I am also glad you were able to find a job so quickly, PHS. I hope everything else is going well, too!
Last year, I carefully planted some catnip in a large pot, which I placed in a concrete floored gazebo. The plant got plenty of sun and water, the kitties got fresh nip and the plant seemed safely confined*, all was good in my world.
Last week, I started smelling just a hint of mint when the hounds came in. Today, I went around behind a storage shed and found an entire bed of runaway catnip!!!
*Catnip is a mint, and like any mint will take over a yard in no time at all if given the opportunity. Its also super hard to get rid of once its out of control.
This will not be the first time I’ve had a Kitty Opium Den in my yard. On the good side, its pretty and smells good. Bees and butterflies love it. It. Won’t hurt the dogs when they eat it. I read that catnip tea is very relaxing, but the one time I tried it, fighting the cats off was NOT relaxing at all. I know I will never be able to get rid of it without chemical warfare, so I need to start thinking happy thoughts about it.
Please tell me the poison oak, and any other sticks it touched, is no longer housed in the burn barrel?
Upend the whole thing and start over, if you have to.
But NEVER BURN POISON ivy/oak/catnip ever!! You aerosolize the oil that causes the itchy rash - if you (or anyone downwind) breathes it in, you get poison ivy/oak/catnip rash coating your lungs. This will kill you, while you pray for death.
(Wow. I’m really touched that so many of y’all remember my trip planning thread, and I guess the earlier “fuck this shit” thread was probably colorful enough. Short answer, I’m in the far western ass-end of Michigan, and yes, landed a job at a grocery store about a day and a half before this whole “essential business” stuff became a thing. Good timing, too, otherwise I would be looking for online work right when half the nation started doing the same! Oh, and despite however disparaging I may sound - it really is the far ass-end of the state, and the highway peters out right by my home, which feels like living where The Sidewalk Ends - I am joking around, and genuinely love where I’ve landed.)
Oh, I know. I don’t know if it was a vine or if it made it into the burn barrel. My roommate burned all the sticks in there yesterday. I kept my windows firmly closed.
Personally I think it was from the very lush poison ivy plant that was growing next to the Giant Stick Pile. That vine has since been dug up and replaced with a non-poisonous fern. And I found some Tecnu soap in my roommates’ bathroom, so the worst of the itchy is gone.
I think they’d join forces. Or there’d be a weird, cosmic ray accident, they’d cross-pollinate, and in 10 years the world will be a vast, vegetative mass of kudweed and nothing else.
I have a video chat appointment with my neurologist this afternoon. I brained my damage in 2016, and as a result, I have anosmia (no sense of smell), and persistent phantosmia (phantom smells). And trust me, the phantom smells aren’t McDonald’s french fries, baking bread, or Cinnabon. It’s usually a mix of rotten chemical or organic smells.
I have jumped through every hoop imaginable so that I can have surgery to ablate my olfactory bulbs to remove the phantom smell. Today I hope to find out if the doctor I want to perform the surgery is willing to do it. But there’s just been so many roadblocks and delays that I feel like I’m going to have an anxiety attack even before my appointment.
I haven’t had cable / internet in my home for about five years. Combination of factors - I’m away a lot for work, and I got fed up with Time Warner’s (now known by another name, but it’s the same assholes) bullshit.
So today I call to inquire about re-activating my service. The following ensues:
Phone system tries everything it can to prevent me from actually speaking to someone. I eventually stonewall it into giving me a rep.
Wait on hold a long time. OK, understandable given the Covid situation.
I tell the rep I only want information, not to actually trigger my reactivation. He says he has to get certain information from me first. Fine, but I reiterate not to put an order through. He agrees.
He answers my questions, I select plan 34-C, but again tell him I haven’t decided and I’ll call back to actually pull the trigger. Rep tells me he’s putting me on a list because everything is backed up and this will smooth the process later if I do decide to go with it.
Once more I ask, “You do understand I’m not actually ordering the service at this time, right?” Oh yes, he says. We’ll send you an email.
An hour later I get an email confirming I’ve completed my order, equipment is being shipped* and here’s what I’m being charged**.
Back on the phone to tell them, as politely as possible, that I now remember why I canceled years ago and to shove it up their asses***.
What is it with these companies? Do the reps work on commission? Is that why they were apparently so hot to get me signed up and finalized? Fuck 'em. I’ll do without. Got plenty of books here.
Nobody bothered to ask me for my mailing address, which is different from my physical address. I tried explaining that to rep #2, but it’s apparently beyond the grasp of this company’s logistics.
** Thank dog I never actually gave them my credit card info. Not sure how they expected to collect on this used car salesman ramrod job they tried to do on me.
*** I make a point of telling the phone rep I’m in no way angry with them individually or personally, and I thank them for speaking with me.
My 85 year old Dad, who does pretty much nothing except sit and watch Fox news anyway, is ready to march down to the state capitol, torch and pitchfork held high. Because of the absolutely unconscionable conditions of having casinos and restaurants shut down.
This from a guy who spent most of my childhood preaching stories of the hardships his regeneration is able to endure with quiet dignity and forbearance, that would make my generation hide in a hole and whine themselves to death.
