The Frying Pan

rumtscho

1:00 PM

@Jolenealaska whaat?! Wow.

Jolenealaska

I swear, he really thought I would be distressed.

rumtscho

I had noticed at some point that you are talking much less about him. My whole reaction was "good for Jolene, this guy is not worth interacting with that much"

@Jolenealaska yes, men tend to overestimate the opinion their female friends have of them :)

Jolenealaska

He brought up something I said 5 years ago as if that explained everything.

All I can tell him now is that he can continue to hold on to that.

rumtscho

Hehe. But I'm glad for you. First floor apartment is cool. Not having an alcoholic man-baby counting on you to help him get through life is also cool.

Why/where is he moving?

Jolenealaska

This is going to work. :)

The VA convinced him that he needs one-step-below-assisted-living.

His social worker found him a place.

rumtscho

1:06 PM

@Jolenealaska this is a thing?

also, he's a former soldier too? or why the VA?

Jolenealaska

Sort of

Yes, he was Navy.

rumtscho

Oh, that's another story I've promised to listen to

Jolenealaska

Which is actually pretty laughable.

rumtscho

the one about him and your boyfriend and you

Jolenealaska

His career VS mine, no contest.

rumtscho

1:07 PM

but I will have to go home in a few minutes

Jolenealaska

Both of them!

rumtscho

so we should wait until later with this one too, sorry

Jolenealaska

CYA soon!

rumtscho

2:58 PM

hi @Jolenealaska, I'm at the computer again

I have about an hour and a half here before I have to go out

Jolenealaska

3:09 PM

Hee

I've got a bit left.

Where did we leave off....OH yeah

rumtscho

@Jolenealaska a bit of time? of story?

Jolenealaska

Bless his heart.

rumtscho

ah yes, your boyfriend and his best friend CN

Jolenealaska

CN really thought I would be broken-hearted

Now the friend was a different story.....

I loved him.

I recently learned that he is going to marry the "other woman" of our story.

rumtscho

I've never heard the story, so I didn't even know that there is an "other woman"

Jolenealaska

3:15 PM

Oh, hmm

the friend

what an ass (in retrospect)

Actually, very charming and handsome.

I did love him.

When we were together, there was an "ex".

rumtscho

@Jolenealaska sure, I knew you wouldn't fall for a loser :)

@Jolenealaska yours or his ex?

Jolenealaska

What I didn't know was that the "ex" was present.

He was lying to me the whole time.

rumtscho

as in, she was not simply stalking him, but he was actively living in a relationship with her?

you are right. What an ass.

Jolenealaska

The "ex-lover" was perhaps his last cellphone conversation.

typo

Cerberus

@Jolenealaska Ohh way cool!

Where is Lindy?

I was off celebrating King's Day.

rumtscho

3:23 PM

@Cerberus he's in Spain, die Sau

Cerberus

Ahh I think he mentioned something.

rumtscho

somehow saying "the pig" in English isn't as good-natured as in German

Cerberus

Wie eine Sau ja!

Jolenealaska

More cool later in the story :)

rumtscho

@Cerberus now that's not as good natured

Cerberus

3:25 PM

I was trying to say, "what a pig!", but I knew it wouldn't work.

rumtscho

but saying that somebody got something nice happening to him, and adding "die Sau" is a slang, but not derisive, way to indicate non-malicious envy

Cerberus

Right, right, I got that.

rumtscho

@Cerberus it sounded like a line from a porn video :)

Jolenealaska

@rumtscho So anyway, he was very much still involved with this woman while he professed his undying love for me. Story of my life.

rumtscho

"Like a real pig, oh yes!"

@Jolenealaska :(

I don't know why men so often think they can get away with this

Jolenealaska

3:27 PM

Funny thing, it doesn't hurt anymore.

