Day five of no Sacramento Bee delivery. I actually called the Publisher’s office this morning and spoke to a woman in his office, who said she would forward my delivery problem to something called Audience VIP Services. Haven’t heard back from them in the hour and a half since I called. She did give me their number, so I will be calling them this afternoon if I haven’t heard from them in the meantime.
Amazing the number of discussions I have had with random people over pain control. I have a contract with my doc to get pain meds, I follow it exactly. If he wants to prescribe me fentynl and heroin and more vicodin than House can hork down in a show, it is OUR business. He makes the decisions based on a hell of a lot more education than some random person hanging out watching me at the pharmacy probably has. I am still on the same dosage that I have been on in 7 years because we work on trying other stuff like adding Voltaren gel and physio to keep things moving, and other mind control tricks. We have been discussing how the cancer is going to effect my regular pain control, and he and I will be making the decision not random people telling me I am drug seeking and a junkie based on me going in monthly for prescriptions. If it takes a drug to make my life comfortable and I am not doing it for fun, I am not a junkie. I may be addicted in the classic sense that I get certain ill effects if I don’t take the drugs, but there is actually a real reason for me taking the damned pills.
Just got two emergency calls and a number of urgent texts from my BIL. Is everything ok? Is my sister alright? Oh, yeah, things are fine. In fact, they’re better than fine and he needs my opinion now! You see, his kid improved his reading this month, so naturally he’s the smartest kid ever and deserves his very own ipad. It’s urgent that he get my opinion now so he can get just the right one.
Well, since you asked my opinion…
Maybe don’t get Brad jack shit. Maybe it was nice that you took Brad out for ice cream, but a toy and the small party you threw him over the weekend just a little over the top.
Maybe the fact that Brad is almost 6 and still can’t sit through even a short meal sans device without screaming, more media isn’t a good idea.
Maybe the fact Brad starts hitting and punching his little brother when said little brother watches a video on your ipad should tell you that he doesn’t need his own.
Maybe Brad isn’t a genius angel dressed as a 5 year old boy, but an actual real 5 year old boy who’s been spoiled beyond belief, and if you take the time and patience to discipline him, he just might not be an asshole later in life. Just a few thoughts. You did ask my opinion.
Heh. Calling the publisher’s office got things done. We got a newspaper hand delivered. Now we’ll see if we get one tomorrow …
Should also get your paid subscription extended by a month or two.
They claim they’ll credit our account. We’ll see.
I like winter. I really do. Today, May 14th, is the first day this year here in the Great White North that the air conditioner beckons. The winter cover is still on it, but I guess it had best come off tomorrow. The grass is growing taller, and the shrubbery is becoming unruly. How I long for the season of white Christmases, Santa Claus, and a hockey season that is still young, with all the teams full of hope as everyone dashes around buying Christmas presents and the snow flies and the fucking lawn languishes dormant under a thick layer of suffocating snow.
Gluten-free AI!
I’m pretty sure that if I didn’t have my birthday on my FB profile, I wouldn’t have heard from any of my kids yesterday. Everybody relies on social media to tell them those sorts of things, so I figured what the hell.
I took all the grass out of my back yard, and half the grass out of my front yard. Half of my front yard is naked dirt with some junipers and a spruce - turning it into a rock garden is my project for this summer. The other half is a clover lawn. I have other things to do with my life than nurture a mono-culture lawn. 
I think it’s official - my neighbours to the north are dicks. Not major dicks, but dicks in a multitude of small ways - mini-dicks, as it were. For four years, they never say a word to us - not a hello, good-bye, or kiss my ass. They throw the occasional cigarette butt over their fence into my yard; they toss their snow over the fence into our yard. They shovel to the exact property line - not a millimeter further (my neighbour to the south and I have a contest to see who can get out first and shovel the other person’s sidewalk). They don’t keep their dandelions under control. Yesterday, Mr. Dick mowed their front lawn. Where our properties join there is a small strip of lawn, about seven feet wide - four feet of their grass, three feet of our grass. You guessed it - he mowed their four feet, left my three feet (every time I mow, I mow the whole damned thing, because who does that?). The funny thing is, I don’t even think they’re intending to be dicks - I think they are such self-involved young people that it never, ever occurs to them to NOT be dicks. 
FB never tells me anyone’s birthday until the day after. Unless I’ve known you for decades and memorized your birthday, you ain’t getting a single animated .gif from me on your natal day.
My only-kitty Siamese mix is also very troublesome and demanding at times, and is capable of being a major pain in the tail.
But I love her.
Yep, loves my babies! They put me through the ringer daily.
That sounds like the Preston-Logan eye test. 
In a RARE moment of rage and irrationality 
I posted this.
Here’s an update as the facts of the case have become clearer!
https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=854813
I’m very glad I wasn’t drinking when I read that. Although it might have made for an excuse to get this POS replaced…
Wonder if that’s his wife…
Ugh. Well, I hope I’m cleaned out, I think I am, but I have my colonoscopy in a little over 4 hours and I won’t be taking the Magnesium Citrate since I started vomiting (well, really dry heaving with a little bit of mucus) about 10 minutes before I was supposed to take it. Since that stuff makes me physically ill, I’m betting that I won’t be able to keep it down.
Thanks loads to whatever creatures woke me up at 4:30 this morning by screeching loudly in the front yard.
It wasn’t cats by the sound of it, so now I have to speculate as the source - mating raccoons? a pack of rabid opossums? my next door neighbor Shirley returning home drunk after a night on the town???