Oldernowiser

If the Duggars weren’t such freaks about stupid stuff like frontal hugs, toddler shoulders and premarital....well, anything... I doubt it would even register. Only because of the context, it looks a tad coocoocachoo.

Where do people learn these things and how, in particular, does a supposedly devout pastor wannabe heterosexual guy develop this bag of worldly shallow tricks? My mind, it boggles. Jinger looks like she’s been crying for a month. I almost feel bad for her.

Anyone else think RFP’s belly region in that photo has been shopped? His torso looks disproportionately elongated and thinner...especially compared to his head.

Kimberly wishes... But I thought the same thing.

It’s the color of a really nasty rash. Festering Fuschia? Rubella Red? Pox Pink?

Some do. They get mocked for it, but they do. It’s like any other category of humans...it’s impossible to say “they” are all the same in anything. On a lighter note, I just proved to myself that I can still do a cartwheel. At 62.5. It would have been better to inform my husband ahead of time, as it turns out, as he claims he thought I was having a seizure. But STILL. Go me!

@rue721, I am so sorry about everything you’re going through. I have had jobs like that and it just sucks. I had one where I had to hang on for two years in order to save enough money to quit, responsibly... I had a pad of those little post-its and I wrote 104 through 1 on them and every Monday I peeled off the top sheet...a low-tech countdown calendar! I am sure they have cool apps for that now. Maybe that would help? I guess the good news is that we’re heading into the “nobody’s thinking about anything work-related anyway” season, so maybe that will help take some of the pressure off. In the meantime, maybe declare the Thanksgiving weekend “A Celebration of Rue721.” Stock up on everything you love to eat and drink! Have ice cream for breakfast! Stream entire seasons of embarrassingly cheesy television! Whatever congratulates you for being you. Sending a big virtual hug...

Zoomama, I went back through your posts...you’ve gone through so much, health-wise! Please reconsider putting yourself at further risk with this trip?

Sometimes I think that we need to have Covid wards and ERs filmed and shown on television 24/7. I’m reminded of the Viet Nam war, which was an abstraction to most of the country until they began showing footage from the war on the evening news. Until people saw what war was doing to soldiers...kids, really...they didn’t really get it. It was just something hippies and college kids were fussing about. With HIPAA and privacy issues it would never work, but for too many, the virus doesn’t exist until it hits home. Literally. I read a terribly painful Twitter thread this morning from a frontline caregiver in South Dakota. Many patients are refusing to believe they have Covid and screaming at doctors and nurses to be treated for whatever it is they REALLY have, because Covid is a hoax. Bad enough to be trying to do the impossible for all these months, but now to be abused and called liars? That’s...unforgivable.

@louannems, I think you must also live in Washington state? “Governor Inslee, Sunday morning, ordered restaurants and bars to shutdown indoor service and to limit outdoor service to parties of five or less. Indoor gyms and fitness centers must also shutdown. Same with movie theaters, bowling alleys and museums. Indoor gatherings with people outside your household will be prohibited unless participants have quarantined and tested negative. ”Indoor gatherings, outside one’s household, are prohibited unless participants quarantine for 14 days prior to the gathering or quarantine for seven days prior and receive a negative COVID-19 test within two days of the planned gathering.” This is the most severe set of restrictions since lockdown last spring. We have a statewide mask mandate, but like everywhere, that’s only as helpful as compliance and/or enforcement. Part of our decision to return ourselves to lockdown was Mr. Wiser watching a maskless woman in Safeway pawing through the broccoli last week. Lovely.

So in order for your neighbors to accept you, you have to continue being an unpaid, unthanked (I should freaking hope she bought you a gift basket FFS), emotionally and verbally abused full-time caretaker for a smelly, demanding old man? Yep. Time to move. Or it’s time to make his family step up and move him into a care facility or hire an actual caregiver, because this is bullshit. My guess is you’re saving them about $50-60,000 a year and they’re just as happy to keep that money in his estate and continue to exploit you instead. Shame on them! At the very least, start backing away? Develop a mythical and vaguely embarrassing gynecological condition you can use to excuse yourself from care duty...few people have the gall to question that too closely. Or migraines. Or SOMETHING. Because this is bullshit. Yes, I said that before, but it really deserves saying twice. At least.

