posted May 31, 2013 08:12 PM            

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Originally posted by mockingbird:
Ohhhhh, I hate these women.

I brought my middle daughter to her Daisy meeting while in my paint splattered coveralls. They're what I wear when doing heavy or messy work around the house or on our property because - hey - why not? They're durable and breathe.

"Yep, we've been painting trim all day."

"Wow. I'm impressed that you're doing it yourself."
(Implied: That you can't pay someone to do it.)

"Heh, yep. We've also refinished the floors. They were all carpeted, but we've been working on restoring the original wood."

(The ladies drift off.)

To someone who was watching, but looked down at her smartphone as soon as I looked over: "The fun thing about doing it yourself with this little one (motions with baby on hip) is that it's also baby torture."

(Lady on smart phone looks up, gives tight smile and smug head nod, looks back at smartphone.)

And one of them just walked by without looking at me.

And I was asked by a teacher if I was here for "an...after school activity...or something..." while holding the hand of my Kindergartener.
(None of the other mothers were asked.)

This area sucks.

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I can see why you feel like you fit in anywhere, but I'm not sure your observations are accurate. Just because people don't greet you doesn't mean that they therefore dislike you (that's a possibility but not a certainty, not even likely in many places).

"Impressed that you're doing it yourself" could be a compliment, though a badly worded one, or a simply neutral observation, possibly even an invitation to share if you had your own ideas about how you wanted it done (that is the personal touch you didn't' trust anyone else with). (And if I were going to perceive it as an insult I'd see it as calling me too incompetent that I would NEED to pay someone else rather than I was too cheap or poor to pay someone else.) I thought women able to work (granted, within limits) has been lauded since WW2 (heck, that's when women took cheerleading away from men and never gave it back), and a woman is supposed to be able to take care of the house.

Does anyone other than spoiled princesses see it as bad? Women paint in their own home in the movies & shows all the time and it isn't shown as bad or shameful.

Still, I knew a woman not much older than me that took a twisted pride in being ignorant, and I know some of the older boomers can be really ridiculous (like an aunt of mine who will cover up to work in the Texas heat so she doesn't tan and will stop every 10 minutes to go reapply the makeup she sweated off on the off chance someone stops by so she doesn't look like she ever does her own work), so I could see it as possible...but I just can't help but imagine them as really wealthy women who get by on looks and are essentially high class hookers (acting like princesses) who landed a sugar daddy, kinda like this from Firefly (the ep Shindig):

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Kaylee Frye: Don't you just love this party? Everything's so fancy, and there's some kind of hot cheese over there.

Cabott: It's not as good as last year.

Kaylee Frye: Oh, really? What-what'd they have last year?

Cabott: Standards.

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After the Southern Belles (or scifi version of them) follow up with backhanded compliments, like telling her to speak with her servants as her dress looks like it was bought in a store (as it was) and she looks like she's about to run crying out of there they get interrupted with this:

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Murphy: Why Banning Miller, what a vision you are in your fine dress. It must have taken a dozen slaves a dozen days to get you into that getup. 'Course your daddy tells me it takes the space of a schoolboy's wink to get you out of it again.

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Then after they leave offended he turns to Kaylee and adds, "Forgive my rudeness. I cannot abide useless people."

The next scene is Kaylee being very popular with the men (who found her much more interesting and easier to be around than the prissy princesses):

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Kaylee: I'm not saying the 80-04's hard to repair. It just ain't worth it.

Older Farmer: It's a fine machine, you just keep it tuned.

Kaylee: T-sai boo shr! The extenders ain't braced.

Murphy: I've been telling him to buy an 80-10 for years.

Kaylee: Those tenders snap off, don't matter how good the engine's cycling.

Younger Farmer: Miss Kaylee, I wonder if I could request the honor of having this...

Murphy: [interrupting] Wait a minute, let her talk! She's talkin'.

Kaylee: By the way, the 80-10's the same machine. They just changed the plating, hoped no one noticed.

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posted May 31, 2013 08:27 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by aquaguy91:
As I have gotten older My aspergers has become more obvious. When I was a kid making friends was a breeze, but it seems like the older I get the harder it is to connect with new people. Kids are a lot more accepting of differences and quirks. Adults? Not so much..

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Were you as generally negative back then as now? Because kids are much more likely to accept that than adults.

posted June 01, 2013 08:43 AM            

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Originally posted by PixieJane:
Were you as generally negative back then as now? Because kids are much more likely to accept that than adults.

But in my observation adults seem much more likely to accept differences and quirks than kids...though it could be my observation is skewed due to the fact that in school kids are forced together by age and sometimes even how their surnames get alphabetized rather than by much more important commonalities whereas one isn't forced to sit or eat with jerks outside of it (usually) so that it's easier to find people who will at least

leave you alone rather than start some drama over something trivial, like what
you're wearing.

