He was already in the ‘I’m pulling shit out of my ass to justify my position’ stage and the whole “Abortion = Child Sacrifice” was ludicrous enough. Like I said, the conversation was enough to make him a former FB friend.
Sweet hopping Jesus on a kangaroo. If you think abortion is morally wrong, just say so. Don’t go inventing reasons that don’t exist while telling me my cites are ‘unsupported’. That makes me believe you’re a fundamentally dishonest person with only a passing relationship with logic and reality.
To continue complaining about allergies - I am now congested in my chest and throat and sinuses. I am considering surgical removal of my nose. Everything is itchy. Can this season be over now?
Minirant about kindergarten - The school my daughter will probably be going to is a bit intense. They have a school anthem. They had the 5th graders sing it for the parents at their “kindergarten orientation.” I’m nervous. I don’t have the energy to be this jazzed about elementary school. On top of that, they had my husband fill out the same paperwork I gave them three months ago when we registered our daughter for class. Maybe if they spent less time writing original songs to use as anthems, they would be able to keep track of the paperwork.
The elementary school my sons went to had an anthem one year. They had a new music teacher who had just graduated from college and she was young and full of enthusiasm. From what I hear she’s still a wonderful teacher, but now she’s married with a baby and she’s dialed the enthusiasm from 11 down to 8 or 9. But the paperwork, yeah, we used to fill it out in the Spring to reserve our sons’ spots in school and then fill most of it out again in August just before school started - just in case anything had changed. The staff was just as annoyed as the parents because they had to keep dealing with all the paperwork. My sons are in high school now and the district finally switched to online enrollment last year. An entire forest in Oregon breathed a sigh of relief.
We had a storm with 60 mph winds last Thursday, and it snapped a major branch on the large silver maple in front of our house.
We’d been struggling to save the tree since it got hit by lightning last August, but the arborist we’ve been consulting says this additional damage is just too much, and it must come down.
Here’s a novel idea: if your vehicle is not capable of achieving a speed at least 5 MPH below the posted limit, PULL THE FUCK OVER when safe to do so and let the more capable vehicles pass.
There is an abandoned house up the road, speculators bought it to add on and flip, the neighbors went NIMBY and the speculators pulled out. So it sits and the squatters found their way in. It’s not terribly close to us, and really wouldn’t be a problem except… it’s the same house # and the same street name as us, almost, we being Street and this being place.
So we’ve had 2 visits from pissed off cops, one at 5am with loud banging on the door and laying on the doorbell and suspicious questions. The city inspector came by when we weren’t home and was wandering around looking in windows until a neighbor talked to him-inspector said he’d had a report the house was abandoned and unsecured.
So now there’s a sign at both doors telling people this is not the house you want. Confused the mailman some.
Watching videos on your phone in a public place, sound on low, is NOT the same as being courteous to others. I mean, I appreciate that low volume can only be heard clearly 5–8 feet from you, but still. Try sound off, or headphones, or something.
Also: why do people in public places (I see it most on buses and trains) have phone conversations on speakerphone? Isn’t it worse for EVERYONE (you, your interlocutor, and the trapped audience to your unfailingly anodyne life)? Yesterday on the train a woman held her phone out flat, so I could see that there was nothing to see on the screen, and shouted into the little microphone. It did distract from the elderly woman who, one foot on the disabled seat, was trying to see which sunflower seed could make the most noise as she ploughed through an entire bag for thirty-two minutes.
A few years ago I started having allergy symptoms for the first time in my life. Finally, this spring I decided to do something about it. I tried a few different generic things but nothing seemed to help. And I had no idea allergy medication was so expensive. Then a 10 pill sample of Zyzal appeared in my mailbox. I tried that and it has been great. Well, once I figured out I needed to take it at bedtime. Unfortunately, the generic equivalent is not much cheaper. But think of the money I’ve saved on tissues!
Zyrtec isn’t the same ingredient and it may have been one I tried. Zyzal is the only thing that has worked for me. Actually, I don’t mind taking it at bedtime. I don’t take any medications so there is no set time I’d remember to do it anyway and you only take it every 24 hours. So, it’s on the counter in the kitchen and I take it as I’m cleaning up in there before bed.
Xyzal is actually similar to Zyrtec; many medications consist of left-handed and right-handed molecules, and pharmaceutical companies are finding ways to produce only one or the other. Examples: albuterol and levalbuterol (brand name Xopenex). Lansoprazole and dexlansoprazole. Provigil (modafinil) and Nuvigil (armodafinil). Enantiopure drug - Wikipedia
Typically they do this because
they can get a patent on the newer version, and
they claim (sometimes with reason) that the single isomer works better and/or has fewer side effects. That’s the case with Xyzal (supposely less drowsiness) and levalbuterol (less jitteriness / cardiac effect).
Of course not - it’s the capital of New Mexico, which is also a foreign country.
On the abbreviations: to make it extra special, those territories also have codes that can be used as country codes. RQ = Puerto Rico when you want to populate it into a “country” field. I work with several computer systems that have varying methods of storing the data, so on one record we might get an address in San Juan, PR, USA - and on the next, it’ll be San Juan, no state, RQ.
Crap. My little old man cat is dying. He’s lost 3 pounds since last July, and 1 of those pounds came off in the last month. He’s had IBD for several years, but tonight the doctor said he thinks the cat may have “diffuse lymphoma”. I didn’t twig right then, but yeah, lymphoma means it’s probably not going to be long now.
He’s got a lot of fight in him still, at least as far as being handled by the vet and vet tech is concerned. But while I was waiting in the exam room, he didn’t even try to get away from me, and that’s unusual for him.
I’ll have to have a talk with the vet tomorrow (the cat is overnighting for a urine sample, because I think the vet is still hoping for diabetes). I want Shiva to be pain free and not stressed for whatever time is left.
This is the part of having a pet that I really, really, *really *hate.
The bloodwork says that Shiva definitely has hyperthyroidism, which would explain a lot of the weight loss. He’s now on an additional medication for that. Meantime, we increase the prednisone for a short time in the hopes that what’s causing the diarrhea is inflammation from the IBD and the higher steroid dose will calm things down, and we’ve added a very high-fiber food to his diet.
Assuming he eats it. He eats, but he hasn’t been eating everything I give him.
As I was pulling out of the parking spot at the vet’s he shat the cage. Luckily I was still *in *the parking lot, so I took him back in to the clinic and we got him and the carrier all cleaned up. Naturally he stepped in it (it’s nothing but liquid right now), so we had to clean HIM up to, which he Did. Not. Appreciate. He also managed to get shit on me and my clothes, so there was a lot of washing up and wiping while there, and the clothes are in the laundry now.
He goes back in 21 days for another round of bloodwork to see if the thyroid readings get better.
The doctor has *not *ruled out the diffuse lymphoma. The additional prednisone and the high fiber prescription food is to figure out if his issues are caused by the IBD. If they don’t help, then the doctor will change his tentative diagnosis to probable. However, the only way to completely rule cancer out is surgery with multiple biopsy sites. Surgery like this is contraindicated for a 15-year-old cat with a severe heart murmur. So I keep an eye on him and in 21 days we’ll have more information that will hopefully be enough to make better decisions.
