So this weekend passed without much incident. I won’t lie and say I had a great time, but I’ll also try to keep from going too far in the other direction and say I had a terrible time either. Since certain events were good and others were stressful/irritating, the weekend taken as a whole rather leveled itself out into neutrality. It’s not quite indifference, but to avoid being too negative, I suppose that’s how I’d have to label it.
I’ll post pictures up later from the weekend tonight when I’m at home with the computer that has them. Ian took some pics of us all just hanging out Friday, and I took some more Saturday during the dress try-outs. Likewise, I’ll also post the scans of the paper telephone game we were playing Friday night and Saturday. Some of them got to be quite hilarious. That will be a separate page once I get it worked out.
<Sigh> I suppose I might get into why this weekend was so strange now. I mean, I was thrilled to see my sisters and my cousin (who’s been away a while and I haven’t seen in forever), and I enjoy hanging out with Jessica and Jolene (who I likewise hadn’t seen in a while). It was nice catching up with Beth especially since she’s going into a field that I had once considered, so we actually had things in common to talk about. The majority of conversations that were going on really couldn’t or didn’t involve me much because I don’t know much about them or don’t have an opinion. Talking about chick flicks, for instance, means nothing to me because I don’t watch them. I noticed by the end of Saturday that Jolene and I were more observers than participants, but by this point I was too tired to really care enough to do anything about it.
So the conversations were mostly okay whether I was a part of them or not. The paper telephone game was fun because it got everyone laughing. Ian’s food was good as usual. Washing the dishes won’t be as exciting tonight, but it’s got to be done, same as the laundry and taking out the trash. Oh well, I digress.
I guess what made this weekend more neutral than anything was the fact that I was worried about playing hostess and chauffeur and less concerned with having fun. I always wonder if the house is clean enough or that everyone has had enough to eat or that there’s enough toilet paper or if people have allergies (Beth is allergic to cats, for example) because these are things I think about. While driving around Vincennes, I was more concerned with getting us from point A to point B than with the conversation, made worse because I had no idea where we were going and I drive like an old lady anyway. Hell, just my driving makes me self-conscious because I know I don’t drive fast and I know I can get uncomfortable in different places, so I get annoyed easily when my driving is called into question. I’m a nervous wreck in the car whether I’m driving or as a passenger, and having it pointed out just makes it worse. Letting me take my time is the most logical thing, but I guess not everyone’s as patient as I am. More digressing.
I’m pretty obsessive about my cat too. She doesn’t always react well to visitors, and I know not everyone likes cats, so I try to minimize her interaction with guests either for her sake or theirs. Not knowing who was staying at our place, I even made a sign for the bathroom asking that no one spray hair spray or perfume near her fountain because I didn’t want her getting sick. We also tried to keep her out of the guest room so she wouldn’t shed all over the brand new sheets. Stuff like that. Then there’s the over-protective and constant rebuttal to “Your cat is fat” comments. Since she’s the only “kid” Ian and I have, it’s kind of like telling a parent that their little girl is fat over and over again. It gets old, and then it gets annoying. I’m not sure how many times I had to go through the whole “When she got spayed, she got a lot of extra fur from the scar tissue,” but it doesn’t seem to matter. By the end of the weekend, I got sick of repeating “She’s not fat” and just chalked it all up to people not understanding how much we love her or just people not understanding that someone might not care to constantly hear fat remarks.
I guess that leads into the other area of annoyance this weekend: trying on dresses. I looked at the dresses on the racks, and I saw some really cute ones that I would be interested to try on. Did I? No. I’m not in any of the pictures of girls trying on dresses and there’s a “huge” reason for that: they didn’t have anything in my size. Sure, they may have had a dress or two that might have fit me, but I didn’t see them and even if they did, they probably wouldn’t be dresses I’d want to try on. The last dress I bought in a store was a size 20. Actually, it might have been a 22–I’d have to check the label. The biggest size dress I saw there? 16. Yeah, that wasn’t going to work. Even if I could squeeze my fat ass in a dress that size, the bulges and blubber would have been far too embarrassing in something pretty. I’m working on losing weight, and I’m getting an exercise thingie (elliptical?) tomorrow, so maybe I’ll lose some of these rolls by May when we get the dresses fitted. Here’s to hoping, except that as an Existentialist, I really don’t believe in “hope.” Whee.
I don’t know. Maybe this weekend would have been better were it not for the stress all week from midterms, constantly thinking about my thesis, having to worry about cleaning up (at least I got the mopping done already), and being so self-conscious about my house, driving, cat, and fat. I liked having everyone over to talk to, and I’m really glad that everyone else seemed to have a great time (except for when Ian showed “Der Schlangemann”); I just wish that I could have been more relaxed and well, thinner. I think that once the thesis is over with, things will calm down and having company will be more enjoyable. Like next May everything should be much better. Fall is just a bad time of the year, I guess. Oh well. Time to work on the SFOL Scrabble board. I can wallow some more later while cleaning the fish tanks. Cleaning snail scum always seems like an appropriate time to think about horrible stuff.
