Deviated September (Monthly Mini-Rants)

The BBQ Pit
181

Fuckit. This is a rant about myself, and my inability to set boundaries, as well as the people who overstep what I consider (silently) my boundaries. So a mini-self-pit.

A while ago, I was homeless, living in my car (fortunately a truck with ample space to sleep in the back, plus a small mattress and I had minor amenities - camping gas stove, equipment etc). Anyway, I was uncomfortable, but getting by.

Eventually, I located a place to stay, effectively a medical/mental health support charity hostel; a step-up from a homeless shelter. It is OK, cheap, and there are three meals a day (albeit, the quality of the meals makes me glad I went to boarding school, only that educational experience enables me to eat the rubbish put before me!)

But… everyone who lives in the house is broken in some way, and all are broke financially. Primarily schizophrenia and life-long mental illnesses, several have drug addictions, everyone relies on relatives to support them. I do too, my sister is currently supplying me with extra food.

The ranting part: I have a laptop, a bicycle, a food supply, an internet connection, a free phone call allocation. In this environment, that makes me rich. I feel for the other people here, who are either pretty much unsupported by their families or have no family.

I share what I have. It annoys me to do so. I want to eat my chilli sauce all month, not just the first few days of the month - because if I bring it out at a meal, everyone wants a little bit of luxury.

So I share. But I really do not want to. That’s MY chilli sauce that got finished in less than three days when it should have lasted me a month. That is MY cereal, that is MY yoghurt, MY cheese. My chocolate, my fuit, etc etc. MY luxuries.

I can share, but it irks me that it has become an obligation - I can’t eat anything in public without a request to share, and to share with one is to share with all.

Naturally, everyone smokes cigarettes except me, so no reciprocity there…

I also have a great deal on internet, and phone calls. But both are linked to my phone, so if I share my connection, it needs to be close to my phone, which is always near me. “Near me” means, “in my personal space” so I have people in my room or near me at all sorts of times. And there is nothing to do except hang out. No books, no games, nothing. So I can’t blame them. But shit, I need some personal space.

182

No, the form I had was too generic for them; they wanted something with my specific card # or name on it; problem was it was morning in Germany & while customer service was 24 hrs, the unit that provided what I needed was only US-work hours. I could have sat around until they opened & not paid anything. Instead, I paid one day’s insurance, took my car then pulled over a couple of hours later & did a quick call to get it all resolved.

For the vast majority of people, if some company attempts to debit them “tens of thousands of dollars” it will be rejected NSF.

183

The culture in the centre does sound intrusive all right. It’s no wonder people can be reluctant to enter that type of venue. I can think of other places where persons are pressed on to share commissaries but don’t want to draw an unwelcome comparison.

184

Ha, it is not that bad. But on the same scale.

If there was a barter system, I’d be happier, but no one has anything to offer. Still, warm bed, dry room, next-door neighbour’s cat visiting… it is mostly good.

185

This is a very profession-specific rant, but literally every grant I apply to these days, including federal grants, require some kind of community partner. I think this is a stupid requirement. Hear me out - partnership is good, and my agency is especially good at community partnerships. We have an entire job role dedicated to creating and maintaining them.

But having to tack on some community partnership, really unnecessarily, and constantly hit up our partners for letters of support, for every fucking grant, is a righteous pain in the ass. Can we please just accept that sometimes nonprofits can operate programs on their own, without some weird shoehorned-in partnership component?

That is all.

186

Just curious, but is this just how it has always been or is it a recent change? I know that there have been some extremely awful changes from the current administration (to drive out the evil DEI bogeyman), but I also understand griping about something that’s just built into the industry that’s stupid. (I have the same gripes all the time about aspects of the IT industry.)

187

It definitely predates the Trump administration but I’ve seen a rise in the number of applications that require this. I don’t blame the administration for that, I think it’s just one of those things that foundations hear about and decide it’s a good idea and then everyone’s doing it.

The federal government has pretty much always required this, which makes more sense to me, because the projects can be pretty ambitious and it’s unlikely you have all the experience and expertise in a single organization.

For a $5,000 community grant, though? No thank you.

188

Going to a festival this weekend; if the weather is not good, we’re skedaddling early & doing something else.

Now I know that it’s a bit early & I know that being a weather guesser is a great job; because if I was wrong that often in my job I’d be fired, & I also know that different websites use different models & therefore, get somewhat different forecasts; however, in looking at one website, the 10-day shows .14" of rain on Sat (& timing matters for us); however, if one goes into the hourly for Sat there is zero precipitation for every single one of the 24 hrs in the day.

My question is HOW? How does one particular forecast not agree with itself depending upon the view? ::SMH::

189

The weather in Memphis is insane. The highs have been at or near 100 degrees all month! It’s been record breaking. My sister and her husband will be in town next week. We have outdoor plans for next Tuesday. When we made the plans last week I joked that I hoped it wouldn’t still be 100. Ha! The predicted highs for this weekend are 100. I doubt it’s going to drop much by Tuesday. Highs should be in the low 80s by now. Hell, by the time this breaks, I expect the temps to drop to below freezing and stay there until next spring. Fucking weather. I want autumn!

