Congratulations, Anne!

And Ginger, um. Congratulations on four new tires? And steady stream of red blood cell~ma till (and past!) the new test date.

Congrats, Anne!!!

And, go Ginger with the tires and the red blood cells! Go, red blood cells, WIN!

Congratulations, Anne! You rock.

Ginger, yay for increased red blood cells, and tons of ~ma coming your way for the scan on Monday. (Sorry about the tires...)

Whoo. It's quiet in here.

I really should be going to bed but I'm vexing over something I need to say to a good friend who is probably not going to get it.

Please skip if you not in the mood for whiny bitching.

She's lovely, a super active 70 year old who recently introduced me to green apple sake. I don't really drink, but this stuff is the bomb.

She is the one who encouraged me to become the doggy lama, even to the extent of paying for a class she really wanted me to take. (It was rubbish, but she felt good about being so supportive)

She lends me her car whenever it is free and, in general, is super supportive.

The upsetting thing is that she has turned 'claiming her independence' (after a crappy military marriage that she feels deeply scarred by) into 'not giving a shit about how anyone feels.' It's selfish and, frankly, embarrassing. I can let it slide when she says cavalier things to me, but I've seen her do it in front of others and I feel bad for her.

At the moment, she is taking me for granted...like whoa...as her go-to cat sitter when she travels...which is a lot. She's cut down a bit after I complained the last time, but Monday she said,"Oh, didn't I tell you I'm going to this conference?"

It's 18 days. She leaves day after tomorrow.

She thought she had mentioned it to me.

You will notice in that sentence that there is a distinct lack of asking if I will/want to do it. It's assumed that, because 'no one else can do it', I will. Because, you know...I always do. And, besides, it's no big deal.

I don't know about how other people feel about pet sitting, but it IS a big deal to me. Super stressful, even though the cat is only a block away. What if I forget, or something happens to her (she's old)?

It's not that I can't or won't do it...and I get use of the car, which is helpful sometimes...but lord. I'd like to be asked.

If I refer her to the pet services company I work with, it would cost her $720 (I go twice per day). It's not a small favor.

Blech.

But you get the car the whole time she is gone? That seems like a pretty fair deal to me. assuming you are available whenever, does not.

It would be good to be asked, bonny. You're not whining. Even though you do get use of the car, the assumption that you'll just snap to, because no one else can do it, and because you always have, er, no. Especially not last-minute. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm going to be out of town for however long you're going to be gone. If *only* I'd known ahead of time...

But then I'm bitchy (checks thread title) and mean, so. Take that as you will.

Car rental can run around $70/day, so if we're quantifying favors, hers is worth over $1200.

It's still not cool for her to assume your availability, but that seems to me like simple communications. And if you're not available, even for reasons of don't wanna, why not just say so?

Wow, I can't imagine just assuming that *anyone* would be able to take care of my cats without plenty of advance notice. Doesn't mean that I don't sometimes wait till the last minute....but then there's apologies and usually some bribery. And, of course, having a paid pet sitter on standby authorized to take over additional visits if friend has something come up and can't make it (I pay a pet sitter for morning visits, since morning visits seem more onerous for working friends, and then try to coax friends into doing evening feedings. Then while I write out the check I curse my high maintenance cats who can't just survive for a couple of days on a bowl of kibble and several bowls of water.)

Twice daily visits to someone else's house are a PITA even if you do have car/internet/fridge priviledges. Having someone like you willing to take on all that responsibility is something anyone should be very appreciative of. You really don't have to if you don't want to, there are plenty of folks out there making a living providing that service, she can hire one of them.

And (since I'm into a glass of wine and full of opinions) my thoughts on online dating sites:

Eharmony: great if you want to get married in the next year and have lots of nice christian babies. Kinda the goal of the site. Met several very nice gentlemen (every one of whom offered to pay for my meal/drinks/whatever) who were all shocked at how liberal i turned out to be. When my profile described my politic views as: liberal pinko socialist tree-hugger.

Match.com: IMHO best paid site out there. Plenty of active profiles of people seriously looking for long term relationships. Met many very nice gentlemen (who all offered to pay my share of the tab. Not that I ever let them, but I kinda appreciate the chivalry of the offer, feminism be darned.)

OKCupid: Free site so high noise/quality ratio, and some seem to use it more as a hook up site, thankfully the questionaire stuff can weed that out fairly easily. Spotty results. I've met some decent, nice guys but find myself only responding to about 10% of messages, the rest are so clearly incompatible. When I say I'm looking for someone who lives within 10 miles and get slews of messages from guys in other cities/states/COUNTRIES? Sheesh.)

Onion.com: Best place to find lots of unemployed writers who whine about the quality of their lives over scrabble games. Met up with three different guys who ALL turned out to be unemployed writers (this was when I was close to LA....but really) and all expected me to pick up the tab. Since I was employed and all. Not a great way to make a good first impression. But at least you know they are literate.

The upsetting thing is that she has turned 'claiming her independence' (after a crappy military marriage that she feels deeply scarred by) into 'not giving a shit about how anyone feels.'

Oh, man, I've been around that kind of thing. It's very trying.

Car rental can run around $70/day, so if we're quantifying favors, hers is worth over $1200.

But since bonny gets by without a car most of the time, I'm guessing she's not going to be using the car anywhere near daily.

bonny, I am a last minute forgetful favor-asker, and I still think that's shitty. Sounds like a talk is in order for you to lay out how much notice you need and that you may not always be available. I assume you give her fair notice for use of the car? Could you use that as your departure point?

erin, thanks for that. I've only used Match and OKC, and that was entertaining to read.

I am running late this morning, and appear not to give a shit. Gronk.