Rant-a Claus is coming to town! (December mini-rants)

The BBQ Pit
21

Christmas hijacked the old pagan celebration of the Winter Solstice (which goes back to Roman times). People were already celebrating that for centuries, so the folks pushing Christianity said, “Hey, keep doing what you were doing, but your holiday is about Jesus now.”

These days, commercialization has hijacked Christmas to be about consumerism. Retailers say, “Hey, keep doing what you were doing, but your holiday is about buying a bunch of crap for each other now.”

I’m a Christian but whatever, I think turnabout is fair play.

22

Oh, I like that!!!

I seem to remember Iceland has a book - gifting habit around Christmas, book flood =)

23

So apparently the covering of a tooth’s root – called cementum – can sometimes keep growing, squishing the root and endangering the roots of nearby teeth.

I’ve never had good teeth…my pediatrician basically overdosed me on fluoride (which turns out to be a really bad thing for enamel), my face-first encounter with a parked truck left me with tooth damage that an incompetent dentist thought could be patched and eventually veneered, and I still haven’t received a good explanation for why braces ruined what was left of my enamel. My parents spent thousands on my teeth. I’ve spent enough on the damn things to buy a small car. And now, apparently, one of them has so much cementum overgrowth that the only option is to pull it and install an implant. :face_with_symbols_over_mouth: I’m so fucking sick of this shit. I was supposed to schedule a consult yesterday for a third opinion, and I pretty much had a breakdown over it, so that’s still up in the air.

24

Even worse is when the job application asks for your desired pay and/or pay history. :face_with_symbols_over_mouth:

25

"How much ya gots, big boy?’

26

One of my favorite bumper stickers of all time says:

Put the Saturn back in Saturnalia

27

Sadly right now I’m closer to the “Yes sir! Shall I spit or swallow?” bargaining position.

28

Exactly.

29

Y’know, I wasn’t sure if I should put the dash in there or not. “Ranta Claus” might have worked better.

And now I have not one but two rants. Rant #1 is another Chick-fil-A drive thru rant. Every Thurs on the way home from work I stop and get a couple salads for my wife and I for dinner. Got all the way home and found that not only did I get the wrong salad, but it didn’t even have any chicken on it! If it had chicken I would have eaten it, but I wound up having to drive all the way back to the store to get my correct salad.

Rant #2, I have autopay set up with Apria for my CPAP supplies. My HSA card expired at the end of Nov, and my autopay is scheduled for the first of the month. So the payment got rejected today and they sent me an email about it. I went to their website to update my payment info but couldn’t get logged in. I tried the “forgot ID/password” link and it took me to a page asking for my account #, some “reference” #, and my DOB. With a graphic showing me where to find the account and reference numbers on my statement. I found the email they sent with my most recent statement, but when I opened the PDF there was no statement, just a field (that I couldn’t type into) for me to enter my password. (Which probably wouldn’t have worked anyway, since my password was no good.)

So I called the billing number that was in the email, and got a guy on the phone. I told him I was trying to update my autopay info but couldn’t get logged in. He asked me a few questions and was able to pull up my account, but then said something about how he couldn’t make the change because the autopay was set up online (???) He was able to help me get logged into the website and walked me through what I needed to do, which was (1) discontinue autopay with the old card, (2) set up autopay with the new card, and (3) pay my outstanding balance. Which seemed like an awful lot of work when all I needed to do was update the expiration date. Plus he could see everything I was doing it as I was doing it, so WhyTF couldn’t he have just done it for me? Very frustrating.

30

I’m with you on the processed sugar thing. Our co-op doesn’t carry it either, and I need it to make hummingbird nectar; you’re not supposed to use anything else. Not a big deal now, but during the pandemic it was a pain in the ass, because I was doing almost all of my shopping with the co-op. They stepped up in a MAJOR way during that time. They started doing curbside pickup - something they had not offered prior - and for us Olds, did it for free. They filled my orders efficiently and accurately, unlike any other place I tried, and were very good when it came to having to substitute items due to shortages.

Which brings me to the rest of your rant - I’m surprised your co-op employees suck. Ours are the exact opposite.

Still, there are few things, like the sugar, that wouldn’t hurt their product philosophy, etc. to carry but they just don’t wanna do it. Canned pumpkin is another thing I can think of along those lines - the organic brand they carry is lousy, but Og forbid they carry Libby’s, that’d be submitting to Big Vegetable or something.

31

At first I read this as “Rasta Claus,” which was interesting to picture.

