I also forgot to mention all the tree pollen they shed in the spring. I park in the driveway, so I buy a membership to the local car wash for March-April-May because I am washing my car at least once a week, sometimes twice, to get all the tree schmutz off.
And the acorns… my god the acorns… It’s no wonder we can’t get grass to grow.
I think I ranted about this in the February thread.
We have two cats, one senior (13) and one super senior (18 and a half, the cat equivalent of 90) who have suddenly gotten super expensive. Both have stage 2 kidney disease, one has a heart murmur and ventricular hypertrophy, the other has either IBS or cancer (we’re treating her for IBS because it’s not worth it to biopsy an 18-year-old cat). Between blood work, urinalysis, echocardiograms, ultrasounds, an emergency vet visit, and their insanely expensive prescription kidney food, I’m pretty sure those adorable assholes have cost us about $10,000 in the last year.
Little sociopaths are worth it, damn it.
I forewent the two days because the dietary change for the week before had been doing a fine job on it’s own. I suspect that detracting NSAIDs from my diet for a week has had something to do with it. I’m in the midst of the awful right now. Headache, partially due to caffeine withdrawal, and had made a decision to just stop, but after some PowerAde, I’m feeling a bit better. Glad no one is here to witness the awful.
My sympathies!!
Why caffeine withdrawal? Most plans explicitly allow coffee and cola.
Nothing wrong with a blanket! My dentist offers blankets (mainly because it gets so cold in there), along with various streaming services on TVs in the treatment rooms and assorted fish tanks throughout the building. The dental assistants always remember my favorites (I guess those are in my chart too?).
I think the one in my yard is a willow oak, but it’s pretty much the same. It does a lovely job of blocking my view of the clubhouse across the street though. It was also feeding off a leaky sewage pipe for many years, which I guess is why it’s the biggest tree on the street despite all of them being planted at the same time…
Mainly because I was being stupid this morning. On a typical day, it’s not an issue but on a day when I don’t eat breakfast, I don’t make my tea to go with it. If I were going to work, making an ice tea is automatic. Eating breakfast means hot tea with milk. Can’t have milk so can’t have my preferred hot drink. And because I’m not going to work, I didn’t set up a brew of ice tea. My bad. I remedied that but the headache had already started.
Around here, the builders all planted Bradford Pears or Leyland Cypresses.
The Bradfords have a lovely shape, but are weak and very easy to damage in a heavy storm. The Leylands are also lovely; they grow fast and provide great screening - but have shallow roots and tend to go over in a heavy storm.
Hurricane Irene (?) hit our neighborhood and took out four trees. 2 were Bradfords, 2 were Leylands (one of them in our yard). Our second Leyland went in another storm. We had the third removed proactively.
We’ve lost all our pear trees save one; about half the Leylands are gone, and the rest will be taken out in the next few years, I think. One rudely interrupted what would have been a decent night’s sleep by falling and knocking out a bedroom window about 2 feet from my husband’s head.
I’m happy to say that I Netfiled my (Canadian) 2023 tax return today, but now I’m wondering if I screwed something up. There was a really, really stupidly worded question that I don’t exactly recall, but it was basically “Did you flip a real estate property in 2023?” and the options were “Yes”, “No”, or something like “Doesn’t apply”. WTF is the difference between “No” and “Doesn’t apply”? I checked “No” because it seemed clearer. I hope I didn’t do something that will trigger a federal investigation!
This evening I found a very sweet, very worried, quite skinny momma cat and three tiny jellybean babies. They can’t be more than 2 days old. This is/was obviously someone’s cat, she’s a love.
I was doing my evening treat handout -nose count and didn’t see Dot, so went out the back to their cat-paddock to call her. I heard a high noise that might have been a night bird, but it’s starting to be kitten season here in SC, so …
Got a flashlight and went around the front and followed the noise. Yup, it was lost baby kitten shrieks. They were under one of my husbands “project” cars. I finally got the tarp up enough to see and out pops momma’s grey face, and there was one of the teenies close by. I went back in and got her some food, thinking that she’d never let me come near so soon. Once she dove for the food she was not at all worried about being picked up.
