Welcome to the Commenting Pixie Party!
First!
OK, now I can whine. 
Last night I had horrible dreams about searching for water to drink, but nothing would come out of the bottles. When I woke up my mouth was bone dry...because my nose was so stuffed up I couldn't breathe. And I had/have a sore throat, caused by post-nasal drip.
Lyra's birthday party (for her second birthday) is in five days. Please please please, let me get better by then. Last year on her birthday I was running a 102 degree temp, which turned out to be caused by hand, foot, and mouth disease. I was totally delirious and had a fight with my MIL, who didn't seem to grasp that I was really sick, even though I told her I was really sick.
OK, now an anti-whine:
I went to Target this morning to buy party supplies and found a complete set of paper plates, napkins, cups, and plastic flatware in a deep jewel-tone purple. That should make for a very very very happy two-year-old.
I got nuttin' but anti-whines.
Just a little sad here. A friend known only to me through an email list died of lung cancer this afternoon. Even though I never met her in real lfe, MJ was a source of inspriration, and a good friend. MJ was a great lady--wise and funny and always with an astute comment on political issues and church issues. She will be missed.
my whine is that every time I see a comment by YT with "Homepage" in purple, I click, hoping she has returned to blogging. 
Roar this with me, please, dear pixies: SO MANY ANTS! IN MY HOUSE!
It's become Leiningen Versus the Ants in the House of Procrastination. I started off peace-loving and environmentally friendly. My methods of deterring the ants was just to deter them from getting into my food and my home. Now, I've installed weather-stripping, covered the house with double-sided tape and cayenne pepper, and today I laid ant traps. Raid very toxic ones. I spend my time watching the traps, willing the ants to enter those little holes.
It's clearly messing with my already-precarious mental and emotional health. They serve as reminders of how I'm not handling anything these days, with the mess getting out of control.
Anti-whine: chocolate.
We're sick. Again. This time it's a coughing thing. We haven't seemed to get more than a few days at a time completely illness-free and feeling good for, oh, forever?
The worst part about this is that my mom is a kidney transplant recipent. Which means she's on immunosuppressants. Which means, of course, that she can't be around anyone who might even possibly be starting to get a little bit sick.
Which means that, although we live 12 minutes away from my parents and sister, we usually don't see them. Because we have babies and toddlers. Who, if they aren't exactly sick all the time, usually at least have runny noses.
I'm so sick of the sickness thing.
Also, I'm a bit squidgey about being coughed on. Or having food coughed on. Or the baby. Or . . .
I have two preschoolers who are coughing approximately every 30 seconds. Maybe a quarter of the time they remember to cover their mouths. The rest of the time I cringe and remind them. Again, and again, and again, and . . . .
But those are the inconsequential whines.
My entry for the reeeely creeepy peeeple award is on behalf of my middle sister, Sis, who is away at college. She's living off-campus for summer school with a couple of other girls, but doesn't have a car so she has to walk back and forth.
A few days ago she was walking home through a rather unpopulated area, and there's this huge body-builder type guy standing there. Just standing there, obviously waiting for her.
He strikes up a conversation that goes something like this:
"Do you go to [name of Sis' school]? Yeah, well I've been seeing you walk to school and back. Pray for me, would you? I'm being tempted."
As if that wasn't creepy enough, after a search of the "registered offenders" website in her area (yes, THAT registered offenders website) she's pretty sure she regognized his photo.
Level 1 offender (level 1 is the worst category). He lives less than a half-mile away from her school.
We are, obviously, pretty freaked out at this point. I'm really worried for my sister's safety, and I don't think my mom has slept much for the past few days. She's literally clear across the country, so there's not much we can do from here anyway except pray--and try to encourage her to stay safe and hopefully move back onto campus.
On a related note, though, I do have an anti-whine. My 5yo daughter told off a too-huggy person in fine style. I was so proud of her for speaking up, if a little embarrassed that she beat me to it.
The guy was coming toward us, obviously intoxicated, and I was trying to get my kids out of the way and into the car as quickly as possible while preparing to use my "mama bear voice" if he tried to hug or touch them (as he usually does in such situations).
But right away AJ said in a loud voice, "Mr. ___, my Mommy doesn't like the way you hug and kiss us. That's not appropriate. Because you're not family and we don't want you to hug and kiss us. I can hug my daddy or my mommy or my sisters, but not you."
He was totally taken aback, and I said (as I'd also told him last summer), "Yes. We are trying to teach them not to hug and kiss people who are not family. We aren't comfortable with them hugging everybody else."
He said, "Okay, that's all right. That's okay. But what if my grandkids are here. Huh? What if my grandkids are here? Then what?"
I wasn't sure if he meant would it be okay for his grandkids to hug my kids, or if he could hug my kids when his grandkids were around, or if I had a problem with his hugging his grandkids, or what. I thought it was a really strange thing to say.
I continued buckling in my kids and said something like, "My kids can hug their grandparents". He mumbled something I didn't understand and wandered off.
AJ said, "He was coming over here to hug and kiss me, so I told him not to."
I was so incredibly proud of my daughter, and told her so. I also reiterated to my kids that it's always okay and GOOD to speak up if someone is making them uncomfortable or doing something they feel is inappropriate, any time and with anyone.
