About sixteen years ago, I met him for the first time. My trainwreck sibling brought home this adorable puppy he had no business adopting because he had not one thing in his life that wasn’t a mess. I was furious at my sibling – he didn’t even take care of himself, how could he drag
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March 19, 2011
It’s not going to be because of the night owl tendencies that Monday morning is going to dawn a bit more darkly than Saturday or Sunday.
Dare I cop to burnout so soon? Dare I admit that it’s been a long hard slog since landing this gig and no matter how hard I work, there’s always more piling on, more left to do, more that staff need from more, more expected of me, more, more and more?
Yes, we’ve got a vacation coming up but more often than not, the thought on my mind has been: what would I rather be doing?
And I know this has been an excellent learning experience, albeit a painful one, so it’s hard for me to say I want to do anything but this – that may just be the Tired As All Get Out speaking.
So instead, as I don’t rightly have the answer to that for myself, what would you rather be doing? Monday morning when you arise from your beauty rest, what would you ideally be getting ready to do for your daily bread?
March 18, 2011
If you give Revanche a dog,
then PiC must find a new car…
PiC might possibly be taking advantage of the situation, or he might just be reminding me of a few good points that have my head back on the desk. Either way, my nightmare of four years ago is coming back to haunt me.
We currently own my new-to-us car that we purchased in cash last year when I moved up here for a great bargain for the mileage and year. It’s a good old 4-door Acura, with seat warmers and a [crap] GPS [that I refuse to pay $100 to upgrade maps on because I cheap out on stupid things], and will last at least 150K miles. It gets excellent highway mileage, so we’ve mainly used it for our road trips back to Southern California and for my tooling around town occasionally.
He owns a 2-door car, same age, also excellent condition, that gets good gas mileage, better than mine for street driving but worse for highway, and it’s fairly non-descript so we use it to get around the city. We just don’t like driving the “nice” car into the city, it feels too flashy. The kicker here is that it’s a manual transmission which I can’t drive anymore as it causes too much pain. Aggravating as it’s limiting.
The problems are that he doesn’t want the dog in my car: the seats are leather and a dog’s claws would go through that like butter. Most importantly, we both prefer to transport dogs in kennels – it’s safer for them in case of an accident, they would be better protected and less likely to be flung out of the car and that definitely wouldn’t fit in either of our cars.
With those conclusions, he’s decided that the time may have come to sell his trusty vehicle. His choice, not mine. Mine could actually be sold for more than we bought it so I was willing, but he can’t let go of the seat warmers. 😉 Selfishly, I’m glad because I would have done it, but would have been sad to say goodbye.
PiC’s the car guy, so he’s narrowed down the options: not an SUV but it has to be something big enough for both transporting dogs and passengers. [I think… I think he thinks we’re having kids? Or something? Never mind that.] It has to be low enough for a larger dog to get into fairly easily, it has to be easy to clean, it has to be within a certain price range, not that we have actually saved for a car yet —SIGH— and **heartburn**.
He’s narrowed it down to ….. the …… how many of you guessed this?
He’s, after breaking my aesthetic heart a few times with the above, also suggested that perhaps the Pilot might be an option. Le sigh. And sigh again. A new car?
I’m not 100% convinced. While my preference is always to crate a dog in the car, I’ll have to be the first to admit that I’ve not been consistent with that in the past and it’s hard for me to commit to a new-to-us car straightaway based solely on the new dog. Seems heartless but there’s a part of me asking, now wait a minute – is this really totally necessary right now? Just because you’re getting a dog doesn’t mean you need a matching (yes I’m exaggerating about the “matching” part) car.
We’re not in agreement yet, which means I haven’t said yes yet, and he’s not stopped looking yet. It may be time to break out the negotiation dice to set parameters around when this would be reasonable.
————
The Morning After’s Important Details: I forgot to mention (thanks for reminding me Red!) that we’re not actually looking for a real new car. Just a new to us car – we only buy used. I forget to clarify that because in “our language” new = used.