It is a part of the fabric that is me.

rumtscho

I haven't had a guy lie to me (at least that I've known of) but I've had a married man with two sweet children profess his undying love for me

Jolenealaska

Your father?

rumtscho

in all seriousness expecting that I will throw away everything in my life and move to his city so I can become his mistress

while being convinced that his wife will be completely accomodating of such an arrangement

Jolenealaska

I have one of those too (sort of)

rumtscho

but being lied to must be much more painful. In my situation, he was just very confused (for want of a better word). In your case, it was a breach of trust.

Jolenealaska

3:29 PM

How long have you known him?

rumtscho

quite a few years before it happened

Jolenealaska

No, I've had both.

rumtscho

we used to work together when I was an intern and assigned to his project

Jolenealaska

they are separate

rumtscho

years later he took up contact with me again, at first we were just good friends mailing

I was in a bad patch then and quite needy emotionally, I guess. But at first, I didn't seek closeness to him, thinking that he has no reason to take care of me much.

Jolenealaska

3:31 PM

so he was single when you knew him?

rumtscho

With time, we were skyping every day and also writing tons of mails.

and in fact, I also fell in love with him.

No, he wasn't single, he was just becoming father for the first time around the time we met

Cerberus

@rumtscho Haha I like it.

rumtscho

after a decade of what I learned later was an unhappy marriage

Jolenealaska

Sounds like mine in a way....

rumtscho

I still remember the exact moment I fell in love, how the rush of endorphines felt, me running home and feeling like walking on clouds, grinning like an idiot

Jolenealaska

3:33 PM

I just got a letter.

rumtscho

but the next morning I realized that we have to stop the whole thing before it's too late

while he insisted that we should continue, without being able to explain how he imagines this virtual relationship

all the time talking over the Internet, it was kind of long distance

I was too blinded and confused and naive to drop it right away, assuming that he knew that he won't leave his wife and that I won't like living as his concubine

and it went on for maybe two months longer until we got to meet in person when he was on a business trip in the area

Jolenealaska

I missed this...

rumtscho

then I realized that he still wants me to be his lover. And also that he doesn't know what he's doing either

Jolenealaska

You hadn't met?

rumtscho

remember, I had been seeing him as a great, wise mentor

Jolenealaska

3:36 PM

Oh wow

I'm listening

rumtscho

@Jolenealaska we had met before that, but the whole friends -> best friends -> falling in love thing happened through talking online and on the phone

Jolenealaska

Ok, I think I get it

rumtscho

so I finally managed to get myself extricated out of it

Jolenealaska

I am very not good at the extricating part.

As a matter of fact

rumtscho

@Jolenealaska me neither. It took me months.

Jolenealaska

3:37 PM

I suck at it.

rumtscho

Months which were very unhappy both for me and for him.

@Jolenealaska Yes, it's so hard.

after that, I had this asshole narcissistic boyfriend

Cerberus knows how terrible he was at the end

and still, after the first time when he realized that I seriously want to leave him, he begged me to come back to him

and I did, for several more miserable weeks

just because I felt so bad about leaving him :(

so yes, extricating yourself is the hardest part

Jolenealaska

Well...

Maybe

rumtscho

@Jolenealaska maybe?

Jolenealaska

Here's a thing.

If I draw little graphs like I did so well in elementary school....

I'm already dead. (not quite, but... you know)

rumtscho

@Jolenealaska a graph shows you should have died by now?

Jolenealaska

3:44 PM

No, not literally.

Nor do I mean it in any morbid way.

rumtscho

I am imagining something worthy of XKCD and I'm full of anticipation for seeing it

Jolenealaska

I just mean that I am playing an end-game, ahh no, but ....

I am of good humor about it, but shit is getting hard.

rumtscho

:(

Jolenealaska

Absolutely correct answer :)

rumtscho

yes, the dating market is extremely discriminatory when it comes to the woman's age

but there isn't much we can do about it. And no amount of affirmative action or political correctness will change that. It's a dumb side effect of evolution.

