Welcome to the Aloha! edition of the Whiner's Ball, sponsored this week by cute little invisible dragons, which used to roam around my daughter's tiny hand and tell her stories. The dragons liked chocolate, a lot; also bubble baths, silly books, TtFTE, and pretending to be fairies with magic wands. Or veterinarians. Or rock stars. It kind of depended on their moods.
Alas, my baby daughter got too big for her dragons, and now she is heading off to college in another state. My big antiwhine is: wow, a whole new world! I'm so excited for her; a million doors will open. She's taking a bunch of interesting classes to help her decide her major, and she'll be in the marching band. And her roomie is from Hawaii! Aloha! We had one last mom/daughter adventure Sunday, visiting a huge street fair where we saw absolutely everything: dogs, dragons, dancing, taiko drums, art, art cars, jewelry, old friends, bands, food, people, and a ukelale orchestra with hula dancing!
Whines: OMG, impending empty nest! And OMG, she'll be so far! And, since she is supposed to put all her stuff in the car Friday, is it really too early to, like, think of packing?? I've become the kind of pathetic old person who buys shelf paper and toenail clippers and sticky-notes and 300 other random items for a legal adult, because she might never be able to find them there. There is a danger of flooding when we leave; better take kleenex.
Passing the adult beverages, pineapple, macadamia nuts, and teryiaki kabobs. Tell us your tales of doom, dismay, victory, and humor! Prizes for style, elevated risk of mullet, and old school whining entries! Please make up an undercover name, if you must whine even more anonymously than usual. Aloha!
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About Wednesday Whining
Wednesday Whining is a weekly blog with rotating hosts. Whines and Anti-Whines, both big and small, are welcome! Our purposes are mutual support and sharing a few laughs along the way.
The Wednesday Whining Community is diverse, and strives to be safe, welcoming, and supportive. To this end, comments that are personally abusive or otherwise disparaging [regarding race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation] will be deleted by moderators, along with spam and self-promotion.
The Wednesday Whining Community is diverse, and strives to be safe, welcoming, and supportive. To this end, comments that are personally abusive or otherwise disparaging [regarding race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation] will be deleted by moderators, along with spam and self-promotion.
FAQ
Q: When does Wednesday Whining appear?
A: The Whiner's Ball commences no later than Tuesday, and ends when Awards are given (usually Thursday in theory, but definitely before Monday).
Q: Awards? Really?
A: Yes, really. Traditional awards include Style [music, poetry, etc.], Old Skool [piddly little whines], and Elevated Risk of Mullet [funniest line in a whine], but other hand-crafted awards may be granted at the host's discretion, and nominations from commenters are encouraged.
Q: Can I whine about someone who just does not "get it"?
A: The Cluestick Posse is on hand for persons in need.
Q: Is there a mascot?
A: Ralph is the mascot.
Q: Are there other traditions I should know about?
A: The passing of virtual refreshments is appreciated.
Q: How did this all get started anyhow?
A: Phantom Scribbler was our muse and host for two years.
Q: What was the first prize ever awarded?
A: The Playdough Violin
A: The Whiner's Ball commences no later than Tuesday, and ends when Awards are given (usually Thursday in theory, but definitely before Monday).
Q: Awards? Really?
A: Yes, really. Traditional awards include Style [music, poetry, etc.], Old Skool [piddly little whines], and Elevated Risk of Mullet [funniest line in a whine], but other hand-crafted awards may be granted at the host's discretion, and nominations from commenters are encouraged.
Q: Can I whine about someone who just does not "get it"?
A: The Cluestick Posse is on hand for persons in need.
Q: Is there a mascot?
A: Ralph is the mascot.
Q: Are there other traditions I should know about?
A: The passing of virtual refreshments is appreciated.
Q: How did this all get started anyhow?
A: Phantom Scribbler was our muse and host for two years.
Q: What was the first prize ever awarded?
A: The Playdough Violin
38 comments:
I've been waiting all day for this.
The job that I thought I was going to get went to someone else. They still haven't bothered to respond to any of my queries, but I know this because I discovered that they hired a conservative, male blogger to fill the position. I really thought they were going to hire me, because they were very eager in the beginning. But I guess this guy threw his hat in the ring, and he has a "following" so there really wasn't much competition. I would have been a risk. A good one, but a risk, nonetheless. It is small comfort to know that at least I didn't do anything to blow the interview process.
