Stupid people don't go crazy.

I like this a lot. The kids know the truth though, so don't give her any power.

Thank you for keeping her away from the rest of us for all that time. You're a good man Charlie Brown.

Oh, and just tell people you're her ex-beard.

*clink clink clink*

"Ladies and gentlemen, can I have your... ladies and gentlemen... there's something I need to say on behalf of... that woman over there.

I know she's let on to... a few of you, that we've shared a secret all these years, and there's something I need to get clear with everyone in this room.

It's all true.

I'm just sorry that it was something so serious, so dangerous, and, obviously, you know, incurable.

I know that you'll feel less of me; I just hope you won't feel less of her. It's something she's had to deal with for a long time, and unless there's some sort of breakthrough, something she'll have to deal with for the rest of her life. Shortened though it probably will be.

But at least she has the luxury of someone to blame. I can only blame myself, and that... dark alley... that late night... and the booze. The booze had its good times - without it we couldn't have produced these marvelous children. But when you're blackout shitfaced in a big city, sometimes life becomes unpredictable.

Anyway! It's my one big regret in a lifetime of supporting all you people and being the most gracious human being and family member I can be, and now that I've confessed, I'm out --" *drops the mic and walks away*

Hehehehe. Very good.

Because it's on my mind I may as well share.
My Auntie by marriage (Dad's brother's widow) broke her hip over Easter. She knew she was in a bad way, but hid it from her sons and her care workers.

When my cousin found out he immediately had her taken to hospital, X-rayed etc.
She was discharged temporarily to a care home, where she had more falls (HOW?! but that's another topic) and readmitted to hospital.

She will now be discharged home. Social Services can offer four visits a day, none at night. She is a severe risk in terms of falls, she is incontinent. But she's a bloody tough old East Londoner. Because her psych eval shows she is compos mentis, the hospital is legally bound to respect her choice and she refuses to go to a care home. She says they'll have to take her out of her flat on a board. But what kind of a life is that? Lying in a soiled bed until the first carer arrives, waiting for someone to come and feed you? How can that be worse than being looked after 24 hours?

This hurts me because although she's not actually blood, she's definitely family. She put up with Ted and his temper and alcoholism for years, lived through the Blitz, brought up two boys only to have one shattered into pieces by a motorcycle accident (Tony has artificial legs and metal plates in his skull) and loved and looked after my Mum when she was a young bride and new mother.

She's an amazing woman, in an unamazing way if you get what I mean.
She didn't change the world, but she worked hard, played hard, saved money, raised kids, looked after her neighbours and kept a home.
And now she refuses to be looked after.

I don't get it.
I wasn't cast from her mould.
If someone offered to look after me for the rest of my life I'd bite their hand off. After they signed the papers of course.
It's not even as if she owns the flat - it's rented from a charitable trust, so she's not spending any "inheritance" she wants to pass on to her sons. Her sons who want her to be happy, but also really want her to be safe.

Oh yeah, and she's a cancer survivor.
Of course.
Sigh.

I can't say they don't make them like that any more, but I will always hold in my heart the night Mum, Auntie Joyce and I hit the vodka and stayed up well after the husbands went to bed. I don't treasure the drinking, but I do remember the stories. And I had my first Bloody Mary the next day (and I hated tomato juice). "Get that down you gel, hair of the dog!" I didn't dare refuse.

She sounds like she has always been tough, and is continuing to be that way now. Lately I have seen 4 elderly people at that same stage in life, and every single one of them behaved the same way. "Don't take me to the hospital or a nursing home. Let me stay here in my own home." Sometimes they get that wish, but usually not.

Meh.

Just take 'em for "a ride in the country". Y'know, to "live on a farm"...

Good on her. I feel her pain, I would hate to be "looked after" 24/7. Or at all, in fact.

Look at this this way, the soiled sheets are unlikely to cause her much discomfort and her sense of smell probably isn't all that great. She can stay awake reading all night if she wants with no-one nagging her. All her things are around her, the sounds are familiar, and no-one is being wheeled off on a gurney with a toe tag in the middle of the night.

She's in her dominion and can ask anyone who treats her unkindly to leave. She can make her own decisions, whether they're sensible or not. I can't understand someone happily relinquishing any control to anyone else, One night in hospital is absolute torture for me to the point where they agree it's better for me to be released, even if I just had a C-section the night before or a stroke. maybe she's the same way. Horses for courses, I guess.

Try to be happy that she's still her old self and has the balls to make decisions that are right for her rather than cowtowing to the wishes of her family members who want to make life easier/less worrisome for themselves. I know that sounds harsh, but think about it -she's clearly smart enough to know what risks she's taking. People want her in a home so THEY won't be worried -which is nice but in the end that's a thing about them not her

To be fair to them, they don't want her having to live with bedsores, lesions, black eyes and broken bones.

