Oh, msbelle, that sucks. I totally understand the boss-created unnecessary anxiety.

Man, I hate corporate reindeer games.

But, Steph, WHY do white people all want rope corsets? We need a research grant to study this phenomenon, stat.

Oooh, research grant! Yes, definitely!

Steph, I'm not sure you have to have been born with a penis, and there's always the possibility that merely having sex with a member of the family suffices for entree. I'm willing to broker that if need be.

I think my whole monogamy dealie with Tim has a loophole clause for trip-to-Jamaica-for-awesome-party-with-kickass-family. It MUST.

msbelle,

can you speak to the HR person (in person) to let her know that there is some tension between you and your boss? I feel like you need to explain the situation to someone.

"I see sub (SUB) text in 'chasing and killing a black man with a pack of wild dogs'

After 40 years of minstrel shows of Uncle Tom's Cabin, mainly featuring Eliza fleeing over the ice from a pack of dogs, how can there not be a racial subtext?

I'm also spending the day chit chatting with a guy that doesn't like the "recent" (and clearly PC) trend of using actor to refer to women (which butchers the language). I told him he's really adapting to computers really well, considering the word's been gender neutral for at least 99 years now (thank you, erinaceous, for wordnik's one stop shop), and it's a shame he's not as adept at English as he is with technology.

I almost went off to the all IT meeting half an hour early. Yikes. I managed to panic someone that it involved performance, since we need to bring cameras. It was worth actually having that low level paranoia myself.

Good lord, a co worker just offered me a hug. I offered to call HR. Let's be realistic here.

Is it Dusmesh on Ludlow, Steph & flea? That would totally work for me, and sounds great. Shall we say 11:30 or so? I have to drop the dog off at the kennel here in Indy, so that should give me time to get sorted and get over there.

I sometimes wonder if they're posted by some app and not the actual person.

I wonder about that, too. I've seen "Joe Shmoe responded to..." in the sidebar several times lately, but I haven't seen anyone I know posting the cleaning thing. Of course I've got most of the people I went to high school with set for "Important Only" posts so I may just be missing them.

Timelies all!

Happy Birthday juliana!

Happy Belated Birthday Zenkitty and Ouise!

So, grams is ready for a live at home nurse or assisted living, keeps hitting the button for the ambulance, an uncle who live 45 minutes away but wants nothing to do with her(unless it's her money), and my dad, who does, and who drives six hours one way when she hits that buttong, which has been three times in the past month. She's 92.

Oh, and I hate her. In an abstract way. We didn't part well the last time I saw her, but she's pretty self-centered enough that I'm sure she'd overlook it to focus more on her own needs. Which, at this point, with the fainting at grocery stores due to dehydration, are plenty.

Still, I'm toying with the idea of telling my dad that if something comes up, that I can drive the two hours from NJ to East Meadow to deal with her and whatnot until they get the assisted living business sorted out.

If I offered this, it would be for my dad, most definitely, who's a jerk but I do actually love him. Gramms couldn't die soon enough. In an abstract way, natch.

But I don't know if I can commit that time to a woman I've cut out of my life for the past decade.

Julie, maybe I'm not understanding, but I don't get why your dad has to drive 6 hours when she hits the button for the ambulance. When you say she "keeps hitting the button", I hear, there's nothing really wrong, she's just freaking like old folks do sometimes. (Is this a LifeAlert thing?) Surely the ambulance gets to her quicker than your dad can! If there's something actually wrong that your dad (or someone) needs to come, wouldn't the hospital call?