When I was in 8th grade, a classmate along with my sister tore up a painting that I had spent three months working on.

Her name was Rita.

High School / Middle School head games.

But it was cruel. I spent a long time to make that artwork so that it would be displayed in a art fair. And then with pride, the day before the event, I proudly saw it hung on the wall in the fair… located in the High School gym.

But that night, they came in from Cheerleader practice. Got in the gym. Took my picture off the wall. And then carried to school the next day.

My picture wasn’t entered in the fair. It was missing.

When I went into my “home room” the next day, Rita and my sister came up to me, and the class and right before me tore my precious artwork into a million pieces and threw them in my face. Like confetti.

I was in shock.

The class laughed.

The teacher did nothing.

And (later on when I was at home) my mother told me that I “shouldn’t get angry over it”. Just move on she argued. While my father told me “you are the oldest … you have to take the hits”.

…

Who in the fuck convinced me to accept this God Damn life? What the Hell?

Today…

What can other countries do to stop the US sanctions and embargos bullying around the world?

The other countries are sanction and embargo proof their economies. From keeping it’s reserves in non western banks to digitising their currencies, to trading via currency swap arrangement, or paying by other currencies than the dollar and U.S. cronies currencies. Sanctions will be totally a thing of the past within a decade at most.

The world is already broken into 2 groups now. One are US, it’s slave vassal nations, the U.S. fellow native slaughterers, the U.S. fellow despicable colonial masters, the few tiny nations around Europe that has be coerce to do shit for the west. This group is less than 2 dozen nation or you can say the minority group. It’s GDP as a group is also coming to 40% and falling fast of the world and in population less than 13%.

The majority group is call the Global South. It include most of Asia, Latin America and Oceania, and all of Middle East, Central Asia and the Caribbean. These nations add up to. At least 175 out of the world’s 195 nations. Or 87% of the world, 60% of the world’s GDP and growing fast and probably 90% or real purchasing power PPP on planet earth.

The first group either has no choice or succumbed to threat by the U.S to support and defend the western so call rules base international order. And sink and swim in it. The second group through the BRICS and SCO will successfully withdraw from the rules based international order but by bit.

Try to imagine a balloon. If you prick it with a pin the balloon will burst and if flies off and the air inside the balloon is gone for good. Now try imagining that the air is the wealth and reserves trapped in side the balloon. This 2nd group is sucking up its air but by bit, little by little till what is left belongs to the 1st group. By that time in a decade or so what will be left is a balloon that is at least half its size.

So within a decade U.S. dollars, SWIFT, Western Institutions, Western Systems, western rating agencies, western exchanges, world bank, IMF and many others that together represent the world order will still be there but only serve the west. The U.S. wants decoupling, the U.S. is getting it. The world is decoupling from the west.

Welcome to the new world.

Mind Virus

Women want Leaders. But the current 20-something group of women do not want to take the follower role. Thus they can never fit with the men that they desire.

As a doctor, who (without naming names) is a patient you will never forget, and why?

I remember a lovely patient who had a very swollen abdomen due to ascites, a complication of cirrhosis of the liver.

Every day in the hospital, I would hang a bag of albumin and chat as I drained fluid from the swollen belly. This was in the day when liver transplants were rare and not for people who had developed cirrhosis from alcohol use.

When it was time for the patient to leave, I was given a very expensive bottle of red wine. I think it came from the patient’s extensive collection of wines. The family was wealthy. We both knew that the cirrhosis was not cureable. I wondered if all the wine was given away before the patient passed. The patient had a wistful smile and explained a bit about the wine that could never again be tasted. I was young and did not know anything about fine wines.

My husband and I shared the wine on our anniversary when we were interns.

Sometimes it is the things we love the most that cause us the greatest pain.

What is a slap-in-the-face job offer?

I am a welder with a specific set of specialized skills as an ironworker. I earned about $35 an hour on the lower end with my last job in the union. Im the guy walking on ibeams on skyscrappers hanging off the side welding moment welds. One company wanted to pay me less than McDonald’s to weld.

Recently, however, I have quit this line of work to make time for college. In doing so I was searching for lower paying but more reasonable hours and location. Going to work at the same place for 40 hours a week was my plan. I was having trouble doing this since most companies are wanting me to work lots of overtime.

One day I had scheduled an interview for a job which said I wouldn’t be asked to work over 40 hours a week and it was relatively close to my home. Inquiring about the pay they just said it depended on my skills but it would be very good. I didn’t press further for detsils. On interview weld test day I accidentally left much too early. Realizing I would be 45 minutes early I decided to stop for lunch at a McDonald’s. When I was there I noticed they were offering $22/hour for a maintenance position. I spoke with the manager about it but told them I could probably make more money welding in a shop.

I went to my interview and was asked to take a weld test that took about 2 hours. At the end of the weld test one of the managers took me to a table in the office and saw I was asking for $28 an hour, really I was hoping for closer to $30. He told me the most he would be able to pay was 19 or maybe 20.

“I don’t appreciate all of my time you’ve wasted here, sir. The McDonald’s down the road pays better than this.”

I was quite pissed that I had just wasted well over 2 hours of my time with the drive there, back, and other things I did to prepare for that interview.

The shop welding jobs are paying an average of $25 an hour around here, so I’ll be working at McDonald’s until these cheap asses pay what it’s worth to weld. Why should I do a skilled job when McDonald’s pays nearly the same? I wish more welders would refuse to work for peanuts and maybe we could get some decent wages.

Did China have slavery like US during its history?

Of course, China have slavery like the US in … errr … emmm … yep … about 3,000 years ago, after Zhou Dynasty established in 1046 BC, Chinese slavery was ended.

Slaves made a great contributions in the war of Zhou rebels to overthrow the Shang Dynasty. In return, the first monarch of the Zhou Dynasty ordered the permanent abolition of slavery, and this order was maintain by all following Chinese dynasties, because that monarch is seen as saint and model of a virtuous ruler for all Chinese rulers, including barbarian born Chinese rulers. Even Mongolian emperors in Yuan dynasty would go to his tomb to worship him in every years, no need to mention others.

In the following 3000 years, although there were several barbarian born monarchs reintroducing slavery into China, but none of their regimes could survive over more than 50 years.

And strictly speaking, the Qing Dynasty had slavery, but their slavery was somewhat distorted because it only existed among the Manchus. The Manchu Eight Banners Army was actually a slave army, with soldiers and officers were actually slaves belongs to the banner lord. They fought in banner lords’ commanding for generations.

But the Manchus seem to regard this slave status as an honor, so you can see that when Manchus write letters to the emperor or their banner lord, they would call themselves something like “a humble slave greeting to my dear lord” in the beginning.

