Elizabeth has found a 4-year-old shelter cat online and she wants us to adopt it. She is good at the kind of persuasion that works on my temperament type: she never seems like she’s pushing or nagging or whining, she just seems Really Cute and Happy about the idea and it makes me want to make it work out for her. This morning I said to Paul, “We should probably discuss that cat, in case we need to nip this in the bud,” and he said “I leave the decision entirely to you and Elizabeth.” Which, er. Probably means we’re going to get the cat.
My renewed efforts to take care of physical/mental health seem to have worked, to my relief. I would still say I am in an adrenaline valley, but I’m no longer worried that I’m getting sick. I’ve gone back to the rough checklist I had earlier in the pandemic, where every day I attempted to check off these things: exercise, email/letter, reading, blogging or working on blog-fixing project, chore…and there was something else, but I threw the chart away at some point, feeling like I had it down-pat, which was clearly a mistake.
I would like to make two complaints. But one is against Target, and you know how I feel about Target; and the other is against a book in a series I love, so we have to START with the understanding that this is like complaining about one’s spouse or one’s children: OBVIOUSLY there is a baseline of INTENSE LOVE, and this is just a SMALL COMPLAINT with the FULL KNOWLEDGE that the complaint is DWARFED by the…etc.
Okay, first Target. Many of us have remarked on how VERY MANY BOXES the orders sometimes arrive in. My assumption early in the pandemic was that it was a result of the abrupt and unexpected increase in online ordering, and they just didn’t have the right boxes or enough of them, and also that there were warehouse issues. But we are over ten months in, and if anything the box situation has gotten worse. Yesterday I received SIX boxes from Target. TWO of them were their typical Fairly Large boxes—capacity of, say, four to six large bags of chips. One of those largish boxes contained one single plastic plate, plus YARDS of plastic cushioning balloons. The other contained another single plastic plate, plus a tiny box of eye drops, plus YARDS of plastic cushioning balloons. A third box contained one (1) can of pears. A fourth box, somewhat satisfyingly, had exactly the capacity of the one bag of chips it contained. And so on.
Meanwhile, I am getting delivery emails from Target that say “Looking for a packing slip? We’ve got some ambitious sustainability goals. One small step? Skipping packing slips.” Okay, you saved one piece of paper per box and I agree that is well worth doing, especially considering how very many boxes there are, but WHAT ABOUT THE MILLIONS OF UNNECESSARY EXTRA CARDBOARD BOXES AND MILES OF UNNECESSARY PLASTIC BUBBLES?? I feel like I personally have wasted 1-2 dinosaurs, just with my Target ordering since last March.
Okay, second thing. I love this series, and this book, but it is driving me a little bit up a tree:
(image from Target.com)
Magic Lessons, by Alice Hoffman (Target) (Amazon)
This is the prequel to Practical Magic. And I am glad I have it, and glad to be reading it, and now I want to re-read the rest of the series. It makes me wish I were a witch. And it was published in 2020 and I think it has real 2015-2019 vibes, with some nice pointed content about how, generation after generation, the people who consider themselves the most moral are going to be the ones doing some of the most evil in the name of morality, and men are gonna men and some of them are going to blame/punish women for it, and unjust judges are gonna judge, and humans are gonna human, and so on.
HOWEVER. It is driving me nuts in two ways. One is the Lofty/Legend/Fairytale/Portent tone/phrasing/wording, which might have been just the same in the other books and I just don’t remember it. A lot of “for” used instead of “because,” and a lot of the pronoun “one,” and verb choices such as “vowed”: “He vowed that such-and-such, for he was a such-and-such man who such-and-such, and when one is that kind of a man, one…” Tiresome.
