Coffee Morning Question Time
Here are the questions:
Are you easily irritated by people? If so what annoys or irks you the most?
This is like asking why we can’t be friends.
Easily irritated? Let us count the ways! As a start, you live too far away. There isn’t even a bus or train in this town. Merely getting to a grocery store is a big deal. There’s no way I’m traveling many miles unless we are already good friends, which we aren’t. Another reason? You won’t like me. Count on it.
Even if I like you, you won’t return the feeling. I talk too much and have a sharp tongue. If you say stupid things, I will snort derisively and won’t take you seriously. If you don’t know any history and worse, you don’t read books, what could we talk about anyway? Do you follow the news? Not minute by minute but overall, at least enough to have a grip on what’s going on in this world we live in?
If you take photographs with trash cans in the background, I will not admire them, even if the subject is your dearest grandchild. She or he would look better — I guarantee it — without a single trash cans. Unless you are making some kind of artistic statement about grandchildren and trash, and I sincerely hope you aren’t.
If you aren’t worried about the planet and can’t understand why I feed birds and squirrels because all those little animals don’t count? I will probably think you don’t count.
To me, the most irritating thing are people who claim to care about the planet and the world, yet do absolutely nothing to improve it. Not even the smallest thing. They contribute nothing and take everything they can. Their level of hypocrisy drives me bonkers.
So, I am not everyone’s cuppa tea. Sometimes, I’m not even my own cuppa tea. Actually, I’m not all that fond of tea. This probably makes me a bad person especially because with the hot dry weather, we not going to be able to afford coffee much longer.
Meanwhile, coffee anyone? How about a cookie?
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Categories: #BlackstoneRiver, #Photography, Childhood, Friendship, Humor, Relationships
SERENDIPITY: SEEKING INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH 
Oh, Marilyn, if we ever met, I guarantee I would like you. I would laugh at your snorts and derisive comments. The question is, would you like me? Sure, I’ve mellowed over the years, but there are still those quirky moments when I simply can’t control the snarkiness. And, yes, at least one of my published photos did contain a trash can. Please don’t hate me for that.
I miss you and Garry. For some reason, I’m no longer receiving notices of your posts, and since I’m not on WP so much any more, I tend to forget to look up my blogging friends’ sites. Hope all is well in your neck of the woods. Hugs to you both.
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I think we’d do fine. I like people with a bit of snark to them. Keeps life interesting.
I’m pretty sure you can get posts from me (or anyone) without having a working blog. I have several friends who aren’t bloggers who get my posts. I think you just have to sign up so you name is in their files, but you don’t actually have to USE that space. Anyway, WordPress is always messing around with connections. Periodically, I have to go check to see if I’m still connected. Every time they update, I lost half the people on my “list.”
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I actually still have a working blog. I’m just not on it as much as I used to be.
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It seems that a lot of us who blog have formed strong bonds with fellow bloggers but we don’t like to socialise much. I am the same. I had a small group of people in Geeveston who I saw socially but since I’ve been here, I haven’t made any new friends. It doesn’t bother me though. I enjoy my day at the visitor centre and I love talking to people there but when I come home that’s it. My home is my castle.
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I think it’s hard to make new friends when you get older. It takes time to make a friendship. Lots of sharing and talking and that’s fine if you can, but no one lives nearby these days. Everyone lives too far, so if they aren’t already friends, it’s hard to find time to really get to know one another. I don’t seem to mind either. Maybe we don’t need company as much as we get older.
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Hey Marilyn,
This is a great answer. My philosophy has always been being social is overrated anyway. I can relate to much of what you say and how you have expressed it. I have more patience with animals than people. I certainly am surrounded by more animals than people and l have a love and fondness for birds, squirrels and worms and everything else animal wise, but not so much human 🙂
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I think most of us get on better with dogs, cats, and horses than people. I went through a very sociable period long ago, but the older I get, the less interest I have in strangers.
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I think you rock! We are definitely on the same page. I love feeding the squirrels and birds. I have three cats, but they stay inside 100%. In the past, I’ve seen my kitties (from previous generations) take down birds of every variety, bunny rabbits, mice, even rats! While some might consider some of these critters “vermin,” my opinion is that everything has a right to live. Right? By instinct, cats are predators. It behooves me to play with them using stuffed toys on strings, shoe laces and the like. We run around the apartment like crazy people. When my cats get rambunctious, I call it “zoomies.” Maxwell has the zoomies!
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I stopped letting our cats out more than 20 years ago. I had not before then realized how lethal pet cats are to birds and other small creatures. It was pure ignorance on my part. I apologize to all the creatures my cats slew in my ignorant years.
These days, I think I feel more sociable with the birds and squirrels than with most people. We have a few friends we’ve knows for a very long time, but otherwise? My idea of “getting out” is going to a park along the river and taking pictures. I realized recently that I didn’t like most parties 50 years ago and I still don’t like them. It’s one thing getting together with people you know, but these big parties full of people you don’t know and quite probably don’t want to know? What’s the point?
Our dog gets the zoomies too. He races like a mad things around the house, then collapses and grins at us. “Got a treat for me?” He zooms less as he has moved past puppyhood into middle age.
We don’t have cats now. We have a pet flap for the dog which means we couldn’t keep the cats inside and I won’t let them out. I’m forever shooing away neighbor’s cats who like to come and watch the birds. I prefer they NOT come and watch our birds.
