“I own you! I walked on your face!” (LOVED this piece/excerpt on the moon landing and Buzz Aldrin and everything):
Buzz Aldrin once told me that he envies writers their ability to put things into words. Yet one of his first utterances after stepping out of the lunar module, in an attempt to describe the landscape to Mission Control, was the phrase “magnificent desolation.” This is surprisingly poetic for an astronaut, and it has stayed with me ever since I noticed it in a NASA transcript years ago. Every minute of the astronauts’ time on the moon was planned, and they wore printed copies of their schedules on their wrists to keep them on track. But I have to imagine that, once in a while, Neil and Buzz looked up at the far-off mountains at the edge of the Sea of Tranquility and thought to themselves, I am on the moon. This is all happening, right now, on the surface of the moon. Buzz Aldrin said many years later, “Every step on the moon was a virginal experience. Exploring this place that had never before been seen by human eyes, upon which no foot had stepped, or hand touched—was awe-inspiring.”
bitches gotta eat gets controversial:
DO YOU GUYS NOT KNOW THAT THERE ARE PEOPLE IN WISCONSIN MAKING THEIR OWN SUSHI AT HOME RIGHT NOW. who gives a shit about gross guacamole when somewhere in america someone is putting a slice of american cheese on top of a plate of perfectly acceptable spaghetti? some misguided asshole is putting a jar of miracle whip in his grocery cart and we’re all talking about guacamole!? fuck it, i’m moving to canada.
Go see Alexis Coe at Housing Works tonight!
I am here for the Channing Tatum as Gene Kelly comparison. Also, Laura Ortberg Turner, who I love so much, on the Christian case for Magic Mike (Laura is holding it DOWN for Christian Toasties):
It wasn’t until after seeing the movie that I found out I wasn’t supposed to have seen it, and I definitely wasn’t supposed to have enjoyed it. Christian bloggers across the country were up in arms–and not the muscular kind–about Christian women enjoying Magic Mike. Comparisons to 50 Shades of Grey were plentiful, as were questions about whether Christian women would be okay with their husbands raving about seeing a female version of the movie. One blog post asked whether the movie should really be called Tragic Mike for all the ways it causes women to stumble into sin. Others compared it to watching porn and lamented the way their Christian girlfriends were going deeper down the rabbit hole of lust. One blogger said that “it honestly is doing damage to women’s sex drives” and implored her readers not to see it.
Carolita on becoming an upstater IN CARTOON FORM. Also, I learned a lot from this thing about being a cartoonist!
oh my god i cannot with calling other people’s reasonable choices selfish anymore, i just do not care. me, I enjoy kids at weddings and have a massive noisy family with whom I am very happily enmeshed, but don’t be a total hosebeast, no one says you have to go!
Mallory gets here on Thursday FOR TWO FREAKING WEEKS and thebestjasmine gets here on Friday to spend the weekend with us and I am so excited I am practically vibrating.
Tyler Coates pointed me towards this video of Sutton Foster rehearsing “Anything Goes” and I am AGAPE:
I don’t know if I’ve ever silently laughed so hard at work reading that bitches gotta eat post. PURE MAGIC!
She is a goddamn genius.
That post tipped me over the edge to finally buy her book. Wanted to for MONTHS, now’s the time, this is just sheer mastery. MASTERY, I SAY!
GOD that Sutton Foster video makes me miss Bunheads SO DAMN MUCH. I will forever mourn the second season we will never see.
Also, feel free to compare and contrast her performance with the Jonathan Groff spin-off <a href=”http://(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQv_hZwyz5Q)” target=”_blank”>(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQv_hZwyz5Q). Please don’t feel the need to use full sentences or a minimum of capslock in your response.
P.S. Guacamole is gross and cilantro is The Worst. bitches gotta eat got it 100000% right on this one.
How can we, as a community, support you as a person with a cilantro disability? I mean, I already tell people that it is silly that BOTH of Chipotle’s rices have cilantro in them, but I feel like there’s more I can be doing.
😉
Just don’t put cilantro where you wouldn’t expect to normally find it. I can approach a salsa or a bowl of pho and brace myself for the soap onslaught. But don’t serve me some pot roast or pasta and then be surprised when I’m miffed there’s cilantro in it. CILANTRO DOES NOT BELONG IN EVERYTHING, SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.
I’ve gotten used to the Chipotle rice at this point, but ffs San Diego seems to think cilantro is a magic garnish that makes everything taste better. IT DOES NOT. Also, if it can be added by the eater, then please do serve it on the side. The genetically cilantro compromised community will thank you.
as a cilantro lover, I heartily second “put it on the side.” Too much is no fun and if the food warms it up it loses its cool crispiness!
I mean, I do think that cilantro belongs in all of MY food. But Her Highness, Julia Child (may she rest in peace) was also a person with a cilantro disability, and so I make a special effort to put it on the goddamn side when cooking for people whose cilantro-status I don’t know, or make two versions, etc etc.
As a member of the cilantro impaired community, I thank you for this!
It’s only common courtesy to be cilantro-cautious when cooking for people you don’t know. It’s not other people’s fault they don’t have the spectacular genetic mutation that makes me a cilantro-eating superhero…or whatever it is, I can’t science.
Remind us to ask the waiter if there’s cilantro when we’re out eating. I never ORDER anything with cilantro intentionally, but there are so many times when I’m out at like…a burger place called “charlie’s english burgers” and I order some super detailed burger that’s listed the fat ratio of the meat, the gluten percent of the bun and the location of the onion slices, and somehow the one thing they forgot to mention that they just created a pesto of cilantro to smear on everything. It’s helpful to have the friend be like, “oh hey you didn’t ask about cilantro” right as the waiter appears.
I’ve definitely both watched the Sutton Foster video and the Jonathan Groff spin-off when I’m feeling down and need a little pick me up. They’re both amazing.
ETA: I just watched both and my morning is now off to a much better start. Works every time!
Aaaaaaaahahahaha his colour commentary! And the “Sutton, Eat Your Heart Out!” that scrolls by on the screen!
Sutton forever.
What I think is fascinating about her is how gawky her stage presence is… I don’t know if this comes off kindly in text, but she’s sort of this coordinated, super singing dancing threat but in a completely unselfconscious and unstudied way that I think is so fascinating. It’s like her whole style is 11 years old and unaware, and without affect….and its the opposite of the clear amount of labor and polish and general striving every other actress out there has if they’re her level.
Oh man, guys, The Dissolve is shutting down. Apparently there’s no money in thoughtful, intelligent writing about film. It’s such a bummer. I love that site. http://thedissolve.com/news/6187-the-end/
That makes me quite sad. I really liked The Dissolve.
I’m DEVASTATED by this. It was by far the best film site I’ve read, and I visited every day 🙁 🙁 🙁
It was, along with The Toast and the unofficial Achewood facebook group, one of the only places on the internet where I feel comfortable enough to comment. I’m Chance Hale here because I wanted a film-nerdy reference for a name when I started commenting on The Dissolve.
I never jumped in the comments there for some reason, and now I’m sorry I did. There are so few sites where the comment section actually adds to the website instead of just making you despair for humanity!
Ahhh, that must be why Nathan Rabin is back writing his My Year Of Flops column at The AV Club.
Where am I going to go to get my Genevieve Koski fix?
I am a fan of most of the writers on there, but goddamn Koski is the best.
Team Tasha over here but yeah, Koski’s fantastic. I need to pay more attention to the writers’ social media now so I know where everybody ends up.
I am very bummed I did not know about this website until today.
If you ever get a chance to hear any astronaut speak, take it; they are fascinating individuals. Mary Cleave recently did a public session in the DC area, and she is a small calm BAMF of the very first water. Also, you can see footage for many of the past shuttle missions (here’s one), with the astronauts talking about what they were doing.
Must concur wholeheartedly, Jim Lovell spoke at my sister’s college graduation and he was outstanding.
Oooh, that selfish article has me riled up. Guess what? YOU decided to have kids, with everything that entails. And having kids means making sacrifices – like either missing a wedding or never watching a movie rated above G before it hits Redbox.
I can’t even address the hypocrisy of calling someone selfish for not making YOUR life easier.
Does this woman complaining about spending $100 to attend a wedding not know what weddings cost? My impression is that people getting married often feel an obligation to invite more people to their wedding than they actually want there so they’re not leaving anyone out and everyone they’re not super close to that declines is just helping them save money. So stop complaining and stay home and save your $100 and their <whatever the cost of a plate is> and everyone’s happy.
Exactly this! And if you’re going to THAT many weddings, I doubt they’re all extremely close friends. You’re allowed to decline and everyone is happy!
Yeah, I raised an eyebrow at that, too. If you can’t afford a babysitter, you can’t afford a babysitter, but the cost of an extra plate at a wedding is the most expensive babysitter of all. And aren’t you spending close to $100 on a gift anyways? If you’re going to get in a snit about it, just skimp on the present and get the sitter. And then reevaluate why you think your presence was requested in the first place.
I would 100000000x prefer someone to skip getting us a gift if it meant they could pay a babysitter and come to the wedding.
yes 10000000x! the reason I’m having a wedding, as opposed to a quick city hall thing, is so I can have a party with a bunch of friends and family I don’t get to see nearly enough. Are there people out there who are just in it for the gifts and the pretty dresses? Sure, and if you read a lot of advice columns you’ll probably think that’s like 90% of folks getting married. Is your friend one of them? Probably not!
I have to ask, cause I’ve seen this kind of wedding stuff pop up a few times: Is just inviting people to the ‘Afters’ (after dinner portion of the evening) not a thing in the US?
Its incredibly common in Ireland, and I think pretty common in the UK. I know of people being invited to the Church and the Afters, but not the Dinner even (which seems a bit cruel to me, if you invite someone to a whole day event, you have to feed them. What else are they going to do during those 6 hours? go to the pub probably, or lamely wait around in the hotel bar?)
