Woo! It’s olives! Hi, olives!
In the continuing sad Saga of Why I Hate My SiL, it looks like the marriage is over. She kicked my BiL out last week after intense arguing about whether they should continue to live in her parents’ house (with five other people, plus the baby due in two weeks). She hasn’t spoken to him since, and his daughter is due very soon. He hasn’t seen his son in a week, either.
It was a horrible marriage from the start, but he tried. I’m so worried that he’ll never see his son or daughter, never have any influence in their lives, and that we’ll lose touch with the kids ( we being aunt and uncle and all Mr. Lissar’s side of the family- grandparents and great-grands).
{{{Spaz}}} I’m sorry to hear about the loss of your mother so early. I did, however, like her poetry. It reminds me a bit of The Knott House in Tallahassee, FL; the female head of the household was a fan of poetry to the rooms and furniture in the house, and one can find laminated copies of the poems attached with ribbons to the objects they describe.
My mother is currently on the Avastin/Taxotere* chemo method, and, despite the fact that she’s got stage four lung cancer, she’s feeling pretty good these days and is able to work full time again. I’m surprised, and I try not to think about it, but statistically most people in her condition wouldn’t last past October, and people on her treatment on average only get another four months. I wonder at times whether she’s going to hang on out of sheer stubbornness 'til after I’m married; sometimes it makes me sad to know that my mom’s unlikely to see me turn 30, but most of the time I prefer not to think about it. She’s doing amazingly well, and I’m really not sure of what to think. I’m just glad I have some more time to share with her.
In other news, I had to call up my student loan agency and have them confirm with my university that I’m still enrolled full-time despite the fact that I took the summer off to make sure I’d be around if my mom needed me. The people I dealt with were very nice, which is an abnormality in my experience; it seems like whenever I need to call up somewhere, I get the person who’s got an attitude and won’t let me actually tell them what I need to in order to fix things. I called up the financial aid dept. at my university earlier in the summer and I got a woman who wouldn’t let me finish my sentences and just blurted her answers out in anticipation of what I was going to say. If I hadn’t been so weepy over the fact that my mom was doing very badly at that time, I would have requested to speak to a supervisor and let them know that she was being unprofessional; after I got my information, she hung up on me and I called her a nasty name under my breath out of frustration.
It looks like summer has mostly gone back to normal in Florida; we’ve gotten plenty of rain, which we need, and our grass is starting to recover. However, the HOA of the community we rent in has decided that the teensiest patch of brown needs to be fixed by replacing the sod. :rolleyes: I’m thoroughly convinced that the people on the board who’ve made the bylaws (which we’re not allowed to see) are a bunch of ignorant brown thumbed yentas. This isn’t the first time they’ve mandated that we take an extreme measure to fix something that needs little to no fixing.
[sub]*Taxol is what’s traditionally prescribed in this combo, but some people have an adverse reaction to it. My mom happened to be one of them, so they used Taxotere, which is in the same class of medicines. [/sub]
Up. Caffeinating. Currently battling Teh Sick. Losing. Many casualties. Conjunctions. Pronouns. Definite articles. No cold medication to fight with.
Work is already getting busy. Bleh.
On a good note I did enough blogging over the weekend to help make up for my deficits the last couple of weeks – more or less, so I don’t feel so guilty. Curiously, I just received an E-Mail from a reader who objected to a certain relatively common euphemism for the iPhone:
(bolding his)
Now, I’m not religious by any stretch, but while I do feel like the worst representatives of any given religion are the ones responsible for giving said religion – or religion in general – a bad name, I’m all for the whole live-and-let-live principle. This seems to be a little too sensitive though. “Jesus Phone” has been a common way to refer to the iPhone, owing to the device’s seemingly messianic following and The Steve shepherding his flock to yon AT&T stores to break bread with him and drink of his wine. It’s a moderately amusing turn of phrase, even if it jumped the shark months ago, and from my point of view perfectly innocent. But I guess there are those who just can’t bear to see the Lord’s name used in any way but to refer directly to Him. shrug
I’ve no problem with discontinuing its use, but I can’t help feeling it’s a bit of a silly reason. (I know it’s not silly to him, but I feel that there’s a certain point at which you just gotta say, “Lighten up, Francis.”) He must have a sense of humour if he likes my writing style – which is often sarcastic and mildly snarky. Just not about this.
