Nightmare fuel. 
Yes, I agree. A very similar thing happened to an acquaintance of mine here years ago - she had something like 40-50 neglected dogs in her home when the authorities went in. The volunteer adoption group I belonged to at the time cleaned a lot of them up and helped find temporary shelters for them since the local animal control didn’t have room for them all. It was awful, and we were all completely shocked by it. I am so sorry this happened to someone that it sounds like you knew pretty well.
I’ve been binging Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares U.K. so every other word out of my mouth is fuck. Particularly “fuck me.” Yesterday I made an appointment for my second shingles shot. The first apparently was October 14. I’m in a bad mood to start with and it doesn’t help that the nurse told me upon arrival that I was “too early.” I need to wait until after December 14. I was so angry that I walked out on her. I believe I yelled “fuck me.” Why did the nurse not tell me in October that I had to wait til after December 14? Because of fucking incompetence. Why was I not told when I make the appointment? Fucking incompetence. I’m so fucking tired of it. Yes, I took off work to go to the appointment. yes, I went back to work because this is the only place where I can get anything accomplished.
Interesting! That reminds me of those woven character afghans that were really popular years ago…the one I have isn’t very thick, but the amount of yarn required for the design makes it weighty enough to keep the bed cozy.
There should be a special lower circle of Hell for people who write crappy, misleading, dimly illustrated consumer product manuals, with special tortures for wretchedly bad setup and “quick start” sections.*
Occupying an even more desperately unpleasant sub-basement of Hell would be the corporate types who decided that although the product was redesigned, it was too much money and trouble to update the user manual or at least slip in a notice that the Orange Flying Grommet has been superseded by twin Red Mini-Flanges, so don’t go insane wondering where the Flying Grommet got to and if the entire thing will collapse in a explosion of sparks if you don’t use the Grommet to stabilize the hyperbaric Y-struts.
*to say nothing of the dire penalties if the product was sold as “plug and play”.
My Other Shoe received one of these, from his gramma. He told me 1.) how disappointed he was “it has big holes! I won’t be warm!” and then, a day or two later 2.) “It’s so warm!”
Those big holes trap warmth, if you don’t move around too much. Think birds with their feathers fluffed up.
ETA he has been gone eight years, and his gramma much longer. I still treasure that quilt. It’s heavy as hell, and really traps warmth.
Remember last month, the saga of my mother and the cabin?
A few problems clearly identified:
For some reason, the previous owners of the farmland purposely retained the strip of property on the cabin side of the road (south side of road). There is a woman at the County who, when she is allowed in office twice/week has been pulling maps and deeds and whatever else to figure it out, along with the rest of her work.
It’s been slow, too slow for mom. She planned on calling and yelling at the woman, but I talked her down. Instead, she left a simple query about the status. Woman called her back and promised she was still on the case.
Mom then called me four hours later, asking if the lady called me. No?
Further queries to my mom, and now I think I have it figured out where the stakes are. On her property, but on the north side of the road, edging the property to the west. Right next to where neighbor put his septic tank. She refuses to think it could possibly be about that, but to me it sounds logical.
We still do not know the source of whoever staked the small area.
Tonight she called and I, stupidly, pointed out she was confused. First, she stated she is positive “someone” is obviously trying to steal her property. By putting stakes out. Okay. She said she was going to remove them, and that “will show them!” (Keep in mind the Them is completely unknown). Then she kept confusing the farmer’s strip with where the stakes are. When I pointed out no, other side of the road, pull out the gis maps and let’s look together, she became upset. Her voice went as brittle as glass, then she terminated the call.
So, at this point, I guess I’m driving up there myself on Monday. Still haven’t decided if I’m running up there alone or meeting her there. Hell if I can handle being in the truck with her for an hour.
Wow Miss Take, that sure doesn’t sound like much fun at all. Good on you for not letting her yell at the county lady. There is a big difference between what people have to do and what people will do because they are nice and helpful. Yelling at someone is a good way to turn a helpful and nice person into someone who does just what she has to do and no more.
So, in the summer I ordered a floating solar powered bird bath fountain. It worked fine, but our bird bath is too deep and it would blow to the side and empty the bath in a few hours. I had been planning on getting a shallow bird bath anyhow, so I pulled the fountain out of the water and instead of putting it in the shed where it belonged, I put it on a metal table on our covered porch where I promptly forgot about it.
Fast forward to this morning. Hubs gets up before me and while he was feeding the cats noticed a loud buzz in the back yard. He stuck his head out the laundry room door to see if it was the leak alarm on the water heater, but the buzzing sounded like it was coming from the other side of the deck. When he went out those doors he said it sounded like it was coming from everywhere and it took him a while to narrow the noise down to the fountain running. (We still don’t know how it managed to gather enough light to activate because that deck never gets direct sun.)
