Category: living

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I found the above Slate headline amusing.

Is a pregnant 52 year old that remarkable and worth speculating on how it happened? Perhaps my Catholic upbringing has numbed me to the uniqueness of the pregnant 50 year old but seeing a pregnant woman with grey hair in church was fairly common occurrence. I knew a guy who had a 30 years difference between him and his youngest sister.

The shocking thing for me at the time was the old people were still having sex not that it was biologically possible. Of course, it is biologically possible and doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with in vitro fertilisation (IVF).

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This Slate Advice column left me gobsmacked. This woman’s daughter-in-law left her kids at the front gate of her house expecting Grandma to take care of them while she dealt with a work emergency. The daughter-in-law called her before leaving her kids there, got no answer and just assumed she was there. She was not. She, in fact, was out of town. The woman’s neighbor, seeing two children abandoned at the front gate, called Child Protective Services who then got involved.

The son and daughter-in-law are now angry with the woman because she wasn’t at home when they needed her. The woman had gone out of town with her new boyfriend. The daughter-in-law informed her she needs to keep them apprised of her out of town visits. Her son had the nerve to say she was whoring around with wrinkly old men instead of caring for her grandchildren.

So much to say about this:

  1. The daughter-in-law didn’t know where the woman was. The woman hadn’t answered her phone. Why would the daughter-in-law assume she was there? And why would she leave her children at the gate based on this lack of information?
  2. The woman could have been in-town and not at her house. She could have been taking care of a sick friend or shopping at the mall. Does her family expect her to keep them informed of her every move? Do they expect her to give them a daily rundown of her schedule? Is she supposed to sit at her home waiting for their emergencies.
  3. I don’t think implying that your emergency babysitter is a whore is a good way to encourage her to be available at a moment’s notice. Just saying there might have been a more diplomatic approach to the discussion.
  4. The woman sounds like she is afraid that she has ruptured her son and daughter-in-law’s relationship with her. This is truly eye opening. I mean they are going to get bent out of shape with their emergency babysitter. The person who will take their children at the last minute. Talk about cutting your nose off to spite your face. Really, this is what you want to do?
  5. Getting CPS called on them was a bummer. But having their two children sitting outside Grandma’s house without any adult supervision was a mistake. The daughter-in-law made a lot of bad assumptions here and hopefully she has learned her lesson but misdirecting her anger towards her mother-in-law is unfair and unrealistic.

I think the woman should take a long vacation with her new boyfriend and see how her son does with emergency babysitters while she is gone.

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I feel compelled to remark on the linked letter I found in the Slate advice columns.

The run down is six years ago she wanted to bring her new born baby home and she only wanted family to greet her. This means her husband had to 86 the nanny who was taken care of her older daughter. When she arrives home her nanny is leaving in tears because she thinks the woman doesn’t want her to met the new baby. So instead of enjoying the baby, she had to comfort the nanny. Six years later she is still mad about the nanny ruining her special day.

Really? I mean REALLY. This is a problem.

First, the nanny was already at her home, taking care of her other kid. Her husband had to ask the nanny to leave so only family would be there when she arrived. Now, I grant the husband may have botched asking the nanny to leave but she put the husband in a difficult position in the first place — a family only guest list which could have been ruined in any number of ways. A neighbor could have come by with food at the same time or been working in the yard as she drove up. Those are two off the cuff examples. Given some more time, I am sure I can think of some more. The point here is there is no way to control other people even on your special day. One of life’s little lessons is to learn how to roll with the punches.

Second, the nanny was at your house already. She had to be asked to leave. It’s awkward. If I were the nanny, I might feel a little insulted at the request. Does it really ruin your special day if the nanny hung around to met the new baby that she will soon be caring for. The nanny could have had quick cootchy cootch coo and left. But no, the nanny had to be gone are it would ruin your special day. Ruin it. Her special day.

Third, I have heard of wedding days being a special day for the bride and birthdays although there should be an age limit on that one. But bringing home the baby from the hospital? When did that become such a special day to the point where the mother tries to control the guest list for her arrival home. Her expectations are way too high for the occasion involved.