I think it is to do with the cost of a wedding dinner, its stupid expensive, and often churches are small too, so you might not get everyone in to the ceremony. It tends to be close friends and family for the ceremony/dinner, and then in the late afternoon/early evening everyone else turns up, like other friends and work friends and significant others who you don’t know so well and so on, and then the excessive drinking starts
American weddings generally just have the ceremony and reception and for the most part, it is considered rude to invite someone to the ceremony but not the reception. A couple may choose to have a small ceremony (family/close friends only) and then a larger reception.
Do you not have the disco part where there’s an awful DJ with an Abba boxset, everyone drinks huge amounts, the dress usually gets destroyed, all the boys put their ties around their heads and pretend to be Rambo? Its the best bit of the wedding! Its the only reason people sit through a boring 4 hour mass, wait around for 4 hours while pictures are take, and have a stuffy formal dinner that no one really likes where you listen to 10 very boring speeches before its socially acceptable to get hammered.
The really great weddings, apart from having an open bar, usually roll out some drunk food about 10pm too.
That is typically part of the dinner ’round these parts!
American here – I think some couples do a form of the “after” thing, like going to a bar once the reception clears out, but it’s not super common.
HOWEVER, I was at a wedding a few years ago that did the “10 pm drunk food” thing and it was the best! The reception was still going at that point and the food and cake were long gone… and suddenly pizza appeared. What a great idea.
Oh man, totally stealing the drunk food idea for my hypothetical wedding!
We did this! We brought out chips and salsa and cheese/caramel popcorn mix but pizza would have been good too. As it was, the popcorn was a huge hit and my cousin’s husband went behind the bar and stole three Costco-sized bags to take home. My mom was not Best Pleased (she really likes that popcorn…)
SUPER awesome.
My museum hosted a wedding reception a few years back that was scheduled until 1am and the groomsmen had a ton of McDonald’s burgers delivered. (I came to work the next week and had a voicemail on the phone “uhm, I was told to deliver to the museum and I’m just calling because that seems weird??”)
Also there’s a Grilled Cheese Foodtruck in town that regularly gets booked to provide drunk food at weddings. You’ll see on their facebook page “Friday 11pm – private wedding”; “Saturday 3pm – private wedding” and I’m always envious. (Their apple-onion-bacon grilled cheese is divine!)
I insisted on nachos for our drunk food. 100% best life.
We are planning on doing exactly this. SURPRISE PIZZA FOR EVERYONE.
My brother and his wife had a buffet at their reception, rather than plated meals, and they included fried chicken and the various things that go with fried chicken. It was excellent, and reduced the amount of planning they had to do.
That’s the reception. Dinner is part of the reception (if there is dinner, some people schedule it so that they can do hors d’eurves or brunch or something).
Ceremony sometime around 1:00 or 2:00 PM, then you take some pictures (there is often a cocktail hour for the guests who aren’t in photos), then there are toasts, dinner, cake, dancing. Assuming of course that you do all of those parts (I have friends who are planning weddings with no dancing, which saddens me). It’s all part of one party, so you can’t invite people to one and not the other. I have been to (family) weddings where we went to the ceremony but not the reception, and sometimes people do have a very small ceremony and then a bigger reception, or if it is a church wedding, you might be invited to the ceremony but not the reception, but generally there is not a separation between the dinner and the party. (Some people may do after parties or next-day brunches though)
Depending on the venue, a lot of the weddings I have been to have ended sometime in the evening, they don’t go till all hours. Which, considering that the bride at least has probably been up all day getting ready, makes sense.
Same int he UK and Ireland, but it’s reasonably common to invite people for the after-dinner part. (I’m English, my partner’s Irish, so I’ve been to lots of weddings both sides of the sea!)
Of course,not depends how far your guests are travelling. We did once go to an afters that involved going away for the whole weekend, but that was because it was nice place to go for the weekend and the party on Saturday evening was a bonus.
Drunk food is a condition of the licence for most UK venues: they can’t serve alcohol beyond a certain time unless they’re serving food too. Our venue had a pretty expensive evening food buffet, and since the ceremony was at 5pm it was served about half an hour after wed finished the main meal so I was a bit hmmmm (especially since we didn’t really have any afters guests, because none of our friends lived locally.).
Best drunk food ever: chip van at Marley Park in Dublin, 2006. Sooooo good.
Part of the reason it’s considered rude is the perception that if you invite someone to the ceremony and not the reception, you’re being cheap and fishing for wedding gifts while refusing to provide that guest with the expensive meal and… the opportunity to drunkenly dance with your relatives? idk, I’m not a big fan of wedding receptions, I barely wanted to be at my own.
I have never been to a wedding where that was even a thing. In my experience, it is almost exclusively ceremony then reception, and that’s it.
But what time does the wedding end then? Here any good wedding doesn’t end until at least 2am, and there’s always a few stragglers in the residents bar of the hotel.
This is actually blowing my mind a bit, and makes a lot of tv shows make more sense (Like why weddings are often so late in the day, here there at 2pm at the latest)
Do you not have the bit after the dinner where everyone is ushered out of the room (usually to the hotel bar or smoking area) while the tables are removed and the band/dancefloor set up? That’s usually the start of the ‘afters’
In my experience the venue is booked from, say, 5-11, so you can’t stay there all night. Then the tired folks go home and the energetic folks go to a bar or hotel room to keep going.
Ah I see! That makes sense. Most weddings here are in the hotel that most wedding people are staying in, and everyone else (who intends to party) stay in local b&bs, or the wedding is close enough that everyone can taxi home. Also you tend to book the hotel function room for most of the day, if the wedding is between 11am-2 then the dinner is about 4 or 5 and the party starts about 7 until the hotel staff get sick of it and send you all to the residents bar (The special bar for hotel guests that will stay open as long as you want).
So yeah, weddings tend to get wild, and its very common to invite not-so-close friends/acquaintances to just the party bit
In the U.S. you typically have to rent the reception hall by the hour or for a set number of hours (4-6, generally). Most recently, I went to a wedding that was 2:30-3:15 ceremony at a church, 4-5 pm cocktail hour at the function hall, 5-9 pm dinner and dancing at the same function hall.
I think some people went out afterwards, or had an after-party of sorts in their own hotel rooms, but it was sort of DIY–not specified by the bride/groom or on any kind of formal invite.
This has been my experience, too. I’ve gone to a lot of weddings with ceremony and reception, and then gone out with a bunch of guests to bars/clubs after the reception.
At my own wedding many folks were well and truly wasted by 11 pm, not including me and Mr B as we were too nervous to eat or drink much of anything. And then he spirited me away to a top-secret location for our own (ahem) 2-person party.
In my very limited experience, the weddings I’ve been to have mostly had dinner tables set up around the dance floor, so it’s a pretty fluid transition from the eating to the dancing part of the reception. At the most recent wedding I went to, the ceremony was held in a barn, then snacks post-ceremony were in the barn. We were then all herded to tents on the lawn for dinner and speeches while the catering staff cleared out the chairs in the barn, and post-dinner, we all returned to the barn for the dancing.
In my experience, the dance floor is already set up, with the tables situated around it or in the other half of the room. You can mingle on the floor during the cocktail hour (while you are waiting for the wedding party to finish their photos and get to the reception venue) and then it’s just an empty space in the room during dinner, and then the guests stay at their tables during the first dance and father/daughter dance (and any other special dances) and then the floor opens up. But you can stay at your dinner table all night if you are not a dancer.
My one friend had a very small wedding, only a few friends & relatives, in Vegas. We all rode a bus out to a spot in the desert, did the ceremony really quick, then rode back to the hotel and had a huge dinner in a swanky restaurant. The bride has spinal problems, so she & the groom retired early along with older relatives. The remaining men took the groom’s little brother out to a douchey cigar bar for scotch because it was also the brother’s 21st birthday week. Meanwhile, the other three remaining ladies and I (who had never met before) joined forces and did a bar crawl into the wee hours of the night.
I don’t think it is a standard thing, but it’s definitely a thing for folks whose important people are all geographically spread out – you might have a small wedding ceremony with close friends/family, then go to a bar with your East Coast friends and later host a picnic with your Midwest extended family or similar. I’ve been to a number of “wedding already happened, this is a party only” things but they tend not to be on the same day as the ceremony.
Also, for many of us who don’t belong to a church, it’s often practical to just do the whole thing – ceremony, meal, drinks/dancing – in one location.
This has been a most informative Link Roundup, thank you Toast for informing me on our vast cultural differences.
For those curious about British weddings, I refer you to the infallible Gavin & Stacey wedding episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UygZKSSj3F0
And for an Irish Wedding, imagine a gypsy wedding (aka a riot) and turn it down a *tad*
And I suppose the point I was trying to make with the whole ‘Afters’ business, is that i always see people moaning about the cost of inviting people to your wedding, and I just wanted to point out that it is culturally acceptable here to not pay for *everyone* to have dinner, you can just invite them to the after dinner dancing part of the wedding
Despite being a Brit, I find that Gavin & Stacey episode very educational, as I have very little experience of going to weddings in real life. (Last year I went to four, however, the first since I was a toddler, so I suspect I will soon be an expert. One had the afters-style setup that you describe – it was in a function room at a pub, there was a sit-down meal and speeches, and then we all had to clear out for the staff to get the tables out of the way before the party began, and lots of guests arrived then. Another was in a marquee in the countryside with the dancefloor already set up and no obvious late arrivals, so I have no idea what’s normal. Thank you for your explanations!)
I am a Canadian and the thought of inviting someone to a wedding and then not feeding them almost gives me an attack of the vapours.
Someone please fetch me my maple-sugar smelling salts!