She's not fat:
She's "husky"
SHE'S NOT FAT:
You seriously don't get it, do you?
Yes I do,:
I was just being stupid. There's nothing going on here. I'm sorry.
Actually…:
She is. I know you don't like to hear that but she is overweight. She should weigh about 6-8lbs and she is easily over 10. If you'd like to prove she isn't "fat" then take her to the vet but I'm hedging my bets that the vet wants her to lose some weight. (The extra weight is hard on the joints, heart, etc.) Sorry about the tummy fur flap, our first vet (the one who spade her) wasn't very good.
I'm sorry you didn't have fun this weekend, I thought we were all having a good time. As for driving, I did offer to drive. The limited dress sizes did suck, I agree with you there. As for the rest, I'm not sure what to say. There's obviously more than one viewpoint to everything.
Rolls eyes:
You know, if something clearly pisses me off, joking about it isn't going to not piss me off. All I want is for people to stop making fat cat comments because it's old and I'm sick of it.
And still:
There's a huge difference between carrying a little extra weight and being rotund. She's not round by any means and for a cat who can't get out at all, she's doing better than most. Even if she does have a little extra weight (and I'll admit that), she's not "fat" as in "morbidly obese" like everyone makes it sound. I have extra weight, so is everyone going to start making cracks about me getting plastic surgery?
If we're talking about pissing people off….:
….if it makes you so angry that people make fun of Kitty maybe you should think of that before you criticize everyone else about whatever it is you feel like criticizing them about at that moment. Your nearly constant Tommy bashing comes to mind. I bet that pisses him off too and it's getting old, and I'm sick of it.
Um…:
What I don't think you guys are getting is the fact that Kitty is like a child to us. If you had a child that was over weight, and everytime I showed up at the door I just talked about how fat they were, I am sure you would take it personally. And being "loving" parents, you would probably ask me to stop. And when I didn't, and kept calling you kid fat EVERY TIME I SEE THEM you would probably get pissed at me, and you would be right to do so.
The comment about Tommy was amusing though. A) He is an adult and very vocal about his feelings. If he had a problem with anything said to him, he probably would not have a problem telling her. and B) That almost implies that you have a little list that you check before you come over "Oh, she said a negative comment, better call the cat fat."
Just my take.
Hmmm…:
That's the problem with the Tommy situation. Erin acts like everything is fine around him, but when he's not around I often hear (often enough I don't need a list to remember) about how it's so annoying that he calls or how stupid he is. If she said it to him, maybe he could defend himself or simply change his annoying habits. Erin can say what she wants about him, but I don't like that she constantly complains about him to me and I have to defend him because he isn't the same person he was 10 years ago when he was "stupid" and an "accident-prone klutz." Make fun of Tommy to Ian, Jessica, Kitty, anyone but a sibling that is now stuck between telling Tommy how much he annoys Erin or defending him. I just get frustrated that instead of telling Tommy that it's annoying when he calls or telling me that she doesn't want to drive to Vincennes she doesn't say anything at all and then talks about it on her website, knowing that we're going to read it. If she had a problem over the weekend, why didn't she tell me instead of making all of us look like jerks on Monday? Erin's website is hers to write on what she will (and most of the time I enjoy it), but if she's got a problem with how the weekend I planned went, she needs to tell me before I read it and wonder what the hell happened. Lastly, I don't know if you pay any attention specifically to me and Kitty (I don't know why you would) because I have not made a fat comment about Kitty in a long time because I don't really care if she's overweight or not, regardless of whether or not she is. Just because I'm around people saying things doesn't mean I have said anything.
*cough*:
I am not sure where you are going with the Tommy thing. All siblings have positive and negative things to say about their family. That being said, I won't go into what has escaped your lips about various people, because needlessly dragging other people in is childish.
I won't talk about how the weekend went, because as Katie rightfully said, there is obviously more than one viewpoint to everything. Just think about how odd you would have felt all weekend if halfway through someone said it sucked.
But I do have to point out that having a lengthy conversation about cat liposuction and kitty cosmetic surgery could potentially be constrewed as being negative to the only cat around. My deepest apologies if you had not meant to slight Kitty, but are actually prone to having conversations about cosmetic surgery for cats. I simply misunderstood the conversation.
Yeah…:
I'm kind of done talking about all of it because there's really no point and I don't want to be fighting with Erin over this (even though I'm kind of fighting with you… *raised eyebrow*), but I will say that I have no idea what you're talking about with kitty cosmetic surgery. I maybe remember talking about orthoscopic surgery (like replacing dog and cat knees) because Steven has said his dad should do it. If I was sitting around when people were saying otherwise, I must have been done saying my piece and had moved on to something else. I have no idea what else was said, and that's probably because I have no desire to talk about any animal plastic surgery.