Thursday, November 15, 2012 @ 11:24 AM
Good morning or for the most part … good afternoon. This is finally us and it seems to have been
a long time since writing – at least for about 12 days. It says at our multiple site that we last
posted on Sunday November 4th and we had wrote the entry on
Saturday, November 3rd. At
the time we were a bit gloomy because Rich had gone fishing for the weekend and
then Linda was out visiting with Tony and then had gone to a coin show on
Saturday. We had been working with our
Learning Management System (LMS) and apparently had tried setting-up a couple
of courses. We also left a section – not
sure why called 101 Important Questions to Ask Yourself. And, then last we noted how cold we were and
that we lost time for the rest of the day.
That’s our update summary.
I think what has been happening primarily since that time was in
building up to go to the quilting retreat, and then we went to the retreat, and
then we’ve been trying to handle the effects of “after the retreat.” We missed Dr. Marvin’s appointments on the
first Tuesday and then Thursday, and by the time we got in an appointment this
last Tuesday, we were pretty fried. I
don’t mean to make that more serious than it was, but we walked into his
doorway regressed, had a very difficult time putting together words (Anniemi),
and then soon after regressed to Mimi’s level.
I remember someone asking him if we could lie down on the couch and had
been concerned with putting our feet on the couch.
We came out of that state about quarter to the hour, so we
had 15 minutes left. I don’t know who
was out after that or what they talked about.
We’re thinking that we were still talking about Ann and the
retreat. It had overwhelmed our
system. I think to be fair that the
things that were going on toward the difficulty with the store owner and
retreat leader were that her behavior was feeding into behavior that was
similar to our mother and Sr. Theresa.
We’ve had two nightmares about Sr. Theresa since that time. One was last night and was about again being
called back to work and the part we’re still remembering was in trying to get this
impossible (hurricane Sandy) type mess cleaned out so that we had a place to be
and sleep. We’re thinking now that it
was triggered by the same kinds of situation as the retreat, where we had to
carve out our sleeping and quilting corners from what we were given.
We’re back now … it’s about 1:38 PM. We had talked to Linda for a few moments, and
then she left to do some errands, and we took care of a few things like taking
our shower. Dr. Marvin had called because
we had missed his note yesterday asking that the appointment be ½ hour
early. That was no problem. We also got a call from our landlord … that
doesn’t happen very often because our check is paid monthly automatically, but
now it is like one week late and he has a reasonable claim to know where it
is. We had known there was money in the
bank, so we called Rich who handles the money accounts and bills. He said that the bank had earlier posted that
it went out, but the amount was still in the account or something like that. He had thought he’d taken care of the
problem, but didn’t follow-up and so then wanted me to call back Mike and tell
him he was handling it. We blew up
because he hadn’t handled it before and we weren’t going to tell Mike something
that wasn’t taken care of so we told Rich he could call Mike after things were
fixed and he could tell him when and where the money was. But, then Rich pulled a cranky and said we
should do it … and after that there were a ummm few moments of tension. We each hung up mad and I called back and
left Mike’s phone number on Rich’s answering service, but then he called back
on our way to the shower. We did not
return his call, because we hadn’t thought he’d listened to the message. So that is where that ends right now. BLAH!
It’s not my business to handle it’s Rich’s.
Moving on. We also
got a chance to write a note to Mary Ann the new quilter we met at the
Retreat. LV Linda was adamant that if
you had a special quilt done that it should have something other than
meandering or loops as the other Linda does.
LV Linda said that those kinds of quilting designs were for utility
quilts. It took her a bit of prodding,
but we eventually agreed to talk to the woman she said does a really nice
quilting business with the Quilted Basket – Ann’s shop. We went over prices and found that along with
doing a much better design – an Indian pot with extra’s for the SW quilt, but
that she charged less for it. She
charges .015 per square foot. It comes
out to about to be only about $4-5 less expensive. I’m hoping we won’t lose a friend over it and
for some quilts, we will continue having Linda quilt if she would like, but it’s
hard not to accept a deal where we’re getting more for less. I think both women put good work into the
quilting so that is that, but part of the quality of Mary Ann’s quilting is
that her machine is bigger and better than Linda’s so she is able to do bigger
quilts and use a computer regulator which does the actual stitching per design
the operator presses into it. Again we
feel bad about not giving all our business to Linda, but Mary Ann can replace
the work we had Karie up in Bemidji doing.
