What's On Your Mind 2023

My mom has lived long enough to have great grandkids (she said she was really old when the oldest of them entered college :wink: I’s not unusual to get a snail mail card addressed simply to “g-g mom.” I. of course, get “g-Aunt Kim,” but usually via e-mail.

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I think my daughter and SIL will likely do the designation; she said something about wanting it to be different as to grandpa Benny and me. So one might be “Papa” and the other “Grandpa” or some such. For the wimminfolk, I did hear possibles like “Grammy” (what our kids called my wife’s mom) or “Mema” (pronounced “mee-maw”) which was my wife’s grandma, or “Mimi”, but the latter might cause confusion, being what my SIL calls his still-living grandmother.



Too late to edit my above but:

Was a brain misfire (hey, only got 2 hrs sleep Sat night) - should have said Ben is paternal grandpa and Ralph was her (my daughter’s) maternal grandpa (or new Ben’s great-grandpa).



ETA:


Sweet story. But I’d be afraid to go that route. We’re still hashing out details, but I might be relatively long-term “grandpa daycare” after her maternity leave is up, so there’s a good chance that his first directed utterance might be at me. And it seems one of the early repetitive sounds a child makes is a “dah-dah” sound (even in languages other than English, where it might have no associated meaning), with more children tending toward lingual sounds early vs labial compression sounds.

I remember I only looked this up because my wife was frustrated that all of our kids seemed to learn to call for me before they did “mah-mah”. Turns out that in those earliest months they weren’t calling for me, really; it’s just a common early language experiment for babies.

That made her feel a bit better, and less like “it’s just like with the dogs all over again”. We’ve had 4 shelter dogs over the years and the first two she picked out, but they bonded strongly with me and just kind of tolerated her. Dogs just glom onto me for some reason - maybe I put off a smell that attracts dogs and repels mosquitoes. Friends’ dogs when I visit, even semi-tame wolves at a wildlife recovery center in South Florida. We visited several times over the years and each time we went into the enclosure, the wolves surrounded me and ignored the rest of the family.

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I don’t think ours has that capability. I can turn the TV on, but then I’m presented with a bunch of choices (Hulu, Roku, Netflix, YTTV, others) and don’t know which one does what. I could just browse through them but I just don’t have anything in mind I’d like to see. My wife has gotten into following basketball and football at the college my oldest graduated from and my youngest (our son) is now attending, but if she’s not here I don’t bother. For a “big game”, I do sometimes check the scores as they progress using google.

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And first you have to pick the right remote!

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What my foster brother sent me when he found out she delivered “Without Epidural!?!?”

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(Edit - apparently the gif only runs once. Might have to refresh if you want to see a bunch of Muppets fainting)

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Healthcare in this country is a steaming pile of shit floating on rivers of puss, and you get to hand over your firstborn for the privilege.

That is all.

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I hear you. :disappointed:

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Regarding health care; I am so sorry @linguafood , and others for whom healthcare has few if any redeeming benefits; I’m so sorry.

In spite of all the things that could be better, with each of my hopes and choices, past and present, I feel so fortunate today. I appreciate I have more than many, that It’s still not perfect, and maybe not even good enough, but I am still so grateful. :woman_shrugging:t5:

Today, in spite of how hard my veins are to work with, Claire made it work. Thank you Claire!

No disrespect to anyone, but I have thought of a steaming pile of shit as compost!

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Oh, I know I’m much better off than folks with no or terrible health insurance. I’ve so far not been saddled with crippling debt due to medical bills like so many who are practically forced to depend on the charity and kindness of others (the number of gofundme campaigns for medical bills alone says it all :scream:). I can’t imagine having to come up with a random bill over $500 to cover a procedure you assumed was absolutely necessary when you have no savings.

I also know that there are staff shortages, the people who do the grunt work are paid garbage, etc. etc. - a lot of things compounding an already terrible situation.

It’s just been tremendously frustrating to find help for a chronic pain issue I’ve dealt with on and off for over 3 years now. It gets to ya.

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Sign of someone having been in therapy (in a good way). (Not to make assumptions.)

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This is surprising to me. Never got that vibe!

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I’m sorry to hear this and sorry for all of your loss. Good that you were able to gather for the holiday before everything went downhill. And that she could say her goodbyes. :heart:

If I’m ever a MIL, I hope to have family as caring as yours surrounding me.

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Mazel tov! Glad your family has joy to celebrate.

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Thank you. It was really pretty easy, though. You hear people talking about Monster-In-Law and horror stories of bad in-laws and what not, but I got along very well with my wife’s folks. Good people through and through.

They set a good example for my wife and me to follow, now that we’re the in-laws.

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Laughed aloud when I saw this

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I didn’t teach my youngest dog, who is very small, to go down the stairs in our house because I could never catch his great great Aunt Nella when she would run up and down the stairs, until she was close to 11. I can’t catch him when he runs through the hall, and he has the speed and agility of his great aunt with a mischievous personality. He runs up the stairs, if I bring him in through the lower level, and I carry him down the stairs (he is 9 lbs.) He will walk down stairs outside. His 15 lb littermate, and our 10 year old 19 lb Löwchen walk down the stairs.

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Good lord.

https://wapo.st/3RbbrEx

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That is terrible! And WTF? Leniency in exchange for working a restaurant job? Sorry, some people don’t have the luxury of viewing service work as a sentence. What a slap in the face.

Food & Beverage workers desperately need to unionize.

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All the this.

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Or owners should know where the bread and butter comes from . Or just do it all yourself.