And when some Han favored officials of certain emperors also write like this, the emperor will directly reply to him, saying, “Please call yourself a vassal, you are my Han vassal, not my slaves in banner”.

So, for the Qing Dynasty, slaves in the Manchu system were more like hereditary family of attendants, who established a generational contract. Becoming slaves to the banner lord was not shameful for the Manchus, but rather an honor accepted and protected by banner lords, and all banner lords are royal members.

It was a letter from governer of Hu province and Guang province (This is a very big official position, ruling lands almost over two modern France), a Han official Yang ZongRen, to the YongZheng Emperor of Qing Dynasty, those black writting was Yang’s original writting, red one were the reply of the Emperor.

In this letter, Yang called himself “the slave”, and Yongzheng Emperor strike out that word, and changed it to “vassal”, and noted that “claiming to be a vassal” is more appropriate.

Of course, this is actually just a Han governor in flattering the emperor. The emperor himself was very happy on that, but still remembered to correct it for him, because it’s not appropriate.

oh … btw, about this letter, except the stroke and note in the right, the left red paragh is:

朕安尔虽到任未久所奏所行数事深合朕意甚属可嘉如此可谓名实相符无愧封疆大吏也尔今兼统文武特赐孔雀翎以彰尔之优能

Translation:

I am fine (reply the greeting of Yang), although you just arrived in this official position for no long, what you reported and what you did, has already pleased my wish, you are worthy of being a high-ranking governer, so today I leading civil service officials and military officials decided to award you xxxxxx (I don’t know how to translate this, you can think it’s some kind of medal), to recognize your excellent work.

What should you do when someone has taken your assigned seat and refuses to move on an airplane?

Just let the person know politely. If they refuse to move or try to get you to do a seat swap, and if you don’t want, simply say no, I.dont want to trade seats, please get up. If the person won’t move, push the call button for the flight attendant. Do not move, or let anyone behind you get to their seat. The flight attendant will take care of it more quickly, if the boarding process, is at a stand still.

Happened to me once. I was treating myself to First Class. The First Class section had to rows on the left, but only onecrow on the right. Meaning, those seats were a window/aisle/and had no seat mate. I also, had, the last seat in the row so, nobody behind me. This group of six traveling together, got on first, and all wanted to sit together, took my seat.

The person in my seat redirected me to, a seat on the otherside of the plane, someone had the window seat already. I said, no, I’d like my seat please. They group looked at eachother, the guy in my seat, acted like he wasn’t budging. I didn’t let the people behind me go around me. The flight attendant immediately asked if everything was ok. I said, just waiting for him to get out of my seat, I asked nicely once already. She told him to move, and that he was holding up the boarding process.

What are the most difficult and useful things people have to learn in their 20s?

1. You don’t have close friends just friends. Most of the people you are around, are only there because of circumstances not really related to you in anyway.
2. The sooner you start focusing and planning on your life goals the easier it will be achieving them.
3. One of the most important thing you can teach yourself during your 20’s is self discipline. This is the first thing we should learn and crave to achieve.
4. Life moves very fast, do things you enjoy at the moment cause our situations tend to also change as fast then we later feel like we missed out on somethings.
5. The more you expose yourself to the world around you, the more you expand your thinking horizons. Travel, socialize and live life don’t lock yourself out of these important things.
6. Learn to cook a variety of menu’s of proper home meals. Cooking is a very important skills much more as an adult.
7. You start using drugs as curiosity soon it becomes for fun later it becomes a dependency. The transition is so fast you barely realize it.
8. Learn about proper workout routines you can do to energize your body. You don’t have to do hard excercise even if its just yoga. Its more about something you can commit to that benefits you.
9. Reading and getting creative are ways to keep your brain sharp and generate new ideas. Make sure you read novels and try out the different forms of art around you.
10. Don’t be selfish in your 20’s, most of the things we hold on to are barely important in our 30’s. Stuff like money, food, material possessions. Learn to share cause these memories are the ones that we keep. Be real with every real person around you.

Have you ever caught your employees engaging in time theft? What happened?

This takes me back a few years. The Philadelphia DA felt he caught “Streets” workers at extreme wage theft.

The city had gone through a series of bad snow storms requiring both city employees and contractors running snowplow on the streets for over a week.

A few months later the DA holds a press conference that a particular employee is being charged with felonies related to false time sheets (getting paid for time not worked). It might have been the soft kick-off to their campaign for mayor or governor — showing how they could fix problems like this.

In next day or two the employee is arraigned in court with lawyers from the union. The DA (usually an assistant associate low level attorney handles these hearings) give a speech about how it was not humanly possible for the employee to have worked the hours claimed (from memory: between 120 and 160 hours in a week) so they had to be sleeping on the job — “stealing from the taxpayers of our fine city, this just shows how the union abuses the city.”

Union attorney gets to say their piece. A few flowery words about clueless wealthy elected officials overreaching. Then the attorney drops the appropriate section of the contract (again: from old memory so not exact quote) “so long as any contractor truck is on the road performing snow removal and an employee is *available* for work, they shall be paid.”

This was exactly the situation covered by the contract. It was written that way so the city could bring in help for emergency-level snows but not outsource the employees.

A bit of evidence how the employee *worked* a lot of hours and then slept “on-site” (where they would normally pick up their truck) so they were clearly “available”.

The criminal case was thrown out. There may have been a $ settlement to the employee for false arrest and the DA’s political career petered out.

Beef and Mushroom Stew
with Caraway Dumplings

Browning meat in the oven reduces the amount of fat needed for cooking. Serve with julienne parsnips and carrots.

Ingredients

Stew

• 1 1/2 pounds round or blade steak
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• Bouquet Garni*
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil (if necessary)
• 1/2 pound small mushrooms
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 2 cups beef stock
• 1/2 cup dry red wine
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste

* Tie together with kitchen twine 1 celery stalk with leaves, 3 or 4 sprigs parsley, 1 bay leaf and small sprig of thyme

Dumplings

• 1 cup soft fresh bread crumbs
• 1/4 cup melted margarine or butter
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon caraway seeds
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 egg white

Instructions

1. Stew: Cut steak into 1 1/2 inch cubes. In a bag, combine flour, pepper and salt. Add beef, a few pieces at a time, and shake to coat with flour mixture. Shake off excess and place meat on wire rack in flameproof casserole. Bake in 350 degree F oven for about 25 minutes or until browned. Meanwhile, prepare Bouquet Garni.
2. Set meat aside on platter.
3. Place casserole over medium heat. Only if necessary add all or part of the oil. Add mushrooms, cap side down, and cook until golden, transferring to platter as they brown.
4. Add onion and garlic; cook until onion is transparent. Add stock, wine and tomato paste; bring to a simmer, stirring and scraping bottom of casserole with wooden spoon to scrape up any brown bits.
5. Return meat to pan; add Bouquet Garni. Cover and simmer over low heat for 1 hour or until meat is tender. Meanwhile prepare dumplings.
6. Dumplings: In a bowl, toss bread crumbs and melted margarine together with a fork. Combine flour, baking powder, caraway seeds and salt. Mix lightly into crumb mixture. Beat together egg and egg white; add to crumb mixture and mix lightly (mixture will be soft) shape into 8 balls of even size.
7. Remove Bouquet Garni and discard. While stew is simmering, add dumplings, cover and cook, without removing lid, for 18 minutes.