I’m hoping that Mary Ann’s work is as good as her, and Karie also had a
big machine and regulator. Just with
Karie – you have to meet her days open – and can really only submit a quilt
like 4 times a year. As soon as we can
come up with the money we have 3 quilts we’d like to give Mary Ann – Along with
the two quilts for Linda, and then we have one more small quilt to do
ourselves, and then the WHOPPER of work will be that all six quilts will have
to be bound by us in time for Christmas … that’s a LOT of hand sewing!
But that will be our task.
Let’s see is that right?
Marine, Austin, Laura’s, Mom’s, Rich’s, then Cari, Duyen,
and Nikki’s with Cari’s and Duyen’s being completely done. Hmm. One
more … we still have CS quilt to do too – the one she gave to me. YEEKS … way over budget. Better hold back again.
We went over the pottery quilt … especially with CS and LV
Linda, but that one was too complicated for the situation being in the room of
many others, lots of noise and distraction, and a small working area. That one though is still for me and it only
has 2 squares so far of the 12 and still needs some time to figure out and systematize. I might think of cutting pieces out of
something else and then doing some experimenting. I hadn’t thought of that before, but it would
be a real good idea. The first one is
always the hardest.
We’ve only got about 45 minutes now before leaving for Dr.
Marvin’s. We had stated before we were a
little discombobulated at his place, and now already are going back into
it. Not sure if that’s going to be a
real fun thing. We’re thinking not, but
at least after having younger parts out … Dr. Marvin has told us the pattern is
to have older parts out after to figure things out. Younger parts days are really tiring because
of all the raw emotion. We might get to
see Linda later tonight. I think she was
getting back from chores about the time we were going to be leaving. I think Rich said that he’d be coming home
tonight too. He had made the special
dressed up in biscuit hot dogs and made macaroni and cheese – he NEVER makes
that and we love it! I think he’s going
to cook something else for a little bit tonight and mostly for tomorrow. I’m not sure, but thinking he might have a
basketball game.
Rich said something about cleaning up around her before next
week – being Thanksgiving and having the kids over on the 24th. I should call this weekend to make sure everyone
is good and hopefully we will discuss some of what is necessary with Rich. Especially like menus. I will have to have bounced back by
then. This has been a lousy week for
keeping up with things. We’ve stuck
pretty close to the sewing and we haven’t been doing too much housework. Everything seems overwhelming.
As to the Quilt retreat weekend … we had a great time with
the girls, but not such a great time with Ann the owner and retreat “boss.” She was very exclusive and just stayed
downstairs with a few of her favorites.
The only time she seemed to come up was during official things like introduction
of the group and rules, a few instances of serving food, and to collect money
at the end. I was having a progressively
worse and worse experience, in that throughout the whole trip she never tried
to have a personal communication such as “Hi Ann, how are you doing? Or, Are you having a good time?” something on
that order. She once asked where my
sister was and she called me over at the very end to settle my bill, but even
then I sat down, she stated the amount, and then she said a curt thank-you when
I handed her the checks. There was
nothing more she gave than I would expect a cashier at her shop who was only
doing perfunctory tasks.
By that point we were pretty enraged. We had sunk over $500 into the expense of the
retreat and additional purchases at Ann’s store, and felt like we deserved at
least a smile. She seemed to stay cranky
with us the whole time, and we don’t think we did anything to deserve
that. She did put LV Linda in the middle
of our group with the twins, CS, Linda and me, and to our thinking that might
have made her grouchy. Basically, Linda
has been a close friend of hers – but, more a business associate. Linda still had to do business tasks for Ann
and sew for her, but her fun time was spent more with people like us who were
upstairs. We also spent good time with
the late night bunch which always included Linda. Dr. Marvin thought she was showing signs of
jealousy even though it was her that relocated Linda. Ann also said that there would be fewer
people downstairs next year and more upstairs meaning even though the rooms
were of equal size, they would go from about 9 people downstairs to five and
then upstairs, we would go from 24 people to 29. Obviously it was already much more crowded
upstairs, and the people downstairs weren’t sharing tables like those
upstairs. The excuse Ann used was that
it was too crowded downstairs. Pretty
much we feel she just wants to have her closer friends downstairs – similar to
a popular cheerleading group and have less interaction with the upstairs people
– the one’s she was trying to make money from.
