NobodysHome |
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Sometimes the generational differences between Gens X and Y are pretty staggering. Since we're older parents (we had Impus Major when I was 33), we deal with a mixed bag of other parents; some X's and some Y's.
So, one of Impus Major's friends was having a birthday, and their mother invited everyone to an afternoon in San Francisco. She arranged to have Impus Major help drive, then took them to an "upscale" restaurant for lunch (unfortunately, it was Original Joe's, which is basically a tourist trap that pretends to be "fine dining" when it's really "mediocre dining with a fine dining price").
Imagine Impus Major's surprise when they finished lunch, everyone ordered whatever they wanted, and then Mom handed everyone the receipt and her phone with her Venmo information. He was a bit taken aback that he was suddenly out $70 after being invited to a party and even agreeing to drive the extra guests. He even paid for his own parking, so all in all he was out just under $100 for helping out with a party.
I can't imagine anyone in my peer group doing that: If you're the parent generation, and you invite a bunch of kids to lunch, you tell them before you even get there that you expect them to pay. Otherwise you're pulling a bait-and-switch.
lisamarlene |
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Once again doing a dog's-eye-view housecleaning binge because we are supposed to sign adoption papers and bring home our new furry family member tomorrow night.
Afraid to get my hopes up after last time.
Please send prayers/grisgris/positive vibes this way. This one completely melted my heart when I saw his picture.
quibblemuch |
NobodysHome |
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Getting accustomed to the Cranky Calico's absence is jarring. We put the carpet back in the living room... and nobody's using it as a litterbox. We can leave our clothes on the floor without them getting peed on. GothBard just ordered a new runner carpet for her bedside. The ability to put textiles on the floor without having them used as a bathroom is a novelty we haven't had in 5-6 years.
And then there's the "haunting" aspect. I'm so accustomed to her being around that I keep catching her out of the corner of my eye, then realizing that no, she's not around, and there isn't anything there. It's purely psychological, but it's impressive just how often I'm "seeing" her -- I can absolutely see all the ghost tales arising from losing a close loved one and then constantly seeing/sensing them where you expect them to be.
Ah, well. All will change when we eventually get kittens, though that'll take longer than I like. She wants to get another ragamuffin (I cannot object to this), and processing and shipping typically takes about 6 weeks once you find one you like and order it. And she hasn't even found one yet.
EDIT: And just like last time, we're doing one purebred and one stray, because strays need homes, too. But we're not buying a year-old stray again. That was a disaster.
BigNorseWolf |
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When we lost our kitty he actually HAD come back from the dead once (he was a 20+ year old outdoor cat that had been missing for 10 days till they turned up at the vet and was thankfully chipped)
The next day there was SOMETHING running around my room knocking things over and making noise. I was gettting very tempted to pull a benny from the mummy before hearing TEAKETTLE TEAKETTLE with the volume set to 11: the unmistakable call of a carolina wren.
They regularly come into the house now that there's no cat. They seem to have figured out to wait in bringerofbirdseeds room and he'll remove the force fields.
NobodysHome |
How spoiled is the FlufferNutter? She's taken to jumping up onto the bed and meowing loudly until I make it so she can lie on a nice smooth comforter instead of a wrinkled one.
On the one hand, I understand her cat brain: The sun is farther north so we're getting direct sunlight onto the bed starting by 9 in the morning and lasting almost the entire day.
On the other, we're at the final dregs of Summer/Fall, with an unusual warm streak this week so temperatures are in the high 60s/low 70s. She should be enjoying the last of her "warm outdoor" time for the next 6 months; instead she's lying in the sunlight on the bed, which she'll be able to do all Winter. On the other other hand, lying in the sun on the bed all day really doesn't sound bad right about now...
NobodysHome |
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When we lost our kitty he actually HAD come back from the dead once (he was a 20+ year old outdoor cat that had been missing for 10 days till they turned up at the vet and was thankfully chipped)...
I always wonder whether our neighbor did in our wonderful black-and-white cat. Similar to yours, she vanished without a trace when she was 16. When she came back she was gaunt, could barely walk, and lasted only a couple of months after that. We thought she'd had a stroke. Eventually our neighbor admitted that he'd "accidentally" locked her in the crawlspace under his house for a week. I did not kill him. I am impressed with this simple fact.
Themetricsystem |
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Without pushing the boundaries too hard... I'm hopeful that this will serve as a lesson that people who try to stand in the middle of the road in order to reach a compromise with the opposite side will only ever end up being run down and that offering a seat at the table to your enemies means that you never wanted it to be your table in the first place.
Compromise with the enemy isn't wise and won't make you a populist, it's self-harm.
captain yesterday |
Scintillae |
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Honestly, I teach it because I'm a history nerd, and it gives me the chance to talk about the Russian Revolution/rise of Stalin. That is the explicit parallel I draw every year.
I can't wait for what else happens every year. Pointing out that the animals are very insistent on being free while they are visibly not, and asking if they can think of a country that does that (like, y'know, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea). Every year, without fail, a kid says the US.
NobodysHome |
So yeah, GothBard couldn't sleep and woke me up at 3:00 am to discuss the election results. I normally force myself to stay in bed until at least 4:00 am, but I decided I might as well get up and start the day early. At 3:45 I checked Impus Minor's flight information and asked myself, "Wait a minute... why don't I recognize the airport code?"
So, the little bugger scheduled a 6:15 am flight out of Sacramento, a 90-minute drive from the house, instead of Oakland, a 25-minute drive. And he didn't bat an eye when I said, "Well, you need to be at the airport at 5:15 am, so we'll leave the house at 4:45 am."
Cue frenzied banging on Impus Minor's door and getting him up and out of the house at lightning speed, so we were on the road by 4:00 am and in spite of a horrific windstorm through the coastal range (thank goodness I was in the Celica) and having to do the airport loop twice (Sacramento airport has a road that forks and one sign says, "Parking" and the other is blank. You have to take the Parking exit to get to the terminals), I dropped him at the terminal at 5:16 am, *almost* on time. I started home into the teeth of rush hour traffic, had to stop to get gas because Impus Minor had left me with under half a tank last week... and the gas station ran out of gas. It took 10 minutes to get 4 gallons of gas, but that'd get me home.
Home by 7:00 am and right into my second meeting of the morning, because I missed the first by half an hour.
In short, my day was, "Get up at 3:00 am, talk politics for 35 minutes, panic, drive for 3 hours to Sacramento and back (160 miles), and work from 7:00-3:30 pm."
I'm a tiny bit tired. And I'm in Tomb of Annihilation tonight. I'm so going to die.