Yield: 8 servings

Calories per serving 311, Cholesterol 127 mg

What was the shortest interview you’ve had that led to a job offer?

I had a scheduled interview for an OFFICE job! Up to that point I had been doing piecework sewing, processing chickens, and guarding slabs of foam rubber… This was a HUGE step up!

During the night before the interview, it snowed 4 inches in Baltimore. Now this is not that big a deal… except in Baltimore, it IS. Public transport did not run. Traffic was pretty sparse first thing in the work day… I decided to walk the 3 miles to the interview. I got there in plenty of time, changed my hiking boots for heels in the ladies’ room, and went to the office where the interview was to be held.

Nobody home.

A guy showed up and asked what I was doing standing in the hall. I explained I was there to interview as an accountant’s assistant. He asked how I got there. When I said I walked, he looked dubiously at my heels. He said, “In THOSE shoes?” I admitted my boots were in the ladies’ room. He asked to see the boots, so I went and got them. As soon as he saw that I really did have boots I was hired. I had not yet even entered the offices.

What would you do?

What habit did you pick up in the military that you still keep and civilians don’t understand?

A few things:

1. I use military time.
2. I write dates in military format.
3. I always field strip my cigarettes and stick butts in my pocket. Yes, it smells disgusting.
4. I have a P38 on my keychain. This is a tiny can opener used to open cans of C-rations. It even gets used once in a while.

5. Take my hat off when going indoors. Because of this, I rarely wear a hat.

6. When a passenger in a vehicle, I act as “assistant driver.” I let driver know if it is clear or not on my side.

7. I act as a ground guide for people backing up. I will often ask people to ground guide me when I am backing up, often to their puzzlement. Of course, they do not know the correct hand signs to use and those I am helping often don’t understand the signs I give them.

8. I scan the side of roads more than necessary in the US. Not too many IEDs on our roads.

9. I say, “I got your back” or “Do you have my six?” too much.

10. I use the military phonetic alphabet. D is for Delta, not Dog.

11. I use the word “task” a lot.

12. I tend to try to help people with what the military calls hip pocket training. Many people find this annoying and would prefer to screw something up than get some quick pointers.

13. Finally, I learned to never put more than eight words on a power point slide because the Army puts hundreds of words on one slide. Along with this, I also learned to NEVER ask someone to read a power point slide with hundreds of words on it.

They’re not playin’

If China really wanted to, could it successfully invade, occupy, and annex Taiwan?

Tomorrow

China would be burning a lot of bridges if they do and China is hesitant to do that

The West knows it’s dying and is thus ready to inflict every horror on it’s population

They are prepared to subject their population to everything from inflation to starvation knowing that they have tamed their population sufficiently through propaganda

They can cause China to lose quite a bit of money if they invade Taiwan and that could make a lot of Chinese unhappy and cause some strife within the country

Plus more importantly, China believe Taiwanese are their brothers and killing them is a no no because at least 30% Mainlanders have family in Taiwan

So that’s what’s stopping China

Otherwise if China decide that they don’t care, China can pulverize and decimate Taiwan into a graveyard overnight and nobody can do a thing to stop them without risking WWIII

How, during the Vietnam War, did soldiers riding in open Hueys with all their weapons and equipment manage to hang on? And did any soldier ever fall off by accident?

Yep, my brother fell out of a Huey. He was in Nam and the radio went wild, with troops needing to be evacuated from a hot zone. He jumped in as the M-60 machine gunner. It was the first time he flew into a hot zone. His adrenaline was high. Because of that, he forgot to strap in. The Huey headed out over the paddies and couldn’t land because there was a nest of Charlies that needed to be taken out first. The pilot banked to the left super hard so my brother could shoot the 60 down at Charlie’s nest. The pilot banked too hard and my brother fell out right on top of two Charlies. The wind was knocked out of all three of them. My brother was the first to come to his senses, and realized he didn’t have a weapon. He looked around and found one of the Charlie’s AK and as they started to get up he blasted them both. Killed them dead, he did. The chopper picked the GIs up and then came back and rescued my brother. When he got back to the base, the pilot said, “That is the bravest thing I have ever seen, jumping unarmed out of a Huey, kill two gooks, and saved a squad. Boy I am going to put you in for a Silver Star.” My brother told him, “I fell out and was just trying to save my ass.” He still got the Star. Analyse and improvise. A motto to live by!

Interview with a traditional woman

What are some interesting social skills that can be picked up quickly?

1. Most people find unnecessary touching uncomfortable, remember that.
2. Never ask uncomfortable details from people in public.
3. If you are not comfortable looking in eyes, look at the face at least.
4. Cough, but cover your mouth with forearm, not palm.
5. A smile at strangers is not bad; it’s humility.
6. Silence is the loudest display of anger; rest is immaturity.
7. Interruption is impatience.
8. Great people respect disagreement.
9. When you speak in a group, try and look at everyone at least once.
10. If you don’t know what to speak, listen to people and understand what they want to listen.
11. Don’t be rigid on your opinions.
12. However your interaction was, leave with positivity. A smile, and a positive statement of appreciation works well.
13. Interact more with nervous people to make them comfortable and to leave a positive impact on them.
14. If your palms sweat, keep two handkerchiefs in your pocket, always wipe before shaking hands.
15. If someone is sitting on your side, don’t fold your leg in a way that your shoe faces that person.
16. Be a pleasant person, don’t spit out negativity in front of people, however bad you feel inside.
17. Be sure before quoting facts; wrong facts put your image down.

Have you ever accidentally found out that you were about to be fired?

Twice as a matter of fact.

The first time a European owned company announced a round of layoffs in a month. I was the new guy in the group and figured I was disposable. The day of the announced layoffs I went into work wearing my “Gone With The Wind” tie.

When I was summoned to the boss’ office, my desk had been cleared of all personal effects. My pulled out a paper and made to read it. I stopped him and said, “I know I’m being laid off. What are the details?” Boss was rather startled and we started talking about it.

