Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Messages - Starry Diadem

Pages: [1] 2
1
Family and Children / Re: what would you do? (gifts)
« on: October 03, 2024, 01:47:39 am »
I wouldn’t go beyond birthday cards, and a family card at Christmas. The most I might do to preserve the relationship - and only after thinking through whether that was worth the effort - is send a small family Christmas gift for parents and grandchildren alike. Some mildly luxurious food item (posh chocolate or biscuits/cookies), for example.

2
Life in General / Re: WHAT is that person doing?
« on: January 28, 2024, 01:21:20 am »
A train, coming home from Oxford one evening, a very crowded carriage, and a young man going full out on removing his excess nasal hair — with tweezers and a small magnifying mirror.

Thankfully he was sitting at the other side of the aisle in the same row as me, so I could turn away and bury myself in my book to blot out the sight. If I’d been facing him (we were in the middle of the carriage where two rows face each other with a table between them), I do not think I could have been gracious enough to keep silent.

3
Life in General / Re: Making cell calls when service is sketchy
« on: May 17, 2023, 11:24:44 pm »
Quote from: TootsNYC on May 17, 2023, 04:58:38 pm
I'm not sure why one wouldn't say, "Hey, often when we're chatting,  I lose you in X area. Let's hang up when you get there, so we can skip the frustrating part of not being able to hear one another."

This. Or the caller having the initiative to say “i know reception gets spotty in x area. I’ll cut the call if (when) that happens and call you again once it’s clear.”

4
Family and Children / Re: The Santa Problem
« on: December 15, 2022, 01:06:14 am »
Quote from: Asharah on December 14, 2022, 07:10:43 pm
Quote from: random numbers on December 14, 2022, 11:20:09 am
Quote from: STiG on December 14, 2022, 10:15:12 am
Quote from: Aleko on December 12, 2022, 02:50:21 am
Quote
When my nephews were little, they made reindeer food at day care, which was a mixture of oats and other grains and some glitter.  When my Dad asked the youngest one what the glitter was for, he said that it was so the reindeer could find it.  He and his Mom spread it out on the front yard.  The next day, there were hoof prints everywhere!  But there were no late night adult shenanigans; our local wild deer popped in for a snack.

Oh God, the poor deer! I hope it didn’t kill them; it certainly can’t have done them any good. What a horrible, horrible idea.
Please, people, don’t try this at home yourselves!

The deer were fine.  The glitter passes right through their system with no issues.  And the oats and grains were good for them.
Zoos use glitter to identify which animals are eating which specific foods all the time.
I think they have edible glitter to decorate cookies & cakes

While I expect a daycare (and a zoo!) at least uses non-toxic glitter, the stuff is still made from pvc-mylar. Unlike edible glitter - which is sugar and other food related things - it isn’t biodegradable. Like all micro-plastics, it’s bad for the environment.

5
Life in General / Re: Mrs., Miss or Ms.?
« on: April 17, 2021, 05:29:32 am »
Quote from: chigger on April 16, 2021, 05:37:17 pm
Honestly, I don't see the need for honorifics, unless they are earned, like the examples you provided.  Doctor, Prof., Sargent, etc. Is this something we need anymore?  Do we really need an honorific just for being? We have our names. That's good enough for me! I don't need to be Mrs. Smith, but if I earned a medical degree, yes, I'd want to be addressed as "Doctor". The same with any rank I'd earned, Military or otherwise. I don't think any of us need to be addressed as Ms. Mrs. Mr. Miss or Mx. We have our names! I don't (and would not ) be upset if someone just called be my name! Call me Chigger, call me Smith, does it really matter?

ETA: What I mean is, it would not bother me one bit if I was not called by an honorific, although I know it would bother many others. I personally think it's probably time to give these tired things a rest.

I can only say "Amen!".  I mentioned on another thread that having been brought up in the Society of Friends where honorifics are not used, my natural default is to announce myself everywhere and sign everything as Starry Diadem, with no honorific. Those official forms that insist upon an honorific, I use Ms.


6
Life in General / Re: Covid Groceries (A Brimstone What Would You Do)
« on: January 29, 2021, 08:24:05 am »
He should reimburse the correct amount.

I'd probably not bother asking for a receipt, on the basis that if I trusted Tina enough to make the arrangement in the first place, I'd trust her not to inflate my bill. But he absolutely owes Tina the correct amount of money: no guesses, no pretending she's filled his larder as a gift.

7
Life in General / Re: "Mrs. Laura Bush," "Mrs. Michelle Obama"--a change to old etiquette
« on: January 27, 2021, 07:50:38 am »
As a (sadly lapsed!) member of the Society of Friends, I had to train myself to use honorifics/titles where people indicated they wanted to use them. Quakers don't, you see. I have been Starry Diadem all my life -- no Miss or Ms Diadem, or Mrs Diadem's-husband's-name. Our default is to use the full name, because in the Society, all Friends are equal. That applies to children speaking to adults, too: there is no disrespect intended because it's just the way things are done.

Wherever possible on forms, I avoid using Ms (my preferred form, if I really have to use one) by leaving that bit blank. If the form is online and insists on my using that box, and if there's a "Any other information" box on the form, I say "Please address all correspondence to Starry Diadem. I do not use Miss/Mrs/Ms." Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't.