Ugh, I know, me too! I think the problem for a lot of people (it was for us) is that it’s not so much a question of, we hate kids, leave yours home! It’s that, we have space and money for 100 people, and if everyone we invite brings their kids, that takes away space for people who have been really meaningful in our lives, but we can’t invite because we’re inviting your kids. Also, I am all about the dancing at weddings, and I have definitely been to weddings where the kids on the dance floor kept adults from dancing. Like, if there are three-year-olds lying down on the dance floor, and I step on them, then I’m the bad guy, so it’s probably better not to dance.
I get the feeling the writer would imagine the 3 yr old flailing is ‘cute’ and ‘adds to the wedding experience.’
KIDS MAKE THE PARTY DUH.
I hated that article.
“And is it just me or do kids sometimes make the party?”
IT’S JUST YOU
“Kids sometimes make the party. This is not one of those times.”
Um…
The kids totally made the party at our wedding. It’s not just her. Well, helped make the party, at least.
I hate the article, too, but she’s not the only one who sometimes likes being around kids at weddings and other events. I kind of feel a need to protest that kids can actually be fun and interesting people and I don’t really mind stepping around them, within reason.
That said, it was our wedding to invite kids to and our reception venue was relaxed enough to make it work. I would never begrudge someone else not inviting my kid. I am one hundred percent on board with not thinking of other people’s reasonable choices as selfish. I was recently in a situation where the bride very much WANTED me to bring my son to her (out of state) wedding and I couldn’t for budgetary reasons and was honestly so glad and relieved when I thought about it that I hadn’t brought him. He would’ve been miserable, I would’ve been miserable, I do want to take him to visit sometime but this was absolutely not his trip.
Yes, agreed. Anyone who doesn’t want to have children at their wedding deserves to be able to do that without being called selfish, but it was incredibly important to us to have our friends’ kids at our (same sex) ceremony.
Plus, massive cultural differences. For some people weddings are about celebrating with your twelve closest friends, for other people it’s all about the clan. Neither is universal!
My husband and I didn’t have kids when we got married, but to us the the 3 year olds on the dance floor were cute, and did add to the experience. I love kids and prefer weddings with children. At our reception the kids were cleared out by 10pm and the wedding went on until 1am so there was still lots of time for grown up fun too.
That being said, the article is obnoxious as hell and it’s certainly not selfish to not want kids at your wedding, or to choose not to invite children because of money or space reasons.
I just got married and was kind of on the fence about kids, and my mom INSISTED that it be no kids and I really think it was a great decision. I would have been much less likely to dance the night away if there were a bunch of random kids on the dance floor and everyone was going on and on about how adorable it was. Yes, there were people that couldn’t come and I feel bad that those people couldn’t make it, but I think it was better that way. And yes, I was annoyed when some people complained about it being kid-free. I guess it would have been different if I was really close to the kids, or if the kids all knew each other… maybe. But I didn’t want to worry about entertaining the kids and making sure they didn’t get in the way, it was enough to deal with the drunken adults.
I love your mom.
I am vaguely starting to plan my wedding (sort of, vaguely, I’m bad at planning) and I know a few people in our very large families have a kid or two and in theory, I don’t really care if they bring them. BUT. Then I remember that my fiancé’s stepsister has nine kids (or possibly ten? I can’t remember if the count of nine includes the one I think she’s currently pregnant with) all under the age of ten. (Or if they’re not all under ten, the oldest can’t be more than maaaaybe eleven or twelve. I think.)
And when you’re both coming from two fairly large-but-tightknit extended families and don’t have a ton of money to work with, throwing a full nine extra kids whose names you don’t even know* into the mix suddenly seems kind of overwhelming.
* Fiance’s dad married stepmom when both he and the stepsister were older and no longer living at home, so they’ve never been super close. I know the names of the oldest two, but that’s ’cause they’re kind of . . . hard to forget after hearing once.
Not having children at our wedding isn’t even (just) a financial thing. I ACTIVELY DO NOT WANT CHILDREN AT MY WEDDING. Kids are great at home or at events like backyard barbeques. However, I do not think it’s cute or funny or adorable or a sign of the circle of life when the bride and groom have to shout their vows over some petulant child’s whining. Nor do I want them zooming around the reception venue knocking into people and wasting (expensive, catered) food.
People are WELCOME to decide that staying home with their kids on the night of my wedding, just like they do every night of their goddamn lives, is more important than witnessing one of the most cherished days of my life. That’s fine. I honestly really only want you there if you WANT to be there.
(I do understand that it is a financial hardship for plenty of people and I absolutely do not begrudge them that. But YOU chose to spawn, not me.)
ETA: I realize this sounds very bitter and angry which is weird because I’m not actually angry about any of this. But that OP was so cavalier about the importance of someone’s wedding, like “I know YOU think it’s special, but…meh!” I would be really upset if my friends took that attitude. ESPECIALLY as I hauled ass and emptied my bank account to go to all their shindigs BECAUSE IT WAS IMPORTANT FOR ME TO SHARE A MEANINGFUL DAY WITH THEM.
I imagine this overlaps with people who bring infants or small children to fine dining establishments that are not equipped to help them, and with environments that are very easily disrupted for everyone.
Like, are you having fun? I don’t get it! At a restaurant, are you having fun soothing a tired baby or shushing your child over and over while trying to enjoy an amuse-bouche or listen to a sommelier? I would feel bad for you if I wasn’t so annoyed about my own experience.
Well, I think it really depends. As a parent I don’t think parents ought to ruin other people’s good time, but kids are *people*. Would you really say to someone ‘Are you having fun having dinner with your partner while he complains loudly about his bad day at work? Are you enjoying asking him politely to keep his voice down so he doesn’t ruin everyone else’s good time while he rants about his boss? Why do you take him out to dinner? Leave him at home!’
I do not go places with my kids so they can provide me with a Fun Experience; I go places with my kids because they are human beings who are learning to live in the world, and part of that can be having a great day until we get to the restaurant and then suddenly being in a bad mood and as a family we figure out how to get through it. Of course we try to be thoughtful to other people; I would not keep a screaming baby in a restaurant. But would I spend a meal helping my daughter figure out how to enjoy herself, and do my best to be patient, and maybe lose my patience and hiss at her and feel bad? Yes, of course, that is being a family.
Well, you’re definitely right it depends. If my dinner companion was being loud and belligerent, or mean or abusive towards the server, or other disruptive behaviour, I would be embarrassed and if it got bad enough, say, “We’re leaving.” And I’d never go out to a restaurant with them again, but that’s because they’re adults who should know better and if they haven’t learned it by now, well.
The farthest I’ve ever gone on asking someone to “defer” to me is to stop talking or checking their phone during a movie at the theatre. Once, a woman brought her infant child to a Harry Potter movie and he/she kept crying and stopping and crying again, so I got the manager. The baby wasn’t crying when the manager got there, so I and my companion just left the movie and got a refund. Unfortunately, it’s not as easy when you’ve got a meal going on. In some cases, we might just cut it short. I certainly don’t think we’ve ever left a meal so far because of a baby.
I don’t remember how my parents acclimatized us to restaurants. We were never a fine dining family, and all the Chinese restaurants we were to were already pretty loud (both adults and kids). But we don’t even eat out that much anymore, so I don’t see “restauranting” as an integral part of childhood.
That’s very cool about learning, and being familial. There are lots of restaurants where that works better and restaurants where it doesn’t work so well. There are restaurants I myself like avoiding for many reasons, and even for different occasions — crowded tables, always too loud for conversation, etc.
I do sympathize with parents, because kids are kids, and appreciate when they know just to take a kid outside for a bit. It’s a very fluid situation.
I think this is a great point. Being a parent shouldn’t mean your life is over. But it sounds like you have a healthy sense of what is/is not a good thing to bring your kids to, and yeah, you have to teach kids how to function in the world.
Over the weekend I was at a Tourist Thing with a planetarium, and I was seated next to a mother and her two children. She spent the time trying to prepare her youngest, who was maybe 4ish, about how she would need to be quiet, how it was going to get dark, etc etc etc. I firmly expected that the small child would try very very hard to be good, and would be okay in the beginning, but would eventually lose patience/interest and Be Done. But about 30 seconds into it, the wee one was talking incessantly and loudly, wriggling enough that I was getting kicked pretty regularly, and was just generally losing her shit…….. and they stayed for nearly 10 minutes. Seriously? I mean, good attempt, but your child is NOT going to think, 9 minutes in, that oh, wait, no, this is REALLY INTERESTING and it’s OKAY that it’s really dark and stop kicking people.
But, I mean, said tourist attraction really ought to have that sort of thing built in— like, were I running the show, very early in the show I would bring the lights down as dark as it was going to get, let the littlest kids freak, and then bring the lights back up so that the appropriate parents could easily get those upset kids out, and then keep going.
THIS! YOU may think your children are little angels, but chances are they’re not. And unless the bride is as petty as the writer, she’ll understand budgetary restraints keep you from attending.
A friend asked that people not bring their kids to the ceremony and provided a babysitter so no one had to worry about the kids for that 1 hour period.
Two sets of parents brought their 3 year olds to the ceremony anyway. Both cried. Neither were taken out of earshot. I was so angry at them I nearly threw something.
I think your examples depend a bit on the parents? I have definitely known parents who would be very quick to remove a noisy child from a wedding ceremony, or to deal with a child running into people at the reception. Of course, there would still be a small amount of noise/running before that, and it’s not likely that every parent invited to a given wedding will be in this category, and there’s nothing wrong with people deciding they just don’t want to deal with kids at their wedding.
Given that the article writer thinks the important parts of other people’s weddings are booze and food, I doubt she’s one of the parents who would consider her kids’ effect on other people.
I went to a wedding not long ago where there were several very small children who were extremely loud (it was hard to hear the vows) and kept getting up and wandering around. (It was a very short registry office ceremony; they hadn’t been sitting and getting bored for ages.) One decided to go and lie under a Christmas tree in the corner of the room and looked like he was going to pull it down on himself. The parents were not really doing much. It definitely made me think that not having children there would be the way to go.
