The winds here in the Mitten State are pretty serious and I know it pales in comparison to what you all are experiencing. May you have stable power, enough water and food, and candles to weather the storm and any resultant surge. I'm sending you some extra chocolate cake (I can do gluten-free and vegan, too) because I think that there is very little that can't be improved with a good slice of chocolate cake.
The Pixies are all here to support those with non-weather related whines too.
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62 comments:
I'll chime in with a whine of completely no importance. It *is* weather-related, however.
During cold weather, I wear garments with long sleeves. Sleeves which then get in my way while washing dishes, washing children, washing hands. I suppose it's a good thing I live in a climate where one only has to wear long sleeves 4 months out of 12, huh?
Old Skool Esperanza! I have a hard time getting used to sleeves in fall. But by November I am usually a pro. As we teach the 4yo - pull up your sleeves :-)
The news on Hurricane Sandy makes me think maybe Wisconsin isn't so bad. Just thinking of an extended time without power makes my whole body hurt.
AW: seeing an old friend this weekend. Happy :)
AW and question: Our house currently has power, but didn't last night for about maybe 4 hours or less.
Anyone know how long raw hamburger in a fridge )or mayo) is still ok if you don't open the fridge door during an outage?
Still, doing pretty well here, especially compared to many many folks.
--Neighbor Lady
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/FACTSheets/keeping_food_Safe_during_an_emergency/index.asp
4 hours if you don't open the door :-)
All safe here. Basement is slightly damp, but otherwise all is okay.
Old Skool for esperanza! Personally, I kind of like the first weeks of long sleeves and socks. There is something cozy about the autumn....
NL and Liz - glad you are both safe.
Non Weather-Related Whine: My dad and his partner are moving away on Thursday. I went over to see them on Sunday night. My dad is not happy about this move and was actually quite emotional when I left (rare in our family).
His partner greeted me with a deep-freeze of a chill when I arrived. Apparently she's mad that I didn't help her pack. Um....my two retired sisters have been there every day for weeks *cough* high-end-hoarder *cough*
I am in the dog house because I work, but mostly because I didn't drop said work to pack her stoopid sh*t.
Whatever. I will NOT miss her. I will miss my dad terribly. He's just retired and finally had free time to spend with his family and now she's dragging him away.
Boo.
Oh, Sue, that is terrible about your Dad moving away just as he has time to enjoy his family! Hugs to you!
JenR--thanks!
Liz--glad you're ok!
:) Neighbor Lady
Sue, WHY is your father doing what he clearly does NOT want to be doing?
She sounds so abusive.
And sending you many many many hugs.
glad liz and NL are OK! i think the food is fine, being in the fridge with such a short outage, NL.
esperanaza -- 3/4 sleeves are my faves, but otherwise, i favor pushing them up.
((( sue ))) the witch deciding to take your dad away is not exactly a "family emergency" requiring you to drop work. she's just being herself -- if you had been there, she would have found your efforts wanting, too. i feel bad for your dad, though. xoxoxo
You're right kathy - nothing pleases her.
I think Dad puts up with her because it's better than being alone. The time he spent on his own after my Mom died was so awful for him - my sense is that he will put up with a lot of nonsense to avoid that loneliness.
I've been looking at some of the pictures of the hurricane damage. Oh my goodness... lots of prayers and hugs to everyone on the coast.
oh, so sad for Sue's dad. And Sue.
If I push up my sleeves, they fall back down! Am I somehow impaired in sleeve management?
So overwhelmed with hurricane news. The story about NYU hospital losing power and evacuating the NICU about did me in last night.
Espeanza, the trick is to roll. If they still fall down, pinch them in like you do for pants cuffs when you're stuffing them into boots, and THEN roll.
-The one for whom even petite shirts' sleeves are too long.
My keyboard thinks Rs are optional.
Espeanza should have been Esperanza, of course.
rolling is definitely the ticket, sleeve-wise. and for tasks, pushing above elbow is also helpful.
my big whine is extreme non-productivity. extreme. but --
AW: daughter is applying for a job that would be wonderful for her, teaching conversational english in japan, where she studied abroad for an entire year. first interview saturday!
AW: i volunteered to phone-bank for an issue i care about, and that went well. even better -- 4 volunteers were high school students! they had to pick a campaign for a class assignment, and they did great!
AW: son's finger is healing, but W: he is still thrashing through the forest to get those disability payments he is due. sigh. but AW: he is spending his time studying things he'll need for the new career he is planning (he had to drop his courses this term, because of the finger).
AW: son and his longtime, lovely girlfriend are moving in together in a few months!!! i think this means they have decided they are grownups, and ready to be grownups. we have treated his GF as family from the beginning, and really love her. yay!
