It's official. I hate today. And somehow in an hour I have to be in a much better mood, get all gussied up, and head to campus for all of the honors celebrations (English Dept., Honors Dept., and University).

OK, since people are bringing their various woes here, I have a question for the hivemind.

I have a good friend who has a five-year-old niece. The niece's mother is very controlling and has some mental health issues (depression, I believe). From what my friend has told me, it sounds as though the niece is heading into a situation much like what mine was growing up. It's pressed most of my buttons and it has me worried. I would like to tell my friend of the possibility of this and give her some things to watch out for in case the niece does head into a similar situation.

Opinions? comments? I don't have children, no nieces or nephews, I freely admit my knowledge of children is mostly theoretical. But ... I'd like to prevent this from happening to someone else.

Sparky's right. Take one with you to match them up. They have them in a ton of different sizes.

(((Everyone who needs them)))

I'm at mom's trying to convince her to actually rest. I have not been very successful so far.

(((vw)))

You all are the best. Thanks for the grammar edits. Things spellcheck and a fevered mind won't do for me!

I will make the suggested changes and send it on.

In the meanwhile, against my right-mind judgment, I opted for throwing a fit at my landlord. I was walking Bartleby to calm down, but I passed the door to the store and before I knew it, I was standing in front of him groping for words. Or rather, to speak words without allowing flames to shoot out from my eyes.

It worked, I suppose. Where 'worked' means I said what I needed to say and he said some stupid stuff and we wrestled around to the truth, which is that neither of us wants to fight but that he is 'never going to be the perfect landlord' (his words) and I'm pretty much out of luck on the indignation front.

Now I just want to eat something really bad for me...in quantity.

Todd, I really support you in speaking your piece. If you see something happening, it probably IS happening. Not speaking up advances nothing.

I don't have kids either, but I know what abuse looks like and am, therefore, called to comment when I need to. I never expect a particular outcome but I know I would eat myself alive if I didn't think clearly about and call attention to things that concern me.

God bless you for being observant and caring.

eta: Making no assumptions about the issue in question or its impact. I just used the term 'abuse' because it is part of my experience of people seeing and not speaking up.

I am so flipping furious with financial aid at school right now. They're requiring a whole bunch of extra paperwork from me to prove how little I make, which is just always so depressing for me to have to put together.

Well, I've got to get it in, and since I'll be on campus today, I figured I should just drop it off then. Except, I have to print it out or make copies of tax stuff from last year, and I'm completely out of printer/copy paper. So, they're getting 30 pages of documents on BRIGHT yellow paper. Serves them right. I hope it hurts their eyes to look at.

Boy, I really am crabby. I feel badly for everyone that has to be inflicted with me today.

I hope your day gets better, vw.

Toddson, almost all of my knowledge of children is from having been one. And I don't know (and am not asking) the details about your situation growing up. However, I do know a thing or two about mental illness.

If niece's mother has significant mental health issues, she needs to get them treated. If her mental health issues are harming her daughter, they're significant. Friend may prefer to spin it as, "You're depressed," without bringing in any current or future effect on niece.

"Getting treatment" means contacting a mental health professional. Contacting a GP for medication is an acceptable first step if we're talking about an immediate short-term response to a serious problem, to be followed up by contacting a mental health professional. Lifestyle changes are also acceptable as immediate responses to be combined with other treatment.

As to things I remember from being a child mumblety years ago. Kids tend to think their situation is normal, so niece may not necessarily think anything is wrong even if it is. Which means she may say and even mean, "I'm fine," when she really isn't.

And, ((((vw))))

Finished a paper for my grantwriting class today. (Hope to move to the non-profit sector.) Anyway I thought of our earlier discussion about students to who submit stuff with big fonts and margins, as I changed the font to 10 point, and the margins .47 so as to avoid having to spend any more time cutting out additional words to fit the into the four page single spaced maximum. We all have our writing flaws...