The other complaint is that it is RIFE with errors. RIFE. Some of the errors involve spoilers, so I can’t list them. But there’s one that is not a spoiler so I will tell it to you. A young woman wants to avoid love, and in addition to her thinking that to herself (“vowing” that to herself) MANY MANY TIMES, there is a whole paragraph about the various measures she takes to protect herself from it. It uses these exact words: “to protect herself from love.” NOT THREE PAGES LATER it says about the same young woman: “…but in all this time she had not once thought to protect herself from love.” EXCUSE ME BUT SHE HAS THOUGHT IT AGAIN AND AGAIN IN THE ENTIRE BOOK SO FAR, IT IS IN FACT ONE OF THE MAIN THEMES OF THE BOOK.
And there are LOTS MORE OF THOSE. There is one part where I can picture the author and editor both noticing the issue but not being able to fix it without spoiling something later in the book, and I can see their conundrum—but it really needed to be fixed, or else left out. It CAN’T be the way that it is without creating a little paradox that undermines one of the recurring themes of the book.
One more complaint, this one about Paul: the sounds he makes while eating have gotten worse with age. And/or with me being trapped in the house with him all day every day for ten months.
Okay, I am done. Feel free to complain about any of your darlings.
OMG the eating sounds. Yes, I feel that one…. I’m trapped eating 5 times a day with my three small children who for the love of all things holy will not keep their tiny mouths full of food shut for a single whole bite of food. I. Am. Going. To. Lose. My. Mind.
I don’t know if your children are old enough for this to work, my youngest is 5 and it has worked for us for a year, but I Do Not Do Lunch. I serve, turn on their current favorite audiobook, and eat elsewhere. Usually at my desk working, but sometimes reading luxuriously in the other room. Breakfast and dinner is enough togetherness and manners and socializing and I’m just trying to not go insane. Anyway. It’s helped a lot. Worth a shot?
I find that music to lift everyone’s moods (esp mine) while preparing food, then music during the meal if possible, really helps this situation for me.
I was recently reading a book* where the main character mentions that someone’s sister is visiting and NOT TWO PAGES LATER everyone is surprised and shocked, shocked!!!!, at the surprise visit of… previously mentioned sister. :-|
As for Target boxes…. I have wondered how their warehouse/shipping system is set up. My hypothesis is that if there’s a nearby store which has the ordered item, it gets shipped out by that store (as opposed to a central warehouse). I recently got an item shipped out by a Target — going by the shipping info — about 5 miles from my house (cue embarrassed face as I’d ordered it when it wasn’t available for pick-up from my chosen drive-up location, also about 5 miles from home… we have a small glut of Targets here). ANYWAY, long rambles aside, maybe that explains the crazy boxes. Although even if it’s a case of items shipped out from random locations, they should be using smaller boxes!
*Calling what I read a “book” is generous. Thin, predictable, almost non-existent plot. Lots of cringe moments where I wondered why I forced myself to read this. “A collection of letters arranged in semi-literate words and sentences” is a better description.
I really need there to be a like button in Swistle’s comment section, because this footnote is fantastic.
My husband frequently makes chewing noises that make me want to search his family tree for camel relatives. And it’s not just me, the rest of the family are similarly horrified.
May the readers be reminded how many cats are currently members of the Swistle household? That may make a difference to my silent mental opinions about your personal choices.
Oh, yes, I entirely understand. We currently have three cats. In our former house, there would not have been room for more than that; this house has many more spaces for cats to seek solitude.
So the new addition would make 4 cats. That’s less than a 1 to 1 ratio. Random internet stranger approved!
Feel free to tell your daughter a random internet stranger is advocating for her position!
This math is how I ended up with 5 cats once. I had two, then moved in with my then-fiancé (now ex). My two vastly preferred me, and he felt left out, so we went to get another for him from the shelter, but then we were worried that it would be the odd one out, so ended up getting two more so that they would have each other for company if mine were jerks. THEN his mother decided that she no longer wanted to take care of his cat, whom he had left with her when we moved, so he went up and got him. Still only 2 1/2 cats per person, which is totally within normal limits. Then we broke up and I kept all of the cats, lol. 5 cats for one person definitely raises some eyebrows.
