Filed under: *whinge*, Dewicate feewings, Good grief | Tags: pity party, Whiners
You can’t pick your relatives. I wish there were some way I could gracefully bow out of the lives of some people while retaining a relationship with others, but I can’t. They’re a package deal. I have to figure out how to handle this and hoping one will die before the other one isn’t really the way to do it.
I wish my kids would recognize that it is unrealistic to expect a sibling to be like them, and quit with the anger and frustration when they are not. People are different, guys, the sooner you learn this and accept that just because someone is radically DIFFERENT doesn’t mean that they are WRONG. Sometimes they are wrong…like NAMBLA is every kind of wrong and those guys are different…but you know what I mean. Just because someone’s ambitions lie in a different direction is not a reason to get so angry and frustrated with them. You are also not required to be best friends, or even associate with them on a social level. So stop it.
You know, I read a lot of blogs, and many of them come across as really happy places, especially the cooking and crafting ones. It’s like “My life is so sunny and wonderful because I have lovely dishes and vintage silverware and see how pretty my monkey bread looks!” when my reality is nothing like that. My floors are ruined from several catastrophic water events and an incontinent dog…which also results in a certain veterinary funk. My family tends to put things down right where they’re at instead of putting it away where it belongs, and frequently I get fed up with doing it so I stop, and that results in piles and disorder. My husband has a job that sucks the life-giving marrow out of his soul.
I think currently one of the most frustrating things for me is that I listen and don’t talk. People like that. They like having someone listen to them and make sympathetic noises about their problems and that sort of thing, and that is something I do well. I was brought up that no one wants to know about my problems and it’s best to just be quiet and let the other person do the talking. Consequently, when I am having a problem, the only person I can talk to is the one I actually PAY to listen to me. My local friends don’t even know I am bipolar, because no one has stopped talking about themselves long enough to ask if everything is ok. I wish someone would ask *me* questions once in a while, would listen to *my* problems and make sympathetic noises or even just say “gosh,I didn’t know it was that bad, can I take you to lunch?” like I am always doing for them.
And the hell of it is,as I am reading over that last paragraph, is that is EXACTLY the sort of thing my parents were talking about when they would tell me to be quiet, no one is interested. “I, me, my…that’s all I ever hear out of you, say something interesting instead.” That’s what would be said to me as a child. I can’t express how awkward it felt to type that last paragraph, because “I, me, my” was bouncing around in my head.
But then that’s also the good thing about writing it down and putting it out there. There is no obligation for anyone to respond. I tell my kids to write things down when it’s bothering them, because it makes it into a concrete thing that they have power over. Instead of being this fluid concept sloshing around in their brain, it becomes words written down, and can be manipulated into something manageable. Yes, I wish I had someone to talk to, who would (when I did my usual trick of turning the conversation away from focusing on me) keep asking “how are you, what about this situation, how are you handling it, what about the kids,how do you feel about that…” which is totally what a paid therapist does, but they don’t go to lunch with you and you’re limited to 55 minutes.
Sometimes I just want to talk about what’s bothering me, and my upbringing won’t let me. I hate that. I suppose by recognizing it I ought to be able to get over it and feel more free to talk about what’s really bothering me. When I try to talk to Terry, he wants to fix it. He’s a man, they like to fix things. I understand that. He also carries a tremendous burden with work, and another concept that was drilled into my head is that the home is a refuge, and should not be a place of contention, strife, and stress. Which translates into “Keep it to yourself, Rootie, all things considered, your problems are trivial.” Which I recognize is probably silly, but there it is. Right up there with making sure my hair is combed and teeth brushed before leaving the bedroom in the morning.
so I am going to get dressed and put on a lovely Mom smile, and be that pillar of cheer, strength and wisdom everyone expects.