Jolenealaska

3:53 PM

Your mother missed what you could have brought her.

rumtscho

@Jolenealaska ? do you mean grandchildren?

Jolenealaska

No

You curled up with her as she told you stories

Brushing your hair

listening to your day

rumtscho

I don't know if I'd have liked that as a child

right now, I'd be so very happy if she'd do it for me

I'm desperately missing having a family

Jolenealaska

I think you would if you had it

I hold on to my dad

rumtscho

the problem is, she used to ask about my day, and I hated it, shouting at her until she gave up

Jolenealaska

3:57 PM

I would be so lost him...

rumtscho

now I realize why: because she'd listen, not to be part of it, but to judge what she thinks I have done wrong, and tell me off

Jolenealaska

Did she ask because she wanted to know?

rumtscho

not knowing why I hated talking to her about it, I'd just snarl, and internally feel ashamed of it

Jolenealaska

yep

rumtscho

@Jolenealaska I think that at some level, she wanted to know

but as soon as she heard something which "shouldn't have been" (and she had very strict and very weird ideas of how it should have been) she saw it as the best thing to tell me that I was a bad child and how my behavior or even feelings had been wrong.

Jolenealaska

3:59 PM

At this point (I'm imagining (16?)

She knew she was sick, but you didn't?

rumtscho

Not even as "the best" but as "the only right" way to react. She is a big believer of there always being only one correct reaction to any single situation, and she herself knowing it.

@Jolenealaska I knew she was sick. My father told me when I was 8 or 9.

Jolenealaska

Who did you hold on to most?

as a child?

rumtscho

My father, definitely

although he wasn't the great father yours was

Jolenealaska

Is he alive?

rumtscho

he was both doting and abrasive

@Jolenealaska yes, he is

I can have a better contact with him than with my mother

but it's still very, very hard

Jolenealaska

4:02 PM

I think of my grandfather.

Very German.

rumtscho

@Jolenealaska the one married to your kick-ass flyer grandmother?

Jolenealaska

:)

No

The very, very, very German one.

rumtscho

ah, German means he must have been on the side of the grandmother who loved candy with fluffy pink filling

Jolenealaska

The other side

YES!

You have an amazing memory.

Yes

rumtscho

so how was his Germanness expressed?

Jolenealaska

4:04 PM

Wife - Bonnie

Husband - Claire

rumtscho

I so much wanted to read this as Clyde

Jolenealaska

Both sets of great-grandparents (Parents of Bonnie and Claire)

were first generation immigrants from Germany.

They were all around during my adolescence.

rumtscho

that's so cool

Jolenealaska

And a great-great grandmother.

Claire was a very stern German.

He cried at my wedding.

rumtscho

I barely knew the great grandparents who were alive when I was born. Even though my great grandfather lived until I was 12. But my grandmother was in a feud with her sister, with whom he lived, so we never visited.

@Jolenealaska Wow, she must have been very old. Did you know them well? Did you love them?

Jolenealaska

4:10 PM

Are you here for a while?

I loved my Grandmother Bonnie (mother's mother) like no one else

rumtscho

@Jolenealaska less than an hour, I'm afraid. I have a meeting and have to go out at 19:00 my time

Jolenealaska

There has never been a person as good and as loving...

rumtscho

the silly thing is that I'm not 100% it's today

Jolenealaska

Grandma

rumtscho

it was anounced as being on "next tuesday, 24. April"

Jolenealaska

4:12 PM

hmm

odd

rumtscho

but since the mail was sent after Thursday, 24. April, and nobody answered my inquiry, I have to assume it's today, on "next tuesday", the 28. April

Jolenealaska

yet, there is no 4....

rumtscho

@Jolenealaska I'm glad to hear you had such a loving family member. Must have been great.

Jolenealaska

She was the light of my life. I wormed my way into Grandpa's life too, but it was different.

His parents (my maternal/paternal grandparents) shared their farm.

rumtscho

your maternal/paternal grandparents? This sounds weird :)

Jolenealaska

4:17 PM

You didn't think this story was going to end easily, did you?

