bits and bants vol. 48
what's making me grumpy today
Your inbox and the internet in general is filled with cheerful, joy-filled lists of what’s making people happy this week, but I’m here to offer something different: what’s making me grumpy this week.
I know. Provocative.
As a preamble I am well aware that I’m pretty overwhelmed with end of year *waves kermit arms* things, a high school graduation next week that is currently taking me a calendar year to emotionally deal with, and the usual life-ness. I’m sure you are equally full up. I know being grumpy about all this small-town stuff just speaks to me being ungrateful to how good my life is. I’m not going to argue that, but there are so many things that make me grumpy and I’ve got to give my husband a day off from hearing about them.
I can’t get anything in my house to look good. I can’t find furniture I like. Everything feels out of proportion. Nothing is coming together the way I want it to. Everything costs millions of dollars. My taste is too expensive. I don’t want to wait to find the perfect thing. I’ve already signed up and quit the nesters course/community because I found it mainly bullshit.
I have such crappy germination on so many of my direct seeded flowers I’m so aggravated by it. Why won’t these seeds just start growing?! Is our weather perfect? No, it’s either too hot or too cold. We’ve had zero rain. But get it the heck together seeds and start growing I am so sick of seeding stuff over and over again. And I’m in a lull of flowers. My tulips are done, lilacs lasted five minutes, my ranunculus are really terrible and may not flower at all. It’s annoying.
Meghan Markle is annoying, tacky, and cringe and it annoys me that people think she’s not annoying.
It has been very windy here probably the last 43 of the last 45 days and it’s one of the top three things in life that makes me grumpy. Maybe this is the source, the wellspring from which all my grumpiness pours forth?
I’m going to stop because I value your time. What’s making you grumpy?
bits:
The only summer book list you need. Thanks
!I can’t stop recommending
’s substack and I make no apologies. But this piece on Peter Whimsy and Harriet Vane is so so good.We won’t even get me started on the subject of bishops because see above enough grumpiness, but this column from
really sums up so much of the basic disconnect the lay faithful and bishops have. It’s a simple problem, but I don’t think we can understate how much the quality of the liturgy we attend as lay people has on our actual lives. It’s our basic interaction with the Church, we deserve it to be at the very least decent.I apologize for forgetting all the great articles I’ve read in the last two weeks!
reading, watching, what have you:
Weirdly read two marriage-centric books in the last week, the first being Heartburn by Nora Ephron which I somehow have never read before? Her writing is so funny it is impossible not to enjoy. What I found fascinating was what a time capsule that book is. Cultural views on marriage have changed, some even for the better, but it’s also interesting how people in the 70s saw marriage mainly as a thing that could be easily left and taken up again. Still, absolutely hilarious, did not make me grumpy.
The other marriage-centric book was the short Hot Air by Marcy Dermansky which I read because of the quirky concept of going on a date with a billionaire after the pandemic, but I would not recommend. If these are the observations we’re making about marriage today then it’s a deeply nihilistic and depressing window to be looking through.
We went to the new Mission Impossible last weekend and it did not disappoint. Tom Cruise is going to sacrifice himself for the movies and who are we not to reap the rewards??
Tv-wise I watched Ludwig with my daughter and we found it to be pretty good if not very mystery-focused. And my other daughter and I have started watching Taskmaster on Youtube which has had me in actual tears of laughter more than once.
Ok. I’m going to go eat some freaking protein and then go work at tying up the sweet peas because the continue to be blown to smithereens on the daily. Isn’t smithereens a great word? Really need it to catch on on TikTok.
May you survive your weekend,
Christy
Oh, Meghan Markle is a daily source of grievance for me. So Cringy. So unlikeable. Why are Americans so dumb as to eat up everything she does?? I’m also grumpy about making dinner every night, the landscapers repairing the patio when it’s finally hot enough to use the pool (very first world problem), 8 year olds who still don’t wipe themselves effectively enough and finding out about it at a much later time, husbands who get sick whenever the kids get sick and get laid out much more severely than the kids, baby shark… so many grievances.
I read the Markle remark to my (British) husband and he said “everyone does think she’s annoying!” So at least you’re not alone ;)