rejuvination for girls 101

I have started writing this post 3 times now. Each incarnation has been discarded; too obscure, too flippant, too serious, too boring... whatever happened to writing from the heart, the words falling out of my head onto the page without check?
Oh never mind; it's complicated.

Instead, let me tell you about last weekend.
Last Friday evening I flew to London to spend a couple of days with my sister. We sat up until after 4am talking - in itself, is not terribly surprising. What was a little unusual was the puny quantity of alcohol we consumed. In all that time we only got through 1 bottle of sparkling wine.
(We won't get into how many cups of coffee / glasses of water/OJ we went through.)
Will men ever understand women's ability to stay up all night talking..?

After brunch on Saturday we took the Tube to Covent Garden, and there we had lunch with an old friend of mine. Dee and I were best friends in high school and I hadn't seen her for something like 9 years - not since our 10-year high school reunion.
(We will ignore for now that next year will be 20 years since I left school, 'kay?!)
We sort of lost touch, until earlier this year when she - now living in London - realised I live in Ireland. A couple of phone calls and emails later and there we were, sipping Earl Grey tea (me) and Cuppacinos (Dee) in Covent Garden.
(I forget what Li'l Sis had to drink - possibly one of each - but I do recall a definite sugar rush because she just couldn't turn down a piece of tart..!)
Well it was as if we do this every week. The conversation flowed easily and sincerely and continued to do so until about 10pm. At some point, when it started getting a bit nippy outdoors, we walked a few blocks to a South African pub - "the Bok" - and there we found a table to sit at in one corner. The yakking continued uninterrupted, and I dare say if it wasn't for the fact that Dee had a long-ish train trip to get back home to her family, the evening might well have progressed in a very different vein, for at some point it was as if we were replaced by our 17-year-old selves, laughing and gossiping in that way girls of that age do, and enjoying that very special bond we have with our friends at that age. No doubt the reminiscing about what we used to get up to helped!

As it was, when the time came we said our goodbyes and went our separate ways. Li'l Sis and I proceeded to mimic our previous evening, only this time we stayed up 'till 5am, talking.
What didi we talk about?
None of your business ;-)

By the time we managed to leave the flat on Sunday it was already 4pm so breakfast was out of the question. A good solid steak, chips & salad at a place down the road sorted us out just nicely, and then it was time for me to return home, rejuvinated, unburdened and a little bit more like the Me I used to be all those years ago.
I'm beginning to think it should be compulsory for all women to meet up with old school friends on a regular basis. It's really good for the soul.

my friend says this reminds her of me

It's been doing the rounds & I hope I'm not infringing on any copyrights here, but I love this one!!!

I don't know if they did but it sounds like something 'They' would say

They say a bit of hard work never killed anyone.
While I'm sure some of the poor souls buried in the Great Wall of China might disagree, I suppose it's hard to argue when one is encased in that much concrete.
The point is, though, that it hasn't killed me yet - too much hard work, that is, not the Great Wall of China. I haven't been to see it yet, come to think of it I must remember to put that on my List of Things to Do before I Die... which hopefully won't be from too much hard work.

What my recent bout of long working hours has done, apart from score me a bunch of overtime pay*, is kill my creativity - or at least force it into hibernation. So in the absence of creative writing, I would like to share my opinion on the current state of the world.

(I hope the world is ready for this!)

Here's the thing: I would like to send everyone a copy of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. And I don't mean the book written by Douglas Adams, brilliant though it was. No, I'm talking about the actual guide - the one that has the words "DON'T PANIC" on the front in big flashing letters.
Because here are the facts as I see them:
Yes, share prices are down... now I know that this was all started off by some people making bad decisions and losing actual money but let's face it, the more people panic, the worse the situation is going to get. Surely people realise that some point things have to stablilise? We need the banks, and the banks need each other, and the banks need us, so the sooner everyone just stops panicking the sooner the sky will stop falling on our heads and yes, children, things will begin to climb back up again. It's the nature of the beast. We (meaning the population of the world) need to remember that the stock markets are NOT a living organism with a mind of it's own. The source of it all is people. So if the people stop to take a breath and look beyond their noses, things will start to get better again.

I overheard someone say that they have lost a bunch of money in shares. Bullshit. I know for a fact that this person has owned these shares for a few years now. These particular shares are now worth around about what they were bought for all those years ago. So unless the share prices continue to drop and this person then decides to sell them (which would be really dumb, in my opinion), they have lost nothing. They still have the shares. The market will stabilise. The share price will climb again and then they will be back to having made some money.

See how simple it is?

So let us all do us all a favour:

DON'T PANIC!!!

Spread the word. The sooner the better.


~T

* What, you think I do it for the love of the job??!