Oh Sue - I'm sorry. That has to be horrible. And so sorry for your father's loneliness leading to poor relationship decisions.
Glad NL and Liz are OK. I think I'd declare the mayo OK, but I'd have a hard time with the raw meat.
KathyA - sounds like things are generally up, with some whines of anticipation. I hope things start going the right way for your son. And yay for the family growing and the girlfriend being a good thing.
Whine: It's cold.
If the fridge has not been opened AT ALL, your stuff should stay good for 24 hours.
If you are worried about the beef, cook it until it is grey. Which is something you should do with ground beef anyway, unless you ground it yourself or saw it ground in front of you.
Thank you all so much for the food advice!
It's so much better to have the conversation with your voices attached (the ones I make up in my head for you---ok, I don't mean that to sound creepy, hope it doesn't) than to have the debate swirling around in my head starting at 2am when I realized our power was out.
The ground beef I put in the fridge to thaw was still partially frozen this morning--figure that's a good thing not only for the ground beef but also for the rest of the fridge. Milk tastes fine. Got rid of chicken stew leftovers just because there wasn't much left and I couldn't make myself take a bite. Had dregs of mayo left, and I think I will toss it--that's just my anxiety talking!
Keeping roast beef and roast chicken deli slices.
Not that you all needed to know that, but it helped me organize my thoughts, so thank you pixies for indulging me! You all are the best.
:)
Neighbor Lady
You're very welcome.
NL, so funny about our "voices," because i get to know the written voices, too, and am sometimes a little surprised when i meet an online friend and hear their speaking voice!
the AW's are such a gift! lurking in the background are a couple of unbloggable whines, and the tired ever-simmering SILfH saga. sigh.
please cross fingers for daughter to get this job! she graduated and came home last december, and has been looking for work ever since. this is Not a Good Situation.
W: political disagreements w/hubby led to professional disagreements, which led to personal disagreements. Blech. I hate arguing.
AW: we had a good talk, he admitted where he overstepped, agreed to disagree on lots of other things.
Still, I will be glad when the election is over.
kathy a - glad to hear about son's upcoming living arrangement! That sounds grown-up to me. Yay! Crossing every appendage for daughter's job prospect too.
(((esperanza))) I'll be glad when it's over too. The ads kill my buzz when I'm enjoying "Revenge" on Sunday nights.
AW: I see the specialist in The Big Smoke on Monday! Yay!
oy, esperanza. i really hate disagreements with the beloved -- especially anything related to politics.
also, yeah -- this election needs to be over. but i really really want one thing to pass, so in the remaining days, i have 2 shifts of passing stuff out at transit stations, and two shifts of doorbelling.
daughter had a meltdown about the interview thing on saturday (and how i totally don't understand her),etc., but then she had a brainstorm about the 5 minute demonstration that was worrying her. yay!
Yay daughter!
W: Unbloggable major work-related whine. When the line between "friend" and "parishioner" is fuzzy, some conversations are more difficult than others. This has been quite a morning.
Too bad I don't drink alcohol. This would otherwise be a perfect occasion on which to call it a day and toss back a few refreshments.
Gah!
Oh, Sue, that is one of my LEAST favorite things about being a minister. Sorry that it's hard for you now.
Thanks e - not fun.
More accurately, the issue is really one of "friend" "parishioner" and "retired colleague".
Ah yes, just so we can complicate it a little more... *eye roll*
It's a good thing I love my job. Really good.
((Sue))
--NL
you know how sometimes it's a crappy day -- and your adult son comes home to do something for his disability, and your adult daughter gets all upset because he is playing guitar for the first time in a month after the surgery, so she starts yelling and slamming doors, and son wisely leaves, and daughter's still pissed off because of things with her brother from 6-8 freaking years ago? and so (after making clear, perhaps a tad emphatically, that This is Not OK in Our House) you decide to roast some potatoes with spices and onions, because that's comfort food! so, then you take the pan out of the oven and promptly drop it all over the kitchen floor? yeah.
empty nest. it's not so bad. we got used to it.
OH, the potatoes on the floor is the FINAL straw. I so get it.
Sending you lots of hugs, and chocolate. Lots and lots of dark chocolate. And may I suggest a fine virtual red wine to go with it?
--Neighbor Lady
((( sue ))) yeah, those mixed up roles. they are something, sometimes.
xoxo neighbor lady.
9 p.m. and once again, no trick or treaters. i should just ship bundles of candy directly to wherever it is needed.