I am also really sick of reading job listing for "entry level" positions that require 3-5 years of experience doing x or y. If you require 3-5 experience doing very specific x or y, it's not entry level.
Oh, and I discover this news when my spouse is in Italy for six days without me. Sure, it's business, but I get to stay home and stew by myself. A three-year-old does not provide effective commiseration.
HUMONGOUS anti-whine: Jeni had her baby! I direct you all to Jeni's place to see pictures, and read the post:
http://scotvetblog.blogspot.com/
Congrats, Jeni, Matt, and baby Hosea!
Woo-hoo, Jeni!
big congratulations to jeni!
Antiwhine: what klee said! Go Hosea, it's your birthday...
Whines, in no particular order: stoopid doctor's office never called me with my mammogram results. Which have BEEN READ ALREADY. They obviously want me to die of stress instead of breast cancer, because it's cheaper. Yo Doc, I HAVE A LUMP. And I can't ask the women in my family about their breast health history because THEY ARE DEAD. OF BREAST CANCER. Grrr. You know if this disease caused erectile dysfunction, we'd have a cure already, right?
Also: going to have to spend almost $20K getting this house up to speed to sell, in order to sell it for $20K less than I thought I'd get in the first place. It needs work badly, but the market is worse than I thought. But I have to have everything done before leaving to FL next month to pack up my dad's house and sell it. Oh, I'll have the two year-old with me while packing up 36 years of sentimental family memories.
Antiwhines: wrote my "Weird Wednesday" contest post for the first time in two weeks...anyone wanna check it out? And it's my b-day this Saturday. I don't care that I'm 36, I just want presents and cake! I am being proactive and buying flowers for my damn self this year b/c DH can't buy a clue and get 'em for me. I am going to get myself the biggest arrangement of daisies I can find. Better in a vase than pushin' em up!
Last antiwhine...you guys! I really missed everybody the last two weeks!
Sad.
Discouraged.
Frustrated.
Tired.
Worried.
That about sums it up.
Due to the usual circus of budget cuts, they will be adding a mixed age 2nd/3rd grade classroom to our school on Monday. Letters will go home today if to let us parents know if our child will be moved into the new classroom.
My 2nd grader is terrified of the whole thing and went to bed sobbing last night.
I told her over and over again that it would be fine and we would make it work.
At the PTA meeting last night, the other parents were terrified and worried (although one hopes that they didn't go to bed sobbing!)
I told them over and over again that it would be fine and we would make it work.
I'm secretly hoping that my daughter doesn't get moved. I'm sure that makes me a terribly hypocritical PTA president, but there you have it.
But my mantra for the inevitable phone calls and emails that I will get today shall be "It will be fine and we will make it work."
Congrats to Jeni. Enjoy those lovely baby days.
Congrats to Jeni. Happy BIRTHday Hosea!
Ditto to everything PK wrote. I'm returning with a "Good L-rd, Just Make it Stop" sort of whine. In the last hour, I've learnt that a dear friend and her mother were killed in a hit and run accident last night, and my maternal grandfather, (who has been aging and wasting away literally before our eyes) has just been diagnosed with bowel cancer and had surgery this morning to remove... something. There have been frustratingly few details in both cases. I just want to crawl back into bed and declare a complete do-over on today.
One, I've got to squeak my whine in here before my power goes out again. It's been going out randomly for the last month, preventing me from whining with you all for the last few weeks. Five outages in the last four weeks. And where I live, no power means no water as well. Grumble, grumble.
Two, although my spouse and I are in verbal agreement that we will "start trying" next cycle (you know, trying to win the baby lottery, ahem), I cannot see how that's going to happen because (how to put this delicately?) you can't win if you don't play. So, yeah. I guess I'll have to stop wiping down the toilet seats in public bathrooms if I want to have a baby next year. /sigh.
P.S. I do hope we'll keep this between us here? I've been sworn to secrecy regarding any plans for baby-having, but I'm pretty sure teh intrnets is private, right?
