Kathy Niclaus

I know, right?! If you could have been at my house on August 9, 2016, when I shut the front door from FedEx, and opened the box, and then peeled away the package, and first saw a small velvet ring box and thought "what the hell?" and found that opal ring, but then the big velvet box- like Julia Roberts in "Pretty Woman"- opening it up to those pearls- REAL natural pearls- I just could not believe it. Unbelievable. The moral of the story is be nice to those gay ex-boyfriends, because you never, never, never know!!!!!!!! Maybe it's karma paying me back for all the money I wasted by donating ten percent and then some of my income to TWIT as someone here calls it, LOLOLOL! Because I know even though the independent appraisal that came with those pearls was probably on the "padded" side, they are easily alone worth close to what I contributed to TWIT out of my earnings, since most of my income was made after I was out (my ex-husband was the major earner while I was in.) Hmmm, it's been awhile since I've worn them, think I'll get them out for an upcoming outing. Thanks for the reminder! Kathy

Okay, how many people can I offend with the ages old man vs woman theme?

When I posted the screenshot of the comment from the Washington Post, I thought it was hilarious due to the made up ID of the poster, "RobinMBlind" and the religious reference to Pat Robertson talking about Cheezus sending an earthquake. In retrospect, given your comments, had it been possible to edit out the "Trump/Putin 2020!" part of the comment from a screenshot I would have, because the humor stands alone from the aspect of ridiculing how Robertson is always claiming that Jesus is punishing people through natural disasters, and the "down dare" reflecting the illiteracy of a large part of his following. As for the remarks about excluding Robertson jokes based on his alignment with Republicans, that I find to be splitting hairs, because he is first and foremost a sham TV preacher who has been fleecing people and preying on their vulnerabilities for decades. Since this is a group that arose from a sham ministry, I would hope that other sham ministries would be open for discussion. As for my question in my opening post about political cartoons, I wasn't even thinking about this comment that I posted, I was just asking for future posts because there is so much politically tinged comment nowadays, and it isn't always overtly political either. Right now the amount of hilarious memes that are riffing on the fourth of July speech content about airports is amazing, and it just keeps growing. Per modcat's remarks about my receiving a lot of moderation lately, I did catch some comments the other day in the "....lurker...." thread about a bunch of comments posts being removed for review and frankly I am grateful. I had seen a particular post where someone was randomly telling a PTSD survivor what to do, was nicely suggested to back off, came back with a rationalization, and so I jumped in. A mini fracas ensued with a third party who took it upon herself to get in the middle. We had words. I guess it escalated after that based on comments and moderators swept it clean. I take no umbrage and am not discouraged. Lastly- what is up with the HTML? The formatting is down on the site. Lifted up concurred with me via FB Messenger that it's not my browser or server, he's having the same problem.

