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Sunday, April 18, 2010

Magical Mystery Whine

Hey, I'm feeling realllllly whiney today. I'll host.

I'll share this morning's tale of woe later but first I need to go wash some Big Grapes. Because they taste better than the regular-sized ones that are already washed.

53 comments:

kathy a. said...

Madeleine! Our hero! Looking forward to hearing the tale of woe, and the story about Big Grapes.

Sarah at ratatat said...

Yay Madeleine!

AW: The big event we had at my part-time job was this weekend. The event went well. People were happy. We had terrific attendance. Great feedback. I think I really like event planning.

Whine: in the whiniest sense, I am living the paradox of really liking these people and having such different beliefs religiously, politically, socially...and I fear we will soon bump up against the limits of their tolerance for my quiet non-compliance. Sigh. Or my ability to stay quiet when faced with ideas I would generally decry as hateful in other contexts of my life.

whine2: It took a while, but I am getting better at staying quiet.

whine3: I really liked event planning. But the busy husband and 3 kids don't seem like an ideal situation to look into a career that would make me gone all the time. My kids really didn't like having me gone all weekend.

Anti-whine: they missed me :)

Emily said...

We also have grape related whinage. I was informed that the grapes which have fallen off the stems are "reject grapes" and can't be eaten. It's only acceptable to pick the ones off the stem (and leave the stems behind, in the bowl of course!).

I'd be a little less skeptical of this claim if these "reject grapes" hadn't been eaten in the very recent past. (like in the bag of grapes I bought last week)

I ate the reject grapes--they were fine. But sometimes,I long for the days when the good grapes were mine!

Emily said...

We also have grape related whinage. I was informed that the grapes which have fallen off the stems are "reject grapes" and can't be eaten. It's only acceptable to pick the ones off the stem (and leave the stems behind, in the bowl of course!).

I'd be a little less skeptical of this claim if these "reject grapes" hadn't been eaten in the very recent past. (like in the bag of grapes I bought last week)

I ate the reject grapes--they were fine. But sometimes,I long for the days when the good grapes were mine!

Sarah at ratatat said...

reject grapes! Ha, before I was the mom, I think I agreed at least if the rejects are a little more brown. But as the mom, I've been known to pop them all off the stem so they can't tell.

kathy a. said...

sarah, glad the event went well! hearing the whine about tongue-biting.

emily for old skool! always having to eat the reject food is one of those aspects of parenthood that nobody warns you about in advance. (bonus fun with picky eaters!)

W: still buried in the piles of reading for a deadline, despite working all weekend. am i fun, or what?

AW: this gave me a great excuse to reschedule the dreaded "deep cleaning" at the dentist.

esperanza said...

I'll join in a tongue-biting whine.

And: teh tummy is icky. My usual treatment is simply not eating. However, the milk production doesn't go so well with that plan. Ick.

Just in time for another whine: I am certifiable, and have decided to drive across the state (really--seven hours and still in this state) to see my brother. Both Baboos with me, Mr E has to stay home and work. We leave on Wednesday, so you'll just have to hear my whining about it in your heads. Hopefully, tummy ick is (1) gone by then and (2) not contagious.

esperanza said...

And, this not my whine, but it's making me whiny: a good friend is being treated like crap in every way possible by her soon-to-be-ex-husband. Her heart is broken. He needs some cluesticking for sure.

Madeleine said...

I'm so pleased to have unleashed a flood of grape w(h)ine!

My sunday morning whine was that I rushed around to get back to synagogue a mere hour and a half after I had dropped SG off because there was a Grade 4 family event scheduled. (Sunday morning is usually 2.5 hours of quiet grownup time.) And it turns out the event is next week, not this week. I drove back home (30 minutes round trip) and had a tantrum. There was swearing, ranting, and crying.

As always, there is plenty of blame to go around. Yes, the weekly email newsletter listed the event with the correct date. BUT in my defense, it had originally been scheduled for this week, and I entered all the official events into my digital calendar at the beginning of the year. So I KNEW I had an event to go to, and I only looked in the newsletter for the time. I didn't notice the date. And the newsletter mostly focuses on this week's events, and they didn't bother to put a little note, like "This event has been rescheduled -- the new date is..." But I was the only person wandering around looking confused, so I guess I'm the idiot.

