SATERDAY FUN - OTHER NEWS

- MOSCOW — A wounded fox shot its would-be killer in Belarus by pulling the trigger on the hunter's gun, after the man tried to finish the animal off with the butt of the rifle. "The animal fiercely resisted and in the struggle accidentally pulled the trigger with its paw," one prosecutor was quoted as saying.

- GARDEN CITY, N.Y. — A man who claims a rodent bit him on the penis when it came out of a hole in his mattress while he was being held in a New York jail. He can proceed with a federal civil rights lawsuit claiming county officials should have had better pest control, a judge has ruled.

- BERLIN — Two would-be thieves called in their own crime to police in Germany after they could not escape from a broken-down elevator over the weekend, police said in a statement."This sounds really dumb," one of the thieves told police in Cologne over the elevator's emergency phone, "But I'm afraid that we wanted to break in and the elevator has gotten stuck." When police arrived they found the two thieves aged 31 and 37 in the elevator of an office building.

- A man sued his doctor because he survived his cancer longer than the doctor predicted.

- Two robbers were in the process of their crime when one changed his mind and arrested the other.

- A woman had her husband's ashes made into an egg timer when he died so he could still "help" in the kitchen.

- Only 68 of 200 Anglican priests polled could name all Ten Commandments, but half said they believed in space aliens.





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FRIDAY's FAVE FIVE

more participants at Susanne at Living to tell the Story.

1. Weatherwise we are back to normal that means it rains cats and dogs. Some parts of the country are still flooded, but at least it became a little warmer and doesn't freeze anymore. I hadn't seen my friend Chantal for quiet a while due to the bad weather and the holidays, so we decided to have lunch together in "our" favorite Asian restaurant and after that she came home with me to see our Christmas photos with little grandson Toby.

2. After 6 weeks without Acqua gym, due to snow and the holidays, I finally could go there again on Monday, and besides the exercises in the pool, we also excercised our tongues around a cup of tea after the gym. There was so much to tell about how everybody had survived Christmas and New Year.

3.



On New Year I had ordered a Sushi menue to eat at home and now Dominique and I wanted to try the restaurant which is delivering them. It's a real nice and modern place and we had 8 different sushis each. They tasted delicious. Two Japanese women were sitting besides us and explained a little the Japonese kitchen. It was very interesting.

4. I got a phone call from Helsinki/Finland from an old friend who had lost my address and we had a long chat together. Must have cost her a fortune ! She just was on her way back home, she had participated in the New Year swimming in the sea (!!) the water was 0° C (32F) cold or warm, it depends if you are pessimist or optimist ! I was already freezing when she told me that. She is a retired French teacher, and does this each year ! Perhaps this summer I will visit her.

5.

I spent the rest of my time at my computer or TV and also watched a documentary about Wills and Kate, I am a romantic person.



Toby 7 weeks old



the little family

and as my son had sent me new pictures of little grandson Toby I made two little collages for my wallet, because I still only have my cats in it !

LITTLE NOTES

more participants at Jenny Matlock's Alphabet Thursday

N = Notes

When we were first living together and then a freshly married couple, Mr. G. worked in the Hilton Hotel and had completely other working hours than me. I worked from 8.30 am til 6 pm, he had shift hours and we saw each other only for a few hours. He worked then from 3 pm til 11 pm or from 11 pm til 6 am. That's why I used a little book for leaving notes.

Of course in 1968/69 we didn't have a cell phone to quickly give a call or send a little text, in case you needed or wanted to tell something.

Just before Christmas I was looking for the very first album of my son as a baby, he had just become a daddy and he wanted to compare of course. And there I found this little note book together with other things from the past.

I didn't remember that we wrote such cute little notes and that I made little drawings and our very big concern was our cat Piccola. So day after day I wrote a note, what he had to buy or to do, or he wrote me to sew a button on his shirt. They were always signed with funny little names and of course lots of kisses.






This is the agenda we used to leave notes for each other, like

- You must be tired ! I'll buy a gift for Mukki today, take off the colar from the cat when she is not going out

- I come back with the tramway if it doesn't rain

- the Electrician had come, coffee is on the stove, if you are hungry, buy bread

- there is a soup to be warmed up ...

We wrote in German, because at that time Mr. G. spoke only very little French, but fluently German because he had lived in Germany for 3 years where he was working for a big company with a lot of Italian workers. Being Italian himself, he translated for them and also wrote their letters to their families, because lots of them could not read and write.

These times of little notes are long gone, because from hotel work he changed to Analyst and Programmer. This kind of job had just been created and you only needed 3 months of Computer classes in 1971 ! Today you have to go to University for 4 years to do the same job.

As he worked in an office now, we had the same office hours, our little notes were not needed anymore. Our offices were in the same street, and we could even have lunch together.



Today I use my mobile to write little notes, they are short, in French and they have no little drawings. Kisses take too much space after 41 years of marriage, for just asking to buy a bread.

