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24039. judithathome - 5/3/2008 8:18:29 PM I love that name!! Breezy! 24040. judithathome - 5/3/2008 8:21:01 PM And hey, Stamper...howzit? Read back over my last few months of experience.(Not that many posts back...) Where ARE you now and how is Evie?
Tomorrow I enter my MediCare years and I must say, so far they've been treating me well. 24041. arkymalarky - 5/3/2008 9:47:50 PM We went to Jim's sister's art studio for his birthday today--hope you have a great birthday tomorrow!
And I wish I'd seen your post before heading to the vet--I named him Hobo. So now we have Hobo and Mojo and Mazie. 24042. wabbit - 5/4/2008 12:55:58 AM Hey all, good to see folks here. i3b3, I sure hope you can work things out. JaH, I must respectfully disagree about your salary thang, I think whoever has the most flexibility should defer to the one trying to get their foot in the door, especially when it looks like the salaries involved will ultimately both be pretty good. But that's just me.
Arky, all four of my cats are someone else's rejects. My oldest cat was dumped out of a car at about midnight in front of my house in NY the week before Thanksgiving. I heard a cat crying and went to my porch door, and she came charging, just happy to see anyone. It was fairly warm that night, luckily enough, so I put food and water out and figured if she was there the next morning, we'd see what was what. She had an enormous open wound on one hind leg (I guessed a ruptured abcess) and the muscle was separated down to the bone, but it was clean and not infected. I called the vet and got her some antibiotics and said her name was Stray Cat. By the time I took her in for a rabies shot a few weeks later, her name had morphed into Lumpenchat which became Chubba for the language impaired, and the vet folks were happy to make the change. The moral of the story is, if Hobo doesn't stick, go with whatever does.
But please, no Golden Balls. 24043. arkymalarky - 5/4/2008 1:20:30 AM Unfortunately, any reject cats are likely never to be known by us. They'd be eaten first. I'm allergic to cats, but we had outdoor cats when we first married and when Mose was little. We named one Spot, so Bob could say "Out damned Spot." He's so original.
Bob's view of dog names is similar to yours. We've had Stray Dog, Big Puppy, Puppy, and friends have named more. Mose named Gus and Scrappy and our neighbor named Sparky. We counted somewhere around 50 dogs we'd taken in, but that was a few years ago, and we've had at least three in the past three or four years. Judith may remember when we got Mojo, but I can't. She came up in the yard with what I thought was a botched tail-bobbing job, but the vet said it was torn off. It cost over $100 just to fix that. But she was a Mojo--she fits the name perfectly. She's evidently part Rottweiler, but she's very fun--an 80lb puppy.
Golden Balls? I won't show that one to Bob, or he'll head right for it. ;-)
How's your mom, btw? 24044. arkymalarky - 5/4/2008 1:24:02 AM We used to be good at giving stray dogs and puppies away. I guess it's a sign of tough times that we can't seem to get rid of these. 24045. wabbit - 5/4/2008 2:24:06 AM Oh, don't be fooled by Chubba's name. Most of my furchildren earn their names one way or another and end up with things like Woobus or Keevan or OohPah or The Grey Bean. Chubba was lucky. Golden Balls is an Irish racehorse unfortunately saddled with the nickname Posh gave to hubby David Beckham. He finished last in today's Woodford Reserve Turf Classic, the race just before the Kentucky Derby.
Mom is doing better, thanks. Still not up to par, but getting there. 24046. Ms. No - 5/4/2008 9:09:14 PM Happy Birthday Judith! 24047. thoughtful - 5/5/2008 6:30:07 PM Happy Bday Judithah!
I cracked up at this:
The moral of the story is, if Hobo doesn't stick, go with whatever does.
We had a dog that my mother named Hobo, but who could call him Hobo? The name that stuck was Opie. 24048. thoughtful - 5/5/2008 9:29:26 PM IsBs, I'm sorry you're going through all this distress. It's difficult from here as I don't have any first-hand knowledge of the people involved or the situation. However, it sounds to me like she's angry and she's angry with you...whether deserved or not, you're catching the blame for the situation, she's unhappy about it and she's going to fix it. Any attempt on your part to lay out options or provide more information will only be seen as an attempt by you to take control again, whether you are or not. She won't allow it as the last time, "you did take control and look where we ended up!" It sounds to me like she's angry enough that it's no longer about 'we' but about 'me'. Rightly or not, she feels she was being treated unfairly, and now she's getting back. You're being punished.
However, it seems to me also that career situations are critical to marital and financial happiness for both of you. This is a very tough situation and it would be best decided if you both could work together to achieve a common best solution. However, that is not going to happen with just the two of you in the picture. She's way too angry for that. This has gone beyond what's "best for us" to a power play.
My suggestion would be that the two of you need a safe, objective, 3rd party to help mediate and coach you both through this situation. Is there any way the two of you might discuss seeing a career counselor or other kind of counselor (do they have argument counselors???) who can at least keep the situation calm enough to lead to a fruitful discussion of all options involved? I mean, you're both in an unhappy mess, and you don't want to do anything for the wrong reasons that might just again put you both in another unhappy situation. Someone outside the marriage may be able to help both of you cut through and put aside the emotions around this issue and help you deal with the objective options you face.
