Dillards 77: Sex Advice from Smoochie Sweetie Sweet Muffin

[livinginthelight]

4 hours ago, VelociRapture said:

I’m not sure which post you’re referring to. Which quote did you mean?  

Sorry! I was getting lost in the quotes and posts. You'd quoted @Georgiana and it was actually her writing that I was responding to. (I LOVE what you wrote, Georgiana!)

I'd thought you were quoting an outside writer. So I guess I can't use it IRL. Drat. There's so much wisdom on this site.

[patsymae]

On 6/9/2019 at 4:56 PM, VelociRapture said:

 

Thank you both! Being a SAHM has been the most rewarding and most demanding job I’ve personally ever had* - my (very adorable) boss is highly demanding and I’m constantly “on call” without always having backup to take over for me. Some days I’m able to clean half the house with no trouble and other days I’m lucky if I’m able to take a simple shower or finish my meal without constant interruptions or meltdowns. Cleaning the car? Not a priority most of the time, especially now that I’m pregnant again and we’re trying to sell our condo. There’s only so much I can do in the time I have available each day - other parents might be able to keep their cars spotless and that’s pretty awesome, but I’m not one of them. 

So yeah. This specific criticism honestly just reeks of BEC to me. A dirty car isn’t something I’m going to worry about when it comes to the Dills - whether they’re emotionally or intellectually stunting their kids or pushing hateful beliefs are things I’m concerned with though. 

*Experiences will obviously vary and I’m only speaking for myself here. If you’ve found it to be easier than other jobs you’ve had then I offer you a double high five because you’re a rock star. And if you have found it as difficult or more so than I have then I’d like to offer you a big hug, some chocolate, and a nap because you’re a rockstar too (same goes for working parents as well - parenting can be hard regardless of circumstances.)

Boy, for an old person some of this brings me back and some of this confuses me. Back in the day when "feminism" first came into the lexicon, one tenet was that SAHM, although that acronym didn't exist, was in fact a job. That maintaining a home, caring for children and so on are actual work that should be recognized as work and compensated as work. That is one reason, for example, that "feminists" fought for laws that considered the work women did in the home when deciding, for example in the event of a divorce, that a woman's (spouse, but face it usually the woman's) contributions made the distribution of assets, or potential assets--such as a pension-- the assets of the couple and not of the man. "Feminists" were active in fighting for the financial rights and the dignity of women who worked in the home.
Of course, part of that was also that women who did not have a male provider but who were also taking care of their children were in fact performing the same necessary and valuable social function. That a woman doing that work while not attached to a particular male should also be recognized, rather than vilified as a lazy welfare queen, revealed as much as any purported liberal crap, how the power structure feels about "women's work." 
Women fighting women about it isn't a new idea. And it never, ever has benefited any women.

[church_of_dog]

23 hours ago, Georgiana said:

Hugs to everyone who has shared their stories.

On a somewhat lighter note: 

  Hide contents

On the day my grandfather was laid to rest in January, the St. Louis Blues were dead last in the NHL.
From that day forward, they suddenly started on an incredible tear through the league, surprisingly making the playoffs.
Two days ago, the St. Louis Blues won their first Stanley Cup in franchise history, ending a 52 year drought.  
My grandfather was from St. Louis and a lifelong St. Louis sports fan.
You're welcome, Blues fans.

 

Something that I have always found comforting is the First Law of Thermodynamics, which states in part that the total energy of an isolated system remains constant.  Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but rather it is only transformed or transferred from from one to another.  

When we lose loved ones, their energy is not destroyed.  Rather, they have transferred it in pieces into others with every interaction, the largest pieces naturally going to those they loved, and we have transformed part of it into our memories of them.  My grandfather is not truly gone, only different.  He lives on now in millions of different pieces, spread out in a thin layer like snow or confetti over the lives of those he met, those he influenced and those he loved.  He is in the lessons I learned from him.  In the ways his love made me grow.  In the stories about him I tell.  And he is transferred in part yet again every time I use the things he taught me to help others.  I've told stories about him here, so in a very small way, he also lives on in all of you. And now, pieces of your loved ones are here with me. Very small pieces.  Perhaps too tiny to notice.  But still they are there, living on with me.  And this love or energy can even be passed down through generations, long past when names are forgotten.  The love we give others is in many ways the love that we have found or received, which often came to us from others, which came to them from others, etc. etc. stretching back perhaps forever.  

