Jane Tuesday

RE: older couples... this will probably be an unpopular opinion here, but I'm fine with an old-fashioned division of labor, if that's what works for them. My grandpa likely never washed an item of clothing or a dirty dish. (He did feed himself breakfast and lunch on days grandma was working.) But grandma never, ever, mowed the lawn or did anything involving automobiles. He kept her car fueled, and every day he would start her car and check the oil and tires so it was warm and ready to go for her. (Of course, all adults should be capable of taking care of their basic needs, and should be respectful of their partner's effort - if your partner does all the vacuuming, don't leave your shit in the way, etc.) I guess my point is, I'm less concerned with HOW the work is divided than I am with WHERE it's divided. If it's 50/50, does it really matter so much what the tasks are? I'm single, and so I'm responsible for all the "woman's" AND "man's" work at my house, and I'm here to say, it all sucks. Sure, there are some things I like more than others, but it's all boring and tedious and I'd love to not be responsible for any of it. There's no glory in cleaning gutters, or shoveling sidewalks, or raking leaves or whatever. That's one thing that irks me about modern conversations about gender. There's an implication - even among feminists - that everything traditionally female is inferior and should be avoided, and everything traditionally male is superior and should be celebrated. With housework, men should "have to" clean, while women "get to" do handyman tasks. Society cheers when a girl joins Boy Scouts, but assumes boys would never want to be in Girl Scouts (implying Girl Scouting is inferior and was just a placeholder). There's this weird dichotomy that's very "girl power", but only celebrates women for doing masculine things. The underlying feeling it creates is that men are right and we should seek to be more like them. It's never suggested that men should want to be more like women. Even negative things, like smoking, swearing, heavy drinking, fighting wars, etc., there's a feeling that "we can do it, too!", instead of thinking, "should anyone be doing it?" Women will fight tooth and nail to "get to" work long hours or travel all the time "like a man", and the whole conversation will center around whether she should, how her career will suffer if she doesn't, or her family will suffer if she does. Shouldn't the conversation be about ALL people, and why overwork and excessive travel are seen as necessary sacrifices to be successful? I feel like there are important conversations happening where women's voices should be heard, but we're drowning ourselves out with "be like a man" thinking. The things women are generally given credit for being better at - empathy, listening, communicating, building community, nurturing relationships - wouldn't the world be a better place if those things were elevated and celebrated? Just my five cents of rambling this morning. If you got this far, thanks for reading! 🤣

Okay, but Brady is American, so... It's been a few years, but I actually remember this coming up as a discussion in my Sexuality course in college. Our professor asked, if you took home your college BF/GF to meet your parents, would you have sex in your parents' house? The universal answer was between "hell, no" and "maybe, if they weren't home, but still maybe not". So I'm still not buying that Brady and his GF are both so laissez-faire about the whole thing.

Setting aside for a moment whether the school SHOULD have told them, I don't understand how not telling them works, as a practical matter. This is their NAME. (A child's sexuality wouldn't be expected to be discussed by teachers, but their name would be used a million times.) So everyone at school calls them Rock, and then seamlessly switches to Rose as soon as Charlotte enters the building? What about written materials that go home (permission slips, report cards, invitations)? Rock is never going to have a friend over? So Charlotte and Harry show up at graduation some day and can't find their daughter's name in the program? Protecting children is a noble goal, I'm just doubtful that it works that way. Inevitably - as we saw in this episode - the parents WILL find out. And in my experience, the longer someone is kept in the dark, the worse their reaction will be. JMHO and all that.

Oh, no! I wonder if they'll go ahead with her 100th birthday celebration. I was going to take my mom to see it for HER birthday present. What a legend.

Of course, there are always breakthrough cases, with any vaccine. This is not new. The vaccine reduces your chances of catching it and reduces the amount of virus you shed. Those two things combined - if all of even most people were vaccinated - act together as a "fire break" to keep the virus from spreading. That's why we needed everyone to get it. The fact that the vaccine isn't 100% isn't a valid reason to NOT get the shot. It's a reason why everyone SHOULD get it. It's also worth pointing out that the vaccines were not created or tested to keep people from getting it. That ended up being a lovely side effect. But they were created and tested to be effective at reducing hospitalizations and death, and they still do that, which is the most important thing.

