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Open Thread for Personal Stuff, December 2014 Cat Tree Edition

At We Hunted the Mammoth headquarters, the tree is already up.
At We Hunted the Mammoth headquarters, the tree is already up.

An open thread for personal stuff, continuing from here.

As usual for these threads: no trolls, no MRAs, no I’m-not-really-an-MRA-buts, don’t be mean.

 

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kittehserf
10 years ago

Dawn Incognito, I so hear you. Even without the monstrous obstacle of abuse to make things so much worse, it can be hard to believe one’s worthy of love, let alone is loved. Like you said, it’s something you can know intellectually, but convincing yourself of it emotionally is freaking difficult. It’s like being stuck with the view of oneself set by the bullies or abusers so long ago, and the heart not catching up with the adult brain.

I get what you’re saying about the obligation. There are times when I want nothing more than to be at Home with Louis, permanently; not times of despair or the wish to kill myself, just wanting to be in my right place. But that would cause pain to people I care about here, because they care about me – would it help you (if you don’t already) to frame it that way, not as an obligation, but as knowing people care?

Tell me to shut up if I’m overstepping boundaries; I’m no counsellor, just a hand reaching through teh intertubes.

Sam-I-Was?
Sam-I-Was?
10 years ago

I’m going to leave a big barrel of cute animals for awwing over, cuddling & hugs over here for anyone who needs it.

Some good news from my end. After a truly sucky year I finally have some good news. I closed on my new house yesterday! 🙂 I sat in it last night with no lights or furniture and just couldn’t believe after 15 years of living in a glorified shoebox that the family outgrew about 10 years ago we finally have the home I dreamed of. I’m not too proud to say that I might have squeed a few times with excitement. 🙂 I wish that my Grandmother who passed a few weeks ago had lived to see it because she was always worried about us but I know that she’s here in spirit.

Also we are finalizing Uncle’s foundation and should be up and running by the anniversary of his passing. If all goes as planned not only will the national Wounded Warriors get a donation in his name every year we will also be able to help someone through the local chapter get back on their feet. He devoted his life to helping Veterans and it feels really good to finally be in a place that we can continue his work.

sunnysombrera
sunnysombrera
10 years ago

Kitteh: he’s not a homeless cat per se, he mingles between four or five homes and they each feed him. He would be missed if we took him to a shelter, plus he kind of still belongs to the owners next door even though they don’t take care of him. I think he’s determined to sleep at ours though, we blocked up the cat flaps last night and I heard him in the early hours trying to force his way in. I think water pistols might be the best option or blocking up the flaps again at night until he gets the message.

Also, transaction cancelled! Yay! Now I can re list and sell for its actual value. Anyone in UK interested in an N64 bundle? It’s got some rare classic games and three controllers.

saphy
saphy
10 years ago

Personal thread! Hurrah! Plus creepy cat tree which is, like, double hurrah!

So I finally asked my boss for a raise, just to the living wage, because I can’t afford anything (sometimes I can’t even afford to come into work until he transfers my wages early! Oh London transport). I mean I am now the sole administrator in his tiny crappy company since the other gal left, and I do so much that is outside of my job description and I never complain about the extra work.

He said no. Because, in his view, “I don’t think the work that you do is really that hard.”

You heard it here, folks: a two-a-penny salesbro who can’t save a Word file without BREAKING it (seriously he did this wtf) thinks that his sole administrator doesn’t have a hard enough job to deserve the London living wage of £8.80 per hour.

What. A. Shitwizard.

And since winter is definitely coming, and I cannot afford winter clothing, I have (of course) gotten sick and had to take time off work that I can’t afford. Now that I am well enough to actually go back into work the office is so goddamn cold that every day I spend there I end up taking a step BACK in my sickness recovery and have to have another day off. I spend all day in my full winter regalia of padded coat, woollen hat and scarf with a portable heater right next to me and it is still freezing because he says that he doesn’t think that repairing the in-office heating is a major priority.

