Today is the first weeknight since mid-August that everyone will be home for dinner and no one has any practice, lessons, or classes to take or teach. That’s right it’s our first “normal” weeknight in 13 weeks. No wonder I haven’t been blogging much
October 27, 2009
FYI this is mw first attempt to post from my phone so apologies if this is abrupt or filld with typos.
I wanted to assure everyone that I have returned to the land of the semi-sane. Which doesn’t Mean that I’m not an asshole but I am not as big an ass as I felt last week. It’s amazing how rain and stress can overwhelm ones critical thinking
So updates:
1) I survived, as did our house, the bday sleepover party last Friday of bb and six of his friends. Conclusion: sleepovers are pretty easy for 8 year olds. They entertain themselves
2) holy cow i have an 8 year old
3) I survived my first oral argument in six years. We will probably lose but because of the law not my performance
October 26, 2009
A blog I’ve been reading lately has this nice little piece on forgiveness. http://www.happinessinthisworld.com/2009/10/25/how-to-forgive-others/# And I think that part of my problem of feeling like an asshole is that I don’t know how to forgive myself for my own transgressions.
But also, that as discussed in the piece, it can be hard to forgive others if there has been no apology. I have in-laws that need to apologize to me and mr. jolt. But it’s not going to happen. And the fact that I know that it’s not going to happen makes me as angry, if not angrier, than the original transgression.
Anyway, I have other happier stuff to post about, which I will shortly.
October 22, 2009
So I’ve been having a pity party for myself and the stark truth that I am an asshole. How do I know I’m an asshole? To wit, the following:
1) I stuck my foot in my mouth at bookgroup earlier this week (and got called on it). Which means not only am I an asshole who knows I’m an asshole, but other people have recognized this unfortunate truth as well. This is hard to live with. The fact that I’m focused on this self-realization as opposed to the victim of my foot-in-mouthedness is further proof of my assholery.
2) I ask questions of mr. jolt that he can’t answer because I can’t ask them of the relatives to whom I’d really like to say WTF?!?!?!?! If you are wondering why this makes me an asshole, trust me, I am. If for no other reason than the fact that I got NOTHING done at work today because of my inability to compartmentalize my “emotional life” from my “work life” and the fact that I can’t decide who is a bigger asshole, me, mr. jolt, or the relatives at issue and that this question has consumed far too much of my time. Trust me, when its a competition about who is a bigger asshole, nobody wins.
3) We started watching season 2 of the wire (yes, we are behind on our tv series watching). And it is far more depressing than the first season. Largely because there seem to be a vast number of stupid assholes that are the non-cop characters in season 2. To which I say, if I have to be an asshole, I hope that I can be a smart asshole and not a stupid one. I don’t think I could bear it if I became a stupid asshole.
4) I made a list the other day, in the vein of the serenity prayer, of all the things I can control in my life right now, and all the things I can’t. And came to the conclusion that I seem to be unable to control the fact that I am an asshole. But I’ll work on it. I promise.
September 30, 2009
If you are an entity, such as a municipal government, that requires a resolution to be passed by the city council or other governing body to provide authority to an individual to sign a contract on behalf of said municipality, it is not enough to simply attach a sample resolution to your contract. You must actually fill in the blanks on the resolution form, have the resolution signed by the appropriate persons, and have such resolution certified by the municipal secretary or similar official.
Blank resolutions will NOT be accepted. Thank you.
September 30, 2009
If you are a municipal entity and require a resolution to provide an individual to sign a contract on behalf of the municipality, the resolution you attach should either be a general signature resolution for a given individual or a resolution authorizing someone to sign that particular contract or category of contracts. Simply attaching a list of “so moved” actions, none of which actually pertain to the contract to which it is attached, is not helpful.
Thank you.
September 8, 2009
Last Friday, mr. jolt got a frantic email from the ‘team mom’ for BB’s soccer team. The subject? The critical importance of everyone keeping their kids home from school today to avoid President Obama’s speech. Attached to the bottom of the email was some link to Glenn Beck.
mr. jolt, being far more reasonable than I would have been under the circumstances, responded to her (not reply all, he is so much more tactful on this stuff than I) by pointing out that one shouldn’t rely on Glenn Beck and that the speech would be published on Monday (yesterday) and perhaps she should read it and decide whether or not her child should listen to it.
Her response? “I don’t want my children listening to anything that man says.”
Hmm. Yeah, I guess we won’t be inclined to get to know them better. And frankly, keeping one’s kid home, missing a whole day of school, just to avoid a 15 minute speech (if that) is cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face. Assuming the school is even planning to show it in the first place. If the situation were reversed and my kid had to listen to Bush, I’d counteract with speech of my own & a discussion with my kid. But that’s not the way of the nutters.
September 8, 2009
mr. jolt travels occasionally to conferences and the like. Aside from the logistical impact of getting the boys from one place to another and, of course, missing him, this is not usually a big deal. A few years ago, however, he went to a conference in Berlin. He was away for a week, and in that week we had a waterfall in the kitchen* and a spontaneously combusting mulch fire in the backyard right outside the living room. Following these minor, but alarming events, I advised mr. jolt that he was never allowed to leave the country again (at least, not without us).
Forward two years, and this week mr. jolt is in England at a conference, missing the boys first week of school (and LB’s first day of kindergarten). So this morning, while getting the boys breakfast before their first day of school, I was startled, but not wholly surprised when the toaster caught on fire.**
And today’s the first day he’s been gone. It may be a loooonnngg week.
* The outflow hose from the washer, located on the second floor, came loose spraying several inches worth of water all over the laundry room and thus through the kitchen below.
** I unplugged it, blew it out, and put the toaster outside on the patio.
August 31, 2009
Every now and then a series of events occur together in ways that make me think there is some astrological influence or weird mélange of influence creating funky patterns. For me, I am having difficulty with sharp objects at the moment. On Friday night, I cut one finger and gouged another while picking up some pieces of broken glass. On Saturday morning, I sliced yet another finger while cutting grapes into bunches with kitchen shears. This morning, I sliced a knuckle with a paper cut. That’s three – I should be done now, right?
August 26, 2009
Last week I had to chastise someone in another office of the organization in which I work for doing something stupid. Because this person has had a habit of doing similar stupid things, after discussion with my supervisor, I delivered the chastisement by email, copying my supervisor and the supervisor of Mr. Stupid.
Mr. Stupid responded later by hitting reply all with a, surprise, stupid attempt to make his stupidity look like inadvertent error. Because I’d had a long day and got his pathetic fail of an excuse after dealing with the stupidity of others in his office, I shot back an email, also reply all, in which I pointed out that there was no way that the error could have been inadvertent.
Today, Mr. Stupid called, presumably on the advice of his supervisor, to make nice and apologize. He began his apology by half-blaming his support staff, and in response to my snarky, “Oh really?” backed off and said he “took full responsibility and it wouldn’t happen again.” I said, “Good, glad to hear it.”
He then says, “Okay, kid?”
I was so taken aback by this newest form of stupidity – kid? I’m a fucking adult you moron - that all I could say was, “Uh, okaaaaay.”
Thus ended the call.
‘Legal’ tip of the day: When apologizing to other people, try to avoid (a) blaming others for something that is clearly your responsibility; and (b) attempting to diminish the listener/apologee by using terms intended to indicate their inferiority, whether based on relative youth or other factors.
Needless to say, Mr. Stupid is still on my shit list. I have no idea how old he is, but I’m guessing he thinks I’m some young whippersnapper.
