Yeah, being specific probably helps a lot. On the bright side, my daughter (the primary source of my frustration yesterday) has been reading her book in a tent on the driveway for the last hour and a half. Apparently having a “nest” is enough to keep her occupied for a while.
Good luck with your surgery, Angel, and congratulations on the weight loss (assuming it was intended).
I never could get in touch with a live person so I’ve managed a work-around. I forwarded the email to my niece, I will call her when I get to Best Buy and she will notify them that I am there. I hope this works.
So now that I’ve spent a few days learning how to make this place work, I now get to spend another few days learning how to make my new TV work. There may or may not be further rants on that front. 
I might be in the same boat as you, Angel … shoulder’s been killing me for four months because my insurance wouldn’t let me get an MRI. Finally did and, no surprise, it’s a torn tendon in the rotator cuff. Meeting with an ortho surgeon on Friday… but reeeeally want to avoid surgery.
Biking and soccer have been keeping me sane (and getting me out of my wife’s hair).
If I can’t stay active for 4-6 weeks, I’m afraid I’ll get moody, fat and divorced.
Hey, any random angels, feel free to pray for wisdom all around when I talk to the doc.
I recently purchased a refrigerator from Best Buy’s website. Delivery and installation was supposed to happen within a week. It was rescheduled three times for reasons unknown. I was informed of new delivery dates via email by their automated system. The second time it was delayed, I received a phone call from their delivery service and was told I should call Best Buy because “Something is wrong…” So I called them. I was on the phone for over an hour two business days in a row. There was no wait time. I spoke to no one. It would just ring and ring, play music for 15 minutes, then ring and ring. I gave up. It arrived after a month.
Annoying callers, annoying traffic, and got home to find some idiot with very expired registration tags had appropriated MY parking space, that I do pay a monthly fee for. Then DH and I discovered that the towing company that allegedly handles removal of unauthorized vehicles was already closed for the evening, not much after 6pm. Idiot at property company, when he was informed of this, was rather flippantly “oh, well, there’s nothing we can do then”. Fortunately for all parties, owner of said not-street-legal-since-September vehicle showed up and removed her POS from my space. I wasn’t impressed with the innocent “oh oopsie, sorry” act, but she moved, which was what was needed.
I’ve delegated writing the email to very nice complex manager about this to DH, since he’s less POed than I am, and would be more likely to write a calmer email with less snark and rude language than VNCM really deserves, since she wasn’t the problem.
What is it with all the dreaming I’ve been doing these last few months? They’re not nightmares, but they certainly must be really active*. Every morning I’ve wakened soaked in sweat, and I spend much of the day feeling tired. Up until recently, I’ve dropped off almost as soon as my head hits the pillow, the only thing waking me being an alarm or a full bladder**; now, I’m often awake a few hours after I’ve fallen asleep to drink some water and let the pillow dry off.
*I rarely remember my dreams, certainly not in any detail, but I do have a sense of what sort of things I’ve dreamt.
**Ah, the joys of getting older.
Yesterday, we were robo-called by the kids’ principals, telling us there was to be a survey emailed to us to find out families’ opinions on reopening in the fall. It was very clear on the phone call and email that this was an opinion survey only. It was not a vote. We were to fill it out of each student. Simple, right?
Just a few minutes ago, I got a robo-call from the county administrator, saying they were resending the surveys, because dumbasses were forwarding the original to friends and families to flood the ballot box. As I understand it, there were half again as many surveys turned in as there were students. This is only a minor inconvenience for me, but it just pisses me off that, while the school system is trying to do the right thing, the spoiled, little bratty parents are gumming up the works.
You have my sympathies. Your house sounds more and more like mine. Except we luckily have fewer interruptions. Mrs Magill is a nice, Italian woman, and we all know better than to piss her off.
Not to be alarmist, but you might talk to your doc about this. I had non-hodgkins lymphoma 15 years ago. Every year I go to the oncologist for a follow up they ask if I’m having night sweats as that is one of the symptoms (along with swelling of the ankles and inflamed lymph nodes).