One of the other turning points of the event was a part
where Ann had her husband come to serve drinks.
After the first round was almost over, she had asked if there were
others who wanted a drink. Myself and 3
others raised their hands. It was taking
a while, so we went in to get our drink … Ann tried to ask her husband if he knew
me and he didn’t turn his head toward us or respond either the first or second
attempt. And, then she said she would
bring out the drink. We hesitated which
caused her to again say don’t worry I will bring it out. She did serve the other two people, but she
forgot to serve me … and we were thinking it was much too convenient. She held up the glass afterward and said she
made an extra drink and did anybody want it.
We took that as highly insulting that she had skipped us and had then
expected us to say … yes, we are the “ANYbody” that would like the drink. I thought that kind of behavior was below us,
so we just ignored the drinking situation she had promoted. But, we were mad at not being treated better.
There was one other situation. When CS got there finally after being two
days late, we had helped her with her bag and then was talking to her I was the
outside of my table and she was next to us on the outside of her table. Ann came up and directly sat in front of us
with her back turned toward us and she asked CS questions that unfortunately CS
appreciates, but to me seem like feeding the gossip mill. Ann didn’t really give any indication she was
CS friend, but that she wanted to be able to talk about her. In the meantime she had closed us off from
the communicating with our sister as if we hadn’t been there. It was an abrupt entering into a conversation
with CS, and then an abrupt – being gone.
We had seen her talk personally with others, though mostly the
downstairs people.
Ok, one more story … we had not felt like going out for
lunch, because we were staying up until 3-4 AM and then waking mid-morning to
have breakfast which was then too close to lunch. I didn’t have a problem with it because it
gave us some “downtime” where there weren’t people around. One of the times we did go to a meal, we sat
with a couple of new people. There had
been 5 people new to the group. The two
who sat with us were talkers and people who were teaching special machine
embroidery on the sewing machines. The
other had asked us our name and where we were from and we gave her the name and
stated Chicago. The other one who seemed
much more in “command” asked where do you come in? And we told her my sister was from the area
and was CS the one who had come in late.
The second one, the one who asked this last question just threw her nose
in the air and said, “oh THAT one.” And,
from there on out she didn’t entertain any more conversation with us, I felt
lessoned in her view, and she no longer looked directly at us. I had felt at the time like she’d talked to
Ann or others downstairs, and now that she had “who” we were per gossip, she no
longer wanted to have anything more to do with us. I had been dismissed.
I know you have heard these kinds of stories before. Again, Dr. Marvin thought that this kind of
behavior triggered some of our longstanding problems in feeling or being
treated as invisible as with my mother and former boss. So where these kinds of affronts weren’t
being really felt by the others, they were being felt by me and they were
making me angry, frustrated and lonely.
We had to turn on our music a couple of times to calm down – and once
after we’d burnt popcorn and made the whole place smell terrible. That made us feel pretty horrible. It’s like a sin from our past to have
negative group attention on us.
I think part of the terrible part was that we’d started with
so many good feelings for being there.
We really were expecting to have a good time. We did have a good time with our peers
though. We talked to many people there,
and got to know a few more closely. Our
favorites from the group this year other than our normal group were Gloria,
Claudia, and Mary. I was so happy to
spend time with them – especially Gloria.
She was an extremely good listener and at one point let me go on in
depth. Usually people don’t focus or
concentrate as hard as she was. It
seemed like listening … like us was something in her make-up and she talked
about being interested in others. We
really liked all three of these women a lot, but actually gave our name and
number to Gloria.
With that we have to leave.
It’s a really short accounting and maybe we’ll go into some of the other
details later, but our alarm for Dr. Marvin, just went off. Hopefully, we’ll have adults at this meeting –
and not so many parts with just bruised feelings.
(7386/1042)
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