I started a book last night. It’s a memoir, written by a close friend of my family. Like, her family is basically my extended family. My father lived across the street. I have lots of memories of the specific house and lake that play a character role in it. Her grandfathers funeral was the first one I ever went to (I was 9). And my father is mentioned, by name, many times so far. Like even my fathers Vietnam draft story.
I have so many feels about what I read so far. And it’s weird, because this is her memoir on her family. So it’s her family story. But yet… these people were like aunts, uncles, grandparents to me, the only child whose extended family was hours away. Mine, but not mine.
this is just weird… given my feels, I feel like linked to the book would be indentifying 😂
rubytue that’s wild. I can’t imagine - is what’s written similar to your memories and perceptions? Tina Fey’s memoir talks about a family who were my neighbors who we know very well and her early/teen years were parallel to things I did and experienced growing up. It’s really neat and a bit unsettling. Having it be family must be crazy.
I’m taking DD1 to get her cartilage pierced today. I think she was shocked I said yes. I had mine done as a teen so I didn’t even hesitate. I had to Google and yes, we tip the piercer!
rubytue that’s so interesting! I can see how that would be a little freaky! Is a new book? Have their been reviews? I think I’d be reading all the reviews!!
gummybear, so far it’s been fair. The problem is my father wasn’t exactly the more reliable narrator, even before he has Alzheimer’s. He was a story teller, and he would embellish stories and recompose them to be better than the truth. Like, he once told the story of the night Willy Nelson’s tour bus sat outside his hotel room with the generator running. Except, that happened to me. Not him. But damn if it didn’t end up better when he told it (he saw Willy! I just fought with the front desk to turn the generator off 😂).
And, there my father told her something that completely upends a her family narrative about how the grandfather died. And then I needed to get some sleep, but struggled with wondering if it was true or something where he took a few events and combined them into a good story.
And fucking work and I can’t figure out if anyone every determined the truth.
rubytue that’s so interesting! I can see how that would be a little freaky! Is a new book? Have there been reviews? I think I’d be reading all the reviews!!
Yup. Just came out this week. It’s amazing so far! Except for the weirdness.
Post by starburst604 on Apr 6, 2023 8:56:11 GMT -5
I just assembled a new office chair for myself and it's awesome. My old chair had stopped being adjustable so I was sitting way too low and the seat was a flat pancake. Now I'm up high with a nice cushy bottom. It's the little things!
My husband has to do this weird fast for a test where he can only eat unseasoned meat and rice or potatoes for a day (no fruit/veg, no seasonings, dairy, grains) and he keeps asking me what I am going to eat and how he doesn’t want me to “suffer” eating bland food today. I’m fine! I can figure out my own lunch and I got us steak for dinner so I can have that but season it and make a vegetable for myself.
I have to go to the Italian store today and I said I might get their bread and have that with my dinner because I need fresh breadcrumbs this weekend for a recipe and he was so relieved that I’d have something to eat and kept telling me to get a sandwich there for lunch too.
It’s one day! We can do this! It’s very sweet but I’ll be glad when it’s over—he’s been putting it off because the weird diet day has to be followed by the test day (obviously) which has been hard to schedule around work but each time he mentions it he keeps worrying about me. I can eat whatever!! You’re the one eating dry tuna for breakfast.
rubytue that’s so interesting! I can see how that would be a little freaky! Is a new book? Have there been reviews? I think I’d be reading all the reviews!!
Yup. Just came out this week. It’s amazing so far! Except for the weirdness.
rubytue, that’s so cool and also weird! Do you know whether she reached out to your dad to ask if he’d be ok with being mentioned/included in the book? I have no idea how memoirs work or if she’d even need to do that; it just seems weird that a person could just…be in someone’s book without knowing about it.
I am on a volunteer committee with 4 people in their 60s and 70s. Getting them to use technology is going to be the death of me.
I spent a bunch of time developing two versions of a flyer for an upcoming event. Sent it to one of them for review.
She sends me back some really odd notes. Turns out that she opened the PDF in Google docs? She even said "because you set it up in Google docs, I can't edit it". I just tried opening it in Google docs, and it is a mess. Does she really think that's what I sent her? OMG.
rubytue , that’s so cool and also weird! Do you know whether she reached out to your dad to ask if he’d be ok with being mentioned/included in the book? I have no idea how memoirs work or if she’d even need to do that; it just seems weird that a person could just…be in someone’s book without knowing about it.
I don’t know exactly. But I know he agreed to be interviewed, and I know everyone knew she spent a year or so living there to research and write her book. And he passed 6 years ago, but, based on the timeline, some of these interviews were 15-ish years ago.
So, what’s actually really cool is that the whole premise is reconciling with the history of my Manhattan project hometown. Where no one talked about or even really knew, what our parents did. And it is well researched. So, I’m getting a ton of history I never knew. Because it just wasn’t talked about.
Now I feel bad that I’m not identifying it. It is good and I might have piqued someone’s interest. If so, send me a PM. It’s just too friggin close to go public. 😂
My H is doing some work on banking, taxes, and other various things he needs his computer for this morning. I'm pretending that my work meeting is running long so I can keep my door shut to muffle his curses of impatience with all things tech related. If he actually wanted/needed my help, I'd help. But he just likes to loudly vent his frustration.