Oh kathy - the potato drop is definitely the last straw. So sorry about sibling "stuff" - after almost ten years of empty nesting, we're still undecided about the relationship between our boys. They either love each other, or they each have a hit man on stand-by. Some weeks it's hard to know which....
This parenting gig - seriously tough at times.
Stomach virus
no, liz!! gentle fluids and lighthearted videos and/or mysteries for you, young lady! followed by an extremely bland diet, and more lighthearted + fluids, with nappage. xoxo
with your inspiration, i'm working a transit station in the morning, and doorbelling this weekend.
((Sue)) Your poor dad. Maybe you can bribe just him with the occasional plane ticket home :) If his partner wants to come, she can take her broom.
((Kathy)) Sending you chocolate, hugs, and a Swiffer WetJet! At least it wasn't something splattery that stains, like tomato sauce.
((Liz)) Sending you hugs, clear fluids, and another Swiffer WetJet, if applicable! I detest tummy bugs! See if you can get hold of the old "Bill Cosby As Himself" clip where he's impersonating a drunk person with tummy issues. "Oh, toilet bowl. Thank you for being cool on the sides". Laughter being the best medicine, of course :)
((alltheotherPixies)) At least we have each other, right? Between us we know all kinds of cool stuff, like how to cook meat and roll up our sleeves properly. Can't get *that* kind of learnin' in your fancy, high-priced universities! Not even if you borrow from your parents to go to school..
WHINE: Can the election be over, PLEASE? I decided on Obama, period, but even if I had considered Mitt Romney, the interminable phone calls and voice mails alone (which I have to listen to all the way through to erase on my phone) would have made me run screaming.
WHINE: Evil Ex's Evil on-again, off-again, WTF KNOWS girlfriend is watching Ari today, and dropping her off at my apartment this afternoon. Haven't seen her in a year, which is when she told my ex that I was fat and ugly and what did he ever see in me. (She's a size 2, and apparently she says this about everyone larger than her, which is mostly everyone.) I am trying to be calm and mature and not wish that she gets a fungal infection in her massive chin flap of leathery, overtanned skin. (Guess I'd better pour myself some more herbal tea..)
Antiwhine: Our "Weird Herd" vacation, complete with ex-hubby, new hubby, and two kiddos was awesome! Both girls were incredibly well-behaved for the 13+ hour car ride, probably helped along by the fact that at the last minute, a van with two movie screens became available. If anyone needs me to quote lines from "Mulan", hit me up ;) We had a great time at the farm with our friends, and Arianna has decided she wants goats and "sickens!!" (chickens).
Antiwhine #2: The Herd went trick-or-treating last night, and it was Arianna's first time! She caught on right away, and took advantage of the distraction of adults cooing over her cuteness to quietly empty their candy bowls into her bucket. She was an adorable fairy, and Sephie was the Tooth Fairy, complete with GPS, which she figured is how the Tooth Fairy finds kids in the first place. 21st century cuteness, yo ;)
Speaking of candy, I need to go hide it before the kiddos get home. IN MAH BELLEH. Later, Pixies!
Yay for door belling, Kathy A!!!
Yay for good trips and tricks and treats!!
oh, yeah -- definitely hide the candy! i'll admit that large amounts of the stash of days gone by went quietly to my candy jar at work. spread the joy!
i think i just love the herd.
but the hair on the back of my neck is doing this weird thing about Jerkface Ex's Whatever. maybe she is an OK babysitter, but... we should definitely assemble the posse for some kind of team training. ;)
Eek! I can't believe I forgot the biggest Whine/Antiwhine ever!
So, that spot between NJ/NYC that is now a gigantic hole full of water, downed trees and power lines? That's where I'm from. And my Facebook feed lit up with posts from my high school and college buddies with stuff like "there's a 70-foot tree down next to my house", "my house is shaking", and "the kids are terrified". Many of my friends are still without power, and police are directing lines at the gas station in my hometown.
Antiwhine: Everyone is OK, other than cold, wet and annoyed. Unfortunately, none of them wants to drive to Colorado to my place for a hot shower and some soup, but they're all safe, at least :-)
Liz, I love my Weird Herd, too. And it's made life for the girls so much more wonderful than I can express. I wouldn't even trade it for an easier time with Jerkface and his Whatever, though I do have to wonder why they wouldn't be more decent to us, given that we go out of our way all the time. I didn't even get a cell phone # for her in case of emergency, despite me asking twice, and James once. I never thought I would look forward to court so much!
(I meant that last one for Kathy, LOL. Hmm, if I'm getting fuzzy, maybe it's time to break into the stash of candy...MUAHAHAHAHA)
kathy a, we needed your candy! I had procured about 600 pieces of candy. Mr. E swears he handed it out mostly one piece at a time, yet we still ran out. It was insane. And Sweet was unimpressed with the crowds, as was I. T-o-t'ing is not worth the hassle and stress levels around here. None of us handled it well. (That deleted comment above was me, not handling it well).
