Sassy vs Brassy

Today I told Ramona to stop "talking in that way." She was being sassy. She's bossy. She knows what she wants. And that's no excuse. She was being rude. It's not cute all the time. It was rude.

I guess my voice was little "intense." I would say that I was just trying to talk directly. My voice may have been a little brassy.

While being talked down, Ramona put her little hand in front of my mouth to stop my reprimand (It is so cute when she does that.), but I kept on talking. Then her face crumpled up and she started crying and said, "Don't talk to me that way. You sound like a tiger and not like my mom."

It reminded me of two summers ago. My mom was "talking in that way" to me about my driving and it was making me mad. She said that she was being intense--direct--and that talking in "that way" was the only way to get me (and my dad and my brother) to listen to her (and in turn, change what we are doing). "Change us--huh?" I asked her, "Is that
working for you?" She has repeated to me the is-that-working-for-you line about once a
month since then.

Last night Phil and I were having a planning pow wow. He was put off by me, my eyebrows jumping around, and my notebook of important decisions to make. My intensity was putting him off and he told me so. I told him that this is me. This is who I am. What does he want me to do? I just want to "get something done." Is that working for me?

Is my tiger-talk working for me? Is Ramona's sassy, stomp your foot while you are speaking to make your point working for her? What does work?