But I appreciate the flip side better now. I'll try that approach with Mum next time she is worrying herself about Joyce. Because it does make sense to celebrate the way she has decided to live.

Thor's last few schooldays in middle school are all going to hell in a handbasket. he suddenly stopped turning in work and the grades for his two high school credit classes have plummeted but no-one alerted us and we only just found out, he got confused between the after-party for graduation (which he wants to go to) and the Cedar Point trip (which he doesn't) and we can't find the appropriate permission slips and it's in two days.


in no way is he ready or prepared for high school. it's all going to be a fucking disaster.
plus we have hebe's high school gra dparty on Friday, weather forecast is shite and house is a dump and I'm running on fuck all sleep

Sounds like a stressful week ahead Monster, but hopefully in a run-around-like-crazy last-moment-manageable kind of way,and not the actual disaster way...

As far as highschool...
Was anyone prepared for high school?
In any point in the history of schooling?

I am pretty sure the reality of the next stage in life falling on you like a brick at the end of any previous stage of life is how we've collectively decided as a civilization to haze our children. Couldn't we do pranks instead? Something a bit more lighthearted...

Yes my older two were prepared and more than ready. Nothing prepared us for Thor. Oh well....

My friend who had brain cancer died this morning. I am very sad. He was the first boy I ever kissed, and my first major crush. Gone too soon from a family already struck by tragedy. His sister died only a couple of months ago.

Life is so harsh sometimes.

So sorry Ali. Fuck cancer.

Sent by thought transference

Yeah. Fuck cancer. I am surprised at how much grief I feel. I guess sometimes it just gets you when you least expect it.

I hear you. Sorry Ali.

I'm sorry Ali. There's not much to say other than it sucks and is unfair.

I think sometimes we grieve more for the people who haven't been a steady fixture in our lives, because we grieve for the missed opportunities.

Gonna go hug some folks today.

What limey said.

I've been there (no, I didn't lose the first boy I ever kissed, it was my first girl, ya nimrods), done that.

No surprises here on how much grief you're feeling. It's another of those things you just don't know about til you live it.

That.

Sorry Ali. :(

Oh, Ali, hon, that's terrible. So sorry.

I am sorry for your loss :(

Funeral is this Friday. It will be huge. I think I will go for the service, but skip the burial and the wake. I have a lot of work to do this week, and honestly, if I go to the wake I will get smashed and fuck everything up, so I will go to the service, and then come back and honour him by working hard, just as he did all his life.

That is what grown ups call "a plan".

Good on ya..

I just heard J's sister died on Saturday. Last i heard they'd been talking in terms of a few months - six tops - then she went into a sudden decline.

I feel so sad for her family - and the thought of what J and his Dad are both going through right now breaks my heart.

So sorry for J and family. I know it hurts you too.

...the fact that I'm not eligible to retire is upsetting. :(

I bit the ever loving hell out of the bottom of my tongue. It looks physically impossible, but it's there. That was Saturday. It still hurts when ever I eat or swallow. it scrapes right along my molar. It didn't bleed, but it is a massive bruise. I'll see if I can get the kids to take a photo.

Someone's friend's sister died
Someone can't get to the next stage of their life
Someone got a bleeding mouth thingy...

Just to continue the improvement scale: My toast got burned.

(The next person's trouble better not be greater then a broken nail!)

Our central AC went out yesterday! It seems like every other year or so this happens. Usually it's a capacitor or a relay that burns out in the condenser unit outside. We replaced our entire system about 10 years ago with a top of the line Trane system and otherwise it heats and cools great. It's just frustrating because it takes a day for the service call and it always seems to cost $300 or so for parts and labor and it means the house gets pretty hot for a while.

In this part of the country our AC units run just about year round with less use in the cooler months but they still cut on from time to time then. In the summer you figure it probably stops and starts several times per hour, 24 hours a day so those parts get a lot of work.

There isn't much to an AC unit. If you have even a little electrical knowledge, replacing a capacitor or relay yourself is a half hour job, and the parts are about $30.

$300 is a fair price though for a tech to come out to your house, have the part in stock in the van, and get the thing up and running again in short order.

You could try to track down the part yourself, but it would probably take a few days. Meanwhile you'll be suffering in the heat.

Typing this post makes me think I should buy a capacitor and relay in advance and just keep them on the shelf so I can do it myself when it happens. We had a relay go out a few years ago because ants built a nest inside it. So that stuff happens. It cost us $300 then, and I looked the part up afterwards and saw it was like $30.

