I've been at my parents for a day and a half and I'm going mad and need to get the frick out. And I totally would except for how in sure they would take it out of my hide (and, sorry, whatever inheritance I might eventually glean). But between Fox News and Extreme Homes as after-t-day viewing, I am at my wits end. It's hard to counter my moms planned parenthood views when my gut reaction is that she'd made herself an appointment in1978. That's shit you don't say to your mother at anytime of the year.

you will 'suela- just hang in

But it'll all be over then and you can relax, right Suela?

I actually caught up in this thread during the down times of cooking today! I chose to eschew tradition, so I made a Moroccan Sweet Potato/Carrot/Pumpkin soup.

Of course now I can only remember a couple of the things I wanted to respond to.

Re: microwave oatmeal. Use a deep bowl and run longer at 50% power (I run mine for 6 minutes). I never have it explode or boil over.

I have lots of rambling thoughts on ethnicity and casting but I'm not sure how coherent I'd be at the moment. Maybe in the next couple of days.

No. It won't be over.

I mean, the move will be over, but I will eat my hat if she doesn't demand my father take her home three times a week.

She wasn't even willing to stay at my sister's house tonight, for no reason that we could discern.

I just don't know how this is going to work without me losing my shit. I'm this close to picking my brothers up from the airport tomorrow and just handing off responsibility to them.

Oh Suela. I'm sorry.

At some point this weekend we have to sneak into her purse and steal her vicodin. That'll be fun.

I'm this close to picking my brothers up from the airport tomorrow and just handing off responsibility to them.

Easy to say from where I'm standing, but DO IT. I mean, seriously--you're here on hand for all of this drama and trauma, and I'd totally get if my sister just threw her hands up in the air and went incommunicado for a while.

Yeah, I know. Life is rarely practical that way. But it would be nice.

I am sitting here like a dork firing up calculators on all my devices. The iPod one is cute skeumorphism--you rotate into landscape, and it's a scientific calculator! Portrait it's just a basic one. That's lovely. The Android one works the opposite way. if you select scientific, then it swaps to landscape. On the tablet, I mean. Ice Cream Sandwich. On Jellybean the default calc on my phone is flat tiles, not slightly shaded like ICS, or totally fake buttons on the iPod. Office Calculator is so tastefully coloured, also on the tablet., And it has "tape".

I love all these visual metaphors, but I don't know if I have any reverse Polish. It's not really a calculator party if reverse Polish isn't invited.

I hope it all goes okay in the end, Suela. And I get wanting sibs to take over some and understand how awful and stressful it can all be. Because it is and people don't understand it until they live some of it.

Humanity jumped the shark for me when I learnt how complicit everyone could be in the systematic oppression of everyone else--whether it was through malice, shortsightedness, oppression of themselves...we're all pretty awful.

Yeah, realizing this was upsetting. I shall henceforth call it humanity jumping the shark. Since I didn't realize the Native Americans owning slaves, I'll add that to the list.

Bandicoots are real things?!? Why are all of the words that I didn't realize referred to actual animals Australians. Puggles, bandicoots...

I did not know that Native Americans kept black slaves. Was this common?

I don't think it was common and I think it only happened fairly late in the history of slavery. Because before that slaves frequently ran away to the west and often became absorbed into Indian tribes. Which is why you get things like Black Seminoles. And also why most African Americans today have some Native American blood.