Filed under: bits and pieces, childhood, dogs!, family, Good grief | Tags: Home and hearth, Kids, Spouse
The trip to the grocery store…oy vey. It was Big Groceries, too, a whole buggy full. I was nearly checked out, maybe 5 items left, and…the cash register computers died. All of them. The cashier said “uh boy…last time this happened it was 3 hours. You might want to just unpack your bags (I use cloth totes for myriad reasons) and reshop later.” So that’s what I did. And it has been discombobulating, because all day yesterday I would set out to do something and think “Oh yeah! I have (this thing I bought this morning) and can do this!” only I didn’t. Even supper turned into Default Dinner due to confusion about what I had and what I didn’t. So I am going to try again this morning. If it happens again, I’ll go to a different store.
Ok, this morning Terry and I were sitting there, having coffee, and he recalled an event of 20 years ago that was hilarious then and still is today.
The characters:
Will, age 4
Terry
The dog (I don’t even remember which one)
The setting: In the living room of our house in South Alabama. The dog is asleep, Terry and Will are just muddling around.
Will: “I am going to go piss in the dog’s ear.”
Terry: “um…..what do you mean?”
Will: “You know, go up to her and go ‘psssst’ in her ear.”
Filed under: *whinge*, cat, Disease and infirmity, dogs! | Tags: arthritis, cats, Dachshunds, hurricane, In the Southland, Oversharing
Isaac isn’t anywhere near us. It’s way over there approaching the Mississippi delta (good grief and they aren’t fully recovered from Katrina yet, bless their hearts.)
And yet, my arthritis…it’s like…some kind of psychosomatic thing. I hear “hurricane” and go to aching. If we lived where we used to live in South Alabama, I could see it. When Opal and Alphonse (or whatever it’s name was) rolled over us I was (even at the tender age of early 30′s) pretty much incapacitated for a few days. Motrin, heating pads, frozen lasagna and a telescoping stick with which to smack the kids so I didn’t have to move (also, soft slippers to throw at them. My aim is wicked accurate). The boys were early elementary age back then and required swift justice.
But here? We don’t get them much here. Either they hit land way south or further north. But just mention it and suddenly the hands and feet, wrists and ankles, and that @%&*! left shoulder all commence to sounding like Yosemite Sam on a bender.
Feel sorry for me yet? You should.
I have Things To DO! However, y’know what? I am going to do them anyway. Shit’s gonna hurt, whether I am sitting in my comfortable recliner watching Grey’s Anatomy on Netflix, or ambling through the grocery store, picking up Velveeta and jalapenos for Terry’s football party on Thursday. It will get done.
With complaining. Oh yes, you can betcher sweet bippy I am going to be vociferous in my complaints, and even milk it all a bit for getting work out of people. Why SHOULD I have to do all this stuff (which I am normally quite capable and even cheerfully willing to do) when there are several able-bodied males who eat the food and use the laundry (once in a while, when they run completely out of clothes) who can do it for me?
This morning is Grocery Day, with a merry trip to the store and a trunk full (you know, a Beetle’s trunk is much larger than you’d think. It’s just the opening that is ridiculously small) of provisions. I am HOPING that someone will be awake and functional when I get home, and can carry everything in. I love it when that happens.
(Pardon while I pause briefly to bellow at the 13 year old,who is half an hour late getting downstairs to do his morning chores, which aren’t as onerous as usual because someone forgot to run the dishwasher last night. I swear you’d think he had to shovel the barn and milk the cows, with all this stalling he does. His morning chores are: feed the dogs, take out the trash, empty the dishwasher…which he doesn’t have to do this morning. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.)
So, in the interest of being cheerful and Suzy Sunshine, here are some cute pictures of my animals.
This has been submitted to Dogshaming.com This is Daisy, our standard dachshund.
- Our 1 yr old wirehaired dachshund- Rusty
Lacy, also submitted to Dogshaming. Do not lecture me about not taking her outside. She has a pet door and can come and go. She only pees on the floor after she barks at me and I don’t scratch her head. Like when I am in the shower or have my hands full of bread dough.