Hubs figured out that if he turned the fountain over, it would stop making noise so he put it upside down on the metal citronella candle container. Which was also sitting on the metal table. Then he went in to drink coffee and forget to tell me about it.
He was out taking a walk when it started up again. The candle container amplified the buzzing so much it scared the cats inside the house. I was in the shower and ended running outside in my robe to figure out what the noise was.
We now have a buzzing trash can, but at least we were able to move it away from the house.
People who steal credit card numbers should be flayed, filleted, fried, and, um, some other painful thing that starts with F, for dramatic effect.
On the plus side, I get a text every time my credit card is charged, so I caught it a few minutes after it happened and I called my credit union. On the other hand, we use our VISA for everything since we get cash back. But now, for the next 7-10 business days, we have to use our debit cards. Pain in the ass!!!
Asshole thieves!!! 
I hear you sister!! Happened to me a few years ago, just like that, except for $1500, with the charge originating in Spain. Had to cancel that card with only a few ordering/shipping days before Christmas. Yep, needs to be a special place in hell for them.
That was hilarious.
Christmas + pandemic + major snowstorm forecast = A horrible time to work in grocery.
Please be nice to you grocery store workers. At some point we ceased to be heroes and are now to blame for the out-of-stocks, the long lines, the prices, the covid policies and everything else that is wrong in the world.
I thank each one of them every time for being there so I can get what I need. I try to tell them there is a smile for them behind my mask.
We’re a little late getting our tree up, just now getting around to it this weekend. Last year we threw out all of our old light strings where half the string wouldn’t light, so all I could find in the basement were two 100-light strings. Which is not enough to cover a tree.
So, off I go to the store for more lights. Target has absolutely nothing - sold out of everything but the teeny tiny sets of miniature lights. Menards has a few but they are very picked over, not enough of any one style for what I need. Next stop was Home Depot, who still had lights in stock, but they were all HD brand. Still, better than nothing. And at least they saved me a desperation trip to Wal-Mart.
How are live tree supplies? There are a couple of lots already sold out around here.
I bought a half-price pre-lit tree after Christmas last year, and dragged the it into the apartment, still in the box. I placed it between the dining table and the china cabinet. I’m thinking about setting it up some time this week.
Sometimes the thought occurs that I might have too much stuff.
Yeah, if your boxed Christmas tree has been between the dining table and the china cabinet for almost a year, then it’s a good bet.
Let me introduce you to a philosophy that I made up ten seconds ago:
The Life-Changing Magic of Getting Crap Out of Your Life™.
(Watch for my books, twitter feed and talk show appearances…)
But while you’re working on that, you could also figure out where to put stuff that you got a good deal on a year ago. Attic? Storage unit? Kayla’s bedroom? (Uh, oh, she’s going to hate me now…)
Seriously, the denizens of the “de-clutter” thread (MPSIMS?) have been an inspiration.
I have a “kids today” rant that begins with a rhetorical question:
Are all tween-aged girls assholes to each other?! Thanks to the pandemic, my 11 year old and her friends have been doing video chats and gaming online together. My kids aren’t allowed to hole up in bedrooms with their electronics, so I overhear most of their conversations and those girls are competitive little turds in ways that my son’s friends just aren’t. “OMG, overlygirl, why are you being so stupid!? You totally missed that. We’re gonna lose.” or my favorite, “Overlygirl, you idiot!! Where are you going? We need to win!”
I told her to call that shit out - “You don’t have to be mean, just tell them you don’t like it and you’re hanging up if it happens again.” So she did and I happened to be sitting across the room, and the girl in question acted like maybe no one mentioned that calling your friends an idiot was a bad idea. “Oh, hahah, I was just kidding. Y’know? Like, yeah - you can call me an idiot, too, it’s cool. I just do that with my friends. Y’know, I just say that sometimes. We’re still friends right? Like you still like me, right?! We’re cool?” I don’t recall ever having to say something like, “Please don’t call me a moron,” to a friend.
What’s scary is that these are the “nice” girls in her grade. If her friends act like the Plastics, does that mean she’s a plastic, too? And does this shit get worse? This gives new meaning to the saying that with friends like these you don’t need enemies.
Unfortunately, as I type this, Kayla is on a plane from Brooklyn to spend the next month and a half.
Maybe I’ll let her put the tree up.
I have this Facebook friend who posts Bible quotes every day. I almost always hate them. They remind me of someone who’s in an abusive relationship, constantly compelled to sing the praises of a cruel master lest he punish them. I have to bite my tongue every single time.
Today’s quote was
Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father?
Hebrews 12:7 NIV
I just wanted to shoot back, “Not sure as a parent I’d starve my kid or make him a political prisoner or force her to die in childbirth. Is this what you tell children sold into sexual slavery? 'Well, that’s God disciplining you!” I don’t understand how otherwise intelligent people can’t think critically about the basic tenets of their belief system.
Sorry I just needed to get that off my chest.