Spaz - Lovely OP. It sucks when a parent is taken from you too soon. My mother left my dad when I was about 3-4. I used to visit her more or less annually until I was somewhere around 16. That was the last time I heard from her until about 7 years ago, where I had heard that she sent my grandmother – her mother – a note reaming her out about how bad a mother she was. It was clearly the equivalent of a drunk post (by then the drinking problem she was developing when I was a teen had obviously taken deep root), only nasty. This was at a time when grandma was in a nursing home having been diagnosed with (but not yet suffering the effects of) Alzheimer’s. I pretty much wrote my mother off at that point. (I hadn’t seen her in over a decade anyway, so it wasn’t that difficult.) My grandmother was well into her 80s when she passed though, so she had a good life – notwithstanding her ingrate daughter. (My mother, not my aunt, who’s sweet as all get out.)
Love the Dear Abby snark though. Would that the real columns were like this. I’d subscribe to that newsletter any day.
Hank - You? Fatty? What is this in comparison to? Simon? (Y’know, of Land of Chalk Drawing fame?) I’ll cast my lot in with the “too skinny” crowd. Being able to count your ribs and tell whether you’ve ever broken one when you stretch: Bleh. Seeing a spine that looks like a dorsal fin when you bend: BLEH. Eating a damn sammich: Good.
VBob - Well, hell. If you were that prescient and generous pretty much while the incident was occurring, I’d probably start to wonder if there wasn’t a bit of deity in you, too. I wouldn’t go so far as veneration or anything – that would be embarrassing – but you’d definitely be on my “say it with beer” list.
Alessan - My condolences to you and yours. My grandfather went the same way – peacefully as he napped, sitting on the couch next to my grandmother – back in the early 80s. He was only in his 60s though, and suffered from a rare form of moving cancer, so it was a blessing that his passing was peaceful and relatively pain-free given his condition.
Aha! Went to the HS, and they xeroxed the return receipt of her transcripts, and I called BU and they have it, so that’s done.
I went into the [del]crack store[/del] garden dept of Home Despot and did not come away clean. I needed pea gravel, but somehow some lavender and Iceland poppies and a truly scrumptious daylilly ended up in my cart. Now I have to plan the *&@#'s.
I loves me some plants, but I always buy too many for my strength (I am sore from yesterday’s digging, pruning, weeding etc). I just cannot resist–this must be what some women are like with shoes.
I am sorry to read that so many here have lost their parents so young. Mindy–if you so much as think of stopping using that phrase because someone got their panties in a wad, I’m coming up to Canuckland and bitchslapping you with said JesusPhone. Don’t let them control the conversation or set the terms of your blog–slippery slope, my great north friend, slippery slope.
No prescience on my part; 'cept maybe on the part of a Radio Shack radio scanner. There is that old saying about sufficiently advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic, though.
My mom is still around and I think she’ll outlive all of us because she’s just that ornery. I love my mother, but she drives me crazy. I can only take her in small doses.
We washed and waxed my Expedition yesterday. I’d forgotten what bitch that thing is to wax. Anyway, it’s done and I’m glad about it.
I guess I’ve got nothing new, exciting, or entertaining going on. I’ll pop back later.
I believe she was referring to my previous post about the E-Mail I got.
Rebo - I probably won’t discontinue its usage. I’ve decided that it’s my damn article, and half my damn blog. If he likes my writing style then he can like or lump the terminology I use along with it. Plus, I realized I really don’t like the idea of religion being used to cudgel me or my site into a certain style of conformity. (Actually I don’t like anything being used that way, though we do make certain concessions for decency, legal or common sense reasons.) JesusphonejesusphoneJESUSPHONE. Amen.
