Cleaning a house after your parents are unable to is a great way to learn about the personalities of your siblings now that everybody has been living their own lives for 20 years.
Probably not related except in my head, it is much easier to get farm supply stores to send you information about other people's accounts than it is to get hospitals to do the same.
"There's no way in the world that a specific bird's clothing would be replicated in a dinosaur in the past."
Bird fashion hasn't changed much since the dinosaurs.
Oh god. If I could figure out a way to extract the family antiques and a select percentage of my mom's artwork and travel souvenirs, it certainly would be convenient for a "wiring problem" to cause a massive house fire after she passes. As it is, the pie safe that's been in the family for a 150+ years and the massive partner desk that my great grandfather has from his time as a station agent for the railroad will probably drive my siblings and I to have to deal with the endless piles of junk and the cat-pee infused flooring. It's going to be a nightmare. Hopefully not for a long time, but we've all been stressing about it since my dad passed 20 years ago.
You can hire a company to come in, after you have taken what you want, and sell everything left. They want a percentage of the proceeds and some masks to deal with the cat pee odors, but they will get rid of everything that doesn't sell at the end.
"For example there could plant-eating dinosaurs that had pangolin or armadillo-like armor that wasn't preserved in the fossil."
This seems like a weird comment to make shortly after the discovery of a remarkably well preserved ankylosaur. Especially since it looks pretty much like we thought it did.
A not-unreasonable percentage, I might add.
I'm guessing the experienced outfits might even bring their own masks, unprompted.
Once upon a time, I would have known what an ankylosaur was without having to internet.
Swedish death cleaning is ok, but I prefer technical death cleaning, symphonic death cleaning and melodic death cleaning.
6: indeed. Especially as armadillo armour plates (scutes) do, in fact, fossilise.
5: Small-town South Dakota may not have access to such services. Bit I'll investigate when the time comes. I will definitely be hiring out the cat pee remediation.
5: Small-town South Dakota may not have access to such services. Bit I'll investigate when the time comes. I will definitely be hiring out the cat pee remediation.
Anyway, one the whole I can think of a bunch of potentially awkward conversations I maybe should have had with my parents, but "What should I do with all the crap you have piled in the house?" is way down the list.
14: If it is southern South Dakota, I can give you a name.
On the other topic, am I alone in wanting some of the moder animal as paleoartist recreation sketches as art prints for my wall? The flamingos and hippo especially.
Swedish Fish Cleaning is also a thing.
17: About an hour north of Sioux Falls. Mom hopefully has another decade or two to go, so I'll check back then.
I'm partial to the murderous spear-fishing swans.
endless piles of junk and the cat-pee infused flooring.
My friend's parents - not senile, but not very competent either - basically let the dog use the bathroom in the house wherever. They put some puppy pads down, but the dog doesn't observe them, and they are very, very slow to clean up the mess.
Then the mom slipped on a pile of dog pee and/or poop, fell and injured her back. Nothing changed except the escalation of our collective horror.
Trump's efforts to undermine the ACA. WTH?
Nothing changed except the escalation of our collective horror.
Been there.
As soon as my dad dies my mom will stock up with at least one dog. More things to look forward to.
Well, it's important for the elderly to keep a good supply of food around the house in case they can't get out.
My mom is profoundly an animal person, my dad not. He eventually won that war when the last childhood pet died, but revanchist sentiment remains undimmed.
Local shithead inspired by national trends.
My mom generally doesn't like animals, but she grew very fond of our second dog after it took to always falling asleep at her feet while she sat and read.
The dog died and my mom can't read now. I think my sister still has the dog's ashes.
Such is the way of all flesh. Except for the part about being in a can in my sister's house. That's actually not very common.
Why would my mom be in the dog's ashes?
I had managed to calm down substantially over the course of yesterday re fires bc the one to the east of mum-sis was heading further east, and the one to the west was heading further west - yay! But just checked a map and the fucker on the west has crossed a road headed east shit shit shit. It's about 7 miles north of them and in an area of massively expensive vines so hopefully will be stamped out. It is pretty much impossible to obtain proper masks in the bay area. Aaaaargh. One bright spot - pretty clear mum's roof doesn't have any leaks as she's been near continuously watering it for days now.