Husband and I scooped everyone up, and they’re now warm and safe in my bathroom. Momma’s had a good big dinner, and when I turned the lights off was finally settling down while the kids had a good meal from her.
I’m so glad I found her, but I already have 12 house cats, and 3 very unforgiving barn cats. She’s fine in my bathroom for now, but … sigh …
I hate people who are so casual about their animals 
My dentist here in Beijing offers those and also some plush toys to hold. My favorite–and I’m not ashamed to admit I held onto it for one procedure near the beginning of my Invisalign treatment–is a cartoonish crocodile* with braces.
*Because crocs are famous for their teeth is my guess why they had that thing.
Can’t you use one of the non-dairy substitutes for the milk?
Is there a way to amend your netfiled submission?
Yes, there is, but I think “no” may be a satisfactory answer to that particular question. I think think the whole thing stems from this:
For 2023 and subsequent taxation years, Budget 2022 introduced a new deeming rule for residential real estate (including rental property). The new deeming rule is to ensure that profits from the disposition of flipped property are taxed as business income.
I am still job hunting. This is a hard and demoralizing task. I’ve had a lot of interviews and a LOT of "no"s. I am losing hope that I’ll ever find a job, though I realize that I am barely 6 weeks into the process. I am still angry that I got fired. And I still have stress dreams about my old job. This sucks.
And I also need to file taxes. My old job messed up my W2 and only just issued my corrected W2. I know I’m going to owe so I’ve been procrastinating. I should just get to it before I run out of time.
I’m pitting myself. I agreed to assist a local council candidate with her campaign, and have been a ridiculous flake. I meant to call her a couple of times about some forms and just plum didn’t. I wasn’t super busy I was just acting like a clown show.
It’s embarrassing.
Me too, but I love people like you!
Hardest job I ever had was after I got fired from the hardest job I ever had.
Job hunting sucks (for SO many reasons that I’m not making a list, but the psychological number it does on you is #1). But I just want to give you some hope.
I was suddenly jobless, right after we’d finally gotten our first house and a baby. Wife’s job was only part time, we bottomed out our savings, and after months, the only offers I was getting were for inappropriate soul-crushing positions that I would’ve failed at…
… and life all changed in an hour. And that hour was after 4:00 on a Friday. I had a nice chat with the Creative Director of a media company (that was not on my list, as they’d just lost their biggest client and layoffs were underway). They called in the owners for a “second interview”, and, as everyone was leaving for the weekend, they offered me… a job.
Seven years later I was the Creative Director, and only left because they were so busy that I was putting in 60-80 hrs a week, and wanted to get to know my kids.
Thank you for that. I feel sometimes like I’m the only person going through this when I know intellectually that I am not.
I just had an interview and I talked like a bumbling idiot. I said the words “Made sure MOCs were completed completely.” Wow. Grade A English right there. And then I criticized my choice of words in front of the interviewer. WOW. GOOD JOB. STOP TALKING.
I don’t think I’m getting this one.
I have given many, many more interviews than I have taken. I am suprisingly good at giving them, given I am an introverted nerd. I am not so good at being the interviewee, though.
My advice, though it may seem a little unfair on the various companies, practice. As the old cliche says, practice makes perfect.
Apply for jobs you don’t actually want. Gain confidence. Do lots of interviews. Teach yourself how to approach an interview. Practice. Expect failure.
Confidence, not bravado, but actual confidence is one of the things my previous company really cared about. No ego. Just a sense that you, the interviewee, know your shit.
(FWIW, I too am unemployed and looking. )
One of the reasons I had stayed with my government job for 30 years was that the thought of going on job interviews terrified the shit out of me. I did apply for a few promotions and transfers for other government jobs over the years, but that wasn’t quite the same thing as looking for another job in the “private sector”. Besides, the supposed experience I had in my current job didn’t really translate well into other jobs.
Excuse the double-post, but I have yet another mini-rant of my own. Every time I try to log on to my BCBS health insurance account I get asked to confirm my current telephone number in order to verify the device I’m using to log in (my desktop computer)… While at least they’ve stopped sending me a text message with a code that I need to enter, what’s really annoying is that after I check off the box telling it to remember this device, a box pops up informing my that this device is now confirmed for the next four months, yet I have to confirm it again the very next day!