Long Weekend
Just sitting here drinking a beer with a stinky dog on the couch.
It's been a bit of a peculiar weekend. I see I mentioned Indivisible Madison, our dysfunctional chapter of the nationwide resistance to 45 group. One of my dear friends, Debbie, has gotten pretty involved with them and I have spent the week talking with her endlessly about the inevitable (but so soon arriving!) dissension among the leaders of the group. Long story short, some of the leaders made some decisions and may or may not have left some of the other leaders out of the loop. One of the left-out guys (who apparently has been a pain in the ass and had already quit the group a couple of times) has gone rouge and took a young, impressionable kid with him. These two also took the website and the mailing list, to give you an idea of how badly this thing has gone awry. He has been trolling and stirring things up in some very ugly ways. The leaders have done very little other than writing a somewhat vague letter to the FB group.
So Debbie, who like me, has vast experience organizing, has gotten all caught up in this mess because the leaders keep coming to her for advice. Then they discount her advice and do what they feel like doing. Of course people on the FB group are asking questions and stating their concerns. The leaders led them to believe (via FB) that there would be a meeting on Friday night during which everyone could ask their questions and have an honest discussion.
So my friend Sylvia and I show up to the meeting. Some guy tells us that the coffeehouse is closed for the weekend (nice move) and that the meeting had been moved to another nearby coffee house. Well, it's not a meeting at all. It's a social event in a noisy coffee house, with the troll and his scary girlfriend lurking in the corner. It was the craziest thing ever.
So I confronted one of the leaders and said I was confused. People came there expecting to get answers and to get things out in the open and they are having a social event? And what was the troll and his troll-wife doing there when he supposedly had quit the group? Leader girl and other leaders just kept repeating the same sentences and basically blew me and Sylvia off. I won't belabor the point any further. I was not very involved at all and now I have my answer about whether I care to get any further involved. Now I just wish Debbie would come to her senses and see what is right in front of her. Madison liberals. Grrrrrrrrrr.
And then there are Madison newagers. We have been holding our 16-step recovery group in a Unity Church. It's a good meeting but we are having real challenges attracting and retaining members. So I made arrangements to go to Unity this morning and then the office administrator was supposed to meet up with me and we were going to form a group during coffee time to promote the 16 step group. Only he forgot. I saw him briefly but he obviously didn't see me. He also forgot that nobody was going to be there because of the holiday and that there was no coffee time this Sunday.
Grrrr again.
It was a nice service and I wouldn't mind going back. But it's not at a good time of day for me (dog park time), and being chronically ill, I never know how I'm going to feel on a given day. So I left him a message indicating that I was disappointed and annoyed.
Pluto is out of his doggy mind with bunny lust. He runs from window to window barking at the rabbits in the yard. Believe me, if we lived in the country, I would just let him go after them. But my neighbors probably would not appreciate the slaughter and he's stupid and might run into the road. He seems to think that some are living under or around the big rain tank in back, and they may be. He spent hours digging and barking and running from one side off the rain tank to the other. So I finally took him out to a dog park where we don't usually go. My married Mormon boyfriend hates this particular dog park because it's on a lake or backwater and is very muddy. But Charlie was off being Mormon and I wanted to go spend my gift certificate at the garden center nearby.
Pluto had the time of his life in the mud and water. All that digging and mud made him very tired. I got some nice plants and still have some $25 left on the gift certificate, so we may have to visit the muddy dog park again.
And in further dog news, I answered a classified in the neighborhood social media site for somebody who is looking for a dog sitter. I am struggling to make ends meet on my meager dole, so this might be a possibility that would get Pluto a friend and me some money. I'm still not at all sure whether this might work, but the interesting part is that I knew this woman when she was a baby. Really Crazy!!! I noticed the surname, of course, but gave it no thought. But she recognized my name and asked if I used to live near Spring Grove, Minnesota, where I left in 1983. I'm amazed at the small world.
I have presently switched my TV watching to PBS, having joined as a member. I love the Masterpiece Theater shows and am enjoying a break from so much dystopia and violence. Because I can get that plus insanity, any day of the week.
