Dear Mangrove

[AFK]

We knead you back!

I mean, you knead our backs! 


Maybe he's stuck in a snowbank somewhere. 

[hooplala]

Hear hear.

[Adios]

Yeah, where is that spag?

[Mangrove]

I felt a disturbance in the force!

Hey Guys,

I'm still alive and well. I haven't been around very much because I've been trying to spend much less time on the computer because:

a) It isn't very good for my for my neck/shoulder/arms.
b) It's easy to waste enormous amounts of time achieving not a whole lot.

And (b) is an especial problem for me because my mental energies need to be directed into a very important project that I like to call:

      HOW THE FUCK DO I STOP BEING SO BROKE!?

As someone who runs their own business (I like saying that, it makes me sound so much more important and mature than I actually am...) I really have been coasting over the last few years. And while I've been coasting, my income which, wasn't very big to begin with, has been steadily shrinking.

Oops...there's the dinner bellchicken. I will continue in a moment!

Mang'

[Mangrove]

Ok, yes - I'm done eating. Btw, the dinner chicken is what we have in our home instead of a dinner bell. It's a small plush toy chicken that clucks when you press it. It's how the family is called to dinner. How or why that tradition started, I don't know.....

Anyways, my small business is currently a microscopic business and I've got to figure out a way to reverse that trend. I could go into excruciating detail & complexities of why I find that difficult to achieve but that would be really emo, so I'll spare you.

I would like to spend more time here, but I've been studying, writing and doing a lot of that gushy 'personal development' crap to overcome what I consider to be a major character flaw. A friend of mine recently said "Sometimes people get stuck in a comfort zone. We call it that, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's actually comfortable. It's just that they're used to it."

And while I'm digging myself out of that, I'm also digging myself out of a snow bank 

Mang'

PS In other news - Mangrove to be a grandfather in Sept. A 37 year old fucking grandfather.

[Adios]

hey, congrats dude!

[The Good Reverend Roger]

PS In other news - Mangrove to be a grandfather in Sept. A 37 year old fucking grandfather.

The positive side of this is that you'll be young enough to play with your grandchildren, and young enough to know your great-grandchildren.

[Jenne]

Aw, congrats, and GREAT TO SEE YOU, MAN!  Missed you!

[AFK]

The power of pun ladies and gentlemen!  Good to hear from you Mangrove.  Here's hoping you see an increased customer base soon.  And I hear you about the comfort zone.  Also congrats on becoming a grand-pop.  Your mission, is to spoil them with noisy toys and pass on to them the glory of White Lion. 

[Mangrove]

Thanks everyone

It's true, I will be old enough for grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Wow.

It's Mrs Mang's daughter (Step-mang # 2) who is pregnant. She lives in Italy at the moment, so we're not sure how often we're going to get to see the new addition. However, there's been a lot of talk about SM2 and her husband moving to the US in the next couple of years. Not sure what's going to happen there. We might be going over there in September to visit.

In other news: Aside from my needing to be offline more, my absence is also due to an increased level of activity around the home. On New Year's Eve, me, Mrs Mang and our son-in-law were about to leave the house to do a spot of grocery shopping.

We were near the door and about to leave (once I was done tying my shoes) when he decides that was a primo time to agitate our dog, Ellie (aka dogdor the poopinator, aleister growly etc) by making a sudden lunge. Well, language and species barriers being what they are, Ellie did not interpret this as 'let's play!' instead she went 'SHIIIIIIITT' and jumped the hell out of the way.

She jumped sideways smack into Mrs Mang's right shin. This caused her knee to hyper-extend which, in turn, lead to her ankle rolling over and snap - hairline fracture to the tibia (the lateral maleolus for you anatomy fans out there). We didn't know this at the time, thought it was probably a sprain (which it is too...) so we went shopping anyway and Mrs Mang' used the cart as an improvised walker. Later that evening we went to the ER to find that it was indeed a break. (Incidentally, I'm not sure why we've become so binary about ankles. She did break a bone but there's no way she didn't also damage ligaments at the same time. Doctors being what they are, consider it one or the other. If your ankle rolls over suddenly, hurts like fuck, swells and goes purple - yeah, it's a sprain, regardless as to whether the bone fractured or not.)

Sooo...she's in a full cast avec crutches and cannot drive. I cannot drive either because I'm a lazy SOB who doesn't like cars very much. (see previous post about comfort zones & character flaws...). We're reliant on other people to get us around places and what were once simple tasks for Mrs Mang' are now awkward, clunky, painful and requiring a lot more assistance.

The upside to all this is that when SM2 was visiting from Italy, she took it upon herself to take care of the laundry (owing to the ankle fiasco) and she found my wedding ring in the washing machine door seal which I lost in September 09.

Of course, I'm not saying it was worth Mrs Mang busting her ankle to get my ring back, but it does spare me having to find $300 to replace it.

That's about all the news here lately. Maybe in a future post I will tell you about the 2 year period I like to call 'Oopss....where's the DVD player?'. But that's a looooooong story.

Anyways, thanks for the concern & wishes. Much appreciated!

Mangrove

[Suu]

Yay for grandbabies!

Nay for broken bones and sprains!


I should drive out to Hartford and have you do something to my back. It's being awful to me lately. Probably because I don't have a proper chair to sit on at home, but still, I could bring you a teeny bit of business.

[Mangrove]

Yay for grandbabies!

Nay for broken bones and sprains!


I should drive out to Hartford and have you do something to my back. It's being awful to me lately. Probably because I don't have a proper chair to sit on at home, but still, I could bring you a teeny bit of business.

Suu - will gladly take a look at your back. Send me a PM if you want to set something up. Actually, do that anyway because I have an art project idea for you 

[Cainad (dec.)]

I keep forgetting your like an hour away from me, tops.

I could your business along for a thousand years with this neck of mine.

[Mangrove]

I keep forgetting your like an hour away from me, tops.

I could your business along for a thousand years with this neck of mine.

What's up with the neck? We might have something for that!

[Cainad (dec.)]

I keep forgetting your like an hour away from me, tops.

I could your business along for a thousand years with this neck of mine.

What's up with the neck? We might have something for that!

Chronic muscle spasm in the left side of the neck, often with stiffness and pain running down to the area behind the left shoulder blade. Going on two years now.