So long and thanks for all the rants! (November mini-rants)

The BBQ Pit
42

I think I’m about to lose Mischief. After getting home from a weekend trip, when I put out a can of food he showed no interest in it. He also didn’t come into bed with me that night, and in the morning I couldn’t find him. When he finally came out of the kitchen cupboard where he’d been hiding, he just lay on the floor. I was able to give him his insulin, but it still doesn’t look like he’s eating (although I have seen him drinking. He’s gone a day or two without his insulin in the past (occasionally he wasn’t letting me near him at feeding time to give him his shot), but this is the first time he’s been like this.

I’m going out of town for a week on Thursday, and will be boarding him at the vet starting tomorrow. He had been in for tests two weeks ago, and the vet was thinking about adjusting his insulin dosage. I’m afraid that while I’m gone I’m going to get a call from the vet telling me he’s passed on.

43

Same here. I have to take a PPI every day for life. It was surreal getting that kind of prescription.

44

Our cat growing up was Mischief (small town kitten factory, she was (hey, it was the 70s, almost no one spayed their cats (or kept them indoors))). Hope he pulls through.

45

I’m so glad election day is here. I am heartily sick of the vicious attack ads from PACs on both sides of the fence. You know the ones: scratchy black and white clips and photos showing the worst possible faces of the opposition, and the outright lies about them. “She turned political!” Well, no shit: she was elected to office to represent her constituency. It almost makes the vicious attacks that will come after the election seem pleasant, although they will be the subject of the news instead of the commercial breaks for the news. I’m surprised there aren’t libel lawsuits against some of these outfits, although I’m guessing they have their lawyers vet them. Anyway, onward to the destruction of our democracy over the next decade.

46

Oh, Lord, you’re asking me? Ask me how many times I’ve forgotten to take my ADHD meds.*

*I don’t remember

47

I have three of those pill holders with compartments for Sunday, Monday, etc. I sit down and fill the three holders, then have proof I’ve taken them (all once a day).

Otherwise I’m hit&miss bigtime.

48

Minor rant with a not so terrible end. I had a jam packed schedule today including trying to squeeze voting in before an appointment. This is a hugely consequential election in part because of a major ballot initiative to amend the state constitution to preserve reproductive freedom. It was hard enough to get it on the ballot in the first place because Republicans tried to block it on the grounds of stupid reasons (line spacing, the false claim that it’s confusing, etc.)

On the way to work I discovered… I left my driver’s license at the post office yesterday. Can I call the post office directly? No.

So I rushed from work to the post office and they told me my driver’s license is in the mail. No ID for me on this voting day.

Fortunately in the state of Michigan you can vote without an ID if you sign an affidavit. Did my election official know this? No. “Are you sure you don’t have a photo ID? A passport, anything? You can’t vote without an ID.”

“Pretty sure I can.” Why doesn’t she know this? Fortunately she asked someone else, who didn’t know what to do, but looked it up, and after a little nonsense, I was able to vote.

I was stressed honestly because I was just waiting for someone to give me shit for voting without an ID. People are fucking insane in this county.

Depending on how the ballot initiative goes, I may be back here later.

49

I’m watching that same ballot initiative. This morning, it does not have a margin that makes me feel safe. I care a lot about reproductive freedom.

Last night, after filling my pill organizer and my daughter’s, I remembered to take my new meds at the prescribed time. And then I slept fitfully over anxiety about when I needed to wake up in the morning. So, not a great night but hopefully not due to the new dosage of medicine. He does have me taking the aripiprazole at night, which seems weird to me, but I try to follow directions.

As for an actual rant - I started working out again. My arms hurt and it makes me want to never lift weights again. This is a dumb feeling, I just need to go slower. But, still, why does doing good things for my body hurt? Flesh bodies are a dumb idea all around.

50

Apparently since it is a political ad you can say whatever you want, true or not. I guess that is our First Amendment in action, protecting political speech. :roll_eyes:

(I remember a story that Hunter S. Thompson told in “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail” about one of LBJ’s campaigns in TX, where he wanted to run an ad implying that his opponent had sex with his farm animals. His staff was shocked that he would go that far. LBJ’s response was something like “I know it’s not true. I just wanna make the son of a bitch have to deny it!”)

51

Whoever makes the decisions at Walmart about in-store vs online-only apparently doesn’t cook. It is two weeks before Thanksgiving. Gravy separators (those cute gadgets to help defat broth and such) are ONLY available online! It didn’t dawn on anyone that someone might discover they can’t find theirs or it needs to be replaced on short notice???

Thankfully, Amazon can get one to me today, so I’ll get to enjoy my Instant Pot chicken soup before tomorrow.

52

I’m thinking that there is a thin line between some of this and outright slander/libel, but it’s couched in language that implies something without actually saying it outright.

53

i was thinking about you and mischief. wondering how he is doing. i’m sorry to hear he is having a rough patch.