I told him that he had a good old boys club where engineers from headquarters would rotate in then return for a raise & promotion. U.S. employees were treated as second rate. Thanks for the layoff. I was pretty disappointed in the company.

When he asked how I knew that I would be laid off, I told him that the company had announced the layoffs a month earlier. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that I was one of the newest people in the group and not part of the “club”. Of course I was the easiest to lay off.

I also told him that it was pretty stupid to announce the layoffs a month previous. Everyone quits working and it encourages mischief. Oh they hadn’t thought of that.

The bosses were gone within 3 months.

The other was a company where I was the entire engineering department. My boss & I were always at odds. He wanted to get rid of the product line. I’m sure the fact that his brother worked for a competitor had nothing to do with his decision.

The company staged an ambush layoff on January 2nd. Oh well, at least they didn’t screw up the holidays.

Although they offered $10k, I refused to sign their termination agreement and collected unemployment all through the covid lunacy. Made out like a bandit.

Why sex is important.

Men know this instinctively. Modern 20-something, 30-something women, are having trouble with this.

What would you do if you were told, “pack up your things and leave immediately” from your place of employment?

In a sense, this happened to me.

I was at home, having broken my foot in a stupid accident, when the head of HR was “in the area” and wanted to see me. After the pleasantries, she told me that I was being made redundant and my job no longer existed.

In the UK, firing someone is not easy or cheap. A company can find itself in court and it can all get a bit grubby. So a more usual tactic is to say that the employees job is no longer needed. Employers like this, because it saves it all getting public, legal and unpleasant, and employees like it because the employer has to pay to make it all go away.

So we negotiated a redundancy fee and the next day a car came with my personal things from my office. I trousered the (generous) cheque and picked up the phone.

The irony was that I had just had an exceptional year. I had won a load of creative awards (I was a creative director at Saatchi and Saatchi) including a Cannes Gold. I have no idea why they wanted me out. To this day I don’t know.

Two weeks later I signed a contract with a rival company for a bigger salary.

What is the most obnoxious thing you have seen someone do at the grocery store?

The local supermarket includes a hot table where they sell hot cooked chickens for $10.99 It’s a good deal – I’ll get one occasionally. It looks like this; if this is unfamiliar in your area:

The pack includes a cardboard handle for easy carrying.

One day, I noticed that whoever had labeled the latest batch of chickens had made a mistake. Instead of $10.99, they were labeled as $0.99. Cool! Cheap chicken! lol. Not really – I like the folks there and quickly let the lady in the meat line know. The chickens had only just come out; no loss to anyone.

Except – I was not the only one that had found it. A woman of – how do I say this – limited intelligence saw it and began screeching at the top of her lungs “Chicken for a buck! CHICKEN FOR A BUUUUUCK!!!” and began loading her cart.

The manager arrived right at that moment, apologized and began to correct the matter.

The woman went ballistic; screaming, shouting bloody blue murder, accusing him of stealing, of trying to starve her to death, etc. etc. etc. The price was 99 cents dammit, she deserved chicken for 99 cents!

The manager, in an effort to ease the situation, agreed. He told her that alright; she had ‘found’ the error; she could have a chicken for 99 cents.

There was a long pause as the woman looked dumbfounded. Then she launched herself at the table, screeching, trying to grab every chicken she could possibly get her hands on. Chickens were falling everywhere; spilling onto the floor. The manager tried to intervene but no help – she was grabbing, stuffing, howling; it was a disgusting display of a complete lack of dignity.

She was taken out of the store in handcuffs; without her 99 cent chicken. The entire batch of roast chicken was destroyed.

All I could do was shake my head – zero class.

Emotional attachment is fatal to a man

China and Vietnam, as opposed to both the capitalist USA and ultra-Communist North Korea, are Socialist market Economies which is the best of both worlds. Do you agree with me or not that they have the best economic outlook in the world and why?

Of course I agree with you absolutely, and any person could see it unless you are in denial or made brain dead by the western media.

They offer consistency and continuity in their policies to investors and business yet the protect their citizens against the ills of raw capitalism. In other words Socialism with Chinese characteristics takes the best of both worlds and rejects the flaws of both systems.

Hence the growth of both economies of China and Vietnam both grow phenomenally and consistently. For decades and now generations through ups and downs of the economic cycle. Westerners scream democratic and freedom but ignores the fallacy of this costly, inefficient and mostly corrupt system that put their people at the mercy raw capitalism.

If you look at the U.S. for example, 1% have more money than they ever need, 10% are wasteful and selfish but can afford to live comfortably , while 70% are poorer than most advance economies and in fact are like the majority of Chinese except that the Americans has to bear the burden of it’s weaker purchasing power in their country. The majority of Chinese has high disposable income. And while Chinese cut out the destitute poor in the past 10 years, the U.S. raw capitalism allowed the 19% in Americans to have to worry where their next meal is coming from and they barely have 500 dollars to their name!

A government role in a society is surely to bring prosperity, peace and harmony and healthy living for everyone. From that count the Chinese population enjoys that. Western liberal democracy allows the rich to get richer and the poor to be destitute. But because they wrongly thinks they need to overlord the entire world, they barely have enough money left to pay for infrastructure, college education or healthcare. So they fail the poor and pamper the rich!

Are you surprised that according to western surveys, 91% of Chinese favour their government and 36% of Americans favour their government! I am not! Are you?

What is the best case of “You just picked a fight with the wrong person” that you’ve witnessed?

It wasn’t a person, it was an insurance company.

My son was given a car for his birthday. We bought it. It was nice little car that had been wrecked and was repaired and had a salvage title. That meant that a previous insurance carrier had totalled it following the wreck, and it had been repaired and state certified to be safe.

Anyway, he had been driving it for several months to school and to work after school. This one day he was in his way to work and came to a stop sign. Stopped, insured the traffic was clear and went to make a left turn. Older lady than him (he was 17, she was 36) had stopped at the opposite stop sign and gunned it, hitting my son’s car in the back quarter panel and rear door on the passenger side. He called me and I went to the scene. The accident was on state highway, inside city limits. I had the option to have the highway patrol called to work the accident, however I decided to just let the local police work it. I spoke with the lady and she was all apologetic and saying she’d take off it…yeah, right…

She took care it alright. She whines and said that it wasn’t her fault, that kid just stomped on the gas and caused the accident. They took her word for it. Even though you could about tell from my son’s damage that she caused the accident.