I remember the day? Weekend? That you didn’t dance to his tune and instead took care of yourself. As I recall, multiple naps were involved. You sounded so much more relaxed. YOU TAKE CARE OF YOU. His family’s bizarre dysfunction is NOT yours to fix.

Honey? As fond of you as I am, “extra wine” is an oxymoron.

Sweetie? Remind me again why everything is your problem to solve with this situation? He can order the whole meal in from a restaurant or the grocery store. Or he can eat whatever his vegetarian daughter whips up. Or he can open a can of tuna. Or a jar of peanut butter. Obviously I don’t know them or you, but it just seems like you’re being exploited by all of them. Is it worth it?

Mr. Wiser and I have looked at the statistics and decided to revert to lockdown mode until January. We bought a small freezer and I ordered enough food to be delivered to get us through a month. We’ll still do a masked weekly trip to our post office box and walk the dogs around the mall parking lot early before it opens when no one else is around. But in-person shopping or errands are out until next year. I will just live with my shaggy crazy old lady hair! We are so fortunate in that we CAN stay home and if it means we won’t risk infection or infecting others or use up medical resources, it’s worth that small inconvenience. I so hope you all stay safe and well!

Well, he did throw the money-lenders out of the temple...so how the prosperity-gospel types square that circle is beyond me. But once they turned Jesus into a blonde, blue-eyed Caucasian any pretensions of historical accuracy were pretty much out the window, anyway.

And will she notice?

This times a zillion. He’s made his plans. Now you make yours and stick to them. Unless this is a situation where this guy pays you and this holiday would be quadruple overtime, he and/or his nasty relatives will just have to figure it out. Repeat after me: “I have other plans. I have other plans. I have other plans.” Then stock up on whatever you want and spend the holiday cuddled up with your kitties!

Yikes, ChiCricket. I’d be spitting nails, too. If it makes you feel any better, you’re not alone in the Having Idiot Relatives category. My husband’s daughter is some kind of travel agent and about a month ago we heard she was posting bikini shots of her silly self on a “yacht” down in the Caribbean somewhere. They live in the Midwest. Ergo, multiple plane trips were involved. Dumbass. Did I mention she’s almost fifty? Okay, bad enough. But she’s an adult...if she and her knuckle-dragger husband want to play Covid roulette, it’s not like my husband could have stopped them. THEN we found out she took two of her sons along, both of whom my husband dotes on. They’re in their late twenties, so yes, technically they’re adults, but JFC. Annnnd last week we hear both Mr. and Mrs. Dumbass have tested positive. We haven’t heard about the kids. Gawdamighty.

Okay, in words of one syllable, can someone explain how bowling is Godly? Any others I should know, like Piety Ping Pong? Churchly Checkers? Divinity Dominoes? Blessed Badminton?

It’s partly their posts...I’ve seen so many photos of Prop I keep expecting her to be graduating from high school by now.

So...let me see if I have this right...masks are for wimps, because Jesus will protect the righteous, but assault rifles are absolutely necessary for “protection”? Those two are bigger posers than RFP and I didn’t think that was possible.

Big hug, sweetie. Have you called any of the Domestic Violence help lines? You are not alone. There are so many people who have been where you are and they can help you find the path out. But you have to let them know where you are. Better times await. I promise.

Holy shit (literally). I just read that blog link and the quoted story from MacArthur’s book about the young girl who was “possessed” and tossing a steel desk around and how the demons were magically scared away by MacArthur’s arrival? You know, I do TRY to be tolerant but anyone who believes that crap needs psychiatric intervention and/or an emergency operation to have a working bullshit detector installed. THIS is the wagon RFP has hitched them to????? What....the....actual....fuck....

Think anyone is letting TLC know what their wholesome religious whacky-fun “just doin’ things differently” family is now espousing?