Stuff that keeps me up at night

The Sense Of Entitlement Is Weighing On Me

I’d stopped at one of our local Plant Nurseries last week, looking for some additions to my garden. The way this nursery works, you grab a cart and fill it, an employee will find you, call into the office/cashier with a walkie talkie what you are buying and load your plants into your vehicle, then you (me) goes inside to pay.

The employee outside helping me was about 25 years old. When he was going to load my car he stated:

“Wow. An Audi. Hmmm. Must be nice.“

I stopped my motion and just looked at him with a puzzled face, not sure how to respond and decided I could NOT respond. I mean, I thought about letting him know I won this car on The Price Is Right. Or I could explain to him it just showed up one day, in my garage. Or doesn’t everyone get one of these just for being alive?

Honestly, I probably should have schooled him in etiquette; explaining that this is not a polite thing to say as it diminishes the hardship people go through for their rewards. (if they choose a nice car as a reward, it’s not for everyone) And that people actually work for things. I mean, I didn’t actually work for my car, 🤣 but my husband did and still does. (I, in turn have always worked my butt off in the home arena, while he focused on our business) My husband works harder than anyone I’ve ever known and nothing came fast or easy for us. So yeah, it IS nice, after 27 years of back breaking work, with the mindset of taking Risks and gaining Rewards. You don’t become Fabricator Of The Year by sitting on your azz. By the way, he, at 58 with a very successful business, could actually sit back, relax and rest on his laurels, but he is STILL innovating, working long days, providing more employment opportunities and expanding for the future.

Hold on while I step off my soapbox.

I shared the story from the nursery with Coach and he responded with an eye-roll and something about young people and their sense of entitlement.

**This.** This will always make me laugh.

We have a youngish relative who I absolutely adore. But, what I don’t adore is all of the Amazon Gift Lists that arrived with each baby born and now each child’s birthday. I’m generous almost to a fault, but when my generosity is never acknowledged, I’m less inclined to whip out my credit card for all the asks. Now, I’m not saying I need a Thank You note arriving via a carrier pigeon on homemade paper, written in calligraphy. A text message would be sufficient, but they don’t arrive.

I’m more apt to spread generosity to those who act as though it is NOT owed to them and to those who appreciate our endeavors.

Recently, I’ve seen this next bit around town a few times and it baffles me. You remember back in the day when people got married, they would write Just Married on the back of their car?

Welcome to 2024 and the ME ME ME Generation:

Well, now they write Just Married and their @VENMO and or @CASH APP. This also happens for bachelorette parties, graduations, etc..

Basically they’re saying to you and I:

Hey, you: send us money!

Ok, I just googled this and an entire Reddit Thread popped up, and these made me laugh:

*My friends and I were on a road trip this summer and we saw similar window painting for a bachelorette party, but they misspelled “buy” with the phrase “by me a shot”. So I Venmo’d them $0.05 to correct the spelling. We waited about 30 minutes then another friend Venmo’d them $0.01 to do the same. Repeat with the other two guys in the car. The person responding was so annoyed by the fourth one.

*This is the first time I’ve hoped for a hacker to succeed.

*It’s definitely becoming a thing now, unfortunately. New age working class panhandling at its finest.

*5 years from now: “I’m alive, please Venmo me”

*It’s so tacky! I was driving over to Vegas and there were so many cars with this on their rear windshield it was insane. I sent a penny to one person and asked them to stop driving slow in the fastlane.

*Someone had one of these on their car in front of me, I sent them a dollar and told them to speed up

*Tacky/trashy to ask strangers or even family for $$. You want the wedding, you pay for your choices.

*Why do strangers owe you a drink/gift/honeymoon donation? You’re not special.

I would never, in a million years expect someone else to pay for my choices, whether that be getting married, having children or attending college.

Have you seen strangers asking for money in vehicles around you?

Anyone else have people in their lives who are on the receiving end and don’t seem thankful for it?

XOXO

Your grateful friend Suz, who’s had it up to here with people, yet she still gave a cash tip to the Must Be Nice guy.

How Much Concealer Would It Take To Cover My Current Worry Wart?

I have much to do, and many things I’m worried about, so why not put them on the blog with the hopes that they can be squashed?

