My whine for this week is from last night: I got deputized to give a talk for my boss at the last minute. He hadn't planned anything because he didn't get pointers from the event organizer. I stressed a bunch last night and threw something together and it was fine. Had a nice day today with some nice folks. They appreciated what I had to tell them.
And hey! My MIL just called to tell me two cousins in NYC have Swine Flu! But they seem to be OK, mild cases, so I guess it could have been worse.
What about you? In family dinner style, what's one thing that could have been better this week and one thing that could have been worse?
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Oh my goodness Madeleine, I hope your cousins are okay. Scary stuff this flu...
Whine: Fireplacing insurance companies. I'll not bore you with details, but honestly, how do these fireplacers sleep at night?
Anti-whine: Really good therapy session today despite the profound jet-lag of my therapist. She really is wonderful.
Whine: I'm SO not ready for full-time work yet, but I'm desperate to get the fireplacing insurance b*tch who is my case worker off my back that I might just have to do it anyway.
Anti-whine: I have a job.
Whine: Tomorrow - breakfast meeting 7:00 am. FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY WHEN WILL THESE STUPID MEETINGS STOP????
I shall say no more.
JF is convinced that he has swine flu, too. Of course, he SAYS he's kidding, but still.
I have a child in my classroom whom I am fairly sure has oppositional defiance, and if NOT the actual diagnosable disorder, a darn good approximation thereof. Mama is not doing anything to make the situation better, and things won't change until Mom revamps HER attitude. We've been having problems all year with the child, and they've only gotten worse. And Mama's hands-off solution has yet to work. Imagine that!
The kicker of it is that now we've ANOTHER student who sees how much attention the first kid is getting, and has decided that they want in on that action, and has started with the oppositional defiance. School's been a right JOY these last few weeks.
The extra double kicker of it is that one of these children is in my Scout troop, and it's obvious that she's getting very little of the whole "respect authority" and "be a sister to every Girl Scout" tenets of the program. She actually called me a "fat mfer" the other day. Good Girl Scout behavior! I had to tell her mother that she couldn't stay for our meeting that day.
Lovely.
Stop the ride, please! I want to get off!
Yikes, Madeleine. Hope your cousins recover soon and fully.
Big Whine: my mother is planning on returning to NYC next week if she hasn't had a transplant yet. This is so *&()*& shortsighted and stupid that I can't see straight. I'm terrified that she's going to die because she doesn't like sitting in a hotel room.
Little Whine: I went to go take a hot bath to try to relax and we have no hot water. I'm waiting to see if we still don't have it in the morning before I freak out, but still.
It could be worse: I could have swine flu.
Anti-whine: we've had some really lovely weather, and I went to the wedding of an old friend over the weekend.
Oh, and good thing/bad thing?
For me, the good thing is that there are only about 32 days left of school.
The bad thing is that there are still about 32 days of school. I hope I make it.
But, best of all -- things could be even worse -- Bush still could be president!
Whine that is probably more important than the attention I am devoting to it: Our metro area is one in which schools have been closed due to the swine flu. Also, we are near, relatively speaking, to, you know, Mexico.
Whine of Mixed Blessings: Mom and grandma were here for a week helping pack and entertaining the Sweet Baboo. She was *incredibly* cute with them and had loads of fun. The withdrawal is proportionately dreadful today. And I am grateful for the help and simultaneously grateful to have my house to myself tonight. Aaah.
Fertility whine: pregnancy test is Thursday, which cannot get here soon enough. Which gods was it that determined that early pregnancy symptoms would be identical to PMS symptoms? Not funny. If it's negative, we'll likely be skipping the next couple of months due to scheduling conflicts. Inasmuch as my cycle is *snort* predictable.
Could have been better? my packing attitude
Could have been worse? I guess I could be tireder...
Sheesh. Gloomy whines.
glad the talk went well, madeleine! hope the cousins are well soon, too.
sue, so sorry about the fireplacing insurers. cluesticks, i say!
klee, that is so upsetting about the kids in your class.