Finally, six fucking years ago. This happened six years ago. Give it a rest. You have two kids looking up to you to as a role model. Try not to model behavior that will make them into whinny ninnies

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The reoccurring SNL skits called the Californians amuses because every conversation, even murder plots and infidelity, devolves into a conversation about the best way to navigate traffic. I have lived here for over 30 years and it is one of the most dependable topics of conversations I know. Other than the related conversation topic which is parking.

We talk about traffic constantly. It is as if we think someone will have the answer to cure our traffic ills. They don’t.

There is 1,000 miles of freeway and 17.5 million people in southern California. It is highly unlikely that one of these miles doesn’t have, at least, a fender bender. This seemingly small accident can throw the whole system out of wack.

GPS has made the situation a bit better — occasionally you can catch the traffic slowdown before you leave your house and take alternate routes. The problem with alternate routes is that everyone is using GPS. So while GPS might redirect you to a faster route, by the time you find out about the alternate route, every other driver has also have received exactly the same information. Now the alternate is jammed.

Which brings me back to the Californians. It is satire that is so close to reality that it hurts.

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Here is my story in the most neutral way I can think to present it. There is a chance I am wrong about my thinking but the facts are correct.

Bob and I go to trivia night at a local winery. We have been doing this for a couple of years. It has become like a Cheers bar for us. We know a lot of the other players in the contest and it is all good fun. At least that is what I thought.

There are some rules. One of which is your team should be no larger than six. We rarely have a problem with that but we have encouraged friends if they are available to come to join us as the more the merrier. This means sometimes it is just Bob and I and, on very rare occasions we slip past the 6 threshold. Most of the time this is no big deal because it is all good fun and the grand prize is two bottles of wine so the stakes are very low — mostly just bragging rights. There is a bit of trash talking between the winners and the losers but, as I said, all in good fun.

Last Thursday, we had 7 players. The sixth and seventh persons came it late at that — the quiz had been going on a good 15 minutes before they even arrived. But yes there were 7 players at our table.

We continued to play but we warned twice that we had 7 players. I explained that one of the people who joined us was basically drinking wine and chatting while the others played. He wasn’t supplying any answers. What were we supposed to do — tell him to go into a corner and drink his wine alone? Isn’t this supposed to be just fun and games?

I am trying to see the other person’s point on this but I am having a difficult time. It isn’t as if we were bringing in scholars from all over the state of California in order to win two fucking bottles of wine. It seemed so petty. First counting the number of people at each table and then reporting the numbers to the Quiz Master so she would have to act on their observation.

Anyway, it bothered me so much that I brought up throwing the quiz in order to avoid any dispute later. Thankfully, we lost.

Now as I type this I am thinking about whether this was a form of gamesmanship. They brought up our breaking the rules in order to distract us from focusing on the quiz. Mother Fuckers, just you wait until next Thursday. I will show you gamesmanship.

Do you see the problem here?

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Every night, Cisco, my cat, and I go for a little walk in the corridor of our apartment. He saw Bob and I leaving from our front door and figured out that this is the way out, possibly to freedom. At first, he just roamed the halls but after a little while he realized that there were other doors and that those doors could be opened too. So now he stops at the other apartment doors, stretches his body towards the door knob signalling to me that he wants the door opened. When I fail to open the other people’s doors, he looks up at me with disgust.

I tried to make it up to him by opening the doors that led to the trash bins and the fire escape doors which he did enjoy but he still stops at other people’s front doors expecting me to open. I hate to disappoint him. I think I am losing the respect of my cat. A terrible thing.

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I haven’t been to a concert in quite some time but apparently pooping in your seat so you don’t miss any of the show is now a thing.

Well, I don’t know what to say about this except I don’t think missing a few minutes of a concert, and I am talking about the Beatles here or the Rolling Stones or anyone for that matter, would cause me ever to decide to take a dump on my seat at a concert in front of thousands of other people just because I don’t want to miss “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” What the fucking fuck. WTFF.

And this article is blaming it on kids brought up during COVID. You mean that kids who were brought up to wash their hands a million times a day and wear a face mask to stop the spread of disease are going to find it perfectly OK to spread their diseased filled fecal matter to thousands of unsuspecting music fans? Huh?

GEEZUS.

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What kind of asshole kicks a sea lion? For fun? And his friends laughed? So, what a bunch of assholes. To top it off, also kind of stupid because what would have happened if the sea lion decided to fight back?