AW: As part of my tantrum, I informed My Love that he is in charge of synagogue family events next year. (There are about 7 from September to May.) Because I am sick of keeping track of 3 different schedules and being in charge of everything and being all organized and having it bite me in teh ass anyway. And when it was time to drive another 30 minute round trip to pick SG up, he went. Score!

I'm serious about making him do it next year, and maybe all the sunday driving, too. I do it all without discussion right now and I'm sick of it. And he's on sabbatical next year and shouldn't need to work 7 days a week.

Then at bedtime SG had a tantrum that she admitted wasn't actually about her virtual pet but was because she was tired. And it hit me -- when she and I are both PMSing at once things are going to be pretttty touchy around here. She'll be 10 this summer. Could be any time now. Gulp.

Today, on the other hand, has been lovely. I have the day off because my job is in the state that celebrates Running Really Far Day (aka The Shot Heard 'Round the World Day). And no one in this city is off (except the people who are always off) so there was a minimal wait to get my winter tires removed, and I had a lovely time knitting and reading in a cafe while I waited.

I like Sarah's trick for camouflaging the reject grapes.

Sending tummy-better wishes to esperanza. Don't make us put you on an IV! Are you trying the BRAT diet?

Sue said...

cyber-head-pats and hugs to all the early whines at the pixie ball. Thanks to Madeleine for hosting!

Too tie-tie here to post much.

Anti-Whine: The weekend workshop was so worth the trip! It was awesome, but I got very little rest as I was prepping for today's funeral all weekend.

Whine: Great funeral, lots of good eulogies - CRAPPY sound system at Other Church (the ones we're talking amalgamation with but are now at an impasse over property). What good are thoughtful, beautiful memories if only half of the five hundred mourners can hear them???? CRAP.

Never. Again.

After today - big funerals go the Big Church Down the Hill. Where they have a good sound system AND an elevator.

Extra Terrible Whine: One of our parishioners who has a prosthetic leg fell down the stairs on the way to the reception. She's okay tonight (I just spoke with her) but still - totally unacceptable.

Me: Sooooooooooooooooooooo sleepy.

# of hours worked during my week "off" = 52.

~le sigh~

kathy a. said...

oh, esperanza! is that a 7-hour trip on average, or your estimate with baboo-stops? either way, heck of a long drive. but, baboos of all ages eventually fall asleep in the car.

madeleine -- delegate! you must! before teh dueling PMS strikes!

sue, glad the service went well, despite the sound glitches. awful about your parishioner falling... go get some rest.

AW: the bras in shipment #2 aren't quite right, but will work. W: need to send shipment #1 back, with some better guesses on sizing. after my stupid deadline thing gets done.

esperanza said...

Glad you went to the workshop, Sue, but sorry for the lack of rest.

Tummy: I don't feel that bad, just every once in a while. And I'm still feeling hungry, which I generally don't if I have a virus. Beats me. No IVs, thanks. It's Bananas, rice, applesauce and...toast? tea? what?

Trip: 7 hours according to google maps--it's a big state. Someone should invent maps.withbaboos.google.com

kathy a. said...

toast -- you need carbs. which reminds me, pack car crackers for the long ride!

Sarah at ratatat said...

Sue, what a tough funeral. Glad you have a plan for the future. That at least makes me feel better.

Esperanza - ooh, stomach woes. Good luck. I know BRAT is the standard way, but I'll admit sometimes when my stomach is iffy, sugar (like all sugar candy) just gets me back into swing. And I thought that was goofy until I was pregnant and had the anti-nausea shews my doctor recommended. All fructose.

Madeleine - oh that would make me so mad. the schedule changes that are just listed, and not announced.

Whine: grumpy at my husband for not watching his time. A chronic problem. And in my deepest darkest meanest heart I think if I don't bug him about it some of the time, the problem will get worse exponentially.

esperanza said...