36: You said she couldn't read anymore...I just assumed...how embarrassing.
Oh, right. I mean, she can still read, but she can't retain anything so she doesn't read books or anything.
So it's not just that it's too dark, then.
Oh and there's a new patch of fire 2 miles from them. Crap.
37: ugh, good wishes. The news is heavy on prophecies of doom this morning. I bet half the fire fighters never want to see another glass of wine as long as they live, but I hope you're right that there will be an intervention before your family has to run.
38: love
OP: Health and Human Services planning documents state that life begins at conception.
Every four years, HHS publishes a strategic plan reflecting the priorities of the administration. Barack Obama's 2014-'18 plan focused on getting the health care markets stabilized and more people enrolled in insurance plans. In that document, the administration described HHS as "accomplishing its mission through programs and initiatives that cover a wide spectrum of activities, serving Americans at every stage of life."
The new Trump 2018-'22 draft plan -- which is out for public comment until October 27 -- seems determined to take health care in a more ideological direction, starting by rewriting the definition of American life. HHS will now be "serving and protecting Americans at every stage of life, beginning at conception." The plan's repeated references to "natural death" also suggest the agency may now be opposed to assisted suicide.
Gosh, dq. I'll be thinking good thoughts for your family.
Booking flights for the family for my grandmother's 100th birthday in December. Delta is encouraging me to upgrade from Basic Economy to Main Cabin for an extra $40/ticket. One of the threats/perks is "Select available seats together for your family or group?" ie, that is not available if we stick with Basic Economy. Somehow I'm willing to call their bluff on this one.
dq, very much hope that your family stays OK and doesn't need to evacuate. Having gone through a recent disaster with limited phone reception I can imagine how stressful it must be, although in the case of the fires everything seems to be drawn out over days and days. Hugs.
Hoping for the best dq.
I suppose I should be thankful that my folks have been on a throw almost everything out kick for the last few years.
47: They hate you, your fellow passengers, and their employees. It's not a bluff.
I almost yelled at a stranger on the street. He was talking to somebody as I walked by and I heard, "They're great. They have the best bagels, big and fluffy."
In positive news, my GF is out of the inpatient facility, medicated into sanity and doing quite well, all things considered. She's been cleaning and organizing my apartment, which is fine with me. Keeps her busy and gives her something concrete to accomplish.
It's good having her back, both in the physical and mental sense. The latter took a bit of getting used to, as my last long interactions with her revolved around the Iranian conspiracy with Google and Samsung to destroy the world. Now we are back to a more normal kind of conversation where I don't have to worry that something I say will turn me into an enemy spy in her eyes.
47,53. Choosing your seat in advance is now unfortunately an extra fee on lots of airlines, including Delta's partner Air France. The alternative is remembering to log in exactly 24 hours in advance of your flight to hopefully be in the early part of the crowd looking to find acceptable seats form those remaining. Welcome to the 21st century.
That's what Southwest does. United (domestic) is about levels of hell deeper. The staff is fine (one flight attendant gave me a free scotch because we were stuck on the tarmac for three hours).
55 Glad to hear that togolosh.
56 Thankfully the Gulf airlines don't do that. I can choose my seat when I book.
The alternative is remembering to log in exactly 24 hours in advance of your flight to hopefully be in the early part of the crowd looking to find acceptable seats form those remaining.
I'm fine doing this, in order to save $250. And I prefer the seats in the very back of the airplane anyway, on the vague superstition that they're safer when we crash and die.
The thing I worry about is that suppose enough people purchase the option to pick their seat early that we're automatically in the overbooked category and there aren't actually 6 seats available 24 hours ahead of time.
55: glad things are a bit better.
