(Old) The Standard(Time) MMP

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
101

I’m home and unpacking. The bus ride was fine. I’ve been on buses-for-trains before, but this is the first time we got snacks. I just popped on here to see if there was an update on fishy’s dad. I wish it had been better news.

Fishy, wishing you the wisdom, serenity, and stamina to cope with whatever lies ahead for your dad.

FCM, I feel so bad for FCD. The local brother obviously didn’t intend to die. Is there a chance he wants to stay in the psych facility permanently? (Not that that’s an option.) After all, he has people there taking care of him 24/7 and doesn’t have to plan or be responsible; it seems like that’s kind of what his life has been like, only more so.

More later.

102

I’m very sorry that so many of you are dealing with such difficulty and heartache.

103

I’m trying to stay awake.
My son is supposed to get out around midnight. Another hour to go.
Although I could leave around 1130, except something could happen and he doesn’t get out.
Going in for 5 hours is a waste of time. I was hoping he’d get another week of layoff. Especially if he isn’t going to work even half a day.

Glad you made it home safely, Nellie

104

Supposed to be “early out” tonight, but one of my co-workers had a bad sinus headache - she looked so miserable, poor thing - so I covered for her & stayed till close.

Supposed to have a plumber come by early in the morning. Yay.

105

Up, caffeinated, and sheveled. Off to heave. Hopefully not an “early out” day today.

Welcome home, nellie!

106

Good Mornin’ Y’all! Up and caffeinatin’. YAWN ‘Tis 49 Amurrkin out and mostly cloudy with a predicted high of 82 and N.O.S. for the day. We shall procure provisions and finally get shorn as today’s main activity. Otherwise, the usual sloth, general overall uselessness, nappage, and day drinkin’ are on the agenda. Sup shall be leftovers from Moanday.

Now I need more caffeine and to feed rumbly tummy. Then, alas and bother, I suppose I must purtify and don attire acceptable for bein’ amongst the great unwashed. Woe is me!

Happy Hump Day Y’all!

107

Afternoon, mumpers! It’s currently 10c/50f with a predicted high of 11c/52f and cloudy. Weather app has this advice to offer: “Clouds don’t always protect your fucking skin from harmful UV rays. That’s because they’re fucking dicks.” So now you know.

Moooom good to know that BIL has been located and FCD will be able to visit. Hopefully they can come to some kind of resolution about what help is possible and what will be the best outcome for him. I feel so much for MIL, poor woman has suffered quite enough heartache already without everything that he’s putting her through.

Welcome home, nellie!

Allegedly, we are having a visit from the heating engineer today. We have had a persistent problem with the water 'otter because it keeps turning itself off and giving an error message for some kind of gas-related fault. Heating man has looked at it a couple of times, tried a couple of fixes and now says it requires a new circuit board as that seems to have cured all the other models with the same fault. Fingers crossed it works, and we will have heating that comes on when it’s supposed to.

108

I made an early run to Food Lion - they had a deal where if you spend $35, you can get a turkey for 37¢/lb. So I got a 12+ # bird for $4.63!! It’s in the fridge to thaw, and once it’s no longer frosty, I’ll be smoking it, then carving and packaging it for T-day and future meals. I’ll get another bird for roasting on the day, tho I’m not sure I can manage it right now - limited freezer space, yanno. We shall see - I’ve got a week to decide.

Meanwhile, I got more stuff to set aside for Thanksgiving dinner. I also got a couple of Granny Smith apples to make a cake for MIL - we need to fatten her up. She’s down under 100#, and she dropped from size 16 to size 10 pants in less than a year - that’s not good. FCD is going to Harris Teeter to see if they have the Pepperidge Farm cake that she likes - none of the other stores seem to carry it.

FCD called the hospital this morning and BIL’s doctor is supposed to call him back. The doc needs to know what’s going on other than BIL’s story. The biggest worry, of course, is MIL - she’s dying inside over this crap. She’s had enough but she can’t bring herself to give her son an ultimatum - that is, do what the doc says or find another place to live. The thing is, he can’t afford an apartment anywhere around here - at least not anywhere safe. Anyway, that’s this morning’s status.