The people we love are always with us.  We carry their energy inside us.  We give it to others, and we receive some of their loved ones' energy in return.  Death changes things, but it does not fully destroy a person.  It doesn't have that power.  It cannot claim the parts of ourselves that we choose to give to others. 

And children/babies are a wonderful outlet to pour out the love of a million generations and allow those people to live on again.  My children will know my grandfather.  They'll never meet him, they may not be ever be aware of it, but they will know his love and they will know his humor.  They'll just know it in my voice, not his.  

This is a really nice way to think about the conceptual, spiritual/soul aspect of a person.

For those of us who are less spiritual and more oriented toward the tangible, the literal bits and pieces, the ecologic cycle, I have always found this essay by Aldo Leopold to be comforting:

https://www.audubon.org/magazine/may-june-1942/from-archives-aldo-leopolds-odyssey

(text here but in a spoiler just because it's a mite long)

Spoiler

X had marked time in the limestone ledge since the Paleozoic seas covered the land. Time, to an atom locked in a rock, does not pass.

The break came when a bur-oak root nosed down a crack and began prying and sucking. In the flush of a century the rock decayed, and X was pulled out and up into the world of living things. He helped build a flower, which became an acorn, which fattened a deer, which fed an Indian, all in a single year.

From his berth in the Indian’s bones, X joined again in chase and flight, feast and famine, hope and fear. He felt these things as changes in the little chemical pushes and pulls that tug timelessly at every atom. When the Indian took his leave of the prairie, X moldered briefly underground, only to embark on a second trip through the bloodstream of the land.

This time it was a rootlet of bluestem that sucked him up and lodged him in a leaf that rode the green billows of the prairie June, sharing the common task of hoarding sunlight. To this leaf also fell an uncommon task: flicking shadows across a plover's eggs. The ecstatic plover, hovering overhead, poured praises on something perfect: perhaps the eggs, perhaps the shadows, or perhaps the haze of pink phlox that lay on the prairie.

When the departing plovers set wing for the Argentine, all the bluestems waved farewell with tall new tassels. When the first geese came out of the north and all the bluestems glowed wine-red, a forehanded deermouse cut the leaf in which X lay, and buried it in an underground nest, as if to hide a bit of Indian summer from the thieving frosts. But a fox detained the mouse, molds and fungi took the nest apart, and X lay in the soil again, foot-loose and fancy-free.

Next he entered a tuft of side-oats grama, a buffalo, a buffalo chip, and again the soil. Next a spiderwort, a rabbit, and an owl. Thence a tuft of sporobolus.

All routines come to an end. This one ended with a prairie fire, which reduced the prairie plants to smoke, gas, and ashes. Phosphorus and potash atoms stayed in the ash, but the nitrogen atoms were gone with the wind. A spectator might, at this point, have predicted an early end of the biotic drama, for with fires exhausting the nitrogen, the soil might well have lost its plants and blown away.

But the prairie had two strings to its bow. Fires thinned its grasses, but they thickened its stand of leguminous herbs; prairie clover, bush clover, wild bean, vetch, lead-plant, trefoil, and Baptisia, each carrying its own bacteria housed in nodules on its rootlets. Each nodule pumped nitrogen out of the air into the plant, and then ultimately into the soil. Thus the prairie savings bank took in more nitrogen from its legumes than it paid out to its fires. That the prairie is rich is known to the humblest deermouse; why the prairie is rich is a question seldom asked in all the still lapse of ages.

Between each of his excursions through the biota, X lay in the soil and was carried by the rains, inch by inch, downhill. Living plants retarded the wash by impounding atoms; dead plants by locking them to their decayed tissues. Animals ate the plants and carried them briefly uphill or downhill, depending on whether they died or defecated higher or lower than they fed. No animal was aware that the altitude of his death was more important than his manner of dying. Thus a fox caught a gopher in a meadow, carrying X uphill to his bed on the brow of a ledge, where an eagle laid him low. The dying fox sensed the end of his chapter in foxdom, but not the new beginning in the odyssey of an atom.