We drew the line at children under 10, primarily because there are very few small children in our family/friends circle right now, and the only one is my cousin’s 5 year old who is a spoiled hellbeast because my cousin doesn’t believe in saying no or disciplining him, ever. Besides, there are enough people in her family who aren’t going that one of them could easily watch the kid for an afternoon. But mainly we just don’t want this one child there, so said no kids under 10 because it’s an easy line to draw.
And then another couple of friends of ours had a baby, who will be about 10 months old at the wedding, and I already told them they can bring him because he’s very wee, I trust them to handle it well if he starts to fuss, and they also don’t have any family in the area, so if they couldn’t bring him, they probably couldn’t come.
And just like … do you think you’re the only one who pays to attend a wedding? I don’t own a car, so I need to arrange my own transportation if a wedding is taking place somewhere outside the city proper. This gets especially tricky and costly if I’m drinking (taxi instead of rental!).
If a friend was thoughtful enough to help me carpool with other guests, I would find that very cool and be grateful, but I don’t expect it.
I remember the only wedding I went to as a kid- that is, I have the memory of hanging out on a balcony all night, refusing to dance with anyone b/c they were all strangers, and eating 6 cookies since the buffet had pasta with sauce and I would only eat buttered pasta. Kids don’t get much out of weddings unless they know the bride or groom pretty well.
My 3-year-old niece and nephew were at my wedding – we didn’t ask them to be flower girl or ring-bearer because (a) we didn’t have those and (b) they were too young anyway. They were very well-behaved, under strict control of their parents during the ceremony and with a babysitter during the reception after dinner.
During the early part of the reception, every now and then I’d feel I was being watched while I chatted with guests. I’d turn around, and there was a 3-year-old girl, solemnly staring at me in awe like I was royalty or a Disney princess of something. It was the cutest.
I used to really like weddings as a kid, but I was feral and probably ruining it for everyone. Sorry, people of my past!
My whole feeling reading that article was like, “Why are you friends with so many people you clearly don’t even like that much?”
I can see it being an issue if you’ve got the wedding of a really close family member and it’s far away, where you don’t have a babysitter on-hand. That might be tough to work around. Otherwise, it’s like any other financial burden brought on by someone else’s wedding – it’s either worth it to you to pay to go, or it’s not.
Hear, hear!
“I can see it being an issue if you’ve got the wedding of a really close family member and it’s far away, where you don’t have a babysitter on-hand. That might be tough to work around.”
Yup. This is precisely why a child-free wedding would not fly in my family. We live quite far apart. I have no experience with babysitters where I live and wouldn’t be in a good position to recommend someone for my brother and SIL’s kids. It’s a moot point, in that I enjoy their kids tremendously. But if I didn’t enjoy them, or just didn’t want them at the ceremony, I’d be sacrificing having my brother and SIL there, and that’s not a sacrifice I’d be willing to make.
Yeah, it kind of seems like the problem is that the writer kind of just…hates weddings, not that she can’t bring her kids to them.
Man now I’m all riled up just at the use of the word “selfish” wrt weddings like it’s a BAD thing. Of course they are selfish! That is kind of the point, YOU are hosting a celebration of YOURSELF and YOUR BELOVED and you get to do it in YOUR religious (or not) tradition and choose a location YOU like and invite YOUR people and ask for gifts! It’s “your special day!” Every decision is going to make things more easy/enjoyable/whatever for some people and harder for others, so, like, having a kid-free wedding is selfish? Sure, so’s having a kid-ful wedding because you want to enjoy the company of your little cousins, but now folks have to watch their language and their steps on the dance floor. It is just…not a new or noteworthy observation that Important Party planning is full of tradeoffs, even tradeoffs that come down to “do we do X, or do we see Friend who can’t do X?”
Honestly, having a fancy wedding at all is “selfish”. You aren’t more married because you dressed up fancy and had lots of friends watching. If we’re determined to do nothing self-centered for weddings, nobody should have anything other than the couple, an officiant, and the legally/religiously-required number of witnesses. No lavish clothing, no presents, no cake that costs 5x as much as it needs to.
But hey, everybody loves to have a fancy ceremony and invite the people they love, which is COMPLETELY OKAY.
Yes! Thank you!
I have lots and lots of feelings about how, especially in American culture, we focus on the bride and tell her that this is supposed to be the most important day of her life and she should feel like a princess and it needs to go exactly according to her vision BUT ALSO you must be a good host and tie yourself in knots trying to please everyone and not leave a single person off the guest list and if you don’t have a full dinner and top-shelf open bar you are a monster. FFS, we tell women the day has to be all about them and then call them “bridezilla” when they actually make it all about them.
I wound up having a really great wedding that was really special for my husband and I and luckily most of my guests enjoyed themselves at, but you couldn’t pay me to go through that whole process again.
I think it’s the accusatory choice of the word “selfish” that really set a nasty tone in that article (and in the comments over there – oy vey!) There seems to be a lot of contempt on both sides of the argument that bums me out.
I invited kids to my wedding – most parents took the opportunity to have a kid-free date night, but there were a few kids that did come, and they were perfectly well behaved and watched over by their parents. No big deal! It’s also not a big deal if you don’t want kids at your wedding – some people really really don’t. HOWEVER, my husband and I got invited to an out-of-town wedding for his cousin this summer (wayyyy out of town) and my daughter wasn’t invited. SO, we’re not going, because what am I going to do? Either leave her behind for the weekend, or drive her 3 states over only to leave her with a stranger I find off some babysitting website? And the bride, and her mother, are unhappy that we’re not coming. It’s fine if you don’t want kids at your wedding, but you have to accept the fact that out-of-town parents with small kids are probably not going to make it in that case, and not lay on a guilt trip about “familyyyyyy!” when only a portion of our family got invited in the first place. Ugh, weddings. Always so rife with drama.
I did think that during the article – maybe the writer has gotten flack for not attending, in which case, it’s just bad form all around. You can make whatever decisions, exclusions, or inclusions you want for your wedding, but you have to understand and be gracious when people decide they can’t attend because of money/travel/family etc.
Exactly! And maybe that guilt-trip behavior is what set the author off, but there’s a more diplomatic way to say “hey, if you don’t invite my kids to your wedding, don’t get mad if I can’t make it”….. but I suppose that doesn’t grab as many page views as the clickbait “you’re selfish!” screed.
Seriously! All parties involved should understand that it’s an invitation, not a damn command performance.
Yeah – you can’t set limits like “no kids” and then get mad when people can’t make it. This is a two-way street, people.
Yes exactly, and I think framing it (as some people I know have done) as ‘If you really loved me you would come anyway’ it ridiculous. It is not a contest!
My daughter had a fever of 103 on the night of my sister-in-law’s wedding, so of course I stayed home with her. Our partner’s crazy family gave us flack about this, which was ridiculous, I am still kind of angry about it years later. 🙂
I would love to know if this constantly-pregnant woman had kids at her wedding.
As an aside, I’m totally one of those “kids make the party!” people who doesn’t find crying babies that offensive, but my betrothed is not, and we are probably going to get married in a bar and kids can’t come to those anyway.
Laura Ortberg Turner, you are my hero. Also, it’s about time Christians starting acknowledging that women enjoy sexytimes too, instead of pretending that men are the only ones who do so.
Song of Solomon ain’t just a dude talking. It’s a girl talking too.
And how! *fans self*
Oh man I always thought I was so naughty when I would pass the time during a boring sermon by reading Song of Solomon. I’m sure I thought I was being sneaky, trying to cover the “scandalous” parts with my bulletin or another book or whatever. I’m sure I was not actually sneaky. But that stuff always got little sexually-repressed me going.
One of my Old Testament classes involved a group project on SOS, and when a woman was reading aloud the description of the female character’s body, one of my classmates behind me said aloud, “yes, Father God, thank you Father God.” It was so funny.
Oh, my family would read the Bible out loud around the breakfast table and we used to do PARTS for eg Job and Song of Songs (my sister and I were the “friends”) and it was SO EMBARRASSING (and this from a mother who was “trying to raise ladies”) but also maybe good for us in the long run?
I didn’t quite get this part:
And it is not even close to the same thing as men watching a movie about female strippers, because there is not a single female stripper in either movie, and if you don’t understand the difference then I suggest you go read a book about sexuality, or about anything, really.
Is she saying: male strippers are different from female strippers, and if you don’t understand that difference you should get educated? (And if so, what difference is she referring to?) Or something else?
I think she is referring more to the difference between the male gaze on a female stripper vs. the female gaze on male strippers, from a contextual/historical/sociological standpoint.
Let’s start the Laura Ortberg Turner fan club. I think she’s so great.
Christian Toastie here, who loved MMXXL and is happy to start and be president of the L.O.T. fan club.
Reminds me of the time in youth group they split us up and the boys learned about the evils of porn, while we girls got a lesson about how to help boys avoid the evils of porn (and other various temptations, like girls wearing shorts). No acknowledgement that we might have some sexual desire of our own.
yuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup
Kids at weddings! I feel like I’m not entitled to have an opinion on it, because I do not have kids and I’m not planning on having a wedding any time soon, but hey I have an opinion anyways. Also, I Thee Dread posted an opinion piece on this the other day and I spent a good hour reading the comments aloud to my roommate and boyfriend. Here are the points we agreed on:
a) If you are the host of the wedding, you get to decide who comes. Full stop. Yes, that includes deciding which children, not just yes/no children.
b) I went to a handful of weddings as a kid, as did roommate. We agreed that 90% of them were terrible–they were 600 hours long, you were expected to play with other people’s nightmare spawn, and the food was sad and soggy. Only good ones were the ones for close family where we already knew most of the people attending. Authors of these pieces insisting your precious bundle get an invite: have you tried asking your child if they even want to come, before you make a massive stink about how selfish your friends are being?
It sounded to me like the writer was less interested in what her children wanted, and more interested in saving on babysitter fees.
