AnnieF

My kids started making their own lunches in 3rd grade, I think? They didn't want me to do it anymore. They weren't quite as into doing their own laundry when I made that happen (when the F-let was around 10) but them's the breaks, kiddoes. If you are able to do the task safely and satisfactorily, yay! It is now your task. This seems like Parenting 101 to me, but evidently it's not. :(

I'm vibing so hard, because I personally feel like shit (I talked about it in the other place; basically, don't make a person w/a chronic illness make you feel better about how bad you feel about their illness. That's totally fucked up, and yet people do it regularly). Love to you all, and let's have a good 2016.

Apparently it is quite difficult. Our get-together with Mr F's side of the family was interesting; there were 8 adults and 3 children there, and 2 of the adults (Mr F's dad and his dad's wife) would only interact with 2 of the other adults (Mr F's aunt and uncle, who were hosting). They spent the entire dinner and gift-giving session ignoring Mr F and me, and Mr F's brother and his wife (who is the one who made everything go kaboom 2 years ago). If I cared even a tiny whit about Mr F's dad, this would be tough, but as it is, I can only look at him and think "You are a 72-year-old man, and you're giving your sons the fucking silent treatment!? You, sir, are a coward and a fool." Once they left, the tension in the room* dropped noticeably, and those of us who were being shunned had a nice visit with Mr F's aunt and uncle. They never had kids, although they wanted to, and so my kids and my niece are the grandkids they didn't have. I made Mr F's aunt cry by telling her that the holiday memories my kids will have will be all about how their great-aunt and -uncle made Christmases nice, not their grandma and grandpa. Heh. Boy does this sound familiar. ;) I hope you and Mr C can extricate yourselves without too much fallout. Big vibes for your almost-dad, KPC. :) *I said a few comments up that they don't seem to understand that things are different now. Oh, they get it. And they do not like it. All I can do is laugh.

Wow, Chyna, that sounds fun. ;) I'm glad things were low-key, Endeavour. :) And I'm glad you and A had a (mostly) good day, dusky. :) Our Xmas isn't over yet; we ended up not having the full house that I thought we might, because Mr F's brother and his wife and their daughter aren't coming until tonight (waaaay cheaper flights being the reason). My sis and her husband and their son have been here since the 23 rd, and it's gone great. My nephew is 2 1/2, and his speech has been delayed, but he has exploded with new verbal ability in the last month, and it's been wonderful to see, not just his joy at saying stuff but my sister and BIL's relief, because they've been understandably worried. But he's doing awesome, words are happening, and my sis is getting to enjoy the word NO a lot, hee hee. So we'll have a night of overlap tonight, then my sis is leaving and we'll just have the one set of sib+spouse+kid staying here, and they'll be here until the 1st. Xmas dinner with the inlaws happens at Mr F's aunt's house tomorrow night. These things are so much easier after the Giant Xmas Explosion of '13 (the one where my SIL couldn't tolerate the bullshit anymore and called it out, loudly and with gusto). Even though my FIL and his wife don't seem to understand that things are different now, everyone else (me and Mr F, his brother and my SIL, and Mr F'S aunt and uncle) will be shooting little smiles and eyerolls across the table at each other. Such an improvement, I can't even. I hope everyone has had a lovely late December, however you spend it. Thank you for being here, my friends. :)

You too, huh? I think we're doomed, as a species. Just smart enough to do ourselves in, not smart enough to stop the destruction before it's too late. Yo, dusky. Sending you my warmest wishes and bestest thoughts for Xmas. :) ETA: I dngaf about Star Wars; when my sister and her husband and their son get here in a couple of days, my boys and Mr F will go see it with my bil. And then they will come home and tell me all the spoilers, but again: dngaf.

Woo! That's awesome, Erratic! Is a haircut on the agenda for young Alf?

Nope, it's unbearable no matter what. Er, that may just be me (but I really don't think so). Children are shitty musicians. I know, that's a radical statement, but someone has to say it: elementary school kids just don't have the musical chops. If they want to be appreciated as musicians, they need to put in several more years of practice. Decades, even. School kids, sheesh. (Mostly sarcasm. Mostly.)

Christmas tree lights are truly mystifying. No matter how carefully you pack them up after the holiday each year, by the time they are needed next year, they have either become hopelessly tangled, or disappeared entirely. It is a quandary.

Well heck, lemme liven things up with a story. As you all know, I have MS, and sometimes (lots of times) I fall down. Yesterday was the Ladies' Winter Luncheon at my mom's golf club; I've attended this event as my mom's guest for about a decade. It's a hoot -- a bunch of women in their 60s and 70s for the most part, having fun and doing a charity raffle, since this event raises money for a local women's shelter. So I'm walking with my mom, we're right at the front of the room where everyone can see, and I roll my ankle and go down. Now, I have fallen down so many times and in so many places that I don't really get embarrassed anymore, I just go with it. But I realized that that was probably the least embarrassing place to fall. In front of a bunch of grandmas, heh. No one's thinking "what a moron," they're all going "Oh my goodness are you alright?!" Followed by "That shit happens to me all the time." Because these ladies are awesome. :-) Story time! Who's next?

Yay?