Yes, I've thought about that but it seems to never be the same part 2 times in a row. One year it's the cap., the next it's the connector relay. Last year it was the main circuit board up in the furnace that controls everything. That repair was around $600. I should take a basic course in AC repair.

What is frustrating it that our AC system came with an advertised extended warranty but the installer company didn't tell us we had to mail in a postcard requesting the extended warranty from Trane so we didn't get it. The guys we use now for repairs said they always fill out the card for the customer and send it in as a courtesy and were surprised that the company we purchased the system from did not do that. All this stuff would still be covered except for not sending the postcard. :eyebrow:

So I go home to be here a bit in advance of the AC repairman coming and find my home at a cool and non humid 74 degrees..... Called my son at his job, he spent the night here and he said it seemed to cool down after he went to bed last night. I cancelled the service call as I don't think it would have done any good but I have to wonder why it didn't work yesterday. Not sure if the capacitor that starts the compressor can fail intermittently. I figured they just fail. Yesterday when it wasn't cooling the blower in the furnace was going and also the fan on the condenser outside was but I don't think the compressor was running as the insulated copper pipe was not cold, just the outside temperature.

Well at least the service lady said to call them over the weekend if it goes out and that the service call is the same price, $85 as for a weekday.

A silly upset, but I get upset about silly things.
There's a ferry strike directly affecting the ferries to/ from Arran this weekend.
I don't go til Monday, thank goodness. The poor people heading off for the first holiday of the long vac (today is the last day of school for Scottish children) will have their plans very much affected. I will almost definitely not be affected by Monday, but can't help fretting all the same.
Probably because I always have a bit of a mood "crash" after a visit, and my Godfather came to see me Weds-Thurs, so I may be a little more vulnerable than usual.
Still, they have all weekend to sort out their industrial issues, and I have all weekend to keep saying calm-calm-calm to myself.

My sister and family (plus Conor) are booked to go to Tunisia in August. They have more to worry about than a ferry strike. Mum says even if things don't escalate, my sister is now terrified that if they go she's putting all her loved ones in danger. I do feel for her. I wouldn't let the threat of terrorism change my plans (or I wouldn't have back when I was completely well) but then I've been a solo traveller for the last 17 years. She has children and grandchildren to consider.

Of course, my sister's worries are nothing compared to those caught up in the carnage, but I don't know them.

That's weird.

After being home about an hour the house started warming up and it is evident the AC has gone off again. I checked the unit outside, the fan is running but it's not producing hot air as when the compressor is doing it's thing. I can hear a short hum from the area where the capacitors and relay contacts are every few minutes like it's trying to kick on the compressor but not succeeding. This is a pretty high end unit with a 2 speed compressor so their are 3 capacitors, one for fan and 2 for the compressor, also 2 relay contact assemblies. My hunch is one of the caps or contact relays is blown. I wouldn't know which one to replace, I don't have a voltage meter that measures microferads which you need to check the capacitors.

Called back to the AC service company but now they are booked until Monday. Called another place that said they might fit it in today or no later then Saturday morning. Guess we will spend another night at my mother in laws on the guest bed.

This sucks.

Pain in the ass. I didn't hear a humming when my relay was on the fritz with the ants. It was more like an ineffectual clicking. You don't have ants crawling all over the unit, do you?

Certain person is now on FB and we have, not surprisingly, 30 something mutual friends. I don't want to know any more about her life than I do so I'm not going to friend her but it irks the shit out of me that she's now there. (And how nauseatingly fawning over her they are.)

I really feel like I need to move out of town or state.

Just move off basefook.

Facebook IS nauseating fawning. New FB users are unaware that they are only reaching 10-20% of their friends with their stuff, and many of them go way overboard at first. You may rest assured that, now, other people are getting tired of her shit.

Block everyone you don't like by selecting the "don't show me posts from this person" feature.

Does the other person know you've blocked them?

No they don't

I was gonna say even if you're friends, but I'm not sure about that. I know you can unfollow friends and they don't know about it.

Exactly! FB friends aren't people you want to follow, they are people who you are socially obligated to let them feel like you are part of their lives without actually wanting any real interaction with them.

So you guys have the same attitude towards FB as me.... I'd say let's be friends but...

Heh.


I hate facebook. Every so often I have a flurry of activity reconnecting with friends and relatives - but I hate everything about fb. I hate the layout - everything looks too fucking busy. I hate the atmosphere - and as much as I love my cousin Rache - I am soooooooo not interested in every single drawing, painting and clay model her many little ones produce - nor do I want to be privy to her and her fellah's sweet nothings - ffs, keepthat shit to yourself. It's like stepping inside a goddamned Hallmark card.

