An interesting topic came up in a group chat this weekend. Here was the precipitating statement:
Are old-fashioned manners outlawed these days? As a childless uncle and aunt, we’ve always been very generous to our nephews and niece. Now that they’re adults — my niece is studying law but the boys are working — we send them sizable checks. As of today, still no thanks. Hell, we’d settle for a text. All three are good people, yet they seem unaware of basic common courtesies.
It so happens this is something I’ve noticed myself. Wedding gifts in particular don’t seem to be acknowledged. (Not by Deb’s boys, I hasten to reassure her. They wrote lovely thank-you notes.) I bought one a few years back, working from the online registry, and as soon as I hit Purchase a robo-email landed in my inbox: Bob and Sue thank you for your generosity! The hell they do. They checked a box, maybe, on their registry, to enable the robo-reply.
I know I didn’t get a proper thank-you afterward.
And having had a wedding of my own, and knowing how insane they tend to get, I don’t think this is always a hanging offense. Couples get overwhelmed, cards fall off of boxes, shit happens. But with wedding gifts in particular, so often they’re sent directly to the bride’s or couple’s house before the wedding. You want to know they arrived, at least. Porch piracy is a real thing. But it seems weird to ask, although Alan did, once. He got a mumbled yeah I think so and only learned later the marriage didn’t survive very long, and maybe that’s why the thank-you was never sent.
I blame parents for not teaching their children better manners, although given the way Gen Z reacts when asked to do anything involving setting a pen to paper, maybe they did and they were just ignored. As my friend says, just send a text. It’ll probably be enough.
So, the great interregnum of the year is upon us. I hope you all had a lovely Christmas; I know we did. Gifts and food and more food and cocktails at 3 p.m., all of it. I got some wonderful gifts, large and small. I’m currently waiting for what is supposed to be more apocalyptic weather on Sunday, torrents of rain followed by plunging temperatures that may or may not lead to snow, but will surely freeze the puddles left behind. Good thing this is my vacation from my early lifeguarding shifts.
And I’m doing Dry January, again. In fact, I’m looking forward to it, after all the rich food and 3 p.m. cocktails of the past few days. I want to eat vegetables and drink sparkling water, or just plain old water. Settle in for the long haul until spring not feeling like the Goodyear blimp.
Couple quick things: For four days now, I have been unable to load this site — my own site! — on my phone, but it works fine everywhere else. Anyone else having the same problem? I get this error:
J.C. says he blames “the DNS services your phone’s provider is serving your phone with.” I have no idea.
Another housekeeping note: I reloaded the WordPress app on my phone, thinking it would be easier to post more often, with photos and such. Alas, these posts (like yesterday’s) seem to default to closed comments, even though I thought I changed that setting. I’ll keep tinkering, but be advised I’m aware of the problem.
Finally, let’s all take note of the example of Chuck Redd, the jazz musician who cancelled his Christmas Eve jam at the Kennedy Center after the toadies running it added you-know-who’s name to the building. Harvard is buckling. Big Law buckled. Big Media buckled. But this guy didn’t. Let a million Davids bloom. Keep your slingshot handy. We are on our own, we all know that now.
I was at the Eastern Market on Saturday when a Waymo taxi passed me. Someone was behind the wheel, which I take to mean it’s still undergoing testing, but we’ll likely have the driverless vehicles in Detroit before long. I texted a friend that I look forward to setting one on fire during the bloody riots of summer ’26. I was joking, but only kinda. We all know the year ahead will be grim, as the midterms approach and the Trumpers get more desperate. Be like Chuck Redd. Maybe we’ll get through this.
Deborah said on December 28, 2025 at 10:24 am
My husbands nephew had what he calls a Kardashian marriage. He and his beloved lived together for a few years, but then she asked for a divorce a couple of months after their wedding. We went to the wedding and everything seemed normal, I guess she just wanted to experience being a bride. Anyway we didn’t get a thank you note understandably. I have no idea what happened to the gifts.
A couple of years later the nephew married again, happily, and now they have 3 kids already.
