I'm sorry, quester. It really does suck. I hope that trying to communicate your desire to spend time with them helps. They may think you don't want to be included. Family communication is so often whack.

The whole family balance thing is tricky. I've tried to be extra nice and sociable with family and friends that I dumped from FB during the election. We do a lot of talking about sports.

Not that I think you should have to buy kids things, but dollar stores are really wonderful for getting a little something for kids. You can get little four packs of bubbles that can be split amongst the kids, crayons, coloring books, and sidewalk chalk. And the kids love that stuff.

Hell, kids of a certain age would love an empty box. ;-)

Also, that. And if ltc is the kid, empty tissue boxes or catalogues.

I'm sorry, quester. Family can be cruel and it's so hard to deal with. I hope this gets better for you.

The staples are out of my leg, all 30 of them (ouch), and I've got a hard cast on. That makes things easier. There's less worry about smacking my foot into stuff. And today I'm off to DC with a friend to meet some other friends. I have some trepidation but it should go well. We're going to see Wonder Woman!

Still haven't seen GOTG2 though. Dammit.

I'm extremely jealous of everyone who gets to see Wonder Woman this weekend, but I am going to see Hedwig and the Angry Inch this weekend. So that helps. I don't have a sitter to see anything else at the moment. I haven't seen GOTG2 yet either.

quester, I'm so sorry. That's really painful. The only way I've dealt with what's left of my bio-fam being a huge disappointment is by finding and nurturing created families elsewhere. But that's never a perfect solution.

Glad things are getting easier, Zen.

Yay for seeing Hedwig, sj! My default ringtone is a guitar riff from "Sugar Daddy," and has been for years.

Oh, I forgot to post this and I think it will be of interest to a few Bitches denizens. We had dinner with a some old friends this week. One of them has done some directing on Fargo. First, he said Noah Hawley is freaking genius, but also manages to be a good person to work for. Second, Carrie Coon is just as wonderful and warm and level-headed as you think she might be. Third, and this surprised him, Ewan McGregor is just a guy and not at all a movie star. Serious about his work, but offscreen he is a nice dude who likes to talk about his kids and motorcycles and stuff. No temperament or vanity, lots of charm and as interested in hanging with the crew as he is in the "talent." He said "After five minutes of talking to him, you even forget how handsome he is."

I'm thinking about hiring a professional organizer to help me get my apartment presentable. Between physical issues with picking stuff up, and my complete lack of any idea of how to make organization work, my apartment has been a mess for way too long. My mom hired someone to help with her house, and she thought it was really useful. (Though, considering that my old bedroom seems to have become the overflow storage room again, I'm not totally sure how much it helped, but it at least gave her a sense of how things should be organized.) And I also need some help just figuring out where to put stuff, since my apartment doesn't have much storage space, and what it does have is often in weird inaccessible places.

Thanks for the love you guys. You are my Tribe.