on the verge of ...

I wonder if it was partly the frank gaze toward the viewer of the woman in the foreground. Classical nudes usually seemed to look down blushing or up toward Heaven. And of course this is the same Manet who painted "Olympia": http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y20/PrimBaggins/man10.jpg Again,...

But how can one get in the mood without the orchestral part? :scratch: Do you know, vison, I saw that painting first when I was a child, and so I never identified the women as prostitutes. I remember worrying that they must be cold, and wondering why on earth they had no clothes on—what if somebody ...

Prim, you sing tenor too? I'm a very low alto/sometimes tenor. I've learned to just ignore people at church. I'll sing if I want to! :D Oh, I do, too—it's the one place I've never felt constrained. I can read music, so I love singing the alto or tenor part, especially now that my baritone son has f...

How frustrating that must have been for you, Whistler! But Detroit? Phooey. I might go to Philly again someday, but I have no other reason to go to Detroit.

Oh, that's right—was that at the Philly m00t? So it's in Philadelphia?

Things I have learned, drinking a bottle of wine a day is not a good idea. Especially since the "wine" in question was port or madeira or sherry—fortified stuff, about 20% alcohol, so drinking a whole bottle was like polishing off half a bottle of liquor a day. "Regular" wine fr...