Work is killing me slowly. I had to send a request to my boss's boss for approval and instead of actually approving it (which should have taken 2.5 seconds) she wrote me back a 3 paragraph email explaining why she needed me to hold this until Monday. Ok? I will, but it would have taken less time to simply say yes or no.
I had my first appointment with my new doctor. She is hybrid concierge/insurance and amazing - my first appointment was 90 minutes! I'm nervous because she got me 3 appointments with specialists this week (mammogram despite being under 40, high risk cancer counselor, endocrinologist). It's not the appointments themselves but the speed at which I have them.
The ladies from my supper club have proposed a girls' trip to Napa for my 40th birthday weekend. This would be so fun and I'm really excited about it, mostly to get more English muffins from Model Bakery lol. However. I have other good friends that I feel might be hurt that they're not included, but I also don't really want to try and coordinate people coming from multiple states and then trying to interact with all of them equally, etc. It just sounds more stressful than fun. And I could say "Oh, these people surprised me with a trip!" but I know they'll be asking me leading up to my birthday what my plans are because it's a milestone.
ILs' neighbor in Red Lodge let them know he'll be selling his house this summer and asked would H and I be interested in purchasing it? And I mean, yeah, we would, but we could only do it if we sold our house here and moved there full time and neither of us are quite ready for that commitment yet lol. We own a lot in a nearby subdivision and had planned to build eventually, but we're not financially ready to have a second home just yet.
My DS takes swim lessons at a local universary where its 1-on-1 with a member of the University's Swim & Dive team. DS' instructor this session is SO HOT and I get so flustered every time he comes to talk to me about DS' progress. And then I feel gross because he's like 21. But OMG wet hot swimmer in a speedo.
A few things, but the symptoms seem to match up. No one in my house has gotten ill, I'm on day 6, my food is not digested (I'm sure we can all guess how I know that, lol), and it's a potential side effect of a drug I'm on right now.
I called my endocrinologist this morning after realizing it and now I'm pretty sure they're getting ready to send me to the hospital. This feels very dramatic but I'd also like to not feel like I'm actively dying every time I consume food.
jinkies I'm just wrapping up my time on a volunteer committee for an Earth Day Fair with a bunch of older women. I've vented numerous times on here about my work on the flyer. It's been an exhausting frustrating lesson in how I really want to volunteer my time for next year.
My friend lost her dog in the woods for a week and I got all caught up in the drama (sightings all around town, near misses trying to catch her, a visibly hurt paw). The pup is home safe now but I’m kind of burnt out from low-grade stress about it, scarfing down Easter candy and playing video games. So that’s today, I guess! Going to do yoga and a few errands but I have low expectations otherwise.
Post by ProfessorArtNerd on Apr 6, 2023 10:26:31 GMT -5
If Joey wasn’t already my bonus baby, he’d definitely be my last. Why does he wake up in the middle of the night, all ready to party? Good lord kid, sleep is awesome. You should try it during nighttime hours sometime.
They rescheduled the Phillies home opener to tomorrow due to supposedly crazy storms on the way. My nephew has to work tomorrow so Joey AND I GET TO GO! It’d be even more fun without him but I’m going with my mom trusted babysitter (my sister) and my ILs are away. You have a baby! At a tailgate!
wildrice I kept thinking that your stories of the weird meetings your neighbors’ hold in their house sounded familiar and couldn’t remember why.
Then last night I started to read Rosemary’s Baby and it came to me.
They haven’t given you any tannis root, have they?
Lol, nope! Though I only vaguely recall Rosemary's Baby so I can't say much about parallels otherwise (I am horrible at remembering plots of anything).
I'm 99.9% sure they were running a church, but thankfully our HOA came down fairly hard on them and they appear to have moved it elsewhere. We haven't really heard much from them in a few weeks. Now I mostly just try to avoid them since it is probably pretty obvious that we reported them and I'm sure they hate us for it.
sproctopus, I am sorry you aren't feeling well! I hope that's not what it is. My sister was recently diagnosed with gastroparesis and it's been really difficult for her. I hope they figure out what's going on with you and can get it resolved quickly! Being sick like that just sucks.
Post by nancybotwin on Apr 6, 2023 10:44:41 GMT -5
wildrice that is great news (that they stopped church-ing next door, not that they hate you!)
We are hosting seder tonight and while I got a lot done yesterday I still have a ton to do today. And one of our ovens stopped working (we have a double oven built into the wall) so I can only cook things at one temperature at a time. Our seder last night was very fun and very loud and chaotic - I’m looking forward to another fun one tonight though much less chaotic!
I have an assignment due at 6pm that I haven't even started yet - whoops. Not sure if I'm going to turn it in late or just try to throw something together throughout the day today. It's a fairly easy one but it is also worth more points that most of the other assignments in this class, so I feel like I'm missing something by thinking it's easy. Mostly, I'm just really over this class and I'm counting down the weeks until it's over (6 weeks from today or maybe sooner if I do the final early, which I think is possible).
It is supposed to be 85 and rainy today but so far no rain. I did turn on the AC though because it was already steamy in the house at 9am. WTF to air conditioning in early April. I hope these couple of days are just a fluke and we have a more consistent spring for at least the next month. I am ready for nice weather, but I am not ready to be sweaty just sitting around my house.