For me it's 90% crap and 10% interesting and/or important items from friends and family that I care about.

But I do believe that if I worked at it, tended to my feed, with unfollows and whatnot, I could get that interesting number up to 15%.

That sounds about right.

It's also slightly depressing to discover just how racist and reactionary some of my extended family and childhood friends are :P

That one worked out in reverse for me - my super-racist friend from age 13 turned into a super-progressive who manages the only remaining independent bookstore in the area!

(I really want to know how it happened but we have not connected up at that sort of level.)

Hahah. That's excellent.

I had an email from a family member recently (I don't Facebook) who insists they are not racist and are aggrieved if something I say even mildly suggests their attitude is a little unfair. They blamed the late post, and a couple of torn envelopes arriving over the course of a few weeks... on immigrants.

But of course.
They come over here, mess with our post, who do they think they are etc etc.
I'd say you couldn't make it up, but sadly the newspaper this person reads, does. Frequently.

Update, she is still with us but in pain. Sometimes, she reports, she cannot bend over to get pots and pans on the lower shelves. Some days, she reports, she can't walk from one end of the house to the other without pain.

She doesn't talk about it at all. Everything I know is from the few offered statements she made over dinner and conversation last Sunday. Denial is a big part of her arsenal for dealing with this. I'm not judging. Certainly I have used it from time to time myself.

She went and got some pain management, so she's wound up not entirely anti-doctoring, but she's not going for treatment. I think this says that she was exhausted from all the medicine she has been through, with multiple rounds of cancer and then open heart surgery.

But if that's what it is, it would be better for everyone involved if she would just say so. I feel like there is something emotionally preventing her from admitting she is committing slow suicide. It's not hard to imagine how one might end up in that sort of personal emotional trap.

It is so heartbreaking.

You might point out that's how Steve Jobs killed himself, but being that aggressive is not your nature. :(

My Mom told everyone she'd do the pain medication but not the chemo. She was more open about that decision than anything in her life. I guess it was her nursing background.

Is it possible she feels like she is protecting her loved ones by pretending everything will be fine? That if she says, "Yep, gonna just die in awhile, and I'm at peace with that," all her friends and relatives will hate her for abandoning them? A fair number of people are able to get to the point where they are at peace with their own death, but very few are ever able to agree that death is the right choice for someone they love.

I'm not sure what brings her to this point. At one point she told Facebook that she was cancer-free after a few months of veganism. I don't know if she really believed it, just wanted to believe it in the sense that belief makes things true, or wanted everyone to treat her normally.

I'm getting the impression, from the story as told, that she's not yet one of them and rationality has been slipping away.

I need to get my head screwed on right. This shouldn't be bothering me so much, but it is.

My firm renewed its lease at this building and is going to renovate its space into more of an "open office" concept. I just saw the new floor plan yesterday.

I am losing my private office. It isn't a big office, but I've had one private office or another for about 20 years. I'll be in a marginally larger room, with 4 people in it and a small desk in each corner.

"Managers" get to keep their offices. I'm a manager in what I do, but not in my title. I'll be losing about 85% of my file space and getting a desk about half the size of the one I have now, so I have to dramatically change how I do my job and what records I keep on hand.

When I let my mind wander and go down the path of worry, I think about how one of the things I do is manage contract workers, and at first glance, I don't see any space for contract workers in the new building. Which means they intend for all future contract workers to be offsite. If they are offsite, they won't be managed as closely by me any more. So now I'm wondering if they are going to phase out my job. Or part of it anyway.

The truth is they need me badly for this renovation. I'll be doing lots of managing space and moving staff around. It will be very busy for me. And during that time, I'll get a clearer picture of what is coming, and can try to maneuver myself into an indispensable position. But right now, all I can see is them not valuing me.

Gah. Those fuckers. Part of the problem is that the firm used to be run by really smart people, and the people running it now are fairly clueless. And that bugs me too. I wonder if this place is a sinking ship. I fantasize about dusting off my resume and going elsewhere, but my chances for succeeding are better here in this organization where I have a good reputation with a lot of people I know well. How am I going to get my foot in the door anywhere else, and maybe those other places are run by idiots too.

Anyway, I have all these toxic thoughts going through my head. Things have a way of working out. I just need to clear this shit out of my head.

Hopefully, in your cape & long-johns role, during the renovation, you'll be able to gain access to an influential ear who has the power to jiggle the plans a little. Maybe a penthouse suite with hot and cold running secretaries. ;)

I have a feeling you're in an all too common situation, where smart people put a business together, then get replaced by business school, cookie cutter, professional managers, often at the insistence of wall street.