Oh, as I post my previous comment, I do see that it appears that I haven't been showering regularly due to the power outages, but I assure you - only the tot has gone without bathing, so that is not the reason there's no gambling in my house right now.
Can I whine about forgetting to whine?
What I forgot to whine about was seeing my first Christmas tree ornaments of the "season" (half-year?) for sale the week before Labor Day.
Yesterday I received my first Christmas catalog from LLBean. I think Harry & David sent me their first Xmas catalog last week. Anti-whine on H&D -- after 5 years they stopped sending me the list of people to whom I'd sent their stuff in the past. This is good because that list included my parents, who've been gone for 5 years now.
Congrats to Jeni!
votes for all the whining pixies today. I can't pick an award winner because they all deserve hugs and recognition.
Whine: A Conversation
Sue: Hello Square One.
Square One: Hello Sue. It's good to see you again.
Sue: Speak for yourself.
SO: What, you don't like seeing me again?
Sue: Not so much, no.
SO: But why? We can start fresh with entirely new ideas about what to do about your searing, crazy-making headaches.
Sue: Scram, you fireplacer.
SO: Look on the positive side - we have a chance to start over with all those fun tests and drug trials and withdrawl agony. I can't wait!
Sue: Look, I don't have to come back to you just because the doc suggested it. I could just forget about it and learn to live with daily pain.
SO: Ya, but what fun is that? Come on over here and I'll fill you up with false hope and unrealistic expectations.
Sue: Fireplacer.
Amy - you stole my whine!
I am also trying to win that contest without submitting an entry. I...have so many more personal details that I need to get off my chest but I just can't work up the nerve. Even here. Even being anonymous! So in summary,
whine #1 - why can't you just want to be pregnant and become it?
whine #2 - why don't I have some uber-close friend that I can share my most intimate details about my sex life, or lack there of.
Congratulations Jeni. Hugs to kathy on teh empty-nesting--that's a fair way off in my future, but I'm sure it'll be here way too soon. A vote for P_K because I'm a sucker for the "everything just sucks" whines.
My whines. Um, I didn't get to whine last week, even though I had lots and lots of great whines b/c I had to leave for Florida Tuesday evening. As I was sitting in the gate waiting to board the plane, I started chewing a piece of gum and it pulled out the temporary crown on my molar. I got back into town late Thursday night, but the dentist is closed on Friday. I already had an appt. to get the permanent crown put in first thing Monday, so I just waited. When I went in on Monday, my teeth had shifted some, which meant more work putting in the real crown. Once they finally got it in, they realized the lab had messed up and the crown didn't fit perfectly. This is the third attempt to get this crown shaped correctly. So they put in a new temporary crown. Yesterday the new temporary crown popped off. So I get to go to the dentist again today to have it put back in place. Again. And I still have to go back to get the permanent crown in. Again.
I spent the end of last week in hell (a.k.a. Florida) dealing with the horrible no-good dirty rotten fireplacing criminal and mental illness bureaucracy for my brother. It seems to have worked out in the end, and he's been perfectly happy about the whole thing--he liked being in the psychiatric hospital and he liked being in jail even more, said the food was good and he got to smoke all he wanted. So while he floated through it all happy as could be, I went through three months of absolute torture and exhaustion.
Now that he's in a better place, he's started calling me. All the time. Again. He called 5 times yesterday. I'm so done dealing with him and his crises that I can't even be particularly polite with him on the phone. Can't he just go away for at least a week or so?
Meanwhile, I'm still depressed. The drugs have helped some and I'm doing better with the self-care--working out every day, eating at least something every day even if I have to force myself to (which I often do), trying to get a decent amount of sleep (though that one is still showing only moderate improvement). I'm spending A LOT of time with the kids, both because I can and because my wife is working insane hours and will continue to do so until at least the end of November. It's great that I have been able to spend that time with them and to have so much time with each of them individually, and it has helped me to feel better, but then it's often just exhausting.
Between taking care of the kids, trying to take care of myself, taking care of the house, and trying to help my wife deal with all of the stress of her job in whatever ways I can, this sabbatical to explore being an artist has left me very little time or energy for being an artist.
I miss teaching. In part, what I miss is the fact that for a few hours every day I had to put aside all of my own bullshit and be completely and utterly focused on communicating with my students.