If you get separate seats, plunk down your least quiet kid next to a guy who is clearly trying to do business-y things on this laptop. He'll offer to switch with you. He'll also hate you, but you shouldn't worry about that.
I want to take vacations less than Cassandane does because my job gives me less PTO than hers does, but the airlines are making it easy for me.
It's funny, sometimes I think of myself as liking to travel, but I have to remind myself that that's just based on one year of studying abroad when I was 18. Between that and getting together with Cassandane 10 years later I think I only took two trips that weren't either with or to visit family and I'm OK with that.
Between Thanksgiving 2015 and the end of this summer, I flew so much for family reasons that I got really good at airports and now despite travel.
47,
Eh, I say fuck it, and let random strangers watch your kids. If airlines won't seat families with young kids together, then let them deal with the fallout of unsupervised toddlers in a middle seat 10 rows away from the parents.
Also, I have never seen a situation where once onboard someone wasn't willing to move to a comparable seat in order to let a family be together.
64.2: I once was in a situation where the guy who switched seats with me was extremely bitter about it. My son puked on that flight, so he really came out well in the end.
(I had very early boarding with Southwest, but the connecting flight was late so we were stuck.)
Bah. And not to culturally stereotype, but I flew on a bunch of cheap-o airlines around Europe, and the airlines were either super-anally into nickel and diming you (we got slapped with a $50 fee for having a suitcase 2 cm too long), OR disorganized shitshows that couldn't manage the check in process in a reasonable period of time. The worst were disorganized shitshows that ALSO tried to anally nickel and dime you.
Anal and asshole are both words that always bring up anatomy visuals for me.
My opinion doesn't count for anything and there's no reason why it should, but I kind of long for a return for a time when air travel was a luxury and everyone smoked and wore hats and there was a string quartet playing at the front of the cabin. Travelling was a Big Deal but also a lot better. Maybe like eating meat used to be? (At least according to Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall*.) This makes me uncomfortable because I feel like there are a lot of unexamined class assumptions underlying this desire, but there's also a kernel of truth in that the way we travel now is kind of insane and extremely bad for the environment. And it causes false expectations among family that you will see them an unreasonable amount even when living on the other side of the world and even though a significant proportion of the experience will be unadulterated misery.
Objectively I know that I could pay for business or first or weird little room with your own chef and a perch for your hawk, but I'm too cheap to. What I need is for the world to change to accommodate my whims.
*No, I do not care to look up the correct spelling at this time.
Dismembered, not attached to anyone in particular.
I don't even want to return to a time of luxury I never experienced. I just want to fly without being in a defensive crouch the whole time.
71: If you aren't properly equipped, the maître d' will be happy to loan you the house asshole.
I respond extraordinarily badly to being nickel-and-dimed, and since this seems to be the objective of everyone and everything in the UK, I go there as little as possible.
Well, the nickel-and-diming, plus the passive aggression about everything. And the sort of intersection where everyone refuses to acknowledge that nickel-and-diming is hostile and unpleasant and merits an unfriendly response, and everyone is outraged when you politely request that someone fuck themself for trying to steal a large amount of money from you for not obeying a rule that is expressly designed to catch you out.
I didn't realize that Europe was a hellhole of nickel and diming.
Dq, I think you know where I live, let me know if any emergency assistance/errands are called for.
"We will hang the capitalists with the rope that they sell us after we pay the $35 surcharge for violating the EULA on the rope."
My impression is that it's particularly bad in the UK, and especially bad in airports and other public spaces where petty authoritarianism and the worst kind of was-never-truly-loved-as-a-child-and-once-read-the-textbook-for-an-MBA-course corporate cynicism can form a speedball of shit.
Being a jobsworth arsehole has always been a proud British tradition but it didn't seem quite so overwhelming until mid- to late-Blair.
I'm pissed off about Puerto Rico, even more so that it remains a disaster as it is receding from the headlines. What I have heard about the reconstruction package they are getting sounds decidedly un-generous, and I think we can do a lot better. Here is something I posted at the other place about it.