I'm so sorry you're going through all of this. Life choices are hard, especially when there are two disparate careers and geographies involved. Especially when there's so much at stake and imperfect information with which to make a decision.
Hang tough, kiddo. 24049. judithathome - 5/6/2008 5:29:12 AM Leslie called me around 3pm today on the way to the ER. When I got there, he was checking in and they did chest xray, ECG, and CT scan...the (very buff) ECG guy let it slip that it looked like a myocardial infarction (sp?) and Leslie nearly lost it because he considers his heart about the only thing that works in his body any more.
So three hours later, they decided it was a mild TIA...which makes his 12th one. Those and 2 major strokes...he knows the symptoms and kept telling them it was that...TIA is Trans Ischemic something...not nearly as bad as a stroke and sometimes you can have them and not even know it.
The reason he went on to the ER is because he'd called his neurosurgeon and when the doctor called him back, he said he could tell by Leslie's speech patterns (slurring his words) that he was having something and urged him to go straight to the ER.
So he's fine now and is going to work tomorrow. We were both just so relieved it wasn't his heart! 24050. Ms. No - 5/6/2008 6:34:16 AM Thoughtful, that is excellent advice.
24051. Ms. No - 5/6/2008 6:35:00 AM Glad to hear he's okay, Jude. 24052. alistairconnor - 5/6/2008 8:22:53 AM Hey Stamper, tell Al this :
What the hell happened to Hawaiian solidarity? O's a Polynesian like you and me. 24053. iiibbb - 5/6/2008 3:36:53 PM Thanks for the thoughts and comments.
I think I've managed a breakthrough with my wife on the credibility front. She finally realized that I am honestly behind our exit strategy and her goal of obtaining her own federal position. I told her she should do nothing to jeopardize that opportunity she may have.
In addition, I went to my dept head and my boss and basically told them that P having a good job hear was the part that made the whole deal possible. If she doesn't have a job, then I can make no guarantee about staying. It was literally the first thing out of my mouth when they called me for the interview that if there was no job for her it would be unworkable.
I think she's also getting a taste of the pressure one feels when unemployment looms.
The problem is because this university has a new president who's proposed an unfunded mandate for a university-wide 3% raise. That created a hiring freeze because the money would have to come out of operating budgets. That means the people that were going to hire her may not have the money now. It's basically out of our hands.
The bright side of this is that she has the green light to pursue her other options. She's still going to try and give me a year here, but if she can't find an appropriate job our hands are tied. I will try to stay in this job as long as I can because I want to do something with it, but I no longer feel a moral obligation.
Now that she's seen me take her side in this, I think I gained some of my credibility back. If we both come out of this with federal jobs I guess all is well.
It sure has been a roller coaster. 24054. wonkers2 - 5/6/2008 3:54:10 PM Not a great alternative, but I know of an increasing number of long distance marriages where one spouse works in one city and the other in the other and they get together 2-4 times a month in one place or the other. Not a great option for newly weds, but it could work for a temporary period. 24055. iiibbb - 5/6/2008 4:03:38 PM That is on the table as a stopgap while we establish ourselves, but we would work to rectify that pretty diligently.
I would take virtually any federal opportunity to rejoin her. 24056. judithathome - 5/6/2008 5:03:50 PM Sounds like you two are starting to work together on thus problem, which is much better than a few weeks ago...give it a little more time and you'll both be okay. 24057. thoughtful - 5/6/2008 6:38:01 PM I just heard an interesting talk by a woman who started out as a nurse and is now ceo of a hospital. She had some interesting things to say
...fail, fail often and fail forward. Have the courage to fail but make sure you learn from your failures...you learn more from them than from your successes.
...you haven't won if you've left with someone feeling worse off.
...it's not about winning, it's about getting the job done. If you go in thinking it's about winning, then you've already lost.
...you don't know everything and don't be afraid to reveal that. Instead be open to listening and learning.
and she also talked about determination...that there is nothing you can't do with determination and nothing you can do without it.
24058. wonkers2 - 5/7/2008 4:36:36 PM Great advice. It's nice to hear that it's still possible for someone to start at the bottom (Nurses aren't exactly the bottom so it would be a better story if she had been a cleaning woman!) and make it all the way to the top.
One of the smartest and most capable people I ever knew dropped out of school in Georgia in the fifth grade; picked cotton with his father who was a sharecropper; got a job on the Chevrolet assembly line in Flint, Michigan; took up golf during a long model change layoff and parred the Flint golf course before he was recalled; became one of the best bridge players in Flint; was noticed for his golfing ability and bridge acumen and given a job in the plant safety department; was noticed by Chevrolet central office in Detroit and was promoted to a job there; soon he was promoted to GM's corporate labor relations staff where he ultimately (early 1970s)became VP. He wasn't a great speller or grammarian, but his writing and speaking were among the best I've ever seen or heard. He was one of the smartest people I've ever known and one of the best bosses I had in a long and checkered career. I can think of only a handful of management people whose trust and respect by the UAW negotiators equaled his. His name was Earl R. Bramblett. He died of a heart attack within a year after retiring. R.I.P.
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