AW: Mini laughed tonight, repeatedly, like giggled! It is soooo cute. I continue to be amazed to have a child who develops early/on time and who grows quickly. Wow.

JenR said...

Aunt Flo is visiting and aside from the usual grumpiness, I am sad because I was hoping she would be taking an extended 10-month break.

Also mad at myself because we waited two whole years after the little guy was born and now I feel like that was too long.

esperanza said...

oh JenR, that stinks.

Madeleine said...

{{{{JenR}}}}

Sending virtual chocolate and alcoholic beverages of your choice.

esperanza, I love your map idea. They already have walking/biking/driving choices. A few more are needed:
Driving with children (extra stops)
Driving with college roommates you haven't seen in years (U turns due to missed exits)
Walking with toddlers (stops for every crack in teh sidewalk)
Walking with preschoolers (stops for flowers, scary dogs, cute dogs, newfallen snow, crackly ice over puddles)
and so on.

Sue said...

Love the map too - Madeleine, those are great! Good idea esperanza.

Sorry JenR - that's harsh.

I think I want a CD of baby giggles to play in my office when I feel the need to scream at the absurdity of the day - meaning of course, pretty much any day.

esperanza said...

ooh--do we have the marketing ideas this week!

I might just be able to hook you up, Sue. The memory of the giggling got me through the like-a-newborn schedule last night. All the sudden she needs to eat twice in the middle of the night??? Now that it's noon, she's sleeping like the proverbial baby.

Madeleine said...

esperanza, call it a growth spurt so you can pretend there's a silver lining.

Days said...

Please pass the reject grapes. I am a bit peckish and usually the only grapes I get are the ones I manage to hoard before my kids spot them and devour them like a pack of rabid monkeys.

Madeleine: You have articulated one of my greatest parenting worries. My 9 year old is also already pretty tuned in to the cyclical emotional whirlwind of being female and I know it's only going to get worse.

((JenR))

W: I accidentally bleached some pieces of the kids' school uniforms(ie. pretty much every piece except what they were wearing on laundry day, including the ones that we bought for the boy last week) in a laundry room spill fiasco. We are on the cusp of the shift from winter to summer uniforms and I don't really want to buy more winter pieces, so I am washing uniforms nightly. And using some of the slightly spotted but not catastrophically ruined pieces to round out their wee wardrobes.

esperanza said...

Days gets some sort of mullet for using the words "peckish" and "rabid" in the same sentence.

kathy a. said...

second esperanza's nomination of days for mullet.

Sue said...

esperanza - agreed. Days has an exceptional sentence there.

Anti-whine: With the help of a friend who works at our local plasma center, I was able to see another doctor. He is retired and consults for the clinic when needed.

He took a lot of time just asking me questions, getting a good history, then did a standard neuro exam. He lived with daily headaches for about 10 years in his early 50s (my age) but no longer has any headaches at all. His deceased wife also had headaches and was diagnosed with Temporal Arteritis - which my own doc has appropriately ruled out with all the right tests.

He did not recommend chiropractic. He particularly steered me away from a few in town that he says have had a high level of quackery over the years. I appreciated that.

Mostly - he listened. Really listened.

And, he prescribed a medication that they used to use "back in the day" - a beta blocker. Family doc has never tried this drug with me and Lovely Gentleman Doc chuckled and said that Family Doc probably didn't even study it in school. At one time it was the only real treatment for migraine, so why not try it? It does not interfere with any of my other meds.

Can't hurt to try.

Best part of all: He's the first doctor (and how many doc's have I seen?) who looked me in the eye and said, "I honestly believe these headaches will go away, one way or the other". Even if it's only a part of aging (which is a possibility), they will go away.

I almost hugged him.

It's been a good day.

esperanza said...

yay, Sue! A ray of hope!

Liz Miller said...

Sue, I'm all verklempt. Can we send flowers and candy to this guy?

esperanza said...

Yeah, what's the opposite of the cluestick?

kathy a. said...

great news, sue!

Liz Miller said...

W: wanna post something on my blog. Wanna get buy in from teh spouse first. He's in bloody meetings all day.