((( elizabeth )))
I miss having (or making) time to blog more often. And the bloggy friends.
But I do enjoy Facebook.
PK, great to see your smiling face :-) As long as you are getting to hang out somewhere, it's good.
Thanks everyone for the good wishes for my cousins. My MIL didn't sound too alarmed so I'm choosing not to be, either. On that front, anyway. I live in the Canadian city most likely to have a pandemic due to huge international flux, so, you know. But this time they've stocked up on gloves, masks, and hand sanitizer at all the hospitals.
Elizabeth, I'm so sorry your mom is putting you through so much worrying. I hope your hot water miraculously returned.
esperanza, crossing fingers that you are able to stay away from germs and that you make it to Thursday with sanity intact. And maybe something else, too. Pixie dust? Does that work on embryos?
KLee, that is so distressing. I don't know if the Mama needs a cluestick, but your gentle nudges aren't getting you anywhere. Good for you taking a stand against being sworn at during GSs.
Hugs to Elizabeth, I hope your mom decides to stay put.
KLee, it must be so frustrating to have a mom endorsing her kid's bad behavior.
Esperanza, I hope you all stay healthy.
Madeleine, I'm sending anti-viral thoughts to your cousins.
Dark side/bright side
Dark side: The inn my sister and I booked for this coming weekend away with my father went out of business.
Bright side: I was worried I hadn't gotten my confirmation pkg from them and called Monday and got the "this number is out of service message". Imagine if I hadn't called?
Bright side: reviews of the inn in September were glowing. Reviews from the last few months were rotten, so we avoided an awful experience through them being closed
Dark side: PANIC!!! What will we DOOOO?
Bright side: Got reservations at another inn. Got a good deal, too.
Moral of the story: Always call and confirm the week of.
whine: Allergy season. Primo (age 9) is the 5th generation in my family to get awful eye allergies in spring. He woke up with his eyes glued shut with allergy excretions this morning and I had to melt them open with hot washcloths (trick my mom taught me at his age).
Antiwhine of sorts: Under the goop binding his lashes together, his eyes were much less red this morning than they were yesterday. Medicine is helping!
Whine: Most years, this eye thing gets me a call from the nurse to have my child checked for pinkeye. Given the likelihood of increased nursing vigilance this year because of Influenza Concerns, I'm worried that either the eyes or the allergy snorking and coughing will get him sent home from school.
hi, PK!
((( esperanza )))
liz, glad that worked out!
sara, hope the boy continues to do better. i used to send notes to school explaining my son's allergies during the season.
antiwhine: several good things fell together in the work arena yesterday!
whine: i'm still hopelessly behind on one thing.
antiwhine: going to Moms' Weekend at the U on friday!
stupid little FB whine: someone i know from a support group just joined FB. she is very straightforward, and i'm worried she might start posting on the personal stuff that i don't talk about there. [it would be lousy if she said something about my sister difficulties, for example, since 2 of them plus other relatives are on FB.] will send her a little explanatory email, i guess.
Good thing: Hosea's been extra super cute and snuggly this week, and much less Screamy McScreamerson.
Bad thing: Exam week. Tired. Brain is so full of ridiculous vet facts ("and during your rectal exam, the kidney feels like...") that I can't remember my name, address, or how to tie my shoes.
Where do I go to turn in my resignation for this Mommy job???? My 8yo is driving. me. crazy.
Whine: I'm still at work. Another 25 minutes and that will make it an 11 hour day. And my in-laws are coming for dinner. In half and hour. I'm soooooo freaking tired.
Anti-whine: Hubby just called. All is ready for dinner. I just have to sit down and eat. Ah, but can I stay awake? That, my friends, is the question.
Sue, GO HOME!!
Argh. Fertility Whine of Insult to Injury. Even though my period has decided to come early (ha ha, aren't you funny), I STILL have to go in tomorrow to get the blood test to confirm that, indeed, I am not pregnant. Annnd...the, uh, "critical" time for next month would be the exact same time I was planning to go visit family for niece's first birthday. Skip a month? Or postpone trip? Argh.
