overnights with her 2 kids three nights a week (she's a nurse) for $5/hour

Jesus. That would be criminal even if it weren't, you know, actually criminal.

(Granted, most of the nannies I know are paid under the table, but at legal-except-for-the-tax-dodge-thing wages. And with contracts.)

I don't believe in a calm enough horse that will trump you evidently not knowing how to ride in any useful manner. Not one that will actually go anywhere.

Where was her groom in that scenario? Standing behind the beast? Nice.

Wait--was she marrying a human?

I guess I don't get the big deal. She stayed on it.

Hell, you were being nice doing it off list. I might not have.

I looked up her other posts and she generally participates reasonably in the give/take of the list. So I decided to be kind.

Jesus. That would be criminal even if it weren't, you know, actually criminal.

The argument seems to be that since s/he'd be sleeping for a number of those hours, they shouldn't count. Also, she's a single mother and this is all she can afford. There are so many issues here, and I honestly sympathize, but none of it adds up to $5/hour being okay.

I think I am stuck in a minimum wage mindset where it is $3.35 an hour, and I used to get paid $2 an hour to babysit! Of course, that was in 1988.

understood that is all she can afford cash wise, but then why not think of a barter arrangement?

or a babysitting co-op?

She stayed on it.

Isn't the priority to stay in your ceremony? Hell, if she'd tumbled off the horse and limped right back over to the officiants, that would be been on mission.

understood that is all she can afford cash wise, but then why not think of a barter arrangement?

I was thinking that maybe there is a nice person who wants to share her house and watch the kids. Of course, maybe finding that person on Craiglist would not be ideal

I think the sudafed might be kicking in. Somehow, now that I can breathe I am really hungry.

He looks like no other kid out there though. They run, he gallops. They shuffle, he jumps and flails his arms. They run toward the ball, he sticks out a leg at it and falls. It is painful.

msbelle, I will neither confirm nor deny that I know of a boy with similar athletic prowess, but if I did, he would, I believe, be older than Mac.

eta...

I was not, aromantic bitter single that I am...

Aromantic. Okay. I parsed that as aromatic bitter and was coming up all ita = Angostura?

there was an article (maybe in The Atlantic) last month that discussed how fucked up Greece's economy is and that instead of using currency, many people were trading goods and services for their immediate needs.

I've always been attracted to this idea in theory. Doesn't work for a global marketplace, but in small communities...