Oh, let me clarify, please note that in the quote I say I did not state in my narrative that I felt that the Way taught etc................... because Lifted Up specifically asked me if that's what was the meaning of a statement I had made, and it wasn't. I wanted to answer Lifted up's question as quickly as possible and stay on point. Now, was that how I felt or believed the Way's position on homosexuals was, that they were bereft of compassion and the absolute basest of the base? Absolutely! LCM Characterized them as the worst of sinners, the most debauched and perverse, you name the worst possible adjective, that is a homosexual. I attended the week long Advanced Class Special in 1992 at HQ, and the two weeks long re-taping of the new Advanced Class at HQ in 1993 where both times Discerning of Spirits was the final manifestation covered. I think it was in 1992 when LCM closed out the week and the segment on the manifestation by quoting a section of scripture about what the end result of homosexuality would be, probably from Romans, if memory serves it's a verse about them receiving the recompense of their error, and him saying that AIDS was them being "paid in full" and then swiftly seguing into prayer to close the session/class. In 1993 my husband and I had moved to New Knoxville. Because we were too fat to comfortably sit in the regular auditorium seats, we sat in folding chairs next to Aunt Lydia, who was next to Annalee and Phil Skapura, facing the stage we were in the back row, to the left of the back row for the Trustee wives. Rosalie and Donna were always hovering back there behind us, and it was always curious to me what a Rosalie clone Donna had become, kind of like a Rosalie Stepford sister. Well, as we all know now, a Rosalie Stepford wife. Even back then I figured something was going on, Donna was always a little butch, and Rosalie was always so fake. A friend of mine on staff during the 80s made a statement prior to VPW's death that everyone used to joke and called Rosalie "the fourth trustee." Well, if only they could see into the future..... Her ambitions were naked even then. She was always such a fake; my friend worked in printing and was aligned with publications, and another friend whose mother took the class in 1957 found her saccharine personality regurgitating. She called Rosalie "Miss Alabama Dixie Belle" and imitated her voice, as Rosalie was her daughter's boss for many, many years. When I first moved to New Knoxville, I volunteered to work in Floral with Linda Evans. When Rosalie was displeased with the podium arrangements for a SNS, Linda would receive an Inter-office mail on Monday from Rosalie with the flowers in the envelope. I was mortified. What a passive-aggressive Biatch. That was my introduction to living in New Knoxville. That, and volunteering to work on the ROA 1993 crew, and being treated like a plantation slave. It was horrible. LCM screaming during lunch in the tent. The coup d' grace? There was a tent of ornamental potted and hanging plants alongside Wierwille road for distribution. A lot of them had to go to the House of His Healing Presence. The most direct route was across the road, and through a path by the little Waytels and past the motor coach. But no, we could not go that way. LCM might be in there studying. As if there were not dozens of places on grounds where he could study and prepare teachings. Volunteers had to be physically stressed. Was a golf cart offered to ferry the plants to the HOHHP? No. Like the laborers in "The Bridge On The River Kwai" during one of the hottest Augusts in Ohio, we had to take the crosswalk, and the long road into the Way Woods, the road that goes to the Chalet, and go that way to the HOHHP on foot to deliver plants there and elsewhere. Back and forth on foot, multiple trips in the heat. Years later, when the news broke about the sex scandals, I was in South Africa, and immediately I thought that the reason we could not take the short path was because we might catch someone coming or going from a tryst in the motor coach. How infuriating. Okay, back from my tangent. I also was in attendance at ROA 1994 when the special meeting was called for the criteria of Advanced Class Grads and other minimum level people and he went into a minimum hour diatribe about homosexuality and it being a major problem that had surfaced. After that, we moved to St. Mary's but soon we started noticing on Sunday nights that people were missing, and then the gossip would get around. My husband had known Irwin, Mr. Steam, from Florida. He had moved him and his younger wife and bunch of kids to Sidney, opened a shoe repair shop. Irwin was an individual, didn't dress up for the SNS. He was labeled as a homo, his daughter was blamed for running a sex ring during the Rock according to Mal and Jan George. He went to the local paper in Sidney and they did a story. Bill Greene told the paper that The Way does not do anything along the lines of excommunications. My then husband and I looked at each other and said "That's a lie." We knew damn well they did, as in mark and avoid. We were attending the SNS up until early April of 1995 and heard plenty of the rants. Some of the Corps night comments would get leaked to me from friends, as I was considered a solid believer. As I have alluded to in other posts, a ruse was employed to isolate us because we were on the cusp of finding out about a major sex scandal. My only other comment is that there were some isolated incidents, comments, that made my ears perk concerning a few individuals, wondering if they were lesbians, and yes, a few of them did finally out themselves, which doesn't bother me. What is tragic is the ones who are still closeted and perpetuating the same doctrine that LCM spewed. How does anybody live with that much self loathing- or do I answer my own question by saying well, look at Rosalie, there's your answer?

Here's a new thread, a place to put images like a funny cartoon from The New Yorker, or in this case, a comment made to a story in today's Washington Post about the earthquake this morning in southern California. I found this comment to be hilarious. I'm a big New Yorker fan as well. One of you Moderators can tell me whether or not political cartoons are allowed or verboten.

