Second Entry Today: Bitch, Bitch, Bitch

So we just got back from dinner with the ILs, which was mostly pleasant. K decided not to go, but my nephew showed up unexpectedly, which was nice, and a surprise. He came with his girlfriend, which made him a bit more animated and conversational.

Amusingly, if this sort of thing amuses you, of the ten people there, three have substantial hearing problems, which is kind of funny in a group. The FIL has age-related hearing loss and tinnitus (ringing in the ear), so he wears one hearing aid. Uncle Al began to lose his hearing in his twenties and is now about 80, I guess, so he's pretty much profoundly deaf, and has a rather complicated hearing aid setup that of course is useless in a crowded restaurant. He makes funny faces and such, which is about all he can communicate in a place like that. I adore him, as does everyone. He is the Hubs' uncle, as in married to the FIL's sister, whom I adore as well. But we sat at a long table, which makes it really hard to talk to anyone who's not sitting right in front of you.

Anyway, the bitch bitch bitch is that, for a change, my husband is a lunatic. Fortunately for me, we were with his family, so everyone already knows it. The topic of the DVR came up. (This is like Tivo, it's the Digital Video Recorder that we can get in place of our regular cable boxes and it has a hard drive so you can save stuff on it.) So let's see, the Hubs' sister has one, and his aunt and uncle, and then he says, to everyone, that he's "not allowed" to use the DVR we have. His mother rolls her eyes.

"Not allowed by whom?" I asked him.

So he says that he's not allowed to program anything onto the DVR in the family room (where I watch.) I remind him that I have offered to record things for him many times. Yes, but that's not the same as him doing it. I remind him that I have offered to pick up a DVR box for his study several times, and he says he's "not allowed" to have one. (MIL rolls eyes again. She must have been the most thankful mother on earth the day I married him.) Again, I asked, "Not allowed by whom?" Now he says, well, you can only have one in the house, and it's in the family room.

Uh, hello? Did a mysterious vision tell him that tidbit of news? I didn't roll my eyes at him, but I did do the eyelid-droop "you moron" look at him, as I told him that in fact, we have two in the house now, as K has one in her room, and I will pick up a box for him any time he wants, since there's an office right here in town but which is only open during business hours (so I can go after school.)

On the way home, I mentioned again that I could get him a box anytime he wants. He says he thinks he will never figure out how to use it. No, but your 80 year old aunt can. Right. He is a pain in the ass sometimes, but he's quick and clever and smart, whatever smart is. I think he can figure it out. Oh wait, you need to use the remote, so maybe not.

He doesn't like using remotes. Really, he thinks it's some kind of cheating. Cheating what or whom, I do not know. There are varieties of technology that he will simply not indulge in. And yet the first thing he did when we sat down at the dinner table in the restaurant tonight?

He checked his Blackberry.

Yeah.

watching 2nd Pirate Movie :: entry #1476

Third of Three

I'm working on a three day headache. Funny, though, it's not a killer headache, nor does it seem to be sinus-related. Just a headache I can't shake. All I want to do is sleep a lot, and I've been sleeping better, but still not enough.

So, first, Idol. You can't imagine how annoyed K and I are. We watched Lost, and set the DVR for Idol. Which was scheduled to be on from 8.00 to 10.00. So that's what recorded, but of course, it was a live show and went over, so when we watched it after Lost, fast forwarding to the reveal, we had no reveal. Nuthin'. We had to read who wom on the Internet. We were not amused, and I do not feel kindly disposed to watching Idol next year. But we liked the season ender for Lost.

They made some adjustment on the hearing aids today -- I went at lunchtime -- and there is some improvement, although not total. This audiologist -- and apparently, the technician at the hearing aid manufacturer -- are totally committed to getting this to work. That's some comfort, for sure. But all I really want is to put the hearing aids on the morning and take them off at night. That's the idea, that they're part of you and you don't think about them. The last few hours have been a little closer to that, anyway.

R is moving tomorrow. Her boss gave her the day off, which was awfully nice. I'm going as soon as school is over; I don't know yet about K. She's at school today, but has no classes tomorrow. She only has three days of classes left next week and then this summer session is over! That went fast.

The Hubs has caught the cold that I had a few weeks ago and K had last week; I'm expecting him home from work any minute and then I'll see how he is. He said last night he might even stay home from work today, but he didn't. I think he's taken three sick days in the nearly 30 years we've been married. My favorite was when he had a terrible sunburn, sun poisoning, really, on his thighs -- we had been sailing on the Hudson River the day before in a friend's sailboat -- and his skin was so blistered, he couldn't get pants on. So he stayed home. Another time, he had wisdom teeth out and they gave him painkillers and told him not to take them and drive, so he didn't take them and went to work, and was in agony, but he didn't miss a day.

As for me, I see that whole sick-days thing differently. Which you know.

So the SCM was not there today, and will be out tomorrow, because he has a second home in Vermont and it's so far away! It's not worth it to go just for the three day weekend! I've heard people say this for years, you know, they have a house at the shore and the traffic is so terrible, I have to go the day before! Yeah, okay. Dude, you have two houses, you've already got the advantage. Nobody is feeling sorry for you.

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The Hubs is home, and is feeling much better than last night, just a stuffy nose now. Which is good, because I felt terrible asking someone at death's door to carry a TV to the car for me, but I did, and we decided that he'll do it in the morning, since I basically fall asleep here with the TV on, and this'll be better than bringing up the little TV from the basement. I should be coming home from R's tomorrow night with her TV, slightly bigger and with working closed captioning, and she'll have this one, a bit smaller for a smaller room. The only condition is that if the one I'm giving her dies, I buy her a new TV, since the one she's giving me is less than a year old. Which works out, since if I had bought a new one for myself, I would have bought a bigger one than I'd end up buying for her. All clear now?

It's after seven now, so I'd better get my call in to the Sibs.

watching The Simpsons :: entry #1473