It’s 11:15 am, and my neighbors have kicked off today’s party. It comes complete with a DJ and, no surprise, very loud music.
I am a thick, roiling cloud of mad. Grrr
I want to have sympathy, but I’d give just about anything for a party.
More rants about this goddam weather. It’s the middle of goddam March, several days away from official spring. But back in my day, spring was just a notional concept in the middle of winter. It wasn’t until well into April that we started to see real signs of it. I love winter, I love snow, and I hate this new climate. I’m in Canada, dammit, and here I am in the middle of March with the window open, being forced to listen to the shrieking of birds, and pretty soon the lawn will threaten to become overgrown and the gigantic carnivorous bush in front of the house will start once again to grow at the rate of about a foot per day, extending itself over all other vegetation, the lord of all it surveys. I’ve had it cut down to the stump twice, and it just keeps sprouting. This is the year I’m going to kill it and have it removed no matter what it costs. The trials and tribulations of summer are coming. And so are the bugs and vegetation that are all out to get me, awoken from the peaceful slumber of winter. 
It would be lovely to have a gathering, but listening to irresponsible assholes have one despite all medical advice makes me stabby.
wolfpup I’m with you. I love Winter. Spring just means that Summer is coming. I hate Summer.
Me too. And it is only a Nebraska summer that I am hating but hate them I do.
Three or four years ago, we were considering buying a Maine Coon kitten. Average prices were between 500-1000 dollars. The Best Cat in the World showed up on our doorstep and asked to come in, so my search for a Maine Coon stopped.
Sadly, TBCitW came pre-loaded with FIV and we had to have him put down today. Which sucks. A bunch.
To distract myself, I thought I’d go look at Maine Coon breeders because we might be ready for another cat in 6 months or so. Holy Sticker Shock, Batman!!! The same breeders using the same breeding stock were now charging at least double for their non-show kittens. 2500 each seems pretty standard now and all of the spring kittens are sold/reserved.
If you’re not absolutely dead-set on purebred, maybe see if a shelter near you has a Maine Coon or Norwegian Forest Cat (pretty similar, I hear)?
If you’re willing to get an adult, Petfinder is showing almost 500 Maine Coons or Maine Coon mixes available across the country. The adoption fees are considerably less than breeder prices.
I probably should have explained a little better, I’m sorry.
We’ve been active in rescue all of our lives and have always adopted the problem cats. They have all given us joy in their own ways, but at this stage of our lives, we feel we deserve to have a cat that doesn’t have problems or baggage.
I, personally, cannot go through FIV again and way too many shelter cats come with FIV.
I know this sounds really hypocritical, but as much as I love the strays and homeless kitties, I want a known quantity this time. Besides, we’ve never had a kitten before.
Never thought I’d hear anyone complain about too much sanitizer at Chipotle.
Might your neighbor’s party people be completely vaccinated? A friend of ours is planning a picnic for a date after we’re all protected. I’d hate for anyone to witness our debauchery and think badly about us.
Someone on my pregnant cousin’s FB page just wrote to her, “Having a baby will instantly transform you from a girl to a woman.”
BARF.
Won’t someone think of all those poor septuagenarian girls out there?
Its a beautiful day. The sun is shining, the birds are singing and my cat is still dead.
I leave the house once a week, to go to my job, and sit in an office with nobody there. I’m grateful for the ability to leave the house once a week.
The other days, I am either a) taking care of a toddler all day, or
b) shut up in my room, trying and failing to work, while two toddlers are squawking in my living room
I practically fucking live in my bedroom, and recently the IT person at my job told me they don’t want me using my home desktop for work, so now the only option is to sit on my bed with the IT-issued fucking laptop with the screen that’s not big enough for me to do my fucking job and I fucking live on my bed and my only break is when I go into the kitchen to eat in the same space as my husband, the nanny, my kid, and her kid.
I am losing my fucking mind. Then there’s the FIL drama, short version is he committed to child care for a year and then decided that fucking random women and traveling around the country was more important than stopping the spread of a pandemic, so obviously we couldn’t have him around our infant. The whole deal when he asked us to move here is that he would help us with child care, so I have been counting the fucking days til that man gets vaccinated and everyone can get vaccinated so I could finally indulge in my fantasy of dropping the kid off somewhere and having maybe three hours out of the house with my husband.
Now FIL has gone off the rails (he’s escalated from fucking random women to talking incessantly about all the fucking he’s doing, no matter how many times people tell him to stop, plus maybe drugs??? - he’s a retired multi-millionaire who can do and afford whatever the fuck he wants to, basically) and Sr. Weasel is convinced he has Bipolar II (some weight given to my husband’s analysis as he is a clinical psychologist), and now, after a “final straw” event that occurred tonight, my husband is not sure he’s comfortable with FIL taking care of the kid unless he gets mental health treatment and is medicated for at least a year. And you know, maybe Sr. Weasel is right, it’s kind of hard for me to judge what is speculation and what is really going on with him, it seems I just can’t discern reality through the thick haze of JESUS CHRIST I NEED A BREAK. WHY IS THIS MAN-CHILD STANDING BETWEEN ME AND A FUCKING BREAK?
*A slightly hopeful coda, I did discuss this with my husband and we are currently exploring alternative avenues of me getting a fucking break. I truly don’t know what is wrong with his father, but I know if anyone can get him connected to the right treatment it’s my husband.
Sympathies on the rest, but on this I might be able to offer some help.
I’d guess your work laptop has some sort of video out - HDMI, DisplayPort, etc. You should be able to hook up your laptop to your existing screen, and output your video to that. Your existing screen probably has multiple inputs, so you can switch back and forth between your desktop and your laptop; you should also be able to attach a keyboard and mouse to your laptop. At the least, you could get a bigger screen to work on. Another possibility, of course, is just get another screen to attach to your laptop if you don’t feel like faffing about with it.
If you’re not sure on how to go about it, either post what sort of outputs you have on your laptop, and inputs on your screen, or talk to your IT guy who probably can give you pretty explicit help.
(My wife has been working from home on her work laptop - she’s got two screens, keyboard, mouse all hooked into it. It’s pretty easy to set up, usually)
This is exactly what I do. I usually stand the monitor on a small stack of dictionaries behind the work laptop so the laptop doesn’t block the screen. Or if that’s too high, I can just lower the lid (keep the power on) and plug in the desktop’s keyboard/mouse into the laptop. Works great.
I’m a terrible person. With an obnoxious multi-millionaire FIL, I’d be investigating poisons.
I did the same. But I bought one of these to put put my monitor on.
When LA County locked down, my boss came into my office and told me “I think you should start working from home. Take anything you need from the office.”
I took my dock, a 27" monitor, wireless keyboard/mouse combo, and some assorted peripherals. I set them up as you describe. With the laptop screen lined up just underneath the bottom of the monitor, I had a screen for reading email or “parking” windows for drag and drop and a big screen for actual work.
When we started being able to work in the office, I ordered a second dock, keyboard, and monitor to keep at home.
It’s good to be valued by your boss, especially if your boss is a VP…