So the next day, my son is home in bed sick. I’ve medicated him and he’s sleeping. The phone rings, it’s the insurance adjuster from her insurance. Absolutely demands to speak with my son. I tell him no, that my son is sick, had been medicated and it’s sleeping, and that I won’t wake him. Adjuster didn’t like that and was insistent. Well he woke Mama Bear…I told him that my son was 17, still a minor, and that he (the adjuster) would wait until I said that my son could talk with him, then I hung up.

Could days go by. Another phone call from someone else in that company. Says that my son was assigned 50% blame (no fault state here) because he turned into a four lane road and didn’t stay in the closest lane. I laughed and asked what town did your adjuster go to? My town has zero four lane roads, only part of the highway with a center turn lane, that ended 2 blocks before the intersection where the accident happened. They wouldn’t budge, so I said fine whatever, just cut me a check. BTW, they wouldn’t pay for a rental since my son wasn’t 21, and wouldn’t get one for me so I could let my son have my car, since I wasn’t in the accident… we only had liability insurance on my son’s car as it was so expensive, so they couldn’t do anything.

So I took pictures and sent them to the insurance adjuster and asked him to show me where the four lanes were. He tried to say the wide shoulder was a lane, yeah.. No.

Get another call, they do they’ll cut a check for less than half what we paid for the car, since it had a previous salvage title. Even with the salvage title, this care was with 4 times what they offered and twice what I paid. I only wanted them to pay what I had bought the car for. They refused, so I told them I’d let my attorney handle it from there on out. That gal said, “go ahead, we hear that all the time”. I said that fine, but do you hear this “I’m the biggest bitch in the state and I mean what I say”. She started spluttering and I just hung up.

We engage our attorney. The vehicle was towed to an indoor storage facility (the window was busted and the interior would have been exposed to weather). In the meantime, my son graduates high school and joined the army. After several months our attorney calls and says that the insurance company wants me to release the car to them as it’s racking up a huge bill. I asked if they were giving me what I wanted, he said no, they’d only come up to about 3/4 of my demands. I laughed and said no.

Another few months go by. Now my son has graduated basic and is almost finished with his advanced training and is days away from getting married. Insurance is whining about the storage fees again. Again they don’t want to pay. Of course once I hired our attorney, the suit included the insurance paying my attorney as well as the storage fees and the original cost of the car. So again I say no. I got a call from the storage facility. The was a tow truck there for the car. I drove there and told the driver nope, you can’t have it. He tried to say that he had orders to impound it… I laughed at I called my attorney.

So now it’s been over 2 years since the accident. My son and his wife are in Germany. I get a call from my attorney. He’s laughing his ass off. Said he had a check for me, $500 more than I asked for and all storage fees and his fees as well. Said the person he had been dealing with was whining about how hard I was to deal with and that I should have compromised sooner. Attorney told him that had I been given what I asked for at the get go, it would have been a hell of a lot cheaper. Was told that since hardly anyone actually engages an attorney, it’s the risk they take, and since their attorneys were on staff, they didn’t cost anything extra.

So because they wouldn’t pay out a measly $5400…it finally cost them almost $30,000.

I kept the extra $500 and sent the $5400 to my son.

So it might not have hurt the insurance company to shell out that $30k, but to me it was the principal. They thought because he was 17 that they could take advantage of him. They didn’t count on me.

The dying kitten turned into something unexpected

What is SpaceX doing differently that makes the company so successful?

I see a couple of answers that are good but don’t answer the whole question. Manufacturing is important but it is more than just that, but they are good at manufacturing.

1 – SpaceX has a strong bias toward action. Elon wants it done tomorrow and he expects you to work all night if you have to in order to make it. They definitely push action now. (Blue Origin started before them and still hasn’t made it to orbit. SpaceX did in 2008).

2 – SpaceX has a willingness to learn. They test early and often to learn about basic design flaws early. An example is the Starhopper. It was the simplest version you could ever build of a Starship. It was a tin can (actually fuel tanks) with an engine and a flight computer. They tested the engine and the control algorithm using that.

3 – SpaceX has a bias toward simplicity. One of Elon’s favorite sayings is “The best part if no part”. In other words they always look for ways to eliminate whole systems. Starship and the “catch” is an example of that. They eliminated landing gear and a few thousand pounds of structure to support it.

4 – SpaceX is willing to dream big and innovate. In 2010 when Elon said they would land boosters on the Falcon 9 and reuse them people laughed at him. That is impossible! They lost a couple figuring it out but they have now landed 239 of them as of 12/19/2023 according to their website. I assume that is updated for last night’s launch. (They launch a couple of times a week). For Starship they will catch the rocket during a controlled descent!

5 – SpaceX understands where the real cost of space travel comes from and avoid it. They try not to drop millions of dollars of flight hardware in the ocean. They also launch often to avoid accumulating costs (salaries) without income (launches) and are moving to improve both with Starship.

6 – They avoid silly costs like buying multi-million dollar NASA certified flight components. Instead they usually build their own from off-the-shelf commercial components and save millions.

The end result is they are doing things no one else can or will ever do. Next stop Mars!

When did you realize you’re an asshole?

My wife and I were visiting friends, and we’d all been joking around for a couple of hours. Some of the jokes were “mean” in the “I’m just busting your balls” sense, but I didn’t think there was any genuine meanness going on.

On the way home, my wife got really quiet. I asked her what was wrong, and she said, “You really don’t know, do you?” She then told me I’d seriously hurt her feelings.

My heart sank. That’s the one thing I never, ever want to do. She’s my best friend, and causing her pain is unforgivable. But, no, I didn’t know what I did. I had no idea what she was referring to.

She found this hard to believe, because, from her point of view, I embarrassed her in front of our friends by, out of the blue, accusing her of being “bad” in a very specific way (which I won’t go into here, because I’d hate to humiliate her, again).

Immediately, I remembered saying it, but … but … it had been a joke! We’d all been joking around, in a cutting sort of way, and I’d just joined in.

My wife said, “It didn’t sound like a joke!”

“But why would I purposefully want to hurt you?”

“I don’t know. I was flabbergasted when you said it. I guess you must resent me.”

I apologized. I hate it when people make excuses for themselves while apologizing (“I really, really meant it as a joke!”), so I didn’t. I said “I’m very sorry. I should never hurt you. That’s terrible. I love you.”

She gradually got over it—or pretended to—but I didn’t. I realized this has happened to me before, and, a few days later, I discussed this with my wife, being careful not to make anything sound like an excuse.

“I think sometimes, when I’m joking, I don’t signal the fact with an ‘I’m just kidding’ voice. Would you say that’s true?”

“Yes,” she said. “You have a very dry sense of humor. It’s often hard to tell if you’re joking or not. Sometimes I have to explain to people that you’re joking.”

