Two things on my alleged mind:
It’s after 10pm on 1 June, and no one else has bothered to start this month’s mini-rants.
It is June 1st. I am hearing fireworks outside.
I forgot about the monthly rant thread!
I was thinking, last month, of calling it Ju-know better!
If you really want that title, which probably is better than mine, I’m fine with having it changed if you want to make the request.
No. I think yours is better!
You’re all prepared for June 2025, though.
If I may share a rant that will sound hateful: I’m sick and tired of my MIL living with us. She’s 93 and in hospice care. She’s nearly blind, she needs a walker, and she insists she can do for herself.
Like last night - she was going to get some supper. Except she can’t really tell what’s in the fridge or pantry, she doesn’t know where I keep pots and pans and utensils. She can’t reach the cabinets or the microwave, she can’t see the controls on the stove or microwave. But she was going to make her supper.
She doesn’t want to be a bother, but she just can’t do much of anything, being short and almost blind. I keep a container of cookies in the same place for her. But that’s about all she can manage.
I try very hard to be patient. I know this is really hard for her - she hates losing her independence. But she’s going to hurt herself or create a mess and I fear I may blow up at her.
It’s even harder on my husband, seeing her like this. He promised not to put her in a home, not that it’s even remotely affordable. We were supposed to be enjoying our retirement. Dammit.
That is stressful which you really don’t need extra of right now I might add.
But in the meantime perhaps there are super simple tasks she can do to feel useful. Kind of like a Montessori activities for super seniors. Sitting down and folding dinner napkins/ hand towels, washing fruits or veg in a basin. Maybe peeling potatoes? Putting ice in cups? Tear up lettuce leaves? I’m just thinking of the things I had my kids do when they were little.
Sure it’s easier if she stays out of the way but if there is a simple task she can do while you’re prepping meals it might settle her down a bit.
After all is said and done you guys will feel good about being there for her in her final year(s).
My rant is as follows. I’ve finally after 5 itchy weeks am free of all welts blisters and scabs. But wtf is that little blister on my hand this morning? I hope like hell it’s just a skeetwr bite. 
chela - really, the only chore she can manage is folding her clean laundry. The kitchen is too dangerous - too many hard surfaces too fall against, and she is a fall risk. Plus (ick) she doesn’t always wash her hands after using the toilet, so she doesn’t belong around food.
Audio books have helped keep her occupied.
Glad she’s into the audiobooks. On that note on SiriusXM there’s radio classics station #148 with all kinds of vintage radio shows she might enjoy listening too. I like listening myself. Check it out!
Whenever you talk about your MIL, it takes me right back to when I was in the same position with my FIL. He was more mobile and less dependent on me, but that just meant he could go out and do stupid-ass things on his own without consulting us (or, even more maddening, consulting us and then doing it anyway). Then the inevitable consequences would kick in, and we’d have to deal with them because he couldn’t. And all along, everyone kept telling us how lucky we were to still have him and how marvelous it was that he was so active. He really was a wonderful man, and before I became his de facto caretaker, I loved spending time with him. But by the time he died, I wasn’t even sure I liked him anymore. Ooh, and the handwashing thing rings a definite bell.
For myself, why is it that I forget every year that summer is awful? The weather gets warm, flowers start to bloom, and then, just as I’m thinking how wonderful it all is, June hits like a ton of bricks. Just as it gets hot enough to really need air conditioning, the wildfires start all around us and we have to choose between sweltering in heat or blowing smoke into the house through the swamp cooler. There hasn’t been a drop of rain for a month and none is predicted until maybe July, and by the middle of the month, even the nighttime temps will be in the 70’s. Ugh.
Not hateful. This would exhaust anyone. Are you able to get any time to yourself, to relax?
That sounds like it would be hell on asthma.
I feel like I can’t catch a break. Thought I’d spend the weekend resting and regulating myself after a couple of weeks totally dysregulated due to work stress. I still can’t get to sleep on time. I’m exhausted today. I’m going out with friends and it should be nice because I haven’t seen them in a year probably. But I’m so tired I don’t know how long I’m gonna last.
My son is going through this phase where he constantly demands attention and it’s exhausting. I can’t take a break without constant pestering and interrogation about how I’m going to spend every minute of my time. “How many minutes until Mama’s done eating? What if [you] don’t take a shower? How many minutes until Mama play with you?” It doesn’t matter if we just spent an hour together, his need is bottomless.
I am so tired.
The only suggestion I’ve got is to find her absolute favorite scent in the whole wide world, and get soap that smells like that.
Nearly blind & going deaf? Gotta go with the senses that still work - making her hands smell like roses or oranges or whatever she likes might be a bit of an incentive.
I still have neighbors who are nothing but scum-bag Trumpists. They don’t like what I write, what I do, and what I say about that greasy orange basketball Rump.
They still try to harass me and my family day in and day out.
I guess I’m Famous.
I’m trying to find comfortable, lightweight pants (with pockets, thankyouverymuch) that fit a female body … and for some reason, this song is just running through my skull. Can’t imagine why.
SiriusXM is running a free promo for Memorial Day but it ends on the 3rd. That’s for the car and on the app. If you have Alexa you can listen through that, too.
I’ve been going through a kick since I retired of reading older books (like late 19th C through the 1950s or so, but mostly early 20th C). Not all of them are classics or even especially great books, but it’s interesting to read books that were once immensely popular best-sellers that are completely unknown today.
One thing that has really stood out for me, though, is how ubiquitous the n-word is. And not just in American books. I was a reading an English decorating book, of all things, from the late 1940s, and a word used to describe a particular color was n-word brown. WTAF???
The book I just finished was So Little Time by John P. Marquand. He’s not a forgotten author, but this book pretty much has been. Even he used the n-word. Only once. But still. Interestingly, most of the book is set in 1938-1941 (published in 1943), but he actually was not terrible racist about the Japanese. His protagonist mentally disagreed with it when he heard it and described Japanese-Americans he met as individuals. Marquand is now best known as being the author of the Mr. Moto mysteries which made me think that researching that book must have had him interacting more deeply than most white people of that era would have with either Japanese or Japanese-Americans and that gave him some empathy that most people of this time did not have.
Not quite sure what my point was here! Other than I’m generally opposed to racial silos (and, of course, very much opposed to segregation). People need to know people that are different than they are. And how glad I am that the n-word is so much rarer than it once was. Reading it is like a slap in the face…every time.
Sirius XM radio has replaced one of the few rock stations I like with yacht rock. Blergh. Sadly I have another year to my contract but on principle I have pretty much stopped listening to Sirius.
I don’t want to give money to Howard Stern.
My last new car ( Many years ago ) had Sirius XM. I cancelled ( took me Hours ) and years later I’m still getting hate-filled SPAM from Israel.
In short: F-ck Em. worse than a cheesy gym membership.
Congress needs to address those A-holes next.
That’s the Don the Con song. Just in case you were serious.
OK, right here and now, my bank has to stop demanding a numeric code to verify my identity every damn time I turn around. I’m not objecting to two-factor authentication when I first log into the bank’s app; that serves a useful purpose and I appreciate that it helps keep my accounts safe. But after I log in and wany to set up a transfer or add a bill payee or something, they demand another verification code. Did you forget I just gave you code when I logged in? OK right, I’ll wait for your stupid SMS while you log me off for inactivity…