If aid to Puerto Rico is indeed to be a loan, rather than a grant (unforgivable; Texas got grants), then it should at the very least make use of something I learned about while hanging around the IMF meetings yesterday. The new, neo-liberal hotness is called "State-Contingent Debt," in which the repayment conditions of sovereign debt are tied to some other indicator - for example, GDP, or the occurrence of natural disaster. So, if a hurricane occurred, the terms of the loan might give the debtor the option to push back the schedule of payments by five years, or trim the principal by X%. In the case of Puerto Rico, I would suggest a disaster clause, but I would also suggest the loan be linked to GDP growth. That is: if the United States doesn't assure the conditions which would bring about economic growth in Puerto Rico (i.e., repeal the Jones Act), the Puerto Rico should not have to pay. On the other hand, if a reconstruction loan genuinely creates economic growth in Puerto Rico, they would be well-positioned to service the debt.
We have an opening in useful idioting, if you're interested. No benefits, because technically you'd be an independent contractor.
The plan's repeated references to "natural death" also suggest the agency may now be opposed to assisted suicide.
It wasn't already? Most governments are.
I'm also horrified about Puerto Rico and have an ongoing panicky dread that we're kicking off the beginning of a mass deaths situation.
81: feels like that somehow goes against the spirit of the whole enterprise
I need to give Opinionated Orwell something to work with.
And it causes false expectations among family that you will see them an unreasonable amount even when living on the other side of the world and even though a significant proportion of the experience will be unadulterated misery.
OMG yes yes yes, at any degree of "flying distance from family." Also, you moved away, so you get to fly back. I am sorry to say that having a kid isn't going to take the pressure off; on the contrary...
People who breed people are the luckiest people of all.
86: I'm under no illusions on this score. We already have the travel schedule mostly agreed for 2018.
70: To the extent that I agree with you, I blame jobs with miserly vacation policies rather than the airlines or the social expectation of visiting family across big distances. As awful as travel is, a lot of the problems aren't unique to airplanes and aren't new. They'd all be easier to deal with if I didn't have to return a week after i left with absolutely no flexibility or spontaneity once it's scheduled and no buffer between work days and travel.
I didn't realize that Europe was a hellhole of nickel and diming.
How I learned this. (oh god that comic is dated over 10 years ago)
I'm also horrified about Puerto Rico and have an ongoing panicky dread that we're kicking off the beginning of a mass deaths situation.
Scares the crap out of me too.... I'm concerned there will be something akin to the cholera situation in Haiti following the earthquake in 2010.
Air travel is a lot more accessible but still somewhat class-linked, I believe! In a 2015 Gallup poll, only 45% of respondents had taken a commercial air trip in the past 12 months. (And lower numbers in official government surveys taken during the 2000s.)
AIMHMHB, once when I was taking the bus to the airport, an African woman was on the bus. As she had more stuff than she could possibly move and there are no Skycaps by where the bus lets off, I offered to help her move her bags. We were each pulling two large wheeled suitcases. (I just had small shoulder bag of my own.) I hope the one I was pulling had a corpse because any other explanation seems likely to be more bizarre. Anyway, I saw her through to the ticket counter and left as quickly as I could to avoid being involved with the whole issue of whether she knew how much it was going to cost to get all that one the plane.
55: I'm sorry that you've had to deal with this, and I'm glad to hear that things are better. My experience with Close Family Member - whose delusions were similar - was that a lot of pretty major incidents were ignored, until events that couldn't be ignored [institutionalisation, followed by multiple escapes over a couple of days, culminating in a fairly serious attempt at murder] resulted in a program of medication and other therapies. A year down the line, progress has been astonishing. It's difficult to believe that this will continue indefinitely without relapse - especially since CFM has proven adept at concealing their true state of mind and we've been burned in the past by excessive optimism - but it does seem as though the only thing that had been missing was antipsychotic medications (at non-homeopathic doses)
I've gotten a lot more willing to pay extra to suffer less. It's still cheap compared to what it used to be, and when the first leg to anywhere past Hilo is at least 2400 miles, being miserable gets old fast.
culminating in a fairly serious attempt at murder
Holy shit.