I only remember having fun at weddings as a kid, but now that you mention it I think I only went to the weddings of my uncles. I don’t know if this was because they were the only weddings we were invited to or if they were the only weddings my parents chose to take us to. I’m guessing the latter, because I don’t think people were putting “adults only” on wedding invitations in the 80s/early 90s.
Ditto, especially on point b). I have never wanted to attend a wedding in my life, and of course all the ones I did have to attend were when I was a child and did not yet have the skills to pretend I wanted to be there just to make my relatives happy. It was a bad experience for all of us; I would have been much happier sitting in the hotel room with a book.
This whole topic reminds me of a message board thread I once saw. Person was complaining that she didn’t get a plus one for friends wedding, and she wanted to bring BF, but friend was being stingy and only givin +1s to married people or some shite. The whole thing descended into madness, and was hilarious; but there were a lot of brides/previous brides bitching about having to give plus ones to everyone, and how husbands/long term SO’s were fine, but then other people would bring guests for the sake of it; and then there was the awkward question of what if someone had broken up and is it ok to send plus ones to some people but not others etc. SO much stuff I never even thought was a problem!
My general attitude (having never planned a wedding) was that its highly unlikely that you just send out stock invite to everyone without talking to them first; so how hard is it to send them an email or call them (which you’re probs doing anyway in order to see if they can come, and what’s their postal address for the actual invite) and say something like:
‘Hey, I’m getting married! Its on X date in X place, can you make it? How is Mr/Mrs SoandSo(or kids)? Would they like to also come?’ (and then put that person on the invite too!)
Or
‘Are you seeing anyone? Would you like to bring them/will I send you a plus one?’
Unless you have very high-drama/easily offended friends, I doubt anyone would have a serious objection to being asked the question, right? (Although the politics of wedding invites mystifies me, especially in relation to family! and I say this having been not invited to two weddings of uni friends, that everyone else I know is going to, that are on this year)
Plus ones are a whoooole ‘nother can of worms, but I’d say my point stands: the host gets to decide who comes. It’s certainly a nice thing to ask if your friend wants a plus one, but if you can’t afford to invite everyone you want times two, well, some people are going to have to deal with not getting a plus one.
I imagine it partially depends on how big the wedding is, and your relationships with the people coming. In a very small wedding, you should be able to do exactly what you’re suggesting. A very big wedding, and it’s already massive, just give people plus ones and move on. But there’s somewhere in the middle, where your mother insists you invite her really really close college friend who was very nice to you when you were a small child and there was that once when you were an infant and a giant wave nearly took you out to sea and she grabbed you and saved you from drowning and your mother will never forgive you if you do not invite her because she SAVED YOUR LIFE (probably), but your mother hasn’t actually seen her in a couple years, and who knows if she’s seeing someone since her husband died, and you really ought to give her a plus one because she won’t really know anyone there, and it’s not like you can call her and ask her about it because you don’t really know her…………
*cough*
….. There’s a reason I’m not getting married. And if I do have something like a wedding, my family isn’t invited. And if I cave and invite one or two of them, that’s IT, none of their people.
All these discussions? Making me very happy we just went to City Hall on a monday morning with just the two witnesses and one random friend who was still hanging around from the drinking the night before.
Courthouse wedding FTW! We didn’t even bring our own witnesses–grabbed a couple of random people who worked at the courthouse because we didn’t have much of a social circle in the place we lived at that time.
(I just took the civil service exam for a job at said courthouse, and I really hope I get it in part so I can be a witness at the occasional elopement.)
You just articulated all of my fears about my future wedding invite list.
Yeah obviously it’s the host’s choice but I will say I have been the only friend from high school or the only friend from work invited to a wedding and in those cases it’s nice to have a +1 so you don’t have to spend 6 hours making small talk with drunk uncles you’ve never met before and will never see again.
I am not even getting a +1 to my sister’s wedding! Luckily my gentleman caller 1) lives 300 miles away so it’d be a bit of a major operation for him to come anyway and 2) is a grownup and sensible about budgetary limits and has not gone off in a huff.
oh god, going to weddings as a kid, the worst until you learn the Chicken Dance (and none of the weddings I’ve been to in the last 2 years have played it, is it going out of style? nooooo) and then that’s only five minutes of entertainment. Having to be in the wedding, oh dang, I have never seen a flower girl or ring bearer look happy with their job. And the last wedding I went to, there was one kid between cute-lil-kid and teenager age, and he had no one to talk to and was obviously just counting down til someone sobered up enough to drive him home.
as someone planning a wedding? well…I start thinking about how much extra work providing some kid-entertainment and kid-food and kid-friendly space is going to be, like all that planning time we gotta put in for, what, three kids who might show up?
OH MY GOD YES to your second point. So many people invite young children to grown-up functions but have nothing for them to eat besides a $50 plate of steak salad and nothing for them to do beyond “play amongst yourselves, darlings!” If you’re gonna have kids there, you can’t treat them all like 16-year-olds.
Oh god, I was raised Catholic which meant all the weddings I ever went to were 2-hour Mass-a-thons and then you still have to go to regular Mass the next Sunday. As a fidgety ADHD kid, church was easily my least favorite thing in the world, and extra church was my biggest nightmare.
I agree with A except if you invite some children and not others on a case-by-case basis, wooo are you opening up a can of worms for yourself. Not saying you don’t have the right (it’s your wedding), but people are going to be very unhappy. I actually got an invited to an adults-only party that I turned down because the logistics/babysitting didn’t work for us. (No hard feelings, just couldn’t pull it off.) The host took us aside and said oh, our kid was okay, she didn’t mean our kid, she just didn’t want Mutual Friend’s kid there. No way in hell am I showing up to a party with my kid in tow and making it obvious that Mutual Friend’s kid has been singled out. That’s just terrible hosting.
My partner’s brother and brother-in-law had a mainly child-free wedding, but made some exceptions because of distance – partner’s other brother lives in Australia with his wife and children, so the children were invited because they couldn’t exactly be left at home, and there was nobody to babysit them in the UK. Ditto one of their friends who lives in Canada and had a very young baby. But I think it would be hard for anyone to take offence at that, as the distances involved meant it was obvious why an exception was being made.
Yeah, I think you can do it if there’s a clear reason, like “no kids under 10” or a situation like that with travel. But if you just think Cousin Mabel’s son is a brat, you’re asking for trouble.
This was definitely my reaction to that suggestion. I can’t think of a way to invite some kids and not others without it getting real messy real fast.
WHICH kids is actually really important. When my brother in law got married, he and my (now) sis-in-law had to decide who from his ENORMOUS, stupid-large family to invite. The end result was that no one below first-cousins were invited. So, some kids (mostly older ones) but that was it. This still resulted in a 250 person wedding/reception. They also had to make exceptions on the plus 1 thing, because of limited space and the associated cost. It’s all a factor! If your kids weren’t invited, get over it – you.aren’t.paying.for.the.wedding.
Yeah re: part A, I’m starting to get nervous that people will be angry if my nieces and nephews (who I love and am close with) are invited to my eventual wedding and my friends’ or cousins’ kids (who I also love! but am not close with) are not.
They probably will be annoyed. So either let them be annoyed, that’s their own issue to deal with as grownups, or, if you’d rather, make up some totally arbitrary scheme. For example: Everyone older than 15 gets treated as an adult and only gets invited if you’re actually someone I directly care about or a plus one, everyone younger than 15 is only invited if they are directly involved in the wedding—- and then find some sort of role for the under 15s you want there. Ring bearer, flower girls, person who walks grandma down the aisle, person in charge of the flower girl after the ceremony, person in charge of handing out disposable cameras, I mean, at some point, just make up dumb stuff….. But that way everyone saves face.
If you care about that sort of thing. Not caring is perfectly acceptable as well.
Such a good point on being expected to play with other kids! I remember this being one of the worst parts of childhood … adults pushing you together because you were the same age (or both girls!) but pretty much otherwise had nothing in common. Yo, adults, we were people too.
Doubly awful was getting shoved together with a cousin my age who delighted in tormenting me while the adults all ignored it, because wasn’t it so great that I was getting to spend time with my out-of-town cousin. Hooray family! 😛
When I was planning my wedding (solo planning, I might add, because my immediate family was/is helplessly useless and my partner had zero interest in the petty details like venue, guest list, etc.) I briefly entertained the “no kids” policy but since the practical and political logistics seemed insurmountable, I just said “fuck it” because (a) the ceremony was brief (b) the dinner/dancing was a catered backyard affair with plenty of woodsy space for the preschoolers to get lost in, so outta sight outta mind, amirite? and (c) fuck it, I’m probably getting hammered so parents watch your spawn.
In the end, everything turned out fine but the best part was the uninvited preschool-aged neighbourhood kid down the block crashing our “cutting the cake” wedding photo. She wanted in on that photo op SO BAD that I just said “fuck it” and when people look at that picture and ask “aw, is that your little girl?” I say “No, I barely know who that is, it’s just some rando kid from the block”.
Long story short: a woman with ADD, anxiety issues and a cavalier “fuck it” attitude towards planning and children shouldn’t organize weddings. Period.
I don’t know, sounds like it was a raging success actually.
Funnily enough, it was! We got loads of compliments along the lines of “this was the most fun, zaniest wedding we’ve ever attended!”. My poor (late) mother; she tried to make it a classy affair and for the most part it was: gorgeous food, big white tent, pricey DJ, on-site photographer, the works. But when small kids and large dogs are thrown into the mix (did I mention Mother and I were/are HUGE animal nuts and having an outdoor backyard wedding without the Golden Retriever and German Shepherd in attendance was out of the question?) all propriety is thrown out the window.
OOH…another best part: when getting our “family formal” pics done, no-one was willing to pick up the dog poop that was lying conspicuously in front of the camera, so I kicked some leaves over it and the photographer went on snapping. So now, when we look back on those photos, and I see the leaf pile sitting defiantly and proudly alongside the nattily dressed, I can’t help myself and burst out laughing at the absurdity of it all.
