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

Thanks! One good thing came out of this: our insurance covers the rental car. I’m now in a 2025 Mitsubishi Eclipse. Wooo!

That sounds positively unnerving. I’m sorry you had to go through that. Doesn’t sound like there’s any accountability there.

Vision problems? That sounds like you’re asking for special DEI treatment. Trump’s America isn’t going to let you oppress everyone with that DEI crap.

(Seriously, I expect they are training people like this now. Fucking assholes.)

Many border guards – but it seems particularly the US ones – are an unfortunate example of what many human beings become when given arbitrary power with very little accoutability. They feel empowered to let their inner asshole emerge, and greatly enjoy the relief from societal pressures to always be polite and respectful and the feeling of power they get from being abusive. I appreciate your distress over this, but many people – especially those with a skin colour much disliked by US immigration authorities – have been treated much worse, including some who have been permanently denied entry for no actual reason. This sort of behaviour always seems to be worse when Trump is in office, as it was in his first term, too. And I rather suspect that, given the civil service culture now under Trump, if you had reported this officer, nothing at all would have happened.

With all respect to the vast numbers of wonderful Americans out there, shit like this is yet another reason I just don’t want to visit the US any more. Not wanting to be detained by ICE for weeks for absolutely no reason, as happened to one blameless Canadian woman, is another reason.

Stay out.

Not because you suck. Because we suck. At least right now.

The tragedy is that you (collectively) mostly don’t suck. Some of the warmest people I’ve ever met have been Americans*, even many of those who mistakenly voted for Trump. But the current power structure under Trump is absolutely toxic.

* This includes the young lady who opened the door when I was going to visit a friend in California and went to the wrong address. Far from being upset at the intrusion, she invited me in to join the party. But I think she was drunk!

When I went to the UK many years ago, we were given informational cards to fill out on the airplane to give to British customs at Heathrow. One is the questions asked was where we were staying. As we were staying in several places I wasn’t sure how to answer (first place, or place we were staying longest? Every place?). I decided to leave it blank and ask customs when we arrived.

I got to the front of the line, and before I could get a word in, he snatched the card out of my hand and berated me: “you forgot the most important part! It’s all here in black and white!”. I explained my question and he yelled “obviously it’s where you’re staying tonight!”.

Welcome to England!

Oh, I know such behaviour isn’t new or unique to America, and that white male privilege prevents me from even seeing the worst of it. That’s why it’s a mini-rant.

It still sucked.

First illegal fireworks of the season last night. Such Big Booms…!

Not that they give a damn about pets.

I’m having a rough morning, ate too much too late last night, didn’t sleep well, woke up feeling dizzy and nauseous.

And I had invited family over for a pool day ( community pool), which is the last thing I feel like doing today…..but they’ve been looking forward to this all week, and I need to be there because they aren’t members.

The family members that are coming over are not always punctual,..what with all the child wrangling and stuff, and I was really hoping they’d be running late. But it looks like they are making an extra special effort this morning to be on time, dammit….I was hoping for the extra hour.

I am starting to feel a little better, just hoping it sticks.

:crossed_fingers:

Wishing you all a good day! I had to negotiate with myself to get groceries today.

Inna and I wanted to spend our Sunday looking @ cars.

Surprise! All the dealerships are closed!

National Waffle Iron Day must be a bigger deal than I’d realized!

Well you can still go look at them - you didn’t say you wanted to test drive any! :wink:

I might be a few decades late on this, but really long voiced intros to songs.
I don’t need a scenario, and I’ve never found one funny. Just get on with it.
(Obviously it’s because of the blurred distinction between music videos and the songs themselves, but I could do without it being part of the track)

I use Chapel Hill Transit’s E-Z Rider program to take me to doctor appointments and grocery shopping. Rides have to be scheduled no later than the day before (no same-day service) so I can’t just decide “I want to grow shopping today”. And there have been days when I arranged for a ride and when I woke up in the morning i really didn’t feel going out. I can cancel scheduled rides up to an hour ahead of time, but that just means having to reschedule for another day if I really need something. One day I spent the entire time in the store leaning on my cart and stopping every so often to work up the energy to go on.

Your situation makes grocery shopping exponentially more difficult.

Thankfully you have some kind of transportation arrangements available.

But it’s difficult to schedule around unpredictable energy levels and physical ability. :hugs:

I’ve often wondered what I will do when I get to that point in the not too distant future.

A Starbucks paper coffee cup filled with martini can often make a family visit to the community pool much more tolerable. Just sayin’. :wink:

Good luck this afternoon. Seriously, not snarkily.

Could you visit and take phone pictures of the window stickers? It might be helpful.
Also, paint colors in person may sway your opinions as to which colors you like.