I want this story to end with you getting together with this guy and raising your ten cats together.
The Brady Bunch but with cats! I’d watch that show…
My husband and I had 9 cats between us when we first got together.
An auspicious beginning!
I am allergic to animals, which IS A TRAGEDY, so I am Team #GetACat because I can’t.
And yes, the CHEWING. AND THE BOXES. And, I have to say, that after the 3rd continuity error, I’d be emailing the author politely. “I know it’s the Pandemic and all, but it looks like maybe they published an earlier draft by mistake?”
The Target packing absurdity is driving me BATTY. I understand somethings like a random grocery item coming in a separate box because it was fulfilled at a different warehouse. There are logistics involved that I cannot even being to imagine. I will say the last time I placed a large order (say 15 different items) it gave me an option to select fewer boxes though it may delay my shipment. Things were received in 3 different boxes and I did not notice any delay in shipment. BUT, my issue is that after months of receiving random double things, the past 3 orders have all had missing items that are marked as delivered. Target has made it easy to designate an issue with the order and select reshipment, but it is annoying to have to track because things come in SO MANY different boxes.
I have a little insider knowledge about the Target boxes situation: my teenage daughter (17) was hired as a seasonal employee packing boxes for shipment from Target. Her job was to grab items (either from the back of the store or from the aisles) and box them up for shipment. I don’t think she received any training on the most efficient way to pack items for shipment. My hunch is that the multiple boxes are coming from multiple different Target stores in your area, based on which store has the product in stock.
Perhaps Target could stand to take a second look at its system?
My son, who is the light of my heart etc etc etc, is SO VERY THIRTEEN that he may not survive the pandemic. Some of the time he is funny and sweet and helpful! Some of the time he is intensely argumentative about things he knows precisely nothing about, and then, if I get heated, says, in the most condescending tone imaginable, “Calm down, Mom.”
Sigh. This too shall pass.
omg. i laughed out loud only because i can imagine my own IMMEDIATE AND INCANDESCANT RAGE should my 13 yr old offspring say that to me.
solidarity omg
oh my god I am also being told to “calm down mom” several times a day by my 13 year old boy! I am going to calm him down right onto a desert island.
Could we have a special desert island for all of them? … oh wait there was a novel about that and it Didn’t End Well.
Woah, I think you are talking about my 13 year old son!!
This deserves its own post. Swistle and Co., please help me navigate the boy-teenage years ’cause if I hear one more HUFF accompanied by a dead eye stare…
The Target box situation is OUT OF CONTROL. I ordered a few things to be picked up curbside, and OVER HALF MY ORDER was not available in store, even though it had said in the app it WAS available in store. So I got those items shipped… and four items showed up in three boxes! I am sure there are many challenges! And maybe each item came from a separate store, rather than a single warehouse! But it is MADNESS! I would GLADLY wait an extra week — or more!!! — for my scotch tape than get it in its own box!
Favorite parts:
Possibility of a new cat YAY!
“I feel like I personally have wasted 1-2 dinosaurs, just with my Target ordering since last March.”
“It makes me wish I were a witch.”
Now I am going to complain about something but with ALL your disclaimers because it is about my treasured, beloved child: Getting her out the door in the mornings is going to send me round the bend. We wake up early, we have whiteboards with checklists, we put out clothes the night before, we plan breakfast the night before, we have reminders set on our Alexa, we use timers, we have A Routine. But oh my goodness, there is so much CHATTING that is delaying ALL OF IT. And I love chatting with my child! She is at a particularly charming age and asks delightful questions and has funny, insightful things to say. But you cannot eat your breakfast or brush your teeth if you are actively chatting! I must say variations on “That sounds very interesting/I want to hear more about it but let’s discuss it in the car” 50 times every morning! Every! Morning! I am not exaggerating! I have even tried taking my tea up to my room so that she has no one to chat with, but I think she chats with our Alexa or her stuffed animals in my stead! And then when she comes up after breakfast, she FINDS me and chats at me! I am treasuring every moment as hard as I can and of course I love her more than anything but I am also going to LOSE my MIND!
