June, no, NOTHING! (Monthly Mini-Rants)

The BBQ Pit
181

Is the appropriate place for bad takes that pretty much everybody will probably give me shit for an most likely attack me? Fine.

Here’s the thing … I never liked The Beach Boys and I don’t understand why Brian Wilson was lauded as much as he was. I suppose he was a genius at putting harmonies together but in service of shit songs if you ask me. I saw them (or a version of them) in concert in the late 80s and it was one of the saddest experiences of my life. It was like an infomercial for a band that used to be.

182

I am not a Beach Boy fan either, but I get the Brian Wilson accolades. He was just superb at what he did, even if much of it doesn’t really resonate with me.

183

I tolerate the Beach Boys.

184

I have had Nomorobo on my landline phone for years. It’s been doing a good job of blocking junk calls, and until recently I’ve been happy with it.

The reason I say “until recently” is twofold. Earlier today I sent in a work order to my HOA management regarding an apparent leak on my roof. A few hours later I got a call from Roofwerks, which I presumed was in response to my request. However, Nomorobo cut off the call before I could answer it. Fortunately, I was able to make a note of the number and called them back; after a bit they were able to locate the work order and we were able to set up an appointment for them to come over Monday afternoon.

The most distressing problem is related to my attempts to get some mental health assistance. My health care provider, BCBS, has a Teladoc service which among other things lets me set up telephone appointments with a counselor to discuss some personal issues. However, for reasons I only vaguely understand these calls are made from an anonymous number, which Nomorobo automatically cuts off. Trying to call the number back gets me an operator who is unable to connect me with my counselor. I tried having them call my cell phone instead of my landline, but unfortunately the cell phone connection in my house is, at best, spotty; the audio cuts in and out and sometimes calls get disconnected (which is why I keep my landline). Since I know when the counselor is going to be calling, I’ve found that if I keep my finger on the phone button and press it as soon as the phone starts to ring I can keep Nomorobo from cutting off the call. But it’s a PITA, and doesn’t help my stress levels.

185

Doesn’t Nomorobo have some way you can whitelist such numbers?

186

My mother could not remember my birthday.

This is not a vanity thing. My Mom comes from a long line of stereotypical Jewish mothers. My sister and I have been the most important people in her life since we were born. I knew that over the past few years, dementia had finally begun to set in. Every time I think I know how far it has progressed, it turns out to be worse. She could not remember my birthday. If she cannot remember that, she’s not far from literally forgetting her own name.

187

Because with a lot of people, if they have their counselor’s number they are going to call it whenever they want/(think they) need to speak to a counselor, whether that’s late at night, or when the counselor is on vacation, etc. By making it an anonymous number, you don’t have their number to call them.

Even if you could white list ‘anonymous’ then that would defeat a lot of what Nomorobo does as any call from
‘anonymous’ would come thru, whether that’s his counselor or a scammer.
Think you could never get taken by a scammer? Didja ever find your car keys in the fridge? All it takes is one absent-minded / bleary-eyed-tired moment of weakness.

188

The point of being anonymous is that there’s no way of identifying what it is. You can’t whitelist a nothing.

189

There’s no reason nomorobo couldn’t have a “whitelist anonymous” feature. For sure that means you’d be whitelisting some fraction of cranks & spam in addition to one’s therapist or whatever. But if hearing from your therapist is important to you, then maybe lower your armor a notch.

Speaking just for myself, I’ve never had such a volume of spam calls that I need to prevent my phone from even ringing. That seems like a two-edged sword that is mostly cutting the user, not the other guy.

190

Elictrical problem in my kitchen!

I got home yesterday afternoon. I had cleaned mouse crap from all the spaces in the kitchen before I left. They were once again covered in mouse crap. I saw a roach. I think I saw the same roach later. It may have been a different roach. After several days of sleeping all the time, I could not fall asleep last night. I woke up at seven thirty and could not get to sleep.

I was trying to microwave a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast, when I realized the clock on the mircowave was not on and the clock on the stove was not on. I checked the circuit breakers. I tried a few other minor things. Those two outlets are not getting power. I need to clean everything again, declutter and call maintenance.

I was explaining this to my beloved during our morning chat. I really just wanted her to listen and offer emotional support.

I generally do not discuss my problems with my sister or SIL because based on almost no facts, they make a large number of incorrect assumptions, decide that I am incapable of handling the problem myself, decide that their solution is the only correct one, and then get confused when I get mad at them instead of being grateful.

One of Mom’s friends, Cathy, is a retired RN. She has unquestioningly accepted Mom’s version of events as true and complete. It is neither. I, my sister and my SIL have tried telling Cathy this. I started very politely. After Cathy refused to even consider what we were saying and kept giving ‘advice’ that would make things worse, I eventually started yelling at her to shut up. That same day, one of Mom’s friends came back into the room to say goodbye to Mom. This asshole idiot felt the need to say “It’s your fault she’s here! You’re abusive.” I immediately resumed yelling. How was it my fault? Was I the one who lied to my doctors for several months and didn’t follow their instructions? Mom’s perforated colon, which was entirely predictable and preventable, was my fault how exactly? Other than yelling at that moron Cathy for not shutting up when we repeatedly explained that she was making things worse, what had I done that had been remotely abusive? I then leaned in close and shouted “Fuck you!” into her face. I was struck by how surprised she looked.

