The Vent and Rant Thread

[Hemmi]

It was a good 6-7 weeks for me before the cough went entirely.

[Rumpelteazer]

I got my Covid booster on the 18th, the next day I was a bit tired, my arm was sore and all my joints were achy and stiff. But otherwise I felt fine. Normally the day after I feel like I've got a bad cold, but that didn't happen.

Until yesterday when I woke up with a sore bump where I got the shot and feeling like I got a bad head cold, minus the stuffy nose and sore throat. This morning I'm feeling a little bit better but still not great. I've taken some ibuprofen and hopefully that helps because this afternoon we're going to go explore the neighbourhood of our new house and after that we're going out to dinner. Just to be sure I've done a Covid test, which was negative.

I've had delayed reaction before to both the Covid booster and the flu shot, just when you think you're in the clear it hits you.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Hitch

I dunno, Rumple--has anybody ever had that "enabler" conversation with you? I love ya, but DANG.

Your mum, if memory serves, is my age. Late 60's right? Or am I mis-remembering? Are your folks older than I am? I don't believe so. And I'm damn sure old enough to live with the consequences of my own damn mistakes and stupidity.(If they are a LOT older...that's a different convo.)

Why is her failure to think back or think this through YOUR problem?

Hitch

Because there won't be any food for Christmas. So Rumple doesn't get to eat. That is a problem.

[JSWolf]

Next year Christmas is cancelled. The lights are not green friendly. Go Jewish and light candles instead.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Because there won't be any food for Christmas. So Rumple doesn't get to eat. That is a problem.

OR, Rumple could bring her own sandwich, That's what I'd do. There are limits, Jon.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Next year Christmas is cancelled. The lights are not green friendly. Go Jewish and light candles instead.

Yes, because we all know that candles are so much less fire-friendly than Xmas lights. (Having been raised in a 400-y.o. house that was all wood, pretty much and all flammable crap, with loonies in the family that insisted on real trees and real candles, in those selfsame damned real trees, I'm all for Xmas lights and even fake trees that are not flammable. Just sayin'. Having a fraught night, on Xmas eve, praying that nothing sparked, kindled, etc. all night long whilst you laid in your holiday bed, hoping against hope that you wouldn't burn alive...just sayin'. And before anybody asks the silly, yes, of course the cursed things were purportedly out, but fire...fire is insidious and sneaky. )

Hitch

[badgoodDeb]

Originally Posted by Hitch

OR, Rumple could bring her own sandwich, That's what I'd do. There are limits, Jon.



Yes, because we all know that candles are so much less fire-friendly than Xmas lights. (Having been raised in a 400-y.o. house that was all wood, pretty much and all flammable crap, with loonies in the family that insisted on real trees and real candles, in those selfsame damned real trees, I'm all for Xmas lights and even fake trees that are not flammable. Just sayin'. Having a fraught night, on Xmas eve, praying that nothing sparked, kindled, etc. all night long whilst you laid in your holiday bed, hoping against hope that you wouldn't burn alive...just sayin'. And before anybody asks the silly, yes, of course the cursed things were purportedly out, but fire...fire is insidious and sneaky. )

Hitch

They left the candles lit overnight?!???

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

They left the candles lit overnight?!???

From what I read in what Hitch wrote, the candles were supposed to be put out. OTOH, paranoia says that they may not have been.

Originally Posted by Hitch

And before anybody asks the silly, yes, of course the cursed things were purportedly out, but fire...fire is insidious and sneaky. )

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

They left the candles lit overnight?!???

No no no no. They're meant to be extinguished, of course but...it used to be a lotta lotta candles, and it was a very old house (400 and change), flammable from one end to the other (ask my late brother, who ignited the kitchen not once but twice), and of course, we had cats and dogs and kids and clumsy, half-lit Xmas Eve adults...oy. The possibility that a wee teeny spark could catch or simmer along...

Originally Posted by DNSB

From what I read in what Hitch wrote, the candles were supposed to be put out. OTOH, paranoia says that they may not have been.

Exactly. I mean, like all small children, I slept fine as a child but once I hit around...12? 13? I stopped sleeping Xmas Eve worth a damn. I must have snuck downstairs IDK how many times, to make sure we weren't all going to burn to death in our beds, lol. You remember the old tune, "over the river and through the woods," at my house on Xmas eve for me it was "down through the sitting room, well past the parlor room, via the foyer we go..." to the formal living room with the cursed tree.

Of course, to be fair, nope, we never all burned to death in our beds. But I do know of at least ONE occasion when a candle came loose and we all played hell for scramble finding it, putting it out and all that. And I also know that pretty much everybody stayed up for the best part of two more hours, to ensure that it was out, out and oh, yeah...out.

My family was big on Christmas, as a family gathering time and tradition. Parties, family, gift-ies, and all that. My grandfather (I never really appreciated this until I'd aged into appreciating it) used to put antlers on his damn head, tied on somehow, and crawl around in the ice and snow and cold, with only the horns visible, outside the windows on the far side of the house so that my then baby sister and brother (over the years) would espy reindeer antlers. God love him, he had to be 65 if he was a day. (With really really old east coast houses, the equally-old window bottoms are close to the ground so you can do this and be "visible" as one of "eight tiny reindeer." I wish I knew who the hell ever thought that one up!) I wouldn't do that now to save my damn life.

I think it was two years after that, when we finally "bit the bullet" and went to Xmas lights like 20th-Century folks. BUT, I do remember sleeping like the dead that Xmas Eve!

