What's gotten you worked up this month? (May 2024 mini-rants)

The BBQ Pit
81

That’s pretty wild. Around here, they are all open until at least 8 PM (to be fair, this is a major metropolitan area). But even where my daughter lives they have better hours. Can you look into getting your meds via mail order?

Last month, we were outside a small town in NY for the eclipse. My daughter FORGOT ALL HER MEDS. There was a branch of the drugstore (Walgreens) in the town, and we could likely have persuaded them to advance her a week’s worth, but they were closed all weekend.

We could have driven 25 miles to the next town with an open branch, but my daughter was really stuck on insisting that This Would Not Work.

Instead, we went to urgent care, where a) they doubled the price because she was not a NY resident, and b) the doctor she saw was really kind of a jerk. He did write the scrips she needed, however - or we’d have had to do a 6 hour round trip to my daughter’s apartment.

So this is 4 rants in 1. Daughter forgetting meds, drugstore closed, jerk doctor, and price gouging.

82

Often I used filtered water, over ice, with some drops of mio for flavoring. When it gets really hot, I’ll add two splashes of lemon juice. I know it’s not Gatorade ( and it might not be all that good for you, but it tastes good served ice-cold when it’s hot.

83

I hadn’t thought of that, could be a great solution! :thinking:

84

I tried using a mail order service once and it was a disaster. That made me gun-shy about ever using a mail-order pharmacy again.

The pharmacist at the pharmacy I use is an acquaintance of mine (we were both Boy Scout leaders together) and at one point when I didn’t have health insurance he gave a me very good deals on my meds, providing them to me for what I am guessing was below his wholesale cost. Being an insulin-dependent diabetic, his generosity literally saved my life.

Not having access to my regular pharmacy on the weekend is an annoyance but it isn’t such a problem that I’m willing to change. I’ve had emergency scripts from weekend urgent care visits filled at the local Wal-Mart pharmacy without issue, so in an emergency I do have options. I always have an extra ~1 month supply of my prescription meds on hand so running out over a weekend or holiday is never a real risk.

85

LOL, I just got a notice from Turbo Tax essentially saying, “Oops! We may have fucked up your state tax return by using the standard deduction rather than your itemized. We’ll be sending you a $60 refund soon, and you can file an amended state tax return if you want to try and get your money back!”

Assholes.

86

That’s fucking weird all right. Sometimes you just need a place to put the weird shit.

I’ve had a few experiences where I was talking about my job and didn’t realize how off-putting it was. Someone was complaining about security at the Canadian border and I started talking about how this is one of the biggest human trafficking corridors in the country. I guess not appropriate for a Halloween party.

Which is ironic considering I’m relatively sheltered from the worst of it, but I’m periodically frustrated with our forensic nursing team for not grasping how upsetting their stories are for the rest of us. Sometimes when they send their case histories for the state grant reporting, they are T M fucking I. I end up having to strip out a lot of grotesque detail and not just identifying information (which they shouldn’t include either.)

I’ve learned shit from the forensic nurses that will haunt me for life. Sometimes the most shocking thing is the way it’s not shocking to those involved.

Just an obligatory “Fuck You” to long COVID, which is kicking my ass at a very inconvenient time. I have three competitive state grants due at the the of the month for funds we are already receiving, so I kind of can’t fuck this up or some people are going to get laid off. My boss, who is newish, is throwing all kinds of shit at me and because of this problem I have less time to do it every day.

Right now the way it’s fucking with me is we went to meet with my son’s BCBA today (ABA Director guy.) It was a positive meeting but we covered so much, I’m confused and overwhelmed with the brain fog.

The thing I remember the most (and this is really good and not bad) is that they want to start phasing him out of ABA because he’s doing so well. This is amazing because we thought he might need something like this for a long time. However upon further discussion we agreed it’s best to keep him in ABA next year because the alternative, regular, neurotypical daycare, would be a worse option than additional ABA.

Then he will be in one kind of kindergarten or another. That is yet to be determined with our IEP team.

But he thinks all the boy will really need from ABA after next year is one night a week social skills group.

I told him the teachers think he eventually won’t even need an IEP and just a 504 and the BCBA said, “He totally has 504 energy.” Lol

But we don’t know what to do about the giftedness yet. God it’s so much to keep track of.

My life reminds me of an old Amy Grant song.

This may be a dream come true
This may be poetry in motion
This may be a dream come true but when it all comes down… It’s an awful lot to do.

87

That’s the Good idea.

The Bad idea to mix all of that up in a blender with some rum or some vodka, blend the ice cubes to ice chip, and serve it in a Hurricane glass while saying,

“I’m very sorry that you had a bad day. Please, take a sip… let me know if it’s tart enough.
Then you could tell me how your day went on the patio while dinner cooks.”

88

It’s snowing. We need the moisture. But dear og the forecast is for 3 days of snow with up to 28" up high. I haven’t planted the raised beds or any flowers, so that’s good. Then it’s supposed to be 70 degrees next week. Montana whiplash.

