Odds and ends before I get started on Bizarro Land

1. I know a LOT of us have wandered off in different directions.  I just want to reiterate that this group, the initial lot of y'all, was so instrumental in my even starting a blog - and then you all helped me work through all those memories and reading YOUR stories and all your comments on everyone's blogs - I miss everyone, but I'm glad some have been able to move on.  Thank you, just thank you.  
2. I had said - a few posts ago - that I was 5 (ten!) pounds up.  I'm still hanging right there.  Other stuff keeps getting in the way of my concentration.  Now that I think about it from a woo-woo perspective, that sounds a lot like manipulation right there...  anyway, nothing new to report, I never made the effort I said I was gonna.
3. Still walking all the time.  2-4 miles at a time, 3 to 4 times a week.  I am absolutely destroyed by mosquito bites right now and I feel SEXY.  
4. Jeff's dad and mom and brother and that whole situation remains exactly the same.  I don't go with him when he goes to visit, he goes most Sundays, and I'm not in on phone calls or texts either.  I like it that way! Nobody died yet.
5. Mike, other than the PTSD stuff, is freaking GREAT.  He had the summer off from school - which means he got no money so that was bad...  but!  He's enrolled in his second year of college.  Switched majors to Business from Engineering.  His beautiful girlfriend moved in with him!  They adopted two adorable kittens (I have Grand Kitties!) He's spent the summer reading and studying up on a new fun hobby he wants to maybe turn into a money making venture, and he's ALSO spent the summer playing nerd games about 3 times a week.  We walk together when we can, I buy him groceries sometimes, it's all good.
6. VIENNA - small slice.  There is a woman, married to one of Jeff's co-workers.  She's about 65 yrs old.  We met for lunch here a few times, and planned to spend a lot of time together in Vienna.  ANOTHER wife, a super nice Korean lady I hadn't really known, was also there.  I got along with BOTH of them.  Wife 1 does not like wife 2.  And wife 1 got bent that I DID like wife 2.  I haven't spoken to wife 1 SINCE!  can you imagine?  I was like, "BYE Felicia!" (a flippant way to say goodbye to someone who walks off in a huff)  so, that was that.  The other wife, the Korean lady?  CRACKED ME THE HELL UP.  We had fun, said 'see you next time', and that was that.  I'm too old for Jr. Hi? check YES or NO and tell me by the lockers at break.
7. Vienna, another slice - a cocktail near the St. Stephens Cathedral?  €11.  ELEVEN EURO.  that, my friends, is $15.00.  Want to know what you get for that?  A rude pretentious waiter (no, srsly), a glass with (i guess?) a shot of vodka in it, and a bottle of tonic. No ice.  YOU HAVE TO MAKE YOUR OWN COCKTAIL.

   

   Not my picture, gangked from teh webz

   It was sort of hilarious in a painful way...  BUT!  I got to sit and look at THIS for an hour!

St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna

OK - more pictures of Vienna.  Remember, this is ME we're talking about.  If you want postcard pictures, go find them on Google.  I take pictures of stuff that cracks me up, or that moves me very much.  so, onward:

I have no idea whut in the great googly mooglies is happening here.  Looks bad tho.

Coffee Set, Hotel Intercontinental, Vienna

I should have stolen that set, dammit.

Neptune Fountain, Vienna.  He's CAVORTING with nekkid MERMAIDS.

If you can bigger that picture, it's worth seeing all the statues.  They are WHOOPING it up.  The horses they are riding?  Called 'Hippocampus'.  Their hooves?  ARE FLIPPERS.  Who knew.

This is not mine.  Way better picture.

That building in the back?  Called a 'Gloriette'.  It was built to look pretty from the palace, and the Neptune fountain is about 1/3 way up.  The Empress used to have breakfast up there!  There is a cafe in there now.  I climbed to the ROOF (extra  €5 please!) but like I told Jeff, I wasn't going to go all that way and not ring the bell.  It's quite the climb - let me find a good angle picture...

So, here is the back of the palace.  I am standing about 1/2 way up the hill.  The Neptune fountain is behind that ridge of trees.  There is a 'lake' behind me.

Same spot, lake is in front, and there is the Gloriette.  See that eagle waayyy up on top?  Yep, climbed up there.  This was my favorite thing to see - the gardens at Schönbrunn Palace.  they are huge, and I never saw the zoo or the maze.  I'd go back here for sure.  The inside is typical baroque style and I wasn't as interested in it as the outside, but it was fascinating to hear the stories.  Above everything else I saw in Vienna, this is the thing that made me go "!!"

OK - so.  More weird crap coming at you.  Honestly, i decided to tell my story from the beginning, from Florida.  It's going to change the whole direction of my blog, in a way, from narcs to woo woo (better than from narcs to dieting, amiright?) but the narcs come into play in there too.