Little things that cheer you up.

[allegate]

I'm sure ze Germans have a word for feeling good because someone you like and admire continues to do things that make you like and admire them.

As I mentioned I was finishing the McMillion$ podcast up yesterday. The very last episode is just a trailer for "I'll Be Gone in the Dark" and it's podcast. When it got to the part with Patton talking I teared up a little. I couldn't even say exactly why, just that knowing how much he loved/loves her and all that. It was weird.

Pretty sure ze Germans have a word for that as well.

Sorry, "Snatch" on the mind. Some phrases I just can't say in my head without the movie quote replacing it.

[elevenism]

My little eight year old niece gives me hope for the future.

She spoke up when I referred to someone as a "black dude," and asked me why I couldn't just say that the person had a different skin tone. I told her that she was right, and that I should say African american. She went on to ask me if i'd ever seen a " black person, " and when I said yes, she said, "so you're saying you've seen people the color of your shirt?"

My brother insits that they didn't teach her this, and that it was her genuine reaction to hearing the term "black" as a description of a person, and that she's been talking about it for awhile.

She was also showing me this new doll, and went out of her way to explain to me that it was okay if I wanted to play with the doll, because "some people think it's weird for boys to play with dolls, but that isn't right."

I don't have kids of my own, so I love this sort of thing.

[allegate]

[allegro]

I don't have kids of my own, so I love this sort of thing.

Thing is, many black people are saying they don't like being called "people of color" or "African American," etc.; they are "black people." But little kids take stuff really literally, like "black as your shirt." Which, of course, isn't the case. We need to take our cues from what black people want. "Black Lives Matter." They're telling us white people what they want to be called. That's what we should do, and that's what we should teach our children?

We are better off just saying "this dude I know" which doesn't refer to anything other than he's a dude, unless his color is relevant to the conversation. Which it usually isn't. Sometimes (often?), gender isn't even relative. I often type gender in my responses (relative to, say, friends of mine) and now wonder if that's even relevant. It's usually NOT.

There's a whole conversation on Twitter about whether or not addressing a group of mixed gender people as "guys" is gender-neutral, which of course IT IS NOT, and I'm glad there is a conversation about this; I love that there are lots of people providing all kinds of alternative examples, "Hi, all" or "Good Morning," or "Greetings," etc. This cheers me up. It's time to start thinking differently, consciously thinking about what we are saying.

The examples I always give:

The term "Cockpit" was canceled LONG ago and was replaced by "Flight Deck" and nobody noticed or gave a shit.

"Stewardess" was replaced by "Flight Attendant" (except by people who didn't get the memo).

Language is fluid. Some things are a hard to get used to, but we can.

[elevenism]

@allegro , I feel you. I will add, though, that in this case, race WAS important to what I was talking about.

Luckily, I don't have to teach any children SHIT, EVER, because i used condoms! !


Edit: she's doing better than I was at her age, at any rate. The first time I saw a black person, when I was little in Amarillo, I walked up, wide eyed, jaw dropped, and exclaimed "You're BLACK!" Hahahaha. Luckily the lady was cool about it

[allegro]

she's doing better than I was at her age

Which is a case against segregation. I grew up in integrated neighborhoods and schools until I was around her age.

On the other end of the perspective, my stepbrother lived in Japan for a while in the 80s and he ended up dating a woman from Japan and her family came to the Detroit area to visit. They spent nearly the entire visit taking photos of overweight people. One of the family ran up to a particularly-overweight person, happily exclaiming "you look like MONSTER!" while my stepbrother wished he was invisible. I guess only Sumo wrestlers were overweight in Japan.

Cheers me up: I had the guts, today, to highlight my own hair. Woot woot!

[elevenism]

Lemme gush about my niece and nephew a little more, because it's SO special to me, as my wife can't have kids.

Some of my first conscious memories are about watching Star Wars with my dad when I was very young, on tv or vhs or something. I didn't understand the story, but, fell n love with the sights and sounds.
I always dreamed of doing that when I had a son.

My nephew, though, who recently turned five: I showed him A New Hope last night. He kept asking me questions about what was going on, and who the good guys and bad guys were, and ultimately, passed out with his head on my shoulder. It was awesome.

Also, NOTHING makes my American Bulldog happier than seeing those kids. He's not seen them in almost 2 years, but he remembers them and loves them SO much. He's been so damn happy.

Those kids played with that dog when they were babies, crawling all over him, feeling his teeth, sticking their fingers in his ears and shit. And he loved them from the get go.