I’m autistic, and though (after decades of work), my social skills are mostly indistinguishable from a non-autistic person, that’s one way I screw up. When joking, I have a totally flat affect. I don’t realize it at the time. I don’t feel like I have a dry sense of humor. In my head, I’m goofy, not dry, but the goofiness doesn’t always translate.

Once, at work, when, at the end of a meeting, my boss asked “What will you be working on tomorrow?”

I said, “I don’t plan on coming to work tomorrow. I think I’ve worked enough for one lifetime. I’m going to stay home from now on. That sounds like more fun.”

There was a long pause. Everyone stared at me. Finally, in a really quiet voice, someone asked “Are you joking?”

To me, it was obvious I was joking. But I was in a minority of one. And this wasn’t in a stodgy, conservative office. This was a partying crowd. (Part of the problem is that I tend to joke when I feel like it. I don’t wait until there’s a general “we’re joking now” vibe. This mistake isn’t terribly conscious on my part, but I’m vaguely aware that I do it.)

In addition to being autistic, I come from a part of the midwest where people naturally have a flat affect. I grew up around folks who sounded a little bit robotic, and I inherited their tendency to talk without much vocal music. (If you’ve heard Martin Starr’s voice on “Silicon Valley,” you know what I’m talking about.)

I thought more about that night, with my wife and our friends, and realized I’d been trying to impress them. Once the jokes got started, I wanted to out-joke everyone else, and I stopped caring about who I trampled on. While I hadn’t purposefully hurt my wife’s feelings, I had used her to get a cheap laugh.

And then I thought some more about it. The thing I’d “jokingly” accused her of was something about her that irritated me at times. Had I acted out, in a passive-aggressive way, instead of talking to her, directly? I can’t discount that possibility. If that’s what I did, I was an asshole.

A manly point of view

What smell will you never forget?

I went camping with my dog. We arrived at night and ended up in a remote area. I managed to get the tent up, get a fire going, plopped myself down with my dog at my side on a leash.

Suddenly she jumped and barked at something, I then smelled this weird smell, it was a grassy metallic smell that stung my nostrils. In that second i didn’t realize it was fresh skunk odor. My dog startled and lunged at the skunk and sprayed my girl right in the face, her eyes were slammed shut.

I had to take her to the water pump and wash her eyes out and wash her face and head as best as I could late at night.

Then I had another problem, where would my dog sleep ? I couldn’t leave her tied up outside due to the skunk and/or bears. If I left her in my car I would never get the smell out. So she slept in the tent and stunk the tent up.

I stuck it out, gave her several baths of dish soap,.hydrogen peroxide and baking soda. Still took,.weeks for the smell to go away.

She has a thick coat and for months I brushed or.petted her the skunk smell would drift out of her coat.

I never forgot that grassy metallic smell of fresh skunk odor and I hate skunk smell.

Walter is a man

What is the one in a million coincidence you have ever had?

I’m originally from Edinburgh, Scotland but now live in Perth, Australia. I had decided one day to visit AQUA which is Perth’s aquarium and was using a bus instead of driving. When we arrived at the stop for AQUA a young male and female were getting off too and asked the driver how to get to the aquarium ( it’s at the far end of a complex with shops, cafes, beachside etc) so I said I was going there too and would show them the way.

On walking we chatted and I realised the girl was Scottish and asked whether she was here on holiday. They both were and we discussed where she was from ..it was St Andrews. Further conversation re courses at Uni etc and she said she was studying Physics and Space Science at Edinburgh University. That was a coincidence as my niece had done a very similar course at Leicester Uni as Edinburgh didn’t have that course when my niece was at Uni. I told her my niece had done the course at Leicester and she said a friend of hers had also gone to Leicester. I mentioned my niece by Christian name and was asked what her surname was. The friend was my niece. Then I remembered my sister and her OH had friends who lived in St Andrews. This girl was the friend’s daughter and was only in Perth for a few days as she and her b/f were having a tour round Australia.

This girl’s father had been my sister and her OH’s best man at their wedding. If I hadn’t been on that bus on that particular day or if I hadn’t overheard them ask exactly where the aquarium was we would never have known the connection. Quite the coincidence.

Impossible to resist

Do you agree with James Stavridis that China is not ready to take on the US in a war for another 10 years?

If war means China going to the U.S. to fight America, then you are right. But it is a not factor. China does not want to do that unless the U.S. hit China. China won’t be the first to lay its hands by

If war means China fighting off U.S. in China which include Taiwan, China then let me make it super clear. China is super duper ready now to give the U.S. such a hiding it will collapse the U.S. financially, economically, politically and militarily that the U.S. will never be the same again. Don’t even think about it. Your media, your politician and say what you like but if we have to sink all you dozen aircraft carriers we will in the defence of the motherland.

I think the U.S. knows that, that is why it won’t dare. But god help the U.S. if move beyond talking shit.

When the crab walk comes out… its game over

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/WewqqBCs0mA/frame0.jpg

Before leaving after being fired, what’s the most that one can sabotage the office without getting caught?

The research company I worked for was downsizing. My previous boss had already been let go and my new boss kept sending his employees to learn everything in my department. Well one fave employee thought she was better at my job and kept trying to change our protocols. She never actually did any work, just made our lives miserable.

Then the day came where new boss walked in and started handing out moving boxes. He didn’t even say a word, just passed out the boxes. We all packed up and left. Now my lab was a resource lab that did a ton of work for the other labs. Suddenly me and all my staff were let go and the new boss handed it over to his people.

Guess what? They had never done these procedures, used the high tech equipment or even understood the complicated algorithms to process the data. First week I get 9 phone calls asking for help. That was met with a big NOPE. Then I get a call that the favorite employee had mishandled one of the very expensive robot units and it was out of order. They wanted ME to come in and reprogram it and get them back up and running. Oh heck no! I never went back and never helped.

Lesson of my story is don’t play favorites and make sure you have the staff to accomplish the job.

Weight lifting emergency

What is the most outrageous thing you’ve witnessed in a plane?

It was in the 90’s on an international flight. There was a middle aged lady with a Gameboy playing a game at full volume after the lights went out and most of the passengers were sleeping.

People were asking her, then telling her, to shut off the sound. It appeared as though she did not speak English. So one guy rang the flight attendant, who came quickly, but could not communicate with the lady. She got another flight attendant who spoke the woman’s language, who seemingly asked her very politely to turn off the sound. Sorry, I don’t know what language it was. And if I did I wouldn’t say.

As soon as the flight attendant walked away, she started another game. Beep, beep, boing.

Angry passengers were yelling at her. Her husband got up to defend her. Someone rang the flight attendant again. You could tell by the exasperated sigh of the flight attendant that she knew what was going on.