54

This is a very minor rant, but…

I participated in a panel discussion for my school’s veterans week. There were several panels, and I was selected for the Afghanistan, Iraq, and Vietnam Panel. The idea was to discuss those conflicts and their parallels, particularly with respect to the conditions of US withdrawal. There perhaps too many panelists to in all, given the time constraints of the panel. We had 90 minutes to discuss three conflicts with ten panelists. Six in person, and four remote. So that was… suboptimal (or hyper-optimal?), but not the reason for this mini-rant.

What really irked we was that within those constraints, much of the time was monopolized by the leader, and a couple other panelists. Not simply because they talked the most, but because they went on, and on, and on about things that had… not a whole lot to do with Iraq, Afghanistan, or Vietnam. Two of them went on about just how great America is and how we don’t fight dirty like those other people, and we don’t go around committing atrocities (on purpose), etc., etc., and a whole bunch of other highly questionable (and, perhaps more to the point, completely off-topic) assertions. One went on at length, for example, on just how “magnanimous” (panelist’s word) the Union was after the Civil War ended as evidence of how much nicer the US is at waging war. And another panelist picked up on just how great it was that the Union Army only hanged two men for crimes after the war (again, this is the Civil War), and just how great that was. And the whole time I was just sitting there trying to keep from storming off the panel.

Another panelist went into a similarly time consuming and only minimally relevant tangent about how his son, who never served in the military, was representing a military veteran who had (allegedly) deployed something like five times to Iraq or Afghanistan and then–that poor thing–ended up falling in with some white supremacists planning to blow up government buildings (to be fair, I think his point was going to be that while he very much was opposed to white nationalist terrorism, he considered his son, acting as a government-appointed defender to provide a defense in keeping with the constitutional right to counsel, etc was a kind of service in his mind too–which, fine, but still not a whole lot to do with the end of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Vietnam). But then he announced he was going to read a poem from WWI. I think it was going to be In Flanders Field, but at that point (mercifully) the organizer announced we were well overtime.

At some point, I did at least manage to get a few words in about Iraq, in partial rebuttal of the “America is so great, just look how nice we are to the people in countries we bomb and then abandon” line of argument, but I was one of the lucky ones. Just like in Iraq. One of the lucky ones.

Oh, and a couple of them even got in a few well-intended but outrageously over-simplified and ignorant comments about how it turns out PTSD is really just caused by brain damage. Always nice to hear someone tell you you’re brain damaged, you know?

Anyway, I figured I’d do one of these panels just once. And now I have. Never again.

ETA: Extensive edits to remove… some of the vitriol.

55

I’m surprised that there aren’t more rants about the recent surge in the cost of groceries. Or maybe there are, but I missed them.

I was overdue for a grocery expedition so I ventured forth yesterday. Went to two different grocery stores because they’re good at different things. End result was around $215, and here’s the thing: (a) I didn’t buy anything in any way extravagant, and (b) I’m buying for one (me). And this is probably only about a week’s worth. Admittedly, I didn’t make any special effort to economize, but WTF are families supposed to do that have many hungry mouths to feed? I suppose both partners typically work, but wow, I don’t envy any single parent, especially one with multiple kids.

It was only a few years ago that I got a $100 gift certificate to one of my favourite grocery stores, and I had to buy a few extra non-food items to use it all up. Today, it would be more like a down payment on a typical shopping basket.

56

I get about 300 a month in food stamps, for one. I can make it stretch, as I like spaghetti, and peanut butter.

57

That’s a pretty bold combination, but I bet the peanut butter sticks to the noodles better than marinara would.

58

Ok. Spaghetti for dinner. Peanut butter sandwich for brunch.
Of course, noodles with peanut sauce is heavenly.

59

Just bought a salami and cheese platter at the grocery store. Marked down to 10 dollars. Then I read online that people are being told not to eat deli meat amd cheese because theres a listeria risk.

60

I used to buy ramen and a bottle of Thai peanut sauce. I’d cook the ramen, drain the liquid, and mix it with the peanut sauce for quick and easy Pad Thai. Not bad all things considered.

61

For our family of three in metro Detroit, I’m trying to get it lower than $1200/month.

I don’t exactly coupon clip, but I stopped buying meat almost entirely. We eat a lot of rice and beans and fresh produce. The main issues are the aforementioned Wee Weasel eating only very specific, expensive foods including frozen foods and twenty different kinds of crackers and dried fruits, and my husband, being allergic to most processed food, eating a lot of specialty foods, gluten free bars, nuts, etc. I kind of came to terms with it a long time ago that we are always going to be a family who spends more on groceries. But damn. I try to put a homecooked meal on the table every night but we go through this other stuff so fast. I finally asked my husband to ration his nuts to 1oz per serving. I cut back on one of my things also. I also created an Eat Me First bin for the fridge and I now do a complete food inventory of remaining produce to guide my meal planning. But it’s a fuckton of work. That’s the problem. Saving money on groceries is a tedious fuckton of work. You think I’m driving to another fucking store? Ain’t nobody got time for that.

I was watching a Budget Nerds podcast and the guy described himself as “goldfish rich.” Meaning he was doing so well financially, he could afford to buy goldfish crackers for his kids. God, the money we spend on goldfish crackers.