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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December 17, 2007
An electric bill that’s $10 lower than last month’s. It’s been at least 20 degrees colder than I can tolerate, morning and night, for the past month, so I’m pretty excited that the bill isn’t exponentially higher.
A three and a half day work week. I’ll be bowled over by the workload when I come back, but I’m getting some time off! Yay! Will try to get a lot of *stuff* done.
150 signatures on 500 office holiday cards done. I’d LOVE Ultra Fine Point Sharpies in metallic silver, do they even make those? Signing with just the regular fine points leads to my mashing the felt tips within 60 signatures. On the bright side, you can’t tell as easily when I leave letters out of my lengthy formal name. You CAN, however, tell when I’ve started writing someone else’s name entirely. I need to stop listening to other people or thinking when I’m signing because I write what I hear or think. Does anyone else have that problem?
December 16, 2007
I’d say “around the house” but I’m not going to exaggerate: it doesn’t go further than the front door right now. Since the latest big brother debacle, I’ve decided to proceed with changing the locks on the doors. However, it turns out that the door is old enough that the locks used are not the standard size, and so I returned the two sets of Kwikset locks that BoyDucky and I purchased a few days ago. That was silly, I’m not going to be able to find smaller, non-standard locks from Home Depot or Lowe’s.
My only real option is to sink more money into this project than I wanted to, and enlarge the existing holes. This does mean that I’ll have to leave our lovely new locks behind when we move. (I don’t know when that is, but things are so bad in the family that I’ve been seriously considering moving.)
On the bright side, I can now learn how to use a door lock installation kit to drill a larger hole into the doors and replace those locks. I’ll be one home-improvement project point closer to being ready to own my home someday. After all, the intimidating thing about owning a home for me is all the possible repairs that inevitably pop up.
I’ve wasted a couple trips to Home Depot thanks to poor planning, but will be able to save a bit on the locks.
First, I’ve used a $20 gift card at Home Depot to purchase an Irwin-brand bimetal door lock kit, and paid $2 out of pocket.
Next stop will be Lowe’s tomorrow night where my best friend’s lil brother works. He can double check the installation kit for me, help pick out some good locks, and rekey them so that all three locks use the same key. Also, I should get it all at a ten percent discount, as he’s an employee. Most convenience packs only sell a lock and deadbolt together, not two locks and deadbolts, so I’ll need to pick up an extra lock for the steel outer door.
I’ll let you know how this goes.
December 14, 2007
1. I’m boycotting Christmas gift shopping this year as I’ve been more than overwhelmed with recent events.
2. I’m confused about my standing in the office. I usually have a decent rapport and line of communication with Little Boss, but reflecting on my sort-of review a few months ago, I realize that not much has changed since we had our last sitdown. He felt I wasn’t fulfilling what he sees as the responsibilities of his second in command (a position I don’t officially hold). The reason ticked me off.
He’s never laid out the terms of what those responsibilities are because he thinks that they’re “obvious.” He says they were when he was in that position supporting his first in command. Obvious? Hmph! What? I should think NOT. I can accept that he and I didn’t see eye to eye, but not telling me what he wants and then chastising me for not doing it is just wrong. During the past year, lest you think I was being a slacker, I was managing the daily activities of 3-5 staffers because he was too busy, and because that was my perception of what obviously needed doing.
This isn’t a relationship, this is a job. Assisting Little Boss is a job; what I was officially hired for is a job. If you have expectations for a position, you have to tell me what they are. I’m not in the business of reading anyone’s mind, not even BoyDucky’s, but even less so in my workplace.
I told him that I only wanted the position if I could fulfill the responsibilities well, but I can’t do that if he expects me to just read his mind and/or guess. Jobs aren’t based on instinct! Since then, I haven’t had any substantive feedback, nor a response to whether or not he thinks mentoring is worth the trouble, or if he’s just written me off as a dead-end, ambitionless staffer. In other words, have I been slow-tracked?
So we’re going to have to have another talk.
3. At some point, I need to sell the truck. Maybe look into a cheap, used car as a third vehicle for the family. It’ll be in my name so if anything happens, I can do something about it. I need to take my brother off the family insurance as well.
4. Car insurance shopping: I need to do that during my break.
5. Renter’s insurance: ditto.
6. Holy crap! I have to plan a bachelorette party for ONE WEEK from now. I’d told the other ‘maids that I was turning responsibility over to them but I haven’t heard anything since. *sigh* See? This is why I become a micro-manager! Ok, I’ll just check in with them first, and see if they’re already talking about what to do. Then I’ll freak out, if I have to.
7. Ditto the holy crap, for the local bridal shower.
8. I’d like to take a day trip. Just … something fresh, easy, fun, and quiet. Something that has nothing to do with every-crazy-thing that’s been going on, to refresh my spirit.
9. I’ll take a day with a litter of puppies, though. Puppy breath is the BEST.
My $100 Macy’s gift card came in the mail yesterday – thanks Citipoints! I can look at gifts for Best Friend’s wedding, soon.
And … wait for it …. I FOUND MY NECKLACE!!!
It promptly went back around my neck, and I felt like all was right with the world.