I am sympathetic to other pixie whines, really, just in too grumpy of a mood to comment upon them.
oh, esperanza. that suckity suck sucks. xoxoxo
My latest Facebook status update says it for me:
Redzils is a victim of her craigslist success. I'm sitting cross legged on the floor, keyboard in lap, since I've now sold (or "sold") most of my furnishings. The only furniture left in my apartment is one chair (not for sale), a kitchen cart (same), and my bed (FOR SALE). The cat is appalled, and I am glad I don't mind sitting on the floor.
And I dont, but sitting cross-legged on a hardwood floor to work means your feet fall asleep REALLY FAST.
Sympathy for all the pixies. esperanza, what lousy timing!
Requiem for Redzils:
three weeks on hardwood
the cat, so unforgiving
but her stuff all sold.
ooooooo...kathy a for style points, definitely.
So sorry esperanza.
Got home by six. In-laws left by 8:00. Now - bed. Tomorrow's another long day. Where is my massage therapist when I need her?
I hope you had a nice dinner by now, Sue. And no breakfast meetings for a while.
And Redzils - I hope moving is easier with so much less stuff. But oh my.
Could have been better: we took a nice trip with the extended pseudo family - my husband's best friend from childhood, and his wife and kids, and his mom, stepdad, dad, and stepmom. And my son threw up in their car on the ride. And when we got to the resort, he slept for 3 hours, woke up for an hour and slept another 5 hours, then woke up for an hour and then slept through the night. And I let him swim at the hotel pool when he did wake up because he had been so excited about going. And I feel vaguely guilty about that even if I think it is allergies filling his sinuses and then causing drainage that led to the vomit. But I am sort of defensive about this, because for all I really know, it might have been a new illness.
Could have been worse: 1st-I had some wi-fi time while he slept and read a lot about swine flu. And despite joking about it, I don't think he had the flu of any type. I hope.
2nd- there really weren't any whines to having both sets of parents there, much to my surprise. But then again, they are my pseudo in-laws.
anti-whine: It sounds horrible, but it is awfully freeing to not have (living) in-laws. Much less divorced and remarried ones.
Only good thing this week: We do not have the swine flu. And we are horribly sick of hearing about the swine flu. It's a freaking flu. Get over it.
New blog is up and running. If you want to read it, email me at margalitc@yahoo.com with your name, and your Wednesday Whining nickname.
Now for the really crappy news. My son, the brilliant but lazy child with absolutely no executive functioning? The one that was going to graduate in early June? And then go to college in the fall. That one? Decided that it was just too hard to go to his English class and so he failed the term. He also failed the first term for the same reason. Teacher required actual WORK and my kid has no clue of how to do work. So essentially he failed English for the year, meaning that he cannot graduate. We found this out last night. I'm in total panic mode.
So I didn't send the college the deposit that is due on May 1. I'm looking into him doing a theraputic outward bound type program which he says he will not do, but he desperately needs something like this.
He'll repeat his senior year with English, the math class he refused to take this past year, and his 3rd year of Latin. Three damn classes and if he does not graduate next year I'm going to start building am electric chair right now.
Meanwhile daughter's boyfriend is a bigger leach than usual and will not leave her alone.
And to top off my week, someone stole my camera that my daughter brought to a social gathering at a friend's house. MY camera. The one I use all the time for my blogging. That I have no cash to replace.
How furious am I? LIVID.
My back still hurts, the freaking cat is still peeing on the dining room floor even though he spends almost all day outside, and my asshole landlord dumped three huge piles of dirt right on my perennial garden.
My life is kinda sucking right now.
Elizabeth, I missed what kind of transplant your mom is waiting for, but my mom did/said some kinda wierd things when she was waiting for her transplant. I think the toxins and other physical effects of the failing organs (kidneys), combined with the stress and all, did strange things to her body/brain/emotional chemistry. It got much better after the transplant, but we were pretty worried about her for a while there.