190

What does NWS’s 10 day forecast say? They’re usually very close to correct.

Don’t waste brain cells on any weather site but NWS at forecast.weather.gov. All else is sensationalist garbage.

191

100 every day until Monday, when it’s a balmy 95. But Tuesday may only be 91. Oh, joy. Anyway, we’ve rescheduled our outing for Thursday in hopes of more sane temps. I told her we would probably get an ice storm.

192

I looked at that website and the stock Apple Weather app and they are basically identical. Maybe a degree different but the NWS forecast says “near 79” so that’s a range of temps. What is supposed to be so “sensationalist” about Apple Weather, Yahoo Weather, AccuWeather, etc? All they do is give the forecast.

193

Update: The new bath towels rule.

In case you’re wondering, they are from Frontgate. Worth the 5-week wait.

The teacher reported that Wee Weasel had a great day at school yesterday, but when I went to pick him up from after school care I received an incident report. The usual issues with aggression. The Special Ed consultant (a volunteer) met me at the door, she said he’s a great kid but he needs 1:1 support and she can’t be there every day. She read his old IEP and was surprised how little support the old school gave him. She said if the IEP team here gives him 1:1 support she will advocate for it at the after school program. But her hands are tied without that accomodation. She told me not to accept no for an answer if they don’t offer 1:1.

She said if he doesn’t get 1:1 this after care program may not be a good fit.

So she’s a fierce advocate, which is nice, but if two more such incidents occur he’s going to get suspended. So I just have to hope he doesn’t get suspended before he gets a new IEP plan (end of September.) I think the IEP team is leaning heavily toward giving him 1:1 - they have already arranged for him to have it until the next meeting. But they have made no promises.

If we don’t have after school care it’s going to suck, it will all fall on me and my job. It won’t be impossible but it will be a problem.

The more I talk with the IEP team and support people, the more frustrated I am with the old school. He struggled when he started kindergarten and they had given him almost nothing, then we had to wait two months for an IEP meeting, and they did some stuff but it didn’t really match the level of need. This team started implementing additional supports immediately and we met Monday. They had a whole power point presentation ready. His current IEP team said the old IEP wasn’t very useful because they didn’t do much for him. Makes me wonder if he’d had support from the beginning whether his behavior would have gotten to this point. It’s crazy what a difference the right school makes.

194

Resources, resources, resources. Most schools have half what they need for the mainstream population and 10% of what they need to maximize the potential of the outliers of whatever nature.

195

Nailed it. In states with vouchers and private school tax credits tax funding for public schools is being diverted and those resources will shrink even more. Of course special education will bear more than its share of that shrinkage.

196

The McDonald’s app sucks my Iphone battery dry - I can usually charge every other day, but if I order on the McDonald’s app and forget to shut it down (not just background it), my battery is gone in 14 hours or so. There is presumably some permission I’ve given it that causes this, but so far I haven’t summoned up the energy to figure out what.

I could of course stop eating at Mickey D’s, but I’ve become a creature of habit and a Sunday lunch there is one of my current ones.

197

Yeah I can see that. This school is a lot better funded.

It’s not just the money, though. It’s a whole different vibe. They have made us feel like collaborative partners and shared with us tools they are using at school that we can use at home to reinforce the messaging. They are giving us a script to help him get through these difficult moments. The kid has been dying for this kind of stuff. He’s been so enthusiastic about it and trying so hard to learn the rules.

I just don’t want to see him get kicked out of after school care.

198

Ah Lowes door installation saga continues.

New door installed over a month ago, discover it’s not sitting on the floor it was leveled to one side. The floor is concrete but it is not level. They installed the door leveling it to one sided the door jamb thus there is an air gap under the sill plate. Hohoho repair guy comes out with delicious donuts (bribe) and pushes some sill seal underneath. A week later sill seal strips are flapping in the breeze. Get a regional manager back out here he says you’re right the door was not installed correctly but I’ll order a shim, a board, that they’ll have to cut and install. It will support your door and keep the warranty valid. :roll_eyes: should be here in a week.

Meanwhile Spouse calls the door manufacturer and runs this scenario by them. :flushed_face::scream::exploding_head::open_mouth::astonished_face::speak_no_evil_monkey::hushed_face:
They find it very interesting and now we’re waiting on the manufacturer to draft an email informing Lowe’s that their fix will void the door warranty.

We Convey this to Lowes and that gets attention. Credit due their CSR agents are responsive and very good at follow up and all the notes and pics of our project are at their fingertips.

Waiting on a return call from Lowe’s higher ups.

At this point we will be insisting they reinstall the door correctly. Good times.

199

OMG.

I’m sorry you found the door to hell.

Why did your spouse call the door manufacturer? Were they checking to see if it would void the warranty?

200

Sooo disappointed the sill seal strips weren’t swooping in a squall & were only flapping in the breeze. :cry:
…& for your installation problems, too.