Exactly! Not to mention, a lot of these people who bitch the loudest basically ARE living their lives like it's 2019. They don't mask, travel freely, gather for parties, etc. Sometimes I think they don't actually care if it goes on forever, because they're not actually DOING any of it. It infuriates me. My dad pointed out the other day that we've now lost twice as many Americans to covid than we lost in WWII, and in half the time. It's also more than died in the Civil War, on both sides (750,000). Maybe if we buried all the covid people in giant covid-specific cemeteries, it would sink in with people. Another fun stat I just calculated: we've lost 275 times more Americans to covid than we lost in September 11. Jesus.

The mention of "war on Christmas" triggered a remembered social media peeve.... I have a few FB friends who have spent the past several days posting memes mocking people who complain about the "war on Christmas" and saying it's a pagan holiday anyway, etc. But here's the thing, I've don't really see anyone actually complaining. And I have a ton of FB friends who would definitely fit that demographic. I just want to tell them, if these posts about the supposed "war on Christmas" are so irritating to you, unfollow that person, or tell THEM about it in their comments. But don't fill MY feed with negativity and mockery. It's to the point where I feel like they're saying I'm stupid for celebrating the holiday at all. So my overall peeve is people who complain about a thing louder than the original thing. Most of the time, they're just giving the thing a megaphone. I almost never hear about whatever the scandal or social media faux pas of the day is. I hear about the backlash, or the backlash to the backlash. Roll your eyes and let it go. And yes, I should take my own advice and hide them. I did unfollow virtually everyone for two years, and it was nice, but I really lost touch with people. Some people really make zero effort outside of FB anymore to communicate, so if you want to see pictures of their kids and things, that's the only way. A pet peeve of its own. And yes, I'm aware that I'm complaining about complainers in a thread for complaints! Ha!

Personally, I thought they were very careful to NOT say, "we believe the women". "We support them and know it was hard to come forward with these allegations" is not the same thing.

Slightly different setup, but yes. I used to work in local TV news, and I was friends with some of the anchors. In our small city, they are major celebrities. When we used to go out to clubs, all the sudden all these people I hadn't spoken to in YEARS would come out of the woodwork wanting to "catch up" with me. (Mind you, I'm not the kind of person who people seek out at a party. I'm the quiet, sarcastic one in the corner.) I wasn't completely naive to what was happening; at first I loved it, thinking, "hey, I'm finally in the cool crowd!" But these people never followed up with me after, or came up when I was out with other friends. It became obvious it wasn't about me AT ALL. I was just an excuse to come up to our group and meet the famous people. A conversation-starter. It was very lowering.

In central Illinois, and I found a freaking TICK last week! The older I get, the happier is be without hard winters, but damn.... Bugs and snakes need to be GONE for at least three months a year!

I really wish I didn't believe it, but their stories are just so similar. Yikes...

I LOVE the cast album, so I'm glad to hear this!

Today's pet peeve is the "cutesy-ing" of words, in particular, the use of "kiddoes". An old friend of mine has launched a truly fascinating podcast about child mental health, specifically childhood anxiety. He has a background in reporting and a son with anxiety. His co-host is a therapist who herself suffered from anxiety as a child. It's really well-done. BUT! They persist in the constant use of the word "kiddo", instead of kid, child, son, whatever. It's driving me up a freaking WALL. At first it was mostly the therapist, but now my friend has picked it up as well. I think she's probably used to using child-focused language because of her practice, so I understand. But it's nails on a chalkboard to me. It's gotten to where I actually find it very distracting. Like, how you don't notice that someone peppers their speech with "like", until, like, someone mentions it? And then, you, like, cannot NOT notice it? Like, grrrr.....

I feel your pain. As a semi-practicing Catholic, I observe Lent, which among other things means I don't eat meat on Fridays during those 40 days. I have a monthly charitable board meeting, and every year they screw up my food. Once the chairperson forgot entirely, once I missed the call-out at the bottom of the meeting request, once someone else took my special meal, and so on. And because I live in the Midwest, even the salad has bacon. I finally asked, why don't you just order fish (for everyone)? The chairperson said, "well, not everyone likes fish." Well, I don't like sitting down to a three-hour "lunch" meeting with no food. Once, when I switched departments, my old department threw a carry-in for me. This time, it was Good Friday, which means no snacking, in addition to no meat. The only thing they brought that didn't have meat was an enormous cupcake. If I ate it, it would have had to be my "meal", so I took it to be polite and gave it to the receptionist on my way to McDonald's. And this is in a VERY Catholic town, my company's founders are big supporters of the local Catholic school, etc. The concept of Lent is very well-understood here, and my department was very aware that I'm Catholic. People just don't care enough to pay attention.