For my own rant:
I was just at the oncologist this week. Some lady walked in without a mask and stood there looking defiant. Seriously, it’s a clinic full of people getting chemo. I looked at her as I was leaving and she stared me down. Whatever. You won’t get past the reception desk without a mask. Dumbass.
So the A/C in Mothership 1 finally died after 33 years. RAH. Mind you, this is in a condo with almost zero flow through air–it can be 92 inside and 55 outside. After a week of calling the A/C wizards we were useing, we had to go to someone else, because we got no call backs. Guess we were too small of a fish. Anyway, the new unit (A/C and heat) will set us back $6800 with a $1000 rebate. The good news is we will be departing the R-22 universe for refrigerants, something that is in the stone age today for cooling.
Tech looked at the furnace, thought it was for the whole side of the building. “Horribly oversized”. A/C coils have a serial number that matches nothing. Yet this disaster worked well since Ronnie was president…
There’s a tree that, for some unknown reason, the builder of this house thought would look great right next to the garage and driveway. Fast-forward 13 years, and said tree is now almost as tall as the house, and its root system has cracked part of the driveway and raised part of the sidewalk near the garage. It produces pink petals in the spring that look pretty but stick to everything, then grows an abundance of little berries that attract birds, who gorge themselves and then have epic poos all over nearby vehicles.
I’m having the tree cut down as I type this. I’ll be glad to have the nuisance gone, and I’m glad the foundation of my garage/house is no longer in danger, but I feel a little bad about having a seemingly healthy tree cut down. 
I’ve taken down many trees, mostly dead/dying but some just outgrew their setting. I always plant at least one tree anytime I cut one down.
A friend who lives in the Chesapeake Bay area is required to do this by force of law. The last time he cut down a tree on his property (to make room for an outdoor aviary) he paid someone $$$ to allow him to plant a tree on their property.
Ice maker died. Just stopped dumping ice. No big deal, order a replacement from Amazon.
It dumps the cubes before they’re completely so I’ve got ice that’s hollow in the middle, or, if the shell completely freezes, ice with liquid centers if I get one before it finishes freezing.
So now waiting for ice maker v3 to arrive. Truth be told, hollow ice is interesting. Makes a cute ‘tink’ sound when you tap it. But the water that was in the cube forms an ice puddle in the bottom of the reservoir so having hollow ice isn’t an option.
No, the dump timing isn’t adjustable on this model. There’s a temperature sensor on the tray that triggers when it thinks the tray is frozen solid.
Definitely! (Just not so close to the driveway this time.) Amazingly, the HOA didn’t have any problem with the tree removal, and I’m looking forward to redoing the entire flower bed. The crew managed to salvage two day lilies; the rest of the little shrubs that were originally in the bed were killed over time by the tree’s root system.
I’ve had a morning today with my daughter. She really doesn’t like her new daycare. I don’t think they are hurting her or anything like that. I think they just don’t let her get away with things. I had to drag this kid to the car this morning and then listen to her whine the whole way to her daycare. She wasn’t like this at her old daycare (which is closed due to the virus). I miss the old normal. Dang virus came in and ruined everything.
My wife works in a special needs classroom, and they have “mouse” problems and “elephant” problems. Your pencil tip broke is a mouse problem; your nose is bleeding is an elephant problem. One of the kids asked “What if Thor comes into the room?” The teachers and aides (all female) decided that was an elephant problem that they would all deal with very personally.
Last night I decided to (at least temporarily) suspend my relationship with my family.
Why?
Last night my mother told me that after she moves back east, my brother has said that he doesn’t want me to stay at his (nearby to the senior residence she’ll be in) house when I join them for holidays. Apparently I damaged his house the last time I visited. A stair rail or bannister was pulled away from where it connected to the wall.