What? The word is in the Bible?! Jesus rode one into Jerusalem! Why does the GS software censor that word? Jeez Louise.

Oh yeah, I care a lot, it's true. I am a smart foot though, and don't suffer fools lightly. The older I get the more like my mother I seem to be, it's amazing. Anyway, thank you for your kind observation, and here's one of my usual snarky ones- what was up with them serving coffee AFTER class? It should have been served before class! I have heard the many stories of people nodding off, WC working all day, I mean up at 5, running in the morning,l working all day, then class at night, who needs coffee at night? Sleep! Sleep is needed! Speaking of coffee, I am on a totally whack sleeping schedule, and am off for my first cup of the day but it has to be decaf............

Well, guess who gets the reward for the glaring overlook this week? In all fairness, seriously, sometimes my brain jumbles stuff- when Lifted up first threw out the sexual assault remarks, duh, I didn't look to see that his gender was, uh, male. He said it happened in 1979, and it wasn't so much a thing back then for women to be doing the assaulting, so of course I just did the stupid thing and assumed he was a she. And then in one of his posts he mentioned another victim who is a she, so that's who I thought he was referencing with the pronoun "she" in the quote, not his assaulter. Even though he used proper English and preceded the pronoun with the noun. This is what happens when you answer stuff from your tablet in bed before coffee, after sleeping til a ridiculous time. I'm not even going to go into the stupid remark I made to him at Facebook messenger, which I will address with him there in private. Oy vey. Well, at least you all know that when I F up, if I catch it I will come out and do a mea culpa and correct it. And with my real name, imagine that! I have had more involvement here at GreaseSpot since Friday, what, five days, than since I joined like two years ago. I better quit and start vacuuming my house.

This is what was originally said to me by Lifted up and is the context in which I made the remark to Twinky in which that no remarks were made at my visit to CFFM in 2006 about the sexual abuse- the abuse by VPW- Sarah Guigou's father- I did not quote Lifted Up in my remarks, so maybe that is the cause of the confusion, but my remarks immediately follow her post in the thread in this forum topic. So in a sense, my remarks are not applicable to the case of J.-----B-----S. as discussed by Twinky.

Twinky and Jaydee, please read the next post- Lifted Up had asked a specific question and I replied to it without including her quote. That is why I stated in my reply " In 2006 at my one-off visit to CFFM no mention was made of sexual abuse so I can only assume that the splinter groups are taking the convenient route that you describe avoiding the topic and telling people to move on. Certainly any group that espouses the teachings of the VPW is going to be in denial." My remark had absolutely nothing to do with the sexual abuse of LCM or anyone else, only VPW.

Hey, since I can't edit, I need to quantify something I said earlier about Cindy Fort- as far as being like her mom and Mrs. Wierwille, I mean sitting on the sidelines, seeing her husband do so much shady stuff over and over and over again, screwing over people who didn't deserve it, people who were good to them, loyal to them, generous to them, people I knew firsthand who would have donated a body organ if they needed, and especially one person I specifically told that of all people, Michael could be trusted. She had to know a lot of that stuff. At what point do people become numb so that they just go along with it? As far as the packaging remark, I didn't mean Cindy's appearance. She was a much kinder and easier person to interact with, and recognized qualities in people that transcended the "Way checklist" most utilized. It's just a shame that she was constrained and over time conditioned to conform to do as she was told.