The purse wine was amusing, but it made me realize how lucky I am that I don't need alcohol to endure my family and friends. If you literally cannot sit through an hour-long event without booze, maybe just don't go? It's not that hard to come up with an excuse or just say you're ill. I went to a school band concert for my nephew last night. Was it thrilling? No, but mine probably weren't, either, and yet people came for me. I realize the kids on these shows are props. But what if the kids realized the adults could only make it through because they were drinking? That's sad to me. I'm no teetotaler. Having a social drink at an appropriate time and place can turn a good time into a better time. But needing a drink just to get through an event is something else altogether.

I totally agree, and didn't fault Carrie at all for just not wanting to deal with her. But... I had a ton of sympathy for Charlotte. I am a really easy crier. Like, REALLY easy. Especially if someone I care about is in pain. When I go to a visitation, and they have the pictures and videos, it's all I can do to not be a blubbery mess. I know it's not appropriate, and I try to control it, but I'm not always successful. No, I get that. I think they just went too far. A 17-year-old backtalking his mom in private, smoking pot at home, sneaking around with his girlfriend, I could totally buy. But the screaming sex-fest while his parents are in the next room, hitting up a random stranger for pot on the sidewalk, and making out with his girlfriend at a little kid's recital*? That's way beyond normal teenage rebellion, IMO. Are we supposed to think he's deliberately setting out to embarrass his mother to get her attention? It doesn't seem so. He's just coming off as really, really stupid, like he doesn't have a basic grasp of how to go about in society. *I misspoke above, it was at the concert, not the funeral.

Do normal teenagers try to suck their girlfriend's tonsils out at family funerals these days? What a world we live in. How old is he supposed to be? Over 18? He'd have his bags packed if he was my kid.

Has she given any reason? Is she just worried you'll be disappointed? That's sweet, I guess. But what can it hurt to look? If you don't find anything, you're only out your time and energy. And you'll hone your resume, search, and interview skills in the process. And you never know, you might get a great lead! I work in the corporate world, and sometimes it takes FOREVER for them to fill positions, especially for something as niche as instructional design! I'd start knocking at doors so that one is open when you graduate. :)

@bilgistic, that's so obnoxious! Hit reply, replace the subject with "unsubscribe", and send it back to them. 9/10 that will take you off the list. Then hit them up on social media via direct message and complain. If you don't hear back in a couple of days, complain publicly and tag them. While this isn't technically illegal in the U.S. (assuming you reside in the U.S.), it is absolutely illegal in Canada, Europe, and most other places, and it is considered a horrible practice by the industry in general. (In fact, most email service providers require their customers to certify that they are NOT doing this kind of thing, because it hurts the sender reputation of ALL of their customers.)

To give them the benefit of the doubt, it may be a technical issue. If all the images are on the same server, it would be easier to just route them all elsewhere, versus picking and choosing and worrying about legalities of individual images. Especially given how many pages are on their sitemap, individual team pages, etc. Then again, they've changed way more than just images, so... probably just being petty.

I think he told me to "go to hell", which he now denies ever saying. It was a fun morning. (We actually have a great relationship. But we work together, which means we spend LOTS of time together. Sometimes too much.)

Yep, that's exactly it! I try not to swear, because I tend to think it's the last resort for people who have poor vocabulary. But when I'm incredibly frustrated, "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph" is my go-to. It's all about perspective. My dad got on my case recently for "rolling my eyes" at him. I replied that wasn't it, I was simply looking heavenward to find my patience. He didn't believe me. LOL

I love raisin cookies, but I hardly ever get any, because my dad doesn't like them. One year my little nephew gave me a tin full of homemade oatmeal raisin cookies as a Christmas gift, and I hoarded them through January. Best gift ever. LOL Tip: any time you use raisins in a recipe, plump then first by soaking them in hot water, juice, or spirits for 15 minutes and then straining before adding to your recipe. The raisins themselves will be juicier, and they won't dry out the surrounding baked item.

Are you chilling the dough before you scoop the cookies onto sheets? You might bringing them to room temperature before you bake them. Then the hot oven will cause them to spread out faster.

As someone who worked in news production for nine years, eight of them as a Director, I feel your pain. Sometimes your posts make me nostalgic - those years were some of the best in my life - but posts like this remind me how frequently it really, really sucked. LOL