An Indian eventually inherited the eagle’s plumes, and with them propitiated the Fates, whom he assumed had a special interest in Indians. It did not occur to him that they might be busy casting dice against gravity; that mice and men, soils and songs, might be merely ways to [slow] the march of atoms to the sea.

One year, while X lay in a cottonwood by the river, he was eaten by a beaver, an animal that always feeds higher than he dies. The beaver starved when his pond dried up during a bitter frost. X rode the carcass down the spring freshet, losing more altitude each hour than heretofore in a century. He ended up in the silt of a backwater bayou, where he fed a crayfish, a coon, and then an Indian, who laid him down to his last sleep in a mound on the riverbank. One spring an oxbow caved the bank, and after one short week of freshet X lay again in his ancient prison, the sea.

An atom at large in the biota is too free to know freedom; an atom back in the sea has forgotten it. For every atom lost to the sea, the prairie pulls another out of the decaying rocks. The only certain truth is that its creatures must suck hard, live fast, and die often, lest its losses exceed its gains.

It is the nature of roots to nose into cracks. When Y was thus released from the parent ledge, a new animal had arrived and begun redding up the prairie to fit his own notions of law and order. An oxteam turned the prairie sod, and Y began a succession of dizzy annual trips through a new grass called wheat.

The old prairie lived by the diversity of its plants and animals, all of which were useful because the sum total of their co-operations and competitions achieved continuity. But the wheat farmer was a builder of categories; to him only wheat and oxen were useful. He saw the useless pigeons settle in clouds upon his wheat, and shortly cleared the skies of them. He saw the chinch bugs take over the stealing job, and fumed because here was a useless thing too small to kill. He failed to see the downward wash of over-wheated loam, laid bare in spring against the pelting rains. When soil-wash and chinch bugs finally put an end to wheat farming, Y and his like had already traveled far down the watershed.

When the empire of wheat collapsed, the settler took a leaf from the old prairie book: he impounded his fertility in livestock, he augmented it with nitrogen-pumping alfalfa, and he tapped the lower layers of the loam with deep-rooted corn.

But he used his alfalfa, and every other new weapon against wash, not only to hold his old plowings, but also to exploit new ones which, in turn, needed holding.

So, despite alfalfa, the black loam grew gradually thinner. Erosion engineers built dams and terraces to hold it. Army engineers built levees and wing-dams to flush it from the rivers. The rivers would not flush, but raised their beds instead, thus choking navigation. So the engineers built pools like gigantic beaver ponds, and Y landed in one of these, his trip from rock to river completed in one short century.

On first reaching the pool, Y made several trips through water plants, fish, and waterfowl. But engineers build sewers as well as dams, and down them comes the loot of all the far hills and the sea. The atoms that once grew pasque-flowers to greet the returning plovers now lie inert, confused, imprisoned in oily sludge.

Roots still nose among the rocks. Rains still pelt the fields. Deermice still hide their souvenirs of Indian summer. Old men who helped destroy the pigeons still recount the glory of the fluttering hosts. Black and white buffalo pass in and out of red barns, offering free rides to itinerant atoms.

 

Edited June 16, 2019 by church_of_dog

[HerNameIsBuffy]

23 hours ago, Georgiana said:

Hugs to everyone who has shared their stories.

On a somewhat lighter note: 

  Hide contents

On the day my grandfather was laid to rest in January, the St. Louis Blues were dead last in the NHL.
From that day forward, they suddenly started on an incredible tear through the league, surprisingly making the playoffs.
Two days ago, the St. Louis Blues won their first Stanley Cup in franchise history, ending a 52 year drought.  
My grandfather was from St. Louis and a lifelong St. Louis sports fan.
You're welcome, Blues fans.

 

Something that I have always found comforting is the First Law of Thermodynamics, which states in part that the total energy of an isolated system remains constant.  Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but rather it is only transformed or transferred from from one to another.  