Hitch

[Deskisamess]

Speaking of candles on Christmas trees...I remember my dad talking about his childhood memories of Christmas. He rarely talked about his childhood, so this is a rare memory.

He remembered having a real tree with just a few candles, that they would light for just a few minutes each night. His father would stand by the tree with a bucket of water. It left an impression on him, he talked about being afraid of the fire. This would have been 1936 or so, he was born in 1929.

I don't recall him mentioning anything else about his childhood. He was the youngest of 6 I think, the oldest was 20 years older than him.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Deskisamess

Speaking of candles on Christmas trees...I remember my dad talking about his childhood memories of Christmas. He rarely talked about his childhood, so this is a rare memory.

He remembered having a real tree with just a few candles, that they would light for just a few minutes each night. His father would stand by the tree with a bucket of water. It left an impression on him, he talked about being afraid of the fire. This would have been 1936 or so, he was born in 1929.

I don't recall him mentioning anything else about his childhood. He was the youngest of 6 I think, the oldest was 20 years older than him.

Oh oh yes.The buckets. Two buckets of water and two of sand. Trust me, when things went to hell, my mother would be shrieking "the water, throw the water, not the sand!" (the oak floors were original with the first house. Water could be mopped up but she was convinced the sand would wreak havoc on those floors. To be fair, I would not have wanted to try to replace a chunk of those floors either....I remember when we redid the bricks in the wall, and trying to match those? Jesus wept...)

MWAHAHAHA. Dang, you've just invoked some old memories that had sunk to the bottom of the morass. MWAHAHAHAHA.....

Hitch

[ownedbycats]

I finally saw the doctor and... the stupid ear infection had already healed on its own, sigh.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by Hitch

I think it was two years after that, when we finally "bit the bullet" and went to Xmas lights like 20th-Century folks. BUT, I do remember sleeping like the dead that Xmas Eve!

Hitch

"Dateline: 20th century--Grand old house destroyed by electrical fire caused by faulty Christmas lights...."

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

I finally saw the doctor and... the stupid ear infection had already healed on its own, sigh.

You know, we need some sort of discount card that we can present to those in the HCB (HealthCareBiz) about this type of event. Something like:

"Having suffered, treated myself, and healed entirely, before I could even get in to see you, I declare that this visit was FREE."

And just leave it.

Warning, ranty:

Spoiler:

(A very very long time ago, seriously, the early 80's, I was suffering with adult cystic acne which was horribly painful and of course, fugly. The fugly was unhappy-making, natch but the painful was no bueno. My much-loved dermatologist--sniffle--had had to move across country to relocate with his researcher wife. He blithely ignored my suggestions about divorce, for some reason. Anyway...) So, I had a new-to-me dermatologist.

I go in there, he looks at my face and i swear to GOD, he looks at me and says, "Well, what do you want ME to do about it?"

Suffice to say, I never saw him face-to-face (yes, yes, some punnage in there) again. But..

A month or so later, his BILL shows up in the mail. For like...I think it was $125.00.

Scottsdale, amirite? Anyway...I was livid. I mean...hot. So, I copied it for my records and wrote across it "Well, what do you want ME to do about it?" and sent it right back. That putz had the nerve to try to have his in-house bill collector call me to pay it, and I told her exactly what the note meant, why I wrote it and how I felt about being treated the way I was. And I never heard from them again. They never made another attempt to get paid, etc.

Man, I was some kinda pissed-off. SURE, agreed, it's not pancreatic cancer or the like. No argument. It wasn't going to kill me. And I get that and I did, even then. It was just painful and hideous and all that. it also impinged on my career--I mean, who expects to deal with a Veep of Development with ACNE, for crying out loud? 30's or not? Sheesh. but surely, he could have said something even remotely less...vexing? Annoying? Cavalier? Only a person who has never had a subcutaneous adult acne cyst--they never head and can take 6-12 MONTHS to heal, yes, really--could act like such an ass about it.

Anyway, I mean it. I have an OBGYN, same thing it literally takes MONTHS, like 3-6 MONTHS to get in. What do they expect you to do in the meantime? I had to hire a concierge doctor--not kidding--just so that if I get the flu or a cold or the usual crap that you actually see a doctor FOR, I could get in the same week-ten days, and not 10 months. Why even HAVE a PCP (Primary Care Physician) if you can't get in and see them?

Hitch

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by ApK

"Dateline: 20th century--Grand old house destroyed by electrical fire caused by faulty Christmas lights...."

LOL...OMG, yeah, probably. As I am the last man standing, so to speak, in the fam, for us to go down in flames once and forever would mean I'd have to burn down our AZ house, which isn't all so grand or so old, lol.

Oh and yeah, I'd need Xmas lights, which went the way of the Dodo when the Flying Wallendas knocked over our last Xmas tree (yes, real, with ornaments, lights the whole schmear, CRASH BOOM!, all over the living room in the middle of the night, sigh...cats...I'm 100% sure that many of you know whereof I speak and if memory serves, Pooh does fersure.)

Hitch

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Hitch

You know, we need some sort of discount card that we can present to those in the HCB (HealthCareBiz) about this type of event. Something like:

"Having suffered, treated myself, and healed entirely, before I could even get in to see you, I declare that this visit was FREE."

And just leave it.

I guess it was free in any case (Canada, like Europe and many other parts of the world has universal health care).