A Pocket, White Opal and Falling Out of Love

What ho chaps and chapesses

Glorious mahjong morning - this morning. From feeling quite low over the past two days, I was in two minds to go - I actually won some games which felt great to be fishing let alone win. Two games of Goulash in the mix but I was with the most excellent Elizabeth and two other delightful ladies. Three weeks have skipped by since my last blog. I’ve been busy with short stories and a few clients. Tonight I’ll accompany Hubster to ukulele evening (yawn) but it’s nice to spend time with him.

My latest column in Jornal ROL contains a poem I wrote about my mum’s journey through cancer. It was bloody difficult to write but it was one of the prompts in my last poetry online challenge.

https://jornalrol.com.br/?p=81188 - click here to read it.

It’s difficult thinking of it all those years ago. And yet it equally feels as if it could have been last month. I remember the funny bits more, playing cribbage with mum in the ward, chatting and making her laugh, mum teaching me how to knit. I think I’ve blocked out when she was in the intensive care unit. I can barely remember that bit. Probably just as well.

On a happier note, my clients are doing well so I anticipate them to be finished soon. The only problem with hypnosis and Neuro Linguistic Programming and Logo-therapy (Psychotherapy) is that my clients get well quickly. I rarely have long term clients. I’m not bored this way. At least I get to deal with different issues regularly.

My most interesting client at the moment is taking my Falling Out Of Love program. He can’t get over his ex dumping him six months ago and the loss of a 3 year relationship. Falling Out of Love is mainly NLP with a bit of conversational hypnosis. By the time he’s finished, he’ll be able to whistle ‘just somebody that I used to know’ and mean it, and not have all the wretched feelings of pain and heartbreak stuck in his mind and body. I devised this program back in 2010 and it has 100% success rate.

Bought me some Roald Dahl grown up stories. Tales of the Unexpected (3 volumes), Kiss Kiss and Switch Bitch. If you’ve never read them you are missing out! These flash fiction/short stories broke the mould of short stories for twisty-turny, dark outcomes. We usually think of Roald Dahl for his kids’ stories or his autobiographies, but I promise you a throughly entertaining read if you delve into his grown up stuff. I had to buy them second hand on EBay. Well worth it and cheaper than Amazon.

In Mahjong this week we played a few games the same to each other, like both Elizabeth and I won with Three philosophers in different games. But all in all, we also played Little Joe, Seven Twins, Dragonfly, Little Robert, Jean’s Medley and I got to fishing with White Opal, a new one for me.

OOOh I got my ‘Pocket’ this week. It’s a credit card sized gadget that records what i say and then can do several things. 1) transcribe my words perfectly (No AI interference) 2) summarise the words into main points. (3) create a mind map from the words (if it was a lecture this would be great. 4) put important relevant dates directly into my calendar 5) create a to do list and this is just the free subscription option. All these things are synced to ne phone and can be sent to a computer for output or printed directly from phone.

I use it mainly to dictate my stories into it and it sends it as a word document, perfectly transcribed. It also registers when there is more than one person talking. I am recording my client sessions with it as well. The automatic AI summary is perfect for my client report.

I LOVE IT! Saves me loads of typing time, and I’m a touch typist so I’m not a slow typist... but as I said, It’s saving me time.

GAMES PLAYED

THREE PHILOSOPHERS - a chow in each suit, a crazy chow and a pair in any suit

JEAN’S MEDLEY - a red and green dragon with our crazy chows

LITTLE ROBERT - a chow in each suit, a pung in any suit and a pair

SEVEN TWINS - 7 pairs of anything (all tiles from the wall)

LITTLE JOE - a chow in each suit, a crazy chow and a pair of winds

DRAGONFLY - red, green and white dragon, a pung in each suit and a pair

WHITE OPAL - a pung of white dragons, three pungs and a pair of circles

MAHJONG TRIVIA

Similar to giving your eyes a break after an extended period of screen time, you might want to take a pause between rounds of mahjong. A 2007 study from the Hong Kong Medical Journal reviewed cases of “mahjong epilepsy” in which patients had seizures triggered by playing or watching the game. The study’s authors noted that the cognitive demands required to play mahjong—memory, concentration, calculations and reasoning, to name a few—may have contributed to these symptoms. Cases of “decision-making epilepsy” have also been reported in other strategic games like chess and even while solving a Rubik’s Cube.

Wow!

I have nattered on too much. It’s time to say adios amigos. Enjoy the onset of winter, my Aussie mates and wising for a jolly summer for the rest of you.

Pip pip

J