So, I'm sitting here minding my own business, thinking deep legal thoughts, trying to write something work-related, when BAM! Something hit the roof and shook the house; the cats all ran to hide, the dogs went on high alert. I screamed and jumped, and tried to locate my beloved. It turned out that he was on the roof, continuing Day 4 of his Yardwork Marathon from Heck, and he had succeeded in sawing a largish branch off a dying tree.
This afternoon, our he and our son will continue efforts to repair son's ancient Volvo. The car wouldn't start on Friday, so they did a bunch of stuff (changed the oil; replaced the corroded distributor cap; jiggered the whatchahoozits) before discovering it was a blown fuse. This car is close to 30 years old, so they could conceivably spend the rest of time doing driveway maintenance, and it would still be an ancient Volvo. I'm looking forward to everyone going back to their day jobs tomorrow, so I can do mine.
It has otherwise been a nice weekend. We cooked and barbequed a bunch (good thing son is coming to eat some of the excess!), visited our local fair and music festival, saw parts of 3 fireworks shows from the hill (despite the fog). How was yours?
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ETA: Blogger is acting creepy in several ways: [1] comment counts are off; [2] several comments disappeared; [3] our sidebar migrated to the bottom of the page in the last week or 2. I've put in a complaint. There doesn't appear to be anything like a live help-line. If anyone has more Blogger expertise than I (which wouldn't take much), please offer suggestions in comments or email me.
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31 comments:
Whine: Worst Vacation Ever. The four of us went to my parents' house, which was fine. Hubby's Middle Brother lives very nearby. Hubby's Oldest Brother lives very far away. When he heard both brothers were going to be in one place at one time, he arranged his tour of the state to be there also. Nice, right? Well, he arranged this so that he could announce to them at the same time that he is gay and will be divorcing his wife (my favorite SiL--yes, I know this isn't about me, but it's my whine, so there). Family angst ensued for a few hours until...Oldest BiL had to be taken to the ER by my Hubby for severe abdominal pain. This led to many "I know, and I know you know, but do you know that I know, and should I tell you that I know and that I know that you know?" moments. My main whine is how hurt my SiL and their daughter are.
Needless to say, this vacation was not relaxing.
AW: However, with Grandma's able assistance, the Sweet Baboo made very good progress on the potty training. Not near our goal yet, but well on the way. Yippee! Also, may I recommend the Elmo Potty song at sesamestreet.org? Funny to grownups and kids alike. And apparently very "moving."
AW: early posting of WW lets me get this off my chest in an appropriate place. Hooray for whining pixies.
Oh my. That sounds awful. So sorry to hear about the angst, esperanza, and the relaxing vacation that was anything but. Although, any progress on the potty training is cause for celebration in my house. Yay for Sweet!
Holiday weekend sans beaucoup d'angst? Bravo, Kathy. Best of luck with the car.
I have procrastinated myself into a corner(and otherwise been unable to work lately) and now have a major project that is 4 weeks overdue and still too far from completion. Thankfully, I have an understanding and accommodating boss but I am sick and tired of relying on her being accommodating.
I am equally sick and tired of being sick and tired but too lackadaisical to rouse myself to do anything about it beyond wait for my doctor to call me back with results from recent testing and then follow whatever she recommends.
AW: Appropriate place to whine; I am trying very hard not to complain too much to my husband since he is taking up the slack without complaint.
AW: Summer camp seems to be going okay. There's been no "please come and pick her up immediately" phone call as of yet.
AW: Graduation was lovely AND I've been able to introduce myself as "Dr." twice since then! Oh, it's soooooooo satisfying.
AW: Been asked to write a letter of rec for a colleague. Sweet!
W: We leave in less than 36 hours! AHHHHHH!!!!
AW: Getting close to ready. Kind of. Maybe.
oh, esperanza! hugs to you and, well, everyone. xoxox
your favorite SIL and niece are still family, always will be. their lives have been turned upside down, and they need to know they are loved -- so, go ahead and listen and love them, as you do. but i don't imagine your BIL made this announcement to hurt them, or hurt anyone. it sounds like he has had a lot of conflict over it.
yay, grandma and sweet baboo!
aw, days -- it's not really procrastination when you are feeling crappy and waiting on tests. best to you!
go, jeni, go!
oh, days, be gentle wuth yourself.