Sent from my iPad
So I’ve mostly only been to Mormon weddings which tend to go: morning ceremony with small group, luncheon with family (and maybe the small group? often even a smaller group than the ceremony) and then a drop-in reception with a buffet and sometimes dancing. They tend to be really simple and less expensive (ceremony venue is free, and often the reception is held at the church to save $) Kids usually aren’t a big deal at receptions because you can come and go when you want, it’s mostly a chance for people to say hi and congratulate the couple. There are never kids at the ceremony (unless there is a separate ring ceremony after the Temple ceremony) Gifts are usually less than $100 (often less than $50), since most of the congregation is usually invited, and to many weddings every year and would go broke if they spent that kind of money on a gift for everyone.
My ideal wedding, should I ever get married, would be a morning ceremony with my mom and sibs and a couple of cousins/aunts/uncles (no one would throw a fit about not getting invited) followed by a luncheon with same group and then a reception with pie and punch from 2-4pm (so no one expects a meal) in my mom’s backyard. I don’t care if there are kids, I don’t care if people bring unexpected boyfriends, and I don’t care if they bring gifts, just come celebrate and eat pie.
I would rather put a down payment on a house than pay for a large wedding.
I watched that Sutton Foster video last night, which led me down a deep Youtube hole of musical performances from the Tony Awards, and it was glorious.
Also, I am DYING at that article where Channing Tatum talks about Roxane, DYING
Please please help me find this article. I am not at my best lately and obviously must have missed something somewhere. A link I am begging you.
Here! http://www.dailylife.com.au/dl-people/interviews/…
I am SO HAPPY, this is amazing, does this mean Channing is going to start writing for The Butter?
Also “I want to be a feminist but I haven’t studied enough yet, so I’m pro-feminist” is one of the BEST ANSWERS A CIS MALE CAN GIVE when asked if he’s a feminist.
He is JUST LOVELY.
I really appreciate that everything I read about him makes me like him more, rather than less. Tater, you’re a quality dude.
THANK YOU, that is amazing. I hope they DO get to talk and maybe we can coordinate Toasties and Butteries attending one of the Vegas shows.
Also, the more I read about this movie, the more I want to hear from the screenwriter and casting director since I think they had a lot to do with why it’s so awesome.
OH MY GOD
I really have no opinions on the man myself (other than ‘aw, he seems sweet,’) but I am SO EXCITED FOR ROXANE.
Roxane must be lying back on her sex couch, fanning herself.
Second-favorite part of that piece: “But I cook a mean breakfast, I’m nasty on the grill, and I mainly just like the healthy foods. I can’t cook what my wife loves though, ’cause I don’t really do a lot of vegetables.”
Tell me your secrets, ChayTay! What are these healthy foods that don’t involve vegetables???
“I’m nasty on the grill” is the single Channing-Tatum-est thing Channing Tatum could say.
He’s got to just be talking about chicken breasts, right? Lots and lots of grilled chicken breasts?
Unsolicited Opinions!
1. The selfish thing is trying to control the guest list at SOMEONE ELSE’S INCREDIBLY EXPENSIVE PARTY.
2. This spring we took our toddler to a wedding he had been explicitly invited to and it was THE WORST. Flying to another state and living in a strange place messed up his sleep and my normally impeccably behaved baby brought shame to the family by yelling through the ceremony. He’s been invited to another wedding this fall, and guess what? I AM UNINVITING HIM.
I appreciate your clear-eyed thinking and sensible decision-making on this matter on behalf of everyone at that second wedding. Clearly, if having the kid there only makes the kid AND everyone else kind of miserable, having him stay home seems like a worthwhile plan for everybody!
My aunt took me to see Anything Goes when Sutton Foster was in it. It was my first time seeing a show in New York and I almost cried I loved it so much. She is magnetic and wonderful and it’s a tragedy Bunheads is no longer on the air.
As always, Samantha Irby speaks the God(ess)’s honest truth. Guacamole is disgusting and I honestly think peas might actually improve it (in that I like peas and I do not like guacamole).
I love Sam and I love guacamole. If that’s wrong, I don’t wanna be right.
I appreciate Laura Turner’s post about MMXXL. Christians spend so much time wringing hands and being anxious about really stupid shit when we could all be, I dunno, using our energy to HELP THE POOR and also BEING LESS ANXIOUS IN GENERAL. Her pragmatism in the post is something a lot of pastors do embrace, just not the loud public ones, sadly.
OMG I just realised that MMXXL is a Roman numeral. In Latin numbers, it’s 2050. Is it a prophecy?? Who knowwwwsss
I think MML would be 2050. MMXXL would be…a weird way of writing 2030?
Well 2030 is even better! I just put the number into a converter and it spit out 2050, but yeah now that I double-check the math it indeed seems like a weird way to write 2030. So, what’s going to happen in 2030? Based on what I hear about the movie, I’ll assume that it’s the year when oppression of women’s sexuality finally leaves Earth.
That sounds very promising!
YES.
My priest spends zero time wringing her hands about sexytimes in movies, and most of her sermons challenging us to love one another and ourselves and go out into the world and help others. It’s fantastic.
(We are Episcopalians, though, so some hand-wringing Christians might not even see us as legit.)
Episcopalians! You’re our cousin! (Methodist here).
I think that a lot of Christians in this country think “love thy neighbor” means “be up in your neighbor’s business and telling them they are bad”. But loving your neighbor is so haaaaaaard, Jesus, can’t I just say gay marriage is a sign of the impending rapture instead?
Christian women, be ye wary!
of the sin in celluloid
if a film will make you merry
it is one you should avoid
any mention of the privates
any vision of the abs
yields ecclesiastic crises
is a handle Satan grabs
to drag you into further sinning
like the films of Maya Deren
then you’ll know the devil’s winning
you will be no Rose of Sharon
So in the future God suggests
that you stick to moral movies
where there is no sign of chests
and motionless remain the booties
Perhaps Bill Cosby’s family flicks-
suitable for every taste
they are free of gender conflicts
and your mind will remain chaste
daaaaaaang
Oh man. Your poems are normally pretty great, but this one just takes the cake. Mic dropped.
🙂
< /Orson Welles furiously applauding .gif>
My only story about “adults only” weddings: A friend’s sister and her husband were flying to Australia for a friend’s wedding with their 3 year old daughter. Then the friend told them that it would be an adults only wedding and they were pissed that after coming all the way to Australia they’d have to pay the extra money for a babysitter and entrust their child to a stranger for a night. But then the friend realized that that wasn’t a good situation for them and made the daughter her flower girl and everyone behaved like adults and was happier for it in the end.
That is a happy ending and I am happy for everyone in it. But I really am curious why the “adults only” conversation didn’t go down before the travel arrangements were made. Then the parents could have dropped the baby off with a doting grandparent (if available) and had a fabulous childfree vacation, or they could have stayed home and used all their Australia money for something necessary or luxurious. A far happier ending!
There is a really fun documentary about cartoonists on Netflix called Stripped. Anyway, Bill Watterson says words in it (you don’t get to see his face cause no one sees his face, like God and Moses or something) but also: Kate Beaton, Roz Chast, Dan Piraro and a million other people who are cool.
I backed the kickstarter for that documentary. I got a link to the finished documentary when I was at work, watched it at work, and had to fight tears as soon as Bill Watterson started talking.
At night, I sneak into your homes and put peas in your guac.
Because of you, I now have the phrase “peas in your guac” running through my head to the tune of Nicki Minaj’s “Beez in the Trap” so thanks for that.
bitches ain’t shit with their american cheese
the quality of their cooking has no guarantees
there’s peas in your guac, p-peas in your guac
there’s peas in your guac, p-peas in your guac
Excellent!
Ditto on the astronauts being (generally) awesome sentiment. One teaches in the astrophysics department at the university where I work and I wonder if his students are constantly distracted in class by the idea that the professor has been to space.
I missed last week’s OT and am going to miss the next two weeks as well, due to travel. I miss y’all already.
The MP for my old neighbourhood in Montreal is a former astronaut. Even after becoming rather disenchanted with the Liberal Party, I was torn on election days because who wouldn’t want to vote for an astronaut. The man has been in space, I’m sure he can handle Parliament.
We miss you too!
“A delightful Labrador puppy of a movie”. Yeah, pretty much.
Also, Sutton Foster. O.M.G. That tap break. Those shoes. The way she makes it look as easy as strolling down the street. And God Bless whoever it was who put Joel Grey (that was him, right) and Sutton Foster in a Cole Porter show together.
I think the cutest boy in the Anything Goes video is the tall blond one but I’m open to hearing arguments for any of the other boys, go!
SPEAKING OF SPACE, Toasts, please take 30 seconds out of your day and take a look at this amazing video of cats in zero gravity.
Oh, but the poor cats are probably really freaked out.
They did not appear to be happy. I think stuck-in-a-glider cat had a better time than those two poor things.
I cannot believe those cats did not pee all over everything in zero-G. Or spray. They were really, really nice about this imposition, is what I’m saying.
So has anyone else seen the video where Buzz Aldrin punches a conspiracy theorist in the face? It’s beautiful. That man is the best.
YESSSSSS. So satisfying.
I <3 that man.
Can I hold it down for Jewish Toasties? Here’s my take – The Talmud forbids “tempting images” from men only, lest they have seminal emissions. The rabbis of that period don’t expressly address/acknowledge/believe in the existence of females being tempted in that way, so they didn’t forbid it. Same for lesbianism, y’all (except vaguely addressed as “the practices of Egyptian women”). So in conclusion, we will take this loophole and run with it all the way. Magic Mike is as kosher as fucking Tevye.*
*Through a hole in a sheet.
**Lol no that’s not really a thing.
Did you see the Upright Citizen’s Brigade sketch about the hole in the sheet?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRNlxBuB9jM
Magic!
