- Hello there . . .

          - Inside Story

          - Ape on a Wet Thatched Roof

          - Don't Bail Out of Marriage Too Soon

          - eNony Mouse - weighty problems

          - Budget Vegetable Gardens - from scraps

          - Discover The 90-10 Secret

…you with the stars in your eyes, a grasshopper brain and thoughts without boundaries…

It's cold and raining, so naturally my thoughts turned to food and I remembered Ron Williams' article (which I knew I had filed away somewhere) on setting up a vegetable garden from kitchen scraps. This idea seems tailor-made for those of you living in fertile places like Florida.

Not that the coastal regions of Kwa-Zulu Natal aren't fertile enough, but mention vegetables to my husband and he gets rather beady. Soon after we moved here he cleared a patch of bush (it took days) and planted potatoes, while a troop of monkeys sat in a nearby tree and watched him sweat.

Well, you guessed it. The monkeys got the potatoes before he did because they don't care how small they are. Since then he's become rather lazy so no doubt we'll continue buying our tomatoes and things across the road. When you read Ron's article you'll notice he refers to something called 'choko' and if anyone can identify/translate this please let me know. There's quite a few things here that could be covered by a quick-growing, concealing vine that also produces fruit - for the monkeys of course.

In 'Discover The 90-10 Secret' Arlen Busenitz reveals how to change one's life completely by giving up screaming and yelling - I really must read it again. And apart from that there's the usual malice in Griselda's Inside Story, more about Pookie, and a contribution from Melvin Durai on divorce. This is based on the better the devil you know theory - which I entirely agree with.

I hope you enjoy this issue, and make sure you have a good month.

NEWBIES, NERDS & NITWITS
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I know I promised you the next best thing to a Rose Garden -  and I must say I'm disappointed. I thought Pam Allen would at  least be honest but obviously she's intimidated. I should really  make one or two alterations. (For instance Pam thought I was  going on holiday - doesn't she realise that if I went on leave that  nothing, even slightly critical of Sheldene, would get into this  ezine?)

'WELL, here I am, Sheldene's cohort in computer chaos. Ostensibly, Griselda is on a much deserved vacation, but I'm quite sure the poor girl is locked in the attic. Sheldene is being inundated with highly anticipated visits from family, and I know that she doesn't want them to have the faintest clue as to her bizarre habits. Anyway, I agreed to take over the Inside Story for this edition. I think Sheldene hopes I'll dispel the impression that poor Griselda has given, and paint her ladyship as a very organized, quite superior specimen of computer usage. *sigh* No chance of that, dear readers. Suffice it to say, that if we had one more person in our little duo, we'd be a threat to the Three Stooges.

'We've been working frantically, trying to get the Newbies and Nitwits computer help site transferred to a new server. It basically had to be done from scratch, with every page laid out by hand, and content lovingly pasted in the proper place. I whipped a copy of a high-tech HTML editing program across the world, right to her doorstep, so we could both work on the site together. Unfortunately, neither of us had the first clue about using this program. She had it set up one way, I had it set up another. She sent me files to check, I sent her files to check. We assumed (quite stupidly, as it turns out) that since we both used the same program, everything would work the same on either end. Ha!

'It took us two months of daily emails just to get things set up so that both our programs were looking in the same place for the pictures. Of course, I wonder how much of it was really a 'misunderstanding' since it was my picture that never showed up on the page.

'And the buttons! Don't get me started on the buttons. Sheldene just had to have specific buttons on the pages. Simple buttons weren't good enough, she had to have SPECIAL buttons. Of course, the buttons she selected are supposed to do all sorts of complex things, like fill out forms, send emails, what have you. Sheldene spent weeks figuring out how to make these buttons simply go to another page.

'Instead of having one little bitty line that says 'go here when a reader clicks', we've got entire paragraphs of commands that circle, and loop, and eventually end up on page 2. Oh well, she has her buttons, and all is right with the world.

'Newbies and Nitwits is up and running, and looks quite impressive, if I do say so myself. It's a never ending project, as we keep thinking of new and exciting things to add to the site. I find ways to do what we want, and then let her add the buttons. We've gotten along smashingly well throughout the ordeal, and I know Griselda was making it up when she said that Sheldene kept muttering about 'that bossy, pain-in-the-rear American'.

'Of course Sheldene denies ever muttering anything like that!'

    (Just wait, Pam, - until the next time you need my outstanding skills- Ed.)

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 More about Pookie

TIME flies whether or not you are having fun. A couple of years went by and the monkey, Pookie, remained firmly ensconced as an unruly member of our family.

