Daddydavek

Happy Birthday! & Many, many more!

9:09 am on a lazy Sunday morning.

I see Jeremy previously picked up on JJ's comparing Will to Matt. In the stages of grief, Brad is vacillating because he is having a hard time processing it all and I would expect that to continue for some time well beyond Robbie's memorial. His relationship with Robbie was complicated on several levels and they both fed each other's insecurities and also some of their strengths. I think you can safely agree, they each motivated the other, and not always in good ways. Cody and Maddie are an ongoing intrigue which perhaps will get sorted sooner rather than later? Does Brad really see himself as nearly 40? Is the loss of Robbie going to produce another mid-life crises? Does Will find a bay based boyfriend? Enquiring minds want to know..

I too loved the different POV's including JJ who I think made a fairly astute observation that perhaps Mark thinks is important. “Maybe we should have gotten our own car,” John said, flirting with Will. Will was such a sucker for a handsome guy who would play around with him, or act like he wanted to. I thought it was hilarious that Will didn’t seem all that close to Matt, since the two of them were so much alike in that regard. It showed that JJ is not as shallow as some may have thought, nor as strong as he pretends to be. The memorial for Jeanine and Hank succeeded in bringing home to the survivors the finality and magnitude of their loss and was well written. Will's reaction to the algebra teacher's explanation of his own grief and perhaps projected survivor guilt was well done as well. Brad's musings are the most conflicted and seem to indicate he has a long way to go in processing it. Cody seems to have had some discussion with Brad and his assertion that he was the father certainly put the less than enlightened grandparents in their place. Brad's asking Will to back off and trust him about Cody was indicative and I hope it means there will be a relatively peaceful resolution of Maddie's status.

Winkler and Jacobs sussed out they were in danger and just made it to George's Portland Place home in time where Caroline took charge of the situation. I suspect that her foray into the Admiralty and dressing down of Lord Spencer in public has ramifications that are yet to be felt by George on a personal level as well as professional. Is there a desk job in his future? Despite the fall semester crush, here's hoping our esteemed serial authors finds his Charles Dickens like stride and returns to it post haste!

Happy Birthday! Sorry I'm late but my MLB Cardinals lost today and I didn't check things out very well.

Rates meant more than guns. See the following site and note the links to the right hand side for the time period in question. http://www.britainsnavy.co.uk/Reference/Rates%20-Sailing%20Ship.htm

The ESPN poll of who would win the Cards vs Pirates series done after the Pirates Cincinnati game Tuesday favored the Pirates 58% to 42% for the Cards. After today's game, the ESPN poll as to who would win and in how many games, gave the Cards the edge 64% to 36% with the majority saying the Cards in 4 games. Amazing what a blowout win does to change perceptions as the Cards won 9-1 in game 1.

It's different for everyone and if you don't have anyone you can discuss this with it can be very difficult. In my humble opinion, I think you need to find a trusted and professional counselor and start talking. Your life is too important to let these internal conflicts bring you down. From there perhaps you can begin to build a support network. Even those who live in the closet and choose to stay there for whatever reason, have to have a support network of sorts. Good luck and don't panic!

I started going to hockey games in the early 1960's to see the St. Louis Flyers, a minor league. When the Blues came to town I went many times to the old St. Louis Arena (the barn) and watched them play from up in the rafters. I haven't gone at all in the past 20 years and rarely watch on TV anymore. The NHL has allowed fighting to go on too long and too often to keep my respect.

I subscribe to the theory that most theories have a particle of truth and a load of speculation when it comes to explaining how life and intelligent life came about. In the grand scheme of things we are on a pretty insignificant little blue marble orbiting a not so significant G class star, one of millions or billions in an eddy of a huge galaxy in an even larger universe filled with galaxies both smaller and larger than our own. The light we are receiving from some of these stars today, started traveling our way before any life on this planet came into being in the primordial soup. So historically speaking on the scale of the universe, human intelligence has existed about a nanosecond.

It is apparent that mum hasn't figured out that her little boy grew up. More please!

Thank heavens that boy had his grandpa to turn to.

I too found it interesting how Graeme kept us wondering just what our poor muddled teen had been caught at.

I read his first 6-7 books and then the writing fell off in my opinion. The part that bothered me the most in the reports was the fact that he died at age 66 which is my age. Of course some of the reports noted his favorite Merit Menthol cigs and I quit smoking at the end of 1972......

Well the Reds did manage a couple of homers on Tuesday night but it wasn't enough. My condolences, but as a Cards fan I can't be too disappointed.....or too happy. After all, now we have to face those pesky Bucs.

I think a Hayes with lavender eyes and or somebody who 'snaughs' would be people Brad would avoid. He doesn't need someone to remind him of Robbie. That's a torch that will always have residuals. Those that have mentioned that he will probably end up with someone in their twenties or very early thirties are more likely right.

You don't replace someone who has died. If you loved them and Brad did, he will never be able to replace Robbie and will not want to. Hopefully, he will find someone else to love and share the rest of his life with as Robbie told him. As far as it being Alelx, I think not, at least not for quite a while. I see Brad playing the field and taking his time and trying to really get to know someone before he commits, BUT it is Arbour's story and he does like the drama....Just my humble opinion.

WOW! I've liked lots of your picks in the past but these two really are outstanding.

Pvt Tim's point about most teens never catching on that parents have lives filled with pressures of which they might know nothing about is well taken. However, in this family I think the kids all knew that Robbie and Brad had their rough patches and that those patches tended to recur. Despite that I am sure that Darius, Will and JJ had the perception that Brad and Robbie were adults and could handle it. After all, Darius, Will and JJ often accused Brad of being a controlling sort and they were right without thinking about the cost to Brad and his ability to handle other maybe less pressing issues. The poetic license card was used regarding the scene with the clueless algebra teacher. I wondered in my review if Mark has some bias against algebra teachers since he picked on one. Having gone to a private all boys schools in the sixties, my experience with clueless teachers is a bit dated but at that time it was the art and art history teacher who was clueless. And yes he in fact did hate to give make-up tests. Now that Mark has answered the question as to why Brad was so persistently inept in handling Will, I wonder whether the next chapter will be a transitional one or if he has another surprise waiting for us. Looking forward to late Thursday or Friday for the next installment.

Well I asked for a chapter with some insight into Brad's psyche and you said I'd called it. This chapter took me back to when Brad and Robbie were going through the whole Carson thing and then I thought over their entire relationship and I should have figured out stuff was still going on and that was the cause of Brad's being so obtuse in his relationship with Will. I really was having a hard time understanding how Brad was being so terminally stupid regarding his dealings with Will. And then you wrote this chapter and tied it all together for us in a neat little package. On top of that, you came up with a scenario (albeit somewhat unlikely as others have remarked) where Will had to announce to his whole class just what he went through in New York. You must have really hated algebra. Math was never my strong subject but I never met a math teacher that disliked giving make-up tests. As I recall, they loved to give tests and couldn't understand why most of the class didn't think math tests were fun. Looking forward to the next chapter late Thursday or Friday afternoon.

I started it but quit as I could definitely see that I would do about as good as KC.......

Saw your post called 'fall' and wondered if it was your gravitational problem? However on reading it, I found no problems at all! Nifty little story!

I did not like this chapter because of the ending....if Rhyder gets hurt bad--your name is mud.

What's so interesting about people withdrawing from relationships and intimacy and doing so because they are in mourning over family members who for the most part enjoyed life and their relationships? Isolating and wallowing in depression and grief are good ways to self flagellate and may be tempting but they are not helpful in taking the baby steps required to go on with the business of living.