Don’t say this is typical teen age fun either. Hurting an animal for your own amusement is sadism and is unacceptable. Let’s see what happens to the young man at sentencing. Not much, I am afraid.

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Things I ask myself now, at 69, before getting on the floor:

1.) Is what I am going to do on the floor worth the effort to get off the floor when I am done?

2.) Is there anything near that I can use to leverage myself off of the floor when I am need to stand up?

3.) Can this wait until there are more things on the floor that I need in order to maximize my floor experience? Honestly, why pick up an errant spoon when you can wait for the knife and fork to fall later.

4.) Can this wait until a more youthful friend (say late 50’s) shows up and I can casually ask them to help me like I just noticed it now?

5.) Will anyone really notice if I don’t do what needs to be done of the floor? A good kick towards the couch will hide anything you don’t really need to immediately retrieve.

6.) Is there a pillow within grabbing distance so if I have to stay longer on the floor than necessary I can, at least, be comfortable?

7.) Do I have my cell phone in case I find myself unable to get off of the floor?

8.) Do I have enough clothes on so that nobody, particularly me, is embarrassed if I need to call someone to get me off the floor?

9.) Should I leave the door unlocked so the person who is rescuing me has easy access to my apartment?

10) Why is it that everything I need right now is on the floor?

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This might be the man in me, which despite being gay that ugly male chromosome sometimes rears its ugly head causing me to have typical heterosexual male sentiments, but I am trying to understand Melissa Garner Lee’s anger with her husband over missing the Taylor Swift Travis Kelce Wedding. Lee’s husband had worked with Taylor Swift once in the past — this is her only connection with the happy couple which, speaking as a totally neutral outside observer seems, at best, really tenuous. So she basically wants to ride her husband’s coattails as a plus one to a wedding that he, apparently, isn’t too driven to attend.

This is why she is angry with her husband? He may have ignored an invitation to the wedding of the century. He saw something in his email queue with a subject like Taylor Swift’s wedding. He thought it was spam, didn’t even open it and deleted it. Crime of the fucking century that is.

First, and I mean this in the nicest possible way, what kind of crass mother fucker sends wedding invitations through email. PLEASE. Taylor Swift. Wedding of the Century. I just don’t think Swift’s the type of woman to send email wedding invitations. If I were her husband I would have been suspicious too and would have deleted it as spam without giving it a second thought.

And, if it was an invitation from Swift, who would want to go to a wedding from such a crass mother fucker. Amy Vanderbilt must have rolled in her grave and I would have been right there helping to spin her coffin. Call me old fashioned but if you don’t have enough class to spend a first class postage invitation through the US mail, I am not coming to your wedding with an electric toaster in hand. This is where I am afraid I draw the line as any self-respecting person would.

Then, did I mention, her tenuous connection? She barely knows the bride and has never met the groom. I am surprised that she was on the list at all. This would be reason enough for me to ignore the invitation. I really don’t know them that that well to feel comfortable sharing such an intimate moment. I have not attended weddings of people who I knew better than this and I didn’t feel the least bit bad about it.

No. No. You are missing the point. It is the wedding of the century. So what? Your claim to fame is that I was a plus one at the wedding of the century? Give me a fucking break. More troubling, is Lee is a psychotherapist. Talk about over reacting. I mean if I got a wedding invitation from someone who I worked for many years ago and that my partner knew even less, the idea that I would even bring it up with my partner in the first place is a bit of stretch. That my partner would get mad about this missed opportunity would leave me a bit baffled. Why am I getting so much grief over this?

But it is the wedding of the century. I heard you the first time and I repeat so what? I can think of a lot better ways to spend my weekend that watching two strangers get married in front of thousands of other people on a hot July day in New York — just so you can say you attended. I was fucking there and you weren’t. So take that. I don’t know about your psychotherapist but this would certainly make me one think twice before laying down on her office couch and telling her my problems.

Lee does seem to come to her senses at the end of her piece but not before making her husband feel bad enough to apologize to her for not understanding how important going to the wedding of the century might be for her. He apologized to her! If anyone deserves an apology here it is the poor husband who suffers through his wife’s over reaction to missing a stranger’s wedding.

Get a grip lady because the world has much bigger disappointments coming your way.