89

I’m irritated. I have been waiting since January for a bill for my hospital stay over the new year. I finally got one about a week ago and it has a due date of the 19th of this month. I actually put the payment in the mail yesterday.

They called me at work today from an unknown number, so I didn’t answer it. They left a message so I called them after work. They are dunning me for a bill that isn’t even due yet and took them 4 months to provide. I was so damn irritated. So then the agent says it’s just a courtesy call not a collection call.

I don’t need a fucking courtesy call for a hospital bill that isn’t due yet. Fucking bloodthirsty leeches.

90

The midwest is strange. Here in southern Ontario it’s been mild but cool for most of the spring, and then a couple of days ago summer arrived with a vengeance. Not quite hot enough to turn on the A/C yet but almost, and the garage is definitely no longer suitable for storing water or Coke or anything else that you want to keep cool. The idea of snow at this time of year would be comical. Actually, it’s getting to be unusual to have snow even in the middle of winter. Thank you, climate change!

91

Yeah, they can work well, but every now and then they work very, very badly (like the time Dropped’em bollixed up my MIL’s prescription, and very grudgingly overnighted it to her “just this once”).

92

I’ve read this post three times and I still don’t understand what exactly happened.

mmm

93

Take a look at the link racer72 put in Post 72 (I think) and it will be clearer (and more maddening).

94

Thanks. I get weird on a daily basis. Today I went to see somebody in juvenile detention and saw a teenager bolt out of a room only to be tackled by 4 guards.

95

Offer it up on a Freecycle or Buy Nothing list. Someone will want it!

96

Minor one here:
I have an overdraft line of credit on a checking account. I set up a monthly transfer to that, for 10 bucks, so I didn’t have to worry if I used it without realizing it.

A couple months back, its balance was less than 10 bucks. So the credit union didn’t make the transfer. I found that out when I downloaded my transactions and encountered a 10 dollar late-payment fee. Whoops.

I paid it off immediately. And, actually, the credit union reversed that fee, and helped me set it up as a “payment” versus a “transfer”, so that won’t happen in the future. This was all back in January - 3 months ago.

In the meantime, however, the late payment got reported to the credit bureaus. This resulted in a 70 point hit to my score.

So far, nothing out of line. An annoyance, that will self-resolve fairly quickly, I hope.

I looked at Credit Karma the other day - and my score has not rebounded at all. And the account shows both as zero balance AND 30-60 days delinquent.

Time to file a dispute with the credit bureau…

97

Today I got an email from one of my credit cards. It seems that if I don’t go paperless they are going to tack on $1.99 a month for mailing me my bill.

I’m not currently paperless because emails can get sent to spam, lost in the bulk of other crud in my inbox, or accidentally deleted. Then I get hit with a $25 fee for late payments. I’m not happy about this at all.

98

It snowed two feet last night, and is still snowing. Took me 3 hours to plow the driveway because silly me thought it was spring and put the plow blade down in the barn, so I had to plow with the bucket on the tractor. Most of my neighbors are stranded if they don’t have a tractor because all the plow contractors are done for the season. Supposed to be 70 degrees saturday. I’ll be floating downstream I guess.

Oh–and I destroyed the driveway because it’s warm/wet snow and the bucket is way worse on the dirt than the plow blade.

99

Yeah that was a tough read. It was really well written but definitely got the old blood pressure going.

We’re doing DEI consulting/training at work so today was my “listening session” where the consultants ask for feedback about the agency and it’s inclusivity. Me and three other employees.

It kind of turned into a bitch fest about problems everywhere, but oddly the questions weren’t redirected to DEI at all. I put it all out there because that’s just my way. I said we used to be a progressive organization firmly grounded in social justice principles and when the new leadership took over we lost a lot of people who perceived the change to be against those values (I stopped short of saying white supremacist but that’s the wording used by at least one person who quit.)

The consultant replied something to the effect of, “Sometimes organizations have to change in order to move forward” and I am so fucking confused because this is a Black woman working as a DEI consultant who seemed to be minimizing the fact that people left because of perceived racism with a sort of “oh well, change happens.”

I’m perplexed. Maybe I didn’t make myself clear enough.

I think a follow up email may be necessary.

100

Definitely a mini-rant.

Hubby’s part of a hobby band. He and 2 of the other band members are happy to get together and play. Doing concerts is not on his wish list, but if a date is suggested, and it works with our schedule, he’ll agree to it. Same with with the 2 band members. Twice a year is reasonable. More than that is difficult. Less is fine with hubby.

He’s said this. The other band members have said this.

But the other band member? He dreams of bigger things, and wants to do 5-6 concerts a year. So when he asks when people are available, they don’t want to answer, because he’ll take it as permission to try to schedule more dates. And then they have to tell him that they only agreed to a maximum 2 dates. And then he gets annoyed.

Rinse and repeat.

I don’t want to get into the middle of it. And I’m not going to.

But I find this behavior tiring.