((Hugs)) to you and your mom.
More hugs and votes to everyone, and cluesticks to those who need them.
And *waving* and hi to everyone!
Klee, I keep thinking of things I would have liked to do/say in response to that "girl scout", if I'd been there. Argh.
Sorry I'm late... hugs to everyone. So, ear-tube day was last week Thursday. Wednesday night I talked to the anesthesiologist (aka Dr.A) and told him about a potentially fatal complication one of my cousin's had during a surgery long ago. Dr. A seemed unfazed. Fast forward to the next morning, after hours of refusing baby boy's requests for milk and food (poor baby, signing for milk and crying because he didn't understand). We are at the hospital, checked in and ready for surgery, and Dr. A comes in to say he won't do it. He's not ready. That complication runs in families and the adjustment needed for a baby is too much for him to do on short notice.
Apparently that wasn't something he could have thought of ahead of time. Like the night before, when I told him about it. Grrr.
Now we need a new Dr. A. And potentially a new ENT doc, because if a new Dr. A. at Dr. ENT's hospital is too hard to find, we will to go the children's hospital and start over with a new doctor. Yucky.
JenR, if you'd bopped him over the head with his own oxygen tank, there isn't a jury in the world that would convict you.
(((Jen R))) That's just a lousy rotten thing for him to do. Surgeons are such fireplacing divas.
oh, jenr. how frustrating!
by way of a silver lining, i think it's a good thing when doctors can give a problem some thought and conclude that no, they are not superhuman and do not necessarily have every answer at their fingertips. [the doctors i really hate are the ones who brush aside all patient questions and concerns.]
better safe than sorry, but sure would have been nice if he'd come to that realization the night before.
To be fair, I would rather have him bail out than do something he wasn't confident about. But he should have known the night before that he didn't want to do it so that we wouldn't have had to put our baby through all the prep.
kathy a. - you must have posted just as I was! thanks :-)
JenR, BOOOOOO for all that unnecessary surgery prep for the babe. BOOOOOO.
Sara, after unsticking my kiddo's red swollen gunky eyes (with a cold washcloth - I'll take your tip and use a warm one next time), I called our allergist, who immediately prescribed eyedrops (pata-something). Just a thought - they definitely seemed to help.
margalit -- you must just be beside yourself about your son. many sympathies. my brilliant lovely son went through a really bad patch at 15-16, and it was just awful. impossible to negotiate on our own.
after trying everything we could think of, we ended up consulting an educational therapist. that was expensive, but i wonder if any might agree to a free or low-cost consultation? they are the ones who know which programs are good and which address the needs of your kid -- and some of the programs have scholarship options, etc.
you can still do something before they are 18. even my son says he gained a lot from the therapeutic programs we sent him to, although initially he was VERY angry. it's 5 years later now, and he is doing pretty well on his own. and we get along well, too.
xoxo
Crap! I missed Wednesday!
I'll see if I can squeak in here anyway...
Could have been worse: I could have had a week where I reeeeeeally needed to whine on Wednesday.
Could have been been better: I am being nibbled to death by students, I mean, ducks. Also, last night was the final class of the semester (for my night class), the one where I collect their longest paper of the semester and administer an in-class writing, and when I got to campus, I was greeted by a memo saying that final grades MUST be entered within 48 hours of our last meeting. But the truth is, the grading doesn't close until 50 hours after the last class of the semester, which will be next Wednesday at 11:45 p.m. Can you guess when I'll be entering grades? Shall I simply say "See you here at the Whine next week?"?
margalit - I have no words, other than I'm sorry. Also, can we get a cluestick posse out to help with that pile of dirt? and maybe also with the cat who should know better?
p.s. genevieve! I got the URL you left me in the comments last awards ceremony. I LOLed! and then I thought, "well, at least my mom's all right. we won't have that problem." and then? my ex-step-dad sent me a friend request, and I LOLed harder. now i get why that website exists.
I'm glad everyone got their late whines in.
Awards in progress now . . .
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