32

I have a theory that somehow your teeth know when you have a little extra money, and when that happens they will always need expensive work. Sometimes they take turns with cars and pets to spend all of your money. Or maybe that’s just me. :slightly_smiling_face:

I’m in the process of getting an implant. My advice is, before you get the tooth pulled, stock up on food you don’t have to chew, like applesauce and pudding. I hope it all goes well for you.

33

Indeed.

“Ho ho ho mon.”

34

@WolfpackJeep
Yogurt! (Good protein.)

This will sound weird, but baby food is a good source of variety (the chicken noodle one is almost like eating an actual meal!) depending on what you like normally.

35

This is the cream my granddaughter uses: Hydrocortisone 1% w/w Cream 15g - 3 Pack | For Eczema | Chemist 4 U £3.99 for a pack of three.

36

Ok, so “Rant-a Claus” looks too much like “Rent-a Claus”, and “Ranta Claus” looks too much like “Rasta Claus”.

How about RANTa Claus? :stuck_out_tongue:

37

A good friend of nearly forty years passed away yesterday morning. I understand that he’d been in failing health since late November.

In 1984, kaylasmom, a new Navy wife in Honolulu, told a cab driver that she wished she had a jazz buddy while I was away on a WestPac, and he put her in touch with a sociology professor at Leeward Community College with a truly massive record collection.

Don became an almost weekly visitor to our home for several years, making trips to Tower Records and Jelly’s Records and Comics to expand the collection further, then back to the house, where we’d sit and listen for hours on end. Like Kaylasmom, Don was blind, and for a few years I was his reader, helping him prepare his curriculum, as well as reading (and grading) assignments.

When we came back to California, he would visit every summer, and we’d do more record shopping and finding live jazz to go hear.

He used to like to save up some dough, and then hire local musicians to provide an evening of jazz at whatever venue he could get to let them in (at least once in the Rainbow Room at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel). After he retired, he’d do it a few times a year in Honolulu, and in 2014, he embarked upon his new career as an impresario. Along with his friend, guitarist Doug Macdonald, he’d hire TWO rhythm sections and a handful of horn and sax players, and put on a marathon of jazz with no need for breaks between sets. He’d do this up to three times a year, and was always kind enough to schedule them on nights I didn’t have to work, so I could be his driver. Four or five CDs resulted from these endeavors.

For the past several years, he hosted a podcast A Journey Into Jazz, with another blind guy who he met at a convention of the American Council of the Blind (I mention his blindness only because it explains why I’ve been tasked with publishing the shows for them on libsyn, which doesn’t have the most blind-friendly user interface).

Anyway, there’s a big Don-shaped hole in my life today. That’s my rant.

RIP Donald Thomson, educator, jazz aficionado, impresario, podcaster, friend.

May 25, 1930 - December 1, 2022

38

I’m so sorry for your loss, hon. :people_hugging:

I sort of lost someone, too, though it was in October. There was an online friend I had named Jade. She loved cooking and baking, as well as cats. We often talked about these things; I got tips for homemade pizza from her (oregano on pizza is bliss, BTW). However…she had a troubled life. She was transgender, so she had to use the boy’s locker room at her school. The things they made her do in there are so bad that I won’t detail them here, but hopefully, you can put two and two together from that.
On 5 October 2022, the worst happened. I had just gotten done celebrating my dad’s birthday, and we were on our way home when I got a message from another friend that…she self-harmed. A cut to the wrist. She presumably cut a vein. She called 911 and was taken to the hospital. She’s been gone ever since that night. I assume she’s in rehabilitation now, but…God, I miss her dearly. My heart aches for her every day.

39

I am so sorry for both of your losses: your friends sound like great people.

40

I pit CVS pharmacies. I have a number of prescriptions, I prefer to have them filled all at once. That doesn’t work however as CVS randomly puts various ones on auto refill. Or they don’t have in stock and there is a delay in getting the refill in. Auto refill or not they often take a week or more to refill after the date I run out. I cant request early as they have it locked so you cant based on when they last refilled it.
I requested refills on 5 prescriptions on Saturday night figuring they would be ready sometime on Sunday. One (which I desperately needed) was back ordered as usual. the others all were noted as in process. So checked on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday still all in process. I finally called and the pharmacist says “oh we are shorthanded this week but I can get them ready for you in a couple of hours.” Ok I am not happy but she is taking no responsibility around how they cant fill a prescription that is refilled every freaking month. I check back in a couple of hours … the other prescription I desperately needed is now on backorder. They cannot estimate when it will be in nor will they check to see if anyone has it as they are shorthanded. They don’t seem to care that these prescriptions are prescribed for a reason not just because we feel like it.