Now, I don’t recall this happening. And I’d like to point out for the record that I’ve been using the rails and bannisters in my house for almost 15 years without issues, so I’m inclined to think that if his was damaged it was because the house builder was shit. It is also apparently the only instance of damage and it certainly wasn’t intentional, but for him this incident is enough to justify saying that he doesn’t want me in the house anymore.
When I remarked that it was certainly nice to know where I ranked in importance to my family, my mother started up with, "Well, you did break a lot of his toys when you " At which point I hung up on her.
And thinking things through since then, I realized that for my entire life, every member of my immediate family has always told me, “I love you, but …”. The “but” isn’t always said, but it’s always there.
I love you, but I wish you’d watch where you were putting your feet.
I love you, but why can’t you think about what you’re doing first?
I love you, and I understand you have trouble keeping track of things, but I really think if you tried harder you could.
I learned about 25± years ago that I’m ADD. At any given point in time, I have between 2 and 20 different trains of thought screaming for my attention.
You want to know why I have trouble keeping track of things? That’s why.
You want to know why I lose track of time and can sometimes be late? That’s why.
You want to know why I don’t finish projects? That’s why.
You want to know why I sometimes step on things or run into furniture or walls? That’s why.
You want to know why I don’t walk anymore, an activity I used to love? Because I never see anything but my feet because I’m afraid of stepping on something and breaking it. Because I don’t hear anything but “Watch where you put your feet, why can’t you pay more attention to where you’re walking.”
You want to know why I read so much? Because it is the only time, the ONLY time, when I have only one train of thought. It’s the only time there is peace and quiet in my own head.
My family has either refused to understand this when I tried to explain it or has fallen back on, “but we know if you just tried a bit harder you could” be on time, get something done for you, not step on something, not knock things over …
Listen to me. I have tried. I’ve been trying for 50 years. I’m exhausted from trying. I’ve come close to suicide multiple times because I’m so worn out from trying to corral my own thought processes every waking moment of my life. And last night I suddenly, finally realized that the love my family gives me isn’t really love, because it comes with conditions that I will never, ever be able to meet. It is physically, neurologically IMPOSSIBLE for me to be a person they find acceptable.
I am done with trying to explain this. I am through apologizing for something that has never been under my control.
I do not have the words right now to express the pain they have caused me and the absolute RAGE I am feeling. (1/)
I’ve already blocked their phone numbers and I’m seriously considering setting up email filters that bounce an automated “no longer accepting emails from this address” response. That’s the temporary part.
Now I’m trying to decide if I want to raid my IRA to pay off the mortgage my mother holds on my house and whether I want to hire someone to pack and return to her and my brother everything they’ve ever given me (once, you know, it’s possible to do that thanks to the fucking pandemic). That would make it permanent.
I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forgive them. It might happen; despite everything, they’re my family and I love them. But I will never, ever be able to forget that my brother thinks more of his house than of me, and that my mother thinks it’s understandable and acceptable for him to do so. And I will never, ever trust them with my whole heart again.
If you have to put conditions on someone in order to love them, you don’t really love them. And I am just. Fucking. DONE. (/2)
I’m sorry you’re going through this, Morgyn.
Think hard about the IRA thing - I can understand wanting to be free, but there would be penalties (and you’re likely selling things are have lost value). Not sure how you are paying mom, but see if you can set up some sort of automatic payment so you don’t need to write/mail a check and hopefully that makes it “out of sight, out of mind”.
Oh Morgyn, I am so sorry things have come to this. You are right, love shouldn’t come with conditions, but it seems as though your family thinks otherwise. They will never understand why you left them because all they were doing was trying to help.
I agree with Folacin that you might want to really think hard before raiding your IRA. Setting up an automatic monthly payment would probably be better and nothing would stop you from paying extra each month just so you could get out of the loan quicker.
Oh, and don’t send back things they gave you. If you want them out of your home because you don’t want the reminder, donate them or drag them to the curb. Don’t spend the extra emotional energy and money for a gesture that would be totally meaningless to anyone but you.