I did ask if Mr. ____ had ever kissed her, because I'd never seen him do that (and I watched him pretty closely whenever he was near my kids--I thought I would have seen that!), and she said no. But it does bother me a little wondering where that came from.
Am I overthinking this?
I`m in the best mood ever. It`s a lovely day, I`m excited about learening Japanese, my wonderful girlfriend & I will be celebrating our first anniversary tomorrow & my employers have randomly given me a three day weekend. Hooray for life, I say.
Ooo...didn`t read you last post Purple Kangaroo...maybe you`d feel safer if your sis had a bicycle?
Bravo on your little one - sock it to the creepy weirdos.
My supervisor handed back my dissertation draft. (He left it in an envelope in my mailbox.)
I'm afraid to open it.
That's all I have to say today.
Antiwhine: It's almost June!
I got the results of my biopsy yesterday. Adenocarcinoma in situe and high grade squamous intraepithelial leion CIN III, severe dysplasia/CIS.
In other words, Stage 0 Cervical Cancer. They think they got it all because the margins of the biopsy were clear, but the cancerous cells were within 1 mm of the edge of the biopsy.
So what's next? A second opinion! My Ms. Dr. to be in Atlanta has already granted me an appointment in July, so I'm really happy about that.
But also this diagnosis means most likely a second biopsy that is more invasive. If anything is found in it, then a hysterectomy. Dr. M says it's unlikely to be a problem, and that Mr. Mac and I can still plan on 2007 Baby Madness for now.
On top of that Miss M's mother has had her phone disconnected, again, and we can't get in touch with Miss M. We close on the house tomorrow, and I'm stressing about that. I don't have a job, but my current employer is keeping me on the books until July 3, which will mean that I keep insurance through the end of July. They are also willing to pay for the COBRA coverage for a month, since I'm being all nice and staying longer than I said I would.
The Dr. prescribed me some Atavan. It works nicely - makes me not give a rat's poo about anything, for a little while. Which is what I need right now.
PK - have your sister get a taser. I had to have one (at my dad's insistence) when I lived alone. There are also training classes on how to use it. Get the biggest, baddest, most shocking one you can find. It's worth the few hundred dollars.
Shining, a friend of hers is loaning her a car currently, so she doesn't have to walk.
devilmacdawg, a taser sounds a bit better than the gun her friend wants to buy her.
I'm bringing the nipples to the whining party. Or the chest, anyway.
I have a pretty severe pain in my left chest. I can't tell for sure whether it's in a rib or in the lower part of my milk production mechanism, but it's quite painful . . . alternating between a sharp pain and a gripping ache.
Nursing did not help, except to cause me to notice that I apparently also have a clogged milk duct in the upper quadrant of that side. The joys of a child who is cutting back on milk consumption in favor of things like pears and green beans.
A child who also decided it was time to be wide awake and playing at 4 a.m.
Not much whining this week. The job thing is no worse and no better. I don't know how to explain it. I guess I'm in limbo at the moment until I figure out what to do.
Anti-whines: 4-day weekend! Actual plans for chapter whatever it is I'm working on, 4 I think.
Whine: supposed to rain all weekend.
macdawg--so sorry about the cancer thing. I hope your situation improves.
First, there is a bunch of pigeon crap covering our back deck. I hate the pigeons.
Then this morning I came downstairs, looked at the rug in the living room, and thought, "Dammit, Ivy. Stop smashing raisins into the rug." And then I looked closer and thought, "That's -- not -- a raisin! Oh good lord save us!" Roaches! Ech ech ech ech. Oh I'm so creeped out I can hardly stand it.
(((((Devilmacdawg)))))) Hope everything is clear from here on out!
Someone seems to have plucked out my eyeballs, rolled them around in some gritty dirt, and put them back in my head.
That is all.
Not a whine so much as a mourn.
Bad: I think I whined earlier in the year (January-ish) about my husband's cousin being diagnosed with cancer.
The Good news: was that the operation got everything and he agreed to do the chemo to up his non-reoccurence chances from 70% to 85%.
Bad: About a month ago, the rock band he played in on weekends told him they were letting him go permanently. They had been replacing him when he was too tired / sick to play, but he'd play Friday and Sat. night gigs and then miss his regular work on Monday and Tuesday from exhaustion. And the new singer/guitarist was better and more flexible to boot. It was a sh!tty thing to do to my coz when he was already down, but I can understand why they did it.
Good: He wasn't wearing himself out on the weekends any more and as of a couple of weeks ago he was 2/3rds done w/ his chemo.
Bad: He was on heart meds to handle arrhythmia, and he had to go off them b/c of the cancer / chemo. He had a mild heart attack last Sat., but apparently it was a while before they could get him started again and he ended up in a coma b/c of crainial swelling. He's been comatose in an ICU since.
Worse: His daughter was on a cheap chartered package to Cancun and can't get back until tomorrow. She's been stuck in Mexico on the phone w/ her stepmom and the rest of the family.
