No, No, No! (November rantings)

The BBQ Pit
21

That was my first thought as well, mischievous. I really do hope that this is a stealth brag.

Continuing my moving rant: Moving sucks. Moving a husband, 2 hounds and 4 cats into a rental while looking a real place sucks even worse.

We don’t have a fenced yard so the hounds have to be leash walked, which is OK, but they really want to RUN and we haven’t found a place to let them play unleashed.

Steve the house feral had a major set-back when we trapped him. All of the trust we had built up, to the point that he would let us actually hand feed him is gone. He’s currently holed up on the top shelf of his cage while his poor, neglected kitten has to sleep outside the bottom cage door so she doesn’t have to sleep next to the litter box. (the cage doors are open, he’s the one refusing to come out.)

Missy, who liked to go into the basement, now doesn’t trust that the floors aren’t water. She is spending most of her time perched on the single bookshelf that we could fit into this place while scanning the floor and walls for water.

Lucky is badly confused, but is hanging in there. We brought his dinner blanket and he recognizes that, but is so very lost.

My Beloved Butthead is pretty adaptable, but is so busy dealing with all of the evil oil guy stuff that he forgets where things are and is constantly running into things when he gets up in the middle of the night.

Bonus is that just when we get settled in here, we will be moving. FML.

22

The genesis for my rant was last month, but it’s today’s dénouement that brought it into ranting territory.

So, last week, I went to a gastroenterologist to see about the results of a test my PCP had sent me for. The medical background is pretty much irrelevant to the rant. But at the end of the consult, the GE asked me if I had had a flu shot for the year yet.

When I answered that I had not, he put me in for a clinical trial for a flu vaccine; the trial was being conducted by the operation in the next suite over in the building. The front office people in the GE practice gave me some paperwork and directed me to that suite, where I was given a medical history form to fill out, and an instruction to report today to the firm’s offices a couple of miles down the road. I was told that when I arrived, I would have a short physical examination, fill out some consent forms, receive a flu vaccine injection (I know, I know, unless I was in the control group selected for the placebo), and be sent on my way with $300. Sounded pretty sweet, so I agreed.

Fast forward to this morning. I arrived at the clinical trials building, turned in my form, and was given some more forms to fill out, including a W-9. When I returned those, they gave me an informed consent package to read through. Other than the fact that the principal investigators in the clinical trials operation included one of the GEs in practice with the doctor I had seen last week, it was a dry twenty pages, and when I finished it, I was brought into an examining room to have my vital signs checked. The nurse asked me if I had any questions.

And I did. The informed consent package had mentioned that the purpose of the trial was to evaluate the effectiveness of and reactions to the vaccine in patients 65 years of age and older. I’m 61 years old. The doctor who had effectively recruited me for this gig had that information right in front of him when I was in his examining room. But I needed to know if my tender years rendered me ineligible to participate in this study. Unfortunately, quoth the nurse, yes it did. In an apparent attempt to offer me a consolation prize, she checked her schedule of upcoming studies and found that they had one commencing in a couple of weeks.

But that one was for a pneumonia vaccine, sorry. So I went home, having wasted an hour and a half of my time, and NOT with an extra three hundred smackers in my pocket.

Boooooo. Would NOT get jerked around again.

23

AIUI, the Hulk’s clothing tends to be somewhat…worse for the wear when the audience sees him wearing it. Is your clothing particularly, ummm, distressed?

That said, I hope the weight loss is not in the kind of range that places you in any danger.

And as long as your nommalicious lasagna leftovers are already unrefrigerated overnight, why don’t you send them along to me? I have pretty low standards when it comes to the safety of leftovers, and I DO like me some lasagna…

24

I’d read that as “non malicious” and was vaguely wondering what “malicious” lasagna might possibly be. Super heavy on the garlic?

Anyway, hope you find new clothes that you like. (I hate clothes shopping. Good fit/comfortable/attractive/good price – no way does anything ever hit all four boxes.)

And if you’re passing stuff along, I’ll take the unwanted weightloss off your hands. :wink:

25

I mentioned in Oct. having to do an eviction, my second this year after only 4 in 30. Tenant admitted that his wife enjoyed playing cat and mouse with the rent. I had to chase it down every single time and got tired of it after 8 years.
So I got a request for tenant references that specifically mentioned pets. I am pretty easy on pet owners and they managed to collect 2 dogs, 1 cat, fish and a loud bird. I didn’t know actually if they wanted to me to list their pets on the reference so I contacted the husband (a really nice guy) to ask. She (bitch) got the message and texted me that they had had to euthanize all of their animals since I kicked them out.