That would be Michele Fiore, a member of the Nevada state assembly (not anywhere near the level of a governor, very much a small-time local politician). She also thinks cancer is caused by a fungus and can be flushed out with baking soda. American politics are so fucking embarrassing.

This was in England, right? I can't even imagine such a thing happening in Canada ("Hey kids, let's play Cattle Ranchers vs First Nations!" Um...)

Anyone doing anything different for the holidays? I've talked a bit here about my SIL, and how she blew up Xmas a couple of years ago (she'd been swallowing bullshit from the inlaws for years, finally broke and brought everything into the light). Part of the aftermath of the Giant Xmas Explosion is that my BIL, SIL, and their daughter will not stay at my FIL's house anymore, so if they come for the holiday this year (they live in NM) they will stay at our house. And things got very bad at my mom's house during Xmas last year (my mom and stepdad can't have babies staying with them anymore, apparently), so my sister and her husband and their son will also be staying with us. So we may end up with six adults, an almost-16-year-old, a 12-year-old, a 3-year-old, and a 2 1/2-year-old at our house over Xmas. You'd think this would be stressing me, but it really isn't. I want everyone to have a nice holiday, and that's just not possible if people stay at grandparents' houses. So we're It, and I'm good with that. :) How about you, my friends, who I am so grateful for every day? :)

trudi, I wish I could say that it is unbelievable that people would act with so little caring, but unfortunately I can believe it all too well. :( Here, we have your back; we will never discount your pain and your grief. Having just lost my cat too, I'm feeling very raw about the issue of losing pets, and if someone were to react to me by shrugging, like "oh, that's all?" I don't know how I would respond. Well, I know there would be a lot of anger, that's for sure.

Oh no, trudi, I am so sorry. :(

I'm so sorry for all the losses.

The F-let and I finished "What's My Line" pt 2 this afternoon. He's really enjoying the show. His favorite character at this point is Willow. He really likes Spike as an antagonist, thinks he's both funny and menacing. And he likes the balance of jokes and seriousness. He did say, at the end of "Lie to Me," "Man, that was sad" -- not as a negative, just, that was sad. Yep. That one is sad. I'm loving the sharing. :)

And me.

Ten percent. They had to pack up and bring your order, and while they were doing that they were not waiting on tables that will (or at least should) tip 15-20%. Of course I'm looking at it from a restaurant perspective -- other scenarios might work somewhat differently. But I always tip something. Years of waiting tables has made me a very good tipper. :)

Well, you know what I'm going to say, but maybe some of the, er, nicer people here will say different. Heh. Since I also dgaf about birthdays, I'm all "Blow it off! She's already had scores of birthdays!" But maybe not? I too await commentary from y'all.

The F-let, who is 12 1/2 now, asked me if we could watch Buffy together. And we've watched through Never Kill A Boy etc. and he is really enjoying it. We had a long conversation about different vampire lore systems, and he was impressed with the "dusting = no bodies lying around" thinking. Okay now I will stop being calm and will start dancing around joyfully. Heehee. :) I am so happy to be able to share this thing that I love with him, and I'm so glad that he wanted to watch. Wheeeee!!! :-) Good work vibes to Endeavour, and good adoption-process vibes for Erratic.

So sorry about your nonna, trudi. Yesterday I had the one millionth meeting with counselors/teachers about the F-ster. Siiiiiiigh. Happily they were all on the same page as me: we've all done everything we can for you, kid, so now it is 100% on you to get your act together. Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh. He took the PSAT yesterday, said the English part was easy and the math was completely incomprehensible. Yep, that's my kid. ;) I got completely disillusioned several years ago when I was a juror in a murder trial in LA County. The defendant was guilty as hell, we convicted him of murder, this was the obvious, inevitable outcome, why the hell did this come to trial? All of us on the jury were amazed that we were even there, because the guy was very, very obviously guilty. His public defender was a joke, and at a few points during testimony the judge was asleep. Yay, our American justice system. :(

That is so goddamn true it makes me want to cry.

New car report: the Prius drives like a small Japanese car. Amazing. Heh. Seriously, though, it's very fun to drive and I am enjoying having a car that has things that work, like windshield defrosters and dashboard indicator lights, and um, brakes. The responsiveness of the Prius's brakes makes me realize how crappy the Saturn's brakes had become. Glad to be out of that deathtrap. In other news, I have mailed in my application for a NV medical marijuana card. Dispensaries are already open here in town. FINALLY. There's a 6-week backlog in getting the applications processed, because of course there is, but nevertheless, I've got the ball rolling. Hallelujah. How's everyone doing? Big huge mega vibes go out to KPC for her not-dad. Cancer is such a bastard.

Yeah, I figure someone in their late 70s has way more dirt than someone younger. I'd be curious to know what the 1960s were like for them. If you were approaching 30 in 1968ish, were you already too old for the counterculture? Or did it just pass you by, like my mom and the Summer of Love. My mom was living in San Francisco during 1967, but the hippie explosion had no impact on her. And she was not approaching 30; she was 22!! (A side note; my mom was also able to live in the city, in a 2-br apt with a roommate, while working as a switchboard operator for ATT. Semi-skilled work, but it paid enough, and rents were low enough, that that was perfectly adequate to cover living expenses. Amazing.) Thanks for thoughts about the kitty. :(