Worst: The EEG on Monday was not good and the doc is making "quality of life" noises at Coz's wife. They'll do another EEG at the end of the week, but prognosis is not favorable. Coz's wife refuses to make any decisions until his daughter gets back (smart move) but things are not going to have a happy ending I fear.
Selfish whine: We're going to another state to my mom's for the holiday weekend, and I'm gonna spend it checking my email and waiting for the phone to ring. My mom fell and tore up both feet a couple of months ago, and I was considering staying a few extra days to be with, but that's fershure not happening now. And I'm probably attending a funeral next week sometime.
Obviously, Devilmacdawg for substance, cause cervical adenocarcinoma, even stage 0 with clean margins, deserves some kind of award. Here's hoping the second opinion gives you as much hope as the first.
My whine: try as we might, we can't seem to generate an antibody to recognize RalB, which basically prevents me from doing about 75% of the experiments I'd like to do.
Anti-whine: I'm in APL's iPod.
Gar,
You're in my iTunes, does that count?
DevilMacDawg - how scary. I hope that they got it all out and that it never, ever appears again.
My whine/anti-whine all in one: Last night, I was elected to be the president of our elementary school parent/teacher group. (Elected is a strong word...."nobody else wanted to do it" would be more accurate.)
My husband has been home for the last 3 months due to the lay-off situation. So I've had lots of time for such volunteer activities. But he starts a new job on Tuesday (big anti-whine!!!). A job that entails travel. Lots of travel. To Asia.
As of Tuesday, my life will be back on the previously frenetic, crazy pace as I try to balance work/home/kids/etc. as the occasional single parent. (Those Asia trips are long!).
So, why did I think I could take on one more thing? Why? Is my memory really that short?
I just thought of a serious antiwhine: May ends, like, in less than a week. It has been, without a doubt, the month of hellish nightmare shit. And it will be over in 6 days, most of which I will spend at our beach house.
PK: The taser is the only option. I carried a gun for a while, but I ended up giving it up because I had very serious issues with the fact that in order to carry it, I had to be prepared to 'shoot to kill'. With the taser, I would immobilize (it was used once, but because my stupid drunk rugby player friend thought it wouldn't bother him - it knocked all 300 lbs of him down on the ground for 5 minutes), but not kill. That made me feel a lot more at ease.
Oh, DevilMacDawg! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that things turn out okay.
Anti-whine: My son was home for a visit over the weekend!
Whine: He has now gone back to the West where he lives and works.
Anti-whine: Gary is on my ipod!
((((Devilmacdawg)))) I hope the second consult goes well.
Rev. Dr. Mom: Sorry for your loss.
Camera Obscura: How very sad for your family.
PK -- No, you are not overthinking this. Way to go AJ for speaking up and being clear about boundaries. And I'm all about the taser for sis.
Casey - There must be a special award for anyone dealing with cockroaches. Eeeeewwww!
more of a tantrum than a whine:
mr. t. wants to change internet providers (more services, less money, plus cable tv channels) and I'm *extremely* anxious about it. I can only imagine the notices I'll miss (like football registration or old friends, my advisor still uses my previous one and then goes and looks for what-is-it-now when it bounces). Plus the trauma of actually having the installation people come out and he's hyper critical of whatever choices I make. He says he'll be there this time. I swear that trauma of the last time is still with me. But I'll open a gmail account and figure out a way to save my archived letters and try to make him happy (and this savings had better be real, not a phantom trial offer that evaporates in 6 months and then he'll want to go back to the old company just to show them). argh.
he also wants me to find new car insurance. did I tell you about how much paperwork there was for finding new life insurance? and then we didn't switch because gee the price wasn't any better. Or that the tickets to Israel that I finally bought last week (and the hold on the credit card that resulted in the card being refused somewhere -- I don't get it, they took the $5000 and they put a hold on it for another $5000 that may take maybe 15 days to get released), now he'd like to change the return date which is a $200-$300 fee. What would we be saving in any of these new ideas (cable, insurance, whatever) if that's how we buy tickets? And, of course, I'm home on vacation, so I've got time to do all of this crap.
ok. I have a real to-do list, plus classes to write, and research to write.
tantrum over.
antiwhine - we did have coffee together on the deck this morning and it was beautiful.
Whine - painters working on the exterior of our house discover rotten wood that extends all. the. way through the chimney. The wording? The interior framework has failed. The solution? $3000. On top the $4000 to do the painting - none of which we could really afford anyway.
Anti-Whine - we finally got Miss K enrolled in the new daycare. They have a science program. A Spanish program. A music program. Nature hikes. PONY RIDES. Hell, I want to go there.
purple kangaroo's sister gets my vote for the creepy weirdo. can she arrange with roomies to walk together? a bike sounds like a good idea, too -- she can more easily take a different route. pepper spray wouldn't hurt, either.
devilmacdawg -- that's scary, and hope that this took care of it.
rev. dr. mom, so sorry for the loss of your friend.
camera obscura, how very sad about your cousin.
Hugs to all the whining pixies. It sounds rough out there today.
My whine? Closing on sale of this house tomorrow. Leave for househunting voyage on Friday. And last night? Leak in the AC resulting in water stains on the ceiling. I await the repairman with bated breath. Please don't let this affect closing! I cannot afford to own this house anymore!