And he’s looking at newer cars model year 2009 for bargains[KBB $22K+, priced at $18K+] which is why I’m so balky. I don’t want to pull that much money out at once, and really don’t want a car loan.
March 15, 2011
After much deliberation, I’ve made my decision. We’re thinking a small ceremony, very small, followed by a big casual shindiggy foody thing where the formality doesn’t matter so that plays a role in my decision as well.
PiC has four groomsmen, one of whom is his best man, and I will have a maid of honor. As such, I’m renaming it the Groom’s Party.
He doesn’t want to be imbalanced but I think it’s silly to not have his best friends stand up for him if he’s always known precisely who he wanted just because I’m lame and don’t have the numbers to “balance” them.
Besides, if the bride has 4 attendants and the groom has 1, everyone looks at the bride like she’s a high maintenance such and such. If the numbers are reversed, it’s suddenly d’awww, and neat, and that’s pretty cool. Whatever. Grooms get away with almost everything. Just go with it. Besides, *evil grin* it’ll be fun to have that weird visual dissonance, won’t it?
*****
And it’s not just because I’m lame. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking on this. Too much time, in fact. And will probably spend more time thinking about it.
It’s one of those things that seems like it should be a simple choice if it’s right. And if it’s not then I should just make the simplest choice possible because the convoluted one will probably make me and everyone around me unhappy.
For some people, I think the answer is obvious. For me, it’s just not. I can’t easily name the two, three or four closest girlfriends and ask them to do this thing *gesticulating wildly* and stand beside me on my wedding day. I have multiple small circles of friends with whom I’m very close for different reasons. How do I pick? And if I redefine “closeness” as “my go-to people” which is my practical side coming out, well, those are my dudes. That could be awkward? (Or hilarious… and their girlfriends could be annoyed.) Also, my go-to people aren’t interested in wedding planning. They’re more like go on missions to aid people/quest for food kind of people.
So then the typical construction of a bridal party might go something like this: the female siblings on either side are obligatory, cousins may be, childhood or college classmates may be. A bride may have run out of fingers on one hand and moved on to the next and that’s before she’d gotten to friends she was closest with at that point in life! There are all sorts of expectations and potential for hurt feelings and resentment wrapped up in the convention of picking the bridal party.
And in my experience, after all that spazzing over picking people to stand by your side and support you through a stressful process to get you to the wedding day, it may not quite feel worth it, having seen things from the back stage, as it were.
I’ve played the role of the bridesmaid nearly a dozen times now. My rule is if I’m your bridesmaid, you are my bride. And if you are my bride, I take care of you, along with fellow bridesmaids (is that genderist phrasing?). You are asking for support, probably two parties and maybe a silly-dress-wearing, during a time of great importance and transition in your life. We are sharing an important time in our friendship and it should be joyful. And it was awful to see other bridesmaids crap on that.
I have observed some bridesmaids choose to rant and whine behind the brides’ back when they feel inconvenienced; they choose to remain unhappy instead of being honest to resolve conflicts; they choose to be disingenuous and force the bride to try to appease them instead of dealing with whatever stressful situation is at hand. And yes, the brides know when you’re acting a fool behind their backs. They’re not idiots.
Yes, we all know of the ever-vaunted Bridezillas and I’ve backed out of bridesmaiding for Those Brides. What I don’t think people talk or know about are the bridesmaids who fail their task of just being supportive in a reasonable manner. The bridesmaids who are in it to look good in front of an audience, or for a free party and flings. There are those ‘maids and it’s not as few and far between as the “But It Wouldn’t Happen Here” crowd might think. My brides have been basically reasonable. Stressed, but reasonable. And yet, some of their attendants still found ways and means to crap on them.
I didn’t accept the job if I couldn’t observe my rule. I’d only ask the same. But when’s the last time someone was willing to be honest enough to say, “I’m sorry but I don’t think I can be your bridesmaid because I think you’re asking more than I can give?” Seriously, blunt honesty is the biggest gift you could give me during any time of stress.
