kukla_red | Reading

bikergeek posting in

https://www.mercurynews.com/2025/11/01/asking-eric-thomas-traumatic-socks/

Dear Eric: My husband of more than 20 years gives me slipper socks with grippy soles. I hate them!

We live in a hot climate, so I have little use for them. They filled up my sock drawer and retraumatized me every time I touched them. I threw them away and they came back.

He gave me five more pairs at Christmas. They can’t be worn with shoes or out in public. They are synthetic so I cannot even use them to polish the furniture. I kept them for animal first aid.

I cannot be cool about these socks. They remind me of the horrible time I had in the hospital having emergency surgery. My husband couldn’t even manage to hug me or talk with me before my surgery.

I’m trying very hard to be graceful and grateful for any gift from my husband, but I want to throw these at him. He knows darn well I dislike them but has given them repeatedly to me. I have to use my good fabric shears to slice them up or he will “rescue them” from the garbage.

Is there a graceful way to handle the next installment of fluffy grippy socks? I tried to no avail telling him I get my grippy socks the old-fashioned way – at the hospital, in person!

– Sock Drawer Full
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conuly posting in

agonyaunt

Dear Carolyn: When the most important person in my life died in an accident, a friend never even bothered to say how sorry she was, despite many opportunities — the wake, dinner together, etc. She grilled me on the horrid circumstances of the accident instead.

I refused to meet with her again because it upset me so much, but our families are still close, especially our sons.
I put her complete lack of empathy down to her stupidity and lack of education but really thought the base reason was that she’d never experienced such grief.

Now, five years later, her husband has died at a young age. He was a friend also, and we are attending the funeral.
Is it okay for me to treat her the same way she treated me? It would give me a sense of closure not to have to say to her, “I’m sorry for your loss.” After all, those words never left her mouth when I was living my nightmare. I wouldn’t stoop to asking about the death’s details, but I’d give my sincerest condolences only to her sons.

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conuly posting in

agonyaunt

DEAR ABBY: My 11-year-old daughter, "Emma," has a group of six to eight friends she has played with at school, in scouts, parties, etc., for more than three years. Eight months ago, one of the girls, "Charlotte," had a sleepover, and Emma was not invited. She was very hurt and cried. I told her she would not always be invited to everything and maybe there was a limit Charlotte could invite.

Since then, whenever there is an event that Emma knows Charlotte will be at, my daughter refuses to go. For eight months she has purposely skipped some parties and scouting events. Otherwise, they all seem to still hang together at school. How can I help my daughter understand she is only hurting herself? -- EMPATHETIC MOM IN OHIO

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conuly posting in

agonyaunt

Dear Annie: My daughter-in-law never forgives or forgets anything that's happened in her 13 years of marriage to my son. As a result, she punishes us by keeping us from our grandchildren, who love us dearly. Sometimes my son FaceTimes with us when she's not home, but otherwise, we can go three to four months without seeing our grandkids if we say even one word or make one expression she doesn't like.

To avoid fights, my son just goes along with it. This year, I wasn't even allowed to see my granddaughter for her birthday. I cry all the time because at my age, I may not have many years left with them.

It feels like our daughter-in-law doesn't have a heart. We may not be perfect, but why can't she understand that the kids are the ones who suffer most by the distance she creates? -- Locked-Out Grandma

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conuly posting in

agonyaunt

DEAR HARRIETTE: I think my son may be harboring some resentment toward me. We have a strained relationship, and even though I want us to be closer, the distance seems intentional on his end. If I try asking questions, he gets defensive or gives short responses only, and sometimes it turns into an argument or disagreement. On more than one occasion, he's referenced times in the past where I might've overstepped a boundary, spoken up on his behalf or been overbearing. How can I move forward with my son if he won't forgive me for the past? I wish he could realize that those things I did were just a mama bear looking out for her cub. -- Boy Mom

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marycatelli posting in

book_love

Boy Scouts Handbook - First Edition

The first edition. A hodgepodge perhaps chiefly of interest in what is included. Games. Short history and civics lessons. Discussions of wildlife and tracking. First aid. How to earn badges.

Some articles show that science has marched on from the day.

Sayings from Indians are invariably in crude English, but also invariably are to teach wise things to the boys.

I noted that in the fire section, they discussed the danger of wildfires, but didn't mention that first of all, you ensure you build your fire on bare earth. Anything burnable will carry the fire away, and roots are particularly dangerous. So, health and safety information may also be out of date.

marycatelli posting in

book_love

Something of Myself by Rudyard Kipling

An autobiographical account.

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bedsitter23

They Eat Puppies, Don't They? by Christopher Buckley

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Here’s something that makes little sense. This book came out in 2012 and I was such a huge Buckley fan that I didn’t read it.

This was probably the height of Buckley’s career and my fandom. I was devouring his books. A film based on his book “Thank You for Smoking” had been made a few years earlier. He was on The Daily Show and other media outlets and talks were that his other novels would soon be adapted to film.

You also have to know a little bit about me in 2012. I would tune in religiously to C-Span’s weekend programming “Book TV”. While it still continues today, I think this was also probably the time frame it had been the most successful. That meant I was watching as many authors and historians talk as my schedule would allow.

It was then that Buckley released “They Eat Puppies, Don’t They” and every press stop he would make, he would read a bit from his book and of course, I tuned in.

So I decided it probably made sense to take a pause so I would forget some of the spoilers. Oh boy, I didn’t mean for it to be this long.

TEPDY somewhat suffers in that Buckley skewering politics in the Obama years, doesn’t take into account how surreal politics would become. There is no way he could have anticipated the Gulf of America, the proposed banning of TikTok or the deployment of the National Guard on American cities.

Truth is not just stranger than fiction, it’s no longer in the same league. That said, the general conceit of this book (let’s find a country to start a war with) was done before and much funnier in the Michael Moore film “Canadian Bacon”.

I also don’t think it’s outrageous to say it’s not his best work. Buckley had just ripped a succession of four novels in the decade prior. This book just didn’t quite deliver as consistently and was not as laugh out loud funny.

That said, it was a fairly quick read with some decent moments and snappy dialogue. Maybe there wasn’t enough material there like he thought there was, or maybe satire is becoming obsolete in this day of outrageousness

View all my reviews

mark posting in

dw_maintenance

Good morning, afternoon, and evening!

We're doing some database and other light server maintenance this weekend (upgrading the version of MySQL we use in particular, but also probably doing some CDN work.)

I expect all of this to be pretty invisible except for some small "couple of minute" blips as we switch between machines, but there's a chance you will notice something untoward. I'll keep an eye on comments as per usual.

Ta for now!

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Ramblings and Ruminations

A no-longer single woman's guide to her universe

Reading

My husband knows I’m traumatized by grippy socks, yet he keeps giving them to me

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Harriette could be worse this time

Boy Scouts Handbook - First Edition

Something of Myself

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Database maintenance

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August 2019

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