We'll Never Know Unless We Go So Let Me Show You

JD's mom and gparents came into town friday and saturday this past weekend. How lovely to catch up with family, yet how intolerably awful to have to bite one's tongue as much as I had to. It is half missing, you guys. I chewed the end off and kept having to discreetly spit bits of it into my hankie like a proper lady. Then the resulting inability to form english speech with no front palate led to vigorous nodding. Occasionally I would find some way to relate my existence to the topic of "discussion" and would interject if possible. It was usually not possible.

They only like to eat at buffets. Everything that is sold in malls or stores that are not garage sales or swap meets is "cheap junk" that they "wouldn't be caught dead in, not if someone paid" them. Which I found to be an extraordinarily strong statement! Not caught dead in it even if someone paid you? What do you care? you're dead! but the sentiment, I guess, is the key message. It's all cheap junk that's no good and people who buy it are stupid.

Young people today. They have no sense. Buying coach purses just to say they have a coach purse, when it's just cheap junk (jessica, having bought a knock off coach purse at a swap meet earlier that day, shifts uncomfortably when this is barked at her) instead of working hard and earning things like their parents. Buying $200 jeans (here I shift my butt away from her even though my jeans did not cost near $200 and i seriously doubt, in hind sight, that she would have recognized the pocket stitching and identified them as overpriced cheap junk) and credit cards. And young people and debt and family. FAMILY. Kids today and the schools. Target, since it is a french company, is evil because they don't support "our boys." (I just looked this up- target is NOT owned by a french company. Probably we are all thinking the same thing- someone took the Fronch pronunciation of "tar-zhay" a little too seriously without a second thought). I was actually warned not to bring up target because of this french anti-americanism. jessica did not receive such a warning, and since target is her favorite place on earth, mentioned it and got chewed out for essentially being unpatriotic. i did not attempt a counterargument built around wal-mart's labor practices. {Even better, I just found this: the obvious explanation, since I receive dozens of these bullshit forwards from this side of the fam every month.}

Also, college was hard mostly because the shitty professors couldn't teach their way out of a box and it didn't matter how hard you worked, they already decided your grade. and while we're on the subject, elizabeth, it's fine that you want to get the doctorate and of course you worked your butt off for it, but when it comes time to have a family you'll do the right thing, the responsible thing, and not be selfish and say you want to work too. because i don't care, a family can live on the husband's income if they're willing to live at that level, and anything else is pure selfishness. anything else is just wanting to get a bunch of stuff, and that's selfish and raising kids is more important. so it's great that you're getting that phd and you probably want to use it at some point, but the time for working is once your kids are raised and in college, then maybe you can work part time or something because you went to school all this time and worked so hard.

MAYBE I CAN WORK PART TIME WITH MY DOCTORATE ONCE MY KIDS ARE IN COLLEGE, YOU GUYS.

Kids need two parents. End of story. Two shitty parents are way better than one devoted parent who is competent. I should thank my lucky stars that I don't have a "huge horse butt" like those hispanic girls. Welfare is destroying this country because we give a free ride to all the people who don't want to work hard or get a job. People have choices, they can choose to live the average american life or they can choose to be lazy and live on the street. They can choose to have a modest, good-sized house or they can have a too-big house and drown in debt. they can dress to make themselves look like fat pigs or they can wear shirts with sleeves. they can do things wrong or they can do things just like we did. everyone has that choice. that's why so many marriages break up, because people want too much stuff and they both have to work if they want it and that makes you not know the other person.

I'm not going to retype the bits about Jewish people, or rich black people. Or, other than the "horse butt" comment, the stuff about Latinos.

Needless to say, I was totally flabbergasted by all of it. I don't even know that I fully believe that they feel strongly about these things, most of it is loving to talk so much that it all avalanches out once the pandora's box opens. It is hard for me to even imagine people living in this world, this present-day universe, who hold these opinions and hold them tightly. I could not be more fundamentally opposed to nearly everything she said.

But what I find really alarming is the whole, "good for you that you want a phd, but if you're not a total shit wife who sucks at everything you'll stay home and raise your kids while scraping by on whatever jd gets paid."

No, I didn't mention the piles of research on child care/day care/nannies, on single-parent households, on how our economy is so bad that this generation does not have the OPTION of supporting three people on a single income, etc. There is no point in mentioning these things. It is like talking to a stone wall, but more frustrating.


