It's time for June mini rants. Be the second...

The BBQ Pit
141

Hooray for joining Facebook; now my inlaw drama gets delivered to my iPhone and computer rather than hearing about it via a breathless phone call… :dubious:

My husband and his siblings, along with their SOs and adult kids, have a family Facebook group that they use to plan family gatherings. I finally joined Facebook after hearing at Mother’s Day about a bridal shower for my niece; the sister-in-law planning it said, “But I posted about it on Facebook!” And yeah, everyone knew but just forgot that I wasn’t a member.

There’s one sister of theirs who’s abused drugs and/or alcohol most of her life. I suspect she’s at least an alcoholic right now. My husband and I check caller ID before answering the phone; if it’s this one sister, we wait to hear her voice and see if she sounds impaired or not. If she is, she’s either overly happy “I love you sooooo much” and babbles on and on, or she’s feeling wronged about something - like if someone was critical of her in a phone call (hint: quit drunk-dialing) - then she’s screaming and/or sobbing melodramatically.

Drama SIL is hosting Father’s Day. She posted her meal ideas in the FB group Sunday, babbling on happily and not-too-clearly about everything she had planned and how she loves everyone.

The next day, the SIL hosting the bridal shower posts an update in the family group (her original announcement in the group was April) reminding us of the bridal shower (day before Father’s Day) and saying she was sending out the paper invitations.

Drama SIL freaks the fuck out. She posts multiple ranting, barely-coherent posts about how she gets it, she isn’t welcome at the wedding or shower, thanks for rubbing it in her face that she hadn’t received an invitation to the shower, this has happened multiple times before that her own siblings have left her out of things (what?), and stop insulting her. She also posts a message on the wall of the mother of the bride (one of her sisters) telling her that she (Drama SIL) won’t be screwed over by her (MOB SIL) ever again, that only her “mommy and daddy” are nice to her, etc. :rolleyes: (Which is funny because my FIL was physically and emotionally abusive all their lives, pretty much, and their mom did little to stop it. - but she sucks up to her dad to the point of catering to his wishes above those of everyone else. And usually her calls about being wronged are sobbing about how mean “Daddy” is to her and how she won’t go to the next gathering as a result.)

Shower-Hosting SIL posts much more reasonable messages than I would have, apologizing for her “poorly written” post, that the message said paper invites will be going out, and clarifying that she’d first announced this in April in the family group. She also said it wouldn’t make any sense for her to be excluding one sister by posting about it in front of her.

Now it’s a couple days later, no posts from Drama SIL, hate-laden message is still up on MOB SIL’s wall (she doesn’t check her FB often), and no one knows if Drama SIL is still hosting Father’s Day. If she’s not, it’s certainly going to fall to my husband and I (as the only other available option is MOB’s house, where the shower will be the day before), which I’m not thrilled about as I loathe my FIL. Plus my own father died when I was in college, so sometimes it’s like a little extra stab in the ribs from the universe to be “honoring” this guy at my house. If she is hosting, I will bet on awkward half-apologies from some people, including everyone who has no reason to apologize, and tons of drinking on the part of Drama-Hostess as she won’t have to drive home. :smack:

142

I have a plastic badge I use to buzz in to the building when I go to work every day. I don’t keep it in a plastic sleeve or anything, just tucked in a pocket in my purse. Apparently this was a bad choice. Today when I pulled it out I could see where an uncapped pen had leaned against it in such a way that I now appear to have a full beard. ZZ top would be jealous of this beard. Now I look like I need a badge for my job as the bearded lady at the circus.:mad:

143

I suggest, quite seriously, that you write a literature review. If you love thinking about your field and love reading other people’s work, you should love condensing other people’s work down into a summary form that shows the connections and dependencies, shows what is well-understood, shows where the edges of the field are, and is accessible to people working in the field.

A really good literature review is challenging to write and can be very useful. Write it up, polish it, cross your Ts and dot your Is.

Then call it “Chapter 1.”

