Muckleheads! They are everywhere! Plastered to the side of my house like organic wallpaper. Flying up in clouds when you walk through the grass. Circling, circling, circling your head if you dare to step out on the deck. I’m spitting them out of my mouth, snorting them out of my nose, blinking them out of my eyes - I’m pretty sure a couple of them have set up housekeeping in my lungs.
Oh, sure they don’t bite or sting and they’ll be gone in a few more days - but they’ll be back in the fall - they’ll be back!! Arrrgghh!!!
I can relate - I wear t-shirts most days, and some times the stores just seem to not have any proper ones available. I’m not particularly fussy - regular polycotton blend, regular fit (not really tight fitting), patterned or solid colours, not too short, and not too expensive (they are just t-shirts, after all) - you’d think I was asking for the moon sometimes.
My husband can buy his own frigging clothes, I’m tired of trying to find things that meet his requirements. I’m picky about clothes myself, and I hate to shop. But he wants polo shirts that don’t have the knit band around the bottom and sleeves. Fair enough. But he also wants very lightweight shirts. Every time I try to buy him some, he’ll feel the cloth and reject it as being too heavy. He can damn well quit asking ME to buy him clothes, because sometimes, what he wants just isn’t in stock.
My general surgeon has decreed my wrist injury to be “too difficult” for him to treat. So he’s referred me on to a hand and wrist specialist.
Which of course means more back and forth with the worker’s comp company about who’s now responsible for my care.
According to you (the surgeon) the lump has been sitting there on this guy’s scalp for years, slowly growing, which typically means a benign lesion. So you whip if off and send it to Pathology for a frozen section, which means I dull a blade trying to saw through this thing that has the consistency of a rock, which means it’s heavily calcified. I freeze a bit off the edge which looks like fat, which is what I tell you along with the fact that for a definitive diagnosis I will have to run the specimen through a decalcifying solution in order to cut sections for permanent microscopic evaluation. But that’s not enough for you, since The Family Wants A Diagnosis*.
“C’mon - take a guess!”
Nope, not happening. I can just picture the courtroom scene. “Doctor Jackmannii, how come you told the surgeon it was a benign lipoma when it was later revealed to be the incredibly rare Calcifying FibroTeratoSarcoma of Metuchen?”
“Well, he wanted me to take a guess.” :rolleyes:
It should be noted that the purpose of doing a frozen section is to guide the surgeon intraoperatively (to take more tissue, decide on a surgical procedure etc.). It is nice to be able to have a diagnosis for the family out in the waiting room, but that’s not a sufficient reason for doing a frozen. In this case, the surgeon was finished in the O.R. no matter what I told him.
*I get this not uncommonly with lesions the patient has been gestating for many years - what’s with the imperative to diagnose it within minutes of it being removed?
I was in line behind about three people yesterday and had about 20 items in my cart. An employee came and told me that checkouts 1 and 2 were open and I could move down there, so I did. When I got there, I saw they were “express” lanes, 12 items or fewer. But there was nobody there, so I unloaded my items. Immediately a woman got in line behind me and started giving me grief. I pointed at the man in the red shirt and told her to complain to him. I don’t know what happened next.
In my experience, regular T-shirts tend to just hang off my body and turn me into a shapeless rectangle. Graphic tees tend to be made of lighter, clingier fabric and have a more form fitting cut.
I’ve had that happen, but people don’t give me grief. Never have, really. I guess I have the kind of face that says “fuck with me at your own risk” or something, although I’m really a pussycat.
Little Brother, I know that since you graduated from college life has been tough. You have a crappy job, no girlfriend, etc. and all of your friends are moving away from home. I sympathize, really. But seriously, you are fucking up your life in a way that will be permanent if you aren’t careful. I hope the judge takes away your license tomorrow at your DUI trial since you haven’t followed their orders and have just been drinking more since you were arrested instead of trying to clean up your act like a responsible person. At least if they take away your license you are less likely to kill an innocent stranger when you insist on driving drunk.
That last post was getting too messy, so I’ll take a new, fresh, clean one. Damn this summer cold - damn it straight to hell. I’m very careful with washing my hands because I hate getting sick, but I must have slipped up; I figure I caught it from the cart at Safeway. I have shit to do, but it’s raining today, anyway (and for the next couple of days), so I guess this is as good a time to lie on the couch and moan as any.
I sympathize, too, but unless your brother starts showing better judgment than he has been, taking away his license won’t stop him from driving. I’m constantly hearing news stories about drunk drivers getting into accidents and hearing that they were also driving with a suspended or revoked license.
Thanks! I’ll point him to that site, because, as I stated, I am no longer willing to shop for him. Maybe he’ll be a bit more willing to compromise if he has to shop for himself.
Dangit, hospital case manager, why did you just hand me a list of skilled nursing facilities yesterday? You told me that kaylasmom is going to need to go in for short-term rehab to learn how to walk on her new hip, fine. You told me that I should visit the facilities I’m considering having her transferred to, walk through them, see if I like the way they feel; okay, that’s a little squishy, but fine.
But what I was really trying to find out was whether my insurance company had pre-authorized the emergency hip replacement surgery when she was admitted on Friday, and what follow-up care had been authorized, or remained to be authorized. Turns out that the insurance company’s precertification people didn’t have a record of being contacted by the hospital on Friday at all, but that’s okay; they have two business days to get that done.
But I work nights; we are acutely understaffed at the facility I work in; I can’t benefit my wife by staying away from work during the hours she’s supposed to be sleeping anyway. I still need to get some sleep of my own. How about instead of giving me a list of every skilled nursing facility in the county, you trim it down to the ones that are contracted with my insurance provider? Instead of asking me to spend my sleeping time finding the ones that are contracted, learning if they have bed space, and then doing my walk-through, you give me something more manageable to work with?
Also: there go our plans to appear on Dancing With The Stars next season…
Looks like we’re in for some adventurous times chez'99 over the next few months. Turns out we’re not covered for rehab in a skilled nursing facility at all; just home visits from a physical therapist.
Try American Apparel. It’s one of the “go to brands” for a lot of the companies that make graphic tees (like Threadless, if you’re familiar with them.)
Online and in their stores you can buy plain t-shirts in a variety of colors and styles.