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Poor little birdies. I saw a terrible video on youtube where a man was taking a bird and holding it up to a cat. When the cat raised its paw to swipe at it, he’d say, “Nay!” He didn’t take into account that he was torturing both animals. The bird had to be frightened to death and the cat must have been horribly frustrated. I saw a couple of hawks attacking two blue jays. The blue jays were literally screaming with fear. There screams sounded eerily human.
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I understand that everything needs to eat, including hawks, but trying to convince a pet cat to not attack birds is incredibly stupid. But then again, we seem to be swamped by stupidity these days. You can run, but you can’t hide.
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Ha! I swear that my cats understand every word I say. It’s rather uncanny. 🙂
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Our dog, the Duke, is surprisingly smart. In our many-dogged past, we had one dog who was as smart as most toddlers. We’ve also had a few stupid ones, both cats and dogs. Just like people, there are huge differences. The absolutely smartest dog we had was a PBGV (Petit Basset Griffon Vendeen — a short-legged shaggy French rabbit hunter). All hounds are smart, but Tinker was special. She could open any gate, AND she close them. I’m sure if we had given her keys, she’d figure out how to open locks too.
We used to have a nice pack of pooches and before we moved here, we had some amazingly intelligent cats. Now, we have just one dog remaining. I think we are too old to try keep many 🐶 dogs or 🧥 cats. They would all need homes and reality is telling us one is enough. But I miss them all.
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I know what you mean. I had a cat. His name was JD (after a close friend.) This little fella would go up on his hind legs and jiggle doorknobs with his front paws! When I was a boy, we had a german shepherd/doberman mix. She was amazingly intelligent. When she wanted to be fed, like Snoopy, she would pick up her bowl and walk around the house with it, laying at the feet of whoever she thought would be compliant. She was the smartest dog I’ve ever met.
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Ha! Oh, Marilyn–you have a sharp tongue, you snort and will laugh at trash cans in photos–I love you! This was so honest.
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Well, thank you Ms. Lois 😀 I really am not everyone’s cuppa tea or coffee. For all those years of working, I spent a lot of time worrying that if I spoke up, I’d offend someone. I don’t think I was wrong, either.
As I’ve aged, the suppressed me has emerged. I still try to tamp it down, but something happens with age. Ones ability to bite ones tongue seems to disappear.
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I read you like a book, and we are on the same page. Lovely photographs. 😀
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Thank you. I sometimes wonder if I wasn’t me, would I like me? Don’t we all wonder about that?
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I like coffee. A lot. And I’ll take that cookie.
Most of my work over the last part of my life had involved people. Customer Service. And I was good at it. My last job was as a Greeter at Home Depot – for about 8 years. The day I retired my Boss told me on that I was the best Greeter he had ever seen.
YET … I have NO friends. None. And I am not the least bit Social. I (we) never have people over (company) and VERY rarely ever go out with anybody for any reason. I don’t want to – and don’t care about it. Other people I know Party and Socialize all the time. But we never do. ?? I have a Face Book page, but I never look at it. I’m not sure if this is odd or not? Just the way we are. When I die probably nobody will notice (except Rose). Not even me.
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We’re pretty much the same. With a couple of exceptions — people we’ve known since college — all that socializing is more like work than fun. Garry can’t hear and I get tired very quickly. We still get invitations, but except for our little 2-day excursion to Kennebunkport, we pretty much never go to anything. ESPECIALLY not parties. All that noise and people I don’t know (and don’t really want to know)(or am afraid to know) are more like fear factors than proposed friendships.
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I think we got along fine and I did travel a long way, but if I come again it will not be via Spirit Airlines.
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Yes, but we really had gotten to know each other pretty well by then. We’d had years of contact through good and bad times. Starting a brand new friendship these days takes so much effort. I rarely feel I have the strength to fight my way through. You have been a very unexpected bonus to my blogging world and you have no idea how grateful I am.
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You have no idea how grateful I am to have to opportunity to write here. As you know, establishing a blog takes time and I could never do it. I appreciate the Sunday showcase, so to speak, with an additional whim thrown in now and then.
By the way, John is talking Boston for this year but I don’t know where we would fit it in. It’s not the first time he has mentioned it. He also knows someone in the Boston region.
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Well you have no idea how GLAD I am that you DO write here! You’ve saved my bacon many many times. We still do have a guest room here. Owen now has his friend living with him (us) now, but Garry cleaned up our guest room upstairs.
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John and I agreeing on what we are going to do and when is a major undertaking. He gave up driving, because he was too nervous, so he would like me to be his Uber driver whenever possible.
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HI Marilyn, I also value the animals, plants, and birdlife we share this planet with and I am horrified by mankind’s derisive treatment of nature (and other people) in the name of wealth. My thoughts on friends are the same as yours. I would probably be more tolerant of values and behaviours I don’t admire (because I work in a corporate and am part of that world so have to suck it up), but I wouldn’t be friends with people who don’t share my values. PS I really like your blog because I admire your attitude and honesty.
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With each passing year, I get less tolerant of the stupid, ignorant, and hypocritical. I was a lot more patient when I was younger, but then, like you, I was working. I had to rein it in or I wouldn’t be working long. I often feel as if the world has tilted in the wrong direction and we are being attacked by some kind of rays from outer space. Could it really be just social media? How can so many people become insane at the same time?
This is a very strange world we are in, stranger than I ever imagined possible.
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I feel the same way as you do, Marilyn. Social media influences a lot of people in all the wrong directions.
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Mostly, it seems to influence people in all the wrong ways. I often think there is something wrong with humans. If there’s a good way or a bad way to deal with something, we almost always choose the bad way.
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