Liz, feel better pronto, and may you keep it to yourself ;)
yay! 2 hours of passing campaign leaflets, and asking for votes! i got to wear my special t-shirt! lots of positive responses! top news story locally is that support for my issue is "surging"! yay!
YAY!!!
I feel late to the hugs squad, but stomach flu? Eek! Oh Liz.
KathyA - I think losing the potatoes would make me run from the house. Or probably ask the husband to run blockade...
DebAngel - still crossing my fingers for court
Esperanza - ToT'ing seems to be an all or nothing affair. Either too many kids or not at all. And boo for the personal/political disagreement.
AW: I voted early. Yay!
W: Can we get a filter on TV and radio to block the ads? It sis starting to feel like I'm in a sci fi book with dystopian propaganda
W: it was a week of personal growth. Which is a way of say BOOOO. But I think I learned some things.
W: going on a date and I am not enthused. Someday there will be a personal growth session in which I don't get ensnared in these situations.
(((Sarah))) But YAY for voting early!
W: Got a period on Sept. 1, as expected. Got another on Sept 25, a full 3 days early. Got it again on Oct. 18, again 3 days early. Got it again YESTERDAY. That's 15 days between periods. I thought they were supposed to come LESS frequently in our forties? WTF?
Oh, Liz!! Maybe you should just redecorate your bathroom into a woman-cave. Soft lighting, hookups for a Kindle, mini-fridge for chocolate and ginger ale..
And, I have the same problem as you! Only, mine started up again a full week after it ended, 11 hours into a 13-hour road trip. Surprise soaking and everything :/ Hydrogen peroxide is on my "thankful" list, as well as my 12/10 appointment at the endocrinologist! (This is the 3rd time in less than 6 months, and I *like* to wear white, dammit! LOL)
YIKES.
I'm guessing I'll just have to buy stock in Always Extra Absorbant.
i just spent about 4 hours walking for the campaign, and i may never get out of this chair again, ever. or until tomorrow, when i signed up to do it again...
on the up side, was walking with a good friend, and we had some good conversations with interested voters. (not everybody has read up on the ballot measures yet.)
Make sure you wear good walking shoes, Kathy, and socks that are cushy.
Keep 'em elevated tonight or they will be a bit swollen tomorrow.
Useful links about canvassing The truth about 200 doors and The ugly truth about doors.
thanks, liz. it's not my feet, so much. if i walk too much, my lower back starts killing me. it'll be better with some rest and stretching.
they asked us to go only to certain houses -- maybe 2, 4, 6 on a block -- then maybe some on the next block, or some on another street. confusing. in a funny coincidence, one house belongs to a friend! but she wasn't home. and she didn't need our literature, anyway, since she had a yard sign. ;)
I'm guessing it's likely voters, who have voted on referenda before.
Hooray for all the doorbell ringers!!
Liz, I thought the same thing as I approached Five-Oh. I found out that it is quite common for pre-menopausal and menopausal women to experience what is called "flooding."
I wonder if you could be having a pre-M blip. Those commercials are right - it would be nice if someone had "the talk" with us about menopause like our mothers did about first menses.
Such sympathy for the Pixies suffering from Aunt Flo visiting sooner and sooner. And ha! Sue, for "the talk."
LOL Sue!!
I remember walking on a beach with my mother when I was in my early twenties, and I about made her fall down laughing when I suddenly turned to her and said "Mom? Sometimes, I don't feel so fresh." ;-)
lol debangel!!
what sue said.
well, i just flunked doorbelling 101. my friend and i were all set to get out the word, but before we even made it back to the car with our maps and literature, i tripped on some broken sidewalk and wrecked my knee.
just a big oozing scrape, bruises, swelling; but i did not think i could walk several miles in that condition. we argued about whose fault it was -- lisa contends that she jinxes friends named kathy and makes them fall down, whereas i contend that this is another example of my natural athletic grace.
so, lisa's doing phonebanking instead, which makes her happy since yesterday's walk convinced her that she is unsuited for the postal carrier profession; and i'll do pamphlets at transit stations the next couple of days.
a bag of frozen veggies is doing its first aid duty -- one of the handiest parenting tips of all time. let's hear it for the baby limas!
Oh no, Kathy. Get well!
(((kathy a))))
--Neighbor Lady
really, this is kind of funny. i'm dedicated, just a klutz! also, the knee is really gonna be OK. the pants? not so much.
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