Open Thread for Personal Stuff: Late July 2015 Kitten Hug Edition

I’m glad you’re feeling better, gilshalos.

Me, I just had a crying fit in the middle of my office. The proximal cause is that Beloved abjectly apologized to me that she let the babbies nap until 4:00 today.

The reason that she feels like she needs to abjectly apologize to me is that I openly celebrated the fact that they didn’t have a nap, either of them, a couple of days ago. It was only a brief moment and wasn’t more than going Yesssss! at the prospect of having a couple of hours of free time that evening because the babies wouldn’t take me until 10 to put to sleep.

An underlying thing that’s been making me sad all week is that my parents are getting older and, one day, I’ll wake up and it’ll be the first time in my life I have to remind myself that I am an orphan.

One day my kids will have to wake up and go on without me.

I get to thinking about that and I just kind of sit there and do nothing for a while.

I’m kind of having an awful start to my days off work.

I just got a call from my mom, over 1000 miles away, so she could tell me that my Bailey (spaniel/lab pound pup, about 6 1/2 years old but thinks he’s a puppy) just got diagnosed with bone cancer.

He started having shoulder pain in May, but x-rays didn’t show the mass at that time. My parents and the vets kind of just figured he’d pulled a muscle, again, because he’s done that a few times before.

It wasn’t.

I’m a mess, because I’m probably only going to get to see my boy for one more week, when I fly up to visit them in a few weeks, which is the only time I can visit until end of December.

It’s not curable, and is a super aggressive cancer.

If they amputate his leg now, the vet thinks they could (maybe) buy him until next May. Dogs usually are able to adjust to limb amputations fairly well, but he has a weak hind leg, and if we amputate the front, he’d more than likely sprain that one, and be unable to move. He lives to run and swim. He gets sad if he can’t have at least a mile and a half of walking every day. That would be super rough for him.

If they started chemo, they could (maybe) buy him until July, but he would be anemic, tired, nauseous, and miserable the whole time.

With pain management, they (may) be able to buy him til Christmas, but more than likely he’s only got til Thanksgiving.

I’m a mess. He’s my baby, who I haven’t got to see since a 2 day trip home last May.

I’ve already been missing his fuzziness all summer, and this is super hard to accept.

@contrapangloss

Oh no, that’s terrible. 🙁 He’s such a pretty boy. I’m sorry this is happening.

We lost two cats in our closest family last year, including one that we hadn’t been able to visit in over a year. It sucks when life forces you to be separated from your pets.

So, yesterday was my birthday. I wore a pretty dress, went shopping in town, and got to go to the Kitty Cafe. It was a lovely day, except for one tiny event.

After my day in town, I took the bus to a friend’s house for dinner. The bus wasn’t due to leave for a few minutes and there was no one else waiting for it, so I had a conversation with the driver. He asked where I am from (because as an American living in the UK, my accent gives me away immediately). I told him where I was from, that I’m here for my PhD and that it was my 31st birthday. He then asked, “So, no family? No kiddies?” I, of course, replied “no” because I’m not married and don’t have kids and he replied with, “Awww…bless you.”

Thankfully, another person got on the bus so I could end the conversation. I got to my stop and as I was getting off the bus, the driver asked if I took the bus everyday. I said no because I don’t and walked away. As I headed to my friend’s house, I realized that he was trying to figure out if he would see me again. It really creeped me out because he gave me pity for being unmarried and then wanted to see me again. So, just because I’m 31 and not married, I must be desperate and will jump into a relationship with anyone who looks at me twice.

For the record, I am in a relationship. We are planning on getting married. I even wear a non-traditional ring on my left hand. (My partner has a matching one that he wears on his right hand to avoid awkward questions) I didn’t mention this during the conversation because it didn’t seem relevant until he started giving me pity for being “single,” at which point I didn’t want to continue the conversation any way.

MY RELATIONSHIP STATUS IS NOT THE MOST INTERESTING THING ABOUT ME!
Based on the information I gave him, he could have asked me a million other things. What are you studying? Why did you choose to come to the UK? Where have you traveled in the UK? What did you do for your birthday? And so on, and so on…

But, no. It’s much more important to establish that I’m unmarried, so there must be something wrong with me.

I put it out of my mind yesterday so that I could enjoy the rest of my birthday, but the more I think about it, the more it pisses me off. It’s not a huge thing, but it’s the little things like this that really undermine women. It says that my relationship (implied as a relationship with a man) is more important than anything else. I am not a whole person unless I have a man. Nothing else I’ve done matters as much as getting married and having kids.

There’s a word for that: Bullshit

Sorry for the TL;DR. I just needed to tell someone about this. I also submitted the story to Everyday Sexism because sexism is not always as obvious as catcalling.

@dhag85

I think that’s what really annoys me. This kind of behavior is so normalized. Undermining women and their achievements in this way is accepted and, in some cases, even encouraged. A lot men don’t realize how the little things like this really add up to tell women that they aren’t worth anything unless it is in relation to a man. Fuck that shit. I have accomplished so many things on my own. Yes, my partner (who is a man) does support and encourage me just as I do for him, but my accomplishments are still mine. I can do so much more than be someone’s wife or girlfriend.

This alone pisses MRAs off to no end. It can’t be stated often enough. 🙂

Thanks dhag85! It makes me a feel a little bit better that I piss them off just by existing.

Good luck with the cats tomorrow. I’d be so excited if I knew there were kitties on the subway with me!

Namesake:
Happy birthday! Also, commiserations on the annoying misogynisy. There are vastly more interesting things in anyone’s life than the nearest proximal Y chromosome to it, and I’m sad for him that he couldn’t see it. His life must be poorer as a result.

I’m also worried now, because when I registered here I added (the other one) to my name to differentiate myself from you. Now it turns out that we’re both 31 year old foreigners living in the UK. This is more than can be explained by easy coincidence.

Thanks EJ!

Those are some interesting coincidences!

Where are you from originally (if you don’t mind me asking)? I’m originally from Indianapolis, but I’ve found that it’s easier to say “the middle bit” when people ask which part of America I’m from.