We’re are having some kind of billing problem within the San Diego office, and it’s holding up payroll for this week. So, they put Roundboy on it.
Seems to me that’s like asking your dog to change the battery in your car. He’ll run around and make noise the whole time, and in the end you’ll still have to do it yourself. It is to sigh.
From all the stories here I can certainly see that the Bard of Avon didn’t write Romeo and Juliette because it was an isolated incident. From the parental perspective, dear taters, you are going through what I refer to as the Family Fireman Syndrome. No one but you is willing to put out the fires so you are on duty 24/7. Not a fun position. I do agree with mindy, that you could try to encourage Mr. taters to “adult up.” Good luck on that one but he needs to see that she is “just a kid” and “acting like one.” Letting her get to him means she wins. Anyway, I’m sending my good vibes and a slightly used “been there/done that tee shirt.”
Dad is now on oxygen…when he’s not pulling off the tubes. His blood oxygen level is low. He also told me this morning that he had an “hallucination” that BarbeeDoll[sup]TM[/sup] beat me up and left two big welts on my face. He said he knew it wasn’t real but it really scared him. Poor guy.
Thank you all for your kind thoughts.
Tupug
Taters -I’m sorry you have to endure this. But your husband needs a slap up side his head, and soon. He is only making her more defensive, more hostile and less likely to see the other side.
I do think she has a point–she thinks she is ready for these kinds of decisions. We all know she is not-but we need to work with her perception, while opening her mind up to other POVs. He is not helping. Frankly, I don’t care if he is having issues with her sexuality or the older guy’s or whatever-those are feelings that he needs to deal with privately. Your daughter is not obligated to stay a child just so he doesn’t have to deal with conflicted feelings.
Sorry to be blunt, but there it is. I am sure she feels righteous now–and a martyred victim, due to the draconian measures her father put in place. It’s become a bigger issue-when it was already huge. So, IMO (and feel free to tell me to go to hell)-he needs to stop it, now. It is non-productive and may drive her to more extreme measures.
Lecture over. I am truly sorry you’re having to be in the middle–and younger daughter is watching it all…
Nava -how nice of you. Here is the story of #1 in a nutshell. He was 4. I had not yet had #2 son (he would come 18 months later). Daughter was in kindergarten.
#1 son was born in Jan (yesterday, as a matter of fact). Christmas came and went. He usually looked forward to his birthday (and we have made sure it wasn’t overshadowed by Xmas). Not this year. He declared, in no uncertain terms, that he was NOT turning 5. He did not want to be 5. He was going to stay 4 and that was that. No party, no cake, no gifts, if he had to become 5 to get them. End of discussion.
We were somewhat taken aback by this, and so I turned to who I thought was an expert–the preschool director. She said that in her 25 years of doing that, she had never come across this problem. Great. I asked the pediatrician, when we went for his kindergarten check-up (he was also not going to go to Kindergarten according to him). Dr (it was a resident) looks at my son and says, “why don’t you want to be 5?” No answer. We came home. By now, I am distressed. I call a neighbor and in the course of the conversation, I relate this issue. She says to me-oh, my daughter didn’t want to be 7. Go ahead and plan stuff–he’ll come around. And he did. He is now 15.
Off to spend money-on me! New jeans and shoes–yay!
School is closed today due to snow and ice. How odd, at 4:20 this morning, although frosty and cold, there wasn’t any snow. Fast forward to 5:20 this morning and a little over two inches of snow was outside. The sides roads are extremely icy, so the first part of my work commute was a little dicey. The freeways are slushy and wet though, so no biggie.
Since school is closed today, there won’t be a meeting with the counselor. The timing definitely sucks.
I spoke to my daughter again before leaving for work and gently told her that she needs to be sure to address her father respectfully and nicely today. I told her I didn’t want any fighting.
I will call my husband a little later today and relate to him the conversation I had with my daughter. Together, we’ll try (I hope) to work out some sort of resolution.
Pugsy, more hugs to you. I do hope you’re taking care of yourself as well.
Looking back at how it’s been between my daughter and husband, it’s almost exactly a replay of my husband and his father’s relationship when my husband was a teenager. They fought for much different reasons, but it ended up in my husband being kicked out of the house. It took a few years, but they eventually made up and had a fantastic relationship. It’s a good thing too, because we lost FIL in the mid 90s.