I suppose I should be thankful that my folks have been on a throw almost everything out kick for the last few years.
My parents very helpfully moved onto a sailboat after my dad retired and got rid of most of their stuff. The kids took the things we wanted and some things ended up in storage, but almost everything was sold or given away.
I should shut this browser down for a long sabbath but before I do, I had been doing some of this exact "death cleaning" stuff this month, without having a good and-then-we-burn-down-the-whole-church name to put to it. Terrible week for arson! Good week for decluttering!
Are we avoiding talking about the destruction of the ACA because it's just too horrible or is it in another thread? I can hardly bear thinking about the conversations I'm going to have to have with clients come November 1.
64.2- on a flight with a bunch of Brits from LHR to AMS no one would change seats with us so our 2 and 4 y.o. had to sit with strangers. Fortunately a short flight.
94: I'm sure you know this, but vigilance always. I also had a CFM who finally stabilized after a somewhat similar pattern and stayed stable for several years. About the time we were starting to notice that things were getting a little weird again and to wonder about medication compliance, she made a very determined attempt to kill her youngest son and then committed suicide.
Sending every good wish your way. Mental illness sucks a whole universe full of donkey balls, for the caregivers as well as the afflicted.
100: Too horrible and too characteristic of the asshole in the WH and his enablers in the Republican party. It's hard to find anything new to say, although it is truly remarkable that he's such a fucking moron that he thinks he can derive political advantage from openly blowing up the system.
102: I don't have any words. I'm so sorry to hear that.
Even after everything that has happened - over more than a decade now - my family is on a spectrum from almost complete denial of the scope and implications of CFM's illness, through to suspicion and caution, although still laced with a degree of denial. I'm at the more suspicious end, and I still catch myself talking myself out of justifiable concerns.
Thank you for sharing. It helps to be reminded not to be complacent.
100: I was going to say I thought it was covered pretty well in 54-60 here, but that's just talking about the executive order to deregulate it, basically. Nothing about the cuts to subsidies. I wasn't aware of that until just now and it seems like a bigger and more immediate deal.
100: My beloved boss (beloved from afar, I am only a lowly cog in the machine) is right now, I believe, announcing a plan to sue to stop it. So that's good.
On the one hand, life is full of unexpected miseries. On the other hand, somebody brought me a slice of cake just now.
Maybe this weekend I'll try to bake a cake instead of making meatballs.
It certainly looks worse, but the potentially better angle here is that Trump is drawing enough blood to make this a problem for Congress. Chuck and Nancy have more leverage now than before, and maybe they can make a deal that she's the aca while creating Trumpcare.
104: It's been over a decade and the kids are all well-adjusted, generally happy young adults, including the one who was attacked. It was very bad but it could have turned out a lot worse, so we hold on to that. I sympathize completely with your family's situation, particularly the challenges of dealing with someone close to you who's entitled to be treated as a fully functioning adult but in danger of ceasing to become one if they decide they don't need their meds. That's really hard on both sides.
Mental illness sucks a whole universe full of donkey balls, for the caregivers as well as the afflicted.
And for the pretend internet friends of the afflicted, I fear. But it's great for existential angst and obtaining sedatives.
Ours is still litigating travel bans.
112: That's good to hear.
... the challenges of dealing with someone close to you who's entitled to be treated as a fully functioning adult but in danger of ceasing to become one if they decide they don't need their meds.
This is really well-put, and I think I'll recycle this formulation or something similar when I next talk to my family about this stuff.
115 to 111, in case it wasn't obvious. (I wasn't being sarcastic towards text.)
Not sure if 117 is for me, but I have indeed. I've never not tried it probably.
But in the sense of thinking things are going on which it turns out are definitely not going on, and making life decisions based on those beliefs, I have tried that, though not all the time.
Good wishes and good health, people, both Presidents here and the many like Kraabie's clients. God is that going to horrible if it happens-- timing is such that insurance cos have set rates but enrollment hasn't started.
I don't recommend trying being not sarcastic. Maybe I just do not know how.
I'm really demoralized by the world right now, but as an optimist I'm hoping that Trump eliminating subsidies will bring about single payer a lot faster than if Obamacare were slowly starved of oxygen. There's also a clear source of blame (Trump, Republicans), rather than if they shivved it in a sneakier way.
Anyways, heighten the contradictions, man.
In other words, I'm hoping that Trump being horrible in a blatantly obvious way is better than him being horrible in a slightly more subtle way, which is what I feel like my personal opposition in the Trump era is reduced to.
Sorry. That should be me
Buttercup, at the risk of being pushy, I had a question for you that I emailed last weekend. I know I have accounts that I look at intermittently, hence mentioning here. No big deal if no answer.
HEY I ALREADY DID THAT GIMMICK
126
Oh sorry, I just haven't checked in awhile.
How is that movie?
I am leery of anything Spielberg, though I liked other stuff he did just before then (Minority Report and AI).
I spent the earlier part of the evening wondering if I was going to have to work late because of ww3 being announced in the wrong timezone. It's not just American poor people he wants to kill.
It's amazing to me that the whole Turkey diplomatic crisis hasn't even risen to the level of anyone even noticing much less caring. (And I can't really blame anyone).
Oh look, now we have another civil war in Iraq to go along with everything else.
Maybe I just do not know how.
I once knew a professor like that. It made me sort of love him, because I saw how it turned people off against his wishes, and that he didn't really mean it, but then again I've never minded being made fun of.
I just saw a bus unload a bunch of Asian men in suits at the Carnegie Museum. As they stepped off, each one downed the remainder of his can of Yuengling and put the empty is a bag that a guy was holding.
By analogy with the wartime genesis of the NHS, perhaps California single-payer will form as part of self-help when the big earthquake comes and DC sends no aid.
I guess that's barely even an analogy.
129: Enh, fine. Sappy, probably? The cutest micro-dystopia.
We ran into an instance of nickle-and-diming on our Scandinavian trip this year. We went through a travel agent who is a long-time family friend, who went through another agency to book our intra-Scandinavia flights. Turns out that they booked us on a special discount fare from Helsinki-Stockholm that is intended for people travelling without checked baggage, and gave us a cryptic confirmation that didn't mention that detail. Booking us on the next fare up, which included 1 checked bag each, would have been around another $50 or so total for the three of us if they had done it at the time of booking. Fixing the problem 22 hours or more in advance would have cost us 120 euros, which we could have done at the airport when we arrived in Helsinki had we known. But because of the cryptic confirmation, we didn't know about the problem until we showed up at the airport for the flight, at which point it cost us an extra 210 euros (about $250) to check our three bags for the next leg.
We're now trying to see if we can get some sort of rebate for the screwup without losing the friend, which makes it a bit delicate. But I kind of thought the point of working through a travel agent was to avoid this kind of thing when dealing with foreign travel customs with which you are unfamiliar.
Apart from a few niches, I think the main remaining point of working through a travel agent is to provide income to the travel agent. For most trips, the internet is a better travel agent than travel agents are.
OT: Aimee Mann dislikes Trump more melodiously than I do.
Thank you lk, minivet, barry & everyone! Tbh I'd be surprised if they aren't mandatory evacuated tonight, it sure looks like the fire has crossed dry creek road heading east. Just hope the vineyards slow it down.
My sister's family was recently invited to a free dinner at TGI Friday's if they listened to a travel agent schpiel. Seems like a low-budget take on the old time share scam.
Yes, DQ, keep us updated. It sounds terrible.
My sister-in-law's parents lost their home (we assume - I don't think anyone's been allowed back in yet.
My favourite uncle, who died in early July, is apparently the victim of what is now known as "caregiver fraud," to the tune of about $84K. His caregiver apparently took out cash advances against his credit card, all in dribs and drabs, $100 there, another $250 there, all adding to up about $84K.