London life is actually Dickensian for most people. England is a weird place.

My landlady took pity on me and gave me some of her old winter clothes so now I am a little warmer, in clothing two sizes too large, but still bless her kind kind heart. <3

So what are the Christmas plans? 🙂

saphy
saphy
10 years ago

@Fred The Dog

How can 9 week old puppies not be cute? Do your foster pups have angry faces? What breed do they seem to be?

saphy
saphy
10 years ago

Also, where is LBT? Have they taken a hiatus?

sunnysombrera
sunnysombrera
10 years ago

saphy: good grief. Fingers crossed your financial situation improves. I don’t live in London but I know how it feels to be on an extremely tight budget.

Frankly I’m annoyed that that city is becoming more and more expensive. Mostly due to greedy landlords and Scrooge-like bosses, as you say. Maybe yours will be visited by three spirits this Christmas, who knows.

weirwoodtreehugger
10 years ago

Baroncognito,
Have you ever had your gallbladder checked out? There are bad gallbladders all over the place in my family (including, I suspect on myself) and symptoms can go beyond just heartburn. I get soreness around my ribs sometimes. My aunt had a chronic cough until her gallbladder was removed.

I’m no doctor or anything, just a thought. I’d recommend looking back and trying to figure out if there’s a certain type of food you’ve eaten before getting the heartburn and cutting back on it. I think it varies from person to person a bit. I get it after too much red meat or garlic but deal with dairy just fine. My mom has trouble with higher fat and creamy dairy products and also green peppers.

Fred_the_Dog
Fred_the_Dog
10 years ago

Oh, they are cute, just not as cute as their sibs. The vet thinks they are lab/mastiff, with a little pit mixed in. They are 9 weeks, old, one is 15 lbs, the other is 17 lbs. They are brown dogs, so they don’t stand out among their brown/white sibs. One is managing the house training, one isn’t, but they both crate trained pretty easily (probably because that’s where they’ve been for the last 8 weeks with their mother). They are jumpy and bitey, and we’re working on it, but puppies aren’t very good at controlling those two things, and these puppies are so big that it’s essential they not bite or jump.

They’ve been with me for a week, so I know they’ll improve, but this is prime adoption season for puppies. My dogs are smaller than the puppies, so I can’t keep them for long because puppies don’t always understand they can’t play rough with older, smaller dogs and there just aren’t any other fosters right now.

fakecisgirl
10 years ago

Oh, GamerGate, BreakfastMan, how I sympathize…

I feel like in the past 3 months my life on the internet has gone from occasional misogynist comment in spaces I’m not out in and occasional transmisogynist comment in spaces I am out in to a full-blown MRA assault with “gaming” as the excuse for this, well, pile of MRA manure that is GamerGate.

I mean, what coincidence is it that they attack the very things MRAs hate? They rail on and on about Gawker and Vox (but ignoring pretty much openly corrupt games journalism outlets like MetaCritic). They target women generally but reserve their loudest scorn for trans women, disabled women, and women of color. They believe harassing people is their best avenue for contact, move the goalposts just like MRAs, and accuse you of awful things for quoting them or daring to discuss the very points they sealion into conversations to make.

And last night, the dam just broke. I logged into a WoW server I don’t play on that often but where I have some old friends. Trade chat, the general place the hoi palloi yap, was filled with a couple of GamerGate/MRA types who were, on level 1 characters they clearly rolled to do this, going on about Zoe Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian, and oh god what they were saying about Brianna Wu…and, well, if you answered them, you were accused of being a “shill” or a “feminazi”. Not being a National Socialist and all…but anyways.

And I just exited the game and cried. See, when you harass on MMOs, and I’m thinking this is where the GGMRAs go next, you’re harassing a disproportionately female population in gaming. And did they have anything new to say? Of course not. Innuendo about Zoe and Brianna, accusations of lying against them all, and, of course, someone telling us to follow Cernovich on Twitter.