Daisy and Lily
Gracie, up high where Rusty can’t get to her. She comes down when she wants to smack him,otherwise, she spends a good deal of time up there.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Coping mechanisms, Home and hearth, Kids, laundry
I am doing 11 loads of laundry today. 6 of them belong to CJ, and are covered with industrial grease. He is paying me to do it. O yes, he is.
In the washing of all this laundry, I have learned that my older children’s method of dealing with dirty socks is to simply buy new ones when they run out of clean socks. My OCD requires me to mate up all the socks and throw away the ones that don’t have mates. Seriously, unmated socks make me jittery. So far I have mated 14 pair of socks. I am doing 1 entire load (and we have a large capacity front-loading washer) that is ONLY socks. And,they never buy the same type twice, so matching them up isn’t as easy as just matching them up. When they were kids I bought all the same type, and just threw them in a big basket for them to get a pair when they needed them. However, as I have gotten older, the need to match them has become overwhelming, and it Must Be Done.
Since I am being paid ($60, or $10 a load) to do all this, I don’t mind. Normally I mind. Normally doing laundry is something I abhor, especially the folding and ironing part. I haven’t actually ironed more than just the absolute minimum in a couple of years. However, being paid…is…
Isn’t it funny how receiving concrete compensation for something, even something you don’t enjoy, makes it so much easier to do!
I mean, don’t get me wrong, I see doing laundry and cleaning and cooking as part of my responsibility as a homemaker (housewife, whatever), and in exchange I get a comfortable house, food, and shopping privileges. It’s an exchange, and a fair one.
But a little extra, some holding money, that I can put in the kitty for Special Occasions…that’s really nice.
A Laundry Tip:
Save the greasy stuff for next-to-last. Then make the last load a bunch of old towels or maybe the dog bed, and throw in some washing soda with it. That will get any residual grease out of the tub.
Filed under: Good grief, ridiculous!, what? um...what?, oh HELL no!, Anger management | Tags: What., Oh for pete's sake, perspective, politics, republicans
Will someone please get these men a biology class?
First, Representative Todd Akin says that women who are victims of legitimate rape won’t conceive because the body shuts down and prevents conception. I am, because I am nice this way, refrain from the gut response of “ARE YOU FU**ING KIDDING ME?!” and the desire to throw something by saying that perhaps by ‘legitimate rape’ he meant RAPE rape (y’know, like Whooooopi Goldberg’s defense of Roman Polanski) and not someone suffering a case of ‘buyer’s remorse’ the day after a one night stand, so we’ll set that argument aside and look at th issue of the body shutting down and preventing conception. ARE YOU FU**ING KIDDING ME?! Way back in medieval times, it was believed that a woman couldn’t get pregnant unless she climaxed. (which is my ladylike way of saying ‘orgasm’ because that word makes me want to look behind me and see if Mom’s reading over my shoulder. I’m old fashioned that way.) The truth is, if a woman is inseminated and she’s ovulating, she can get pregnant, whether it’s forced on her or not. Look it up.
Then along comes Rep. King with his ” I’ve Never Heard Of A Girl Getting Pregnant From Statutory Rape Or Incest” when of course what he MEANT was he’d never actually personally met a woman (or girl) who got pregnant from statutory rape or incest. So why didn’t he say that, if that’s what he meant?
Are the Representatives from the Midwest so poorly read, so ignorant of the English Language that they are going out there and saying these inflammatory statements accidentally? Or are they trolls planted in the house by Democrats in a remarkable (and apparently pretty successful!) attempt to derail the Republican party?
I am an Independant. I choose candidates that best represent my views and opinions. I generally lean conservative in most things. I am also, however (and unfortunately, apparently to these men, it would seem) a woman who does not walk 2-1/2 steps behind my husband and has even been known to get into an argument once in a while with him, about philosophical and social issues. We don’t agree on everything. Or rather, I don’t agree with him on everything. Men like Reps. Aikin and King kind of make me want to hurl something. Their self righteous ignorance of simple biology (I am a Man, so what I say is TRUE, because I am a Christian Man) is bumfuzzling. It makes me very sad for the conservative movement in this country, because it has utterly opened it up for ridicule.