[Sarah_Munn]

Money has never been a huge motivating factor. I work, I save if I can etc etc. Last year I applied for a Payment Protection Insurance claim against a credit card company from when I was young and stupid. So yesterday after delays because of covid I got a letter. I wasn't expecting much but its £3700. A fortune to me. Amazing timing as it gives me some breathing space at a tough time and I can squirrel some away for a rainy day. Something positive in amongst the shit storm.

[eachpassingphase]

I'm not sure if I mentioned this anywhere yet, but I had a conversation with my bosses and this will be my last year working for the church. I've been in ministry for about 6-7 years and while I love it - it's definitely time to move on. The reasons are too long to list, but I'll just say that it's often really difficult being a woman in ministry no matter how forward thinking your church may be.

I've also wanted to move into a different field for a while now, and between feeling discouraged at my current job and feeling drawn to something else - the push and pull has left me feeling really bitter and worn out. So after talking it over with my husband we agreed that I would stay with the church for the rest of the year or until they filled my role, whichever came first. Then take a couple of months off to rest and get some much needed medical stuff done that I've been putting off, then begin school for mortuary science.

It's something I've wanted to do for a really long time now, and becoming a mortician seems like a good way to use some of my skills in ministry/grief counseling (and I've already spent time around the deceased from previous jobs and know it doesn't bother me). Luckily, in my state they only require a two year degree to do embalming and directing funeral homes, so I should be able to knock it out relatively quickly for not a ton of money.

I have never been so relieved as when I talked to my bosses/pastors/friends and told them my plans. That's how I knew I made the right call is when I left that zoom meeting feeling suddenly better about everything. They definitely hyped me up about the new career path and told me they thought it would be a good fit. That made me feel a lot better, I didn't realize how much the weight of wanting to leave was dragging me down until it was all out in the open. Now I feel a million times better.

So yeah, that's my little bright spot in the mess that is 2020.

[Jon]

The term "Cockpit" was canceled LONG ago and was replaced by "Flight Deck" and nobody noticed or gave a shit.

George Carlin noticed. His bit about PC'ing our language has never been more true.

[allegro]

It's something I've wanted to do for a really long time now, and becoming a mortician seems like a good way to use some of my skills in ministry/grief counseling (and I've already spent time around the deceased from previous jobs and know it doesn't bother me). Luckily, in my state they only require a two year degree to do embalming and directing funeral homes, so I should be able to knock it out relatively quickly for not a ton of money.

Good for you! If it weren’t for the mortuary science part of it, I’d like to do that. I actually worked in a funeral home for about 4 months, and the funeral directors were some of the nicest people I ever worked with. And they’re UNION! A few of them were also REALLY funny. I guess it helps to have a sense of humor.

[eachpassingphase]

Good for you! If it weren’t for the mortuary science part of it, I’d like to do that. I actually worked in a funeral home for about 4 months, and the funeral directors were some of the nicest people I ever worked with. And they’re UNION! A few of them were also REALLY funny. I guess it helps to have a sense of humor.

Totally. I'm hoping to do some job shadowing while going through classes to make connections with local funeral homes (i'll have to have so many hours of working under somebody licensed for embalming) and prepare myself for some of the worst aspects of the job. Fingers crossed it goes ok. I'd like to think I'm calm and not easily rattled/upset, but I could absolutely be proven wrong.

Covid makes it hard to prepare for school at the moment because most of my local colleges are not really in the office to answer questions or get paperwork moving. Another reason why I'm ready for this to be OVER.

[allegate]

I assume you've already read From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death by Caitlin Doughty? She's got a few books about it and I believe a podcast as well.

There's also a university in Tennessee that has a body farm on it. I heard about it when Stephen Fry visited during his Stephen Fry in America show, it's episode 2. Though that's probably further from what you're thinking about and more of an interesting aside.

[eachpassingphase]

I've watched her Youtube channel but haven't checked out her books. That's a good reminder that I need to grab some of them. And I didn't know about the podcast! I just looked it up and added it to my apple podcasts.

I'm interested in all things death-related right now. So I'll take any and all recommendations, including that episode you were talking about. Off to google that now! Thank you!!

[tony.parente]

Fuckin chili dogs.

Edit. Not like, fucking chili dogs. You know what i mean.

[Archive_Reports]

Fuckin chili dogs.

Edit. Not like, fucking chili dogs. You know what i mean.

Hey, man, this Covid stuff has us all adapting in different ways. Live your life.

[allegate]

Fuckin chili dogs.

Edit. Not like, fucking chili dogs. You know what i mean.