I few weeks ago I mentioned that a friend in our book club had written a novel, it was reviewed in the New York Times Review. The name of the book is Simone in Pieces, by Janet Burroway, if you scroll down you can read the review, the book is quite good BTW https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/18/books/review/new-historical-fiction-books.html?unlocked_article_code=1.AFA.BKPh.Z3qRv4NxCC1J&smid=url-share gift link.
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David C said on December 28, 2025 at 10:40 am
We get texted thank-yous from our young relatives and I’d say it’s pretty close to 100%. I’m perfectly fine with that. We don’t have many gift giving occasions with our millennial relatives anymore. When we do, more often than not, we don’t hear jack shit.
From what I hear about Waymo, they follow the rules almost to a fault. Where humans will bend the rules to get out of situations, Waymo won’t and sometimes make a mess of things because of it. I wonder how strict rule following will work out in Detroit where bending the rules, like a pretzel is bent, is the norm.
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alex said on December 28, 2025 at 11:03 am
I remember going to a wedding once and the gift thing turned out to be a disaster. Some stupid busybody arranging the gift table decided that it would be better to separate the cards from the presents. So nobody got any thank yous, least of all that person.
Last night we had a second Christmas dinner for relatives who couldn’t make it on Christmas. I count both meals as some of my best work ever, but it certainly helps that I sought out great recipes from the NYT cooking section. I seldom use cookbooks anymore; the web site is like an encyclopedia and the commenters always leave great tips.
No Drynuary in this house. Too many great winter dishes made with brandy, wine, spirits or beer, and all best washed down with hooch as well. I’m giving myself the munchies just thinking about cooking.
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jcburns said on December 28, 2025 at 12:15 pm
Nancy, your problem (as I said) isn’t your site or your iPhone. It depends on the infrastructure your phone can access to connect to the internet at any given moment. The infrastructure is different in downtown Detroit than in GPW. Different in the UP. Different in North Carolina. And so on. And most importantly, different when you connect to the internet via cellular radio vs WiFi. So!
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nancy said on December 28, 2025 at 1:05 pm
I understand, but it’s the same whether I’m on wifi or cellular, this place or that. I’m chalking it up to a biblical mystery and not worrying about it.
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Sherri said on December 28, 2025 at 1:06 pm
I’ve been getting the same failure periodically for a couple of months.
On Waymo, I wouldn’t say they strictly follow the rules. They sometimes don’t seem to know the rules. In both Austin and Atlanta, there have been multiple instances of Waymos blowing past school buses with their stop signs out, to the point that Austin asked Waymo not to operate during school bus hours (a request that Waymo didn’t comply with.)
In San Francisco, there was recently a large power outage, resulting in traffic signals being out, and Waymo couldn’t handle that. Waymo didn’t just blast through the dark intersections, though; it entered the intersection and stopped, causing all sorts of problems.
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Dexter Friend said on December 28, 2025 at 2:05 pm
A year ago my step-granddaugter graduated from U of Toledo. Her dad and mom and step-mom had a wonderful dinner party at a “fancy restaurant”, as Dad called such places…
I gave a card with yeah, a sizable amount of cash. A few days later a nice hand-written thank-you note appeared, stating I hadn’t needed to give like that, but she was very grateful. So the world is in some good hands, anyway. But…last week I got an invitation to her wedding; it’s in Grand Rapids. Oh, how I hoped it was Grand Rapids, Ohio. Well, no, it’s the West Michigan GR. The info, telling me to access the QR code for directions and attire, left me confused. A huge QR code…and listen: I can sit in my chair and aim at a QR code on the Vizio TV, so tiny, and it always works. This one was dead, nothing. Anyone else been getting invitations and announcements with no information, just a QR code?
UM Wolverines signed a football coach. He looks like the late Kris Kristofferson. I do not approve. I wanted a different, younger coach. Damn. And my Detroit Lions were the disappointment we never saw coming. Their offensive coordinator went on to coach the worst team last year in the division. Yes, the Chicago Bears, who are 11-4 and are in Santa Clara tonight playing the 49ers. That’s sports! Back to you, weather woman!
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