A neighbor at an apartment I used to live in came home after a weekend away to find that his toilet had erupted. As in volcanicly. Over his all-white, carpeted, bathroom. ew

Since it looks like I will be working Sat and Sun, I asked for today off. Dad and I are headed down to see Grandma for a couple of hours around noon. I HAVE A LAZY MORNING WITH NO CHILD!

That's in addition to the stink I've been raising about desk space (our area has been cannibalized by other parts of marketing so you have to get in at like 7 to get a desk), the pursuit evaluation process (no one is being held accountable for the amount of pure crap we are chasing), and my team being strong-armed by higher ups into taking on a nightmare project that we are specifically not supposed to have been involved in.

That's like 3 years worth of shit-stirring for me.

Okay, sanity check. Emailing with my father about food issues for an upcoming visit (my stepmother cannot have sugar; I am not sure why but I asked if she could have splenda in baked goods.) He replied that she could have splenda, but in general they were on a very low fat almost vegetarian diet, for cholesterol level reasons (actual cholesterol level stated seemed fine), but they do indulge occasionally. An example of "indulgence" was eating grilled salmon...

That's crazy, right? I mean, I am not a doctor, and my father IS, but I was under the impression that grilled salmon was rather healthy in general, and had "good" fats in it. My idea of an indulgence would be, like, beef wellington.

Sympathetic ughs for meara and sarameg. House woes suck.

I'm glad you'll get to see your grandma, msbelle.

I woke up anxious and stressed out at 2 am and never really went back to sleep. Now my stomach is all in knots and I'm still anxious as hell, AND I need to get cracking on the day. And somehow not collapse at 3 when I need to pick up the kids. Ack! Plus I'm feeling like a bit of a failure as a wife, for not being there for my DH because I'm too wrapped up in my own stuff right now.

Such a case of the don't wannas right now.

I guess grilled salmon, even though its fat is good fat, could be seen as an "indulgence" to people who are eating ridiculously low-fat, since it is a fatty fish. I suppose people who eat super low fat don't distinguish good vs bad fat.

(Yes, it is crazy. Because salmon is delicious and should be eaten often.) (That is not a health-related pronouncement; it's a yummiliciousness pronouncement. Mmmm, salmon.)

brenda, I wish there were someone at my company to stir up some of our collective shit.

My sister is angry at the roofer for starting work on an $1100 job when he quoted her $350. Understandable. But. The fact that she can't easily be reached and gave him my number instead of her own did have something to do with it. He got there, found the problem was more extensive than he thought, and started (or continued) work while trying to reach her. It's not like he finished the job and *then* told her it was $1100. I'm not sure I would've done it differently, myself; he can't afford to pay workers to sit there doing nothing while he tries to contact someone for permission.

People who don't want to be called at work, never answer their phones, and send their cellphone calls directly to voicemail that they never listen to? Don't have a wide platform to stand on when they're mad about not being consulted up front. Not to mention, she lives two hours away from the house that's being worked on, and the daughter who does live there sleeps all day and doesn't want to be bothered. And not that he shouldn't have talked to her about it, but who's he supposed to consult? Me? Being under the impression that she wanted the leaking, partially collapsing roof fixed, this morning when he called me and asked of he could go over there and do the work, I said yes. When his secretary called me for my sister's number, I called my sister at work and had her call the secretary. All that, instead of her just giving him her number. She's also mad because she wanted to be there when the work was done. Well, did she tell him that? Because she didn't tell me that. What's she going to do, climb up there and supervise? Make sure they do it right? No, don't joke, she would if she could.

It's a leaking, partially collapsing roof. The inhabitant of the house didn't bother to inform us that her closet ceiling was leaking and sagging inwards until someone happened to notice the same thing on the porch -- two weeks after the leak started! It needs to be fixed.

Oh, she's on the phone with me now. She's not gonna do it. She's just gonna have it patched so it lasts six months. Whatever. It's not like she doesn't have the money. She's saying she doesn't have it, but please, she knows I know she does.

Okay, rant over. Whatever.

Grilled salmon seems healthy to me, but maybe he's framing "indulgence" differently than you. Maybe he thinks of indulging as eating a non-vegetarian meal.

My father has always been fat-phobic (like, rude comments in the grocery store to his children about strangers fat-phobic), so I guess I am suspicious that this restricted diet is more about paranoia and mental hangups rather than actually determined by medical stuff. Which is really weird because in most things my father is hyper-rational.

Salmon is great for cholesterol - it's full of fish oil!