mahogany

Last night was J*s office Christmas party. Does anyone actually enjoy these? It was awful. I was sitting at a table with people that I don't know. Making small talk (which I hate). And making at laughing at really banal jokes.

The interesting that happened last night was that one of the other wives is five months pregnant, and she blithely ordered a glass of wine. I almost choked on my food. A bunch of thoughts raced through my head including, "It's none of your business. Besides, this could be the one and only glass she's having in her entire pregnancy. Saying something won't help, and besides, it's none of your business. But what about the baby? What if this is a habit?" I was so uncomfortable. I know people that have fetal alcohol syndrome. With all of the information out there, why would she choose to drink? It's kind of like smoking during pregnancy. Why would someone do that, now? This isn't the 1950's when we didn't know better (though, I think in the 50s people did know better, deep down, it just didn't have the social stigma that it has now).

So, today, I have a poll.

[Poll #1653871]

So we were also getting rid of some stuff on Craiglist. And of course, we're totally busy running last minute errands, so hubby and I laughed that instead of waiting around for the persont that was supposed to show up, we should just leave a note that the item was around back, and if the person liked it, they could take it, and slip the payment through the mail slot.

My guess was that nine out of ten people would probably pay up. Hubby figured seven out of ten. So, dear eljay, how many people out of ten do you think would pay in this situation?

[Poll #1489989]

I wasn't a perfect teen - far from it, in fact. I cursed and drank and smoked, and stayed out too late, and snuck into nightclubs. Still, I somehow managed to stay aware of my surroundings. If there were children around, I stopped myself from doing those things. It's a courtesy thing, that seems to be sorely lacking in a lot of people, I've noticed. Today, the dh and I were at the park playing frisbee with the kids, and having a great time. There were other young kids there besides ours. Some teenagers showed up and man-oh-man, was their language ever objectionable. It was the f-bomb, here, and OMFG there, with some dumbasses and shits thrown in for good measure. And it was loud. We left.

So now I'm sitting at home fuming. I feel like I should have said something. Why should we leave because of their bad behaviour. Dh feels like I would have embarrassed the kids (not to mention him, I'm sure) by saying something. I dunno. It just seems pretty backward to me. They should have been the ones having to either A) tone down their language, or B) move somewhere else.

[Poll #1170649]

It's poll time again.

One of my quirks is that I'm a shower person. I've never understood the appeal of baths. To me they're boring and annoying. The same thing goes for whirlpools, and hot tubs etc. They get a big shoulder shrug from me.

My back has been aching like crazy lately, so my dh suggested that I hop in the bath to relax. Ugh!

So now I'm curious. Is my distinct shower preference a unique quirk, or are there others out there like me?

[Poll #1161777]

Current Mood: absurd

This particular poll has some pretty personal questions. So, feel free to answer anonymously if you want, or omit some of the questions if you want.

[Poll #1112923]

Current Mood: curious

I hope you all play along with this one, and if you have people on your f/l with time to kill, send ‘em on over, I want to hear from them too.

Consider the top five or ten qualities that you look for in a partner, and mentally order them in terms of importance. These can be personality traits, values, or physical characteristics - whatever happens to be important to you.

[Poll #928592]

Current Mood: nosy

Today, I taught my daughter how to shake hands. She had been offering up a limp lifeless hand, and I taught her the mechanics of a nice, firm (but not too firm) handshake.

I’ve always thought of a firm handshake as being a friendly, non-verbal way of expressing the senitment, “I’m genuinely pleased to meet you.” Similarly, I often have the nagging feeling that someone really isn’t interested in meeting me when they greet me with a limp handshake. There are exceptions to this, and they appear to be culturally based so I try to make mental adjustments for this, and also adjust my own greeting when I see a limp hand extended toward me in those cases. But outside of those exceptions, a limp handshake doesn’t seem very friendly.

[Poll #927971]

Current Mood: nerdy

[Poll #812688]

When I was in the sixth grade, one of the girls in my grade threw a huge party and invitied everyone in the grade except me. It was not an oversight. As I’ve mentioned before, I wasn’t exactly a popular gal growing up in redneck Northern Alberta. I still remember it, and although I was pretty upset at the time, it didn’t ruin my life or anything (although, it certainly left enough of a mark that I still remember it). It’s just one of those things that is shitty about small towns.

Apparently, there is a school in New Foundland that has banned party invitations from being handed out on school property for exactly those kinds of reasons. I makes more sense to me than the schools that insist that party invitations be handed out to the entire class, or that Valentine’s Day or Christmas class be handed out to the entire class, or not at all.

For as much as I hated all the bullshit that I went through, I still think it’s absurd to force people to be inclusive. Maybe it’s because I hated being on the receiving end of forced charity even more than I hated being ostracized. It also strikes me as the school infringing on what should be a private matter.

I guess the intent behind it, is to curtail some of the passive aggressive forms of bullying. I understand that the intentions are good. And heaven knows that when my kids are in a situation where they’re just not fitting in, it wounds me so deeply, that it actually causes me physical pain - like a steel band is being tightened around my heart. But still, I believe that people have the right to choose their associates.

Children need our help, but is this the way to do it? Shouldn’t we be teaching our kids to cope with rejection? Shouldn’t we be teaching our kids that it’s extremely mean spirited to exclude just one person when everyone else is invited? Shouldn’t we be teaching our kids to boycott scenarious that are unjust and deliberately designed to hurt one of their peers? How can we teach them all of this if we’re living in an era of forced nicety? What is the answer?

[Poll #788580]

I guess this is partially inspired by the trip to Metrotown I took with my mother on the weekend (she’s visiting, so that’s why I haven’t been online). I hadn’t been there in a couple of years, and I was totally blown away by the amount of consumption that I saw. Maybe I was tired, or cranky, so it affected me differently, but I started to sweat and get a headache just from being there.

The whole thing was just so vulgar. The lights, and the frenetic shopping, and the disposability of everything that is being made now, and the attitude toward consumption was just too much for me. And I got hit with the overwhelming sense that this cannot keep up. Things have changed so much in the last ten years. As much as environmental consciousness has made some inroads, it seems like our consumption is growing at a much faster pace. And our planet just can’t sustain it, not to mention it just gave me a really weird feeling. And then, there was the self serve counter at the grocery store. It’s completely automatic. No human contact - not even at the grocery store.

So anyhow, I started thinking about the space that we have here in Canada that we take completely for granted. We do dumbass shit like clear cut mountains to make room for rows and rows of generic single family homes. What is it about our cuture that causes us to think sprawl rather than building up? Why aren’t we creating more walkable areas, and more density? Sure there are towers going up everywhere, but the square footage is on par with some closets. Seriously. For anyone with a larger family, it’s simply out of the question, and I want to know why that is? Admittedly there are some apartments that are larger, but they’re over $2 million.

Clearly there is no market for larger, family apartments in the city - I figure if the demand was present then developers would be building them. The way things work out here is that people with kids either buy townhouses, or they buy single family homes in suburban hell, and then spend three hours a day commuting. My husband and I can’t even agree - even in theory. I say apartment, and good location. He says house and backyard with crappy location. Sigh.

[Poll #785210]

[Poll #741211]

Entries tagged with polls

The horror of office parties

General honesty of the population

Somewhere along the line, I became part of the establishment

Bath or shower???

Nosy, nosy

This is what I do when I wake before the rest of the family

Handshakes

(no subject)

forced invites

(no subject)

(no subject)

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July 2013

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