Madeleine said...

I've got another grape w(h)ine! Yes, we go through a lot of grapes at our house.

Today is "litterless lunch day" like every Wednesday in April, apparently. Juice boxes and the wrapper on a chewy bar are OK, but baggies of grapes are not. Last week SG failed because I needed to send two slices of bread for her sandwich and didn't have an appropriate tupperware that would fit in her lunch bag with the other four tupperwares for everything else. You know?

Tupperware is really not the right container for grapes on the stem. It just isn't. So this morning I picked off a containers-worth of grapes for SG's snack. Luckily her main dish fit in a small container today, because there were (counting on fingers) five little containers in that lunch bag. I'll be so glad when Earth Month is over. You know ur doin it rong when environmental action makes you whiney.

Liz Miller said...

My sister started me on washing and re-using zip-top baggies for things like MM's apple snack. He brings it back in his lunch bag.

Liz Miller said...

Which is MUCH less polluting than a juice box or a wrapper from a snack bar. I mean seriously, those can't be reused!

Madeleine said...

I have a phobia of washing out plastic bags and not getting them completely dry and having ick grown inside. I know, not entirely rational.

Liz Miller said...

I turn 'em inside out to dry, then right side out to dry again.

kathy a. said...

liz for the earth day award.

done with the reading. such a relief! it feels stupid to whine about reading, but my head's been ready to pop off.

kathy a. said...

POP! there went my head. my son's having trouble with the tooth that was injured last september, and asked me to call the dentist. "see if i can get in tomorrow," he said. then he also wanted a cleaning, complained he can't take off work two times, said he can only go on thursdays, yadda. we settled on me just asking if he could get in tomorrow -- which, miracle of miracles, he can. more grousing about work, wanting a cleaning, can't afford time off, yadda.

henceforth, he shall be making his own appointments. i think he just doesn't have a basic understanding of things like how far in advance cleanings are scheduled, and that they are not paired with an urgent visit. and that it really sucks needing to juggle work and other necessary things, but that's how it is.

Madeleine said...

Ah, kathy. The reality of the modern dental appointment. A bucket of cold water over his head, I guess.

I hope his tooth feels better right quick, though.

kathy a. said...

thanks, madeleine. this tooth was injured in september, so i'm afraid he may be spending more time with dental professionals than he'd like. and we'll support him 100% with whatever develops.

this was really a whine of being caught between unreasonable expectations and reality. i was going to say that he was "barking" at me, but that might cause lingustic confusion here in pixieland -- it wasn't quite yelling, but majorly grouchy. he won't act that way with the dentists or their staff.

Elizabeth said...

My whine is that my office is moving this weekend, so I've had to pack everything up. I think I have one drawer to finish tomorrow. And have been trying to actually get work done in the throes of all this.

Antiwhine: Get Friday off as a bonus day due to the move. And email and phones will be down, so can't even check messages. Will probably do some reading, but that's truly it.

Sarah at ratatat said...

Oh JenR. Hugs and hope.

KathyA - you're a good mom to even try to arrange the dentistry. Hope the repairs go well.

Madeleine - litter-less lunches and such pressures are most of the reason I pressure my children to buy the somewhat unhealthy hot lunch offerings at school. Does the school at least have the courtesy to blush when they then demand fully disposable lunches for field trips? I always think, really, you can't haul the box back?

Elizabeth- enjoy your moving vacation.

Whine: my whole house is grumpy.

kathy a. said...

oh, that's a good antiwhine, elizabeth! although, i always vote for whines of moving -- just hate hate hate the packing, unpacking.

Anonymous said...

Anti-whine: Job! Interview! On! Monday! We calling this the Post-Doc of Hope, and I am hoping.

Anti-whine: Got a date this weekend!

Whine: still sad about the failure of Things That Could Have Been Good (the current job, things with My Ex, etc.)

Hugs to everypixie.

Sarah at ratatat said...

Whine: stomach flu. Slowly working its way through the family. 3 down. 4 to go?

amy said...