But how could this happen?! you might well ask (yeah, that was my first question too). Well, my uncle was always a bit of a "hail-fellow-well-met" type; and he and my aunt always kept open house to any and all comers. Anyone they took a liking to, anyone who caught their fancy, he was theirs, which is to say, he was "ours." Ah now, now there's our Katy/Robbie/Nancy/Caregiver, let's give him our credit card and our PIN. Dude took them for about $84,000 dollars. I still admire them for their open-house policy, even though, holy shit!
What did they call being defrauded by a caregiver before they called it "caregiver fraud"?
(Also, my sympathies on the loss of your uncle.)
Anyway, I learned that people call old people all day with scam offers and that when you tell those callers to go fuck themselves because they're being evil, they just persist. Like maybe if they stick to their guns I'm going to think it really is Microsoft calling.
The nursing home head got mad at my dad because he would insist on carrying money. She trusted her staff but she didn't want to risk false accusations when (as was almost inevitable) he couldn't find the money.
Mr. JPJ did a clerkship with a judge who was pretty much, "Yeah, whatever, that's too crazy, let's ameliorate" when it came to drug offenses. I mean, the judge was actively opposed to the existing drug laws, and to the draconian penalties. When it came to scammers preying upon the weak and the elderly, though, the judge was pretty much, "Let's throw the book at 'em; let's give them whatever we've got."
I have to say, I agreed with the judge. Nothing more contemptible than preying upon the vulnerable elderly, nothing more vile and loathsome than violating their trust.
That's why I'm going for the candy-from-babies score.
148: I once worked at a nursing home as a "dietary aide." I did some prep in the kitchen; and served meals in the dining hall; and took cookies and juice up to the floors. I'll never forget that French-Canadian nurse calling out, "Ah, mon Dieu, surely I must be in Purgatory?!"
WWII vet in a wheelchair used to stop me as I was going in, and announce to the room that I was "his true little lady." I made allowances for his military service, though, and it didn't much bother me.
104-year old Scottish lady who could neither see nor hear used to somehow know me whenever I entered her room. "Ooh, is that Mary Catherine JPJ?" she would ask. She wore a pink satin bed jacket; and her walls were covered in newspaper clippings from the Queen's Coronation from 1952. She had run a tea room up at Maniwaki, which was a rough lumber town; but she was a lot tougher than she looked.
OT but the headline here is just as good as the article: https://munchies.vice.com/en_us/article/vbmz8d/trump-supporters-enraged-by-18th-century-custard-recipe
Thinking of your people this morning, DQ. Shit just doesn't stop. My parents have indeed described the Monday morning loss of their house as decluttering. 5% of Santa Rosa's housing stock is gone, and that's before last night's return of the wind.
THANK YOU Ventura Fire Department!!!! They held the line at Dry Creek Road so the queen mum & princess royal continue to hold fast at balmoral.
That must be a kind of demoralizing place for a fire department to make its stand.
Anyway, good luck for Kymz and DQ and their people, and I hope things keep getting better for Togolosh and his lady. And good wishes to anyone else having crises, because there seem to be lots.
98, 99: I've been doing the Death Cleaning for both the dead and me for some time, didn't know it had a name.
I do it until the urge to pour gasoline everywhere and flick a Bic becomes strong and instead do something else for a day or three. It's a sad task but sometimes satisfying to see a possession adopted instead of heaving it into the dumpster.
Film from the California fires looks truly awful. good luck and good wishes to everyone affected. I imagine the National Guard are out?
161: Sadly, not enough and not fast enough. The majority of firefighting is being done by prison labor and local departments. They have been working days without rest. Reinforcements from other states were supposed to start arriving yesterday. Emergency response nationwide is stretched very thin, and it's not like we have a competent government.
I should say that CA's National Guardsmen have been deployed. But I don't think help is pouring in from other states.
154: oof, sorry to hear that.