Cerno blocked me when I asked him why he hired a PI to investigate ZQ. The same man who harangues women for blocking him. It’s almost like this double standard, I’ve seen it before somewhere…

Oh yeah, from MRAs.

I just want to play some vidya without being harassed or demonized. It’d be nice if the upstanding MRA hate campaign that is GamerGate would just let me…

emilygoddess - MOD
emilygoddess - MOD
10 years ago

@Sunnysombrera,

Kitty question: we have three cats in our house and a visiting tom who has generally been welcome but has started to take over the roost. He sleeps on the sofa at night, intimidates the other cats and is vicious if we try to move him. We’ve been tolerant because it’s cold outside but if he is going to bully the resident cats he can’t stay any more. How do we drive him off so he doesn’t come back? Water pistols?

Is he intact (unneutered?) If you can find a low-cost spay/neuter or TNR program and get him castrated it’ll help with a lot of the aggression.

Depending on where you live, it might be possible to have the police or a rescue group intervene with the owners. Not to arrest or threaten them, but a lot of groups and even properly-trained cops are trained to explain to owners that they’re not doing right by the animal and offer to take it off their hands. Sometimes people feel stuck with a pet and feel guilty about giving it up until someone gives them permission, so to speak.

@Dawn,

It sucks being a child of abuse. I was captive to my mother’s whims and never really felt like I was deserving of anything. Maybe I could be, if I just worked hard enough and earned it, y’know? I know intellectually that I don’t need to earn love, but I still haven’t learned it emotionally. So much work to try to change the patterns.

I feel this so much. I got triggered last weekend and it took me until Wednesday to stop crying. I was convinced that my coworkers and even my church hated me, all of which made sense because I was so terrible even my own mother didn’t like me. I knew rationally that none of that was true, but that wounded child inside is fucking loud sometimes.

@Baroncognito,

Sometimes my arms fall asleep or tingle when I sleep on my back. Turns out I’ve spent so long with my shoulders hunched that the muscles realigned, and it was crushing the brachial plexus (the little bundle of nerves where they pass through your shoulder into your arm). It wouldn’t account for the nausea and heartburn, but it could explain the chest pain.

But you absolutely did the right thing getting it checked out, and I’m glad it wasn’t your heart! I hope the docs can figure out what it is.

@LapDragon,

10 more days, and it will be a year since I bought a pack of cigarettes. Go me!

Congrats! Quitting smoking is so hard.

@Saphy, Jesus, I’m so sorry. I know pursuing legal action isn’t always safe for employees, but is it even legal to have you working in those conditions?

Re: LBT, he left after the last big kerfuffle.

emilygoddess - MOD
emilygoddess - MOD
10 years ago

Last night my partner and I celebrated out ninth anniversary with a lovely dinner and a meander around the Christmas displays at Faneuil Hall. Today he is my fiance. I’m having a very nice weekend so far. 😀

Orion
10 years ago

I’m sorry to hear that. I didn’t know he wasn’t around, or the circumstances. Hope he’s well.

weirwoodtreehugger
10 years ago

Congrats Emilygoddess!

saphy
saphy
10 years ago

@ Fred_the_dog

It’s difficult when they’re big dogs, rehoming seems harder, especially when they aren’t quite done with puppy-school. Do they still excitement-pee when they meet someone new?

@ sunnysombrera

Well my contract finally ends on the 23rd, so if he tries to barge in on my Christmas all full of visited-by-three-ghosts contrition then I will just punch him in his stupid Scrooge nose. Too little too late, salesbro.

@ emilygoddess

I’m an impoverished migrant on a work visa, I think he knows that I wouldn’t have the means or standing to take him on legally. This is far from the only illegal workplace thing he has done and he gives zero shits. I just feel sorry for girls who are going to have to work for him when I am gone from there… hopefully he’ll pick on the wrong lady and get his arse handed to him by an employee who can afford to go through the legal channels. Or his business will fail, which given how much I have to clean up after his incompetence is certainly a possibility.

saphy
saphy
10 years ago

And congratulations on that Christmas-season loving, emilygoddess!

