quiddities and agonies of the ruling class - a rolling new york times thread

You mean like daycare?

like grandma?

i think it is less "these people have child care" and more "these people could buy a used car every month with the money they spend on child care"

also "these people take a minimum of five vacations a year"

how is that bike lamp thing a "ruling class" agony

cuz they're noguchi!

that blog is still the brightest spot in my day.

Don't really see what's so outrageous about this one. I have a friend that did this. If both parents work someone's gotta pick up your kid when she gets out of kindergarten.

― dmr, Thursday, 22 March 2012 20:50 (48 minutes ago) Permalink

Well, I was surprised at how much they paid for PART TIME daycare, but I also just thought there were subtly funny quiddity-esque lines in the comment, like "Our child is in the third grade and trains in a sport five days a week so her time with her is limited"

Damn those ruling class New Yorkers and their Christmas, Easter AND Thanksgiving holidays!

i mean i've worked through most holidays my whole life, and i've sorta chalked it up to being the lot of my shitty low-rung wage work. i feel like numerically there might be more people on my side of the fence than the other?

"Being off school for a week" != "entire family going on holiday/vacation."

"go on holiday with our child" sounds like a trip to me but i'm not particularly interested in arguing about this

Yeah, def using the Brit version of "holiday"

I mean, yeah, rich kids and poor kids alike get Christmas vacation and spring break during the school year, but they are only an opportunity for the whole family to travel for one of those groups.

I only ever went somewhere for spring break once, and that was when my sister and I went to visit my dad for a week in luxurious Ft. Belvoir, VA. Ah, the joy of cramming three people into an efficiency apartment in the Bachelor Officers Quarters!

To be fair, it's a middle class luxury for parents to be able to plan their vacation time to overlap with spring break and travel for a day or two at that time. Really, some parents just take time off during spring break so that they don't have to pay for all-day daycare or find a place to stash kids.

I say this as I look around at a partially-empty office due to all my family-having coworkers being gone

there is something curiously british about michelle k from houston - texans don't say "go on holiday" do they? or "trains in a sport"? i know there are a lot of houston transplants from the scottish oil industry in the north sea, maybe she's one of them

or she's doing the "sounding british" affectation to seem classier, which seems like an anachronism to me

Yeah, I think Madonna put the final nail in that one.

And thanks Phil D for telling me what the B in BOQ meant! My family stayed in the BOQ between giving up our apt and going back to the US when we left Germany, and I never knew what it stood for (always assumed "base").

nah, the perception of England as classy is pretty much over :)

this is kinda quiddity-ish ... it doesn't occur to anyone here that maybe the young 'uns aren't into cars b/c they have no money (no job, students loans, etc).

As part of its “Millennial-Con,” Scratch brought in viral video stars like Sergio Flores, known as the Sexy Sax Man, a musician with a mullet and a denim jacket.

Cars are still essential to drivers of all ages

this is just stupid

If you want to be a driver, of a car, a car is essential. OTOH if you need to get from place to place, it's a different story.

I, for example, drive a steamroller.

I'm a zamboni man myself

That's why I drove a tank.

this is kinda quiddity-ish ... it doesn't occur to anyone here that maybe the young 'uns aren't into cars b/c they have no money (no job, students loans, etc).

― kurwa mać (Polish for "long life") (Eisbaer), Friday, March 23, 2012 7:33 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

we already talked about this in the cars an america thread but even people w/ money can think it's a stupid use of that money.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/27/nyregion/private-schools-mine-parents-data-and-wallets.html

Perhaps the greatest quiddity/agony headline of all time:

http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/i-regret-eating-my-placenta/

"I Regret Eating My Placenta"

also, lol:

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..Are you going to eat that?
March 25, 2012 at 9:55 p.m.ReplyRecommend11

prestigious, $21,000-a-year Upper East Side preschool

"Maybe it was sheer coincidence that I went nuts right after I started taking my placental pills"

"went"

holy shit buzza is actually quoting the lede of sterling's story

ffffffffffuuu

"Say, for example, a parent sits on the board of the Museum of Modern Art."

"They put their apartment on the market the next week and moved to Larchmont, in Westchester County."

wauuu

21k/yr for preschool from an editor at Elle seemed a stretch but a quick google search shows her hubby is an investment banker so everything's as it should be

I liked the placenta-eating remorse article.

"I Regret Eating My Placebo"

same root word, I believe!

I Regret Living in Placentia, CA Where There Are No Prestigious Preschools

"I Regret Eating My Placebo"

― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, March 27, 2012 4:17 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Haha yeah, exactly.

Last summer, Mr. Martin and his team temporarily transformed part of the G.M. lobby into a loftlike space reminiscent of a coffee shop in Austin or Seattle, with graffiti on the walls and skateboards and throw pillows scattered around.

Is that really what coffee shops in Austin and Seattle are like?

Skateboards scattered around sounds like an OSHA claim waiting to happen.

it is just.... how do these people live with themselves

can’t speak for seattle, but in austin coffee shops you can’t move for fear of tripping over a skateboard/throw pillow

xp

http://lemon-beagles.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/poochie2.jpg

Ms. Combe, for instance, says that while she makes a good salary and her husband has a job in finance, they cannot afford such a large lump-sum donation. She declined to identify the school, but said the meeting, which took place two years ago, was an epiphany.

“It just made clear everything that was making me uncomfortable about New York City private schools,” she said.

really the essence of quiddities here - "my husband, a managing director at Credit Suisse, and I are horrified by our $21k annual tuition preschool's focus on financial gain!"

"we should use that gringe music that they like. gringe. that's a thing, right?"