Nope. We were talking about the move with husband's aunt, and she was horrified that the per diem for meals was $39/day. How could anyone possibly eat three meals for that little! The tax! The tip!

We had an instructor who we paid meals for and we just told her to be reasonable and it ended up being about $90 per day. My boss was horrified, so we have had to put a cap on the per diem as well (it is actually $39)

This weekend we had a married couple over- the husband is one of my oldest friends, back from when we were in high school, and we've stayed friends for the last 20 years. We got into this big discussion about how Tom and I don't have any "normal" food around, stuff that isn't bought from Trader Joes or Whole Foods or organic from the farm.

I know I definitely didn't grow up like that but we've made some choices regarding the way we want to buy and eat food, and the fact that we have 2 incomes and no kids helps us to achieve that. (Also the fact that we like to and have time to cook so that we are actually purchasing mostly "raw" ingredients instead of the crazy expensive WF prepared foods or whatever.)

I am certainly aware of the privilege that this is, pretty much because it is such a change from the way I grew up (and ate well into my 20s).

Food is so fraught with issues and emotion. Crazy!

Someone is supposed to pick up husband's car between 8-10 today.

They'll probably show up at 10, won't they.

Since they apparently didn't show up at 7:45, yes.

I just got a totally random Facebook friending from a high school person! Hilarious.

Dana, my guess would be either 7:30 or 10:05.

So the plumber came and measured. We are getting the CadetIII (thanks Plei!). It looks like it will be $800 with parts and labor. Le sigh.

Maybe I should have people over when it is done - a new toilet party - to really test it out.

7/8ths of my family is decidedly working class. Then there's the 1/8th that's actually painfully easy to research, and includes the dude who wrote the worst poem ever published in the English language.

I have a fraught relationship with class. A lot of what's considered polite or good manners was expressly rejected by my father, who (due to his own issues with his mother and the grandmother who represented the 1/8th above) saw it all as the worst sort of sophistry. (While still being the only one of his siblings to go on to university.) My mother's an odd duck, and agreed.

A lot of my childhood was spent getting into trouble with teachers and fellow students and their parents for things that were acceptable or encouraged at home.

Like I've said, I was raised by wolves.

I've definitely learned the hard way about etiquette niceties that just wasn't part of my world growing up.

I got a funny email from my aforementioned friend:

We had a most excellent time. I may mock your organic, farm fresh, Whole Foods style, but damn do I love to eat it!

I never really though about it. I always thought of it as an adventurous/non adventurous way of looking at life. My mom's family is more working class-- she didn't go to college, but one sister did.Her family eats a lot of food that they can grow or catch.actually they eat fairly broadly if not exotically . Dad's family is middle class, but very boring eaters. Matt family ate well but with a leaning to the german side.

I know my family changed because 1) my mom didn't cook and therefore had no reason not to try something and2) my dad was flying all over the word and he brought home ideas. When I started cooking -- I pushed it further with a lot of vegetarian dishes. For Matt and his brothers, the change came when Matt got a job in a french restaurant -- he learned to cook from the chef. All of us tend to be foodies now, and some cousins are and some are not.

Manners: we had kitchen table manners and dinning room table manners. There were even different levels of formality when dad was home than when he wasn't. Very greatful for this. It means that even if I am not comfortable in a situation I can fake it. and I seem to know instinctively which is which. I swear that manners are a survival tool.

eta: I even bought a fun cartoony manners book when I was a kid. that's a bit weird.

When I was really little (birth until kindergarten) we lived in Riverdale in the Bronx, which was very weird, class-wise. My sister went to kindergarten and first grade at a private school, but my parents switched her to public school for second grade. One of the big problems at the private school was that the other kids were teasing her for things like not having a live-in nanny, not having a river view apartment, not having a father who made international business trips, and so on.

I was either young enough or oblivious enough that I didn't notice most of that stuff. I noticed that some kids had more toys that I did, or had toys that I'd asked for and been told that they were too expensive, but it didn't really matter to me.

In college, I was very aware that a lot of my friends thought of me as "rich" because I didn't have any students loans, I didn't have to work during the summers, my parents paid for my clothes and books and stuff, and I could fly home a few times a semester. I hated being thought of that way, and became really super-conscious of not acting in any stereotypical "rich" way. But on the other hand, there were a lot of other kids on campus who came from way more money than I did -- the ones whose parents would pay for them to to go Cancun on spring break, and stuff like that.