LordCrowstaff
LordCrowstaff
10 years ago

I’ll post in my first thread for personal stuff, yay!

All in all, it’s been going great. I’m waiting for my bachelor’s thesis to be graded and I’ll hopefully be a B.A. soon, I found a job (6 months now, already) and have just received my first raise. I get to go home over the holidays and celebrate Christmas with my family and our cat, my girlfriend is visiting from Russia and we’ll go on a short trip to Amsterdam, so you could say everything’s fine. However, since my work revolves around exports to Russia, and the current situation between the EU and Russia, as well as the economic situation in Russia in general is tense to say the best, it might not last. Boss has already made some gloomy predictions, and it’s been much quieter than usual at work. So wish me luck with that one.

Myriad
Myriad
10 years ago

Pulls up another barrel of kittens, hugs and soft cuddley things over to whoever needs it.

Dawn incognito You do matter and I hope you find some peace and serenity in the future. I would like to second the invitation to vent and talk if you need to.

Sam-I-Was congratulations! Home ownership is its own great reward, especially when it’s your dream home. ????

Saphy that really stinks. I hope things either change or you can find better employment. I cannot imagine how it must be working for the modern-day Scrooge.

Well, this year has really stunk for me and the family. My husband lost his job. He became so sick that he had to go in the hospital for 39 days, was in the ICU in a drug induced comma for 23 of those days, was hooked up to every life-sustaining machine known to humans. The doctors had brought up hospice, but I wouldnt hear of it. Luckily he woke up but had full blown psychosis due to the encephalopathy that he had. Then one day he was his normal self. It was quite amazing. The staff were astonished. He is at home now with the help of home health physical therapy and nurse visits. He is recovering his strength. I still feel quite numb and in shock even though he has been home for a month and half.

Then as some you know, we lost our sweet Bones two weeks ago.

I guess my biggest problem is that I haven’t allowed myself the time to process all that has happened because I am afraid of how intense the emotions will be if I do. I just feel like I have too much to do to let it out. I have to be there for the kids, husband, and work, especially since I’m the only one working.

Thanks for listening.

emilygoddess - MOD
emilygoddess - MOD
10 years ago

Myriad, I’m so glad your husband’s OK. That must have been terrifying for you.

Myriad
Myriad
10 years ago

Thanks emilygoddes. Yes, it was. I still don’t know how I got through all that.

sunnysombrera
sunnysombrera
10 years ago

saphy: Fair enough. I’m dying for a workplace prank where someone dresses up as the Grim Reaper and charges into his office wailing “I AM THE GHOST OF CHRISTMAS YET TO COME, OOOooooOoo! !”

Or better yet, I wish for bailiff to charge in announcing “I am the ghost of bankruptcy yet to come. I’ll take that nice computer, ta very much.”

M. the Social Justice Ranger
M. the Social Justice Ranger
10 years ago

Bloody strewth, just heard from my sister that our mum fell down a flight of stairs and broke her arm in two places and a rib. They’re in New Zealand on vacation and mum has a history of blood clots, so even though she’s on blood thinners and both she and my sister are doctors, I’m going to be paranoid as all hell until they’re home. =|

LordCrowstaff
LordCrowstaff
10 years ago

Oh dear! I hope she get’s all the medical attention she requires and will be well!

Ellesar
10 years ago

Does anyone else here access the everydaysexism site? I am getting a malware warning and cannot access through usual links. Can you try accessing it and tell me what you think?

Policy of Madness
Policy of Madness
10 years ago

Note: Meyer lemons make the best lemon pies, especially when the lemon is a little overripe and you were looking at it and wondering if you should throw it away, but decided to cut it open first and see if it was still good inside, and it was, but now you had a cut lemon and needed to do something with it right now so you decided to make a lemon pie from it.