Just got a text from SIL - he’s on his way with Tobias. It’s going to be a mostly cool day, so I foresee a basement day. Daughter is feeling better, but she thinks it’s allergies - that’s better than a cold or worse. I think she’s allergic to her students! :rofl:

Happy Wednesday!

109

Had thought about getting a car wash after work yesterday, but since I wound up closing, that didn’t happen. Today it’s pouring rain, so imma let Mama Nature give me a free car wash, and laugh at the fact that if I had paid for a “good” wash yesterday, I’d be kinda pissed right about now.

They’re still here, an hour later. Snaking the pipes. (There’s some irony to the fact that they don’t know there’s already two snakes in the house.)

The guy mentioned that a tree came down in my yard - like I didn’t friggin’ know - and said he’d mention it to the maintenance dept. and try to expedite however much he could. I thanked him nicely for that.

The what now?

How does under 100 lbs equal a size 10?

I’m around 135 or so, and size 6 is getting a bit baggy on my scrawny bones.

How many armies do you feed in an average week?

110

my thoughts exactly, purplehorsehoe. a 10 would look like a “before” picture in a weight loss ad.

111

Started Typing: 9:28 AM ET
Clicked Reply: 10:58 AM ET

Another election day is in the books! :ballot_box_with_check:

My alarm went off at 3am: I left my house at 4:50am, got home at 9:30pm, and finally crashed at 10:40pm. Roughly 950 votes were either cast or collected at our polling place yesterday, which is about 1/3 of the number of registered voters in the precinct. Traffic was fairly steady all day: there were voters in the room from the moment the polls opened until 30 minutes after they closed (it was a long ballot, and a little complicated; it took most people a while to vote). The biggest rush happened from 4:30pm-6:30pm, and we had a line for a while because all of the voting booths were in use (again, it was a long/complicated ballot). During that time two of us were simply directing traffic, and letting people know when a booth was available.

Our oldest voter was 104 (helped by her son); it was amazing to get to talk with a centenarian! She stayed in their vehicle, and I brought everything out to them. We also had a handful of teenage first-time voters, which is always great and who everyone applauds for, and I got to help two people who had recently become citizens vote in their first election. I get a little verklempt about both first-time and older voters. :slight_smile:

I was glad for such a good turnout, and all of the voter interactions were positive, but being “on” the whole time did amplify how tiring the day was.

When the polls closed I took up a spot at the doors, and 30 seconds later a guy came running down the hall trying to vote…and it was one of my co-workers! I knew that he lived in my neighborhood, and had wondered if I’d see him. I had to let him know that he was too late. I said I could just imagine him telling the team today that I disenfranchised him. :wink: I’m not working the rest of this week and we’re all remote, but I’m actually going out to lunch with that team on Monday; it should be a good story.

I had a feeling that despite being exhausted and not having to set an alarm today I would wake up at a “normal” time after ~8 hours of sleep, and I was right: my eyes opened at 6:40am (my internal clock is still on DST!). I have that slight hangover feeling associated with being really tired, plus my brain isn’t quite firing on all cylinders, so I’m 98% sure there will be post-lunch nappage…and likely an early lunch…especially since I have a dinner this evening (in honor of the friend whose ashes are being interred at Arlington National Cemetery tomorrow morning). Yesterday was physically and mentally tiring, and tomorrow will be emotionally tiring – and will end by being a little physically tiring, when I go to my personal training session. I’ll be making up yesterday’s skipped personal training session on Saturday morning, but otherwise I have no plans for Friday/the weekend and right now I’m pretty happy about that. :slight_smile:

I’m so sorry. :people_hugging:

^ this :blue_heart:

You’re good people, you are.

Ouch! Hey! :frowning:

Also, not true: these days I’m a 10-12 and look “average.” Things like this vary tremendously person to person (and garment to garment)…can we please nip the size/weight comments in the bud?

112

I felt better yesterday, and I felt well the times I woke up in the wee hours. I just took an expired COVID test. The positive line is almost invisible. But I’m still positive.