Enjoy the weekend.
It's been a bit of a peculiar weekend. I see I mentioned Indivisible Madison, our dysfunctional chapter of the nationwide resistance to 45 group. One of my dear friends, Debbie, has gotten pretty involved with them and I have spent the week talking with her endlessly about the inevitable (but so soon arriving!) dissension among the leaders of the group. Long story short, some of the leaders made some decisions and may or may not have left some of the other leaders out of the loop. One of the left-out guys (who apparently has been a pain in the ass and had already quit the group a couple of times) has gone rouge and took a young, impressionable kid with him. These two also took the website and the mailing list, to give you an idea of how badly this thing has gone awry. He has been trolling and stirring things up in some very ugly ways. The leaders have done very little other than writing a somewhat vague letter to the FB group.
So Debbie, who like me, has vast experience organizing, has gotten all caught up in this mess because the leaders keep coming to her for advice. Then they discount her advice and do what they feel like doing. Of course people on the FB group are asking questions and stating their concerns. The leaders led them to believe (via FB) that there would be a meeting on Friday night during which everyone could ask their questions and have an honest discussion.
So my friend Sylvia and I show up to the meeting. Some guy tells us that the coffeehouse is closed for the weekend (nice move) and that the meeting had been moved to another nearby coffee house. Well, it's not a meeting at all. It's a social event in a noisy coffee house, with the troll and his scary girlfriend lurking in the corner. It was the craziest thing ever.
So I confronted one of the leaders and said I was confused. People came there expecting to get answers and to get things out in the open and they are having a social event? And what was the troll and his troll-wife doing there when he supposedly had quit the group? Leader girl and other leaders just kept repeating the same sentences and basically blew me and Sylvia off. I won't belabor the point any further. I was not very involved at all and now I have my answer about whether I care to get any further involved. Now I just wish Debbie would come to her senses and see what is right in front of her. Madison liberals. Grrrrrrrrrr.
And then there are Madison newagers. We have been holding our 16-step recovery group in a Unity Church. It's a good meeting but we are having real challenges attracting and retaining members. So I made arrangements to go to Unity this morning and then the office administrator was supposed to meet up with me and we were going to form a group during coffee time to promote the 16 step group. Only he forgot. I saw him briefly but he obviously didn't see me. He also forgot that nobody was going to be there because of the holiday and that there was no coffee time this Sunday.
Grrrr again.
It was a nice service and I wouldn't mind going back. But it's not at a good time of day for me (dog park time), and being chronically ill, I never know how I'm going to feel on a given day. So I left him a message indicating that I was disappointed and annoyed.
Pluto is out of his doggy mind with bunny lust. He runs from window to window barking at the rabbits in the yard. Believe me, if we lived in the country, I would just let him go after them. But my neighbors probably would not appreciate the slaughter and he's stupid and might run into the road. He seems to think that some are living under or around the big rain tank in back, and they may be. He spent hours digging and barking and running from one side off the rain tank to the other. So I finally took him out to a dog park where we don't usually go. My married Mormon boyfriend hates this particular dog park because it's on a lake or backwater and is very muddy. But Charlie was off being Mormon and I wanted to go spend my gift certificate at the garden center nearby.
Pluto had the time of his life in the mud and water. All that digging and mud made him very tired. I got some nice plants and still have some $25 left on the gift certificate, so we may have to visit the muddy dog park again.
And in further dog news, I answered a classified in the neighborhood social media site for somebody who is looking for a dog sitter. I am struggling to make ends meet on my meager dole, so this might be a possibility that would get Pluto a friend and me some money. I'm still not at all sure whether this might work, but the interesting part is that I knew this woman when she was a baby. Really Crazy!!! I noticed the surname, of course, but gave it no thought. But she recognized my name and asked if I used to live near Spring Grove, Minnesota, where I left in 1983. I'm amazed at the small world.
I have presently switched my TV watching to PBS, having joined as a member. I love the Masterpiece Theater shows and am enjoying a break from so much dystopia and violence. Because I can get that plus insanity, any day of the week.
Enjoy the weekend.