Just hold my attention without making me cringe

[Tripp]

yo

[Tripp]

test

[Tripp]

the board was acting weird for a second.

[Tripp]

I watched the new Futurama last night after practice..... eeeehhhhhhhnnnnnn...   good, not great.

[Bizarro]

WARNING: Extended family politics rant. Summary: Mama is being annoying.

M______'s Mama leaves soon and she's becoming increasingly emotional and stubborn. She's stopped trying to compromise and she acts wounded when she doesn't get her way. This is all happening at a time when I was actually getting bummed she was leaving, too, so it's not me getting sick of her, it's her getting sick of me. Anyway...

On Father's Day, M______ got me a little fridge keg of Bell's Oberon.



As I poured the last half glass, Mama asked to have it to wash her hair. (Washing hair with beer occasionally makes the hair very soft.) But it was the last half glass, so I offered her a can from the fridge instead. She insisted that was wasteful since she only needed a few ounces, so she'd take the other beer instead. And I flat out said no. Let her wash her hair with Stroh's, not my once-a-year microbrew. Apparently, she went to M______ and cried and said I was cruel, which baffles me. I didn't refuse her the damned beer, only asked that she leave the gourmet stuff for me to drink. (And actually, I was pouring the last bit for M______ who also likes it and had barely had any.)

Then there's the language thing. Normally, Mama and I get by using a combination of simple Hungarian and Romanian with hand gestures for clarification. But lately, more and more, she will just speak an entire paragraph or two of Hungarian and when I don't understand, repeat it back slower and louder, rude tourist style. I guess I have had plenty of time to learn the entire language.

Bonus: Mama never ever makes any attempt to learn or speak English. But Tuesday when we were out and she decided she had to have a stupid bug zapper racket thing like we have and I said I didn't know how to get to the store that sold them from there, she said, clear as a bell, "Second right," which actually infuriates me. So if she wants something, she will try English? Bonus on that bonus: her directions were way the hell off and she refused to accept it. (She kept saying in Hungarian, "It's back there!") It was actually about a half hour in the other direction.

And best of all is the Simon/doctor thing. This weekend, Simon very briefly had a fever of 102. He was lethargic and grouchy. Mama panicked and got M______ panicking and tried to insist we go to the emergency room. I pointed out that he was teething, 102 is several degrees lower than the threshold our pediatrician gave for what constitutes an emergency, and we should give him children's meds and wait. The fever went away the very next day, but he had diarrhea and was still sluggish and wouldn't eat.

By Monday, Mama was literally pacing the house wringing her hands and crying. "If Matilda had been this sick when she was a child, I would have taken her to the hospital within ten minutes!" she kept saying. I pointed out that diarrhea was natural for kids fresh off a fever and it probably wasn't a big deal. More sobbing and accusations of parental failure.

Aside: even putting aside the issue of how healthy it really is to run you kid to the ER for every little thing, there is the matter of me and M_____ both working and health care not being free here.

Fine. So I took off a half day on Tuesday and made Simon an appointment. I got home just in time for us to leave and found Simon pantsless in a dirty diaper and Mama in pajamas. Finally, we got them dressed and made it to the doctor half an hour late. They squeezed us in anyway.

And what did they say? He'd had a mild fever from teething and diarrhea afterward. EXACTLY LIKE I SAID. The doctor said the only reason the diarrhea was even lingering was the food Mama was giving him--fatty, salty homemade soup, acidic fruits and tomatoes, sweets, and dairy.

So we translated all of the doctor's simple instructions on what was okay for Simon to eat and repeated them to Mama several times. I made a special trip to the store to get Jello, chicken broth, apple juice, and applesauce.

And when I came home, you know what she'd fed him? Fatty, salty homemade soup, acidic fruits and tomatoes, sweets, and dairy. She hadn't even opened the other stuff I bought.

I love this lady. She's really good to my son and I am grateful. But I have about had it up to here with the crying/manipulating and the stubbornness. Can't say I will be sorry to see her go.

[Tripp]

You're way more patient than I am, my friend.

[Bizarro]

OH, and I left out the part about the air conditioning! Mama is used to living in apartments where the air kicks in and five minutes later, the place is cool. We have a three story townhouse. It takes a while for it to kick in and a while for it to register when it reaches temp and shut itself off. But Mama starts throwing her hands in the air five minutes after she's hot that the a/c isn't working, and so she opens all of the windows and doors. And guess what? That doesn't help the a/c catch up.

And so, I come home and she's wringing her hands (I keep saying she does that and I mean it literally, not as an expression) and complaining that the house is sooooo hot. But she's had the damned windows open all day! Of course it is.

Then there are the times when the house does cool off, but does not immediately shut off the air flow at the precise moment she decides she is comfortable. So she has me turn the system off because she doesn't want to wait. Hours later, when she has forgotten I did this, the house is a sauna and she can't figure out that all she needs to do is push the button... and wait. But then, she doesn't wait, does she?

ARRGH.

[Bizarro]

And bugs! Another of Mama's favorite complaints is all of the bugs that get in the house.

Jonathan and I have proposed to her the radical possibility that this is related to her leaving the screen door open for hours at a time or constantly opening the window in her room that has a missing screen (instead of the one next to it that has a screen).

She disagrees.

[Bizarro]

I think I'm out of Mama  complaints now. We're good. Thanks for listening.

[Tripp]

you need to kill her.

[Tripp]

perhaps throw her from the train.

[Bizarro]

Did y'all notice every video on YouTube (not embedded ones, just at their actual site) today has a little soccer ball button in the control panel? Click it and the audio gets swamped by vuvuzelas.

Seriously.

[Doctor Rock]

Did y'all notice every video on YouTube (not embedded ones, just at their actual site) today has a little soccer ball button in the control panel? Click it and the audio gets swamped by vuvuzelas.

Seriously.

Ah!  Too bad that joke is old by now, eh? 

[Doctor Rock]

By the way, Italy (the world champions) are losing 1 - 0 to Slovakia... And they're playing like shit.   

[captqitn]

Played hooky yesterday with S_____ and we watched the US game yesterday.    That was one helluva payoff.    And it was fun to get drunk before noon too.    Can't remember the last time I managed that.