Bube, you might take a leaf from Lou's book, thusly... put a question to her, one that clearly requires a response, and then sit in silence. Don't succumb to the temptation to fill in the silence. Just sit. Give her about five minutes, then repeat the question in the same words. Then wait some more. That silence is a very effective weapon on her part-- it's almost impossible to resist the impulse to say something, anything. Just bring her back to the question with infinite patience.
I used to have a professor in graduate school who would do something like that... you'd go in his office to say something and he would reply briefly, then this silence would descend. As a student, you'd be uncomfortable and start to babble. He would just sit there and listen while you spilled your guts-- anything to fill the silence. By this tactic, he knew ALL of the gossip that was going around in the department.
I'm curious as to how you would handle an employee at work if they came in and you asked about a project and then simply sat in silence.
ZB... I do know the silent treatment, and it is maddening. Something MWD says has stuck with me..." they're not deaf; they hear you." That little phrase has stopped a few dissertations.
In a way, when she sits in silence, she's trying to distract you, the way Lou's W tries to distract him with talk of when is he going to get to some repair or other. Mrs. ZB is sidetracking you into focusing on the FACT of her not answering instead of staying focused on the CONTENT of what she might say. She's actually changing the subject.
I have a vacation home near Corpus Christi that's rented, and my tenant has boarded up the windows with plywood and left today. This is VERY VERY scary. Right now, they're not exactly sure where it will hit. AH! The guy on the Weather Channel has just said that Hurricane Allen was the longest sustained Category 5 in history...
And no one on TV has commented on this... but in 1980 Hurricane Allen came into the Gulf... it was lots bigger than Rita with sustained winds of 190mph. Big Category 5 storm. When it finally made landfall on August 9, the winds had dropped to 115-- still nothing to sneeze at, but over land it could not sustain those really high winds. I had just gone to work for the Red Cross, and that was the first major disaster I worked on.
I'm in north Texas - just about due east of Dallas. Last night they were still predicting Rita to make it to the Dallas area with tropical storm winds and 4-7" of rain, but that doesn't sound too serious. And the stock pond could sure stand a little refilling.
My brother lives in southwest Houston though. He's in San Francisco at Oracle World this week, but he's leaving early and coming home this morning. The Houston Office of Emergency Preparedness has recommended that people where he lives should stay put. They're not in a flood-prone area and the officials have asked them to stay home and stay off of the roads to keep them open for the people who do need to evacuate. I was planning to go to Houston last night to help SIL batten down the hatches, but since my brother is getting to come home early, we called that off. He said that he could batten his own hatches.
The news was also showing pictures of bumper to bumper traffic clogging every major road out of the area. They were talking to one guy who spent eleven hours driving from Houston to Dallas.
Anyway, nothing happened on the home front yesterday. I only saw W in passing. When I got home she was loading animals into her van and heading off to the vet. She got home just as I was going to bed at 9:30. I don't know when she came to bed. She hasn't made it to bed before I've been asleep for at least a week.
And BTW, my last count was wrong. It's twelve dogs and thirteen cats.
W did call me this morning, but it had nothing to do with us. She said that on the weather this morning they were saying that Rita could still be a category one hurricane when it gets to us. And the computer models I see on http://pantheon.yale.edu/~bkw5/images/Rita_092105_11pm_track.png show it coming east of Dallas - right where I live. But..., Hairdog said that it could be worse, he could be in Texas - I'll say it could be worse, I could be in Houston. Or Galveston.
I know you are a classic conflict avoider So I'm not going to give you a hard time here...just going to ask, how long are you going to allow this to go on before you do say something. Because, you know it will be up to you to say something, she won't.
Yes GEL, I know you’re right. Since I ride a motorcycle to work nearly every day, and since I come to work way before there’s any traffic, I have plenty of time to think during my commute. No radio or anything you know. So this very morning, on the way in, I was thinking almost exactly what you just said. When am I going to say something and what something am I going to say? Should I wait until she provokes me again? Like bringing home yet another animal? Should I try to schedule a discussion? It’s kind of hard to talk to her when she’s not even there.
Another truth is that I haven’t even started my list yet. I don’t know what to put on it. I don’t even know what the major problem is. Are the animals the problem – she’s just so committed and so busy with them that she’s ignoring everything and everybody else – or is the amount of time she’s spending on the animals just a way of avoiding the real problem(s)? Do I talk about the dogs, or do I just talk about not feeling that I’m important to her? Or maybe both? I suspect that I’m just diverting myself again, but I feel like I need to come up with a plan before I start talking.
So I'm not going to give you a hard time here...just going to ask, how long are you going to allow this to go on before you do say something. Because, you know it will be up to you to say something, she won't.