Still no job. But sent out some more part-time inquiries.
My gosh, you guys! Devilmacdawg, big, big hugs. That's just the last thing you needed on your plate right now. I hope the second biopsy shows that there's nothing left to worry about.
(Can I get a wha-wha for the new HPV vaccine that could prevent our daughters from ever having to face Devilmacdawg's situation? Let's not let the religious right keep it under lock and key, OK?)
Could you buy Miss M a cellphone so that you could keep in touch with her?
I'm so sorry about your husband's cousin, Camera Obscura. We're thinking about you!
Casey.... ickies ickies ickies! Eeek!
Big whine: bird flu. Scaring the crap out of me. My favorite parts of the article? "It was reported, for instance, that the man who died on May 22 refused to take Tamiflu. He fled from the investigators and authorities and lived on the run, sheltered by friends, for the final four days of his life."
Great. That's the way to keep an infectious disease contained, you know?
As always, Revere is the go-to blogger with the most cogent analysis of what we know and what we don't.
Phantom... I'm buying Miss M a cellphone over lunch. It's one that I can lock to restrict incoming and outgoing calls to only those on her call list, which will basically be the list we designate. And her stupid mother can't add any additional numbers.
The vaccine is VERY exciting to me! The thing I don't get.... So a kid goes and gets a vaccine. They get LOTS of shots. Most of us don't really explain anything to them about it, beyond "Well, this is to help you keep from getting very sick". There is no 'need to know' on the part of a child what, excactly, the vaccination would prevent, beyond 'another virus that is very dangerous.' Bahhh! Wingnuts piss me off!
Camera Obscura and Rev dr. mom, so sorry for your bad news.
dmcd, I'm so sorry that you need to use phrases like "Adenocarcinoma in situe." I hope things go well on the next checkup (and here's to lots of good drugs for the more invasive biopsy).
PK's story is totally creeping me out.
My own big whine for today is financial: last night we got an estimate for replacing our (130 foot-long, very cracked) driveway: $15,000!!! And then the guy looked at the north side of the house (the side on which water is coming into the basement when it rains, and the side on which there is mold growin in a corner, and the side on which I can't get our dehumidifier to stop leaking, which makes it rather ineffective). On the north side, he recommends digging a ditch and putting a drain in, plus regrading things so that the side of our house is no longer lower than the driveway next door. That's probably another $1500. We've had contractors in our house daily since before thanksgiving and I would really like this all to be over. The money is flying out the door.
More amusingly, but irritatingly, my nipples are itchy. And this is really the only place I can think of where I'd announce that!
New whine:
My husband's 1998 Honda Civic, which has been (essentially) maintenance-free up until now, needs somewhere in the vicinity of $1000 worth of repairs (maybe more, depending on what the mechanic finds). This car has over 100,000 miles on it, is very beat-up, and is probably not worth putting that much money into. On the other hand, we can't exactly afford to buy another car right now.
PK: I second (third) the "buy a taser" assertion.
My anti-whine was already covered by Gary. (Can't. Stop. Laughing.)
My piddly whine (especially in light of substantive whines regarding the health and safety of those near & dear to us): You know you've been working too hard when the head of your practice group (basically, your bosses' boss) suggests that you might want to slow down a bit.
Small whine for the summer. We (boyfriend and I) are carpooling (well only us driving) with an intern at my company for the summer. Sounds fine right? Thing is we had to do this last summer to and the intern is just not very prompt and it's annoying waiting around all the time.
What is doubly annoying about the situation is that this is my boss's cousin. My boss asked me if we could carpool with the intern. So it's like we can't say no.
Triply annoying, my boss lives in the same town as us! She could have just as easily carpooled with the intern, but she's "to busy" or what not to bother with carpooling. ARGH!
Oh, PK! I would be so proud and also so creeped out in your shoes.
My whine is spouse/work related. I probably shouldn't be too specific since it's not my own story, but suffice it to say that an extremely reasonable and thoughtful proposal RW made at her job has been rejected in a way that has created bad feeling between her and her boss, as well as putting a serious crimp in our scheduling flexibility for next year.
MG will most likely have to go into full-time aftercare, which does not work well for our girl or our overall household time economy. (read: no slack whatsoever in the weekly grind, with extra dollops of crabbiness and exhaustion for everyone.)
And RW's rightfully pissed at her boss, who is (used to be?) a friend of ours.
Bleah.
Nausea, nausea and nausea. And lots of vomiting. Multiple times yesterday. It is starting to drive me over the edge.
The other ridiculosity of it, is that the only thing that doesn't make me vomit is meat. I've tried vegetables, salads, tofu, soy protein shakes, carbs, etc. Vomit vomit vomit. Then I try chicken? Happiest stomach ever. Turkey? Joyful.
I'm sure I've mentioned that I stopped eating meat last July? And I was really really really happy with my decision, but apparently pregnancy has other plans. Sigh.
Anti-whine- I'll eat dirt if it means I have a healthy baby!
devilmacdawg!!! That is so scary! I hope the second opinion comes back with good news. I'm hoping for 2007 babypalooza.
PK- that is freaky freaky freaky on all counts! Good for AJ! What a strong girl.
