Poor Em. She deserves a big audience.

She really does. I am sorry your family doesn't step up. Especially after the epic guilt to get you there.

I'm just home from a couple of days down in San Diego/OC and apart from the really totally frustrating whining of the six-year-old nephew (not the twin niece though, just him), it was nice. I'm still the one who is expected to visit and travel but that just is what it is.

I did, and it was totally fine.

Yay for respecting boundaries. Which is a low bar, but I've met people and so it's where I have it set.

This post is coming to you from the high seas! (Yarr.) The family Tea is currently on a cruise ship bound for New Zealand, where we have a little boy resisting his bedtime. (His mummy's lullaby is sending him into a fit of hysterical giggles.)

ita ! really glad you got treated, but still horrified at roller coaster.

Omni: In terms of whole wheat pasta - can be very good with recipes with the right flavors. For example I like whole wheat spaghetti or linguini with very spicy stir fry. The texture goes well with stir fry and the slightly nutty flavor of whole wheat complements traditional stir fry flavors.

Also works well with a spicy garbanzo bean sauce.

Mom requested my lasagna. Which, considering her glutton intolerance, was surprising. She said she'd take the meds.

Normally I am the last person to giggle at a typo because I'm pretty much the queen of them... but if your mother is intolerant of gluttons its a good thing you didn't have me over for lasagna. OM NOM NOM LASAGNA! I'm practically Garfield with the stuff. It's absurd.

With whole wheat pasta I've found the Italian brands blow the domestics out of the salted water. In general I think Italian pasta cooks up better (which seems insane to me because pasta is about the simplest construct in the food world) but their whole wheat is so. much. better. My favorite brand is Gia Russa [link]

(Perhaps I AM being enchanted by the lovely child on the box. Perhaps its because there is an actual culinary tradition of whole wheat pasta and our stuff probably suffers from the "well-intentioned hippies in a lab" phenomenon that makes our fake meat so inferior to Chinese fake meat. But I digress. Wildly.)

It's on the spendy side so I watch for it to go on sale and then I stock up. Of course, for all I know you DID use the Gia Russa and are just less smitten with the child.

SPEAKING OF BEING SMITTEN WITH A CHILD, Aims, your family is out of its damn mind. They had all better have been projectile vomiting... and if they weren't I hope they START projectile vomiting. (Just for a day. Don't want anyone permanently harmed. This time.)

I totally wish I could've seen Em, too. Sorry, Aims.

smonster, D sounds like a really nice guy.

Steph I'm glad Santa was cool with the situation. I'm sorry some of the people were assholes about you not getting on Santa's lap.

If you were at one of the regular events and there was a rope technique or thing that you didn't want to try or tried and got uncomfortable and needed to stop they wouldn't heckle you for it, right?

If you were at one of the regular events and there was a rope technique or thing that you didn't want to try or tried and got uncomfortable and needed to stop they wouldn't heckle you for it, right?

Right. There's a weird-as-HELL separation between respecting consent (or lack thereof) when it comes to kinky stuff, versus the really REALLY no-boundaries touchy-feely attitude that prevails in social situations.

Plus I think there's somewhat of the attitude that because I'm a woman, I *must* be declining because I feel like I "should", but I secretly want to be talked into it. WHICH IS TOTALLY UNTRUE for me -- I don't play bullshit stupid coy games like that -- but I know it happens, quite a bit. So I can see how people might think I want to be talked into it -- except, hello, have they MET ME? EVER?

Anyway. It was fine, and I'm mostly fine with looking like a bitch and/or a prude for having different boundaries than everyone else. (It SUCKS that just because I am asserting my boundaries, because they happen to be different from someone else's, I look like a prude and a buzzkill. But whatever.)

Is there anyway you can bring this up to them - and ask why they can respect your boundaries with the kinky stuff but seem unable with the mundane? Or would that be too stressful?

I would have to have 30 different conversations (at a minimum) with 30 different people, or make a group announcement (which is humiliating and not going to happen), or e-mail everyone (which seems over the top).

So I just do my thing, and firmly say No to whatever it is, and say no again when I get pestered, and go on about my business. If someone persisted and actually physically got all up in my business (like the sneak attack shoulder rub, which I will punch someone in the junk for, I swear to God), then I would make my point very emphatically. By now, people ought to know I need my 50-foot personal bubble, and the people who can't be bothered to remember or to respect my refusal of groping can just deal with getting an earful from me. And possibly a cockpunch.

I did, and it was totally fine.

Yay!

Except for some party guests who noticed that I didn't sit on Santa's lap and kept heckling me to go do it

COAL IN THEIR STOCKINGS. Boo hiss on the panic attack, too, but I'm glad you got through it.

Connie, glad you had a good time and that the food was better.

This post is coming to you from the high seas! (Yarr.) The family Tea is currently on a cruise ship bound for New Zealand, where we have a little boy resisting his bedtime. (His mummy's lullaby is sending him into a fit of hysterical giggles.)

The Pirates Tea! Love it. I've never heard Ryan giggle, and yet I feel certain the sound would make an excellent ringtone.