I didn't mean to be unsympathetic to BIL's struggle with this, just that SIL's pain is more acute to me, somehow. We had some friends go through this very same thing recently, only the husband treated the wife unbelievably pookily. I am grateful to BIL for being more of a grownup than that.
(((esperanza))) wow. some vacay....on the one hand, it sucked. On the other hand, you have some good support people left in your family. don't hesitate to lean on them when you need to and of course, you can always lean on the Wall of Pixie Whineage anytime.
days - be good to yourself. I know it can be rough, but even trying to be kind to yourself is a start.
kathy a. - an early morning coffee toast (heh) to a quiet house after all that work going on at your place! Busy family! Long weekends are great, but it's always good to return to your regularly scheduled procrastination and whining.
~shifty eyes~ Or so I've heard.
go Dr. Jeni!!!! You rock the catbox.
Whine: Is it okay so early in the week to say that I hate my job? I know it's just exhaustion (I haven't had a holiday since last August - the one downfall of taking all my holidays at one time) but dang - I am SO done.
Someone called me this morning to say how much he enjoyed Sunday's service. I was ever-so-delightful on the phone, but I hung up and thought "Whatever...."
I wish I could videotape the rest of the July services and disappear until Aug 1. Ugh.
Anti-whine: At least the caller *liked* the service. It would have been exponentially worser (I know that's not a word, but this is pixie-land, work with me, m'kay?) had he been calling to say I suck and the sermon tanked.
Whine: this is going to be a loooooong week.
Anti-whine: My office isn't cold.
Wah. Stoopid Blogger ate my whine.
Anti-whine: ???? Blogger did not eat my comment after all. Thus, Blogger is not stoopid.........today.
I had a wonderful weekend. My nephew was in an all-kid production of Annie that was terrific. Amtrak is a national treasure. MM ate black raspberries straight off the bushes. Fireworks! My BIL made strawberry jam from fresh-picked strawberries and now we have two jars of it at home.
Whine: The house across the road from my sister's house is up for sale...and I can't just go ahead and buy it.
Whine: Now I'm back at work.
sue, yay about the nice call! but i'm on the reluctant to work train today...
liz -- sounds like a FABULOUS weekend!
big fat blogger whine -- i know this has to be at least the 10th comment, but only 4 before this one are showing up. and the WW page shows 7 so far. what the fireplace?
AW: Not seeing the blogger weirdness others are reporting. Sidebar on the side, I think I see all the comments.
W: That overdue report! I said I'd finish today! The writing is mostly done, but there's this database stuff I'm now avoiding.
W: OK, one weird blogger thing. I login witha Google account. Every time I login the password fails the first time and works the second time. Every single time.
Whine: A tiny black cloud covered our condo while hubby was bbq-ing steaks. It poured rain for the entire time he was out there. The rest of the day has been sunny, without a cloud in the sky. He looked like that comic book character that has a little black cloud following him around.
Whine: He did not appreciate me laughing at him from inside. Go figure.
ANti-whine: STEAK! And it has now stopped raining.
Antie-whine: Now I know my husband controls the weather. Gives me a whole new level of respect for him.
Pixies, some days it just doesn't pay to be a grown-up.
Most of you probably got the dreaded mother-curse at some point in your lives: "I hope your daughter grows up to be just like YOU!" Well, it's happened. Or, should I say, more independent PROOF that it's happened to me. My daughter is a drama queen. The dramatic apple has not fallen from Queen Mother Tree.
We live in the scorchingly hot South. A/C is not only heavenly, but completely *necessary* here, as there is a real threat of death from exposure to temps this hot. Unfortunately, my house is an old one, without central air, so we have a collection of window units that we try to run just enough to keep us out of the obituary columns, but not so much so that I join the ranks of those people sent off to debtor's prison for the high crime of not being able to pay said electric bill. Offspring cannot seem to fathom that we are not made of money, and cannot run the air constantly. I try my damndest not to run them during the day, but sometime we HAVE to. Offspring thinks it's okay if her room is cold enough to hang meat. I have asked, begged, pleaded, and threatened. I finally tell her last night that I am putting my foot down, and the unit WIIL COME OUT if she doesn't stop. So, today I check her room to see if she's awake yet, and find her in almost total darkness, reading by the light of a teeny booklight. EVERYTHING is unplugged -- lamps, clocks, fan. *sigh*
While I admire the design to stick it to me just that little bit, I still hate that this is something that I have to make such a big hairy deal about, over and over.
