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[Dannyalcatraz]

Pardon me while I vent a little:

Mom decided 3:09AM* was the perfect time to start a discussion about a cousin who is currently staying with us because he and his mom had a blowout. After 20 minutes of texting about minutiae of the situation that seemed even LESS important at this time of day, I wandered off to talk to her face to face.

Mom thinks he listens to me more than her. He does...about gaming, anime, food, etc. About handling life challenges and social norms? Coin toss. Nonetheless, she wants me to tell him the same stuff she did a few days ago. Which I did, a few days ago. But she wants me to do it again. In the morning.

I pointed out to her she and Dad own the house, not me- I have no real authority to lay down the law, as it were. So Mom got huffy with me...and woke Dad up. Short discussion occurred.

In case you’re wondering, NO! The solution is NOT swapping households with my cousin. Mom may be nuts, but my aunt is dangerous. (IMHO, of course.)




* usually, I’m not asleep at that time, and she knows it. But I was under the weather all weekend so I went to bed early (without telling her) and the topic was really unimportant to discuss RIGHT NOW- I was a tad peeved.

 

[Aeson]

Newest tank is done,it's an m48 walker bulldog

[sblock]

[/sblock]

Looks good.

 

[Aeson]

Pardon me while I vent a little:

Mom decided 3:09AM* was the perfect time to start a discussion about a cousin who is currently staying with us because he and his mom had a blowout. After 20 minutes of texting about minutiae of the situation that seemed even LESS important at this time of day, I wandered off to talk to her face to face.

Mom thinks he listens to me more than her. He does...about gaming, anime, food, etc. About handling life challenges and social norms? Coin toss. Nonetheless, she wants me to tell him the same stuff she did a few days ago. Which I did, a few days ago. But she wants me to do it again. In the morning.

I pointed out to her she and Dad own the house, not me- I have no real authority to lay down the law, as it were. So Mom got huffy with me...and woke Dad up. Short discussion occurred.

In case you’re wondering, NO! The solution is NOT swapping households with my cousin. Mom may be nuts, but my aunt is dangerous. (IMHO, of course.)




* usually, I’m not asleep at that time, and she knows it. But I was under the weather all weekend so I went to bed early (without telling her) and the topic was really unimportant to discuss RIGHT NOW- I was a tad peeved.

How are things now? Did you talk to your cousin?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

How are things now? Did you talk to your cousin?

Not really. While his Mom is out of town for a week visiting his half-brothers & grandchildren, he’s at her house taking care of the pets and housesitting. All I know is his schedule...”ish”. Don’t know if he’s done any of the chores he should be doing that were previously undone- a partial precipitator to the whole kerfuffle.

The thing is, he is 24. He isn’t the most mature person his age, but he IS an adult. There’s only so many times you can tell someone- especially adults- to do something before you sound like a nag, whether they’ve done the task or not. And Mom and I both talked to him about the chores before he went back over there. Telling him again is more likely to be counterproductive.

Plus, after having him around here for a few weeks, we’ve gotten a good taste of some of the other contributing factors. He’s basically spending every spare moment hanging with his friends. He’s in 3 different RPG campaigns right now, and sometimes he doesn’t get home until after 1AM.* It doesn’t interfere with his job because he usually works the closing shift, so that’s all good. Supposedly, they’re considering cross-training him for a manage position.

But if he oversleeps in the morning, he doesn’t get the trash or recycling out in time to be picked up. If he’s dragging from yet another late-night session, leaves don’t get raked. The lawn doesn’t get mowed. And sometimes- both at his Mom’s and in our house- late night returns can set the pets to making noise. That’s not good for those who DO work in the mornings.

Don’t get me wrong, his Mom overreacted horribly to him missing a trash day (or whatever it was). But we can’t keep shielding him from the consequences of his actions/inactions. He has ADHD, not autism or something more serious. There is no excuse.

Now, to his credit, he IS concerned about being a burden. When things were OK with his Mom, he paid her some “rent”. At our house, he’s told my folks he doesn’t want to eat too much of our food, so he eats out a lot at local fast food places. Of course, that still means he’s misreading the concerns of those around him. His money helps his Mom, but doing the chores helps much more. And food is almost always present in our house in amounts INTENDED for sharing- his eating it is a non-issue.


* I was young once, and did my fair share of carousing, both gaming related and other. Hell, I still do. But I have a key to the house, and I don’t bestir the dogs because I come through the garage, not the front door.

 

[Aeson]

My family has been in your place. You try to help out family, often they take advantage. The worst ones take advantage of you then sow strife within the family. You and yours are doing right by helping him out. No matter how things turn out, you're doing the right thing.

 

[Aeson]

I might have a job. I interviewed with a pizza joint today. They said they wanted to try me out for a week. Last thing he said was that he would call me to let me know when to come in. It's been a long time since I've slapped out a pizza. Even then I wasn't that great at it. The schedule they mentioned was Sat-Wed nights. I hope they don't call me Saturday morning about starting that night. Call me on Monday. At least it'll be a slower night to get started. I guess the next few days will tell. In the mean time I'll keep looking.

 

[jonesy]

[video=youtube;_UO-WTS6KUg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UO-WTS6KUg[/video]

Best song in the game.

 

[Aeson]

I'm getting caught up on my National Geographic backlog. I just read something fascinating, corn may be affecting the weather. Scientists are looking at the amount of corn grown in the US and how it affects the climate. The hypothesis is the corn breathes in CO2 and breathes H2O which lowers the temperature and causes more rain.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Huh!

 

[Aeson]

It's the cow methane thing but with plants. Too many corn plants impacting the climate. They are exhaling water which evaporates, then forms clouds, then comes down as rain. I guess corn country is getting flooded with corn rain?

Maybe my explanation is crap. It's in the 9/18 issue under breakthroughs.

Wired did a much longer story on it.
https://www.wired.com/story/corn-fields-are-making-it-rain-more/