113

A reasonable long heave, made so by the fact that there was an unscanned Next Day Air bag to scan and run, and a bunch of letters that the knuckleheads in sorting forgot to grab out of the sorting box. They even had Hostess minidoughnuts and instant
coffee for us at the end of the sort.

charming name for a boiler.

< Oddball >Sending negative waves< /Oddball >

114

A quick update as I get ready to go to a safety plan meeting to keep CtE from hurting themself at school.

Dad wasn’t quite as bad as I was led to believe. His house only had a little more clutter than usual (but not dirty) and most of his lawn, while higher than usual, want what I was told either. Does that mean Dad is doing great? No, and I still wouldn’t be surprised to lose him within the year. And he did have a serious problem with diarrhea, but I was able to help get him cleaned up and as many of the spots that needed to be cleaned taken care of as best I could. My hands just got to a point where I couldn’t hold the scrub brush anymore.

Most of the time I was there was spent trying to take care of getting him a phone. First there was trying to get into his account, which he couldn’t remember the password to, so I could be added as an account manager. Every bit of resetting we tried was sending a code to his phone number, which wasn’t helping since said phone didn’t work. I called customer service and was able to get that taken care of. Drive half an hour to get the new phone, got it without going through set up, thinking it wouldn’t be a problem to do it at Dad’s where I could ask him questions directly. Instead, the set up screen kept resetting and locking. A call to customer service didn’t really help this time, so I took the phone back to the store to figure it out. Went through no trouble, tried calling it from my phone in the store and it went through. Back to Dad’s to give him the phone, about an hour later than I was supposed to leave. But worth it. I’d wanted to get more done while I was there but the phone was just too important.

I messaged my nephew and my bonus sister to get them to have someone stop by just to check on him daily. No response. But I can’t afford to either go up there every day or stay there long term. I’ve got my own responsibilities here, for myself, my kids, my husband. I’m going to do my best to go up once a week at least. But I really need more help than just myself to make sure he’s OK, and both my nephew and my bonus sister live no more than 10 minutes away. Neither Dad nor I are asking for long visits. Just wellness checks that would take 5 minutes on their way home. I can only hope this doesn’t end up all on my shoulders.

Now I’d better get dressed to take care one of my other responsibilities. I really wish I had more people around for long his because I’m feeling the need right now.

115

i’m sorry. i did not mean to cause hurt.

fcm’s mil had a very drastic weighloss, that is seriously concerning, and i would be and am, very worried about her. a six size drop is at the very least 60 pounds, if not more. that is a very serious drop.

116

Dunno. That’s just what she tells me. Maybe she likes baggy pants?

The birds will be shared among 3 households and their freezers.

I goofed. I let FCD go to a car dealership without me. The Caddy is about to be replaced with a Hyundai Santa Cruz. To be fair, we did look at it on Moanday. Looks like it’ll be ours today.

I swear, that man changes cars like most people change underwear… :rofl:

So the boy and I are off to the dealership.

117

RealFish, there is a company called Visiting Angels that was a tremendous help when my Mom was declining. They do offer medical services, but they can also help around the house, run errands, or just sit and chat with him for a while. I don’t know what you or Dad’s financial situation is; they’re not terribly expensive but not exactly cheap either. In my Mom’s case, it was worth every penny.

118

Well, I’m guessing that this is a matter of “old people are stupid syndrome”. I just reported for the third time that one of our shower heads is dripping. Now, this isn’t rocket science. If water is dripping, then the mixing valve needs fixing or replacing. The maintenance guy came and put a new shower head on, despite my telling him exactly where the problem is. He left, and it continued to drip. So he came back (we were out) and “tightened the shower head”, despite my telling the front desk that it’s a valve issue. Still dripping. Went down again this morning and again explained the problem to the front desk, along with what it will entail to repair said problem. :roll_eyes:

Anyway, all morning activities completed, including exercise. Nothing else on tap for today.

119

Or, possibly, “not the most capable handyman” syndrome.

120

Of course it is. My point is that generalizations like “a [size] would look like a ‘before’ picture in a weight loss ad” are needlessly insulting, in addition to being untrue. I’m just asking folks to please drop the general size/weight comments before anything really offensive gets said; not to refrain from expressing concern for FCM’s MIL. :slight_smile: