My biggest rant right now: it’s after 5pm PST and no one else got it in gear to start this month’s mini-rants.
Minor: maintenance is pressure-washing the balcony above my patio, which means water coming down on my patio. I don’t have anything water-sensitive in that area, so not really a problem. Their pressure washer IS quite noisy and the exhaust fumes are bugging DH. Had to turn off the HVAC so we can maneuver fans to blow exhaust away. Going to be a bit cold in here pretty soon.
yeah … whassup with all you rant-slackers?
Well, here’s my rant: you “rant-slackers” are starting a whole new thread for every little thing, instead of posting here.
It might be a Maxi-Rant to you, but no one’s reading your long-winded treatise. Be honest: it’s really a Mini-Rant. Post it here, in bite-size form, and get more readers, more sympathy, more cursing of your enemies, and more free advice!
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eta: I just checked the Jan. thread… that’s where they all are, posting well into the next month… sigh…
So, not so mini–my sister may be suicidal. I’m 55, she’s 53 and adopted. She’s getting divorced after many years and 2 almost adult kids. She’s had a very troubled life–dropped out of school, never really worked, problematic partners. Her husband is not ideal but really worked at it. She wore him down, and 6 months he put a fork in it. Sounds like the kids are taking his side, but my info is limited. We’ve been texting back and forth and it’s really tough. I haven’t seen them much besides holidays since we were teens. The really tough/weird part–she has a $2.5M trust left by our mother who instructed it to be administered by our cousins (Mom wanted me to be a trustee–no way) to benefit my sisters kids. She wants the money and is asking me to intervene with the trustees. Not happening (if she had been given the money straight out her ex would be getting a share for sure). Plus it would be all gone in the 4 years since the estate settled anyway. I’m at a total loss what to say–I’ve asked if she’s seeing a therapist (no response), straight up asked if she’s suicidal, got “ROFLMAO” and “you have no idea.”
My brother has lost his house. He had been losing it for a while and he had declared Bankruptcy in a bid to keep it… but it the court is being a prick… and at this point it’s gone.
He never asks me for anything, but he has asked me to help him move some of his things out. A moving company will move the rest. He made it clear that I could not stay over and leave the next day. He will be staying ‘with friends’. I’m older, out of shape, and I’m not sure how much help I’ll be, but I’ll be there for him.
I’m beyond numb right now ( and am drinking more than I should).
2023, You Suck!!!
So first we get somebody complaining that others’ rants are too small, then we get two follow-up rants that are enormous.
That’s a truly micro- meta-rant, but that’s all I can muster now. Complaining about anything else would seem might insensitive after the two just above me.
Then I’ll be extra insensitive and share some good news?
The IEP meeting for my daughter I mentioned in the last thread went well. We were able to keep the one-on-one para in her IEP for at least this school year. They mentioned that she had been doing really well and that all her IEP goals were transitioning to academics instead of being more about how to stay in the classroom and how to be a student. This is great news. She’ll still have the support and supervision she needs for at least a while longer and we will have data for when they start to transition away from one-on-one. I’m sure the district will see our side when the school gets more data.
Excellent news! I’m toasting you and your daughter and her para (with coffee at this hour, but I’ll follow up with booze later).
Hooray! (About the IEP renewal, not the booze. Though that’s good too. 
)
My mini-rant is as follows: Yesterday (Feb first) I thought of some minor thing that I wished to rant about, but couldn’t find the February Mini-Rants. I wanted to start one, but was feeling so discombobulated that I couldn’t think of a clever title, and didn’t want to be mocked by others for putting something like “Duh, mini rants for Feb” in the subject line. Now, I can’t remember what it is that I wanted to rant about. I think it may have had something to do with an inability to sign up with, or log in to, an app or website due to a really user un-friendly interface. Or to rant about my being old and unable to comprehend how tech works nowadays.
I’ve often thought that I could make a chunk o’ change doing tech support for seniors. Make the rounds of some retirement communities, helping them with their Macs and PCs, maybe hold some classes.