PS- please make the bird flu go away.
Rev. Dr. Mom- I felt similarly about cancer baby. It is devastating. I'm so sorry.
HL, didn't that happen to Phoebe on Friends? "The baby wants meat!"
First - devilmcdawg - I'm sorry! I hope biopsy 2 comes back perfectly clear.
PK - Scary creepyness. Can she borrow a big dog?
As for me:
I started this morning alone in my bed
All four of the pillows stuffed under my head.
My daughter had crawled in with me and the cat
The covers were straight and the padding still flat.
Why was I sleeping without my dear spouse?
My spouse, he is gone, yes he’s out of the house.
While I get to deal with the weather so chilly
And drive both the kids round this town that’s so hilly
My spouse flew away to a red state to play
In a city we both used to live in, hurray!
He gets to visit at all our old haunts
And go to a meeting where everyone flaunts
All the cool stuff they’ve done,
And with powerpoint slides,
They brag on their research. Then go on bike rides
On picturesque trails. They eat Indian food
And drink lots of good beer ‘till they all get quite lewd.
Back in this cold town, I have too much to do
There’s swim class to get to, and veggies to stew
And bedtime to get through, without dear old dad,
Who is older son’s favorite, poor little lad.
He misses his daddy, so he pitches fits
Till both kids are behaving like two little sh—s.
He picks fights over toys, she bites him on the arm.
Will I manage to keep them from coming to harm?
While daddy’s enjoying Missouri homebrew,
I have to manage alone with these two.
What’s more, because of the schedule of school,
I must use my vacation time – that is the rule.
So vacation is spent on our daily routine
Will any be left for a day when I’m Queen
Of all I survey (or at least my own time?)
I really don’t know. So I’m ending this rhyme.
Yes! I tried to get Josh to give up meat in my place so that the sum total of eaten animals was the same, but no dice. So much for a supportive hubby...
HL-- Congrats! Sorry about the nausea. As my ob said at our first appointment (lo, these many years ago) "You: eat whatever you want. and You: (pointing at ML) leave her alone." This preference for poultry is just the beginning of how the little blob starts running your life . . . Feel better soon!
So sorry to hear about all the freaky freaks and atypical cells. Yay for AJ! She wasn't rude but she made herself clear. P_K, you are a great teacher. I hope your sister stays safe because, wow, that was a really blatant threat. So glad she was able to borrow a car!
Mykal -- that is a sucky little problem. Good luck. Can you set up some kind of "if you aren't ready within 10 minutes we leave" rule? Probably not, since the intern will make you look petty in front of your boss. Sigh.
My little whine: we got two estimates to have the peeling-painted wooden parts of our mostly-brick house painted this summer. We went with the cheaper one, and I am going to out them here I am so angry: CollegePro. You know, give enterprising, hard working college students a chance to have a rewarding summer job managing their own business while getting a relatively cheap paint job.
But! The franchisee for our area had me sign a contract and cashed our deposit check the next day, in March. He said he'd call in April to schedule. Comes early May, no call, so I finally got to calling him. The cell number he gave me is disconnected. I called the central office number and was told he had withdrawn because he didn't get enough business in our neighborhood. He had *not* told them we signed a contract. He took our money and ran. Errrrr!
Now, it's $230. Enough to be pissed about, but not going to put us in the poorhouse. But now the area manager seems to be not working hard enough to regain our trust, so I may need to crawl back to the more expensive, more professional company and see if they can still fit us in for this summer, which is $1,500 more plus all the phone time arguing with CollegePro about whether they'll make good on the $230. She hasn't said they won't, but on the phone with ML the other night she said she'd have another franchisee call us, and she sounded surprised that he said we might go with another company. Shouldn't they be rushing around trying to reasure us? It's been 1.5 working days since that phone call and we haven't heard anything so I just left her a message.
Half of me wants to fight, fight, fight because that is theft, plain and simple. Half of me wants to walk away and hire the other company and just forget about it for my own sanity. Another half of me doesn't want to do that because we have plans for that other $1,500, you know?
I have no whine. But this is only because I am in denial about the fact that I leave in one week for 2 months in Portugal and away from my sweet pea, the sqvirrel, and our dogs. Never mind that we get married twelve days after I return. Ehh, who says a tent wedding takes a lot of planning (okay, eveyone says that).
Hugs to Kaitlin, I know that fear of dissertation comments from advisors/supervisors first hand. Fortunately my advisor always just gave me her comments or talked to me first but I still worried the entire time she had the drafts. And a good friend of mine could NEVER open emails from her PhD advisor, I actually had to open and read them first for her. There was never anything really bad in there but it's all about anticipation.
HOLY CRAP! HL! I HAD NO IDEA!!
Congratulations and ohmygod, I am SO FRICKIN' EXCITED FOR YOU!.
emailing so as not to hijack the Lovely PS blog.
Halloween Lover, congratulations!
I have two large anti-whines:
The compensation issue I whined about last week? The rector made a proposal for a raise that I thought was inadequate, so I made a counter proposal--and he accepted it this morning! So I'm getting a decent sized raise in July and another next July. And I get whatever COLAs that others on staff get. Hooray! I am also feeling very good about having advocated for myself and stuck to it without falling apart--not something I've always been good at.