I'm thinking about looking for jobs as a technical writer, which would pay much better than teaching and I think I'd enjoy it at least some. But if I take a job like that, I can't see how we'll manage to take care of the kids given their schedules. I don't mind the shift to public school for Ella, so long as for a few hours after she gets home from school she gets to be with me--we spend some of that time playing and hanging out and some of it supplementing what she's doing in school (so far, none of her work in first grade is challenging her at all). I don't know that I could stand her being in this public school and then going into aftercare for the rest of the day. More to the point, I don't know if she could. I have absolutely no idea what the right thing to do is.
Congrats to Jeni. I bopped over to see the photos. He's darling.
And hugs to debangel and PK.
My whines are thankfully small this week. The new school seems very nice. There is no crying at my house. Yay.
But my daughter is resisting the cool weather that fall brings. She wants to only wear sandals and sleeveless dresses. And when pants are suggested, she has started fussing again about wearing underwear. And socks...the struggle to keep a pair of socks is monumental. The screaming hurts my ears. The kicking and throwing earn time-outs.
And yes, I've catered to her whims on socks and underwear. I just took a full brown paper bag of "bad" socks and underwear out of her drawer.)
And yes, I could let her wear the inappropriate-for-the-weather clothing in the 60 degree weather we're having but she'll spin quite the dramatic story to her teacher while she shivers (and I will be the villain).
Whine: I wish there were a solution to her clothing aversions that didn't involve shopping or catering to her ever-changing whims.
Whine: my husband, a bit addicted to online poker but -- so far as I can tell by opening the credit card bills and listening to his avowals -- only the free sites, is spending all of his time from after supper until 2 or 3 am every night referee-ing among his online poker buddies. Or should I say his female online poker buddies, because the male ones don't seem to be having problems (except for one female buddy's SO, who has decided Hubs can be IM-spammed while waiting for his girlfriend to get online.)
Hubs also has two or three projects at work all in the we-need-this-yesterday stage, so he tends to work an extra hour or two every day, and go in at least one day on the weekends.
Consequently, my husband is 1) constantly suffering from low-level sinus / allergy problems and digestive problems; 2) forgetting commitments he's made to the family, such as hauling Daughter to school early b/c the orchestra was playing the National Anthem over the P.A. on 9/11; and 3) after me to update my blog b/c that's how he knows what's going on in his own damn house and with his own damn spouse. How am I, Hubs? I'm pissed that I'm juggling three teenagers' after-school schedules by myself to the point where I have to skip my one non-family activity (two nights a month, that's all I ask) to get them all there.
AND THEN he had the unmitigated gall to be all "oh, I miss you, we're never together" last week when I had a UTI and he couldn't get laid. SOB never comes to bed before 2 am unless he knows he's going to get tumbled.
Congrats to Jeni!
And Amy, you are too funny. That is the same sort of problem I had for a year and a half.
Kabbage, I got two LLBean Christmas catalogues yesterday. Much too early. Although it was rather brisk this morning...
Whine: So tired. Nothing new or original. Just tired. Not enough hours in the day.
hugs to mrs. coulter, purple kangaroo, K, that mommy, amy, sue, diane, camera obscura, and anyone else in need of one.
super duper hugs to scrivener.
cluestick to debangel's doctor, and the catalog people who will plague us all for the next several months.
sarah, condolances on the clothing aversions; they lived in our house during the era of tiny dragons. socks had to be thin and seamless. tags had to be removed. best we could do on the pants front was leggings under dresses.
Congrats to Jeni!
Comiseration to everyone who is job searching. I am looking at huge layoffs in my company and group specifically in 2 months. I am not excited about job searching at all.
I think I am done with my Mother. She is doing miserably at parenting children that are all grown up. She is mean to me, and every email or phone call she just bitches and moans about how I'm so far away and she never talks to me. You know what Mom if you phone calls/emails only consist of things you say trying to make me feel guilty, perhaps that is the reason I don't talk to you?!
