That is a tough thing to deal with and untangle in your mind.
Of course you had no idea that would happen.
May your good memories bring you some peace.
Sounds like bro died of something, perhaps the afib; perhaps not. The ablation was still planned for some time in the future when he died.
Oh no, @kayaker! That’s terrible. Please take care of yourself.
Damn. Sincere condolences mate.
I know how it feels.
This probably really isn’t worth a rant, for all that it’s about a likely scammer.
I put an ad on FB Marketplace for 3 small flat screen TVs - $20 for all 3, because when you say FREE, you may or may not have anyone show up when they say they will.
Within minutes of posting the ad, I got a reply in a thread I started a couple of weeks ago, asking if I still had the TVs. Why would someone reply there instead of directly to the ad?? So, suspicion #1.
But folks have different levels of computer savvy, so giving “her” the benefit of the doubt, I messaged directly with a Yes. She replied asking about the condition and the location (suspicion #2), and I answered back that I’d included that information in the ad, then I “apologized” for my brusqueness, but that I’d dealt with too many scammers in Marketplace.
Silence.
Maybe here I should mention “her” name is Mary Smith and she went to school in New York (Suspicion #3 - I live in southern Maryland) and she’s self-employed. Oh, and it’s a new FB account. BINGO!!!
No, I haven’t heard back. Gee, could she be scammy??
She’s been blocked. Now let’s see if I get any real responses.
Had to cancel our main credit card and get a new one after we were alerted by the CC issuer of a possible fraudulent charge. It was - for $5, somehow involving Facebook. And there wasn’t just one such charge, there were eight of them, all for $5.
I’ve heard of small test purchases on stolen CC numbers - but eight of the goddamn things?
Effing morons.
At least they expedited the new card to us, so we didn’t have to starve or go naked.
My one experience of this was five distinct charges for cheap motor oil of all things. That’s it - the CC company caught it and locked it down. I’m generally not a big fan of them and their over 50% profit margins, but I can’t complain about the customer service on that one.
Starbucks. I refuse to patronize the place, as their coffee is shit and so is their attitude. That said, there is a SBucks inside the grocery where we shop and the wife likes to get a latte. It came to her attention today that there was no sugar on the counter for her coffee. When she asked about it, they handed her a couple of packets (not nearly enough). Is this standard practice for Starbucks now? To hide the sugar packets so they don’t lose a fraction of a penny when someone takes more than they should? Their coffee is grossly overpriced, IMO, so being cheap fuckwads about a packet of sugar seems really petty to me.
I had been diagnosed with tachycardia and A-fib a few years ago. When they scheduled me for ablation I was given the impression that the risk was low, so I wasn’t that concerned. Everything went well, and I seem to have “recovered” in that I haven’t had any further incidents.
May your brother’s memory be a blessing.
I’ve been working from home all day for a gas technician to come and turn my gas back on. 
I opened my apartment door to go to the laundry room and found a notice on the handle saying they missed me and I need to reschedule. Nobody knocked on my door. 
I was pretty upset and called the office. Apparently they won’t knock on your unless you leave special instructions to knock. 
WTF is up with that and how was I supposed to know? My anxiety is already through the roof and I can’t tolerate another day of remote work. So I pulled a Karen and screamed at a manager until they agreed to send a technician out this evening.
I can’t speak to Starbucks specifically.
But one hell of a lot of convenience items went away during the height of COVID concern about handling something somebody else might have touched. Many of these disappearances haven’t recovered to pre-COVID normal.
Such as no more salt and pepper on the table at many restaurants. No or fewer condiment packages available, be they sugar, ketchup, or [whatever]. Especially at communal stations like the coffee customization station at e.g. Starbucks.
For which I blame a general management / corporate stinginess. A penny not spent goes straight to the bottom line. some fraction of customers will do without rather than fuss. No theft from people helping themselves to a purse-full of e.g. sugar packets.
Although I just recalled that there’s a Starbucks in one of the Targets I frequent. If it happens to be at the right time of day I’ll occasionally get a ordinary coffee to which I want to add cream. Most recently around noon a month-ish ago. At this location at least, they don’t put out any form of cream; their workers have to add it to my coffee behind the counter. Concern for contagion? Stinginess? Avoiding wastage as it sits out, gets warm, and needs to be thrown away every hour or so? Worry about somebody adulterating the pitcher of cream? No clue. “Just not allowed” saith the barista kids.
A Revelation & A Disappointment
For the pas two weeks or so, something has been very wrong with me. I feel very anxious. I seem to be compulsively over posting in certain places and on certain topics. I have been really craving sugary drinks. I am more irritable and have raised my voice to my beloved. I have been very cold. That is VERY strange for me. As I have said before, my record for walking outside in shorts and a short sleeve t-shirt is 42 degrees. I walked half a mile to the grocery store without feeling cold. The walk home was the same except that my granny cart was full, and I was eating ice cream. The temperature in my living room has been in the sixties. I have to wear long pants and a hoodie or I feel chilly.
I double checked to make sure I was taking the right medications in the right doses. I looked for a cause or something that had changed. Last time I had a problem like this I was unable to sit still or concentrate- I eventually figured out that Bosco coffee syrup contains both high amounts of sugar and caffeine. I had consumed most of the bottle in one day. I quit Bosco and got back to normal.
