Times of minor unpleasantness

[atog]

yeah I figured they were just scrambling. I was headed down to the lobby with our handcart when they met me at the top floor, straining to move these fuckers out the elevator.

it's one of those "if I could afford a car" moments. If I could just go to the curbside and load $350 worth of cat food and cat sand into my own vehicle and drive it safely home and unload it in OSHA-approved load sizes and parcel filling limits and all that.

It would still cost more per year than our entire annual cat care budget including Jake's dental work. Still feels like shit to get a shipment in this state.

[nosimpleway]

Usually my daughter gets sick, and I'm a bit under the weather for 24 to 36 hours before it bounces. This last cold was the opposite, she was feverish and miserable without medicine but her usual self with a hit of children's ibuprofen, and shook it off inside of two days, whereas I was laid flat for four days before the chills and weakness went away.

but now that that's over, my immune system has set its sights on the real enemy: my own skin

I had a couple eczema patches on my wrists before I got sick, and they got better while I was ill with whatever the hell that was, and now they're all over my hands, up my arms, onto my face. There's a patch on the little patch of skin between my nostrils, which sucks, and on the inside of my right ear, which is worse.

So I'm just sort of methodically implementing at-home treatments one by one before I make a doctor's appointment, so I can definitively say that the usual first line of defense -- humidity and lotion and cool showers -- ain't working.

[Caithness]

that sounds majorly unpleasant to me!

[nosimpleway]

Doctor said it was scabies and prescribed me a pesticide to rub into my skin.

The pharmacy was out of the stuff, because good lord I can't find a pharmacy that isn't utter fucking clownshoes no matter what. So before I could get the stuff to kill off the tiny bugs infesting my skin, things just... started clearing up on their own. I've still got a few marks from where the skin broke rather than just getting really inflamed, but skin mites don't just go away on their own. It really was just extra-dry skin and an overactive inflammatory system.

So now that that's healing I've got a lasting sinus headache and congestion. I can't just not have anything wrong, what would be the fun in that?

[Mongrel]

We finally caught the rona
We finally caught the rona
We finally caught the rooanaaaaaa
But we're lucky it's not so bad

Seriously, the strain we got just feels like a cold, thank fuck. We're not laid on our backs or unable to function or anything like that. Starr has a minor moss of taste so that's about it for actual rona-specific symptoms (yes, this is after confirmed home testing).

Hopefully it stays this mild and then ends tidily. Guess all those jabs were good for something after all, huh?

[Büge]

A hawk massacred a pigeon on our balcony today. It wrestled it to the ground and started eating it while it was still alive. Pretty much eviscerated the poor bastard and gorged itself until all that was left was the wings and some scraps of viscera.



Ollie and Minnie enjoyed the show, though.

[Mongrel]

Ordered a new tablet last month, found out it was never delivered, at least not to me.

Postie took a picture of the package at "our" door (what a lovely new trend of completely useless performative nonsense) as if that would stand as proof of anything at all. First thing I notice is that the door's unit number was very oddly awkwardly cropped out. Second thing I notice that that the details (doorknob, marks on door, carpet edge) actually show a completely different door than ours. So it's not proof of delivery, it's proof of fuckup. Good job you idiot.

Now comes the hassle of trying to get someone to cave so I can get a replacement. At $700, I'm sure there will be no end of pissing and whinging and trying to avoid blame. I really hope this doesn't end with me having to ask for a chargeback and ending up with no tablet.

[Silversong]

I made a new friend and was texting them, and it turns out that was a bother.

You know how every time you reach out to anyone your greatest fear is that you're being a bother?

Just me?

[Mongrel]

>:

You're not alone. All too often my thought WRT friends I haven't talked to in a long time is "Well, if they wanted to speak to me, they would.", and this triply true in my head if I was the last one to initiate contact.

At least some nicer news on this was a longtime friend I had avoided messaging for a couple months because they were very busy getting married and moving and lots of related stuff, then they replied the other day and sent wedding photos and I'm so genuinely happy it all worked out because he and his new wife are both people who kind of thought they would never find anyone and had basically resigned themselves to this before they met.

[Silversong]

Glad you got that contact with happy wedding photos!

I know some people I know are just bad at texting, and it's not that they don't want to speak to me, and those people I'll just never hear from again if I don't initiate. It's hard.

I was hoping I'd wake up and feel better but whole body still feels like crying. Maybe tomorrow.

[nosimpleway]

I just went through my text messages and deleted a bunch of appointment reminders and delivery notifications and other junk, and dug so deep that I found old message threads from friends I hadn't talked to in a year or two, or since notifying them that my wife had died.

I was the last to send a message in every one of them, often the only one sending messages for a couple of weeks.

At this point I just let it go.

[Silversong]

Oh, I wasn't just upset, I was upset and also PTSD triggered. That makes sense.

On the plus side, the bouts of anxiety and fear from the last several days have gotten better since I put that together.

[Thad]

I was melting some butter in a coffee mug and I swear to God that thing was only in the microwave for 30 seconds and when I went to get it out the handle burned my fingers so badly they've got blisters.

Like, what the actual fuck? It is hard to imagine a more defective product than a ceramic coffee mug that can't go in a microwave and isn't, like, a joke from The Simpsons.


I was hoping to have some time to play some games this four-day weekend, but looks like it's time for another round of "What can I play using only my left hand?"

Maybe pick Earthbound back up?

[Mongrel]

Jesus, that sucks.

I understand your confusion though - I've boiled water in the microwave in teacups and while that's obviously still quite hot I it wouldn't burn my fingers half so bad just taking it out by the handle (and that's after a full 90 seconds in our dumpy old microwave). Is your microwave like 20,000 watts or something???

I assume you don't have any high-powered steroid cream? That actually works really well for spot burns (I have some for the indolent lymphoma crud that hangs around in spots here or there my skin).

[Thad]

There's something really fucking weird about this mug in particular. I've (mildly) burned myself on it before but I figured 30 seconds couldn't possibly get it that hot.

It went straight in the garbage once it cooled enough for me to handle it (and after I poured the butter onto my waffles, obviously).

I've got other mugs that get a little too hot after a minute and a half or so, but nothing like that.

(And I have one set of mugs I really like that can go in for two minutes and still be comfortable to handle, but they're a little oversized -- I think 12 oz instead of the usual 8? -- and I can never quite get the water/coldbrew ratio right for my morning coffee so I stopped using them. Maybe it's time I gave them another shot. I don't like a weak cup of coffee but it beats blisters on my fingers.)

[Mongrel]

Wondering if it was a cheap mug with a nonzero amount of metal in the ceramic or glaze (yikes), in which case it's extra good that you threw it out for what would be probably obvious reasons.

[Niku]

I was hoping to have some time to play some games this four-day weekend, but looks like it's time for another round of "What can I play using only my left hand?"

why in christ were you trying to use the mug with your right hand

[Niku]

also i just finally found a use for Delta on my phone since i generally don't like to play emulators on my phone, but buttonless DS games are a good fit! Finally getting around to playing Ghost Trick for real. so that's my recommendation.

[Thad]

I was hoping to have some time to play some games this four-day weekend, but looks like it's time for another round of "What can I play using only my left hand?"

why in christ were you trying to use the mug with your right hand

haha

it's funny because i have painful burns on my skin

[Friday]

have you tried rotating your invisible temp ban 180 degrees cassius thundercats

(sorry abut your hand, i hate burns they suck)