Yes! I love it!!
Wedding Kids: Kids were welcome at our ceremony. The reception was adults only. This was said flat out on the wedding website, which was put on the invitation, and I still had my aunt and uncle show up with their kids and get mad at the ceremony when they were reminded (by a bridesmaid in tandem with my mother, not me, thank goodness) that their kids (ages 15 and 12) couldn’t come to the reception. Maybe I should have scrambled to find somewhere to put them, but MEH. I hadn’t planned for them and they weren’t invited. I don’t think this is selfish. (My mom offered to set them up at our house with pizza and movies, but they just drove back home instead).
That being said, we did end up with two babies (under the age of one) at the reception, but they were no trouble.
I can understand not wanting to have young children at a wedding (they get bored and disruptive), but why did you not want pre-teen/teenagers there? I get that they can’t drink, but unless they’d be the only one there, surely they can still enjoy the party in some way?
Honestly, it came down to money. I have an ENORMOUS family, and if we started inviting preteens and teenagers, it would add thirty or forty more people (seriously). We couldn’t afford it, and we didn’t want to play Pick Our Favourite Cousins.
Yeah, one of my cousins got married when I was probably 14, and no one under 18 was invited. I was the only one on my side of the family who was eliminated by said rule, but that took out at least 20 cousins on the other side of the family and they didn’t want to get into making exceptions territory. And that’s totally reasonable! Like I was sad I couldn’t go to the wedding, but I totally understood why even as a sullen teenager.
I totally get that, and I suppose when it comes to cost you have to draw the line somewhere! What I can’t really do is people saying ‘it adults only’ just because they don’t want to deal with young children, but then also excluding people who are under 18, but are capable of behaving in an appropriate way (I had to deal with this a few times at events when I was 13-15, single mother family meant I was just brought everywhere, and occasionally you’d get people going ‘This is an adult space’ or what ever bullshit, it usually meant that they wanted to get hammered and act like ejits, but didn’t want to do it in front of judging ‘children-eyes’ )
I think that a huge part of “I don’t want children at my party” is actually “I don’t want my guests to be in role model mode or parent mode at my party”
I have no regrets about inviting kids to our wedding. We did a very kid friendly lunch and then an evening party. Most kids were not at the evening party, but my eight year old cousin was the last one off the dance floor at 1 am.
It all depends on the family and the couple though!!
I haven’t had time to read the link roundup yet, but I wanted to share something I found on the expy TV Tropes page that is making me giggle:
“Jamie Fraser, the hero of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander novels, has been acknowledged by Gabaldon herself as being based on Doctor Who companion Jamie McCrimmon, who was played by the actor Frazer Hines.”
I had a roommate who got food poisoning MORE THAN ONCE trying to make his own sushi in the Midwest. You would think it was common sense that the fish at Hy-Vee is not super fresh but maybe it needs to be spelled out– no, it is not.
Oh nooooo. I was kind of petulant-foot-stampy at that line because I’ve made PERFECTLY GOOD midwestern sushi and…I had not even thought folks were actually just making it with raw supermarket fish. Imitation crab stix and cucumber rolls, guys!
Ahhh! I hope they were buying sushi-grade? Right? RIGHT?
I mean, if they had, I think it would have turned out better?
Children hate weddings. Children. Hate. Weddings. I am not inviting my one and only blood nephew to my wedding because he’s ten and would be bored out of his skull with what we’ve got planned and couldn’t participate in 99% of it anyway, and I don’t want my mom to skip my wedding to babysit (SHE ACTUALLY SUGGESTED THIS), and it isn’t like he’s got a passel of kids he could hang out with here because he lives 1200 miles away, AND who the fuck do I know that can babysit a hyperactive ten-year-old who wants to do exactly nothing except play baseball at a ridiculously high level? NO ONE, THAT’S WHO.
I may have feelings about this.
Also hello, my ducks, I have had a job interview.
How did your interview go?
It was really good. More of a getting-to-know-you session than an interview-interview. My friend who works in the same office said they’re far more concerned with team fit than with hard skills, so the vibe I got of feeling out personalities makes a lot of sense. Should find out about second interview next week but rumor has it I’m still high on the list.
please god get me out of here
That’s great! Fingers crossed for you.
And boy, do I know the “get me out of here” feeling… Tomorrow morning I have a 3-hour meeting to discuss my department’s “strategic plan” for the next 3 fiscal years, starting in April 2016. My contract ends in March 2016, so I’m just
That’s just cruel.
Children vary. I did not hate weddings (which I attended a lot of, because my parents were frequently co-officiating).
But you know your nephew better than I do!
I’m surprised at all the children hate weddings comments on here! I loved weddings as a kid. That’s a big part of the reason I had kids at mine. I guess it depends on the wedding though… my parents only brought us to family weddings where we’d know other kids. I do the same with my daughter, if it’s a family wedding and she’s invited we bring her (and remove her from the ceremony if she can’t be quiet…) and if it’s a friend’s wedding we get a babysitter even if she’s invited.
Yay for the job interview 🙂
I liked weddings as a kid and recent family weddings I’ve been to have had kids who seem to be having fun! But I am from a very big family so wedding = play with all your cousins who are your age and eat as much cake & ice cream and drink as much soda as you want, plus you can stay up late. Totally depends on the family, the wedding and the individual kid involved.
I had a mixed experience at the one wedding I attended as a child. At 8 years of age, I was flattered to be the flower girl for my Aunt Natalie’s wedding. I had no idea who ‘Aunt Natalie’ was, but no matter – I got to get my hair done at a salon and wear a poofy satin princess dress.
I sailed down that church aisle, tossing rose petals like a queen distributing gold to the peasants. I was the Flower Girl. In my prepubescent mind, I was a big deal.
As for the rest of the day, I was bored out of my skull. But I DO remember being mildly scandalized by the garter toss.
EDIT: Missed the interview part, congrats! 😀
“Tragic Mike” is the title of my autobiography.
Mine is: “Terror at 5′ 11″ : the Library Mole Story”
ROXANE + CHANNING IS CANON
I love that Lord & Miller are doing the Han Solo movie. If nothing else it should be the funniest Star Wars movie ever.
I thought I would be able to have the child-free wedding I wanted, because our guests were (1) my friends, in their early/mid-20s, no kids or intentions to have any and (2) my parents’ friends whose children are all adults. But of course, the one couple on the guest list with a toddler ended up bringing him along. Even though one of the toddler’s grandmothers lived with them at the time and could easily have spent the afternoon at home with her.
Also speaking of space, I am reading “Dragonfly: NASA and the Crisis Aboard Mir” and holy shit you guys, I am shocked that ANYONE lived through it. Death trap space station! Personality conflicts! No psychological screening! Russians hiding important data from Americans and vice versa! Cosmonauts hiding data from ground control because they were working on a bonus system and didn’t want to lose money! Astronauts going into the Mir program because they weren’t good enough for NASA missions! A shadowy despot in NASA who was the final say on all flight assignments!
It is fascinating and utterly terrifying. And that’s not even getting into the fires, coolant leaks, and crashing resupply probes.
*grudgingly adds yet another book to her already absurdly long list of holds at the public library*
I highly recommend starting with the captions on the picture inserts. Pretty much every one of them is hilariously negative. “Vasily Tsibliev: The Russian commander, hoping to rebound from his embarrassing first mission to Mir in 1993, was thoughtful and hard-working, yet somehow cursed.”
*lines up behind winterbymorning*
Oh god why would you put cosmonauts on a bonus system? That’s a terrible idea!
Literally every decision made by both NASA and Roscosmos during this project was the Worst Idea Ever.
GUYS. Anne Thériault livetweeted a terrible first date, and men are so angry, Toasties. So angry: https://storify.com/iD4RO/bad-coffee-date-in-toro…
Where are the angry men, I must see them and gloat.
Here: http://www.blogto.com/city/2015/07/bad_first_date… and here: http://www.metafilter.com/151025/Girl-has-look-of… Fun drinking game: take a shot every time someone says “BUT WHAT IF HE’S AUTISTIC?” Just make sure you’ve got poison control on speed dial.
BlogTO had to shut down the comments because of all the angry men!!
My boyfriend IS Autistic, as are some lovely friends of mine, and none of them are anywhere near this bad.
Yeah I’m not loving this “you have to put up with abuse and creepy behavior from all men all the time on the off chance that they might be Autistic” line of thinking.
It’s a pet peeve that’s especially on my mind lately because I had this truly dreadful co-worker (former co-worker rather) who did things like walking towards you and not stopping until you were either forced to back up or he’d be an inch from your face; looming around the corner of the booth we work in so that I’d see something out of the corner of my eye, turn around, and he’d be RIGHT THERE; and walk out in front of our booth in order to harrass passers-by into buying our product (which we are expressly forbidden to do, both by our company and by the mall we work in.) I went home after a day of this and went “oh my GOD you would not BELIEVE this asshole” and my mom said “have some sympathy! He could be autistic!”
Funny, that. I’m on the spectrum, and I somehow refrain from constantly invading other peoples’ personal space.
(I later found out that his dad- we’re both in our twenties, ftr- called up our boss and yelled at her for not immediately making his son the manager. This did not garner the desired outcome.)
No, the personal space thing can totally happen! Not everyone on the spectrum has this, obviously, but there really is such a thing as not being able to sense personal space. For example, it can also happen to people with damage to the amygdala (they don’t realise what “too close” is), and if I recall correctly the amygdala is sometimes different in people with autism.
I’m not desputing that he was an asshole though (he could try to measure by sight how far away he’s supposed to stand, and definitely not leave the booth to harass people).
It can happen, sure- it’s happened to me from time to time- but the difference generally is that when you point this out to a (non-asshole) autistic person, generally they’ll say “oh, sorry! I didn’t realize” and try to correct the behaviour. Garden-variety assholes, like the guy under discussion, will just keep at it. There’s also absolutely no reason to assume he was doing it because of a neurological issue rather than just being a dick, so.