Then suddenly it was all happening. We decided to move to a farm a, a little closer to town, where my husband, Keith, would be able to train as well as breed racehorses. Rhodesia's 'bush' war was now in full swing and I had, inadvertently, become pregnant.

I believe some people callously dump the family cat because it might interfere with, or try to suffocate, the anticipated baby. Needless to say our flock of cats were quite safe as we never even considered getting rid of our bullying, biting monkey.

I recall being far too busy, shocked and cross to want to discuss the impending happy event, and Keith pretended he was equally annoyed. Adrian, the monkey's mentor, was absolutely furious as well as being ashamed of his parents, while Avalon, the eight- year-old reigning baby, had to come to terms with soon becoming an ex-infant.

Only Miranda and Llewelyn, who were used to being 'middle' children, were completely unmoved. The latter was still battling to survive the stresses and strains of a life lived in close proximity to Pookie, while Miranda quietly prepared to become one of the world's most difficult teenagers.

Major moves are always traumatic so a Chant relocation could safely be classified as doubly so. Uprooting four children is bad enough, but what about transplanting four dogs, 22 cats, a few rabbits, a pet rat, my two horses, and a monkey?

To make matters worse we were moving from a civilised four- bedroom house, designed for gracious living, to a collection of disconnected thatched huts which were, of course, going to be transformed later.

Come the great day, my job was to ferry carloads of livestock. Then there was a problem with the Indian driver of the furniture removal truck because it was against his religion to have anything to do with dogs - let alone transport the big ones that might not fit in my car. And to cap it all it was raining.

Adrian and Pookie travelled as part of one of the early 'cat loads', and the rest of the family arrived hot on the heels of the dogs and furniture. By now it was bucketing down and it was clear everything we owned would soon be sodden.

So Pookie chose that moment to leap out of a rondavel (hut), thereby providing the furniture removers with just the excuse they wanted to drop most of our mattresses in the mud. Surprisingly we did sleep in our beds that night, probably because Freitwell, Bubu and Anatoria, who were used to working under pressure, had chosen to move with us.

For the next week or so, having quickly settled in to our new quarters, Pookie had a wonderful time terrifying this farm's labour force. He never actually savaged anyone but most of the men were completely unnerved, not knowing when this fiend would come scampering across a roof, or simply drop out of a tree, in order to harass them.

Women balancing water buckets on their heads tossed them aside, shreiking, while their wide-eyed children peeped at the proceedings from behind bushes and shed doors. Normal monkeys would not choose to come so close to humans but by this time Pookie had no fears.

It was all a bit tiring and, as usual, he kept the best tricks for his adopted family.

Shortly after the move my best friend, Betty, came to view our new hovels, bringing with her Serena, whom I barely knew, and a chocolate cake.

 Many people disliked Pookie but Betty loathed him. Sweeping  into the 'lounge' rondavel her first words were 'Where's that  horrible monkey?', so I quickly assured her he was playing with  Adrian 'somewhere'.

 Just as I was about to sink my teeth into the first piece of cake  we noticed the malevolent animal crouching high in the rafters.

 'Oh dear', said Serena, with feeling.

 'Don't worry', I replied airily. 'He won't come down from...'

 Then Pookie, in orbit, flashed past me, landing on Serena's  shoulder. Foolishly she yelped, thereby earning a sharp nip, but  Pookie was already advancing on his real target.

 Although Betty tried to protect her cake she could not withstand  Pookie's menacing gestures for long. Then he was up and  away, with the cake, and out the window.

 Frankly I felt Serena made an inordinate fuss about the litle bite  on her neck. Meanwhile Betty was raging, having been outfaced  and robbed by the monkey she detested, and they left as soon  as I'd managed to unearth some disinfectant for Serena's tiny  wound.

 Later I learned Serena had been sick, for quite a while, with a  low grade fever. Which I'm sure was caused by a virus of some  sort. Naturally Betty is convinced, to this day, that Serena's  mysterious illness was the result of a bite from 'poisonous'  Pookie.

 So it was really thanks to Pookie that Betty never got around to  telling me that I could, under no circumstances, name the new  baby, Merlyn. The next time we met Merlyn (how could I have  possibly called him anything else?) had joined the menagerie.

Copyright 2000 Sheldene Chant

 *The previous three articles about Pookie can  be found in the April, May and June issues HERE

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FEEL like getting a divorce? Forget about it. A new study shows that splitting up won't necessarily make you happier, that you have a better chance of being happy if you stay with your lousy, good-for-nothing spouse.

