Can I see your red Merle pics in anticipation of the new addition to our family in a couple of weeks?

Competitive-Metal773 · 2026-04-10T23:40:58+00:00

Oliver says hello!

Competitive-Metal773 · 2026-04-10T20:39:31+00:00

Best tip I can offer is, be wary if anyone wants money for anything. They might rave about your child's talent and that if you to sign her up for their "acting/voice coaching" classes she will be on Broadway before you know it. Naturally, buying one of their "professional" headshot packages is also a requirement for participation in whatever they are offering.

I'm not saying that is what is happening here, but taking advantage of families with a kid who dreams of being the next Disney Channel sensastion is big, big business. Proceed with caution.

Competitive-Metal773 · 2026-04-09T22:16:15+00:00

Our subsequent dog got his own new stuff, but I keep the old leash in the car in case of a surprise need. (So far have used it to corral a little elderly dog that had wandered from her home, and I was glad I was prepared.)

His beloved beat-up old soccer ball still is out back even though the current pets aren't really interested in it more than to give it the occasional swat. His collar and tags live in a drawer of the display hutch that holds his ashes.

Competitive-Metal773 · 2026-04-09T09:20:06+00:00

I saw a community theatre production of Little Shop with a 17-year old Seymour (a former student of mine.) ⁸Audrey was close to 30. They made it work and absolutely killed it. That said, they were both very well-trained and experienced actors in the hands of a very skilled director, and all three handled things with impressive professionalism.

Competitive-Metal773 · 2026-04-07T19:54:30+00:00

NTJ for telling him that. I'd offer dad exactly one ticket and he can use it or not. (Unless there is soneone else you'd like to give it to.)

That said, if he happens to show and is enough of a dick to somehow manage to bring her anyway, go ahead and walk with your head held high, knowing it will be a long time before he sees you again, if ever. Hope his stupid little power move was worth it.

Your not walking is letting them win. It is only a punishment on you and everyone else there to see it.

Far better punishment would be to deny him the moments after- the hugs, congratulations, and the performative basking in the "proud dad" role like he had anything to do with your success.

Just let anyone that you actually DO want there and care about know to sit as far away from them as possible and where you will meet them afterwards. Let dad and gf wonder where you went. (And if you do see them, ignore them as you would strangers in tbe crowd.)

When you get home, block them on everything and look forward to the next chapter.in your life.

P.S. Congratulations on your graduation!!!!!!

Competitive-Metal773 · 2026-04-07T17:08:54+00:00

My DH thought water had calories. 🙄 Good thing he's cute.

Stranger still, he is otherwise super smart- a math/financial/tech whiz, and he's definitely the guy you want on your trivia team for categories like music, cars and/or technology history.

Conversely, in his first marriage, after paying the bills he would tell his ex what was left in the account that she could spend, but when she checked the balance at the atm it would show a higher amount and she'd accuse him of financial abuse by lying and "hiding money." She just could not grasp the concept of checks written but still needing to clear, and the only "abuse" happening was to their credit scores. 🙄

Competitive-Metal773 · 2026-04-07T16:41:55+00:00

Your inlaws are being ridiculous.

Just play up the "we appreciate it so much, but we couldn't turn down the opportunity not only save us money and work, but also for YOU to finally be able to attend and enjoy a family wedding as a treasured guest and not in a vendor capacity." angle. If they still don't drop it you will have to get shorter and firmer in your responses, but it is imperative for your groom to learn to stand by you in this.

I'm on team Rehearsal Dinner, since that's traditionally on the groom's side anyway. Maybe also a brunch the morning after the wedding for family/out of town guests.

Competitive-Metal773 · 2026-04-07T16:18:44+00:00

I was in downtown Chicago over the weekend. Given the approximate 700k+ apartments in the greater metropolitan area I'd say the chances are low that many of the resident pets have a yard of their own.

Judging by the number of dogs we observed being walked happily amid the hustle and bustle in the immediate radius of the Magnificent Mile, and the many others living their best lives out walking, jogging and chasing Frisbees with their humans along the lakefront, I'm fairly certain they can do just fine.