I, however, do not want the same thing occurring between my daughter and husband and I plan to do everything in my power to prevent it. I really hope that we can all come to some sort of agreement today.
My daughter needs some kind of punishment, I guess. If anything, because she concealed things from us, which is tantamount to lying, in this case anyway. So, we’ll have do something.
My end goal is to get everything back on track. Additionally, she has been working hard at school, and I don’t want her lose any ground. This is important to me and her. Right now, she doesn’t feel like she can work because she’s so down, but I told her that she’s going to face things like this many times in her future and reality dictates that she needs to slog through it, hard as it may be.
Well, lots of work to do…again. I should get to it.
Pug, all my best wishes to you and your family. Taters, same goes for you. I wish I had an easy answer. Best of luck with the compromise today.
rigs, I remember that when I was 8 years old, I decided that 8 was the perfect age and I wanted to stay 8. But nothing, and I mean nothing, would keep me from birthday cake. Refusing it wasn’t even under consideration. Blasphemy! 
Today is homework, video games, and supervising my first lab session, in that order. It has to be in that order because the video game in question is Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, which I rented and which my roommate and I have been playing together. It’s due back tomorrow and this afternoon is the only time we have today to finish it. It’s a great game and I plan on buying it eventually, since there’s loads of stuff we’re not going to get to do this time around.
I happened to visit my grandparents when I was 27 years and 2 months old. Odd age to be saying the months, you’ll say. But you see, Grandma told me “ok, girl. My mother had me at 27. I had your mother at 27. Your mother had you at 27. So you’ve got like three months to get pregnant, and that’s counting on early delivery.”
Can’t imagine why my female cousin decided that she wasn’t turning 27, really. She’s 8 months younger than me and stayed 26 for several years. She’s 28 now but I understand she kind of skipped 27 altogether.
Taters, I don’t know your daughter so I can’t really form an opinion, but three friends of mine started dating older guys when they were in high school. All three married the gents in question, all three are still married. The one who got pregnant before being married then went and waffled about getting married (she was very and genuinely surprised that “that” had been sex, the guy was completely stunned - apparently she’d been expecting violins and I’m afraid he’d forgotten to provide any), so they didn’t get married until that kid was 1yo, but in the end they did.
She may be just a kid. Or not.
LiLi - Hush, you. It’s only gotten a bit nicer now. At 7 this morning however, there was nothing nice about it – unless the absence of something even less nice (such as snow) can be considered nice by comparison. I’m just a little bitter because it has been so nice lately that the idea of winter muscling in so late to the party is offensive. I mean, jeez. If it’s going to just saunter in a month late it might as well just bloody stay home! Lazy bum.
Taters - One of the hardest lessons I ever had to learn, and the lesson that took me the longest to learn, was that not only is life not always fair, but that life can tend to seem like it’s being unfair more often than not. Growing up in your own bubble with all sorts of preconceived ideas and notions about the world seems like a great thing when you’re a kid. It’s when those life lessons come round and start shattering your illusions one by one with a certain blunt indifference that things really start feeling like they’re going to hell in a jet-powered handcart. Teens don’t suffer differing world views easily, much preferring instead to think the views they’ve formulated on their own are perfectly fine the way they are. Between learning both that they aren’t, and that the real world is far more obstinate about proving them wrong than they could ever be, it’s pretty easy to see why become so pugnacious when their own flesh and blood – people they believe should be always on their side – seems to be turning traitorous on them, too. The “for your own good” speeches never work either, because they’d still like to believe that only they could possibly know what’s good for them. About all you can do is explain why things are heading south the way they are and hope that maybe the tiniest seed of understanding takes root. This may be hard when Mr. Taters seems to have frozen the soil some, but offering up a little empathy might help soften her up a bit.
Someone is wearing enough perfume to choke an elephant this morning. I’m not sure who, but it’s powerful stuff. Whatever it is, at least it’s not making me wheeze, since I don’t have my inhaler with me.
I should work on my resume this morning, but I’m not very motivated. I guess I could send all the retreat planning stuff to the manager who’s taking it over, that would take up about 15 minutes. I don’t know if I mentioned that the partner I’ve been working with on the retreat suggested that I stay on as a contractor through the retreat. I was tempted for a while, but honestly, it was a thankless job as it was. I don’t think being a contractor would improve anything.