Okay, that feels better. (I love her so much.)
Oh you are taking me back! Youngest is nearly 12 now but those daycare/work years between about 2 and 5 nearly did me in because I had to be to work at a certain time and no matter how early I woke her up, how we planned her outfits and breakfast and other things, every day was a struggle to get out of the house on time because there was so. much. chatting. I wish I had some sage advice – all I can offer is that she eventually grew out of talking so very much that we were rushing every day. Of course every report card she’s got (until school went virtual only in March 2020) included comments from her teachers that she is a lovely, friendly girl who perhaps chats with friends too much in class. A tiger doesn’t change her stripes ;-)
I wonder what would happen if someone emailed or called in with a comment about the packaging and how inefficient it is? I once emailed a big cafe type chain that seemed to give everything in paper bags even if dining in (back when this was allowed). They responded saying they would remind their employees to offer plates and mugs. Even if it didn’t happen it made me feel better! Plus if enough people write in they are hopefully more likely to come up with a solution.
As for the eating – oh boy! My husband makes so many slurping sounds when drinking tea, and the gulps are so audible, yes too much time indoors together!!!
certain beloved adults in this household (who are not me) are reacting to stress by lashing out at others (not severely, but enough to make all of us feel we are Walking On Eggshells, then feeling terribly guilty about lashing out, then lashing out again because of added guilt stress. Given the constant stress coming from all sides, this feels like a problem for his therapist to solve, but I do not know if it is being brought up with said therapist and it feels like bringing it up will simply add to the guilt spiral.
i am very tired of it
I am so sorry about this Leah :( Virtual hugs offered if desired
PLEASE IGNORE IF ADVICE IS NOT WELCOME:
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Right before his next session, can you bring up that you would like him to check in with his therapist about his lashing out? Because you UNDERSTAND IT, and you DON’T WANT HIM TO FEEL GUILTY ABOUT IT, but you also want it to stop, and therefore he should only feel guilty about it if he is NOT ACTIVELY WORKING ON IT in therapy.
Because you should NOT have to deal with this.
This is a good reminder and it’s appreciated! <3
<3
So glad!!!
It is TRUE that the eating noises get worse with age. I learned this with my Dad, and now my husband as well. The (wonderful, loving etc.) man seriously GLUGS any liquid, loud enough that I can hear it going down across a room! And it’s not outward noises (extra crunching of chips, for ex.) with food, so much as the inner workings of the mouth. Gag. The “worse” of “for better and…”, for sure.
I can’t wait for a shelter cat update 😻 I too cannot stand to listen to my spouse eat – it’s a source of contention for us but it really is A Thing lol “Misophonia is a condition in which a person is overly sensitive to sounds. Usually the trigger sounds are noises made by other people, such as chewing or tapping a pen. People who suffer from misophonia become disturbed or aggravated when they hear the sounds.”
I’m WFH, spouse “WFH”, kids online school at home. Notice the quotes. My spouse is working in the sense of getting paid, but “working” is a loose interpretation. I’m busy as hell. Needed groceries badly, but knew that sending him to the store would end up being more work for me. Last night around 9pm the family gathered to place an online grocery order. Teamwork! Everyone got what they wanted!
This morning I asked him to retrieve the groceries (pull up, call, they place in car) and got a lot of attitude.
Later he was putting shoes on and I asked if he was going to do His Errand/Work/2 hour commitment and he said, “NO, I’m going to pick up YOUR STUPID THINGS…(catches himself)….groceries.”
As if these are MINE AND MINE ALONE and how dare I inconvenience him.
Thankfully I’m feeling less stabby post-Jan 20 but I was not pleased.
OOOOOH, I am feeling rageful on your behalf!!
ME TOO
Good for him for catching that egregious error!