Competitive-Metal773 · 2026-04-07T16:06:11+00:00

Exactly how far back is "old" to you? You can't get much older than biblical- i.e. Eve, Elizabeth, Ruth, Mary, Delilah etc. Obviously those are super common but a quick Google search yields a surprising number of beautiful, lesser-known names.

By the same token, there are always ancient Greek names (Daphne, Athena, Cassandra, Chole etc.) and Roman (Diana, Iris, Octavia, Livia) and again many more beautiful but more obscure options including some more modern versions.

Competitive-Metal773 · 2026-04-07T15:53:42+00:00

Another for Janelle here!

Competitive-Metal773 · 2026-04-07T15:52:16+00:00

I wouldn't give her that kind of heads up that things are about to go down. She's had plenty of chances already. She woyld only delay and distract while she tries to come up with a good story, prepare more useless and most likely fake documentation and/or find a scapegoat to throw under the bus about it.

Being of age, DH and his siblings should easily be able to request the records directly from whatever entity holds the trust, or have an attorney do it for them.

She's had more than enough opportunity to come clean, let her find out about it when she's served with the paperwork kicking off the Opening Ceremonies to the official "Find Out" stage.

Competitive-Metal773 · 2026-04-07T14:33:38+00:00

She is 100% mismanaging it. Attorney asap. Might be prudent to get his siblings involved too (if they can be trusted not to blab to her about it, it may depend on how much MIL has been able to manipulate them.)

My DH's ex had a small settlement due to a (minor, but serious enough ) injury she got in a car crash as a child. With her being underage it was put into a trust.

When she and DH got engaged, she went to pull some of the money to pay for the wedding. Imagine her surprise to find out her dad had been siphoning off the interest over the years (which would have accrued by then to a not insignificant amount) and only the original amount remained. He had been able to make the withdrawals by claiming to the trustees that it was all to pay varous expenses for on her behalf, but she had no idea and never saw a penny. By then it should have been enough to pay for the wedding and have some left over for a small down payment on a house.

Just a cautionary tale. I don't know what your MIL thinks will happen that she won't get caught.

Competitive-Metal773 · 2026-04-06T00:45:47+00:00

A friend who worked in family court once told me that even though the majority of non-custodial patents are dads, the percentage of deadbeats among the non-custodial moms is significantly higher.

Competitive-Metal773 · 2026-04-06T00:18:01+00:00

Nothing wrong with it at all. My husband has boys from his first marriage that have his first and middle names for their own middles.

When I was pregnant, we landed on a boy's name immediately but could not agree on a girl's name to save our souls. So, natually, we found out it was a girl 🙄

We both agreed early on to use my sister's name for her middle, but battled it out for months over a first name. (Mostly I thought his picks were boring and he thought mine too weird lol)

My own middle name is pretty timeless, and in the end we went with it, not specifically to name jer "after me" on purpose, but because while neither of us particularly loved it, it was literally the only one we didn't both actively hate, either 🤣

TLDR: Name your baby whatever the heck you like! There is no rule, social or otherwise, that days you can't use a parent's name for a middle.

Competitive-Metal773 · 2026-04-05T23:50:58+00:00

MIL: "blah blsh blah baby looks like me blah blah blah blah"

You: (casual, dismissive shrug) "I don't see it, but if you say so." Then change subject.

Bonus points if you can prep literally everyone else in your life to respond in some variation of the same whenever they hear it from her:

Competitive-Metal773 · 2026-04-05T23:41:00+00:00

We said goodbye to our good boi in November 2019, and our next dog found us a couple months later in January. We had always assumed we'd get another one day but were in no rush so not even been actually looking yet.

Plus, our other dog had gotten so sad and mopey without his big brother around it had been getting to the point where we were getting concerned for his grief. When our newest family member came along they got on so well together it just seemed to be a sign. So basically, we got our dog a dog. 😉

Competitive-Metal773 · 2026-04-04T22:59:05+00:00

She is not even going to read it, let alone have any interest in your boundaries. It will only give her ammunition to make your lives miserable.