144

Ferret Herder, I think you missed your opportunity - not being on Facebook and having caller id was your opportunity to never have to know anything about what your family is doing and have a built-in excuse for not going to any family events. :slight_smile:

pbbth, that’s hysterical. You are going to keep that badge, aren’t you? :smiley:

145

Dear Family:
I work nights. I have done so for the past 2.5 years. You are all aware that I work nights. So would you please quit waking me up at stupid hours like 7 am, noon, 1 pm, 1:30 pm, etc.
Thanks. And don’t ask why I’m so grumpy tonight.

146

Yes, but it is going to be such a pain putting on a fake beard so I match my ID every time I need to get into the building.:wink:

147

Stop fucking moving around, web pages! Just quit it! Google takes 10 seconds or so to load up its “featured searches” or whatever at the top of the page, so that when I go to click on the link I want I’m suddenly clicking on a link further up the list that I DIDN’T want. STOP IT! Just load the page and stay still, dammit!

148

Good for you! As a guy, I’ll admit that if you start mothering us, we’ll just comfortably fall into a lazy ritual of expecting you to keep doing it. And then other stuff, too, like baking and ironing and yes, buying birthday cards for a mother that’s not your own (“Well, I figured you’d forget your mom, and I was near a card shop anyhow…”).

At no point do we wake up and say “Damn, why aren’t I buying my own shirts, like grownups do?”

149

Uploading a movie to youtube with your favourite clip from your favourite tvseries that you filmed running on the computer monitor with your shitty mobile.

WTF.

Bonus points if you actually filmed it running ON youtube and then uploaded your piece of shit back there.

150

I’ve declined to rant about this before, but having found a second and third piece of graffiti in the men’s restroom here at work, I need to at least vent.

To the men in my workplace:

You are ALL well over 20 years old. You are almost all social work professionals (there are only something like 3 male clericals in the whole office, and I’m one of them), which means you almost all actually attended at least four years of college. You are civil service workers, and our office (including the restrooms) is government property.

So what the fuck was one of you thinking when you decided to start denigrating the HR director in bathroom grafitti?! And not only denigrating, but denigrating at a junior-high level, not even for any HR decisions she’s made, but for her appearance?

“Alice M*: Sex-change gone wrong” “Alice M*: Fat and ugly”

Really? Alice* is one of the personally nicest people in this office. She was a colleague of yours in the caseworker pool for YEARS before she was made HR director. She’s not exactly Rebecca Romijn, but she’s not Anne Ramsey, either. Never mind, I know I’m being futile trying to make this logical.

Anyway, how old are you again, whoever you are? Even if you have a quarrel with Alice*, this is NOT the way to pursue it. This is just immature, puerile, and unfunny. Stop it now.

*Name changed

151

Gawd, I hate being po’. (Hi, Shredder Guy!) Everyone at the office is going out to lunch tomorrow for GoodTemp’s last day with us - even my manager, who works remotely, is driving in for the occasion. You’ll notice I never griped about GoodTemp: she was a reasonably hard worker, friendly, and - imp. to me if not others - quiet and kept to herself but would still laugh at a good joke and occasionally crack one herself. Perfect-o.

We have one more semi-massive project we all re-hee-heeally wanted her help with, but it’s not set to go yet and Grandboss regretfully informs us that there isn’t enough $ in the budget to keep her busy with other work (which we have! plenty of it!) until S/M Project needs her work. So we’ll all go out to lunch together and see her off into the world, and while I don’t normally enjoy socializing with most of my co-workers, I appreciate GoodTemp enough to want to go out to lunch with the rest of them for her last day. Nothing extravagant: probably sandwiches, really.

If I can scrape together, what, ten bucks between now and tomorrow.

:frowning:

I’m not starving; I have food. I just don’t have money to buy more food. But somehow, sitting around the break room eating day-old leftovers isn’t festive, for some silly reason. However, unless Mr. Horseshoe has some cash in his wallet, that may be all I can do.

Whiny, whiny me. I know.

152

This is really minor. But if you watch Rachel Maddow, you may be familiar with her regular commentator, Chris Hayes.

His glasses are totally wrong for his face.

153

He lives in Florence. I don’t. Gas prices are sky high. :frowning:

154

When I lived in the US, I found what I think you want in hobby shops of all places. The tees I found in clothing stores were all flimsy and badly woven and had designs I didn’t like, but I went into a hobby store (can’t remember the name since it’s been about 8 years, but it was a chain) and lo and behold, they sold these Hanes plain, colored, properly-woven tees to decorate.

