That would indeed wake any latent curiosity. Good grief, erin's employers.

Oh no, I think Zen fell asleep with the phone on her ear. And is likely having really interesting dreams.

Took the Buffy quiz, and cheated on almost every question. I think I would have scored about 25% otherwise.

Boy update. He decided that living on the beach was still better than moving a whole 20 miles to Fort Lauderdale (ends of the earth) to live with his aunt and uncle. BUT, he is coming by every day to shower and get fed, AND he got a job (probably) at Office Depot doing tech. He stopped there with a friend to get toner and talked to the tech manager and they were desperate for help. He can pass any support type test they throw at him and the manager basically told him he was in. He meets with them formally Tuesday. He also has an interview for a couple grocery store openings Monday. I told him when he was employed I would pay for his first month somewhere close to his job. He has applied a bunch of places.

Someday he will appreciate me, right? Seriously, I know he loves me and knows I love him and all that, but he doesn't get why we won't let him be a 23 yo bum living in our house. Sigh.

He already does appreciate you or you. He's just being a big jerk.

I read the statistics that lots of 20 year old still live with their parents. I wonder, Laura, if your son sees other of his friends who are still living at home until that's one of the reasons why he feels like it's okay?

My parents urged me to take typing, & I was glad that I did. I wish I had taken wood shop. I don't ever remember hearing of a single girl whoever took wood shop in high school. It was pretty much the vo-tech boys club and they were all a little bit scary. why my parents let me drop a bunch of AP classes when I was in high school, after my older sister roped me into a cult when I was 16, I will never understand. At least when I decided I wanted to get out of the cult, they were very practical in helping me figure out what I could do to support myself when I left. I'd worked for one of the cult's law firms, and they told me to get to a legal secretarial course. Like all pieces of paper it gets you the interview. Now I can say it all worked out, because, after stumbling into a good job and sticking with it for 30 years, I could retire at 55 with a good pension.

Ginger, my sympathies. I'm not even sure how to say this, but it is a possibility. Is there anything I can do to help you now?

Oh Laura, I'm sorry he's being such an ass. You are great for setting boundaries and being there for him.

Laura, I'm sorry. It sounded like such an ideal situation. I really hope the job works out.

Stubborn boy is stubborn. Loving, stubborn mom is stubborner. I remember his aunt and uncle from your party, they were clearly lovely people and good role models. I'm glad he has skills and hope he can play by the rules enough to get and keep a job.

Clock is running out on the weekend. So much left to do. I'm considering reorganizing my to do list partially by what will reduce the most stress and give me the biggest sense of accomplishment. Prioritizing is such a bitch for me, with this dialectical and anxious brain. No choice but to keep practicing, though.

I am trying to fight off some sort of weird flu thing. It combines a sore throat, cough and, um, really bad digestive issues. I feel and look about 100 years old.

That doesn't sound fun, Scrappy. I'm sorry. I hope you win!

Scrappy, yuck. Hope you feel better soon.

Laura, I really admire your patience and tenacity. I think he does appreciate you, and will (I hope) appreciate you more as he grows up and older.

What service is this? I am loving my SoupCycle subscription (which is soup, delivery weekly, via bicycle, because Portland.) A quart of vegan soup every week, and sometimes I'll add on the 'soup of the week' or the veggie soup and get 2 quarts and that's up to 8 meals if I expand it with some crusty bread or lotsa steamed kale. I've found that very few soups (at least the vegan kind I get) suffer from a handful of washed, chopped kale tossed in so that it steams as the soup heats.

Greenlite Meals. It's all vegan, and delivered via FedEx (which is why I can get it here in Central PA.) You can order 3, 5, or 7 days per week, and it gets delivered frozen, with each thing in its own plastic bag. I'm using it for a few weeks because I'm ridiculously busy right now, and my kitchen is freezing, and I've been in a lot more pain than usual, which all together means I can't really shop or cook much. The meals I've had so far have mostly been pretty good. Just one thing that I really hated (a snack that was just grated carrots and coconut, and you were supposed to eat it hot, and, just, no), and a few things that benefitted greatly from the addition of some hot sauce or other spices. (Today, I had a peanut butter banana muffin for breakfast, and aloo gobi for lunch. There's some granola for a snack, and dinner is buffalo tofu, spinach, and brown rice, I think. That's pretty typical for these meals -- breakfast is usually either tofu scramble or some kind of hot cereal, with a couple of muffins and smoothies every once in a while; lunch and dinner are generally either a soup or stew that has beans and vegetables in it, or some kind of tofu or tempeh plus a veggie and brown rice.)