Mother's father's parents

rumtscho

well, everybody's family tree is a diamond, not a triangle

ahhh, now I get it

Jolenealaska

on the same farm

Very, very strict

rumtscho

on the same farm as your mother's father and his family?

Jolenealaska

very, very German

yes

houses maybe 100 yards apart.

Great-Grandpa Friesen scared the shit out of me, but I enjoyed visiting Grandma Friesen (as she was known)

There is a day I remember about Grandpa.

I was (8?)

For some stupid reason, there came a day when I realized that I could recite the books of the Bible from Genesis to Revelations.

rumtscho

@Jolenealaska how similar and yet how different our childhoods were

Jolenealaska

4:25 PM

For a further stupid reason, I chose to share my stupid parlor trick.

rumtscho

for me, there was a day when I realized I could recite whole chapters of Jurassic park (the book, I hadn't seen the movie)

Jolenealaska

hee:)

rumtscho

nobody in my family read the Bible or attended church when I was a child

but tell about your reciting, I'm listening

Jolenealaska

Unfortunately, there is an old sodden church in Nebraska.

Scariest damn place ever.

My great-grandfather was the proud leader of a very scary Christian cult.

My mother lived with him as a father figure.

rumtscho

Ohhh! I'd say "exciting", but this is real scary.

Jolenealaska

4:31 PM

As I type, I realize just how much.

My mother was the same age as her grandparent's youngest daughter.

Wrap your head around that a moment

rumtscho

I haven't read that much on American religious cults, but from what I have read, they are scary, brainwashing, controlling societies, cruel to everybody but the leaders

Jolenealaska

First bit: Great grandmother Friesen wore a severe corset into her eight month of pregnacy.....

because...

Her eldest was over ten

rumtscho

she was scared that her father-in-law will do something about the pregnancy?

Jolenealaska

So, this woman had sex with her husband for reasons other than procreation.

the shame

the scandal

rumtscho

how did they know that she had not been unsuccessfully trying for a child in the intervening 9 years?

or that she did not live in chastity for 9 years until deciding that for the sake of one more kid, she will endure one more sex act?

Jolenealaska

4:37 PM

obviously she wasn't trying to become pregnant....Shit, are you asking me??

So, I kid you not (no pun intended)

rumtscho

well, if you have answers, I'd be interested to hear them. If you don't, just see it as my musings.

Jolenealaska

The damn thing burst in church and Martha was born the next day.

Aunt Martha.

Great aunt, I guess.

rumtscho

the one who insists on you having a facebook account so she can keep up with your life?

Jolenealaska

NOOOOOOOOO!

That's the Catholic arm.

I was just thinking about her.

rumtscho

so at some point in your family history, a Protestant married a Catholic? The shame!

Jolenealaska

4:40 PM

No

That would be easier

rumtscho

I hope this happened after your grandpa cultleader died, or he'd have damned you all from his pulpit

Jolenealaska

Other side

this is my dad's family

Atheist or thereabouts for as long as you can see.

Except my dad's brother Bill.

He married the sweetest, most Irish Catholic, somehow virgin after (5?) kids woman, Patty.

rumtscho

I must have missed something. Was the whole sentence ironic?

Jolenealaska

The whole life is ironic.

all I can say is read it again :)

Aunt Patty.

She is the aunt who thinks my life is missing facebook.

rumtscho

yes, I got it that she's not really a virgin, but is she also not sweet? But OK, she is the Aunt who insists on Facebook.

unlike Greataunt Martha, who survived being worn under a corset hiding her foetical presence

Jolenealaska

4:48 PM

She is that sweet...somehow

rumtscho

I meant carried, sorry. Sometimes I forget that homonyms from my language are expressed with different words in English. A baby is carried, not worn :)

Jolenealaska

How the hell do I explain the Doris Day arm of the family?? :)

She just is.

rumtscho

who is Doris Day?