Second anti-whine-Older Son has been offered a job as head coach of the men's soccer team at a college that used to be named after an animal. This is the first job he's had that paid him any kind of decent salary, and it's what he's always wanted to do. So very good news.
Serious Whine: Lots of post-miscarriage adoption-squabbling with Beloved Partner last night and this morning leads to below the belt pot shots that still have me feeling worn out six hours later.
Trivial Whine: I brought my lunch the day the cafe at work had their celebratory re-opening with free food.
Antiwhine: I was glad I brought my lunch because they had NO VEGETARIAN FARE WHATSOEVER (even the salad had meat bits in it) but I still managed to down a few (translation: about ten) brownies.
Two of my good friends are getting a divorce. They got married 9 months ago. Sigh.
I just feel like saying, "Well, I really like both of you, why can't you two just like each other?!?!?" Worse, they want me to take sides, which I refuse to do.
Also, I'm thinking about ending my blog. I just feel depressed and like I've run out of ideas.
Anti-whine: Matt and I are starting a new site which will chronicle our experiences in Scotland. I'm pretty excited.
Madeleine: I say fight, but don't wear yourself out. Do you have a local (county?) consumer protection bureau? When our cable company had basically stolen $100 from us and refused to refund it, we called our county's consumer protection bureau and filed a report. Effort: minimal. We did nothing after filing the report. But the county did its thing and we got our $100 refund from the crappy cable company.
And if your state doesn't have an appropriate body, try the state. They'll do the legwork 'cause chances are you weren't the only victim.
APL, thanks for the suggestions. I was planning to complain to the BBB, but an agency that would actually do some work for me -- that would be even better. Still no call back from the Area Manager or the other franchisee.
Ok, I've got a funny one.
I don't believe in walking around town in heels -- it hurts my feet. So I usually just leave my heels at work and wear sneakers or sandals back and forth. But I changed job this week. Monday and Tuesday, I wore pants, so I just wore my boots (which don't hurt my feet). Today I wore a skirt, so I put on sneakers and grabbed my heels to wear at work.
But when I got here, I discovered that I had grabbed two right shoes, from different pairs, with different heel heights. The lower heel pair is loose enough that I can wear it on my left foot, so I'm hobbling around the office that way, hoping that no one notices.
Votes for best whines go to devilmcdawg and PK.
Rev. Dr. Mom---perhaps an animal that sounded a little (ahem) inappropriate after a while? And then there was a new college name that makes no sense given the location? If so, I know your son's new colleagues!
Sorry about that crypticness---my whine is insignificant, but it's the insignificant whines that are the most fun----
I went today to get my prescription epi-pen refilled. Now, this whole thing irritates me--they cost $250 for 2 (which i need) and only are "fresh" for 12 months. The whole point is to never use them. So I have 2 perfectly good but expired ones to throw out and need to pick up two new ones. I called in the renewal yesterday at 8 a.m.
I arrive today at noon---they have no memory of this. (This after waiting 10 minutes to even get to hand over my name). I make them look it up and "wow" (picture hand slapping forehead here) "there it is." Well, now I have to wait. I should add that this is the busiest pharmacy in the universe. So before I sit down I reiterate my request that they put the sticker with my name on it on the pen itself, not the box. "Why?" "Well, I don't like carrying around the box and you can't fly with an epipen that you don't have proof of prescription for." "But we always put it on the box." "And?" "Well, I guess it won't hurt anything to put it on the pen itself...maybe other people would like that too."
Great, marvy, happy to help. I sit down and watch my fingernails grow, avert my eyes from people I know picking up all kinds of drugs, read New Yorkers from 1996, etc. Thirty minutes later, they call my name. I go to pick up my prescription and they have made an error--it's an epi-pen junior--for children under 80 pounds (definitely not me). I tell them. The guy stares at me and says, "but we put the sticker on it. We can't resell it." I just stare back. "Are you sure you don't just want to buy these?" he asks. Yeah, sure, I'd love to spend a couple hundred bucks on something that a) won't keep me breathing should I need it, and b) has little green and purple clowns on the cover.
"I guess we can't get you to buy this, since it's wrong, huh?" "Uh, yeah."
So they go back to make MORE of these. Now this is an epi-pen, not a pill. it's not like they are hand-formulating them--they're pulling them off a shelf and putting the sticker on---not tricky at all. 45 minutes later, I have my prescription.
Yup. An hour and a half---during the work day---to pick up a prescription that I called ahead! Luckily my pharmacy is part of the university so I feel absolutely no obligation to make up the time.
No bodily fluids, no serious complaints, just a little whine. Cheese anyone?
PPB, yes, that's the school.
Pharmacies make me crazy--I know they are busy but geez....."Are you sure you don't want to just buy these?" when they are clearly not the right thing???
I would like to amend my whine a bit.
There's something even more fun than just solo parenting whilst listening to your spouse's phoned-in descriptions of all the fun he's having.
Waiting for his phone call while holding a bucket hoping your two year old hits that next time rather than the couch again, you again, or the poor cat.