I also wish that there was something I could curse my mother back with that would be as effective. Damn her infernal soul.
Oh dear, KLee.
Additional Whine: I have a plantar wart on my foot, right where my toe connects to it. Impossible to keep that sticky little thingie right there.
Antiwhine from vacation that I forgot: I came home with my grandmother's (small) diamond earrings. They had been lost for 17 years!
Esperanza - wow, what a vacation. I hope that your BIL and SIL find happiness after the dust settles. And yay on the diamond earrings. And on having a place to get the whines out.
Days - when I procrastinate that long I start think about it in my dreams. I hope you are getting the dreaded work done. And yay on the understanding boss. Hope the tests come back easily fixable (I'd say clean but then they'd say your symptoms are in your head and that's not good, right?)
Dr. Jeni - all the best while moving.
Sue - it's like the last weeks of school, knowing that vacation is there, waiting, taunting. You can make it. And brava for doing good sermons when when you want to phone it in.
Liz - Why can't we all live down the street from the people we love?
Madeleine - hope you got it all done.
Klee - you really scare me with the teen daughter. Good luck.
And she may grow up just to devote large chucks of her income to hvac - I did. We're in the midwest, so it was th heat that we battled over. I hate sleeping in the cold nighttime temps my parents insisted on. As soon as I had my own place, I didn't. But I paid for it...ridiculously so :) Strangely now that we all live together gain, they don't keep it quite as arctic in their bedroom (separate system) as they did years ago.
Kathy - I'm sorry, the ancient Volvo made me giggle. I hope it is restored to driving condition.
And blogger looks odd to me - no sidebar, but the whines may be all there :)
Thanks Sarah. Yesterday became very busy, which was actually okay. It helps to pass the time more quickly. When there's not much going on, all I can think about is how much I would rather be on vacay.
Now I REALLY understand how teachers must feel as those last days of the school year approach!
I contacted my step-sister in Kingston re: going for more trigger point injections in late August, but I haven't heard whether the dates I gave her are going to work out. We'll see.
(((KLee))) Oy.
oy is right, klee. there's nothing quite so dramatic as a teenager in a huff.
all of a sudden, all the comments are back. huh. maybe my computer is possessed.
W: have to go to a meeting, which is supposed to be a quick little how's-it-going on a project -- but there will be 4 other people there, and they will have discussed things extensively w/o me, and they will deliver a list of things to do immediately that will be at least as long as a football field. i'll leave feeling like i was hit by a truck.
Boo and ick to feeling like you've been hit by a truck. Who needs that? Especially in July - you know, summer and the livin' is easy and all that....
Bleh. Hope the meeting goes better than anticipated.
AW: only a one-page to-do list after the meeting. reasonable goals, people, that's the ticket.
AW: since the Volvo is running, my son's turned back to another project, building a bike for his beloved longtime girlfriend. sometimes he is really really cute. he's sure about the mechanics -- this will be a tough, solid bike -- but has put a lot of work into the color scheme, too. this from a boy who once used magic markers to decorate his walls, extensively, not that i'm ever mentioning that out loud -- but it is further proof that one can recover from the teen years.
Much appreciative for the kind thoughts re: the ick.
Hurrah for a one page to-do list and reasonable goals!
My hubby(boyfriend at the time) lovingly restored a vintage bike for me for our 2nd anniversary, complete with my choice of paint job despite his horror at painting it given the fact that it was in excellent, original condition. (I later found out that he had hunted down(pre-Ebay, craigslist, etc) a spare tank and side covers that were in less good shape, painted those and saved the nice ones.) It's probably still my favourite gift from him. And the rest is history...
Sue: Hope it works out with your step-sister/Kingston. We have a VRBO(complete with kitteh if desired) just outside the city if it doesn't. What are trigger point injections, anyways?
Dr. Jeni: Hope the travelling goes smoothly.
KLee: Whines of teenage girl-hood scare me. Good luck with the battle.
esperanza - I can so relate to the wart whine. Wednesday Wart Whines are Worrisome (heh). I had a teeny wart on the side of my thumb about two years ago. I've been using every remedy I can find (aside from planting a half potato cut side up on the night of a full moon). Now I'm starting to wonder how much of my little thumb will be left when I'm finished. Two years. Still at it. ARgh. Here's hoping you have better luck with the toe.
