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Tuesday, January 27, 2009

WW: Spoils of Pseudonymity Edition

OMIGOD! I just saw the funniest line in a serious blog post. Indicates that a noted radical feminist blogger is, like, aware of the work my little department does. Would be so totally cool to forward to my peeps.

[Go to "I blame the patriarchy dot com" and look for the bad news. Keeping reading through waffles, global warming, and bad ancient sitcoms and check out the last line. Ha!]

But to do so would indicate to my work buddies that I am a habitual reader of said blog. Which isn't a bad thing, really. We have a hip media-oriented workplace. But still. Out myself as a blog habitue to the boss? Even if she'd luv to see the post?

Pixies, what to do? And what else to whine about?

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

What if you played the old "My friend has this thing..."? Like, "A friend saw this and thought of me, and I thought I'd pass it along"?

It's such a cop out, but hey.

Sue said...

Awesome Madeleine! You completely rock the cat box (as a bloggy buddy of mine would say).

Whine: The second child of a young couple in our church was stillborn yesterday. They had to break the Mom's tailbone to get the baby out. I think it was one of those situations where the baby was too far down the birth canal to rescue him by c/s and the cord was around his wee neck. It's just so heartbreaking.

Whine: I couldn't go see them in the hospital because of my limited duties/hours agreement with the church and the insurance folk. The church has hired someone (a retired hospital chaplain) to do our visiting, so he went. He's wonderful and has dealth with these horrible circumstances before, so I was glad it was him. But I felt so useless.

Anti-whine: Next week I'm up to 30 hours per week (as long as the doc gives the green light on that) so I'll go see them then.

Whine: I may or may not be asked to do the memorial service for the baby. I know I can do it, but damn, it's just so sad. On the other hand, when it STOPS breaking my heart - that's when I walk away from ministry and take a job at the local library.

Gloomy whine I know, but it is what it is.

Anonymous said...

This is a banner anti-whine week for me:

I PASSED MY DISSERTATION DEFENSE. And it was fun. So, now I am Doktor Redzils, Phud.

I've taken the week off to celebrate with my mom, who is visiting, so am having a great time and doing no work.

I have a job interview at a University an hour and a half from where the boyfriend lives, via phone on Friday.

And, we managed to get out of Footballsburg ahead of the ice storm, so are hanging out in DC doing fun stuff.

Hurray.

Madeleine said...

Amy, thanks for the suggestion -- the proverbial "friend" may do the trick.

Sue, that is heartbreaking. I'm glad you will be able to be there for them, next week and in the future. They will need loving care for a long time to come.

REDZILS! Doktor Redzils, I mean. Well. Great big smiles! And I'm glad you are having a fun week of fun in teh city. And good luck on Friday!

kathy a. said...

madeleine -- isn't your list of bookmarked sites a friend indeed?

((( sue ))) how awful. my heart goes out to that family. please don't think you are useless; they are going to need your loving care for a long time.

WOOO HOOO, DR. REDZILS! doing the happy dance.

Anonymous said...

I am full of petty whines, but I will only treat you all to the top three bugging me at this moment.

First, a MIL whine. She has made it clear since the tot was a baby (she's 4.5 now) that she will not come over to visit unless everyone is the picture of health. That worked when the tot was small because, by pure luck, the tot didn't catch a single virus until she was 11 months old, so my MIL was over for a visit almost every week.

But now the tot is in preschool and colds? Well, colds are the norm and doting preschool-aged big sisters tend to infect their baby brothers. So, ten days ago, my MIL called and asked if she could come over to visit. We gladly said yes, but two days later had to cancel because the tot had a cold.

My MIL said, "Why don't we postpone until next week?" My husband and I said that was a good idea, knowing what a cold-o-phobe she is. So, today would be that one-week-later date, and I asked my husband to call his mother and tell her that the baby is still coughing - did she want to come over or pick another day? Her response: "Oh, I didn't know we had plans."

WTF?
Also - WTF is it with grandmas and guilt? Both my mom and my MIL go on and on about how terrible it is that they never get to see their grandbabies, but when they have a chance, where are they? It's been a month since Christmas, and neither have been over to visit, all by their choice. (The cold has only been here for the last week.)

Are they trying to make me teh Crazy? Because it's working.

Next, why does the tot have to be physically touching me when I am nursing the baby or pumping? OMG. Have you ever seen a jungle gym with a milk fountain? No? Then you have not seen me feeding the baby.