Regarding the Queen of The Way Bookstore- I am so, so, so, so, so, so, evil------------

No, when I said "Per the capacity for real care and compassion from non-straight people, and benefiting from it- I have been a tangible recipient" I meant I had received tangible benefits from a non-straight person/persons. The benefits are the beautiful jewelry gifted to me by my former fiance' from my WOW year. That was why I gave you the backstory to the tangible benefits. I did not state in my narrative that I felt that the Way taught that non-straight people were not capable of compassion. As for him breaking it off with me by phone on Christmas eve from the WOW field, it was not something done out of a lack of compassion on his part. I learned later it was motivated by near-perpetual pressure placed on him by his interim Way Corps WOW family coordinator and his apprentice Way Corps WOW sister. Much like the Mormons put a great deal of pressure on youth to go on the Mission program before college, The Way loved to push people onto the WOW field and then get them to sign up for the Way Corps. Talking him out of marriage better suited the needs of the ministry.

Per the capacity for real care and compassion from non-straight people, and benefitting from it- I have been a tangible recipient. I am going to give you the skeletal backstory of a WOW year romance, 1978-1979. It was with someone who was bisexual but sexually inexperienced and ambiguous. Becoming involved with the ministry committed him to heterosexuality. He asked me to marry him and I accepted. He went WOW, I went back home at the end of my WOW year. On Christmas Eve, he broke it off by phone. Naturally I was crushed. At the following Rock of Ages we were cordial, I got the truth out of him one night after three beers, and that was the end of it. We maintained semi contact at subsequent Rock of Ages but not in between. The last time I saw him was at the message board in 1983. 6 years later I was married, cooking dinner, I get a phone call out of the blue. It was him. He had made phone calls using directory assistance to family in New Jersey and found me. I think he was rather shocked to learn that I was married. I was already in counseling because after all I had married a sociopath but of course that wasn't anything that was acknowledged by counseling clergy especially not when he was in an income bracket that provided handsome abundant sharing. There was a Thanksgiving card in the mail, and then a Christmas card. The next time I heard from him was a phone call on Christmas Day. He was surprised I had never received a letter he sent. I realized then the sociopath intercepted it from the apartment mailbox cluster. That was 1989. After that all contact was lost. Fast forward to 2015. After sporadic attempts over the years, once I became computer literate, I was finally successful in re-establishing contact with him. He was in a domestic partnership of 22 years with a man. After multiple unfulfilling relationships with other women after me, he turned his attentions to guys. Emotionally he still relates to women, but physically his attraction towards men had grown. I immediately told him I did not judge him on his sexuality. It did not take us long to pick up our friendship where it had left off, and given the years to grow up and mature and have the perspective and understanding of trial and experience, it was actually much better and easier. I unburdened my conscience by apologizing for my many faux pas and rash remarks made in youth. Gratefully he had a much kinder memory of me and my behavior then I had of my behavior at the time. Or perhaps over the years he chose to remember the good things because there were a lot of good times between us, and a lot of times yes, I did try to be the good girlfriend, especially when he went out on the WOW field with care packages, etc. So pretty soon things were kind of like they used to be, with email replacing letters, and me sending the occasional box with something home-baked or something unobtainable where he lives, like fantastic everything bagels. Then there is Christmas and his birthday. So here are some photos- Fast forward to my birthday in 2016- FedEx shows up- large Australian opal surrounded by two rows of diamonds set in 14k gold ring comes from him for my birthday. He remembered that way back in 1979, when we were two penniless 19 year olds, that my dream engagement ring was an opal set with diamonds. That was not the only gift. The other gift is a 22" strand of real multicolor south seas pearls, each 20mm in diameter, with a 18k gold clasp with an inlaid diamond. For Christmas 2016, my birthstone Peridot and diamond earrings, 14k, and Peridot and I forget the other stone set in 14k ring. Birthday 2017 I forgot the stone (I have the tags saved) six carat pink oval stone crowned with diamonds in a setting that makes it look like a pineapple and in homeage to my residence in Arizona a vintage pin of a roadrunner with Ruby and diamond. One piece has I8k one has 14k, I forget. I would say I have definitely benefitted from my friendship with a gay man in my life- my ex husband was never so generous to me, quite the opposite. And the benefit has not just been material things. He has been a wonderful thoughtful friend, as is his partner. So, ya never know.......

OMG you just had me rolling with the lo shonta remark.