flatlined, you’re still in the Southwest, so there are Tamale Ladies, you just need to find a good one. Bill doesn’t know, because he’s an Oil Guy. The ones who know about Tamale Ladies are Car Guys. You know, the ones who might lose an opportunity to make money if they take a lunch break. They will know at least one Tamale Lady (or even a Tamale Guy). Ask around on some car lots, and they will tell you when their Tamale Lady comes by, and if she has good and plentiful fillings. You can then be there the next time she is.
For tamales, also ask the neighbors. Our local Tamale Lady goes door to door during the day. If I’d never taken time off, I’d never have known.
((Hugs))
flatlined, I live in the NW burbs of Chicago and even I have tamale ladies. You will find them in my area around body shops/mechanics, landscaper yards, and in the big shopping center where the big hispanic market is. They are usually out of tamales by 10:30 or 11:00 am, though. They sell out FAST. I hope you can find one soon. I would send you some tamales but they’d probably lose something in the shipping process. 
I’m not mad at my husband, but I pit his persistent, racking cough. He had a bad cold last week and it’s all gone except the cough which is on its way out, but is constantly tickling his throat and kept us both up all night.
Hugs to those who need them.
I feel for you, flatlined. Moving from CA to the midwest cost me my favorite salsa, and life just isn’t the same without it. Here’s hoping you find a Tamale Lady to love soon. (I’d ask my relative for you, but they’re all in Austin/Dallas).
And now my mini-rants!:
- To my darling, tiny, five-month-old son: sleeping through the night isn’t bad! You use to do it all the time. Try it again, I promise you’ll like it. Alternatively, learn to speak English and tell me what the problem is, and I promise I’ll solve it right away.
- To my husband’s job & boss: fuck you, fuck you, fuck you with a rusty chainsaw. He was in tears when he came home Monday night (after working 15 hours and being paid for 9) because all he wants to do is support his family and your shittiness means he never gets to actually see his family. He hates his job but is keeping it for the insurance; I love my job but am looking for something new so I can get some insurance. Where is my socialized healthcare, already?
- Goddamn, I know this is stupid, but fuck my MIL. I sent her an email asking for addresses so I could send out a Christmas card (with pics of our five month old!) to members of her family, but no dice. She told me I could look for them in the white pages. Except for the brother that lives in Omaha… or the sister and nephews that live in Arizona… or the rest of the list, whose last names I don’t know. And yet I’m going to be the bitch when these people don’t get Christmas cards. Fuck.
I always feel bad when my husband gets sick and all the constant sick noises get on my nerves. It’s not like I can say, ‘‘Oh, gee, honey, I’m sorry you’re sick, but could you suffer a little more quietly please? I find your illness very inconvenient!’’
I had the sense that it’s not so much that they don’t have Tamale Ladies in Texas, as that Bill won’t be willing to have the tamales brought into the house, on account of no Health Department permits in the kitchens where the tamales are made.
I could be mistaken, though.
At this point there is zero joy in shopping for holiday gifts. It is stress/ guilt/ time pressure.
I can’t wait for “the season” to be over.
You want to do something good for your fellow human? Pick a day. Say, January 11th. Do 5 kind things for other people that you know cannot be repaid.
There’s yer season for ya.
Fuckin’ commercialization…
And you’re probably right - I’m really kind of stupid, and reading doesn’t always equal comprehension with me. 
Check his gums; he might be teething. Mine started earlier than that.
I hope things go better for those of you in transition on the jobs front. I 'm okay there, but there’s a sort of generalized uncertainty that I didn’t used to feel even though I shouldn’t rationally be worried about losing my job right now. Good luck to all of you.
You may be right, but I kind of got the sense that a Tamale Lady had stopped at his office and didn’t get them as a “client”, so she needs to find a Tamale Lady for herself. And I would be asking where we would be eating out every day, since all cooking at home would be done in a kitchen without a Health Department permit! 
I’ve been forced to listen to commercial radio all day at work today - I feel like I’m one Christmas “Buy shit at our store!” commercial away from going up a clocktower.
you could print tickets to your rampage and give them away is Christmas gifts.
Yes, yes. No one tells you that they can be “a great sleeper” and then backslide! Actually I think five months or so is pretty typical for this bullshit, and sad to say, I think it might just be a neurological development thing, so there’s no problem you can fix to help them sleep. This was the point when I dared to defy my crunchy parenting community and do a spin on Ferber. Waking up literally every 45-90 minutes all night was ridiculous.
[[[olives]]] that sounds incredibly stressful. It sucks to be living with someone and never spend (conscious) time with them.
My rant:
My ex-friend whom I relegated to acquaintance status after one too many crazy, inconsiderate, weird, off-putting incidents, called to tell me she’s having gastric bypass surgery Friday. She wanted to talk to me one last time in case she dies. Of course any poignancy in that sentiment was immediately undermined when she went on and on about how she thinks of me going to the gym all the time and “not getting results,” and how she thought with all that exercise, I’d have a turning point, but it never came, blah blah. Even after I told her I exercise for fitness and health, not to lose weight, she went back to it and was pushing me to go to an info session on surgery. Fuck you, ex-friend.
[QUOTE=olivesmarch4th;15789284 Making friends is hard work and it’s horrible but I’ve always had this feeling that it’s not worth it because our situation is only temporary. We move all the time, so, I don’t really want to get emotionally invested with more people than I already have become. I’m already upset that I have to leave the best job ever and two of the best friends we’ve ever had living right next door.[/QUOTE]
Preach it. I just did almost this exact thing three or so months ago, and damn is it rough. Luckily for me, I’ll be back where I was happy in January (although at greatly reduced pay), but that’s just temporary too. I just want to find one final place to live, that doesn’t suck too much, and not have to constantly rebuild my social life all the time.
What Unauthorized Cinnamon said. It’s called the four-month sleep regression, and I wish someone had told me about it when my daughter was five months old and suddenly went from sleeping eight hours straight to waking up three or four times a night. It’s something to do with their sleep cycles changing - they enter shallower periods of sleep, but they don’t know how to put themselves back into deep sleep again. I don’t know if there’s anything you can do except wait for them to outgrow it. It WILL end.
{{iftheresaway}}
{{iftheresaway’s baby}}
Hmmmm…
What the fuck is it with winter that brings out the smelly bacteria blooms?
A couple of weeks ago my apartment had one. The “unwashed smell” bacteria. I cleaned, I sprayed, I did laundry. It would seem to get knocked back a little and then come roaring back, permeating everything. I finally went through my bathroom (where it was strongest, aka ‘the source’ and sprayed every motherfucking surface with ammonia cleaner. Found the strong point to be the section of wall and floor between the vanity and the shower curtains. Once I hosed that down strongly, it faded away. No visible stains, no mold, just stench from hell eminating from that area.
Now I’m constantly plagued by people with their “something carrying a bunch of rancid roadkill crawled into my mouth and died” BREATH. That dark bitter smell that just carries and seems to stick to everyone and everything around the source death mouth.
Monday it was some muckety muck VP in from out of town who sat at a desk at the end of my row for the day. No issues in the morning, but when I came back from lunch… Dear GOD, what is that smell??? Of course, being a muckety-muck, no one dared say anything or offer him a mint.
Today it was some asshole who got on at the last bus stop, sat two seats away from me and then sat there the entire trip talking to some friend of his. Same permeating death smell.
Anyone ever seen the movie UHF? When I’m Emperor of the World, people walk around like this will be sentenced to drink from the fire hose. Of mouthwash.