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posted June 01, 2013 08:45 AM            

I don't want to judge, but some of them might kind of be...
...in this area, it's pretty difficult to stay home (and most of the ladies with daughters in that troop do - it starts at 4pm on a Friday) unless your spouse makes $300-500k+ a year, though there are some field-grade officer's wives who can do so primarily because they also get BAH.
I'm only able to stay home because my Mom's leasing us my grandparent's house for the cost of covering taxes and insurance + our upkeep (which, if you just look at the first two expenses, is still about half again as much as my BIL pays for a mortgage and taxes on a 3-bedroom rancher outside of Raliegh).
We're kind of the poor kids in the 'hood

I might just be over sensitive, but, eh, I think I read it properly.
The tone and then immediately looking away after saying the faint praise.
Our girls have been in the same Daisy troop since the beginning of this academic year, and most of them have been pretty cold with me, especially after I "distinguished" myself as someone who likes video games, doesn't complain ceaselessly about my husband, and would "cut someone for a Samoa" (that last one in particular raised eyebrows, especially since I said it right after another Mom explained that she "doesn't even like Girl Scout cookies - if she's going to waste all those calories, it's going to be on something good and homemade" followed by nods of agreement).

I was grousing about it with a friend in an on-line group of athiest and free-thinker Mom friends I have, and one of them (who also lives in the DC/Metro region) said, "Yeah, this area's full of type-A alpha b----es. You've just got to let it roll off your back and remember that they probably wouldn't survive a zombie apocalypse "

Meh, though.
My husband brought up a good point: "Maybe you should wear your coveralls everywhere. It'll help you to weed out the people not worth talking to."
Love that man.

posted June 01, 2013 08:48 AM            

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Originally posted by mirage29:
LMAO

You, YOu, YOU, BABY TORTURERERERE!!! (and she really gave a flip, didn't she?)

Agh!-- You are a riot, mockingbird! Sooo creative~~ PLUS, YOU have a "personality" and OBVIOUSLY, she didn't! You are from a different dimension.... tuck a bit of Les_Kuie's tin-foil in the front pocket of those overalls!

Personally? I am REALLY quite impressed at these DIY tasks that you undertake! You're such an artist!! Nothing like applying that good old "coat of care" to all things in your possession. Caring for your wooden-beings, your metal-beings.... and your tiny little precious flesh-beings at the end of your hand, and on your side --- mostly, in your Heart! awww!

Take Courage, mockingbird! Life is slow, but oh so fast, at the same time!!

Laughing again!!

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We actually *could* pay someone to do most of our home improvement stuff, but I'd rather pile it into savings and investments.
Why shell out $1,000 for something that could be done with $100 worth of paint and some brushes and rollers that we already have?

posted June 01, 2013 08:57 AM            

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Originally posted by Yin:
You belong up north, mockingbird. I think.

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Why's that?
Less pretense?

posted June 01, 2013 10:01 AM            

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Originally posted by mockingbird:
Why's that?
Less pretense?

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posted June 01, 2013 10:57 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by mockingbird:

We actually *could* pay someone to do most of our home improvement stuff, but I'd rather pile it into savings and investments.
Why shell out $1,000 for something that could be done with $100 worth of paint and some brushes and rollers that we already have?

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posted June 01, 2013 12:12 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by mockingbird:

My husband brought up a good point: "Maybe you should wear your coveralls everywhere. It'll help you to weed out the people not worth talking to."
Love that man.

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posted June 01, 2013 12:16 PM            

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Originally posted by aquaguy91:
I was happier as a child, but life since then has taken its tole on me and turned me into the cynical person I am today. Are you kidding me? Its a lot easier to make friends when your a kid, atleast that was my experience. Things didn't really start going downhill for me socially until junior year of high school. Before then people were a lot nicer and less snobby. Earlier in high school I had a relatively easy time getting dates, Girls were sweet and approachable, even pretty popular ones. The guys were a lot easier to befriend too. But Jr year the whole social climate changed and I didn't like it one bit, That's a big reason I dropped out of high school as soon as i turned 18. Though there were lots of other reasons I did that.

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Aquaguy, my experience was the opposite - I didn't fit in in high school at all, and I had few trusted friends until I turned 20 and moved out on my own to the big city. I grew up in a bigoted town full of snotty people (I remember being in grade 7 and being the only friend to this one girl Sara who everyone made fun of because her parents were poor and she lived in a run-down house), if you were different in any way, they would eat you alive. Today, my best friend is one of only 2 friends I've kept from that high school and he's gay and lives in the city with me and we both love our lives now.

posted June 01, 2013 10:30 PM            

And Samoas are one of the more popular brands of GS cookies.

quote:

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Originally posted by mockingbird:
"Maybe you should wear your coveralls everywhere. It'll help you to weed out the people not worth talking to."

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I certainly would.

Btw, I can share some GS stories of my own, though I don't know if I would (it's long and complicated and involve a lot of details about other people), but suffice to say since they don't like you they'll probably end up getting their girls to not like your daughter either by GS Juniors.

posted June 02, 2013 07:23 AM            

And, while I don't know your story, I, too, quit scouts as a Junior after the leader's daughter (whether influenced from above or not, I don't know) decided she didn't like me and began excluding me from all informal activities (being the only person locked out of her room after a meeting made it my last meeting - before that I only had an inkling that the troop disliked me, but that sealed it).

posted June 02, 2013 04:29 PM            

But, be mindful of your "time"... Need to reserve quiet non-structured personal BLANK time, for your mind to reboot, and for your vitality to pool instead of drain.

When you open that next opportunity into the 'world of possibilities', please make sure that other people will 'share' and be as 'equally-committed' as you would be. Be aware that some look friendly, but want only to 'draft' off your hard efforts. Once you'd take your hands off the project, it poofs?

(clip) The Little red Hen [1:57] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0f9c0lpxZQ