It’s the crack of Ohmygawd, and my pager went nuts as it does occasionally. The call is for a burning pig house on Honey Pot Road (many <snerk>s, but that’s the real name). I’ve taken to sleeping in sweatpants and t-shirt, so I was out the door within 2 minutes.
I got to the station and suited up, and I rode with the same assistant chief who came over Saturday. We rolled, and he missed the turn… :rolleyes:
When we finally got there, one house is flat and flames are shooting everywhere. The flat one was empty, but the other house 10 feet away had 1000 head in it and starting to catch. Initial effort went into having the other house, and we accomplished that.
As I trotted up, I felt a clap on my back, and was instructed, “Bob, go help Webster.” He was handling an inch and a half by himself, which is doable but not for very long. Just like the drills I’ve been to; my job was to share the load of handling the hose and to watch out for any dangers, which at this scene would have been falling sheet metal.
As more people showed up, I was moved to a different hose that had a tougher time because of terrain and growth, but the job was the same. I even got a little bit of nozzle time, too.
There were a couple of incinerated pigs we came across, but because that shed had just been sent to the slaughterhouse, I think they were dead before the fire ever started. I hope so…They STUNK, but let me tell you that worse than the smell of burning pigs is the smell of burning pig manure. YUUUU-UUUUCK. I wanted an airpack…:barf:
I also have a pet hatred for sheet metal siding, which is a very prevalent building material here. We had to pull it own to get to the flames, and it cut through our gloves. I also tripped over a coupe of different sheets on the ground. Grrrrrrrr. :mad: Other niceties to deal with were maggots, mud, and wild plant growth that makes my jungle look like a golf course.
We were on the scene three and a half hours, and it went like the drills I’ve attended, complete with tankers and swimming pool drop tanks.
That’s the tale of my first major fire.
Jeebus, V-Bob --well done and I’m glad you’re ok. Poor piggies. But sounds like the owner needs to clean up his property a bit (?). I would think such thick shrub etc would provide a nice hideout for coyotes and the like-and they like pig.
I am back from the maul. The Gap is no longer at the maul-which shows you how much I shop at mauls. Now I’ll have to go to the Maul From Hell, which I only go to under protest about once per year. It’s not easy to get to, crowded and noisy. Ugh. But I need new jeans! I’ll go tomorrow after paging.
I got new shoes-I’ll look for a pic. One pair is for hospital work, so they’re no fun, but the other’s are kewt!
I also got a new silk (faux) scarf, and a nice turtleneck.
Off to make burfday cake for #1 son-we celebrate tonight. We have no gift for him (I feel like the Lil Drummer Boy), but he is getting the WoW expansion pack that was due out in November. Stoopit computer game people…
Bobbio the first thing I thought of when I saw your post about a pig burn fire this morning was, “YUCK! Burned pig flesh and burned pig poop!” The things I experienced from spending lots of time as a yoot at my uncle’s farm. 
So, ya got your first major fire under your belt. Do you feel like a real fireman now?
Taters here’s hoping things are better on the home front.
Puggy I’m keeping y’all in my thoughts and prayers.
It’s been really, really quiet all day today. I just know sump’n horrible is gonna happen before the day’s over. I just know it! :eek:
Wow, nice work VBob. Of course, with all that training it’s no Vunder you did such a good job. Were any of the pigs harmed? They must have been bacon in all that heat.
Yup. I done popped that cherry, finally. 
Bobbio, the roofs in the production towers in the last factory where I did Real Work ™ were sheet metal. The guys who’d made them cussed a mighty storm every time they talked about it.
And now, let it be known
that I finally have internet at home. YOOHOO!
So I better go dig those baby pics I owe you guys since forever and find a place to hang them, eh?
Yay for home internet Nava. Just think of all the time you’ll get to waste in the MMP day and night now!
Nothing in the paper yet about bobbio’s fire. But I’ll post a link if’n I find one.
That jersey I have on? It was the only one in my size with a hood and it was raining. I did have one beer while in Prague but it was my allotment for the year!
Nice pics Nava! Da nephew’s a cutie pie. I’ll leave it to the straight guys to hit on ya.
Nice work, FireBob. Barn fires can really suck.
And three hours? Pshaw, that’s nuttin’. Wait till you’re on on that lasts 10 or 12 hours. We had one this summer that was full of hay. We were dragging smoldering bales out for freaking ever.