Hank - I think he needs a Jesus Phone. That’s why he’s so uptight – that whole have not sour grapes thing.
[sub]Jesus phone.[/sub]
ETA: THE JESUS PHONE HAS GRANTED ME FIRST ON SECOND! Hallelujah.
Oregon was marvy. The weather was beautiful, days warm and sunny night cool and windy.
We ate too much, but our room was on the third floor, so with beach walks and climbing the stairs we did ok. Everywhere had several kinds of fresh fish and shellfish. We about ate our weight in Dungeness crab. yummmm. Hubby talked me into a weird blue drink that had me walking on my lips. Blue drinks are BAD. (tasted good though.)
The drive down was incredibly hot. At one point it was 98ºF. As we dropped down to sea level the temp dropped with us to 75ºF. The A/C in the car leaked into the passenger compartment and stayed wet for the three days. I guess the condenser drain is clogged. :rolleyes: .
Good morning, folds. Spaz, my prayers go out to you & your family.
I’m also grateful that my mom is 75 & going strong. She’s kept her position as head bookkeeper for an accounting firm for over 20 years. She puts in 12-hour days on a regular basis (racking up 15-hour days during tax season), and says she’ll keep it up until the second coming. I believe her.
These family matriarchs are wonderful sources of strength to us, aren’t they?
Soapy, I’m so sorry. I wish we would culturally ditch the ‘everything is corporate business’ model. I hope things go very poorly for that idiot.
Nat and I went to to the thrift store and found him some slightly larger clothes. He’s mostly in 9-12 months stuff now, and we’re running low. It would be so much easier to dress a baby girl. Four-fifths of the stuff was for girls. The new overalls are cute, though. I briefly thought about reverting to the 19th century model for kid’s clothes and putting him in dresses.
Yo, don’t fuck wit de Jesus, mang! Dude will hike across your koi pond to fuck you up… People with panties that terminally knotted need to smoke a big phat blunt and chill the fuck out…
Bobbio, you can be my neighbor anytime–y’all rock and stuff!
Nooner, if you think I’m gonna post a picture of my mother’s tits you have another think coming, young man! :dubious:
Haze, your mom needs a ham sammich, stat! Two inches smaller in the waist than you??? The poor woman is a stick!
Donkeybear, was that the zoom of shame I just saw? Tsk, tsk…
Spaz, your Dear Abby snark is fabulous, don’t ever stop!
Hi Olives & nashii!
I’m sleepy–didn’t get to bed until almost one, then got woken up at six but couldn’t get back to sleep for nothin’. My eyes feel like they got sand in 'em!
Garrr, gotta go get dressed and do something to justify my existence!
Send him a Get Out of Hell Free card. His knickers’ll twist so much, they may give him an unscheduled vasectomy!
Meantime, I’ve started the 3[sup]rd[/sup] week of my new job, and things so far are going swimmingly. New things to learn, new programs to conquer, and a company that isn’t anal about anything and everything. I even got my first paycheck last week. Since I’m currently on a try-before-buy basis, no taxes were removed and I didn’t get paid for the 4[sup]th[/sup]. I’ll need to contact a CPA about the taxes that need paying.
Spaz, your mom sounds like a neat lady. I hope you share more of her little poems with us.
Meanwhile, HRH is going through a bad don’t-wanna-sleep phase, probably brought on by the monitor being on the wrong channel on Saturday morning which led to us not hearing her wake up, which (probably, I don’t know 'cause I was asleep) led to her crying for Og knows how long before finally going back to sleep until I woke up at 8am. So for the last couple or three nights, we have been doing battle for 45+ minutes to get her to sleep at night. This comes as something of a shock after months on end of her just going to bed without a fuss and falling asleep within minutes. Sigh …
Where did that come from?
(tasted good though.)
People with panties that terminally knotted need to smoke a big phat blunt and chill the fuck out…