All hail the commander of His Majesty’s Roman legions, the brave and noble Marcus Vindictus, who returns to Rome after winning a great victory over the Cretins at Sparta.
[Emphatic whispering ensues.]
Make that the Spartans at Crete.
– History of the World Part 1
I don’t like the Rob Zombie versions of Halloween movies.
( Maybe I should be ashamed? I don’t know… )
Like a lady I work with now! She’s three office spaces down from me, but I can hear that damnable tinny speaker on her iPhone loud and clear when she calls up her little nephew in the mornings. Yesterday she was trying to get him to proclaim that he is “gran-grans baby-boo,” today they were counting (to eight, as far as I could tell). Last week she was having some kind of family drama that caused her to walk through the department holding her phone in front of her while bringing forth the drama for all to hear. And anytime she gets a robocaller, she answers “HEEEEEEEELLLLLLLOOOOOOOOooooooooooo” over and over and over and over until the robocaller disconnects.
And people wonder why I still use earbuds even though I have an office of my own.
I’m hard of hearing. Everyone in the office knows it. I sat in a cube between two co-workers that would mumble at me. One actually got the nick name the mumbler.
It drove me nuts. I now work from home, so we now communicate mostly by the written word. Meetings can get hard, but Teams has CC that works pretty well. If they would wise up and get a proper headset and camera for their computer, it would be much better than a laptop sitting in the middle of a conference table that points at whom/what ever.
How much did you ask/get for it. I was planning to give it away for free much to my daughters horror but she had no room for it. So I asked $45. Lots of interest from FB buyers.
But here’s the thing, I’m looking to have a conversation with the potential buyer, I don’t want tepid responses and a mealy how much? I want someone to sell me on selling to them ya know? So someone thought I agreed to sell it to them and said they’d be by in a few days to pick it up. Her FB page had no details or pic or anything personal. Your choice but who are you first name only person? I didn’t reply back.
Meanwhile another person got chatty and went into detail about how much she liked it, wanted it, would I please pick her. So I did. Her FB is interesting, raises black widows and moths along with a red wormy looking beast but has a beautiful baby and husband. Okay let’s meet!
Now she needs to wait two weeks to come down from the tip of the mitt with her truck. And she wants more pics, which I haven’t sent yet. Now I had to drag the tree back inside the house before the frost shocks it. I’m kinda liking it again and having second thoughts on getting rid of it. I’ll go through with it I guess but leave it up to her to reach out once more. Fudge.
Maybe air layer a branch?
Three years ago my parents had all their tickets for going to Europe and going on a cruise, etc. They were some of the lucky ones - they got all their money back.
They are supposed to arrive here at the beginning of November. Now they have friends who have suggested that they shouldn’t go because of the general unrest. If they don’t go now, they probably won’t ever be able to go at all.
Their friends were supposed to leave on the same day and travel to Israel. Their trip is canceled. That’s easy. My parents? I guess we’ll wait and see.
And we just figured out that our hotels are a few blocks away from the U.S. Embassy. Exactly were we don’t want to be.
My dad’s statement, “We raised you to be independent. Might have overshot the mark.”
I was doing budget stuff as my husband and I recently had two expensive car repairs in a row (first me, then him, both brakes + new tires for me.) Well it occurred to me that excluding loan payments (which we don’t have for either car), it costs between $500-600 month just to own a car. That’s maintenance and car insurance.
We don’t have fancy cars, either. We drive used Hondas.
That’s some bullshit, right? I’ve heard Michigan has notoriously expensive car insurance because of no-fault laws.
There’s a painful Sheryl Crow song called Lullaby for Wyatt which has the lyrics, “You are mine… for a time.” I’ve never felt time slipping away so fast.
I want to raise my child to be independent but if he requires support in adulthood (because of his disability) I guess the toaster prize is getting to have him always. That was the worst case scenario when he was diagnosed, the possibility that he would have to live with us forever, and now I think that’s not so bad, because he’s great. But I do think it would be better for him to be on his own. So we will keep aiming for that goal.
In 1986 I moved from western Pennsylvania to eastern Pennsylvania. My car insurance quadrupled. When I moved back it plummeted down to where it had been previously.
A very mini rant.
Dude, you’re a grown up. Get yourself and your @8&%**ing bike off the sidewalk. There’s a bike lane right there. That fact that you called out. “On your left” before almost running me down doesn’t make it better.
I asked for $25, just because I wanted increase the chances that whoever responded was going to be serious. I used NextDoor since it was assured the only responders would be local, and I delivered it so I could do it according to my schedule and could see where it was going - i.e. someone who actually had the space to house it and wasn’t just trying to resell, etc.
Ugh, sorry about this. We’re planning to go to Belgium next year and I feel sorry for the guy who is organizing the trip because I know he is having trouble getting more folks to sign on (the recent shooting in Brussels isn’t helpful). But considering I could decide to go to the local WalMart tomorrow and get shot there for any reason or no reason at all, I can’t say I’m too worried about what’s going on in Europe at the moment.
I hope you get to see your parents.
I have my insurance broker check the different companies’ rates every couple of years because there’s often one that’ll have dropped lower than my current one.
One of the concerns I have about switching auto insurance companies is that when you have an accident-free record stretching back to practically forever, you get their top accident-free rates (what this company calls a six-star accident-free rating) and a non-cancellation guarantee. It’s not clear to me that this discount would necessarily prevail at a new insurance company, although they’d undoubtedly check and recognize a clean driving record, but that’s not the same thing at all.
My insurance broker gets the rate quotes based on my details and record.
Surgery to repair the quad tendon was successful a week ago Friday. Had my first PT session on Friday and was expecting just an evaluation since I haven’t had my follow-up with the surgeon, but actually got exercises (that hurt, of course). The PT Josh convinced my wife I don’t need to be boxed in packing peanuts, so that’s nice. Since we moved to Bozeman I’ve had a broken leg, a shoulder scope and biceps tenodesis, removal of a clavicle plate, total shoulder replacement, and now this. I think I’ve maxed out my 30 allowed PT visits every year. I can’t tell you what a relief it is to have medical care 15 minutes away vs. our old haunts, where it was 2-3 hours away.
A friend has had both hips and one knee replaced. Last week he went in for a total shoulder replacement. I was surprised to hear that he went into surgery in the morning and was discharged an hour postoperatively. He actually ate dinner at home that evening.
Wow–I stayed overnight and was thankful, although that was insanely expensive. Between my issues and my wife’s MS and breast cancer we’ve got to be pushing half a million $$$ since we moved here.
He told me he felt great right after surgery but the next day was painful as the local anesthesia had worn off.
I bet! Funny story from that night–I was still on an IV and hooked up to all sorts of monitors, and wacked out from anesthesia and narcotics. Couldn’t sleep, of course. One of the readings showed my blood glucose at 200, and I foggily said to myself, wow, that’s way higher than my last physical. I grabbed my phone and convinced myself I had become diabetic in the last 6 months, to the point of ordering a glucose monitor from Amazon. In the morning with a slightly clearer head and better lighting I managed to confirm that I was on a glucose IV. Crisis averted.