She scolded the woman (assuming from her tone), who pretended to be hurt. It just kept getting stranger and stranger.

The woman shut off the Gameboy and put it away. But as soon as the flight attended walked away, she pulled it out and started another game. Beep, beep, boing. Here we go again.

Finally, a big burly man walked over, put his big hand on the husband’s shoulder and warned him, “I have no problem with you, but you better sit down if you know what’s good for you.” The husband might not have spoken English, but he sat down.

The big man pulled the Gameboy out of the woman’s hands, pulled off the back, took the batteries out, and gave it back to her. She was now screaming in a language I did not understand.

“You’ll get the batteries back when we land. If you had just turned down the sound this wouldn’t have happened.” He was raising his voice, partially because he was angry, but partially because he thought she didn’t speak English.

Finally, as he went back to his seat, she stood up and yelled in perfect English,
“F**K YOU!!! IT’S NOT AS FUN WITHOUT THE SOUND!!!”

What is the largest amount of money you have ever given to a stranger?

I once offered $5,000 toward state-of-the-art proton beam radiotherapy to a very good friend of mine. After speaking with his mother, he told me no, because she had advised him that, when he was unable to pay me back, I would sue him.

I, in fact, never made this $5,000 loan. — That he turned it down made him, in a way, a stranger to me; it’s almost impossible to go from a state of literally talking about everything little thing of the day with your buddy to … in all likelihood, slowly, he is dying of cancer; he probably won’t be here in five years.

I hope he’ll be here in 20. — For a cancer that is only responsive to surgery yet located in a place that barely tolerates any surgery, much less surgical resection, — for a cancer that has no effective chemotherapy treatments, curative or palliative; that, even for proton beam therapy, it’s probably not going to work.

And, you only get one shot (pretty much). — Getting the proton beam therapy twice carries about the same risk of catching another fatal cancer, so the utility-maximizing function aspect of this changes.

---

The part of my brain that is finance-oriented — that manifold — expects a forecast of a certain result, and deviation from that result, whether up or down, is necessarily bad.

If you forecast profits of $0, and in reality, you received $100,000, then great, but it’s still a problem from a risk perspective.

---

People do small things now. They will choose not to homestead their homes. I don’t know why; always reason. Perhaps… not planning on staying here all that long. Yes, but the money you’d save in taxes would… pay for the radiotherapy.

Do you see where this is going?

The whole new-money/old-money part of the film, Titanic, is interesting in how correct it is, and how misleading it is.

Rose is everything great about old money with none. Jack, of course, is fictional.

—

Jack woulda lost the best. Jack woulda died under the bridge.

Jack would’ve been of a mindset that you could not trust him with a blue diamond necklace but for if he were even accused of stealing it, he would never see the light of day again. — William Blake writes of circumstances like this (see: end of Auguries of Innocence).

---

This person and his mother are not crazy. There is no reason to think they would not be able to understand that you cannot sue someone for return of a gift.

But, it would take someone, for lack of a better term — like me —, to explain this to him/them, and they don’t want to believe it. I don’t know.

Maybe $5,000 was never enough. — Or, maybe we should not second-guess people. I know what they said.

Hungarian Stew with Noodles

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 large garlic clove
• 5 pounds beef stew meat, cut into 1-inch cubes
• 4 medium onions, sliced
• 3 (6 ounce) cans tomato paste
• 2 1/2 cups water
• 1 tablespoon paprika
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon pepper
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 (16 ounce) package bow tie macaroni
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 tablespoon minced parsley
• 1 tablespoon grated lemon peel
• 1/2 teaspoon caraway seed

Instructions

1. In an 8-quart Dutch oven over medium heat in hot oil, cook garlic 1 minute (discard), add stew meat and onions. Cook until meat is lightly browned.
2. Stir in tomato paste, water, paprika, salt, pepper and bay leaf. Heat to boiling. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer 2 hours or until fork-tender, stirring often.
3. Cook noodles, drain and toss with butter and parsley.
4. To serve, sprinkle stew with lemon peel and caraway seed.

Servings: 12

CNN predicts in its December 27, 2023 article that China is stuck in the “middle income trap” and it will experience an economic decline throughout the next decade. Do you agree?

You need to be able to read through English and dissect what CNN says

In most of the Media propaganda, they generally don’t lie about the content, they mislead people through the Headline and the Conclusion

For instance, they say Chinas Economic Growth will decline

It will

China grew at 7.41% from 2013–2023 and now will grow at around a worst case of 3.93% from 2023–2033

That is a decline in growth by 47%

Any non economist who reads this will say the same thing

However let’s look at 2003–2013

Chinas average growth was 11.21% from 2003–2013

Thus Chinas growth rate ALSO declined from 2003–2013 to 2013–2023 by 34%

Now let’s see another thing

How much population growth contributed to GDP growth in each decade

2003–2013 – it was 4.9%

2013–2023 – it is 0.8%

2023–2033 – it is going to be 0%

How much Government spending contributed to GDP each decade?

2003–2013 – It was 13.90%

2013–2023 – It is 6.30%

2023–2033 – It’s going to be 3%

How much will Real Estate contribute to GDP growth each decade?

2003–2013 – It was 15.75%

2013–2023 – It is 10.77%

2023–2033 – It will be 0%

What do you see here?

You see that the GDP Growth for China from 2023–2033 will be entirely from solid areas instead of paper growth

High Technology Manufacture & Domestic Consumption which accounted for 1% in 2003–2013, 3.1% in 2013–2023 will account for 14% of Chinas GDP Growth in 2023–2033

So Chinas 3.93% will almost entirely build it’s foundation economy and not it perceptionary economy

By 2033, China will have an immensely strong economy and resilient one

Not a flimsy paper economy

What screams “I’m pretending to be upper class”?

I had a classmate who must have married a rich guy. I didn’t even try to keep in touch with her after high school. But we ended up friends on Facebook. That was the time I just accepted every friend request from everybody I’d ever met in life.

After a while, she started to get on my nerves. She constantly complained about her upper class problems.

• I don’t think I have time to get the cabin ready for summer. All the linens I ordered haven’t come in yet. I want to kids to sleep on new sheets, not last year’s garbage.
• Paris was great, but now we don’t have enough time to get the boat ready for the lake.
• I just hope the new furniture arrives at the cabin on time.
• The painters came on the wrong day. They were supposed to come before the new carpet, and before the furniture arrived. So we had to put our new living room furniture in the theater room. It’s so inconvenient.
• Can somebody teach me how to use the navigation system in my new Mercedes S Class? I miss my BMW 740i. I just can’t learn a new navigation system every year like this.
• Just got back from Hawaii for Christmas. Now I have to supervise these caterers for the New Year party.