Agreed.
Self-absorbed, impolite men get to be ‘possibly autistic’ or ‘socially awkward’.
Self-absorbed, impolite women get to be ‘bitches’
oh, this is hilarious. The sheer transparency of her excuse to leave!
I almost fell over laughing. Mom’s stove!
She’s in an important meeting!
Oh. My. God.
It was a beautiful thing to follow in real time the other day. Holy cats.
BEST COMMENT
“Not only have I been on that date myself, but once upon a time, in art school, there was an extremely conventionally attractive young woman in my life drawing class (she not only looked like a Barbie doll, but her hair and nails and makeup and clothing was always impeccable–she really stood out among the grungy students). Anyways, some guy was standing next to her seat as we were all drawing, telling her amazing facts about how rich and accomplished and enlightened he was, when he got to a part about his band that he was starting up. It went something like, ‘It’s hard to describe, but I’d say it’s sort of a rock-country-bluegrass-speed metal…’ going on, as though he’s going to finally hit on the genre that makes her eyes light up, ‘dance-electronic-punk,’ and I swear I was trying to contain myself, but when he got around to punk, I did that snort-fake cough thing, but it wasn’t very convincing, I guess, and the room erupted in laughter. Including the instructor, the model, and the woman being targeted.”
OMG, a date with a mansplainer who’s writing a film that’s been made a zillion times already.
*passes out Male Tears mugs and copies of the Misandrist Hymn*
Those comments. SO SALTY. I loved it.
Hmm, I feel like An Old here, but I like kids at weddings! I feel like weddings are community/family events, and kids are part of the community and/or family. Most kids aren’t THAT demonic, and I like a bit of mess and unpredictability anyway. I had an uncle who volunteered to videotape some at our wedding, and halfway through the reception, he got drunk and gave the video camera to his 6-year-old and 10-year-old, so most of the video is taken at approximately ass-level. I don’t mean to brag but: Best. Wedding. Video. Ever.
This is personal, obviously. If someone else doesn’t want kids at their wedding, I don’t care. But I liked going to weddings as a kid, and no one back then even thought of having special kid-related activities. We went, lived in our little kid-bubble, and if we got out of hand, our parents removed us from the situation until we got our acts together. I think the increasing expense of weddings has made a lot of these decisions a lot more fraught.
I’m with you! I’m totally of the mind that weddings are/should be community-building events, and therefore should include children.
But funnily enough, in practice, it looks like my own wedding may be child-free. The few friends we have with children seem to very much want to leave them at home to party, which FAIR ENOUGH. And there are no children in my extended family, and my betrothed’s family is SO ENORMOUS that we really can’t afford to invite all his aunts and uncles and cousins and their children and still have anything close to the wedding we want to have. Or, I guess, I don’t want to do that. Of course we could make cheaper choices, but inviting like 20 children I don’t know to my wedding and having a cash bar or not inviting any of our friends I guess is a choice I don’t want to make. So, full circle, I’m a bit selfish.
Eh, that doesn’t seem selfish! You don’t know them. Not knowing people well is an excellent reason not to have them at your wedding, kids or not.
I said this up thread, but I agree with you! Coming from a close family, weddings were a chance for all the cousins to get together, and have a lovely, memorable time. I’m really happy I had kids at my wedding.
That being said, it all depends on the couple and the venue and the circumstances.
I feel like bitches gotta eat and Chris Kimball would be besties considering both are adamant about THE WAY dishes must be. No experimentation, grapes do not belong in chicken salad. I would love it if they met and bonded over this topic.
omggggg *clutches heart*
I’m imagining BGTE cooking in the Cook’s Country test kitchen and explaining every step and Chris stands at her side and nods appreciatively, and then she playfully spoon-feeds him a piece of the finished dish (but also because she doesn’t want him messing up her perfect plate of food) and they have a sensible chuckle about it and the banjo (?) music plays and they cut to reviews of the best cookie sheets or whatever.
Can. this. please. be a thing please?
Magic Mike XXL is damaging women’s sex drives the way tuners damage cars.
There’s sushi in Wisconsin
Peas in guacamole
Channing Tatum’s Johnson
For Roxane Gay is Holy
Astronauts are badass
Children uninvited
Sutton Foster has sass
Toasties are delighted!
Just had to pop in to praise Bizarro. Dan Piraro is what you’d get if Gary Larson had kept doing The Far Side, and not let it get stale, and also could draw really well. It’s not all goofy-wacky stuff, either; one of my favorite of his cartoons is of a guy who’s in a job interview. The interviewer, this big Wilson Fisk type, is scowling at his resume, and behind the interviewer there’s this sort of picture window that’s looking out over a cubicle farm–you may have seen office setups like that, where the manager’s office is walled-in but it’s got that big window so he can look out over the cube farm. And, behind the interviewer’s back, on the other side of the window, are a bunch of the workers, and one of them is holding up a big sign: BEWARE.
I have never attended a Broadway show in my life, but after watching that video YES! to getting on a plane, flying to NY, dressing up, and being deliciously overcome with music, lights and feeling. ALL THE BROADWAY MUSICAL FEELINGS!
I need some sympathetic ears. eyes? people who KNOW.
A few weeks ago, a bunch of us were talking about air conditioning and cross breezes and shit on the Link Roundup and I was like “ugh, I live in Florida but my car’s a/c has been busted for EIGHTEEN MONTHS it’s annoying but I’m getting used to it, except driving in rain is scary because I can’t keep my windshield from fogging up” (I don’t know if I actually said all that, but it’s what I was telling everyone).
Around the time of that LR, my dad said “I am going to pay to fix your a/c because it is raining a lot and I’m worried” and I was like “you’re the best dad” and we thought it was just an issue with an air intake valve or MAF wire or something. Nothing HUGE because I had been mansplained to eternity by a mechanic back in Nov 2013 that my car was FINE and it was all MY FAULT that I didn’t notice the a/c slowly dying or something, and other than that, the car did seem to be okay.
Yeah, so, we went to a new mechanic early this week and I got a call on Monday and GUESS WHAT there was so much Bad happening under my hood and it ended up costing over $1000 just for the labor hours (which I don’t begrudge AT ALL) and another $500+ for parts. That’s not really THAT bad I guess? except that they basically had to redo every single thing the mechanic touched back in 2013. He’d replaced my compressor with a junk yard cast off and didn’t even bolt it in properly! There were holes in tubing and the freon had completely leaked out some time ago. There was all kinds of particulate matter build up that had to be flushed.
I mean, the guy was good at body work – I had rear-ended a fuel truck when my brakes gave out (at 5mph thankfully!) and the front of my car basically bent inward a few inches, crushing the radiator. You can’t even tell that it was like that unless you lift the hood. But I didn’t have any issues with the a/c before the accident (at least, not noticeable and NOTHING like the major issues after), so we called him up to say “hey, what happened” and for three months he kept insisting that there was nothing wrong, just my imagination, or if there was something wrong, it couldn’t possibly be related to anything he did.
HA HA HA I’m so furious with him. If I hadn’t been given the run-around mansplaining so that I just gave up on the whole issue and decided to live with it, I would have been more likely to go to another mechanic sooner before the problem got so bad and so expensive.
Anyway, it’s fixed now and the actually competent mechanics say that my car’s in pretty good shape for being 10 years old and has relatively low mileage, so it should last me a while longer. And I’m SO EXCITED to be able to use a/c again if I want to.
Car longevity wishes!
Yelp. Yelp that sucker. Be the person that makes him have to purchase a yelp account.
Also he is a jerk, a jerky jerk, and I hope he gets … appropriate non-scary justice that I could express if I weren’t so sleepy.
There was a piece published on xoJane recently that was EXACTLY this, and the comments section went absolutely bananas. Mainly because the author insisted that every guest at every wedding should be able to have an automatic plus-one whether they were seeing anyone or not, and claimed that she had ended multiple close friendships over this issue. (Uh, if this is a situation keeps happening to you, MAYBE YOU ARE THE PROBLEM.)
ETA: This was in response to selma’s comment about a message board thread dealing with inviting plus-ones to weddings.
I think that may have been the exact thing I read!!
Adults-only wedding – some people will be annoyed.
Kids at wedding – some people will be annoyed.
From years as an observer of/occasional bit player in weddings, I have determined that the number one wedding truth is:
No matter what kind of wedding you have, SOME PEOPLE WILL BE ANNOYED. So do what makes you and your SO happy!
“And is it just me or do kids sometimes make the party?”
no. never. i have never been at a party and thought the addition of children would improve the situation. anyone under legal drinking age puts me on edge, really.
But it's haaaard not to worry about the FEELS 🙁 Alas. But you are right.
(And you mean you wouldn't want to spend all day in 90-degree, 600 sq ft apartment with two women and a cat?? What is wrong with you.)
I usually just ask my family "is there anything you want to do while you're here?" and then make a plan based on whatever (often very, very small amount) of feedback I get and whatever I think they might enjoy. With my family that doesn't so much do the just hangout style of visiting, I pretty much say "this is what I thought we would do today, how does that sound?" And usually we do that thing because they are my family and I know them well enough to make plans that they will probably enjoy. And generally everyone has a good time (except people who are prone to having a bad time no matter what, but those people can't be helped, and it sounds like your girlfriend's mom is not that type of person anyhow).
My family is mostly made up of people who are pretty solid on the having opinions/ deciding things, but we also believe in home court advantage when it comes to visits- so when I visit my mom and she says "I thought we'd go to the hockey game today" I say "great" and when I suggest hitting up a local barbeque place for dinner my dad & stepmom say "sounds good" I think if you are making your plans with her likes and interests in mind, it is okay if she is not necessarily an active participant. She really will probably have a pleasant time!
Stop it, you're giving me flashbacks. 😛