Treated FOR GERD. Not to GERD. That would be weird. I don’t think anyone asks to have heartburn.
Anyway, I pit typos. I am so bad about it and my brain is so good at just correcting them in my head but not in real life. It’s helpful because I’m able to read bad handwriting and make sense of bad grammar, but I would prefer that other people understand me too.
Background: I got a cat. I am forty years old. I have not yet informed my mother that I got a second cat.
I have posted on Facebook about my new cat, and chatted with friends, including mutual links between us.
My mother’s first language is not English. She is over 80 years old, and unlikely to change her ways at this point.
Got all that? Mundane, yes. So today, outta the blue, my mother sends me this mssg. Quoted verbatim, because it’s easier to copy-paste anyway:
"You still not telling us the truth .
You got a second black cat .!
You work for their food now .
I never cheated on you and you always cheat on us. "
Translation assistance: cheating = lying, in her lexicon.
That’s right. My mother is throwing a shit-fit from thousands of miles away, because I got a cat, and did not inform her of this update.
I’m torn between giving this the attention it deserves (e.g. zero) and suggesting in all seriousness that she take this distress to a therapist.
She’s been this way all my life. I moved across the country … I mean, not solely to get away from her, I had other reasons … but living in the same metroplex as someone with this level of boundary issue …
I feel your pain, @purplehorseshoe. My over 80 mother does the same thing, even for simple things (“You didn’t tell me you got a haircut!”). I just blow it off, but it’s so annoying.
And congrats on being owned by a second house panther!
A good friend of mine’s husband (also a friend, though not as close) had heart surgery last week, was doing well, and came home a couple days ago. So this morning, I ordered them a few care package type gifts- a sweary coloring book, a healthy(ish) snack-and-candy box, and a t-shirt that says “the beat goes on” with an EKG line on it, along with a cheerful note.
And then, about an hour ago, got word that he passed away unexpectedly this morning.
So I called Amazon and explained to them that I don’t actually care at this point if I get a refund or whatever, but for my friend to get a husband-sized t-shirt that says “the beat goes on” right now would just not be a good thing. They said it’s too late. They will be able to intercept the coloring book/snacks, but as of right now, the shirt is still set to go.
I begged, I might have cried a bit, I explained repeatedly, and I asked who will be actually shipping it. She said she’s going to keep working on it and will call me back.
This particular friend has a dark sense of humor, but I really think this isn’t the time to rely on quite that dark a sense of humor. Maybe I can tell her the story much later. But right now… I don’t know.
Also, I want nothing more right now than to go to them right now, keep their house clean for them, manage anything I can… but my body is a piece of crap and I can’t even leave the house on my own and any time I’m ever with another person, I’m extra work for them rather than a help.
I’ll just be here, I guess. I am still thinking of what I might be able to do to help- I’m not just throwing up my hands and going “oh well.” But I wish I could do more. Hell, I REALLY wish I could just fix it- bring him back, make him healthy, let them all die in their sleep on the same day in another 70 years.
But at very, very, very least… I have to make sure they don’t get that damn t-shirt.
Do you know anyone who can sit outside her house and wait for the Amazon van? I’m assuming not, but that seems like your only option.
Except maybe a preemptive phone call to your friend and say “please, please do not open any Amazon packages from me” - I don’t remember if they can tell it is a gift before opening or not.
I may have mentioned this before, but I hate computers. At least, I hate computers that do what I say instead of what I mean, and UI designs that make it so easy to conflate the two.
This is about the third time since the introduction of Windows 7 that I have inadvertently hard-deleted the entire contents of a folder. Last night it was a particularly important folder containing hundreds of gigabytes of data.
Restore from backup, you say? Don’t be silly. First of all, my backup is just like the backups of almost everyone who claims to do backups: the most recent backup is many months old and would be missing lots of important stuff. Second, the limitations of the backup program for practical purposes requires me to restore the contents of the entire disk. It can restore individual files or folders, but it cannot restore individual files larger than 4 GB unless it’s doing a full image restore.
So I used an undelete utility, which was feasible since the deleted files were on a secondary drive and not the C drive that Windows constantly messes with.
Good news:
All the files I care about have been successfully un-deleted.
Bad news:
The undelete utility does not recreate subfolders. I had about a dozen of them. I have to create them myself and then find and move the files that belong there.
The undelete utility also “recovered” lots of garbage that I had intentionally deleted. I have to go through file by file and delete this crap which is taking up a lot of disk space. Fortunately, the undelete utility is smart enough to flag files that are “probably not recovered” due to having been overwritten. That would be the old crap.
I have a big job ahead slogging through hundreds of files to get back to where I was a few hours ago, before a slip of a finger or more accurately, a slip of some brain cells. Sigh!!!
My folks in FL have been on lockdown at their facility since the spring. They recently announced that family visitors are welcome ( must follow Covid protocols). I start planning a trip to see them and now the facility has reversed course due to a “third party vendor” who tested positive for Covid. I’m fucking pissed, family has been barred from any personal contact yet a vendor whatever the hell that means was able to go in and out and now the entire facility goes back into lockdown. It’s fucking ridiculous. I can’t visit, hug even get within 6 ft of my mom or dad outside in their back patio because of some irresponsible 3 rd party vendor who caught the Covid and brought it inside. Asswipe fucker.