On a much lighter, weirder note, JD's family brought us a "present" from his aunt who lives in salt lake. What had been initially described to JD on the phone as "a 72- hour disaster kit" turned out to be two months' worth of bulk, canned/dry goods that weigh approximately 80lbs and all require water to use. For example, Janet picked out the "vegetarian" option that the church was offering, taking extra care to ensure that the shortening included (two fat, gallon-size cans of the stuff) was made from vegetable products. Other included items are 20lbs. canned red wheat, which you apparently have to grind before using (?), lots and lots of dried macaroni, white rice, white flour, dried beans, and my personal favorite, two HUGE cans of powdered milk.

Now. Jd's mom's/gma's approaches to the powdered milk were priceless.

Me: wow, that's great, but we won't eat powdered milk
Janet: oh i know, honey, but this way you have it, just in case.
Me: uhh huh, yeah.
Janet: you know, so if there's a disaster you can feed it to the kitties if they don't have any food.
Me: riiiight, right. the cats would probably like that.

Let's, for now, ignore the basic premise that a disaster could occur that trapped me, JD, and two intact cats in our own apartment for up to two months with access to electricity and running water so that we could cook this food. Let's ignore the glaring issue that what is really important when you live in a fancily decorated desert is water, and if there's a disaster all we would worry about is water. Let's ignore, gentle readers, for the time being, what particular type of disaster might result in our being so desperate that either of us would consider touching or ingesting shortening, and instead let's focus again on the powdered milk:

Me: Right so I could feed it to the cats.
Gma: Well I know you don't eat that stuff, honey, but you'd be glad to have it in a disaster.
Me: No.
JD: No.
Gma (ignoring us): Yeah, you'd be glad to have it if you were hungry!

ahh, so that's it. I'm vegan because I just haven't gotten hungry enough to eat meat/dairy lately.

Later (it kept coming up, seriously)

Gma: Well if you need that milk you'll have it
Me: right
Gma: because, think about it, you have two months of food, and maybe you could share it with your neighbors
Me: yeah, good point
Gma: and maybe someone has a baby, and maybe you can use the powdered milk to save their baby when they don't have any food for the baby.
Me (stunned): ...
Gma: so i bet you'll be glad to have it either way, because you can share it with your neighbors and their baby
Me: right. right, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. *snicker* i mean COUGH COUGH COUGH.


Also the cans are all marked, "SLC welfare" which I find utterly hilarious given their stance on welfare in general. I'm not sure why they thought we were either starving to death or would be involved in some sort of disaster that merely jammed our front door for a couple months, but I would eat most of our furniture and all of my clothing and toiletries before I started in on the shortening or the powdered milk.

I Go To The Flower Stall And I Get A Violet Violet To Put In My Jet Black Hair

It totally skeeves me out when I see on my site meter thing that someone found and read an archive of this blog by googling the full name of a girl i went to HS with. I always feel like I need to write a disclaimer, such as that I don't even remember why i would have written anything about her especially using her full name, or that if you're vain enough to google your own name and you have a weird name, well, yeah. Whatever. Creepy.


So when J and M were here, we went to the beach. I sat, matron-style, far away, watching the kids play in the sand. And took paparazzi photos of them with my digital zoom.

See how cute they are? SO cute.


Hold my shoes, mom?


I took kitten to the vet for booster shots yesterday. The vet is insanely nice and I fell in love with him this time because he seemed (A) amused by the kitten's name (Mingus) and (B) very pleased with how much kitten is thriving. Kitten gained 2.5 lbs since thansgiving and the vet told me that we are doing a very good job with him. That was cool since the first time kitten went to the vet, he was nice but cautious, saying how little kittens "can go really fast" so we needed to watch him. But now kitten is fat and happy and healthy and that makes me very happy too. Oh and we can get him fixed any time. Gulp.

I also got a haircut yesterday. Nothing dramatic. Our new apartment has a fluorescent light in the bathroom that ages me dramatically (I hope it is the light, I mean), which may mean I try to actually get haircuts when i need them instead of going eight months between cuts and wondering why my hair looks so fried and crazy that it is single-handedly ruining K's wedding photos. She said she didn't mind, but I bet she secretly totally minds. Oh whatever.

JD is fighting sick the last few days and for some reason I cannot sleep enough. I think it is self-defense against all the looming work this next week brings with it. I am slated to give another of those cute guest lektshirs this quarter, again in the class I am tee aying, but this time in front of 400 people. Urgh. Oh and it's in 2 weeks and these things take me forever to write and I haven't started. And it's on my research area but it's an intro class so my area is not really the appropriate level. Dick. At least it will be over before the quarter really kicks in with a vengeance. Right? Positive thinking.

Oh, babe is home early. Like, five hours early. laters.