While I don’t think that the people I might pick if I could pick freely would be those bridesmaids, I realize that there are other factors at play, including obligatory invites that force an unnatural dynamic and a process of picking, and not picking, that can produce unexpected results.
My conclusion then is that for a very small wedding, I don’t truly need attendants, I need one person to help me with the dress and with some preparations and emotional support, and by keeping it to one person in the actual “party”, I don’t have to juggle the rest of the politics of choice. It’s choice avoidance, in fact.
There’s a bit of me that’s sad that I won’t have a group of friends to support me throughout but being as far away as I am, perhaps I would not have really benefited from the group dynamic as much as I would have been stressed by having to be the organizer once again.
*****
My choice, then, is to simply ask one friend, my oldest friend that I’ve known for many many years though we’re not daily friends, to be there for me as my maid of honor.
She’s -surprise!- expecting. I didn’t know this when I picked her so it slightly changes things in that we couldn’t agree on what was more important.
Me: Uh, no, you and the baby are way more important! You don’t have time for this!
Her: Are you kidding? I need something to do that has nothing to do with the baby! You know I’m going to travel wherever it is no matter what, so don’t even.
Me: Ok ok ok, we’re just going to do combo everything, then.
Our agreement is this: I am asking her, as my first choice, to help me with planning the wedding if she feels up to it, as much as she feels able and to be emotional support. If, at any point, she’s overwhelmed or fatigued, she has absolute free pass to back out, she has only to tell me. She doesn’t have to make a speech if she doesn’t have to, she can wear anything she likes, anything she’s comfortable in. If the wedding is later in the year, she’ll have an infant a few months old so I have no idea how she’ll feel about clothes at that point.
For her part, she’ll help with anything she can, and if I ever feel like she’s either not “doing enough” (her words), or if the above traditionalist pressure causes problems and I have to unask her, she will completely understand and help from the sidelines or backstage. [For the record, no. Not happening. But that she would consider the possibility and offer it up? That’s a friend, right there.]
I think that’s the best compromise I could ask for. And I think I can be at peace with this Groom’s (Groomal? Groomish?) Party.
March 13, 2011
From whence the money comes, I have not yet planned but I still have some time yet.
Purely by chance, as if my fingers had life of their own, I accidentally found the perfect sounding dog to rescue.
This is well ahead of schedule. We were not planning on bringing a dog home for a long while since we still wanted to travel a while longer, definitely have travel plans through summer this year, and have this little wedding deal to put together.
But I’ve been stressed. I realize that taking on another responsibility in response to stress doesn’t seem very smart. But dogs are my respite. And I don’t have a dog to even mentally hug anymore. This year without a dog is the longest I’ve been dog-free since the age of seven. None of my de-stressing techniques are taking. It’s basically torturous so I browse PetFinder once in a while and dream. Then I found this guy and just went all REO Speedwagon.
His profile is so perfect! Our potential adoptee is a cross of three large breeds, older, mellow enough to be an indoor dog for the better part of a day (his foster mommy attests to this), energetic enough to romp with other dogs and go for runs, good in cars, good with strange dogs and mellow with strange people and veterinarians and groomers (important since my previous dogs either uniformly failed that test or embarrassed me at least a little.)
PiC was disinclined to say me nay after reading the profile and looking at the picture. (And believe me, he’s exercised veto plenty.) We wrote to his foster mom to inquire about availability that very night.
The rescue agency is quite concerned about the futures of these dogs who are adopted out, rightfully so since some of these poor dogs are thrown back into the system when people who weren’t ready to bring home dogs move on with their lives, or meet with unfortunate circumstances.
++++++++++++++++
Some of the adoption form questions:
What provisions would be made for the dog if you had to move locally?/ Out of state?/ To a place where no pets are allowed?
Under what circumstances would you not keep the dog? Divorce/ Illness in family/ Moving/ New baby/ New job/ Allergy/ Housetraining problems/ Chewing/ Digging/ Shedding/ Barking/ Howling/ Dog grew too big/ Dog became ill/ Kids ignore/ Pets didn’t get along/ Not obedient enough/Other/Would not give up for any of the above reasons.