I have reached maximum capacity. I hate all my students, even the ones I like. Last night was the second night of a two-class-long final. For our program, this means we are a week and a half from the last day of class, and honestly, it cannot come soon enough.

Student 1: You screwed off all semester long, except for all the lame work you put into excuses. Then you decide to wait until finals week to drop. Dear Student 1: You suck. You made me put up with you all semester, only to deny me the pleasure of telling you that you failed. Eff Yoo.

Student 2: My classroom is not a diner. Stop bringing messy, smelly, loud foods to class only to act shocked (SHOCKED!) when I tell you to take it to the hallway and come back when you've finished eating. Srsly, sucking the meat off of BBQ wings? Woman -- not even you wants to listen to you eat those things. Especially DURING THE FINAL.

Student 3: This class was too hard for you from the start, and passing seemed near impossible, but you got to the end and you are sooooo close to producing passing work that I actually had hope you'd make it. Except then you flaked out last night and only turned in half of your final. An incomplete Portfolio (i.e., missing any part, such as part or all of your final) means an automatic fail. FAIL. I called you last night to tell you, but I have a feeling you still haven't checked your voice mail. Guess what? I can't continue to care. I just can't spare the energy anymore. Sry! Better luck next time!

OMG, is it next semester yet?

Days said...

Hurrah Sue!

I am with Sarah re: lunches. My kids get the school hot lunch unless my husband decides to pack them homemade lunches, which they consider a treat.

W: I am supposed to be pulling out of the driveway in 55 minutes if I want to arrive on time(ie. for the free snackage) for a weekend conference and I have yet to start packing.

AW: Headed to a city where I love to shop. Why pack anything?

Votes for dental adventures and moving misery.

kathy a. said...

yay, redzils!

boo, stomach flu!

yay, weekend away with free snackage!

nominate amy for mullet, for "i hate all my students, even the ones i like."

kathy a. said...

whinius maximus: the dentist called me. he says son has an abcess, that he needs a root canal immediately; that he may still lose the tooth, but it is a potentially life threatening condition. son said he couldn't do it today; has to ask the boss if he can take off tomorrow; yadda.

my husband talked to son, not yet revealing the call from the dentist, and says son wants to get it done but has to talk to the boss.

we had just a hell of a time after this injury happened -- he had a sinus infection, abcesses in his mouth, and he was very sick before he would go to the doctor. then a big battle to get him in for x-rays. he was extremely pissed at the doctor -- felt she was disrespectful when she pulled me in to explain how serious things were. gah.

it is such a see-saw with him -- i alternate between being so proud at how far he's come, and wishing he was still small enough that i could just drag him to what needs doing.

Sarah at ratatat said...

Hugs for KathyA and maybe the A Team to deliver her son to the dentist posthaste.

Amy - soon, soon, soon you shall be done.

Days - hope the snacks are good.

And I am so happy for Sue. I hope the new meds works and I love that the doctor listened.

Sue said...

Thanks for all the good wishes and crossed fingers everyone! Today is only day one of the new med. The most hilarious part: because it's such an old-school drug, used for so many other conditions (high bp, angina etc...) it's as cheap as air.

I don't pay any of it, as it's all charged to my extended health care, but the bill cracked me up. Fee: $5.01. Pharmacy processing fee: $8.99. Honestly, I almost laughed out loud. My migraine-abortive meds are $15 PER PILL.

Anyway, that was my daily chuckle. I like to chuckle.

kathy a. said...

i screwed this one up badly. son says we are not talking for a really long time, and he is threatening to get a new dentist. think i'll take popping head over ripped-out heart + worry. his appointment is in 2 weeks, unless he fires the dentist.

Madeleine said...

Oh, kathy a. I'm so sorry. Sending hugs.

Elizabeth said...

Ugh, kathy a. Not sure how any of this is your fault. hugs.

Whine: mom's liver is not doing as well as it should. not clear what's going on, or if she's going to be able to go ahead with her cataract surgery scheduled for next week. My parents are lousy at communicating about all of this.

Antiwhine: Made it through the week, and my office is all packed and ready for the movers to come tomorrow.