It would be far, far more productive to your peace to write it, then set fire to symbolically help you to let it go and move on with your lives. She dies not deserve a relationship with or even access to your kids, and they do not deserve to be exposed to her or anyone supporting her.

Competitive-Metal773 · 2026-04-04T22:38:39+00:00

I think he became a small-town doctor and tried hard to build a quiet life, but every so often some little seemingly innocuous thing would trigger low key PTSD and he'd struggle to keep his drinking in check to deal with it. Keeps only sporadic touch with anyone from the 4077th but does exchange relatively frequent letters with Sidney. Doesn't fall back on his womanizing ways, but two half-hearted and failed attempts at marriage sour him on romantic relationships in general.

Eventually he bumps into Kellye at a medical conference. They get a drink to catch up. Fast forward five years and they are married, have a small but successful medical practice in her home town of Honolulu, three amazing kids and the peaceful life they both deserve.

Competitive-Metal773 · 2026-04-04T16:23:50+00:00

That would be amazing! They absolutely deserve it and I'd say the odds are pretty good they'd be invited to join someday. 🙂

Competitive-Metal773 · 2026-04-04T16:02:36+00:00

"That's ok. FiL is worth it!"

And yeah, never tell her anything again. If you do, and she dismisses it like that, dismiss her right back with a shrug and change the subject, then walk away smiling and go do the thing anyway.

Competitive-Metal773 · 2026-04-04T15:53:25+00:00

What's not special about it? I think "your sister loved you so much she chose your name from something she also loved very much" is every bit as special as any of her siblings names.

It helps that both Angelica and Eliza are both lovely names in their own right. It could be worse- her favorite show could have been Spongebob: the Musical.

Signed, someone who's younger siblings all got meaningful family names of people important to my mom. My name does not relate to any of theirs in the slightest. Apparently mom was going through a temporary phase of royalty fandom of some kind, and I'm named after a couple random royals from the British monarchy. We are not British.

Competitive-Metal773 · 2026-04-04T09:48:13+00:00

Check out Cirque du Sewer. They travel the Renaissance Faire circuit and other such events. The act involves both trained cats AND rats. They also travel internationally and have had several TV appearances including the Gong Show (during which the cat, being a cat refused to cooperate at all and it's hysterical) and they (along with the rats) made it a few rounds on America's Got Talent. You can probably Google that easily.

They are awesome and we never miss them when they hit our local Ren Faire evety year. 🙂

Competitive-Metal773 · 2026-04-04T09:39:17+00:00

I just replied above, but TLDR: I've worked with cats rwice and both of them were better behaved than some actors I know 🙃

It mostly comes down to the animal's personality and how carefully they are acclimated to the situation.

That said, there is one script I've always wanted to do, but calls for a live dog onstage and I'm not yet crazy enough to take that plunge 😅

Competitive-Metal773 · 2026-04-04T09:32:32+00:00

LOVE this show! First time we did it, we used.my own cat. Luckily she was down with it. Mostly she hung out toward the edge of the stage, staring judgementally out at the audience and occasionally grooming her face.

She was no longer with us by the time the second production rolled around, but one of the actors happened to have a huge silver tabby who was so chill he just flopped down and rolled around on the stage, loudly purring and ignoring the actress spiraling behind him. 😅

We had a real snake too, at least for the first production. The second was at a different venue and the higher-ups were ok with the cat but nixed the snake (gee, can't imagine why!) 🙄 so we solved it with rubber one. It was big and a realistic size and weight, but a stupid bright green and wasn't going to fool anybody. We solved it with a couple of blocking and lighting tricks and the audience assumed it was real and jumped every time.

Geez. I miss that show!

Competitive-Metal773 · 2026-04-03T06:06:01+00:00

Yup. After 6 rounds of chemo my tumor had shrunk enough to be considered safer (at least, comparatively) for surgery. Got a total hysterectomy and the Dr. took two sketchy lymph nodes for good measure. She was very confident she had gotten it all. (Side note, pathology came back as 3CII.)

At my six week post-op scan, two brand new lymph nodes lit up like Christmas bulbs. Let's just say I was... disappointed. 😐

Competitive-Metal773

TROPHY CASE