What would you do with the dog if you could not keep him or her? Return to rescue/ Take to shelter/ Give away/ Sell the dog/ Other
For the record, none of the options given above are good enough for either PiC or I to give up a pet we chose to bring home. We obviously aren’t allergic and we’d know to expect some shedding. Growth isn’t a problem with an older dog, and any behavioral problems would call for training and treatment, not disposal. Once we become responsible for a pet, unless it’s a situation where either the pet or a family member is endangered, that’s the end of the story.
++++++++++++++++
We’re not ready to adopt him until after we return from our trip, but even if it turns out he’s not a good fit with us, we need to have money in the bank to take him of him, or her, if this fella doesn’t work out and we’re back on the hunt again.
Ideally, I had intended to have $5,000 in the bank for any medical exams, supplies or emergencies but mostly because that’s a nice big round number. Realistically, none of my dogs have ever needed that much as a starter. Even the one with the crushed leg (we adopted him after the leg crushing and subsequent abandonment) didn’t cost that much. PiC and I need to talk about how to budget, but we’re going to schedule a meet-up with Foster Mom in the meantime and see if he’s really a match for us in the meantime.
Even better, we have a fellow blogger friend willing to swap dog-sitting which was a huge relief as that was one of my concerns about bringing home a dog when I don’t have a strong social network in the area. If I have any other volunteers .. 😉
Cross your fingers!
March 9, 2011
On FB’s post, Can you survive on an extreme budget and make tough choices?, I ran across Insomniac Lab Rat’s comment that rang old bells for me:
“I didn’t find the game to be THAT realistic, because I felt that most of the times I played I had horrible “luck”, and most people won’t experience that many bad things in such a short time span.”
My response was turning into a saga so I took it back home. I understand it seems unrealistic but it is real – I’ll explain below. It is a bit of a personal bugbear, but I really like to point out the difference between luck and life happening and how they look remarkably alike.
This is what happens: When you’re in such a low or tight a situation that you have no cash flow, every single demand on your money is a choice that leaves another demand unanswered. You have all the same basic needs: food, shelter, medical, education, insurance, social obligations as others, but severely limited resources. Your daily question becomes: how do you cover six square feet of area with only three square feet of material? Everything that comes of luck, plus everything that naturally would have happened anyway and over time becomes defined as “bad luck.” That redefines your landscape.
As a player of the game Spent, what you are exposed to is that greater frequency of what appears to be bad luck but it’s really not. You are experiencing all the demands of real life in the way that someone who has zero outside resources would experience: the illness that is inconvenient for most but disastrous for someone without sick leave and can’t afford to lose the pay, the commitment that takes away the cash you needed for that other bill, a $25 late fee because you didn’t have last month’s bill money, the extra rise in Bill C that makes Bill D impossible to meet this month. They’re annoying to the average person with an extra $100 cushion in pay per month. Impossible if you just don’t have cash or credit.
Probably the less realistic bits of the game are that it doesn’t provide any of the truly creative resources you might be able to draw upon if you could figure them in real life. And that’s about right for a majority-case sort of game.
When you have an adequate cash flow, when you have any cash flow, you can absorb some smaller needs, and then only the significantly unexpected, or the “bad luck” stands out. When you have no cash flow, every single thing is bad luck. That’s why, a few years ago, I wrote about why I didn’t attribute our family situation to luck any longer – it was choices, it was circumstances, it was short and long term developments that happens to everyone that comes up.
When we were living that way, scraping penny to penny, life really did seem to kick us, up or down, like that and I watched my mom start calling everything bad luck. In 2008, I first noticed the trend to blaming the circumstances of our lives on luck. A year later, I realized the toll that making choice after debilitating choice took on her, and our relationship. It feels like being stuck in a channeling trap to ultimate failure.
