Also, Grandmadigr is coming on like gangbusters, now. She's been moved to a swing bed facility. Last hip-break (couple years ago) she was there for a week and a half and went home.

Broke hip and wrist on the same side, about a week ago, wrist set and in a cast, hip pinned, and she walked across the room today.

Like I said, tough old bird.

That's fantastic news. Tough old bird indeed.

Yeah!!! Good for Grandmadigr.

Oh that's good news Grav!

Excellent news, Grav! And re Radar Love, all I can say is, OMG. The song each of us (born within a certain cohort) recalls in a personal way. I had a lot of autonomy in late high school (Canada) and that song resonates.

Glad Grandmadigr is kicking ass... still think you should have slipped her some whisky though. The Mighty Ack! I fucking love it. :thumb2:

:thumb2:

Did you choose a class yet? Choose something that you think you might enjoy. Or maybe a fitness class....weight lighting, aerobics, uh....ballroom dancing? Hihi....Something that you won't have to study or study hard for. I made a mistake of taking Music Appreciation because this "smart" friend of mine said it's easy and she got an A in it. Well, I got a C because I didn't have the time to study although it wasn't a hard class. :roll eyes: So, yeah, choose something fun, fun, fun with not much homework, unless you like to study. :D

Making me happy and mildly amusing me...

Minifob has a tough time sleeping, that seems to be getting worse as he gets older. It is a problem both of falling asleep, as well as staying asleep. We have developed a number of habits and routines over the years to try to get him a good night's rest... he listens to NPR (enough background noise to keep him from cycling through his own obsessive thoughts, but not interesting enough to keep him awake,) uses a weighted blanket, wears an eye mask, crunches a cup of ice to let some held-in stress out, and a million other things.

None of this shit works, for the record. He's in his room with the lights off by 8:30, but never falls asleep before 10:30, and usually around 4:30 in the morning I hear him get up and turn NPR back on. Even worse, he was on a prescription med for awhile that had him passing the fuck out, which was great, but it had other side effects and we had to stop it. Since then he gets even more frustrated because he remembers how easy it was to fall asleep during that short time, and he literally starts sobbing at his inability to sleep, which doesn't help with that whole, you know, relaxing thing.

Anyway. The happy part is, a few days ago we started trying an OTC supplement that is working like gangbusters for him so far. Extra bonus is it's a skin cream instead of a pill, so we get to avoid all the typical worries about digestive side effects.

The amusing part is that the stuff works so well, on the second night he took it, he literally fell asleep with his cup of ice still held aloft, and accidentally dumped ice water all over his own face and woke up screaming. We were trying so hard not to laugh at him... And even after cleaning up that catastrophe, he still fell back asleep a few minutes later!

Now the only risk is that he'll build up a tolerance and it will stop working. Crossing our fingers...

A skin cream! That's so cool. I hope it keeps working.

There's nobody to blame, no white whale to focus on, just constant logic resistant medical staff and Insurance companies, who underestimate you. I don't know how you stay on top of it without becoming a straight jacket inhabitant. :notworthy

What is the skin cream?

ETHER

This stuff.

It smells funny and doesn't rub in perfectly. Minifob objected to how it felt on his hands (he doesn't have problems with the texture of lotion in general, just this stuff) so I rub it into his back for him, wearing a vinyl glove so I don't steal half the dose. It also ain't cheap, but one bottle lasts two months, and nothing he takes is cheap anyway.

Sounds like cool stuff. Glad you found something that helps your son.

Excellent.

:lol2: I shouldn't have, but I did. Sorry. I feel for the boy, I've had serious sleep problems my entire life.

:lol2:..Hey, son, does this handkerchief smell like chloroform?..:lol2:

:3_eyes:

Cool. That stuff is an analog of Gabapentin, the stuff I take for RLS and sleep. I might try that instead.

That is so great minifob is able to sleep! Not sleeping is awful.

Of course as soon as I fucking say anything, I jinx it. Last night was borderline. Fell asleep around 9:45, woke up at 2:00 but fell back asleep within an hour (because NPR auto shuts off after one hour, and he didn't turn it on again.) But it was raining, and rain always screws him up.

The weird thing is, he tried both GABA and 5-HTP in the past, and he didn't react well to them. But at the time we were giving it in the daytime to try to decrease hyperactivity, rather than as a sleep aid, and they were both oral instead of the magical gross skin cream. Plus, it was years ago, and things are always changing.

Re-reading my post I meant that I might try the cream, not suggesting minifob try gabapentin. I figured with his gut you probably don't want to upset the balance needlessly.

Oh yeah, I understood that. I was just sort of musing about gabapentin in general. Shit's been weird here and I've been doing a lot of internal processing on meds and symptoms and emerging research, trying to tease out patterns that might indicate something meaningful for us.

Maybe if you let a chicken peck his gut...

The Kansas City Royals are going to the playoffs for the first time in 29 years!!!

:king:

I have fair weather for the rear brakes replacement job I'm starting this morning.

Mission accomplished. $30.

And two trips to the store.

Critters chewed the wires on my truck which is better than a trannny job.

You would think critters would have better things to chew.