Hey, people change. Situations change. Even body odors change. (Today he smells like sour milk; tomorrow he may smell like fine cheese.)

So tear up that divorce petition. Get rid of that divorce lawyer. And send your spouse a box of candy and a note: 'Did I say I want a divorce? I meant to say I want a device! Yes, a new remote control. This is all a big misunderstanding, honey. It's my fault, really. I need to work on my pronunciations.'

The study, conducted primarily at the University of Chicago, identified 645 unhappy spouses in a national database. After five years, 167 were divorced or separated, with about half of them happy. (The ones who got custody of the Lexus.)

Of the 478 who stayed married, two-thirds were happy. What does all this mean? It's simple: Living with a pain-in-the-neck is better than trying to chop it off.

Anything can happen in five years to improve a marriage: more communication, more commitment, more Viagra.

Of course, in some marriages, five years may seem an eternity. Just ask the former wives of Mike Tyson if they'd give him five years. 'Five years? Sure, we'd give him five years -- in the slammer! Certainly not with us. As the divorce court judge said, we're done serving our time.'

For these women and others, living in matrimony was never as joyful as living on alimony.

But even the worst marriages can be saved, as the study clearly shows. Of the unhappiest spouses who stuck it out, a staggering 80% were happy five years later, perhaps because they all received free marriage counseling -- almost every day on Oprah.

Interviews of the once-unhappy spouses revealed three routes to happiness:

---Marital endurance: As time went by, sources of conflict eased. Household incomes grew, gifts of jewelry arrived, and the nightly headaches disappeared. 'Not tonight, honey' turned into 'Not just tonight, honey.'

---Marital work: Spouses worked hard to save their marriages. Their winning strategies included changing their behavior, improving communication skills, and finding time to wear deodorant.

---Personal change: Spouses discovered ways to be happy despite a mediocre marriage. Some focused on their jobs, others focused on their children, and a few focused on Antonio Banderas.

Middle-aged woman: 'My husband doesn't find me attractive anymore, but Antonio thinks I'm cute.'

Friend: 'You've spoken to Antonio Banderas???'

Woman: 'Of course. I speak to Antonio all the time. Every time I visit his website. That's why I bought a computer. I can use my Hotmail account to send Antonio some really hot mail.'

Friend: 'Perhaps you should try Yahoo, because that's exactly what you're turning into.'

When marriages go sour, divorce may seem like the best answer, at least for those who aren't content with the Internet. But the study seems to indicate otherwise. With the divorce rate soaring in America, perhaps more people should just hang in there and work on their marriages.

'Honey, did I say that I'm leaving you? Well, I didn't finish my sentence. I meant to say that I'm leaving you all my credit cards. Buy whatever makes you happy: a diamond ring, a pearl necklace, a poster of Antonio Banderas.'

(c) Copyright 2002 Melvin Durai. All Rights Reserved. ___________________________
Melvin Durai is an Indiana-based writer, humorist and occasional stand-up comedian. Born in India and raised in Zambia, he has lived in the U.S. since 1982. Through the Internet, his column is read by thousands of people in more than 90 countries. To subscribe send a blank email to: Join-FunnyColumns@relay.netatlantic.com or go to: http://MelvinDurai.com/sub.htm

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eNonyMouse

It is well documented that for every minute that you exercise, you add one minute to your life. This enables you at 85 years old to spend an additional months in a nursing home at $5000 per month.

The only reason to take up exercising is to hear heavy breathing again.

'I joined a health club last year, spent about 400 bucks. Haven't lost a pound. Apparently you have to go there.'

Long walks are great, especially when they are taken by people who annoy you.

The advantage of exercising every day is that you die healthier.

If you are going to try cross-country skiing, start with a small country.

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IT does not matter whether you put your kitchen scraps in the compost or the bin, did you know that you could grow many of your favourite fruit or vegetables from those scraps. Indeed, unless your compost is very well matured you will find stray veggie seedlings may appear wherever you deposit the compost.

Take for instance those potato peelings. If it is a fairly thick section of peel with an eye (shoot), then you can often get these to grow into full potato plants. You can also get sweet potatoes and taros to grow from sections of the tubers.

Have you ever tried to plant or thought about trying to plant the seeds from a particularly nice tomato, capsicum, chilli, watermelon or pumpkin. While any plants grown from such seed may vary quite a lot from the parent fruit, you can still achieve fairly good results from them if you are on a tight budget.