If you're still laughing about the potato - my friend's French-Canadian mother told me it works every time. Uh-huh.
Days - trigger points are little knots of muscle/fascia/nerves that form in different parts of the body and refer pain to various areas. My primary trigger point is on the right side at the base of my skull (the right suboccipital area). When that point is active, which is most of the time right now, the pain is referred to my right temple - that's where I feel the pain.
When the doc injects saline or novocaine into the trigger point, it sort of explodes the knot so that all those layers straighten up in nice neat, non-pain-causing lines.
Still haven't heard from step sis, so I'll see what's going on there - hopefully soon. Thanks for the offer!! I'll see how things play out over the weekend. I have to get my doc to sign the Travel Grant papers on Monday, so I'll know *something* by then.
Sue, sorry to hear that your headaches are acting up again. I would do just about anything to never have another migraine as long as I live. I can't imagine how you function, let alone work.
Mucho congrats to Dr. Jeni! I'm so proud of you. Now, do you want to diagnose my cat from thousands of miles away for free? (Joking, of course. Well, mostly.)
I got some REALLY GOOD news to offset the Teen Drama -- my principal called the other day, and has found a way to keep me at my school! I'm so excited that I don't have to move! Things are finally beginning to move in the right direction!
A giant HOORAH! to KLee for the possibility of things working out just this once!
A giant AWWWW! for all the significant-other-doing-sweet-stuff stories! If I can add to that, my husband got me a 16 gig memory chip for my phone for our anniversary this past weekend. If you are unfamiliar with teh technologies, let me say this: 16 gig is huuuuuuuuge. I think he got tired of me taking a half an hour to rearrange music and pics on my phone so I can go out walking on Saturday mornings (thereby delaying family breakfast).
The kicker is that he and I have an agreement not to spend money right now *and* a no-anniversary-gift truce that goes back to, um, forever. (And we've been together 19 years, so that's kind of a tradition.) So I stressed about having to get him a gift back, of course. Went with a chocolate cream pie, called it even. He agrees.
Good grief. I had a whine I'd been saving up all day to write, but now that I've written my little happy story, I seem to have forgotten my whine. Hm. Must have been about my husband. O_o
Oh! My missing whine was not about my husband! It was about the farmer's market.
I went to my local farmer's market today. I have never, ever been to a farmer's market, but I figured there'd be foods to buy and possibly stuff from local artisans, etc.
I was really disappointed, though. I get that the town is small and the farmer's market has only been around a couple of months (ergo, small), but I kind of expected to be able to buy local produce at it. Is that too naive? The two produce vendors there had stuff packed just as if *they* got it at the grocery store. I mean, all of it was marked that it was product of the US, but hey -- I brought my kids out in dangerous heat levels to get some fruits and veggies. Could they at least be different from the ones I can buy in the grocery store IN THE AIR CONDITIONING?
Amy - I went to college in Madison and they have a fabulous unbelievable farmers market. And every time I try to go to any of the local ones where I live now...eh. Not so good.
Klee - Your same school! Yay! I hope things are on an upswing.
Sue - sorry the headaches are bearing down on you. My husband had a trigger point injection in his hand when he was having a lot of tendonitis-type pain (it was something else I don't remember). So painful but mostly effective. Hope it hurts less soon.
Love the hubby stories. Awww.
Sarah - try the West Bend farmers market. Maybe not as good as Madison, but the best I've seen close to you. Saturday mornings downtown (Main St.) - 7am to noon I believe.
Hugs to all - I'm at work and super busy so I don't have much time to read through everything.
W ... Three weeks of messy scheduling due to family visits have left us with a kid who won't fall asleep until at least an hour after bedtime.
AW ... My husband is back on the conditions of much counseling and the understanding that a second offense will not lead to a second reconciliation. Ever. So we're trying. W: Hard. But easier than the other option I think.
(((JenR)))
YAY KLEE!!!!
Whine: I really, really, really do not like my job. At all.
Anti-whine: I really, really, really do like my co-workers. A lot.
Hooray for KLee!!! It's good to hear that you got a break in the work department at least!
(((JenR))) thinking of you.
Liz - that's such a tough whine/anti-whine combo that it should come with a free beverage of your choice.
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