When we lose loved ones, their energy is not destroyed.  Rather, they have transferred it in pieces into others with every interaction, the largest pieces naturally going to those they loved, and we have transformed part of it into our memories of them.  My grandfather is not truly gone, only different.  He lives on now in millions of different pieces, spread out in a thin layer like snow or confetti over the lives of those he met, those he influenced and those he loved.  He is in the lessons I learned from him.  In the ways his love made me grow.  In the stories about him I tell.  And he is transferred in part yet again every time I use the things he taught me to help others.  I've told stories about him here, so in a very small way, he also lives on in all of you. And now, pieces of your loved ones are here with me. Very small pieces.  Perhaps too tiny to notice.  But still they are there, living on with me.  And this love or energy can even be passed down through generations, long past when names are forgotten.  The love we give others is in many ways the love that we have found or received, which often came to us from others, which came to them from others, etc. etc. stretching back perhaps forever.  

The people we love are always with us.  We carry their energy inside us.  We give it to others, and we receive some of their loved ones' energy in return.  Death changes things, but it does not fully destroy a person.  It doesn't have that power.  It cannot claim the parts of ourselves that we choose to give to others. 

And children/babies are a wonderful outlet to pour out the love of a million generations and allow those people to live on again.  My children will know my grandfather.  They'll never meet him, they may not be ever be aware of it, but they will know his love and they will know his humor.  They'll just know it in my voice, not his.  

This is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever read.

It touched me in a way I’ve rarely been in my life.  I will save this to return to again and again when I need it.  Reading it was a gift.  

Thabk you.

[xlurker]

On the afterlife, I know there is something--I don't know what it is, but I know there is something.  My dad passed, very suddenly.  It was Hell, trying to get through those days.  Back then you had 2 viewings each for 2 days, and that is rough.  I was in my early 20's at the time, and lost it a bit at the last viewing.  As I lay in bed that night, awake, wondering how in the world I would get through the funeral the next morning I felt him.  I could feel his arms wrap around me, I could smell him, I could sense the comfort I was being given.  Folks may not believe me, I was young and upset...but I will tell you as sure as I am now typing this, my dad comforted me the night before his funeral. And that alone is what got me through the following day, knowing he was NOT in that box, he couldn't be, because he was with me just hours before.

[HerNameIsBuffy]

2 minutes ago, xlurker said:

On the afterlife, I know there is something--I don't know what it is, but I know there is something.  My dad passed, very suddenly.  It was Hell, trying to get through those days.  Back then you had 2 viewings each for 2 days, and that is rough.  I was in my early 20's at the time, and lost it a bit at the last viewing.  As I lay in bed that night, awake, wondering how in the world I would get through the funeral the next morning I felt him.  I could feel his arms wrap around me, I could smell him, I could sense the comfort I was being given.  Folks may not believe me, I was young and upset...but I will tell you as sure as I am now typing this, my dad comforted me the night before his funeral. And that alone is what got me through the following day, knowing he was NOT in that box, he couldn't be, because he was with me just hours before.

I’ve had a similar experience - during a time when I desperately needed him my dad came to me...I don’t care if people dont believe me.  

 

[OutoftheShadows]

46 minutes ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

I’ve had a similar experience - during a time when I desperately needed him my dad came to me...I don’t care if people dont believe me.  

 

I too, had a very similar experience. I was in a desperate, terrifying situation, alone in the hospital and my grandmother, to whom I was very close, came and comforted me. She told me, in a clear and utterly obvious way that no one else on this earth would understand, that everything was going to work out alright. And she was right! (She’s actually visited me 4 times, each time distinct and completely unmistakable as being anything else. It’s been probably 15 years now since she last came to me, I figure she thinks I’ve got life handled and that I’m ok now.)

[Don'tlikekoolaid]

I just want to say Bernie McGee died today from heat exhaustion and a heart attack.  I don’t know if TLC has made a statement re SSW’s yet.

[Markie]

Jill posted some pics from Mandy Query’s wedding. Izzy was an adorable ring bearer. Why oh why can’t fundies hem pants properly? Izzy’s were miles too long and so were Derick’s. I like that Jill brought a Camry outfit for Israel to wear at the reception. 

[HerNameIsBuffy]

2 hours ago, Markie said:

Jill posted some pics from Mandy Query’s wedding. Izzy was an adorable ring bearer. Why oh why can’t fundies hem pants properly? Izzy’s were miles too long and so were Derick’s. I like that Jill brought a Camry outfit for Israel to wear at the reception. 