While the plants grown from seeds of many of your kitchen scraps will not produce fruit to the same high standard as the original fruit/vegetables, this is because of the complicated interbreeding programs put into place by big seed companies. The progeny can give a very wide range of resulting offspring in relation to the size, quality and quantity of the fruit. But if you come across one or two particularly good plants in the resulting season, then reuse the seeds of that and always-in future pick the best fruit from the best plants for your future propagation material.

Though there are some veggies in the kitchen where it is not possible to grow them from the seed in the fruit. These are those vegetables where the edible fruit is still in an immature state and the seed is not yet viable. These fruit/veggies include the cucumbers, okra, zuchinni and squashes to name just a few. This is because the fruit, when it reaches a stage where the seed is viable, is just too big and coarse for human consumption.

 Leave the top of a pineapple out in a shady spot for a week or so during warm weather, then strip back the lower dead leaves. You may even notice some small juvenile roots already forming at the base of the plant top. One thing to remember with pineapples is that it is a species of bromeliad. And as such it requires the same moist but well drained growing conditions.

When the garlic cloves are starting to get a green sprout coming out of the top, it is a pretty good indication, that it might be a good idea to plant them out individually for a good harvest in about 8-10 months time of this fairly expensive herb plant. Treat it like any member of the onion tribe, because they like moist, well drained soil and a fair amount of feeding during the growing season. Harvest as the tops are dying back. But let them dry out in a cool but airy place, before you try to use them back in the kitchen.

Another fruit/vegetable along a similar line is corn, try leaving a fresh, uncooked cob of sweet corn in a shady dry spot for a couple of weeks, then you can strip the kernels away from the cob and plant them, or a quicker suggestion is to grab a handful of corn kernels out of a packet of popping corn, The only comment would be that corn grown from these seeds would not be as sweet or juicy as sweet corn, and in reality would be better dried and used as popping corn.

Why not try growing your own peanuts (groundnuts), always only use the raw nuts, and only choosing those nuts, which are still whole and encased in the brown skin. Peanuts can be grown during warmer weather in most temperate and subtropical parts of the world.

One of the fascinating things about peanuts is that they are one of the only plants which flowers set fruit and then bury and preplant their own seed ready for later germination. Yes the peanut, which is dug from the ground, is actually a fruit buried by the parent plant, after flowering.

You can always grow your own ginger; all it takes is a section of the root, purchased from a greengrocer. Plant it in a well drained but moist soil. Allowing plenty of room for the plant to spread out. You can be harvesting your own ginger roots within about 8-12 months.

Whether you have got a long fence, chookpen or an unsightly shed to cover, why not try planting a choko. The vine can be very prolific, as long as you keep the moisture and fertiliser up to it. Though once it is established, it can be left to fend for itself, and will still produce a steady supply of fruit for the family.

If you have a few dollars why not look at purchasing some of the heritage or heirloom seed ranges of fruit and vegetables. Many seed firms as well as organisations like the Seed Savers Network have many fascinating and unusual varieties of plants available for the home gardener to grow.

Of course once you have various plants growing in your veggie garden don't forget to keep some propagating material back ( whether it is root sections, seed or divisions), for future plantings.

Also you should think about letting certain plants like lettuce, parsley and basil go to seed, for planting later. I regularly have to weed my lawns around the gardens for rogue seedlings of the above plants.Such spare seedling weeds are easily replanted or swapped with other gardeners for plants I don't yet have, or given to school and/or charity plant stalls. It is useful to have weeds that other people want and are willing to pay for.

While it usually not a good idea to try and propagate most of the tree fruit, simply from a time perspective and again because the results can also be very variable, it is still interesting to try even if you only end up getting a potplant out of the results. It is possible to grow the seeds of such trees as mangoes, citrus, avocado, apple, pear, etc. While the fruit of some species simply have no viable seed at all eg, bananas. There is however a few, which readily lend themselves to home propagation eg, pawpaw (papaya), tree tomatoes, unroasted coffee beans, etc. I remember as a child, accidentally germinated a coconut palm, from throwing the mostly eaten out shell onto a garden bed for a few months.

Another suggestion for those of you out there, who are visited by birds to your garden, why not take a handful of birdseed and plant it out in an out of the way section of your garden. These bird friendly plants like Sunflower, oats, sorghum, etc, can be a real bonus for many native birds to supplement their diet. Many of the seeds in any packet of birdseed are very viable.

When my kids were younger and I was showing them such wonders, I used to have trouble convincing them I could not do similar things in growing and multiplying a variety of items of importance to them at the time, from toys to chocolate, lollies and even coins.