After having been a real life player in a game of Spent, I know that you take those hits, over and over and over. You make those choices and hope, you make those choices and pray that you get from point A to point B, from point B to point C and you try to find ways to do things different every time to make it better but there are constantly setbacks, every week and every month. Right here on this blog, you’ll see my commenters note that it’s like a two-step, one step forward, two steps back.
It really wasn’t luck, though.
Though there was a time it certainly felt that way after I’d finally just sold our third vehicle at a loss, and then my dad totaled the sedan. My commenters made me laugh, though. “Death, Dismemberment, Disembowelment, Dysentery” indeed.
Yes, there are times I shake my fist at luck. But Luck happens, good and bad. Just be prepared for it, no matter what it is.
March 8, 2011
Heave a sigh of relief with me, my friends, SDCC travel planning is complete.
In a remarkably backwards approach, I’ve finalized the last part of our plans for Comic Con by booking the departing flights.
Stage 1: PiC was good enough to oversee the hotel booking after my annual overture produced bad news. We discussed the parameters: the budget, how far I was willing to be located from the Convention Center, shared the news with our lodgings companions and verified that it was in line with their budgets.
Result: We have a place to stay. We’ll be kicking in grocery money to my beloved once and always host family for dinners with them.
Stage 2: PiC arranged the return flights which had to be paid for in cash rather than award flights, unfortunately, since they were hard to come by. Everyone and their cousins and their cousins are flying out on Southwest that same day, it seems. I should have gotten on that sooner. Next year.
Result: We will be able to come home.
Insert some naggery for days to be requested off, drivers designated, and flights to be booked to Travel Companions. Because it’s not Con unless I’m driving someone crazy-bemused with my planning six months out.
Stage 3: I revived those expired Southwest award flight credits for a lovely $50 and paid another $5 to actually book the outbound flights. I’m heading out as early as I can stand to be upright. More calls were made to verify pick ups.
Result: We will be going to Con. CON!!
Now, it’s time to eagerly await programming so I can highlight all the Must See panels, the special eventing and the floor plan. I can’t wait!!
March 5, 2011
PiC and I are going on our first honest to goodness vacation this spring. It may or may not coincide with ye olde Springe Breake. Having never been on one, I wouldn’t know what a real one comprises but this isn’t a plan to cram several years of drunken debauchery into one hoopla filled trip. Though you never know what might happen …. 😉
This whole plan was born of a whim – a friend of mine has embarked on a multi-month, multi-country work and travel adventure and suggested we join her on some part of it. Preferably, hint hint, on the parts where I could be of use by translating, hint hint NUDGE.
I’m still rubbing my side bruise.
Cue a lot of chatter about why we probably shouldn’t go over: Are we serious about this because if we go overseas, that costs money and takes time and I can’t imagine taking a 15+ hour flight each way to stay for only a week…? And then, uh, are we paying for a trip and a wedding-thing-of-some-variety in the same year? How can I take time off from work I have so much to do?? You know, all the sensible stuff.
At the end of all of it: we decided to go.
When are we next going to get the opportunity to meet up with a good friend in a random country just to explore, eat and adventure? How much longer can I work at this pace without an enforced break? PiC likes long flights. We so frequently do things for each other: me for his sports and him for my geekery but never make time for a shared interest. So really, why not? We’ve never gone on a vacation together and this would be fun! (D’ya hear that, cerebral cortex? Can you access what that means?) And the wedding may or may not happen this year.
For all my naysaying above, (you knew that was me, didn’t you?) on the off chance that we might decide to go, I’ve been hoarding any windfall money and all my vacation time so we won’t be running up any debt and the time off will be covered.
From the list of probable stops Friend scribbled on the napkin six months ago, we negotiated Must Sees and Nah, I’m Not That Interesteds against the calendar and ended up with our compromise destination. PiC was strongly in favor, and though Thailand was never on my list of Must See countries (no reason), it’s not on my list of Not in This Life so that’s where we will be headed for nearly two weeks!
What do you think? Have you ever been? Any recommendations or suggestions if you have been?