“Oh, you’re a Christian Conservative? phphphhttt…that whole rape thing? Very Old Testament. I bet you think a virgin who’s raped has to marry her rapist, too, right?” Which is actually a misinterpretation of the text there in Deuteronomy, but non-Christians are fond of taking Biblical things out of context, and most Christians aren’t really aware of the whole thing…
Anyway, this whole thing about rape and pregnancy and abortions (due to pregnancy from rapes) and all that mess…is a fabulous way of diverting attention from the real problems we have going on with the economy.
And that’s why I am wondering if those guys aren’t trolls.
Filed under: Awesomeness, Hooray!, People To See, product endorsement, spouse | Tags: Cheerleading
You know what? When I make a martini (good gin, even better vermouth,plenty of ice in a shaker), I make a big one. And it relaxes me. I suppose I should be somehow ashamed of this, or something, but I am not. it is what it is and sometimes I even call it a coping mechanism. I do not do it every night, only maybe once a week usually on a Friday because I know I won’t have to get up at 5am like on weeknights.
that’s right. 3 olives.
It’s Friday, and I have had that martini- probably 4 oz of gin (Beefeater) instead of the industry standard of 2. And yet, I do not care. I am relaxed, and everything is funny. Isn’t that what Friday night is supposed to be?
And another thing…just because it’s served in one of those glasses does NOT make it a martini (appletini, caramel mochatinijavadeluxe, whatever). A martini is gin and vermouth,shaken until icy cold, and served with olives, teeny onions, or a lemon zest.
Yesterday morning she starting coughing, big hacking wet coughs…I worried briefly then looked down at her food bowl and saw that she was finally eating (she hadn’t eaten since Wednesday, and when you’re a 6 pound cat not eating for 5 days isn’t good). She was also yelling at me, also a good sign since she hadn’t yelled since Wednesday. I decided that she was doing like we do- all that crap that was making her sick was breaking loose and coming up. This morning, she yelled even more, and without the hoarseness or hacking of yesterday. She’s also more active. Yay! She has an appointment with the vet tomorrow. I am glad she’s better. I feel silly worrying about a cat.
She also smacked the dog- another very good sign.
Filed under: *whinge*, bits and pieces, Dewicate feewings, Disease and infirmity, Dream a little dream, Sometimes she thinks too much | Tags: bipolar disorder, Coping mechanisms, Oversharing, solving personal problems
- A way to lose 50 pounds without a diet or surgery or disease. I’d make a zillion$ if I could come up with that. Or exercise. Ye gods I am lazy.
- For ALL of my children to have a Plan. A real one, that looks like they have A Plan For The Future. You have no idea how anxious it makes me…
- A lemon scented candle that actually smells like lemons, and not like lemon scented something. I have a Yankee Candle Meyer Lemon one, and if you actually sniff the candle, it smells yummy, but burning, it’s not that great.
- To not wake up with a knot of anxiety in my stomach, or to have that knot at 2pm,or 5pm, or 8pm. I do not like having to rely on a chemical (tranquilizers or booze) to get rid of it, so most of the time I just live with the anxiety and gripe about it.
- For grass in my yard that won’t grow. Centipede grass is lovely when it’s kept cut, but yikes-a-roni…with our every-evening rains, it gets thick and tall and if the grass isn’t cut twice a week, it looks like a flippen’ jungle out there. And it’s never cut twice a week. Ever. Our neighbors give us the stink-eye because this is supposed to be a Nice Neighborhood and our yard looks like it might have a car on blocks in all that tall, tall grass.