I am reminded of an (ex) spouse of mine, who, when tasked with taking a kid to a doctor appointment, snapped at me that he was “missing important meetings to do things for YOU.” Um, no, last I checked, I go to my doctor appointments on my own. Also the ratio of child doctor appointment attendance over all the years of parenting was about 200:1 in my favor.
I am stabby on your behalf. RAGE.
So I guess he won’t be eating the part of dinner that is prepared with those groceries, right? Since it’s all “your stupid things”? Or use the toilet paper? Or… well you know what I mean. And if you manage to enforce it, so will he :) (Don’t think I’m bluffing – I’ve done this ;) )
We now must have music playing during dinner or I will stab my husband with my fork for the mouth noises. Also, yes I love him, but PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, I would like him to GO AWAY. Just for a couple of days. I just want to be alone. I am NEVER alone. And our kids are grown!
Tell me, should I read Practical Magic? Should I start there, because it was written first? It’s been on my list for a bit but these questions have kept me from taking the plunge.
Also, get the cat!
I wish I had read it more recently so I could be sure, but here is what I wrote about it when I first read it. But I know I liked it enough to read the sequel, and to put the prequel on my Christmas list.
But now I am seeing in that post that apparently The Rules of Magic is first, THEN Practical Magic? But Magic Lessons is the prequel to Practical Magic? I am confused. I no longer remember them well enough to sort them, apparently!
I have misophonia, and I can concur. I find that long term exposure heavily increases the issue. I have had it my whole life, my mother’s noises have always particularly bothered me, but for the first 10 or so years of our marriage, I didn’t notice a thing from my spouse. Then it ramped up. He is amazed/resentful that our children’s noises don’t bother me, but they are only 7 and 3, so maybe they haven’t hit the threshold yet? And it’s not that I am completely oblivious to them – my daughter started an exaggerated gulping/swallowing that I immediately put a stop to because I could see it becoming a habit, and one that would irritate even non-misophonians (is that a word?). My son started doing a “swish air around your mouth” thing which I nearly went apoplectic about, but being 3, ignoring it was the only way to get him to stop.
I love them all so much.
Building on LH’s comment above: I have Complaints about my husband’s “issues” with groceries. Let me count the ways…
1) Milk – He is very strict about following recommendations and rules for Covid protocols and is very grouchy about people who are not, yet he doesn’t always seem to relate the reality to the operation of our lives. He asked me “What is with the MILK? It seems like it’s always either feast or famine here! Can we not maintain a normal, reasonable level of milk in the fridge?!?” Well no, we can’t. When one shops for groceries less than once a week, one needs to buy a large supply of staples like milk, which then take up room in the fridge. Then, once time has gone by and it has been many days since the last grocery shopping trip, it is likely that this glut of milk will be all used up and we will, in fact, not have any milk for your coffee at some point. That’s the way it works now.
2) Frozen fruit – he makes smoothies almost daily. I do not. If he doesn’t tell me that he’s low on frozen strawberries then I will not know to buy them. I do not mind if he says “Can you pick up some more strawberries on your next grocery run? We’re out.” I very much DO mind if he complains about how many other bags of frozen fruit we have – bags of mixes that contain strawberries mind you – when we don’t have strawberries left. “Who are these bags of mixed fruit for?!? Why do we have bags and bags of them?” (Reader, we have two small bags of frozen fruit mixes.) I snapped back “We have them because our daughter asked for them. She didn’t use them all and then it got too cold for her to want smoothies. Maybe you should be a LITTLE FLEXIBLE and use up the mixed fruit if you don’t want it in the freezer!” I mean seriously, who cares if there are things for other people there? That has zero effect on the fact that we have no unadulterated bags of strawberries!