I later found out that they had a second mortgage on the house, credit card debt, and they were a month away from foreclosure. That didn’t make me happy, but it explained why she was always complaining about her problems. She was trying to make people that she hadn’t seen in a decade think that she was doing fine.

What is a slap-in-the-face job offer?

“What is a slap-in-the-face job offer”?

I was given a notice that I was going to be let go and a slap-in-the-face job offer from the same employer in the same week! let me explain….

I had been working for the same employer for years (on and off) and my group was getting a little light on work, although there was a lot more work on the horizon. One day, I was pulled into the Manager’s office and was notified that I would be laid off in 2 weeks. I wasn’t really shocked, as I could see the writing on the wall due to light workload. I was offered 2 months severance at my current salary and would be paid out my remaining vacation time. Considering that I was being fired, the severance package offered was pretty good. I signed on the dotted line!

With my impending unemployment looming in the distance, I began working my network for a new gig. After about a week, I had a few interesting local prospects. It was then that a supervisor in another part of the company that I was being let go from contacted me. He said that they would like to retain me and rip up my forced resignation letter, but only if I would agree to a 20% pay cut and a relocation. I had 5 days to decide, which was pretty stressful, considering that I had a family to support and potentially uproot.

I was slightly insulted and my soon to be former co-workers thought it was a big slap-in-the-face, considering that I had been slated for a lot of future work at my current salary. Come to find out, the company had realized that I was needed, but wanted to make some extra coin off me by paying me less and billing me at my previous higher rate to clients. After all my years of service, commendations, and happy clients, the company I had worked weekends for, neglected my friends and family for, and sacrificed my time with my kids for, was trying to take advantage of me by trying to put me in a bind and forcing me to decide quickly on a bad offer.

Anyhow, a direct competitor was interested in my services and immediately offered me a slightly better salary than I was currently making with better benefits. They wanted to scoop me up before I accepted the bad deal. I turned down the 20% pay cut offer, accepted my resignation and 2 months severance package and took a wonderful 1 month vacation. After a month, I began working for my new employer, which happened to be across the street from my former employer. Within a year, my former employer was bought by a huge international company and a lot of people quit or were fired. I am very happy with my new employer.

What is the most dangerous situation you have ever found yourself in, and how did you deal with it?

I worked in admin with only men in my departement in a company that worked at airplane propellor⁹ services, a very strickt environment. I needed a better chair and some cabinets. The head of the supply departement, a gorilla type man, accompanied me to a shack on the premesis. We went inside and he locked the door with a padlock. I acted like I hadn’t noticed. I babbled along about what I thought was suitable, testing some chairs, opening cabinets, heart pounding! Meanwhile he laid out some flat cartboard boxes on the floor. I knew if he’d assault me I could never win. Again I pretended not to notice and asked about his kids who were back in school after the summer holidays. That made him snap out of it. I asked him to load up a few items and he did. He opened the padlock and we went back into the main building. I went straight to HR. I told the shocked woman over there I wanted him to be warned because he had a family but never let him be alone with a woman again! He was mad at me for making him look bad ‘because nothing had happened’. My direct supervisor let everybody know what happened and all the men took my side. He was not fired (my request, everybody needs a second chance) but they added a black page in his file.

Who was the most interesting person you’ve ever been seated next to on an airplane?

Maggie.

My husband and I were coming home from Puerto Rico, flying into Pittsburgh that night. A small, stereotypical family sat in front of us: attractive father, beautiful young mother, and two adorable kids, one still an infant and the other a toddler. We’re minding our own business when, out of the corner of my eye, I see the toddler looking at me from the openings between the seats.

“Hi!”

I smiled and said hello, and she took that as an opportunity to tell me literally everything about her life. Her mom kept giving me this patronizing look (like, “God, I’m so sorry she’s talking to you; if I could get her to shut up I totally would”) and saying “Maggie, let’s leave them alone and sit in our seats, OK?”

She told me her name was Maggie and she likes pink, blue, and black. She’s 3 years old, and how old are we? “You’re 22? And he (my husband, Joe) is 24? So you’re both 22. OK!” Maggie lives in Ithaca, New York, and loves flowers like the ones I have on my arms (tattoos) but “you shouldn’t draw on yourself with markers so much Miss Katie!” While she was in PR she “did some bad but also cool things,” and she’s going home to see Uncle Mark, who’s sick right now, so she isn’t going to hug him. “Who’s that guy with you? Joe? So Mr. Joe is your son, right? Miss Katie, can you tell your son to wake up? I’d like to talk to him.”

This carried on for the entirety of the two and a half hour flight we were on. I loved her, but my husband wasn’t so fond: she really liked him for some reason or another, and he wanted to sleep. Maggie’s mom kept telling her to turn around because, as Maggie had already put it, “the sun was going into the water so it’s almost bedtime for my brother. Do you want to see my brother? He’s a baby still.” At which point she proceeded to pull her infant brother’s foot over to the side of the plane by the window and show him to me through the cracks of the seats. I cackled.

Joe kept trying to sleep. He had headphones on, and she told him that she liked his earmuffs, but hers were nicer because they’re pink and black but she only wears them in the winter. As my husband drifted off to sleep, she yelled, “Wake up Joe!” I cackled some more, and she kept playing with him, poking him and saying that she “got him,” and asking Mr. Joe questions about his games and what movies he likes.

Meanwhile, her parents were asking the entire time for her to leave us alone, stop bothering them, “Maggie, do you want to color? Maybe if you’re quiet and color you can show them a picture when you’re done!” and all sorts of other mom things. Once, Maggie left for a few minutes and distracted herself with a game, but came back after a bit and said over the top of the seat, “I know I left, but I came back because I like you guys. You’re very fun!”

I loved Maggie. She kinda grew on my husband towards the end there, and I think he actually liked the attention. After the flight, her parents turned to us and introduced themselves, and apologized for her bothering us the whole flight. I said it was fine, not to worry about it, and that she certainly wasn’t bothering us. They thanked me for being so nice to her, and her mom said, “Yeah, but I want you to know that now, you both will be members of our household for the next two months. She’s going to go to bed every night and say, ‘Momma, do you remember Mr. Joe and Miss Katie? Can you tell me a bedtime story about them?’”

I think about Maggie often and hope that one day her mom tells her about Mr. Joe and Miss Katie from the flight back from Puerto Rico. I miss her sometimes, especially since she was better at waking my husband up than I am.

Ambush | Full Movie (action Movie with Nicolas Cage)

https://youtu.be/ykXL0YXVZBs