That’s a fundy thing?  Something in the KJV about how “Thou pants must be ill fitting so sayeth the Lord?”  Book of Sartorial 3:16.

Edited June 16, 2019 by HerNameIsBuffy
“KJV ‘version’ was redundant

[Satan'sFortress]

17 hours ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

This is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever read.

It touched me in a way I’ve rarely been in my life.  I will save this to return to again and again when I need it.  Reading it was a gift.  

Thabk you.

I agree, @Georgiana  That was truly beautiful. 

[Chewing Gum]

1 hour ago, Markie said:

Jill posted some pics from Mandy Query’s wedding. Izzy was an adorable ring bearer. Why oh why can’t fundies hem pants properly? Izzy’s were miles too long and so were Derick’s. I like that Jill brought a Camry outfit for Israel to wear at the reception. 

I don't think Trump is fundy and he is the master of the too long trousers. 

[HerNameIsBuffy]

1 minute ago, Chewing Gum said:

don't think Trump is fundy

I think that’s a fairly safe bet ?

 

[Nikedagain?]

But, Franklin Graham said that God elected Trump. And all the fine people in my lovely red state say that Trump is a devout Christian who champions the unborn. All these people couldn't be misled could they?? Why, that's almost like a... cult. 

I iz confuse.

 

[KeshetParparNesicha]

Judaism doesn't really say anything definitive about the afterlife, but I once saw this poem on the New York City subways, and I've thought of it like this ever since.

[Sullie06]

I took a class a few years back on Spirituality and the Afterlife and one of the theories I really felt a connection with. I was raised catholic but I've never been sure about heaven in the idea of pearly gates opening and everyone who ever lived is there waiting for you. Plus I hate the idea of hell and scaring people with the idea if they don't live a certain way they will go to hell.

But I digress, the speaker who came in was not talking about spirituality from a religious base but from the universe, if that makes sense. She said that when we die our energy goes back into the universe and we will be recycled back into another life. So basically reincarnation but not from a religious standpoint just a natural recycling of energy in the universe. 

[Georgiana]

On 6/15/2019 at 2:34 PM, livinginthelight said:

Sorry! I was getting lost in the quotes and posts. You'd quoted @Georgiana and it was actually her writing that I was responding to. (I LOVE what you wrote, Georgiana!)

I'd thought you were quoting an outside writer. So I guess I can't use it IRL. Drat. There's so much wisdom on this site.

You could totally use it, but if you're trying to use it formally, it might be an issue to credit a random on the internet  But whenever people could care less about the source, feel free to borrow it!  Grief is hard, and I'm happy to loan whatever I can to comfort those who need it.

[mollysmom]

5 hours ago, Georgiana said:

You could totally use it, but if you're trying to use it formally, it might be an issue to credit a random on the internet  But whenever people could care less about the source, feel free to borrow it!  Grief is hard, and I'm happy to loan whatever I can to comfort those who need it.

Well in case there was any doubt, we now know for sure that Georgiana isn't pickles!! Cuz you know...

[Smash!]

Recycled. I think that makes sense. I always felt drawn to the circle of life and this is why I want a woodland burial for me. When I‘m dead, my ashes would be nutrients for the tree I‘m buried under, and from the trees other animals would feed or the wood is would be used for something else.
It‘s kind of like the the same sentiment@Georgiana already so wonderfully expressed.

[NoKidsAndCounting]

My Dad died of pancreatic cancer in 2015. He was the other side of my coin. I miss him so much and he had a sense of humor. He always said that after death, he wanted to be put out on trash day! ? Bless him! Of course we didn’t do that, but I loved him for saying it.

[PennySycamore]

@NoKidsAndCounting,  that Folger's coffee commercial they've been running recently reminds me that I need to get myself a can of Folger's -a real metal one with a plastic lid-  for my ashes.  If it was good enough for Donny's ashes in The Big Lebowski, it's good enough for mine.