3) Apparently the fact that I put together a pickup order of groceries, polling the family several times about what should be in the order, refining it, updating it, and finalizing it right up to literally the last allowable moment, then paying for it and reserving a time that would allow me to pick it up is not enough. Apparently he prefers the location that is 20 minutes away to the one that is 7 minutes away. Why, why did I chose that location? It’s terrible compared to the other one! To which my answer was “I don’t know your work schedule in advance so I scheduled it for a time I could easily leave my desk, zip over, and zip back on a reasonably-sized break if you were unavailable to pick it up and I had to do it. I can be at this store and back in half an hour, whereas I can’t do that if I was picking up from the other one.” Why is saving time and unnecessary driving a bad thing?!? Especially since this store had almost everything I wanted in stock with very minimal substitutions? Augh!
I…have a facial twitch from reading this. Just so you know.
I feel SEEN!
Twitching with you.
Also, why will no one in my household except me deign to eat a single, solitary grape unless they are all pre-picked off the stems, rinsed, and packed into a container in the fridge? Is it so hard to just grab a bunch of grapes, rinse them off, then eat them?
Do you have a cycle tracker app? I notice that there are certain, reliable times of the month when my beloved’s chewing sounds are very very grating.
Oh, absolutely. The same times which make me go WHY IS THERE SO MUCH JUNK ON EVERY SURFACE IN THIS HOUSE
OMG I’m not the only one who PMS rage cleans????
I was reading Mexican Gothic, which has gotten great! reviews! and is on NPR’s Staff Picks list. But once I noticed how often someone “grabbed” something, I couldn’t see anything else. Seriously, every other page with the grabbing. Did the editors not notice this? If English is not the first language of the author, did she not have a reliable thesaurus at hand? It drove me insane. I had to abandon it.
I have not, however, abandoned my husband who is, I kid you not, the world’s loudest yawner. Especially in the middle of the night when one is trying to sleep. Seriously? How. How can a yawn be that loud.
Your yawn comment has reminded me that I must also now vent about the fact that H is the world’s loudest sneezer. It’s been this way for the 23 years we’ve been together, but now we work 2 feet from each other and are together 24/7 have two cats and he has a mild cat allergy. The incredibly loud, startling sneezes are . . . getting old.
*fistbump of solidarity*
My husband’s sneezes are…ridiculously loud. I startle easily and jump at loud noises.
Somebody tweeted the following phrase a few years ago and I have co-opted it for my future epitaph: She was killed by a cold that wasn’t hers.
Scream-sneezing is going to end up with someone dead around here. I swear on the almighty. I understand not being able to smother a sneeze, but FOR. THE. LOVE. Control yourself! Reign that ish in! STOP SCREAM-SNEEZING.
I was in the grocery store the other day and needed to sneeze, and the options not being good, I chose to do that sneeze-smother thing where you hold it in. So bad for you, I’m not sure I have ever done it before, but I managed it. If I can do that, I feel certain the scream-sneezers can manage to Not.
SCREAM-SNEEZING! Yes! That is the term! The voice change due to puberty can be predicted….when does the ‘achoo’ turn into a scream? I’ve only noticed it in my husband now that it seems he’s always done it…..
This is exactly what we call it here: scream sneezing! Look, I don’t want to you stifle your sneeze but I feel it’s reasonable that it’s possible to tone it down so that it’s not so loud it wakes the neighbors
I get the scream sneezes with allergies, and can NOT control them. (they don’t happen at any other time, just with allergies). The only thing that helps is lots of benedryl.
My dad does this, and when we complain (scream at him to BE QUIETER) he goes ballistic and claims there is NOTHING HE CAN DO ABOUT IT. I mean, what? How about you sneeze in your armpit and at least smother the noise?!? PUT A PILLOW ON YOUR FACE?!? Anything but this sudden bark that can be heard two villages over!
Oh darn, totally had that book on my list to read!
Isn’t it funny the things that grab our attention? The 50 Shades series was terribly written (though I read it all anyway) and it drove me nuts how often whatsherface bit her lip and how often people’s breath “hitched”.
And Diana Gabaldon’s books are excellent, but I swear I saw the unusual phrase “thriftily ate the core” twice when Jamie was consuming apples. It didn’t irritate me, but it did catch my eye.