Just this morning her email was the worst, she heard about the layoffs at my company and instead of saying "oh I'm sorry you might get laid off, that must be very stresfull right now for you" she berated me for not telling her about the layoffs(I didn't tell her b/c I couldn't take the crazy, I have never gotten an ounce of support or empathy from her)then proceeded to bitch about me not calling, and how my brother doesn't talk to her and OH MY GOD, I don't care. Seriously I don't make friends with people that are mean with me, so Mom you're OUT.
Oh lord, lots of worthy whines here. Especially condolences to debangel, scriviner, and camera obscura.
Whine: my coauthor on this chapter that's due on Friday seems to have disappeared. I don't know what he thinks I'm going to do, but it's not write the chapter on Rosh Hashanah.
I'm spreading around the hugs for all the pixies that are in need of hugs.
My whine shall be short, because my brain is so tired and I'm so ouchy:
My innards are in turmoil.
Curse you, large plate of spicy fries that I ate yesterday! Also, curse you mild allergy to potatoes and my personal forgetfulness -- not realising that I'd eaten a ton of potatoes at every meal for a couple of days!
Now all I can handle eating is toast and canned peaches. And my work doesn't let up, even if my stomach gives out, and so I have a lot of work to get done today, and a meeting to attend this afternoon.
Serious whine, no poetry this week.
Gigi's birth mother died today.
R.I.P. Darlene
oh, yankee. many hugs to you and gigi, and all gigi's loving family. xoxoxoxooxxo
Oh, YT. (Hug) (Hug) (Hug)
Oh YT, I'm sorry. Hugs to you, and especially to Gigi.
Yankee, so sorry.
One big whine from here:
I have not been able to bounce back from last Friday's funeral. I am very depressed and sad. 9/11 anniversary hit me even harder because I'm already in a bad place.
Tonight first night of Rosh Hashona. I have not even thought about dinner. We have nothing good to eat besides apples and honey. House is a pig sty. Happy New Year!
Denied another car loan due to paying so much money in rent. I can't get the new car. I'm so upset. I don't even know how to tell the kids.
Congestive heart failure getting worse from stress. I can't breathe well.
Looking for a blogging job is depressing. They all go to the same small cadre of people. I'm sick of blogging being a popularity contest.
Yankee, I"m so sorry about Gigi's birthmom :(
that mommy - how awful about your friend and her mother, and yoru grandfather. :(
debangel - this is the second year in a row that I said "Fireplace it! I am buying myself one of those amazing bouquets from that stall in the farmer's market on my birthday because no one else will and I love them so!" Treat yourself.
My whine: I spent most of my time at work yesterday doing battle with the fierce Beast Excel, producing data worksheets for my boss, who called at the last moment to say she didn't have time to get to doing the ones she'd promised her collaborators. This was in preparation for writing the descriptive text to go with said data so she'd "have something to respond to in the implications section." I made charts, people! From multiple data series! With non-custom labels, legends, and tags!
Today in my email I recieve... tables. From a slightly different version of the data. Because she'd asked another person to do essentially the same thing without telling either of us.
His are obviously preferable, because he's one of the collaborators, knows which data are the most complete, and generally is the one who should have been asked to produce the data tables and the charts. (I still get to do the charts, but I have to redo them with his latest data runs).
For the folks playing at home, remember -- I have a BA in Literature. I'm pretty handy with Teh Numbers, but I was not hired to do this. And even if I had been, giving the same tasks to two people at once is Just Not Kewl.
Plus, if I'd been hired to do this, I'm pretty fireplacing sure my paycheck would reflect it.
Ack! A newspaper reporter just contacted me to ask if I'd be willing to give an interview for a story. About something I wrote in a Wednesday Whining thread at Phantom's place more than a year ago. The reporter found it through G00gle.
Ack!
Hugs to CO, PK, Margalit, Scrivener, Mrs. Coulter, Debangel, k, That Mommy, and...well everybody.
YT, hugs to you and Gigi. Extra big ones. I'm so sorry for her loss and so glad that she has you, TWBBHA, YD and OD.
Anti-whine first: I have the best bloggy friends in the world. Y'all have been so great about my unbloggable thing. Thank you, thank you!!!
Whine: Unbloggable thing is making me fall behind in school work. I need to manage my time better. And go to bed earlier. But it's hard to go to sleep when I'm all tensed up about all the things I have to do.