If I was a hideous abusive monster as she claimed, why wouldn’t I shout at some stranger? I was was entirely innocent, why wouldn’t I get mad and shout?

I expect most people to not understand why I am doing something or what I need. My beloved is supposed to be the exception. I really just needed to hear ‘That stinks. I love you. I am here for you.’ Instead, she kept giving suggestions for things I had already considered and that would not work. So, instead of feeling heard and validated, I feel obligated to respond politely and explain why her suggestions won’t work. She kept making more suggestions. Eventually, I just couldn’t take any more. I politely asked her to stop and explained that she was making things worse. Unfortunately, by the time I said that, she had to log off and eat breakfast.

So, now i am somewhat mad at her for not understanding me. Since I had no time to explain exactly why I wanted her to stop making suggestions and just listen, she is probably mad at me.

It is only nine fifteen and the day is already shot to hell.

191

That was what they told me, and I suppose it makes sense. And I also found out that the anonymous number that the counselor will be calling me from will be different each time (this has been confirmed when I had subsequent appointments) so I’m not able to whitelist the number with Nomorobo. I have done this with other numbers, including another health care provider, which for some reason they considered spam even though the caller id was not anonymous.

If this continues to be a problem I may drop Nomorobo, and go with my fallback; unless I recognize the caller id I let any calls that get past Nomorobo go to my answering machine, which picks up after four rings. I figure that any legitimate caller will start to leave a message, at which point I pick up the phone. Junk callers usually just hang up, although on occassion I’ll get what is obviously a sales blurb, which I ignore.

BTW, last night one of the calls that gt through to my answering machine was from “TrumpVictoryPAC”. I almost answered that one just to vent; but they didn’t try to leave a message.

192

I’ve got my car back, and the basement is almost dry. I still have no clue where we will put all the stuff from my father’s house.

193

I have an older friend who was in remission for colon cancer for decades. He’s been struggling with health issues ever since. Well, he can now add kidney and lung cancer to his list to beat.

He is a member of my in-person writers group, a native Detroiter, a proud secular Jew, a former English teacher with the foulest mouth imaginable. He can be a real asshole, reveling in pissing people off for the fun of it. But he is extremely funny and creative and he knows more about writing than anyone else I know. He’s also a staunch advocate for marginalized groups, always staging a protest about something, supporting local campaigns, doing the work. When I met him ten years ago, he was rough, but as he’s dealt with some past trauma he’s really softened a lot, into a more thoughtful and caring person (it would gross him out to hear this), and he’s been gone for months already, not writing, not participating, and I’ve been missing him a lot, and now this. And he doesn’t want anyone to be touchy-feely about it or to say we’re sorry. He’s of the attitude that he will beat it.

It sucks. I’ve somehow made it to this age without anyone close to me dying, and I know my time is running out. But we are really not the same group without him. And what bothers me the most is I know he will choose to suffer alone. That’s his way.

194

I continue to be somewhat sick. I really needed to do laundry. I eventually managed to get a load of clothes through the washer. I put the wet clothes in the dryer. I got out my pouch of quarters. I attempted to put quarters in the sliding coin tray. The tray is stuck and will not come back out so I can put money into the machine and dry my clothes. I used the resident app to put in a maintenance request. That was about two hours ago. I called the office. Nobody answered so I left a message.

I have actually accomplished quite a bit today- continuing to declutter, labeling boxes I intend to keep, transferring stuff I want to keep from broken bins into intact ones etc.

I am unable to dry my clothes. The outlet in the kitchen is not working.

Bah.

195

Yeah, whatever spam call filter Samsung had on my phone started blocking a lot of real calls last month (doctor, medical lab, company tech support, etc.) to the point I had to shut it off. Had never had a problem before. Now I get 2 calls every afternoon from real estate speculators wanting to buy my house.

196

I use an app on my Android called Should I Answer? I like it.

I can block all calls not from someone in my contacts, or turn that off when expecting such a call.

197

I have no way of knowing who’s going to be calling me when, most of the time.

198

When a call is blocked, they can still leave a voicemail.

199

I just go full 90s and screen my phone calls (… walking into spiderwebs…leave a message and I’ll call you back…)

I pit VLC. It’s the music app on my phone that, for random unexplained reasons will suddenly delete files from my list of albums. Then when I resync, it’ll be normal until a couple of days later when those albums will suddenly be duplicated, with every song listed twice, under one album listing (I listen by album, so it’s extremely irritating). These duplicates pretty much have to be manually deleted which is a ton of work.

I don’t know what alternative I can use. My husband has a cloud server that we put music on and VLC lets us sync music from it, but this glitch drives me crazy.

200

That was one of the things that stopped working when my spam filter went wonky. Very frustrating.