Last Thursday the Coach started feeling crummy. He left work at one o’clock on Friday and proceeded to sleep close to twenty hours. His chief complaint was that his throat felt like it was lined with shards of glass, even drinking water hurt. He called the TeleDoc on Saturday: Strep Throat.

I’d already vacated our room for the guest room, but man, if I catch his plague who will take care of us? I was feeding him three meals a day. THREE. He was down for days and it takes A LOT to take him down.

Writing this on Wednesday morning, he’s feeling better and KNOCK ON WOOD I’m still healthy, which is incredible but doesn’t mean I’m sleeping well. Worries, I’ve got a few. I worry over shit that might never happen, but why rest easy when there’s a possibility of doom?

The Beach Condo Saga

I have three rooms of furniture being delivered by Pottery Barn on Friday to our condo, which is fantastic. Here at our house, in the big metal garage we have lots of stuff that was salvaged from the condo after the hurricane. It’s mostly stored in twenty seven gallon plastic tubs from Costco.

When the hurricane hit, I was tucked nicely into our place in GA on a preplanned trip, so after the storm and before I arrived home our amazing friends from the East Coast (The Calvary) arrived with Coach and removed anything that was salvageable, (towels, clothes, light fixtures, ceiling fans, TV’s) before mold set in.

They labeled the tubs with wet stuff so I could launder and store for later. That was all good and done in October of 2022. But you know what? All our kitchen ware-silverware, pots/pans, glasses, plates, etc, were placed into storage tubs AS THEY WERE FOUND. I mean, not cleaned. I peeked in a few tubs and things seem to be ok, but my new dishwasher is about to have the time of it’s life as everything needs to be sanitized. Hopefully most everything survived as they didn’t have proper wrapping materials for all the glassware.

In addition to all the storage tubs that need to be transported, I’ve ordered some chairs/barstools/rugs/vanity mirrors, all stacking up in various garage spaces. Coach had the idea on Monday for me to call a professional mover so we don’t have to move it all from our house to the condo ourselves…I mean it would take about 4 trips according to my brain.

‘How many tubs did I think we had?’

I thought we had about 10, but when I went out there and counted, reality hit me in the face: TWENTY SIX full tubs, plus lots of stuff not in tubs and a dryer. We def need pros because not only trying to load this stuff in his truck and my SUV (which would only fit 2 tubs at a time) the trek from the parking lot of the condo to our unit would kill us. Spring Chickens we are not!

I’m so worried about the movers and PB showing up at the same time in the there-is-no-space-in-the-parking-lot. I’ve been fretting since Monday about this potential traffic jam. PB won’t give me a time frame until Thursday afternoon and I’m crossing my fingers they don’t overlap.

I also have a dilemma/worries about Saturday as I have Mattress’s coming, Arhaus bringing the dining table, Best Buy bringing a new washing machine, and Comcast coming to wire up our internet. Will they all come at the same time? Should I serve them lunch? Cocktails? Do I even have cocktail glasses?

Coach had the brilliant idea for us to just stay at the condo for as many days it takes until it’s all unpacked and set up. Me: Yeah, that would be best or else it will take me weeks piecemealing it and I’m running out of time. Our renters will be here just after NYE, and next weekend we have a big holiday party for our employees and then I’m pretty sure Santa is arriving.

Then my mind went on a spree; currently there are no shades on the windows to sleep in privacy. I’ll have to tack up beach towels temporarily. Crap! I don’t have tacks! Oh, I don’t even have a broom to clean the floors. And the list of things went on from there.

DEEP BREATHS

Maybe my current dilemmas are not relatable, but who wouldn’t stress over SO MANY THINGS happening at once? While all this is going on, I will deal with Two Little Frenchies; they’re also going to lose their marbles with all the comings and goings.

MEDICATION FOR EVERYONE!

Thanks for listening

XOXO

Your friend Suz, who is in NEED of a CHILL PILL or three.

Holy Anole!

A few weeks ago I spied with my little eye something green moving in the oak tree outside my office window.

If I could see it from this distance, through the shutters and screen, I knew it was something out of the ordinary and you bet your sweet bippy I went in for a closer inspection.

Well, isn’t that special? We have lizards galore in Florida. Tons of them outside and some get inside; I swear there might be a Lizard Labor and Delivery in our master bath as I find babies all the time.

But THIS is a different lizard.