And yes, I know Canada isn’t an addendum to Minesotta :slight_smile: but maybe Canadian hobby shops sell plain tees to decorate, too. Or maybe Hanes sells them online?

Tonight I’m taking Mom to a concert, my treat. It’s in Pamplona, so we are going to spend the night at my house and tomorrow I’m driving us both to hers, we’re having lunch with Littlebro, I’m giving him the frames I bought for him yesterday and we’re going to see whether he wants more of either model or not; on Monday I get to drive back to where I work now.

Or not.

Mom called one of my uncles and set up a lunch date with him on Sunday. She mentioned he has okupas, “squatters”, by which she meant that he’s reached an agreement with a neighbor by which the neighbor keeps hens in Uncle’s pen and Uncle’s payment is being able to take fresh eggs when he wants some, rather than cash. That’s not an okupa, Mom: an okupa is someone who did not get invited or stayed beyond the limit of their invitation. I’m already not taking you on vacation and backing the Bros on not taking you either; congratulations, I’m also going to never treat you to anything bigger than an ice cream cone.

155

Forgot to mention the lunch date is in Pamplona. Yep, she changed the whole plans. Oh, and as she always does when mentioning my father’s side of the family she talked about them as “those [insertMYlastnamehere]” as if, first, it wasn’t the lastname of the person she’s talking to and second, her side of the family was some sort of wonder. “Our” side, we don’t write and we don’t call (regularly), but when we do we’re glad to see each other, catch up in seconds and our homes are open to each other at any time we don’t already have plans; “hers”, they don’t write, don’t call, and if you do call they berate you for not writing, not calling and try to get money off you.

156

Ow. Ow ow ow ow ow. My upper molar that has had a root canal is hurting when I bite on it tonight. That’s because I’m barely over a sinus cold, right? Right?

157

I appear to be developing eczema in my right armpit. It’s itchy and annoying, and because I don’t want to inflame it any more, I can’t shave right now. God damn it.

158

My fiancee is pressuring me into moving into her mom’s rental place in August instead of September like we originally planned. This is so we have more time to set up the place before we get married in September and she moves in (conservative Mexican-Catholic family). She’s also starting grad school in august. She wants me to move earlier so everything isn’t a clusterfuck in September with school, wedding, and moving all rolled into one hellish ball.

I understand, but, fuuuuuck. I’m going to have to go from the nice cool womb of my air-conditioned apartment to a house build in the Eisenhower administration, no AC, its actually starting to be sunny in CA which means in august it’ll probably be hot finally sucks for me because I’ll be lying on a bare matress huffing paint fumes in a room thats 85 degrees Fahrenheit in the middle of the night. I know I have to do it, but I’m not looking forward to it.

Nor am I looking forward to subletting the place and being at the mercy of strangers to keep our rent low enough to even afford the place. At least the commute is good. :o

159

I get terrible tooth pain sometimes when I have sinus infections. I find that Vicodin works for both problems.

160

Ugh, driving rant.

Where my husband and I exit his workplace downtown (when we carpool) you enter a busy single lane heading south, then are given the option to turn west (right) in to a four lane one-way road or go straight. There is ONE lane, and you’re either going straight or turning.

ALL the time, people pull up in to the left shoulder to try and make it two lanes. There is hardly enough room for this, and it’s really dangerous and annoying. So yesterday, I was at the head of the line waiting for the light, and this woman pulls up right next to me. I know she’s turning because there is construction ahead and you can’t go straight through right now. So I roll down my window and knock on her passenger window (they really are THAT close because there is not enough room). She is at first reluctant to roll it down, but finally does. I say ‘I don’t know if you know, but this isn’t a dual turning lane.’ Her response? ‘I know, but it works out, so it’s ok’ and then rolls up the window.

Normally I’m a calm driver and these things don’t get to me, but for some reason this did. When the light changed, she went in to the furthest lane while I went in to the second. But what if I was headed for the furthest lane? We would have sideswiped each other or she would have been run up on to the sidewalk.

Of course, afterwards I had a billion things I could have said or done to get back at her running through my mind, and it took a good 10 minutes before I calmed down and mostly forgot about it. Stupid woman.