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

here

MY WORLD - Waterloo

more participants here

For the moment there is not very much going on in my world.



This was my street two days ago, but now the snow has melted completely and the snowmen are gone.




The Waterloo Lion place which is always full of tourists even when the weather is bad, now just after the holidays didn't have a lot of visitors. The parking has a lot of holes and probably needs to be redone.



Waterloo on a Sunday looks very empty. The shops are closed and only a few people are underway. This is the main street, usually so busy that it is impossible to take pictures.





During the week it's far more busy.




Not very far from Waterloo, there are floods. Due to the heavy rain and the melting snow, the rivers went out of their beds. Lots of people had to be evacuated. Firemen bring food to an 80 year old lady who didn't want to leave her house. I took the pictures from the TV screen.

WHAT DID YOU DO THIS WEEKEND ?

Helps you to remember what you have done on the weekend of January 8th. You never know if you need an alibi ! If you participate please put the little logo on the top of your post and leave your link.

After all this snow, the rain moved in and we have heavy flooding in the southern part of the country. Fortunately the temperature rose to 11°C (54 F) at least it is not freezing.

I waited that it stopped raining and took all Christmas decoration out of my flower pots. Fortunately there was not a lot, because I couldn't really decorate, there had been so much snow that anyway nobody would have seen something. Then it started raining again and I returned to my computer. I had been at my travel agency because I want to go to Istambul for 8 days and of course I checked all the hotels listed in the catalogue on Internet. It's always good to have two opinions. In the afternoon my friend Chantal came over and we chatted about our Christmas and New Year's Eve. For supper I had made a cheese fondu which was the right thing with this sad weather.

Sunday morning sun was shining so I went for little walk to the market, but only bought some eggs. I took some pictures for different memes and walked a little through the completely empty center of Waterloo which usually is always full. But as the shops are closed on Sundays only a few people walked around probably to have a look on the "Sales" prices.





Waterloo main street and church on a Sunday morning ! Usually there is car behind car and lots of people on the sidewalk.

In the afternoon I had a nice surprise a phone call from a friend from Finland, whom I had known in Waterloo in the 80th because our sons were in the same class. We had always stayed in contact and she even came once to Waterloo to spend a week with us, but then we lost contact but she found me last week on Facebook ! What a surprise ! Now of course we intend to see each other again and she invited me to come in Summer to Finland on their island, where they live during the 4 summer months. Now, that's again something to dream about when I am locked in the house !

HOW TO BECOME 100 ?

Yesterday I saw on TV a 112 year old lady in excellent shape. I also learned that people are getting older and older and that Belgium has now 1559 people over 100 years for a total population of not exactly 11 million. That makes me think and doubt about the recommendations of a healthy life we hear today.

These men and women were born in 1910/11, they survived two World Wars and certainly didn't need weight watchers during these times. They ate what was eatable nobody cared about expiration dates, you ate it until it was not eatable anymore.

From the 50th on we swallowed everything prepared with chemicals, we ate eggs and chicken from industrial chicken farms, where the chicken just had to lay egg after egg. The cows got hormon shots and where locked in stables not to move only to become big and fat. The vegetables where all sprayed with chemicals to look more beautiful and fresh and of course to hold longer.

The majority of the people smoked like chimneys, and you were rather an outsider when you didn't smoke. I was born in 1943 and I don't know how many meat I have eaten from hormon prepared cows and pigs, how many vegetables I ate sprayed with chemicals, and how many eggs I ate coming from these chicken "factories".

Now suddenly all this is bad for your health, we all should buy bio or organic food, I don't know the difference, I only know it costs a lot more . It's bad to smoke it's bad to drink it's better to run on a treadmill inside then outside in the street or a park, to lift weights instead of lifting your kids or household stuff and you bike in your room instead on the street.

On the other hand the States complain because people are getting so old and they have difficulties to pay the pensions for such a long time. In Belgium the retirement age is 65. So if you live until 100 the State has to pay you 35 or more years pension for maybe around 30 years of work, it depends what you were doing. Only the politicians are allowed to work until 80 or longer and you are considered as a still young politician when you are only 65 ! And if they want to work that long that means they don't have a lot of work, a miner certainly doesn't want to work until he is 80.

All this makes me think that despite two World Wars with hunger, and then this unhealthy food with hormon meat, with chemicals sprayed vegetables, smoking etc. these people reached the respectful age of 100 years ! Maybe just because of all the chemicals to keep things fresh !

Now organic food is in fashion and the younger generation should only eat bio which is far more expensive and do sport in Fitness centers which is an excellent business. This way they would live less longer and the State doesn't have to pay a pension for such a long time. After all health is also a business and a quiet new one.

Unfortunately this kind of "health" is only for wealthy people, I doubt very much that a big family with an average salary can go into a "Bio shop" without going bankrupt.



I don't eat organic foods. At my age I can use all the preservatives I can get ! (That's me with a friend)