Jesus, @SurrenderDorothy no good deed goes unpunished, eh?
As a widow:
The rest of your care package would still be appreciated.
A preemptive call with a bare-bones explanation and a “Look, just don’t open the box from me, okay?” will be HIGHLY appreciated.
Can you retrieve the box from her somehow, and give her a curated version? Sounds like it’s just one item that needs to be removed.
If anyone recalls my little story (not a small thing to me) about my rhino figurine collection that I shipped UPS to donate to the Rhino Orphanage in South Africa, that UPS well and truly fucked up, after my email copying the entire executive team at UPS, I got a fat check sent UPS today. Which I will promptly donate to the orphanage.
You are awesome! You give perseverance a good name.
Do you have one of those capless gas tanks? I had that problem with my Jeep all the time and it drove me crazy.
Someone on Google suggesting inserting the nozzle into the gas tank upside down, handle facing up. (With my Jeep it’s easier if I put it in the regular way then twist it 180.)
It worked, I haven’t had a problem since.
Do you ever feel like things are just generally crappy, but not quite crappy enough to be motivated to do anything about it? Now that the Spice Kit is here, I’m happy to have a baby, but I’m too tired to really improve upon myself in any meaningful way. Whether it’s depression, a side - effect of my current meds or just a natural part of becoming a parent, I don’t know. But my clean laundry has been sitting crumpled up in the laundry basket for a week, I can’t seem to stop overeating and I’m wholly uninspired to do anything.
And of course compared to the worst of my depression historically, it’s not that bad. But it’s not that good either.
So that’s the other annoying-but-not-quite-rant-worthy part.
I ordered stuff for two households - both “get well soon” care packages. I really wanted them all to arrive ASAP, like within the next couple days, but… you do what you can. Both packages included a humorous t-shirt and other items and both said that the other items could get there this weekend and the t-shirts, not til like the 26th.
So I was irritated about that already, but apparently they’re printed to order, so whatever. I could choose to buy something else if it annoyed me that much. But I wasn’t going to have them all shipped together if it meant EVERYTHING would be delayed til next week.
So when I talked to the Amazon lady yesterday, I figured it might be too late for the non-t-shirt package, but thought there was no way the t-shirt couldn’t be intercepted. If the delay was because it had to be printed, of course it wasn’t going to already be printed and on its way.
What she said was that the t-shirt was already shipped (really? where is it coming from? Ganymede?), but the other box could be canceled. Dumb. Not rant-worthy because it’s not like it’s anyone’s fault and it is what it is, but still.
Except the next plot twist is that, when I went to check early this morning, the package she said was successfully canceled was still on its way and it was delivered today. So I’ll try calling Amazon again today in case maybe we got our wires crossed somehow (update: I just did and they say there’s no way they can do a goddamn thing because it’s “just about to be shipped.” Like. I get that the place is enormous, but is it not staffed by humans somewhere along the way? I guess that’s a naive thing to think). I did send my friend a message explaining briefly- just that it was intended as a get-well gift, which is why it’s aggressively cheerful and full of jokes, and I didn’t want them to be blindsided by it and that there’s one for K due to arrive next week if I can’t get it diverted. She was gracious because that’s who she is. And I’ll keep trying with the stupid shirt.
I recognise that feeling. It’s overwhelming, at times, taking care of a whole human who relies on you for literally everything. Your needs just kind of fall by the wayside. You eat what’s in front of you and you keep pushing forward. If it’s anything like how it happened for me, you learn to rely more on your support structure, let the unimportant things go, and learn, again, to prioritize filling your own cup a bit.
However, if the feeling gets worse, don’t be afraid to ask for help. I know you know this already but I say it for anyone else that may be reading.
Also, Spice Kit is an adorable nickname.
Thank you. Unfortunately due to COVID our support structure kind of fell apart. Did I mention my husband started his own practice in January? Then the baby and COVID hit simultaneously in March. Things were kind of dicey for a while but I think we’re getting it together again. I hope.
I have neither a new baby or a history of depression, and I’ve had plenty of weeks where, as you said, “my clean laundry has been sitting crumpled up in the laundry basket for a week, I can’t seem to stop overeating and I’m wholly uninspired to do anything.”
It happens. Don’t stress about it too much and just enjoy your baby for now.
All of us are experiencing changes right now; you are just going through a few more. It’s OK to be out of sorts for a bit.
Or, you could send her a couple of cans of Friskies Gourmet Filets…
I’m old enough to get away with “Huh…I was sure I’d told you. You sure I didn’t? Oh, well, nobody died. Now how 'bout those minorities looting? I read that they’re going to target your neighborhood…”
(or whatever topic will derail her into a good ol’ fashioned screed).
Concur! I needed the chuckle, too.
I found out right at the end of my shift that Ruth Bader Ginsberg just died, and was so blindsided I started crying at work.
So, uh, spoiler alert.
God, like this country wasn’t fucked already.
Yeah, that was a gut punch. I feel nauseated whenever I think about it.