That's what Tinder is for

Typical bullshit profile, one of the reasons I let my membership lapse.

Difficult weekend

It's so weird that I saw this on Facebook the last day of our big weekend... The weekend was exactly what I thought it was going to be: it was repeatedly awkward, it was not comfortable, and it was not really enjoyable. My kids were frustrated because they expected people to be more kind and more concerned about them - not a single person the entire weekend asked any of them if they were OK or how they were doing. It's a choice that the family members made to ignore the pain that has been caused and it's very telling. I only had one person, a friend of the mom, who asked me how I was doing and told me she was impressed with how I had handled it - no one in the family has ever said anything even close to this to me.

Interestingly, He Who Shall Not Be Named was completely erased from the weekend - he was not invited, his pictures did not appear in the "family" slideshow, he was never mentioned. I found it rather odd that his sister was willing to eliminate him to this extent. She has only one sibling, she has only one child, her favorite aunt died last year. All the grandparents are dead other than her mom. Her mom and dad each had only one sister, they are both dead. You'd think, with so many people in the family gone, there might be some allowance made for the prodigal son. I'm not at all sorry that he wasn't there, and he totally deserves to be shunned. It's more what it says about a family that is willing to kick someone out this way, while preaching about kindness and making the world a better place.

The silver lining is that the 5 of us (me, Alana, Matt, Cal, and Naomi) had a marvelous time together, hanging out, getting food, chillin. Cal said we should have just taken a vacation to Louisville together and skipped the family event. He suggested we have Thanksgiving at an AirBnB in Philadelphia (I love that idea).

The universe is looking out for me

The guy sitting next to me on the plane to Fargo said he needed a ride home from the airport, so I offered. I was nervous enough about it to text my friend and tell her, so someone would know what I was doing if I disappeared. But honestly, he seemed so harmless - he was returning from visiting his 93 year old aunt (though maybe that is exactly what a serial killer would say to put you at ease). 

He offered to buy me dinner or put some gas in my tank, but I said it was fine, I wanted to do a mitzvah - a good deed (keep my karma in the black so to speak).

On the way to his house, he said, can you hear that noise in the back of your car? Yes, I can, and I had been noticing it for a couple of weeks. He said he thought it was the wheel bearing. So now I can call the repair shop and say "I think I need a wheel bearing" instead of "My car is making a sound" (and would you please rip me off for as much as possible).

I feel like this car advice was worth WAY more than a 10 minute ride from the airport!

No good deed goes unpunished

I agreed to cat sit for someone for a full month. Which is already a big mitzvah. But this motherfucker made it so much harder. 

1st, he gave me the wrong phone number. How hard is it to give someone your correct phone number?? 

Then, even though he knows I got home in the middle of the night, he still insists on bringing the cat over 1st thing in the morning on a holiday. 

3rd, once he gets to my apt, he says he "forgot" to buy catfood. So I'm doing this huge favor, but I have to go out and buy the food because he "forgot." Grocery stores are open at 8:00 in the morning, just saying.

Family Court

Whew, that's over. He had no lawyer with him after all, no surprise. He said he would pay the arrears by July 15th, half immediately (though the magistrate later agreed to June 15th dammit) and the rest by July 15th. We are back in court on July 25th, by phone (she said in person, but then said by phone, thank goodness, I panicked for a second). The magistrate said if he wasn't caught up by then, the next step is a hearing and "sanctions." Hurrah!!!!! Of course, the arrears continues to grow because the garnishment is still less than the amount owed and he doesn't pay the difference, so I'm girding myself to raise this at the next court appearance: what is he planning to do to stay current going forward?

Blatant racism in the form of "humor" (aren't we past this yet?!)

 Maybe if you have to put a disclaimer on your "joke" you should just not post it. 

18 people thought this was funny. 😱

Thoughts about the Depp-Heard trial

I have scrupulously avoided reading or watching any coverage of the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard trial, which is an exercise in rubbernecking of the most crass variety. However, I can't help but notice the fortunes of the 2 of them shifting as her behavior becomes more apparently noxious and he seems less of the aggressor. I do find myself thinking that Larry is Amber Heard. Everybody thinks he's lovely and adorable. My fantasy is that he would suffer a similar drop in good opinion if people really found out about his dishonest and two-faced behavior. 

Hold on

It was really good timing to read these remarks by Chelsea Handler. I'm getting very discouraged but I feel like the Universe is sending the message...

 

Leadership

I went to a campus workshop about reflective writing because I feel like I have more to learn about how to do that. (I basically use this blog for that - I write down things that would otherwise be bouncing around in my head and distracting me, sometimes even disturbing my sleep.)

The first exercise in the workshop was to free write something about when you felt good at work. I wrote a little story about meeting with a faculty member about her research project.

For some reason that was not completely clear to me, they wanted to connect the workshop with this competency framework, so they handed out a list of leadership competencies. I didn't think any of the items on the list would be relevant.

Then I read the list of competencies and went back and looked at my story. Virtually everything on the list was reflected in my story. It was so weird and sort of funny. I guess I don't really understand what leadership is and I certainly wasn't aware that what I was doing exemplified leadership. Very thought-provoking.