Obviously great damage has already been done, but it appears at least the firefighting resources are finally coming to bear enough to soon be preventing further spread. Now looking at the state fire agency map, the Atlas fire east and north of Napa is now 45% contained; Nuns fire between Napa and Santa Rosa, 10%; Tubbs fire north of Santa Rosa, 44%. A couple of days ago these were all in the single digits, or zero.
Totally unclear and inconsistent info out there as to whether fire is heading down to/has arrived at valley floor at Oakville Grade, which would not be good! But would still leave The French Laundry & a shit ton of expensive vines between fire and balmoral so hoping capitalism is the ultimate bulwark. Finger to the west closer to them still seems to be active but on the other side of Dry Creek Rd whew.
This is potentially super bad! https://twitter.com/ThomsonVyrds/status/919314880968065024
Yikes! Hope they're able to make progress quickly on containing the fires.
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Not exactly in keeping with the tone of the thread, but it's the only active one, so: I was just elected president of the state Young Democrats. Should be an interesting position to be in.
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Congrats! One of your powers as President is to make any thread active. If I read the by-laws right.
Thanks! I think everyone technically has that power, though.
169: Congrats, Teo! We knew you when...
There's also an open seat in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It couldn't hurt to ask about it.
175 Should be a few more than one.
Congrats teo!
Congrats teo! Balmoral's spirits are strong, can't ask for more than that. Thanks everyone for good wishes, super appreciated, truly.
I am currently corresponding with a Jean-Guy type in both official languages/les deux langues officielles of Canada.
"It is overwhelming to have this contact with you," he writes.
Well, that's flattering (the French!), unless maybe it sounds a bit stalkerish?
If somebody has a paper copy of the Washington Post, trying mailing it to Larry Flynt to see if he will give you $10 million dollars.
Thanks, everyone. I was running unopposed after the previous president resigned, so it's not much of an accomplishment electorally, but I think the organization is in a good place and I have some ideas for how to expand its reach and build on previous successes. So it's an exciting opportunity.
You sound like a politician already. Reprobates for America!
You sound like a politician already.
It's always a risk once you start getting involved in politics. But I may admittedly come by it naturally.
Do they buy a carpetbag for you, or you do have to bring your own?
I think the Overton window has moved enough that UBCB is worth pursuing.
running unopposed after the previous president resigned, so it's not much of an accomplishment electorally
So you're saying you skillfully manipulated the system behind the scenes. Only a matter of time before you're on the floor of the legislature, threatening to strike out at opponents like a mink.
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Questionably good news. Looks like the hurricane has moved far enough west that most of my peeps in Ireland won't be hit directly. On the other hand, Cork, Limerick, Galway, Belfast and Derry will still get it in the neck, as well as a bunch of smaller places, so not that good.
Climate change, what climate change? There have always been hurricanes in Ireland.
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There used to be hurricanes in Ireland but St. Patrick drove them away.
They did have the Oíche na Gaoithe Mór once upon a time, but it doesn't look like that was a hurricane per se. Glad it's moving west--looked like it was a direct path to hit all of Ireland and Scotland and big chunks of England and Wales.
Still on track to hit half of them, but should be down to a storm by the time it reaches Glasgow. Survivors of Sandy know that that's fine, then.
I would suspect that the meteorological models for hurricanes in that part of the Atlantic are crap, given the lack of relevant historical data they have to work with.
Looks like Ireland is basically on lock down now. Oof. Good luck.
You temperate-zoners are so puny and fearful.
It's exactly 30 years since the Great Storm that killed 18 people and knocked down great swathes of woodland in England. Puny, fearful temperate-zoner that I am, I slept right through it. It wasn't until I was well into my morning commute that I thought to question why the roads were covered with branches and broken glass, or why Highgate tube station was closed so I had to stay on the bus to get into town. Only when I reached the Euston Road and the blown-out windows of the Capital Radio tower came into view did it finally penetrate my half-asleep brain that something pretty dramatic had happened.
I was once in a blizzard so cold that I died.
Anyway, who all wants to see what comes out in discovery for this lawsuit?