This always happens when he goes away. He's missed most of the major stomach bugs this way, somehow. Last time, the kid in question barfed once and felt fine -- then I got it and was poleaxed for 24 hours. Hoping I don't get it this time..... (fingers crossing.......)
Echoing PPB -- my morning consisted of speedy biking over to the doctor's office. Followed by an hour. of. waiting, in the company of a man who was making the most alarming chest-coughy noises I've ever heard. Not contagious pneumonia-type noises, but something-seriously-wrong-with-the-lungs noises. Then I had my appointment that lasted 5 minutes.
Whine: I miss my baby girl, who's home with her dad on the other side of the country while I am at a conference.
Anti-whine: Several consecutive nights of sleeping past 5:30 am!!
Whine: The chirpy birds woke me up at dawn this morning.
Anti-whine: I got to go back to sleep!
Whine: My boobs hurt.
Anti-whine: That's because this trip is allowing me finally to wean my toddler! (This also makes me sad, beyond making my boobs hurt, but is on the whole a very good thing.)
Oh, and I can't remember who the whining pixie was (I'm apparently too lazy to scroll back up), but I can vouch that spending around $1000 on your Honda Civic at around 100,000 miles will give you another 100,000. It's worth it.
i forgot anti-whines!
son -- who is finally working full-time the past few months -- bought a car and registered it and got insurance, all at his own expense, and i don't have to drive him anymore!! [he's been off our insurance since the second car wreck, 6 months ago. he seems to be a much more cautious driver now.]
daughter's HS finals are over this week, and unless she finds a job, she will be drafted by mom as a yard care specialist. she's applying to a vet, and also hoping to find something via a friend who works at a very cool hands-on science museum. i'm dizzy with the prospects -- either my yard will be restored to its former glory, or i can retire as the "human ATM machine"!
Irritable whine: my husband invited all the child-free couples in the neighborhood over for pizza and the Red Sox game tonight.
Anti-whine: pizza. I don't have to cook.
Whine: Still, someone has to wash the salad in a bag and dump it into a bowl. Hard to do when the TODDLER WHO HAS NOT NAPPED is having a meltdown.
Anti-whine: I had much of the day off yesterday so I could get the house ready to meet all these child-free neighbors.
Whine: I spent my day off scrubbing the goddam floors.
Anti-whine: it's nice that we're making an effort to meet the neighbors.
Whine: I've never even had a conversation with most of them. We don't have room for all of them to, you know, sit while they eat their pizza. Strangers make me anxious. Also, I hate people. Why are we doing this again?
Whine: why is my frickin' husband, Mr. Invite All the Neighbors, frickin' not home yet?
Whine: Baby Blue just fell asleep while nursing. There's our nap. At 6:15PM. Peachy!
Off to see if I can dislodge the baby, clean the coffee table, and wash the salad. Ack!
Hey! I'm child free! I love the Red Sox! I didn't get invited!
Rude people.
Cervical ickies and tummy ickies get votes from me . . . and PPB's whine made me laugh.
Pantry pickin's are a bit slim today, and I'm not about to drag sick kids out to the store so they can cough on all the people and produce there.
I've got the dinner blu-ues.
What am I gonna do-oo?
Fridge pickin's are slim
The pantry's lookin' . . . pretty dim
No taters in the sack
No meat on the rack
I've got a couple cans of . . . clam.
Lots of lentils, but they gag the fam.
We can't have soy or dairy
So even takeout's hairy.
But I've nothing so astute
As non-dairy milk substitute.
Plenty of beans for smokin'
Too late now to start soakin'.
No meat, no potatoes
No lettuce or tomatoes.
The pantry's full of grain
But rice by itself is lame;
There's nothin' to put on it.
(This whine's definitely no sonnet.)
What am I gonna do-oo--ooo?
I've got the dinner bluuuuues.
Camera obscura for whine of substance. ((hugs))
And why don't I have Gary in my ipod?
Oh, yeah, I don't have an ipod.
Can I get Gary's song in my desktop?
Oh, and thanks to all who recommended a taser. I'll definitely mention that to Sis.
Yeah, how do I get Gary on my iPod???
I'd like to retract my whine for today. I opened the envelope and read my comments. They're not as bad as I thought! And he said the conclusion, which is usually one of my weak points, was well done!
Many congratulations Halloween Lover! Sorry to hear about the cravings.
Whine: Muffin Man has been whIIIIIIning AAAAAll dAAAAAAy. I wouldn't mind the complaints if he would just use a less chalk-on-a-blackboard tone.
Anti-whine A: Movie about cute babies in Developmental Psychology today.
Anti-whine B: Talking about infixes (morphology) in Linguistics today led to our professor repeatedly using the phrase "Ala-fucking-bama". (The only examples of infixes in the English language are when we insert an obscenity into another word, "Abso-blooming-lutely" being the most often sung example.)
And I vote for Devilmacdawg and Camera Obscura for substance.
P_K for creep magnetism and style.
Sara also for style.
HL for bringing the fluids.
And Margi for remembering what it's all about.
Yay, Kaitlin, glad you got to retract your whine; it never is as bad as you think it might be!