Jolenealaska

And she would have been a nun....

doesn't matter, American movie star...

Very innocent

And somehow I would always end up across from her at family holidays.

I can only imagine her grasping the crucifix at her neck....

eyes upward

and me trying to keep a straight face.

So, do you really mean that transubstantiation thing?

rumtscho

hahaha

Jolenealaska

5:01 PM

It has been an ongoing thing.

I think she actually thinks I am a true believer.

of something

I feel the need to tell her.

rumtscho

everybody is a believer of something

Jolenealaska

For real.

rumtscho

just not always something supernatural

Jolenealaska

Yeah, I've got this fun thing about "before the Big Bang", but that's beside the point.

This woman has procreated at least 5 times (6?)

I asked Dad about it just the other day.

rumtscho

you don't even know? Or is it one of those things where you're given to understand that it would be considered very impolite to ask?

Jolenealaska

5:07 PM

I really wasn't sure about Bill.

I asked if the "belief" was for real or an act because he loves his wife?

rumtscho

well, I hope for him that it's for real

it's so stressful to fake such a core part of oneself such as a religious belief only to uphold a relationship

Jolenealaska

Dad was unequivocal. Yes, it's real.

rumtscho

This is a great conversation, but I really have to go now, I don't want to be late

Jolenealaska

There will be a time son!

rumtscho

there is a small kayak tour this weekend, to the source of the Neckar (the river which flows through Heidelberg as a big river)

Jolenealaska

5:11 PM

soon even!

rumtscho

and we are discussing the details at this meeting

not so small, it's 2 day and involves camping

so, see you later

Jolenealaska

have a great time!

Jolenealaska

5:23 PM

Moderator duty alert.

0

A: How can I make the most of this stewing hen?

Water cooking is the traditional method, the size of this bird is representative of the breed, which is leghorn fowl. This is the breed used both in commercial and backyard egg layers. The stock made from the stewing hen is far more flavorful then any other chicken you will find anywhere. The ...

I guess I'll flag it.

Jefromi

5:34 PM

@Jolenealaska Why do you say plagiarism? Did you find a source for the text?

Jolenealaska

No, but I didn't look either. It was purely a gut reaction to what it looked like to me.

What else is "Our inventory is very current"?

Jefromi

Okay, I'm going to assume that's just his writing style. It's not anywhere on the internet.

Jolenealaska

I looked too.

Jefromi

It's spam, not plagiarism.

Jolenealaska

not finding it.

Jefromi

5:39 PM

Except he didn't actually mention what their product is, which makes me suspect he might actually be from the supplier of the chickens in the photos.

Jolenealaska

But without even telling us the company name?? How weird.

I'll delete my comment, but I find myself wondering, WTF?

The English is too proper...

the advertising nature is totally over the top.

But Googling yields nothing.

I think I'll sleep anyway.

Jefromi

Yeah, it's certainly weird, and I'll note the spamminess part for sure.

Jolenealaska

I wouldn't have noticed it but it was an answer to my question.

So I got an alert.

Oh well

rumtscho

7:26 PM

ok, I'm back. And I have a ride for the weekend, yay!

going to Rottweil. A charming little town despite its grisly fame

Cindy

@Jefromi @Jolenealaska Just on a hunch I looked up the poultry company Jojo's chicken came from. It is a privately owned company, owned by the Fisher family. Josh Fisher (the OP) is listed on LinkedIn as the owner and Vice President.

Hello @rumtscho!

rumtscho

hi cindy, how are you?

Jolenealaska

7:48 PM

Well how 'bout that Cindy!?

Wonders never cease.

Jefromi guessed that possibility, but I poo-pooed it.

Cindy

Hello @rumtscho and @Jolenealaska. :) hope all is well with you.

Jolenealaska

It is, but I should totally be in bed.

Cindy

I'm doing okay. I have had a couple of interviews, one today that went very well.

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