Last, I need more Pet Society-playing Facebook friends. The tot has discovered my Pet and if she sees I'm playing with it, she makes me go visit all four of my friends over and over and over. I'm sure they are tired of seeing "amy's pet Buddy just gave your pet a great big hug! Click here to see how much fun they had!" in their Notifications. They're going to evict me from Pet Town.

Anti-whine: Even though I'll have to drive through a snowstorm to get to class tonight, it's Peer Group night, so the class prep that isn't done yet is minor and can be done while eating MnMs.

kathy a. said...

AW: my work productivity has sucked for some time now, but i think i'm getting back on a roll!

W: daughter has wanted for years to spend a year abroad in japan. the program she wants is now rather iffy because of grades. the app. is due monday. last night she called in a panic because she *just* realized she needs 2 faculty recs, plus has to write 3 essays.

AW: she developed a plan -- is writing the heck out of the essays, seeing her japanese teacher and advisor today. the law of natural consequences will probably work as it usually does, but [a] she'll learn she can work under pressure, [b] she'll read the instructions next time, and [c] pay more attention to the grades in the future.

we have a no-nag policy for adult children, but my beloved is broken-hearted that she's learning the hard way on something that has been her biggest dream.

kathy a. said...

nominate amy for elevated risk of mullet, for "Have you ever seen a jungle gym with a milk fountain?"

also, much sympathy on the grandma guilt and associated crazies.

Madeleine said...

Amy, that is a caboodle of good whines. And one excellent anti-whine.

kathy a., I am wishing your daughter much luck with her application. As the wife of a rec-writing faculty person, my advice is: be polite, admit she made the deadline mistake, and then DON'T NAG. My Love was repeatedly nagged recently by a student who had given him very little warning on a deadline and, boy, was he pissed.

Sue said...

Amy gets votes for sheer volume of whines this week. Holy moly.

Yay Dr. Redzils!!!!

kathy a. - it's so hard to watch our adult children learn things the hard way, isn't it?

kathy a. said...

madeleine, my daughter would never nag a faculty person! she is fairly shy, reserving the displays of angst for parents only. and she knows this is her mess-up.

privately, pixies, i'd be pretty relieved if she doesn't get into this program. i worry about her readiness to be so far away, for so long [although i've been biting my tongue]. there are other programs she can apply for -- shorter times, different universities. it's not the end of the world.

esperanza said...

Hugs to Sue. And sympathy to the jungle-gym Amy. That would be one of the reasons I quit--the Sweet Baboo thought it was great fun to climb/hang on to me while I was attached to the pump. And congrats!!!! to Redzils. What great news.

On to whining...I seriously need to get busy working this week. I'm going to a conference tomorrow and Friday, so need to have the sermon done by...well...today. Like now would be when I should be working, because it is naptime. But I have no good ideas, nor bad ideas, and I just can't get motivated. Blech.

Liz Miller said...

Woo-hoo Redzils!!!

Sue, hugs and sympathy for the family.

Amy is definitely the winner of the Mullet. And, Amy? Tell your mom and MIL that if they wanna visit, they gotta get off the pot.

Madeleine, that is a way cool thing you do there! Would you like to have me or one of the other pixies send you an email you can show your boss for versimilitude?

Whine: Snow day with added ice, so snowball fighting is out.

Sue said...

Okay, so just when I thought the week could not get any worse, I had the longest meeting in history ALL afternoon. Argh.

Then, because I had JUST enough time to get to yoga class after said meeting, I foolishly thought "The yoga will help me relax after this stressful day".

Remember Lycra Yoga Pants Guy?

Do I even dare to say it?

THONG.

I rest my case.

Someone shoot me. Now.

esperanza said...

Sue, just stop. Ew. Yuck. Blech. I can't even type enough comments about that. You win something big. That's just so wrong. And to top off your last couple of days, just not fair. Something is wrong in the universe.

KLee said...

I just barely remembered that today was Wednesday!

Congrats to Doktor Redzils! You class up the joint! :) We can drop "Well, my DOCTOR friend said..." into conversation now!

Sue -- Bleargh! Someone pass the bottle of eyeball bleach to Sue stat! And, so sorry about the family and their baby. It is such a heartrending thing to happen to them. They have our love and sympathy.

I have a whine/antiwhine twofer today: I was asked by the local muckety-mucks to start a Girl Scout troop at my school. I let myself get roped back in, and our first meeting is tomorrow.