I sent pics in our family text thread and Lolo confirmed immediately that this is a Native Anole. (She wasn’t nick-named The Bug Girl as a kid for no reason) I said, I’ve seen anoles before, but never this big. She thought maybe I’d only seen females which can get up to 5″ but the males are 8″. I was thinking this might be a bit bigger than that, but didn’t give it another thought.

Then just two days ago I saw him again through the window and thought to myself that he must have taken up residence in that particular oak tree. No biggie.

On Sunday morning, I noticed something on top of my bird feeder under our cypress tree outside my other office window. Was it a bird? ~~Was it a plane?~~ Nope. It was huge and bright green!

I grabbed my cell phone and asked the Coach to come and see The Lizard. By the time he came to my office, the guy was gone. Man, he was BIG. Much bigger than the one I’d seen twice in the Oak tree and I went outside to locate the Giant.

It took me a minute to find him in the tree; he’s a blender. Can you see his HUGE eyeball? The better to see you with…

Ya’ll, this guy must be a foot long which led me to do a little bit of intel since This Anole reached 8″ and then said: Hold my beer.

INVASIVE IS MY LEAST FAVORITE SPECIES.

(I was today years old that I learned that you always say species and not specie; even in singular form)

In my research this guy is an Knight Anole which is Native to Cuba and invasive. I was curious to see what they eat…and I gasped upon learning: spiders, flies, crickets, small beetles, moths, butterflies, small slugs, worms, ants, and nesting birds. Um, we’re gonna need to enact a diet restriction on my property.

NOT SO FUN FACT: they can grow to 20″.

He didn’t care for my prying eyes…and the sun was bright and for a minute there I could not see where I was supposed to be looking.

Notice how he puffs out his dewlap at me. That either means he wants to fight or mate. Please let it mean fighting.

I also learned today that there is a name for the weird thing is under lizards’ necks. Dewlap.

Well, that’s the nature lesson for today, so excuse me while I try to figure out how to ~~eradicate~~ remove them from my vicinity because guess where butterflies roost at night? In trees. 😩

XOXO

Things I don’t want to see or hear or have people do.

Much like the sun damage from my youth, I need to get some things off my chest.

Prepare yourself for ComplainaPalooza 2020

Airport or restaurant check-ins on Facebook.
Some peeps JUST post the check-in as their status.
No one cares. Literally, NO ONE CARES.

I understand posting a pic of yourself with your people at a restaurant, or the airport because you’re excited about a trip, that is acceptable. (to me, but this is my blog, so my rules).
DO not check-in. Not one person cares.

Honestly, I could go on all day about my FB complaints, but it’s futile. I just avoid FB when peeps annoy me. For example, when someone shares 147 pictures from their afternoon at Chic Fil A having lunch with a friend.
Has anyone heard of sharing just the highlights?

Phrases that have run their course:

*Current situation

*The struggle is real

*Said no one ever

One that has bothered me since the day I was born; I think I came out of my Mother’s lady
kitchen being bothered about this one.
When you’re on the phone and you are giving someone your phone number or
credit card number and as you are verbalizing said numbers (if you even pause for a
second) they say OK, but they say OK WHILE YOU’RE TRYING TO MOVE
ONTO THE REST OF THE DIGITS and then they don’t get the correct digits
because they are saying OK while you’re trying to give them the digits.

And exclamation points.
I mean, exclamation points!!!
On texts, emails or notes written on homemade vellum paper delivered via
messenger pigeons.
We’re swimming in the sea of exclamation points. Are we really that excited? Are we angry?
Are we cheerleaders?
And it’s not just Millenials; I’ve corresponded with people in their 70’s.
Why is everyone so darn excited when I thought most of the country was depressed.
Wait, maybe that’s just all the RX commercials I see.

Ads on blogs.
They slow the page load to the speed of smell.
I understand you’re trying to make a few bucks; generally, a blog with ads is not one that
I’m going to enjoy so as soon as I see ads, I’m out.

*Drops mic and heads to the laundry pile*

I’m sure you’re thinking now, wow, that Suz seems so nice and pleasant, and today she’s full
of ~~crap~~ complaints.
Well, you’re right.
But, once I purge my complaints, it’s all good in the hood.

I’m Susie Sunshine once again, at your service.

C’mon. YOU know you’ve got something to get off your chest; purging is good for the soul.
XO