I think I know what the problem is. After the election I felt sad and panicked. I talked to a friend who turned out to be Trumpster and didn’t give a damn what happened to other groups as long as he and his family were safe. That was somehow worse than Trump winning a second term. I thought I had dealt with these issues and gotten back to normal. I realized that while I have not been consciously thinkng about it, I am still feeling all those negative emotions constantly in the back of my mind. I am trying to find a new therapist. I need one now more than ever.
Also, I was looking at my profile. Needing some cheering up, I clicked the link to my favorite thread. I am now using a mouse due to touchpad problems. I don’t have great surface for it. I often accidentally close windows. This time, I accidentally clicked a link. There, the disappointment comes in. I saw a message saying “You must sign in to see this”. While some people may still find and click the link, extremely few will create an account just to view the pics. A few years back, Flickr changed. I got an e-mail sayng only paid accounts can have restricted photos. I could either pay, or delete the restricted images. If I did neither, my account would be deleted. I was worried and found a better image host-one that won’t bug to me upgrade to a paid account and won’t require visitors to sign in to see the images. Flickr still sends me that same e-mail warning about once a month. The post, being many years old, cannot be edited. I have a feeling the mods would not be willing to replace the link to Flickr with a link to the new host. It is a conundrum that leaves me blue.
I’m sorry to hear that, Doc. I’m still having a lot of emotions about the election myself. I’m not doing things I once enjoyed, I just feel tired all the time, and don’t know what the point of anything is. People want to know what’s wrong with me, and I don’t want to tell them because I sound like a broken record. It’s not like “my team lost the game”, it’s a change in my whole worldview. Anyway, I understand and I hope you feel better.
I got a notice in the mail today from the firm that handles my retirement fund, headed in big black letters:
ACTION NEEDED
The paragraph underneath said they’d been trying to get in touch with me on a very important matter relating to my investments and that I should call the listed number ASAP.
What had happened? Did they accidentally delete my retirement funds, or did a manager grab all the investors’ money and flee to Uruguay?
So I called them up, and after waiting on hold for a goodly while, got a representative who collected identifying info and then informed me that they needed my vote on some arcane changes to one fund’s operation which she rattled off at my request and were still pretty much incomprehensible, but which the Board wanted so natch I was supposed to approve (I guess they had trouble getting a quorum since people tend to ignore notices to vote on this stuff).
If only I’d had the lyrics at hand to Groucho’s famous song in Horsefeathers, I would have sung them to her.
I don’t know what they have to say
It makes no difference anyway
Whatever it is, I’m against it
No matter what it is or who commenced it
I’m against it
Your proposition may be good
But let’s have one thing understood:
Whatever it is, I’m against it
And even when you’ve changed it or condensed it
I’m against it
In the end I abstained. 
Bah. Trying to beat the rain, I responded to a post in the trans fear thread. While the objections I raised were sound, I failed to address the truly odious part of the post. I did not realize my error until I got back and saw somebody else had responded to that part.
Also, the store was out of egg nog. This mini mart is in walking distance. The only other place I know of that sells egg nog nearby is Target. I have to ride the trolley to get there. I stocked up on groceries last week. I cannot jusify paying for a round trip on the trolley for just egg nog. Also, they might play I Got My Stretchy Pants On.
OMG SAME.
Thank you, if for nothing else, for making me feel less alone, and (faintly) less crazy.
ETA: I also have eighty-bazillion moldy old Christmas carols all running through my head simultaneously (thanks, retail work!) so mah gawd am I looking forward to January.
I don’t want to make this thread another one about Trump but-
I knew he was a horrible human being. Then Trump, and a lot of Republicans running on ‘magically fix the economy’ and hatred were voted back into office. All those voters were either thinking only of the economy and their own financial well being and didn’t care if trans people or immigrangts were hurt or they voted because they actively wanted those people to be hurt.
As I’ve related before, I assumed a friend had voted Harris. In a message filled with many examples, I asked how Hispanic Latino voters could elect somebody who hates them so much. When he revealed he had in fact voted Trump, I was beyond stunned. he said, without asking what my sources were, that all my examples were lies and made up things fed to me by a distorted media. I meekly responded my sources were unedited clips of Trump and Vance on the local news and tv ads that ended with Donald J Trump’s official endorsement. He could not understand why I cared about gays or Puerto Ricans. Neither of us were gay or Puerto Rican. He didn’t care what happened to them. Why should I?
That was, in a way, worse than Trump winning.
It was worse in every way. You don’t know Trump, you are unlikely to ever even encounter Trump, and you certainly won’t have a relationship with Trump. As much horrible shit as he says, he probably means only a small amount of it; the rest is just things he says to satisfy his completely awful supporters.
Your friend is surely sincere in those awful beliefs and this is someone you wanted to have a friendship with. Of course it’s worse and I’m sorry.
Sincerely, thank you for understanding.
America is chockfull of far more and far worse human beings than any of us knew.
A consequence of that is each of our acquaintance and neighbor lists has roughly the same defect. Our friend lists are somewhat curated and should be better. But for darn sure most of us have friends who’ve shown their devotion to the dark side. Or their inability to separate Faux fact from fiction.
It’s a hard time not to be evil.