8
Life in General / Re: Dear Prudence letter: Cash gifts to adult offspring
« on: April 18, 2020, 01:50:17 am »
I would absolutely agree with your analysis of the healthy form this type of giving takes. I have gifted my sister's two children this way since they grew old enough to have their own ideas of what they wanted and could handle money sensibly, and I continue to do so now they're adults because I can, they're still finding their way in life and money can be tight for little indulgences, and I love them dearly and want to support them.

Reciprocation has been small presents of things they know I love, usually to do with gardening. And that's perfect. To expect a equal return negates the very reason I give them cash and creates a rather soulless cash transaction that becomes something not of equal regard and affection (which is what it should be), but one of equal and grudging obligation.

9
Life in General / Re: Mass transit ...elevator etiquette
« on: November 18, 2019, 01:31:10 am »
Quote from: iolaus on November 17, 2019, 04:59:54 pm
In the UK though often the accessible toilet is a seperate entity - not just a stall in the main male/female blocks

And, where all the loos have been 'monetised' and there's a charge to pay to get in, kept locked under the RADAR scheme so that only disabled people with a key (free, I think, from the local authority) can get into them. That's because the disabled people's loo is outside the barrier, and TPTB don't want able-bodied people using it to dodge the charge. Certainly that's the case at a local shopping mall, where I had to negotiate Mum through the barrier into the usual loos and pay 20p for the privilege. That was fun.

10
Family and Children / Re: Carolyn Hax: Guest Banned
« on: September 15, 2019, 09:20:54 pm »
Quote from: chigger on September 15, 2019, 05:08:03 pm
Becky was really rude and/or clueless! I think I would have replied(to a SIL) "Oh, I wish you had let me know while you where here, when we could have corrected things. We will understand if you're not happy staying here again."

I'd be even more direct, and I wouldn't talk about 'correction', as if I'd done something wrong.  "Oh, we wish you'd said something while you were here, when we could have dealt with it. We understand that you'll want to make your own arrangements the next time you want to visit Mum."

11
The Work Day / Re: "welcome abord -- WE'RE GIVING YOUR LEGAL NAME AND YOUR BIRTHDATE TO 2,0000 OF YOUR NEWEST FRIEN
« on: August 22, 2019, 11:54:54 pm »
Quote from: Pattycake on August 22, 2019, 09:28:50 am
Quote from: NyaChan on August 22, 2019, 07:13:09 am
??? what does the “Old” tag mean? Old fashioned?

I suspect more like someone has brought up something again which is old news.

Or someone's finger caught the icon when scrolling on tablet, iPad or phone, and didn't notice. That's happened to me several times now, though I managed to catch and remove the ratings. I have to make an effort to scroll on the LH side of the screen and it doesn't come naturally.

12
Life in General / Re: Rules of the Road - or what happened to common courtesy? Any Bad Driver Stories?
« on: August 15, 2019, 12:05:05 am »
Quote from: TootsNYC on August 14, 2019, 10:17:40 am
Quote from: Gladly on August 13, 2019, 05:09:49 am
Still with a beatific grin he announced "Merc made a mistake!"


I'm on a word-geek kick today.

How would one pronounce that--"merk"?  or "mers"?


In the UK -- my bit of it, at least -- it's pronounced 'Merk'

13
Life in General / Re: Please stop asking me to babysit
« on: July 09, 2019, 12:27:20 am »
Quote from: LadyRexall on July 08, 2019, 01:53:00 pm
Every once in a blue moon, the husband will drop by with some type of treat for my husband for my babysitting.

(Quote trimmed)

They give your husband 'payment' in the form of occasional treats for the work you do? Blimey. How dismissive of them to value you and your time in terms of compensating your husband! In your place, that would polish my spine to the point it was blindingly shiny.

14
Life in General / Re: Dear Abby: The entitled friend
« on: December 16, 2018, 06:01:18 am »
We're comfortably off. The world might say very much so. It would be no hardship to me to pay for my friends every time we go out.

But I don't.

An occasional treat -- I might buy the wine at dinner, say, when it comes to splitting the shared bill -- and the odd "I'll get this!" or "My treat!" is fine. But for it to become the norm would unbalance a friendship, change it to Lady Bountiful being kind to the deserving poor waiting to benefit from my largesse. That is a *horrible* dynamic in any circumstance and especially so between friends. It's condescending. It assumes that they're incapable of managing their lives and finances, that they can only get along as a charity case. It can be overwhelming, because it can take away their agency, their feeling that they're in control. It's disrespectful of both of us, frankly. I don't want to be seen as a cash cow for my friends to milk, and I'm pretty sure they won't want to have to feel grateful all the time. Is there anything more corrosive than continual gratitude?

So, no sympathy for the envious friend in this situation.




15
Life in General / Re: Is this line cutting?
« on: December 05, 2018, 11:57:06 pm »
It was annoying, for sure - it gets teeth-grindingly frustrating when other shoppers have a lot of business to conduct at the till, even when the more rational part of us acknowledges that this is just people going about their lives and not a dire, malicious plot to inconvenience us. I misread your post at first to mean that Grandma wasn't shopping since she left with nothing, but if (as I now read it) she did have items that she abandoned at the till for whatever reason, then that compounds the frustration. And yes, she did indeed cut the line, even if she eventually left empty-handed.

Your post reminds me to pack an extra couple of rations of patience today as DH and I are off to our closest city to do some Christmas shopping. I suspect we'll see several variants on your scenario today!

Pages: [1] 2