The Elephant

This may be one of those entries people have no idea how to respond to and that's fine - I think I'm writing it more to hear myself talk. Please feel free to respond but don't feel obligated because Cate's losing her marbles again. Really, I'm not losing my marbles. I'm just trying to figure out what to do with them.

You know that saying about everyone ignoring the elephant in the room? Even though the elephant is completely obvious and there's no way you could possibly ignore it?

I have my own personal elephant that tags along behind me and it's hard for me to be comfortable enough to share with many people. I think a lot of people realize there is an elephant of some sort but they have no idea what it is. Just that there's something.

As an adult, I've only shared the details of my elephant with a handful of people. A few others have gotten just the most basic of information. All of them internet "folks" that I'm quite close to (well, minus one who had a kid and dropped off the face of the earth when I wasn't all excited about the *wiggle wiggle poo report*). And, really, that's fine. It's my elephant. I can share or not.

But I just realized recently, someone I thought I had shared with long ago, apparently I did not. And now it feels kind of awkward to me. This isn't just "oh, hey, did I ever tell you about the time I was in the high school cafeteria and milk shot out my nose?". It's more like "oh, hey, know how you always listen to me rant and rave about the gazillion issues I have? I have an elephant that explains about 99% of those and I kinda forgot to mention it."

Part of me wants to get it off my chest. Part of me really isn't up to talking about it in the amount of detail it would take to explain. A huge part of me is thankful for those few friends I've told because if I'm having a bad day, all I have to do is utter two words and they know exactly what's on my mind. No further explanation needed.

So what do you do about your personal semi-invisible elephant in this situation?

P.S. My elephant would be pretty pissed to be referred to as an elephant. But then, wouldn't we all?

Etiquette

Dear Miss Manners,

Please help me determine which is the bigger breach of etiquette.

A) Family member throwing a baby shower for her second baby in 18 months.
B) Family member hosting an "open house/house warming" in her home that she did not purchase, does not pay rent on, and has lived in for 5 years.
C) Either of above events so people can bring "baby gifts or house gifts or whatever else they want to give her".
D) Non-family member glad she told me about the event I had heard nothing about so now I can rush some gifts for the occasion.

Signed,
Sister "with money" who is told nothing but should send random gifts every week just in case there's a gift-giving non-event

P.S. If one felt inspired, what would be the proper gift in this situation?

Hurry up and wait

Being a bit extremely anxiety-prone, "hurry up and wait" isn't one of my favorite activities.

Airports, for example, make me batty. I'm obnoxious about arriving early, then we hurry through security just to wait forever to board, then we rush to our seats and wait for take-off.

But at least that's a "hurry up and wait" process I understand. What I don't understand is the complete lack of process at my work lately.

• Hurry up, let's put this on the website NOW!
• Oh, wait, we're going to hope that councilman doesn't win re-election so we can ignore the request.
• He was re-elected last night, it needs to be on the website yesterday!
• Hang on, let's tie it up in committee for a month.

This particular project changed status four times yesterday. At the end of the day, we were in stall mode but I decided to work on some of it last night anyways. And guess what? This morning the boss says we're back in go mode.

So, I go. At least until this afternoon. When I'm certain we'll be holding off yet again.

Aren't politics and local government grand?

I <3 my job. (Which means I totally want to punch someone in the face.)

Is nothing sacred?

Yesterday, I received the following email. "Hi Cate! Your Mother added you as a friend on Facebook. We need to confirm that you know Your Mother in order for you to be friends on Facebook."

Ugh. Really? Admit in public that this woman gave birth to me?

Friend?!?!?

And she chose a photo that looks like a mug shot for some reason. I really don't need that staring at me every time I open the site.

Fortunately, I don't really use Facebook much. I use it more to stalk keep in touch with other people than I do to post intimate details or play games or whatever. That's because I realize in a professional capacity, I don't need people seeing that "Cate called in sick because she's hungover" or "Cate thinks her boss sucks at life". Mostly I post things like "Cate is running amok" or "Cate isn't allowed to play with fire" because that's way better.

Some of you were lucky enough privy to a Twitterbarf session about my mother a couple of weeks ago. The history is long and complicated but the less she infiltrates bits of my daily life, the better. Facebook isn't somewhere she needs to be.

Seeing her smiling face may have just ended my association with Facebook for good.

Anyone on Facebook that you feel like you can't not accept as a "friend" that you'd really rather just avoid altogether? What do you do?

Beautiful Sunday Advice

I don't know about where you are, but here in my undisclosed location, the weather is fantastic today. While I have a few inside things to take care of, I'm also planning on taking the camera for a walk to the lake and spending as much time as possible doing necessary computer work from the back porch.

But a note of caution when you're out enjoying this lovely weather.

If you are trying to turn left onto a busy street with poor visibility and no stop signs, be careful what you say when a big truck pulls up on your right, making it impossible to see around him.

Because your windows are open.

And he can hear you.

Not that it makes him any less of what you muttered quietly under your breath blurted out rather loudly. Just, you know, he can hear you. And will remind you about those open windows.

Just a little hypothetical situation advice from your pal Cate.

You're welcome.