[bella8050]

I've always believed in an afterlife but the exacts of it are just too much for my earthly mind to really comprehend. I also for a long time wondered if pets go to heaven and if we get to reunite with them. Last year I lost my sweet furbaby pretty suddenly. On his last night, I felt like I only had hours left with him, and I swear he knew it too. He was resting comfortably but neither of us slept the whole night I just sat there soaking up being with him.

My mom came to the vets with me to next day when it was time to say goodbye. I spent the rest of the day looking for any type of sign that he was ok and that the "rainbow bridge" was a real thing. That night my mom called to tell me about a phone call she just got from a friend. Her friend knew nothing about the situation going on, and said he *had* to tell my mom about the dream he had the night before that he couldn't stop thinking about, said it jolted him out of bed it was so vivid, and had been looking up dream interpretations for all afternoon. His dream was that he was visiting heaven (he felt certain he was just there to observe not stay) and what he saw was an orange cat sitting on a picnic table looking out into a meadow. He had very specific wording on describing the cat and went on and on about how "perfect" he seemed. Said "everything about him was perfect, even his paws were perfect." This is the point I broke down when my mom was telling me this. Cause I am a crazy cat lady who talks to her cats, and what I would say to my sweet orange cat all the time was exact words my mom was telling me. She did not know I would say those things to him, not a single person ever witnessed these little chats.  I got my sign that he was still "alive" and content. If I had this dream I think I would have written it off a bit as wishful thinking. In this case I needed it to come from a third party. On my down days I think about this a lot and try to imagine how it extends to family that have passed.

 

 

[VelociRapture]

2 hours ago, bella8050 said:

I've always believed in an afterlife but the exacts of it are just too much for my earthly mind to really comprehend. I also for a long time wondered if pets go to heaven and if we get to reunite with them. Last year I lost my sweet furbaby pretty suddenly. On his last night, I felt like I only had hours left with him, and I swear he knew it too. He was resting comfortably but neither of us slept the whole night I just sat there soaking up being with him.

My mom came to the vets with me to next day when it was time to say goodbye. I spent the rest of the day looking for any type of sign that he was ok and that the "rainbow bridge" was a real thing. That night my mom called to tell me about a phone call she just got from a friend. Her friend knew nothing about the situation going on, and said he *had* to tell my mom about the dream he had the night before that he couldn't stop thinking about, said it jolted him out of bed it was so vivid, and had been looking up dream interpretations for all afternoon. His dream was that he was visiting heaven (he felt certain he was just there to observe not stay) and what he saw was an orange cat sitting on a picnic table looking out into a meadow. He had very specific wording on describing the cat and went on and on about how "perfect" he seemed. Said "everything about him was perfect, even his paws were perfect." This is the point I broke down when my mom was telling me this. Cause I am a crazy cat lady who talks to her cats, and what I would say to my sweet orange cat all the time was exact words my mom was telling me. She did not know I would say those things to him, not a single person ever witnessed these little chats.  I got my sign that he was still "alive" and content. If I had this dream I think I would have written it off a bit as wishful thinking. In this case I needed it to come from a third party. On my down days I think about this a lot and try to imagine how it extends to family that have passed.

 

 

If Heaven is real then it better include animals. If I’m not eventually spending eternity with my beloved little Velocipuppy then I want none of it. My sweet little doggo is my first baby, the one who got me through my miscarriage, the one who helped announce my pregnancies and tell our families the sex of each baby, who kissed my face when I had horrible morning sickness, who insisted on cuddling as close as possible to my belly during my pregnancies, who has refused to leave my side during panic attacks, the one who has loved my daughter almost as much as my husband and I do since the very moment she first saw her, our darling counter jumper, and our insane little ball of fluff and love. If that little love bug - with her pure heart and love of stealing food that isn’t her’s - isn’t worthy of Heaven than I’m definitely not worthy either. 

[PennySycamore]

@bella8050 and @VelociRapture,  CS Lewis felt that there was no reason  why our beloved fur babies would not go to Heaven. 

[WiseGirl]

1 hour ago, VelociRapture said:

If Heaven is real then it better include animals. 

Truth! I am expecting to meet a crowd at the Rainbow Bridge.  It won't be Heaven to me unless my furbabies are there. 

Edited June 19, 2019 by WiseGirl
Spelling is hard