December 12, 2007
That’s IT. This sweater is the last sweater whose festooning with bitty bits of detergent crumbs I will tolerate. Every single time I have a load of laundry containing either black clothing or knits, one item comes out of the washer covered in white speckles. And the rotten thing of it is, multiple items go in, and only one random victim of detergent dandruff comes out.
Should I be using liquid detergents instead? I don’t have so much clothing that I can separate lights and darks, AND by material. If so, I’d better start looking for good deals because detergents are rather pricey.
December 11, 2007
Credit: Dolores Neilson
says the Sultan of Second Chances.
Got a call from BroDucky the other day. He’s getting a real job, he says. At least, his girlfriend has given him a whole list of leads. He’s going to get a real job, and he’s been making do borrowing transportation and getting rides, but he really wants to make things right with the car situation because he doesn’t feel right borrowing other people’s cars, etc.
He wants to know if there’s anything he can do to get a car back. He wants to know if I’m willing to work with him because he wants to pay me back, but he needs to get a job for that to happen. He needs to be able to get to the job, though, and for that, he needs a car. So, how about it, sis? But he totally understands, says he, if I’m not willing to let him have a car back.
As if that’s my fault that he can’t be responsible enough to pay for the car and insurance, and that it’s my call, whether or not he should get the car back.
Ok, it is my call. After all, I’ve got the keys, I’ve got the insurance paperwork, and I’m paying the bills. So it’s my call. But I HATE his manipulations that are juuuust so “reasonable” and so mild. “It’s up to you.” “I want to do the right thing.” And so on. He makes it hard to just verbally shut him down because I so desperately want him to get on the right path and do the right thing. And incidentally, pay me back the thousands of dollars he owes me. The worst part is that I’m fairly certain he doesn’t even see it like a manipulation. This is him “trying” and “making up for all the bad times.” Man, this is supposed to be improvement?? At least he’s not living under my roof anymore.
But I told him to get a real paying job first. Get a job with a salary or a living wage and secure it. Don’t bring me leads, don’t bring me connections. I want a secured job, and a start date and an actual first day, a paystub for the love of Jim, EV-ER-Y-THING. Get that done, and then come talk to me.
At the end of the day, I have to remember that he comes to me when he wants something. That I’m only one of many options, and that I’m only the easiest option if I slip up and allow him to use me. I have to stay strong and remember that he could be an advertising exec, he’s so smooth, and even after 25 years of co-existing, it’s too easy for me to buy into his “earnest” act. Because if he really wanted to make things right, he’d get the job, work his butt off, save the money and pay me back. And he’d find a way to make it happen. It’s not my job to make this work for him, it’s not my job to make it possible for him to work. It’s HIS job, HIS life, and HIS responsibility.
I tell Pa and MaDucky that all the time. I cannot afford to slip and let him take advantage of me, too. Literally, I cannot afford to make another mistake.
Big brothers aren’t supposed to be this way. They’re supposed to be warm, supportive and comforting. Safe havens! I should be able to go to him for moral support, not turning away from him in exasperation and despair. Oh, how I wish for the strength and wisdom to see this through to the end.
So, what to do from here? Assuming he manages to land a job, and actually starts working, I have absolutely no way of assuring that he continues to work once he gets the car. So then what? He has, to be fair, managed to do a couple things in good faith, like returning the car after royally angering me by taking it in the first place. Handed over the keys, as promised. But other than that? He’s not paid a dime since July.
I suppose I could require him to pay back all the back payments and pay a month in advance for all payments from now on. It’s not likely that he’ll have that kind of money wherever he works. But is that a reasonable requirement?
Suggestions would be appreciated. My brain is drained.
I came home from work, mentally exhausted and still sick yesterday, to find my mom looking like a pufferfish. No, she hadn’t eaten one, she just looked like one. Apparently she was having some crazy allergic reaction to some hair dye or some such thing and had been swelling up and itching all day.
*shaking head*
You’d THINK they’d tell me earlier in the day. No, of course not, she just suffered all day and was wild with discomfort and actual pain by the time I got home.
$5 worth of diphenhydramine and three hours later, she was sleepy and no longer itching like mad. Diphenhydramine was what we used to give at the clinic, in injection form, to doggies with beestings and other random allergic reactions. The doggies would come in, fat-faced and miserable, and get a couple of shots to relieve the swelling and itchiness. It’s Benadryl, basically. I just didn’t bother to pay double the money for brand name Benadryl because the store brand stuff is exactly the same.
There’s not much you can do with that sort of allergic reaction if you don’t know what caused it, but I sent her and Pa off to the emergency room anyway in case there was something else wrong.
It turns out that she’d gotten an infection from scratching, so they have to pick up a prescription for an antibiotic today.
Lessons for the day:
If you’re swelling up, itchy and can’t think of any reason why, I don’t necessarily recommend self-medicating, but DON’T WAIT to get some help!!
If she’d told me earlier, we would have tried the diphenhydramine in the morning, she wouldn’t have been so miserable all day, and we would have saved the money on antibiotics as well as several hours in the emergency room in the middle of the night.
Selfish as it may sound: I honestly cannot take any more drama. Especially any more hospital or health related drama. Please take care of yourselves, everyone, and we can return to our regularly scheduled, drama-free, finance-oriented postings. It’s for the greater good, really.