- You know, I am not even sure I would know what Normal Work for Terry would look like at this point. I keep saying I wish his work would normalize, but every time it looks like it might, some new crisis rears it’s ugly head and there he goes again. I am just glad he’s employed, and I’ll keep it at that.
- Diet fried chicken. Don’t talk to me about oven fried chicken made with cornflakes or instant mashed potatoes. Those have their place, yes, but you know what I am saying.
This anxiety has been going on for several weeks now. It’s a low level, we’ll call it about a 3 in a scale of 1-10, with blips of 5-6, particularly in the evening. I have an appointment with The Good Dr. H in September, so I’ll discuss with him then. It’s not HORRIBLE, like the break-out-in-a-rash type (yes,I do this when stress is high enough), it’s more like one of those low level headaches where you can’t quite decide if you want to bother walking upstairs to get an aspirin. I can’t tell if it’s environmental (unlikely, since all the normal stress-causers are not around), or chemical-in-the-brain (which would be annoying as hell because frankly I am a little tired of the chemical-in-the-brain issues). At this point, my brain is looking for reasons to be anxious (to justify the anxiety) instead of it being obvious (like a kid in the hospital, or Terry’s job changing, or something) which tells me it’s likely chemical. Ugh. How annoying.
I remember, a long time ago, being anxious about nothing. Day to day, the work would get done, dinner would be on the table at 6, even a kid would break a bone and I’d deal with it calmly and rationally without any hand-flapping or grinding of teeth. It’s how it was done. Now, the cat catches the flu and I am having sleepless nights and snappishness and stomach knots. THIS SUCKS. Then, I could sit down with a huge piece of expensive Irish handkerchief linen and a piece of chalk, and have the confidence to draw out a pattern and sew together a one-of-a-kind dress for a client. Now, I can’t even make a pair of shorts for a 3 year old without being nervous that they won’t turn out right…they always do, but not without a butt-load of second guessing and worrying. What on earth is happening to me? Where has my confidence gone?
I am trying to get it back. Sewing is helping. It is something that I can do very, very well. I hope that accomplishing something, having people say “wow…you made that?” will help.
Gracie has the flu.
The vet tested her for the Really Nasty things- feline leukemia, feline AIDS, and she was negative for both. Apparently a cat that is strictly an indoor cat has a 1 in 10,000 chance of getting those, one who goes outside some (like Gracie) has a 1 in 10 chance. Thus, he said “get her vaccinated. We’ll do it as soon as she’s feeling better.” Yessir, I replied.
Thing of it is, her symptoms are common with every single thing a cat could get, be it a flu that will have her puny for a week, or AIDS that will kill her eventually.
Fortunately it’s just the flu.
Also fortunately, I don’t have to dose her with meds every day. 2 shots, each lasting 2 weeks. That’s it.
Have you ever tried to dose a cat with anything? At least with a 2 year old child you can sit on them and pry their mouth open, pinch their nose shut and pour it down their throats*. With a cat you have to wrap them up like a demon-possessed burrito and somehow get past all those angry teeth, then it’s pissed at you for the rest of the day and poops in your shoe. My dosed 2 year olds were still in diapers and didn’t poop in my shoe. Apparently veterinary science was aware of this and came up with long-lasting shots that the vet could deal with, and save the owners the misery of pooped-in shoes. I may just bake the vet office a batch of cookies.
*Just so you know, I didn’t actually SIT on my 2 year old child. I would have him lay on the floor, then I would squat over him, with his head clamped between my knees. NO WEIGHT WAS ACTUALLY PUT ON HIS BODY. If you had known him, you would agree that this was the only way to get that stuff down his throat, even if it did taste like bubblegum. He would get massive sinus infections and sore throats, so swallowing anything was misery, but it had to be done. I wonder why they haven’t come up with a shot like the one for the cat, to give to toddlers.
So anyway, the cat is going to be ok, and I am relieved. Like anyone with the flu, she’s going to feel Not Great for the next few days, and will need plenty of rest and water, and cannot go outside.