The upside is that I have kindergarteners and first graders who are lots of fun, and I will get a mostly new crop of girls every two years, and then they move on. The moving up will GREATLY cut down on the unhelpful parents.

Having had a troop before, I know lots better this time around what to and NOT to put up with from parents. One of my closest friends is going to be my co-leader, so that's a great help right there.

The downside is that I will have a LOT to do again -- it's a LOT of work, and a LOT of meetings and trainings -- so I will probably be cutting back on the crafting. Which kills me a little inside. Wah!

For everyone else, I offer you this video my husband found for me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwbeddZ9aKI&feature=channel_page

It accurately depicts just about every forum I've ever been on....

Anonymous said...

Sue, I am so so sorry about that family. Thinking of them. And thinking of you comforting them in the near future.

Dr. Redzils, many many many congrats.

Liz Miller said...

Sue, that is just VILE.

And KLee, I know that it'll go much better this time around. (BTW, did I tell you that one of MM's friends has an older sister with exactly the same first name as your daughter? Same spelling and everything.

Sue said...

Eyeball bleach at the ready KLee...

I forgot to mention that he placed his mat NEXT TO MINE when we started class.

Could this day have been any worse? Oh, I don't think so..... *shudders*

The grief, the worship committee meeting of doom (I don't think it took that long to write the terms of the Geneva Convention)and then the super-enhanced view of Thong Man.

I need a drink. Or something.

esperanza said...

I tremble to even write this. I've been watching the peanut butter thing on the news. And I ordered my Girl Scout cookies already. Whine: now I am VERY worried that I will not be able to eat my peanut-y GS cookies. I do not like Thin Mints. I like those peanut sandwich kind. Please, pixies, tell me they are safe.

And I've got to quit coming back and reading about thong man.

kathy a. said...

sue -- isn't there a dress code or something in yoga class? such as, you *must not* wear stuff that makes your classmates want to peel their eyes out, because dude, we don't *want* to know you that well; and also, you're tromping on karma 'n shit here, and we're in yoga because we DON'T NEED THAT.

ahem. yoga dude's big brother taught a massage class i once took, for an extremely very brief time. i'm not in favor of torture, you understand, but i don't think throwing him out on his ass would probably hurt him much. even at 30 below; in fact, that would be ideal. it would be for the greater good.

Sue said...

kathy a - I couldn't agree more. After all, it's for the greater good.

kathy a. said...

klee -- i think you'll have a blast with the little girls! and who says you have to give up crafts? ;)

kathy a. said...

esperanza -- it appears the GS cookies are safe!! http://chatham.mync.com/site/Chatham/news/story/24990/girl-scout-cookies-not-affected-by-peanut-butter-warning/

i have no current suppliers, so i'll have to watch for girls at the supermarket to score my supply of thin mints.

Unknown said...

Sue, time to slip a pair of nice white boxers into Thong Man's gym bag with a note threatening to hand him a cluestick if he ever wears yoga pants or a thong again. Because thongs on men? NASTY.

Congrats Dr Redzils. I am happy you are joining the ranks of Doktors that cannot practice medicine and know nothing about dentistry. Like me!

Sue, so sorry about your church family. That is just a horrid situation all around.

So, let's talk about me for a change, sisters.

Our driveway is now a hockey rink. It is impossible to get up or down it. My daughter's boss took her home tonight because I'm stuck here, and he got stuck on the driveway for almost an hour. Wasted an entire bag of kitty litter on the guy. Sigh.

Of course this means that once again, I'm stuck inside for days and days until there is a melt. That will be sometime in May, if I had to bet.

Son overflowed tub which leaked down into kitchen and now we have a nice damp peeling spot on the ceiling. It's lovely and matches all the other peeling spots on my ceilings.

Kids had a snow day today which ruined MY day. Why are they so needy? Aren't teens supposed to spend all day sulking in their rooms?

Computer is on the fast track to a slow death. It reboots itself up to 10 times a day...just because!

And that's a wrap!

KLee said...

Esperanza -- we have been give press releases from BOTH bakers that the Girl Scouts use that our peanut butter supply is safe.

http://www.abcsmartcookies.com/cookies.asp

and

http://www.littlebrownie.com/

Both have updates on their websites that our peanut butter is safe, so eat your cookies with no worry!

Hope that helps you feel better about it all.