I think I’m going to have to stop watching a show that I’ve enjoyed for years and I’m a little bummed BUT for months now they’ve referenced the pandemic, had the doctor mom have a rather moving episode about the toll on healthcare workers etc., while at the same time never having them wear a mask when they go outside and the kids are still in FT school, which is . . . not happening in California where the show takes place. Then this last episode, for comedic reasons, the mom went to a neighbor’s house, sat inside for quite awhile, and neither of them wore masks or discussed masking etc. I wouldn’t care if they’d just pretended all along to be in an alternate universe with no COVID but they haven’t! This plot was totally unnecessary to the show they could have left it out! OR just worn masks! It took me so far out of the show and into an irritated state that I think I’m just going to have to step away and I’m sad because in the past it’s made me laugh really when I desperately needed it.
I definitely can’t read that book, because it will drive me crazy.
As for eating sounds – if the jury is TRULY made up of my peers, I will be acquitted
Swistle re: Grape Nuts!
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/29/business/grape-nuts-shortage.html?surface=most-popular&fellback=false&req_id=983010388&algo=bandit-all-surfaces&variant=1_bandit-all-surfaces_daysback_4&imp_id=24965762&action=click&module=Most%20Popular&pgtype=Homepage
Oh. These kill me. I love my family, everyone is having a hard time. Blah, blah disclaimer. Oh my god they are driving me mad!!! I married a workaholic, he has always worked away a lot and I have managed the house and children. He was made redundant in May and has only had patchy WFH since. All of a sudden he is the world’s greatest ‘expert’ on household management. He went through and insisted on modifying all of our routines so that they were more ‘efficient’. Things like the kids morning routines and chores, my meal planning system, when I do laundry, what the kids have for lunch. Things that I have spent fifteen years perfecting. Well. He hasn’t taken on any tasks himself, just become a self declared expert on how other people’s tasks should be done. I know he’s having a hard time. I know he’s a fish out of water. But no. No. No.
OMG NO. My shoulders are up around my ears accompanying the facial twitch I already had from the shopping expert above.
NO.
In reading all the comments about how eating-related noises bothers folks . . . I am getting self-conscious that the way *I* eat might bother people. Is one either an annoyed person or an annoying person? Hmmm.
Excessive pen clicking drives me bonkers, as well as repeated shout-sneezing.
Can’t wait for kitty updates!
My daughter is 13 (close to “celebrating” her SECOND pandemic birthday *sob*) and it’s just the two of us in our house and we are SO SICK of each other. I forgot where I was going with this…oh. She’s sensitive to eating sounds, too. She has developed a habit of gently placing her palm on my forearm when I am noshing too enthusiastically, which I try to respect, but is sometimes met with me wailing, “Can you let me liiiiiiiiive?”
We also routinely say, “I love you sooooo much…” followed by a statement relaying that we cannot stand to be in the other person’s presence another second. It actually does help mitigate hurt feelings somewhat.
The last time I opted for ship to me instead of curbside pick up from Target, it offered me in a tiny box at the beginning to “save $1 and have everything shipped at once.” I didn’t try it and ended up with 4 boxes for 6 things most of which all came the same day. Next time I’ll click the box ….
This does not help in my experience unfortunately. Also I stopped getting the option pretty quickly.
A four year old cat is the perfect age to take on. I will only adopt age 3 and older. They’re young enough to be playful and have a lot of life left in them but they’re not so playful that it’s annoying and destructive. And you usually know they’re personality right off the bat as it’s pretty baked in by age two or so. Also, people usually want kittens so the older ones are overlooked and there are so many good ones, you have your pick. The last cat we adopted (we have three for two people) we got through a rescue I follow on Instagram. He was returned because he kept attacking their new (cuter) kitten. He is a little brute but our other cats are so confident it doesn’t faze them. Anyway, can you tell I’m pro cat adoption, lol?
The Target box situation is so ridiculous I actually wonder if they’re running out of boxes.