Then I spend way too much time trying to get an otherwise-intelligent Olde-Tyme Personne™ (Hi, Mom!) to do something simple…
Just got back from church, where there are groups that load up university students with warm clothes and basic staples. Before they “go shopping”, everyone logs in on a PC (types their name and clicks a few YES/NO buttons on the page that’s always up). Almost everyone’s under 30, so it goes quickly, until… where did this 80-year old come from? Is he really an undergrad? He’d better finish his degree, the clock’s-a-tickin’…
And I volunteered to help him, which led to insightful comments from me, like: “No, scroll down. DOWN. Notice how you’ve gone back to the top of the page? Try the other… no, it’s not broken… try the other direction. Okay, now you need to click on that button. Hold the cursor… oh, excuse me, I’ll call it ‘The Little Arrow’… and click. No, click… Click. Push the button down. Harder… good, but without moving the little arrow off the button. Annnd, we’re back at the top of the page…”
(It was good that we were in a church, where I couldn’t say Jesus F-in’ Christ on a Kawasaki, just click!)
My dreams of Tech for Seniors, L.L.C. got scrapped right then.
Congratulations.
Major mini-rant! 
Nestlé Canada says it is winding down its frozen meals and pizza business in Canada over the next six months.
The four brands that will no longer be sold in the freezer aisle at Canadian grocery stores are Delissio, Stouffer’s, Lean Cuisine and Life Cuisine.
The company says it is focusing on categories that support long-term business growth, including confectionery, coffee, ice cream, premium water and pet food.
It's not delivery, it's discontinued: Nestlé to stop selling Delissio pizza in Canada | CBC News
I don’t give a shit about crappy Delissio pizza, but some of the Stouffer’s entrees have been my go-to small dinners and emergency snacks for years.
But now they’re going to focus on candies and desserts? Here’s my view. Candies and desserts? Don’t want 'em. Coffee (sorry, I buy real coffee). Ice cream (sorry, I buy real ice cream). And water … FFS!!
Excellent example of top management in action! I wonder if this doofus makes more than $25 million a year for these brilliant decisions, like the Coke-head president of Coca-Cola who invented the “New Coke”?
I bet he does!
I’ve been down with a norovirus since Tuesday. You know what sucks about living alone? There’s no one to give you help or comfort when you’re sick.
I want to be coddled, damnit.
As an aside, I would also like to know why I find myself gasping for breath after taking 4 or 5 steps, then having to rest for a good 15 minutes before I stop gasping. This is seriously getting old.
That’s how my gf is when she is ill. She wants me to come check on her, offer to make her tea, fluff her pillow, etc.
Meanwhile, when I’m sick I’m irritable and want to be left alone. If she asks if I need anything, I’ll point out that if I did, I’d get it myself.
I basically hate being coddled and want to be left alone, but it WAS handy yesterday to have someone call in a 'scrip for Zofran, go pick it up, open the impossible foil bubble, and then bring me water and tylenol for when the puking stopped. He knows me well enough though that he left me be afterwards.
(I did something to piss off my neck which resulted in a headache so painful it made me nauseous. My first attempt at tylenol did NOT go well, thus the Zofran. It was a loooooong day 
)
Sounds a bit like the dynamic at my place. DH is the “leave me the hell alone” type, I’d appreciate some sympathy and care. Doesn’t help that we tend to each take the approach we want for ourselves. He gets annoyed by me fussing over him when he’s sick, I feel a bit neglected and unloved when he leaves me alone. Granted, he does take action in a serious situation (such as the TIA I had last spring), but for colds, flu, COVID, etc., he takes the approach he’d want if he were the patient.
I’m also a “leave me the hell alone” type, and I have learned that counterintuitively it does not help to be polite about it. If I say “Thanks, but I don’t need anything” she’ll be back in an hour. But if I yell “Lady, leave me the FUCK alone” then she won’t talk to me for a day or two. Which is exactly what I need.
Decades ago I read a newspaper article about how people deal with sickness, that has mostly stuck in my memory every since. They used two axis: whether you wanted/didn’t want your illlness to be cared for or at least acknowledged by others and whether you did/didn’t insist on carrying on or at least trying to carry on with your normal duties.
This gave four categories:
Martyrs. Obviously they carry on working, but their coworkers damn well better acknowledge how sick they are and how noble they are for continuing to work.
Babies. They retire to their bed, totally disabled by even the mildest sniffles, and all partners/coworkers/friends are solicited to deliver supplies of goodies to maintain them, plus back rubs and lavishings of sympathy.
Stoics. They carry on working and refuse to let on they are even ill, until the blood pouring out of every orifice gives them away. Don’t you DARE say I’m sick! I don’t get sick, only weaklings get sick.
Dying dogs. Just let me crawl away under the porch. Maybe I’ll live. Maybe I’ll die. But either way, LEAVE ME ALONE.
Clearly your GF is a Baby, while you are a Dying Dog. Not a good pairing if you both go by ‘Do unto others as you would be done by.’