And next week we have a sitter 4 out of 5 weeknights as I do more unbloggable tasks. When will I get to see MM? When will he get to see me?
Votes for YT and Sue and all of those with sex-life problems.
And congrats to Jeni. Little Hosea is adorable!
On to the whining: soooo tired, but not sleeping well.
Big hugs for YT. Liz, I promise that I haven't forgotten about your unbloggable thing--I've just been sorta checked out.
Another whine, sort of in keeping with one of the themes for this week. I am an adult male in the second half of my 30s, so as of May I had a bit of extra weight in my belly. Not much, really. I mean, no one has ever in my entire life thought that I was overweight--usually they looked at me and worried that I was malnourished (and I usually was). But still, my belly had gotten a little flabby. Then the craziness hit in June, I quit eating, lost 15 pounds that I didn't really need to lose. Then in order to jump start my appetite and to get myself to sleep better and to burn off some extra energy from anger and anxiety, I began working out pretty much every day. That's gone on for 6 weeks, and I'm now doing 100-200 crunches per day. I may still feel like shit, but I'm starting to look good, getting some muscle tone and I'm just starting to get back some ab muscle definition. This is all a side benefit of my activity, but one I'll gladly take. Except my wife is so wrapped up in her stresses that she has not noticed in the slightest. The closest thing she's done to complimenting me has been to point out that a pair of jeans I was wearing last week don't look so good on me anymore because they don't fit. Gee, thanks.
Scriv, don't worry about it. Like I said in the note, you're in a stressful place and I don't want to add to it.
And hugs re: the not noticing.
(((YT))))
((((Gigi))))
No big whines from me this week. Just piddly stuff -- tired; my whole body aches; and my foot (the one I broke back in April) has randomly started hurting again. It seems that it hurts when rain is approaching. Great. I have officialy entered old age -- my joints and bones are forecasting the weather.
Just freaking peachy.
Big hugs and empathy to Kathy A. I feel your pain getting a child ready for college. To give you a picture of what it was like for us--Dancing Girl lives in one of the larger dorms, so students have to show their ID when picking up packages. DG, however, has gotten so many packages due to the things that wouldn’t fit when we flew out for move-in or were forgotten that the mail clerks don’t ask her for ID any more-- they know her by name! She is, however, having a great time. Nevertheless, she's called home fairly frequently (i.e., not quite daily), which annoys Bert, which in turn annoys me. She's half-way across the country! Most of the calls are short and routine, never more than one in a day, and they're already starting to spread out. If she's still doing this mid-semester, he might have a point. However, at only 2 weeks into the semester, I'd like to borrow the clue stick when Debangel, Camera Obscura, and Scriv are done with it.
Ongoing whine—So. Fireplacing. Tired. What made me think I could teach a 3 hour night class the day before all our big group events for my primary job are held, when it’s my turn to serve as event facilitator this semester? I was on my feet for 4 hours straight setting up, then emceeing (in heels, vain fool that I am), before hauling the detritus back to my office after it was over. I collapsed for 10 minutes, put on my sneakers to go obtain a coffee transfusion, and had 20 blessed minutes before I had to go teach again. And of course, today was the library assignment, so I was up and down the stairs in the library for the entire class period helping the students work on their assignment. Sigh.
Ongoing whine, part 2. My employer will trust me to approve and sign time sheets for paraprofessional staff, but I’m not trustworthy enough to have the right to go buy disposable cups and paper plates. I have to send my boss, because I can’t have a credit card or sign a purchase order, even for $10 worth of paper products. I’ve been here 11 years, people. If I was going to run off to Hawaii on the college’s dime, I’d have done it already.
Congrats to Jeni, and hugs to everyone else.
NUD
Update to my earlier whine: more mammogramination is required on my left breast. Apparently they want to see it in different positions? Insert ribald, mildly inappropriate remark here. Oh, and they can't get me in until the 21st unless there is a cancellation. Who the fireplace would cancel their mammogram, anyway? "Whoops, sorry there doc, it wasn't a lump on mah boobie after all, it was an infected ingrown hair. My bad."
Ooh, I just improved my chances for that Elevated Risk of Mullet award, didn't I?
Stoopid lump still hurts, too! What the fireplace is going on?
((hugs)) to everyone, just not on the left side!
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