To reduce petrochems they use a lot of soybean oil in the plastic insulation of wiring, something like 30%. Critters find it tasty.

Two things - got a card from Sundae *cheers* she seems to be doing well and I am hoping to visit her very soon.

Also - on this evening's shift, I signed up three regular donors *dances around in delight* and also a one off credit card donation. This makes me very happy because, though I have mainly been hitting my target (5% conversion - @2 signups per 4 hour shift) I felt like I was lagging behind some of the other team members. Three signups is my personal record and I feel great about it :)

Also - just to add to that last bit of happy - this is without doubt the most fun and worthwhile telesales job I have ever done - and I have worked a looooot of telesales jobs in my time. The company is awesome: really ethical, very supportive, great sense of a team working together and a real feeling that what we are doing is worthwhile. We have regular team meeting through conference call and they're always a really good laugh. The team leaders and trainers are all lovely.

I know a lot of charity telesales is done through call centres and the workers have to be really pushy and meet very high targets - some of them are trained to keep pushing and not to put the phone down until either they have objection handled at least three times, or the customer hangs up on them. We are told to objection handle once - twice if we feel we have enough rapport to do so without causing ill feeling and always try to leave them with a good experience of the charity - much better to not get the sale than to give someone a bad impression of the charity. Similarly, any doubt in our minds about somneone possibly being vulnerable (dementia or something like) then back away and don't pursue - or if not sure, can pursue but then ask the teamleader to listen to a recording of the call and possibly not put the deal through.

The charity we are calling for has access through the rapport system to any of our calls whilst we are working - they can listen in at any time - so they're able to operate an intime quality control and that really does make for a much cleaner operation.

I don't think I've ever looked forward to my shift in telesales before. But I really enjoy this. It's brilliant, after I've maybe spent a few hours working alone on my thesis to then drop onto a few hours talking to people about air ambulances :)

My only gripe right now is that because I am running Vista the software is only partly compatible - it works, except for the chat function which only updates intermittently - so sometimes I feel a little cut off from the rest of the team. Hoping to get an upgrade to Windows 7 soon though and then I'll be able to participate in the team chat whilst I work :)

fucking aye bubba

Lil' Pete is putting together a fencing club on her college campus and it looks like a success!

Glad it's going well, Dana!

And even happier that it's Friday! This week felt really long.

I got 100% VA Disability, finally I feel vindicated.

Awesome news fargon.

Christmas is going to be great. This is an answer to prayer, my friend Rocky has real bad skin cancer on his eye lid. He is going to need someone to drive him to Palm Springs and back for at least 2 months for surgery and chemo. So I prayed about it last nite, and the answer came in this mornings mail.
The back pay will be enough to buy a new car, so driving out to that small California desert town will not be a problem. There will also be enough money to help him out during his down time.
Praise The Lord!!!
Fuck cancer

That's brilliant, fargon.

Good news!

:devil:

And fuck cancer!

1500+ miles...You are a very good friend, Fargon.:thumb:

Good news all around. Hope your friend heals quickly, fargon.

Remembering I was low on copy paper I stopped at Staples. There, right near the door, was big pile of house brand copy paper packages, 5 reams, 2500 sheets, with a sign that made me laugh.

Copy Paper $9.99!!
After An Easy $17 Rebate!!
$26.99.

I got a second laugh when the cash register printed out a 49.5 inch receipt. Easy rebate? Oh really.
There's the actual receipt, some coupons, instructions for bitching online at the manager of this particular store, an offer to buy your old "qualifying" electronics for next to nothing, a chance to sign up for tons of spam, a second receipt for submitting to the rebate lords in Texas, the rebate form, and another foot of how you can do this all online instead of by mail.

So if I fill in the forms, in 4 to 6 weeks, JP Morgan-Chase or Metabank will bless me a Visa card preloaded with $17. And the fact that out the goodness of their vaults, will waive for six months the $3 a month service charge, gave me another guffaw.

Who knew paper shopping could be so entertaining. :haha:

:doit:

:celebrat:

:lol:
good for you!

Make sure you lubricate, wouldn't want any saddle sores!

My 21st wedding anniversary.
AND we got our AARP membership cards today.
Happy, happy, joy, joy.
4650

Boss said "Good work Tone!" after I wrote a detailed email to a customer.

Thank you!

... and then followed up with ...

"As always!"

Thank you very much!

So simple so effective, I am always motivated by appreciation, and will do good work tomorrow.

Sweet!

:celebrat:

:cheerldr:

Nice work Toad, whens the last time you heard that?

Excellent!


Sent by thought transference

About never is when. This thing seems to be working out.

Your mailman is going to hate you.

Happy dance, repeat, repeat...

Damn good on you Tony. I'm still looking for an organization that appreciate hard work & effort.

Congrats ghost! (what is AARP?)

@ Toad: that's brilliant :)

Fridays make me happy... Especially around 3pm. Holidays are pretty darn good too.

American Association of Retired People, the world's greatest generator of junk mail.

Screw 'em.

:mad:

What? Even worse than the Reader's Digest?

Surely you jest, sir?

Hey man, don't knock it. You may already have won £250,000.