Phantom, I feel your whine. I don't like talking to (near)-strangers either. Sometimes I don't like talking to people I know. But I'm with halloweenlover (to whom I offer congrats!): I don't have kids. I'm a Red Sox fan. Yet I'm not at Phantom's. Oh wait. I don't live in Boston...
Love the P_K blues song! Gets my style vote (then again so does Sara; I'm very impressed by poetry).
As for the Un-Style vote (not that this exists but whatever), mine goes to Elizabeth with her unmatching, right foot only pair of heels. Too much. My best friend once went to a brand new job as a chef assistant type in her slippers. I find these stories simultaneously very funny and frightening.
Yay Kaitlin!! Way to go!!
Congrats to HL.
Margi, my boobs had sympathy pain just remembering the whole weaning thing.
I have a whine now...my three day weekend has been snatched from my grinning chops like a pilfered lollipop...woe...now I shall be getting up even earlier than I do in order to brave the Japanese rush hour train extravaganza (truly, it is as the legends say) in order to teach english to unmotivated sulky teenagers. Serves me right for bragging really...
Phantom: we're supposed to WASH salad-in-a-bag?! I thought it was all pre-washed!
Meh, whatever I've eaten so far, it hasn't killed me yet. No harm, no foul.
I'm with APL....that's one reason I buy salad-in-a-bag...out of the bag, into the bowl.
Me three! It's pre-washed!!! Anyone saying otherwise will be met with loud humming while I put my fingers in my ears!
yeah, i thought that was the main attraction of salad-in-a-bag... aside from no chopping and tearing.
Me five, on the not washing salad-in-a-bag. I always feel vaguely guilty about it, but I figure it's clean enough.
My mini-whine: I'm realizing there are good reasons doctors advise against quitting SSRIs cold turkey. Ugh. Random crying jags, awake and in dreams.
Anti-whine: three days of camping should help.
I definitely don't wash salad-in-a-bag!
As for whining: I feel kind of proud of myself that I can offer a "remembering what it's all about whine" that has nothing to do with reproduction. Instead, take one elderly cat whose balance isn't that great any more, plus one (braless) mama who's sitting with the laptop on her lap, plus said cat's desire to sit on the lap exactly where said latop is, and what do you get?
Cat-scratched nipples.
Ow.
Especially since I'm allergic to cats and thus tend to react badly to their scratches.
Ow.
(And great sympathies to all the whiners, but Devilmacdawg and Purple Kangaroo especially!)
I never, ever wash salad-in-a-bag.
Especially since the advent of microwave-in-the-bag spinach. If it's good enough for spinach, it's good enough for romaine.
Whine: I'm far away from home and from my boyfriend all summer. We had a long-distance relationship for 9 of the first 10 months we were dating, but we've not been apart in the summer since we met -- even before we dated. I have a summer job on the opposite coast, and I'm surrounded by three screechy cousins in a very little house, and I don't know the ropes of the house yet, so I am feeling uncomfortable and awkward on top of being really, REALLY homesick. And of course, since I'm homwsick, I'm worried about all sorts of related things: what if I don't like my job? What if the fold-out couch I'm sleeping on isn't comfortable? What if I don't have an alarm clock? What if the kids drive me freakin' crazy?
Anti-whine: My aunt and uncle have VERY kindly cleaned out the basement in their tiny tiny house, and are letting me live here -- rent-free! -- all summer. And their kids are VERY excited to see me. And my boyfriend is very kind and is taking excellently good care of me.
Nipples again:
Also, Baby E decided that she wanted to nurse approximately 1-3 times per hour today, which meant it was hard to get anything else done. She also nursed (actively nursed, not just sleep-pacifying) from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m and again from 8:30-9 this morning. And that was after nursing at 3 and 4 a.m. and being awake past 4:30.
It could be the several teeth beginning to break through her gums, or could be the scratchy throat and cough coming on.
Or it could just be that her on-again, off-again nursing habits are wreaking havoc with the milk supply. For the past week it's been like wrestling a greased pig to try to get her to nurse 4-5 times a day, if that.
I've had to pump just to relieve my discomfort because she was nursing so little. Now she wants the milk and there's probably not as much there.
First the engorgement, now the newborn-style (but with teeth!) freshly sore stuff.
Does the nursing fun never end?
Nope, I don't wash salad-in-a-bag either. And yes, I've seen the TV investigative-team bits on just how much nastiness they've found in them. We're building up immunities, eh?
APL (or whomever the painters ripped off, I've lost it, sorry)
Generally, one or all of the local TV stations will have somebody on staff who just looooooves to go after people like that. They fancy themselves the next Mike Wallace. May is a sweeps month, altho we're at the end of it, and this makes for good promo spots. Let these folks get your money for you.
Oh, also, apparently Sis has decided that any of three guys on the website could be the one who talked to her. Which could, of course, mean that it's nobody on that website at all.
Which, IMHO, would still be plenty creepy anyway.
But then again, I'm hearing about most of this third-hand through my mom. And I'm really hoping Sis won't be upset if she finds out I posted about it on a blog for all the world to see. Which is why I didn't post about it on my blog, where a lot of people who know both me and my sis IRL read regularly.
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