26

The ground is white this morning :mad:

27

This past spring I caught a cold. That’s it. A cold. Lost 35 lbs then. Unfortunately, a lot of muscle mass went with the fat. Since then, I still have not been able to eat like I used to, and have lost another 15-20lbs. It was the most miserable illness I ever had. I couldn’t sleep laying down due to fluid in my lungs, heck, I couldn’t sleep due to not being able to breathe overall.
Now I’m trying to rebuild my muscles, but I don’t process protein all that well, and I end up sick if I try to eat a lot of it.
So, it’s been a win/lose situation. Win in that I needed to lose weight, lose because it all sucked horrifically and continues to mess with my life.
All due to a cold.

28

WebEx has its upsides; lessens the need to waste half an hour getting to a meeting on the other end of the campus.

On the down side, it has led to this mentality that if someone looks at your calendar and doesn’t see an appointment, that means you must be free to call in to the WebEx they’re about to invite you to.

Doesn’t seem to occur to them I might be busy doing my job.

29

That doesn’t sound like a cold to me. On the other hand, I am most definitely Not a Doctor. I assume you’ve spoken to one about this weight loss? If not, you might want to. Unexplained weight loss is often a sign of something far more serious. <worry>

30

Multiple visits to doctors, including two ER visits, at the time. They all concluded it was a cold. My stomach is compromised due to the size of my kidneys (now totaling approximately 40lbs total, per last scans). When I was sick, the only thing that was in my stomach was phlegm, as gross as that sounds. I could barely choke down a piece of toast without hurling. As I started losing weight, the people at dialysis were NOT lowering my dry weight, causing fluid in the lungs. I would sit up all night, trying to cough it out, would cough until I vomited. Finally, I got through to them that my dry weight had to be lowered. Over two weeks, almost 10 kilos of fluid was removed. It was miserable, but it helped tremendously. We’ve continued dropping my dry weight as I’ve continued to lose weight, luckily without much fuss. It’s incredibly frustrating to know what needs to be done, but no one will listen.

31

You need to schedule ‘doing my damn job’ as appointments/meetings with just yourself.

32

MissTake,

Holy cow. I have no words to say how sorry I am that you are going through this. :frowning:

33

I had no idea that kind of thing can happen. Sorry for joking about the weight loss!

34

MissTake, I’m surprised you’re not on TPN. Is it too high protein? I didn’t think it had much.

I’m sorry for this mess!

35

Holy bad weight loss, MissTake! I did remember that you were trying to lose weight, but still thought that what you said was excessive. I wish I could do more than send good wishes.

DummyGladHands I am very certain that all pets are still living, except maybe the fish. I have heard that fish tanks with fish are rather tricky to move. She just texted that because she is a bitch and wanted to make you feel bad about evicting them.

36

Sorry if this is a little negative. But look around you- those are the Pit’s walls.

So some maniac shouts religious slogans before driving his car through a crowd in NY. Even if you think that somehow this attack is actually a conspiracy to draw attention to certain things in the public sphere, like it was all staged somehow to turn people against Islam… even IF that is the case, there are a zillion more examples of religious maniacs going off the rails and killing people.

And look here, I learned a new quote today:

A religious nut! We need to ask this God guy a few questions. Seems like he could be the baddest hombre. This could be the Biggest.Crime.Bust.EVAR!

37

Rant inspired from this webpage that just popped up while I was browsing. From the comments section:

Martin Luther, Hitler’s inspiration. But why am I ranting about this now? As a sort of non-sequitur in the context of this thread?

Well, I got a random popup web page, and I read it, Luther and his theses having been in the news for their 500th anniversary. And I discover the secret 100th thesis, “Hate Jews and burn their homes, &etc.” As kind of a non-sequitur in my day. What’s up with that? Is this page part of some propaganda effort?

And yeah, religious maniacs of all stripes are in the news all the time, killing random strangers as best they can, as a total non-sequitur in my day. Shit, who knows, I could be the next victim. Tomorrow.

It’s always religious maniacs. You can blame these crimes on immigration policy if you want, play off people’s prejudices for some other purpose, demagogue them as a total non-sequitur in their lives, but it isn’t limited to one group or to foreigners. The category with the most overlap is “religious maniacs”, folks.

But you probably already knew that. Carry on! :slight_smile:

38

I don’t think you’re living up to your user name. I didn’t comprehend anything you are trying to say.

39

The tiniest of complaints…

YouTube, why is it that whenever I tap the screen of my iPad in order to pause a video, I get a tiny target in the middle of the screen that I have to very quickly tap, otherwise it disappears. Trying to pause on a frame is very challenging.
…but…
When I barely brush a fingertip within inches of any of the comments, it immediately starts a new post. If I try to click the time links people embed in their comments, I have to hit the link dead-on, otherwise YouTube thinks I want to post a comment.

This is a pain in the backside. Please fix it.

40

Well, I did understand a few words, basically “Luther hated Jews” (which, as a Lutheran, I already knew all too well – darn, where’s that “Sad Getting-Stuffed-In-An-Oven Emoji”?).

But I have zero clue as to why that got posted to a Mini-Rants thread…