© Copyright 2001 Ron Williams
____________________
Ron Williams is a freelance writer as well as being a Horticulturist and a Rehabilitation Therapy Aide at a Psychiatric Hospital in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. He writes ezines for wz.com and runs his own website called Bare Bones Gardening. He also owns a discussion group about Australian Gardening, called Austgardens at www.groups.yahoo.com. Also visit http://www.geocities.com/impatients63/

THE 90/10 secret is incredible! Very few know and apply this secret. The result? Millions of people are suffering undeserved stress, trials, problems, and heartache.

They never seem to be a success in life. Bad days follow bad days. Terrible things seem to be constantly happening. There is constant stress, lack of joy, and broken relationships. Worry consumes time, anger breaks friendships, and life seems dreary and is not enjoyed to the fullest.. Friends are lost. Life is a bore and often seems cruel.

Does this describe you? If so, do not be discouraged. You can be different!. Understand and apply the 90/10 secret. It will change your life! What is this secret?

Ten percent of life is made up of what happens to you. Ninety percent of life is decided by how you react.

What does this mean? We really have no control over 10% of what happens to us. We cannot stop the car from breaking down. The plane may be late arriving, which throws our whole schedule off. A driver may cut us off in traffic. We have no control over this 10%. The other 90% is different.

You determine the other 90%! How? By your reaction. You cannot control a red light, but you can control your reaction. Don't let people fool you, YOU can control how you react! Let's use an example.

You're eating breakfast with your family. Your daughter knocks over a cup of coffee onto your business shirt. You have no control over what just happened. What happens next will be determined by how you react.

You curse. You harshly scold your daughter for knocking the coffee cup over. She breaks down in tears. After scolding her, you turn to your spouse and criticize them for placing the cup too close to the edge of the table. A short verbal battle follows. You storm upstairs and change your shirt. Back downstairs you find your daughter has been too busy crying to finish breakfast and get ready for school. She misses the bus. Your spouse must leave immediately for work. You rush to the car and drive your daughter to school.

Because you are late, you drive 40 miles an hour in a 30 mph speed limit.. After a 15 minute delay and throwing $60 away, you arrive at school. Your daughter runs to the building without saying good-bye.

After arriving at the office 20 minutes late, you find you forgot your briefcase. Your day has started off terribly. As it continues, it seems to get worse and worse. You look forward to going home, but when you arrive you find a small wedge in your relationship with your spouse and daughter.Why? Because of how you reacted in the morning.

Why did you have a bad day? ___ a) Did the coffee cause it? b) Did your daughter cause it? c) Did the policeman cause it? d) Did you cause it?

The answer is d). You had no control over what happened with the coffee. How you reacted in those five seconds is what caused your bad day. Here is what could have and should have happened.

Coffee splashes over you. Your daughter is about to cry. You gently say 'It's OK honey, you just need to be more careful next time.' Grabbing a towel you rush upstairs.

After grabbing a new shirt and your briefcase, you come back down in time look through the window and see your child getting on the bus. She turns and waves. You and your spouse kiss before you both go to work. You arrive five minutes early and cheerfully greet the staff. Your boss comments on how good of day you are having.

Notice the difference. Two different scenarios. Both started the same. Both ended different. Why? Because of how you reacted. You really do not have any control over 10% of what happens. The other 90% is determined by your reaction. Here are some ways to apply the 90/10 secret.

If someone says something negative about you, do not be a sponge. Let the attack roll off like water on glass. You do not have to let the negative comment affect you! React properly and it will not ruin your day. A wrong reaction could result in losing a friend, being fired, getting stressed out, etc.

How do you react if someone cuts you off in traffic? Do you lose your temper? Pound the steering wheel? (A friend of mine had the steering wheel fall off!) Do you curse? Does your blood pressure skyrocket? Do you try and bump them? Who cares if you arrive 10 seconds later at work? Why let the blue car ruin your drive. Remember the 90-10 principle, and do not worry about it!

You are told you lost your job. Why lose sleep or get irritated? It will work out. Use your 'worrying' energy and time into finding another job.

The plane is late. It is going to mangle your schedule for the day. Why take out your frustration on the flight attendant? She has no control over what is going on. Use your time to study, get to know the other passenger, etc. Why get stressed out? It will just make things worse.

You now know the 90-10 secret. Apply it and you will be amazed at the results.

(c) Copyright 2001, Arlen Busenitz
___________________________

Arlen is a free lance writer specializing in people skills and personal improvement. Discover the Secret to Making People Like You-- Free http://www.Magic-People-Skills.com?90:10 mailto:Ab400@juno.com

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