I was grocery shopping with my son and showed him the hot dogs with cheese in them. He said that they would probably be pretty good on chili dogs - which left me gob-smacked because how did I not see that - and so we bought some and had it for dinner. He was wrong: they were great on the chili dogs.

We also brainstormed that they would be good in mac and cheese but we haven't tried that yet. We're remodeling our kitchen so cooking is dependent on what part of the kitchen we're working on that day.

[MrLobster]

Fuckin chili dogs.

Edit. Not like, fucking chili dogs. You know what i mean.

There's a hot dog place I used to go to damn near weekly before COVID time and because of that a certain relationship with the owner has developed... he's been doing delivery of tasty hot dog goodness (sometimes a burger) once a week for me. Stuff like this. It definitely makes me happy.

[allegro]

(i'll have to have so many hours of working under somebody licensed for embalming) and prepare myself for some of the worst aspects of the job.

Yeah, we had mortuary students living in the funeral home when I worked there, they answered calls in the middle of the night from hospitals and stuff.

We had some pretty funny stuff happen with the students, like maybe not so funny for THEM, but ... This funeral home was an actual Victorian HOME with two generations of family living in it, and an additional area added on, PLUS they added a crematorium in around 2000 or something, and so they do cremations for most of the Chicago area.

My FIRST DAY on the job, this lady who worked there at the funeral home selling pre-planned funerals says "oops, that's the back door" and this doorbell goes off and she asks me to go help her. So I do, and my job was SUPPOSED to be just part-time admin stuff, like computer records, and helping to submit vital records to the county and Social Security, and putting together the little prayer cards for families, and preparing invoices and stuff, I was in the home's basement at a desk, pretty insulated from a lot of stuff, other than I DID see the "viewing" rooms a lot and this didn't bother me other than sometimes children were in there and that was pretty sad. So, the doorbell, we head back there, and it's a funeral home dropping off someone for cremation, except this someone is about 300 pounds. So the guy pulls out a gurney, and the someone is in a cardboard box and I'm like WHAT???? But it ends up this is totally the norm, they're all in cardboard boxes, that's how they go into the crematory, so this lady and I try to help this dude get the someone from his gurney and onto OUR gurney to wheel the someone out but we are OH MY GOD like we are two little women ... what a fucking crazy first day.

A big part of my job was also accepting flower deliveries and calling for stuff like bagpipers and military services for Veterans so they could do the whole Vet services like the flag stuff and 21 gun salutes and they play Taps and I set up luncheons for after the service, and putting together video memorial tributes made from the families' photos, and I helped the families with local florists. I figured out that this was all very much like wedding planning, except ... they're dead. And the flowers all smell terrible because the florists use WAY too many lilies.

So, anyway, this one intern mortuary student was supposed to put a someone into the crematory, and you do this and just shut the door tight and set the clock. But I guess she decided she had to open the door to see if she did it right. Burned off her eyebrows and a lot of her hair. That's the day management decided that students would never be doing this ever again. She's lucky it wasn't worse, but she looked like Marilyn Manson for several weeks.

My boss, the guy who ran the place, inherited the job from his parents (who lived on the top floor), he had a degree in THEATER, he figured it was apropos, then got his mortuary science degree.

Sometimes, when he'd get the place ready for the day's viewings, including the building's sound system, he'd play this:

[zero]

The organist is really a hoot. But that's a very impressive organ from 1730! And likely played by Bach himself. The facade and console exhibit remarkable beauty. Note to those with perfect pitch: A in not always 440 on older organs.

[tony.parente]

I used some of my leftover chili and made a chili cheeseburger for lunch yesterday. Fuck I love chili.

[allegate]

That sounds great, I need to do that this weekend.

[elevenism]

That sounds great, I need to do that this weekend.

Fuck a chili dog, you mean?

Edit: I couldn't help it. I'll see myself out.

[allegro]

Isn't that part of a John Cougar Mellencamp song?

No, wait, that's suckin' on chili dog.

[allegate]

I've heard condiments make sex better. Honey, whipped cream...why not chili? And why not substitute melted cheese for melted wax?

[eversonpoe]

I've heard condiments make sex better. Honey, whipped cream...why not chili? And why not substitute melted cheese for melted wax?

[allegate]

I can't even tell you how hard I laughed (am laughing) at that.

[Magnetic]

Since being promoted at my job recently, I'm working crazy hours. I splashed on an electric adjustable standing desk.
Worth every penny.

[tony.parente]

Isn't that part of a John Cougar Mellencamp song?

No, wait, that's suckin' on chili dog.

[allegro]

This made me cry ...