It is heartening to hear that SO many wives are ready to seriously maim our husbands for their loud eating/sneezing. These are two of the things that my husband does that gives me murderous thoughts on the regular. The only thing that has saved him this past year is that he has to go to work every day.
“She is good at the kind of persuasion that works on my temperament type: she never seems like she’s pushing or nagging or whining, she just seems Really Cute and Happy about the idea and it makes me want to make it work out for her.”
Oh my goodness, this describes my daughter as well. She’s so genuinely good at getting her way with almost everyone. Maybe it’s conscious manipulation; maybe she just has good people skills. On the other hand, my son is a simple man with simple needs and he rarely asks for anything–which is also exceedingly effective for him getting what he wants. Or maybe I’m just a pushover since they’ve hit mid/late teens.
We got a COVID puppy (worst/best thing ever), so I am team “add another cat–it’ll be fun”!
I needed to buy more masks for my son because his school days increased and the only ones he likes are from Target online. They don’t sell them in store, so I can’t just do a pickup. They also only ship with $35 orders, so I bought two packs at $10 each and then bought 2 more things to make them ship. The 4 items arrived in 4 different packages. I guess maybe they ship them from different states / places?! It did feel wasteful though. I think they were all in bags except maybe one thing and that was at least in a normal sized box.
Can you stand one more? My dear husband of 40 years has always been a noisy (open-mouthed) eater. He got it from his dad. He gets angry when I point it out, so I have to be very judicious in my pointing-out. AND NOW, in the last several months, he has developed what appears to be a permanent throat-clearing tic, which he has embraced and is polishing into fine art. I believe he sees it as an important part of his “old man” persona. God help me.
I married my husband in full knowledge that he had a strange incapacity when it comes to closing cupboards and drawers. BUT: how was I to know I’d have to spend a year with him in the house 24/7 shutting drawers and cupboards behind him while silently cursing? FURTHERMORE: how was I to know that my standards of cleaning and tidiness would increase in direct inverse proportion to the levels of mess caused by two small children (also home All the Time) – but that his hygiene standards would plateau at the level of the 35 year old bachelor he was when we got together? He is Clutter Blind. He will randomly do half the washing up but not the other half. He will walk past a heap of clothes on the floor for days or weeks without thinking to move them. He will leave his clean laundry in the laundry basket until he needs it. At which point he will tip it out to mix with the dirty laundry. AAAAARGHHHHH.
I’ve resolved most of this by just doing it all myself. It’s FAR from a satisfactory conclusion and then he wonders why I’m in a bad mood a lot of the time.
In his defence he’s great in other ways – he does most of the cooking, hands on with the kids, childcare, homeschool etc. I’m not married to a monster, he’s just a slob 🤦♀️
CLUTTER BLIND. Omg, this is the term for a thing that also afflicts my own (beloved etc.) husband! So good to have a term for it!
^^^^^ALL OF THIS^^^^^ is why I read the comments on Swistle’s posts and on no one else’s. And I second whoever suggested we be able to “like” comments.
You are my people.
I get excited for new posts because I love them AND because I love the comments so much. Definitely my people too.
I come back to the comments again and again. There’s always fantastically entertaining dialogue and empathy going on. This is so much more satisfying than Facebook!
I NEED TO LIKE YOUR COMMENT!!!!!
DID YOU KNOW THAT COMMENT-LIKING IS A REAL ACTUAL AVAILABLE THING. BECAUSE I DID NOT. UNTIL I READ THIS COMMENT (after seeing some other comments about wanting to like comments) and searched online for “liking comments on WordPress blogs.” AND I THINK I HAVE SET IT UP. SEE IF IT WORKS!!!
I am here too late to add much of anything except enthusiastic agreement/commiseration, and also one question:
Has the new cat acquisition been cleared with the cat whose mother Elizabeth is? Might it have some strong thoughts? (I am allergic to cats so not particularly familiar with their ways; the only ones I’ve sort of had cam with my spouse.)