This Happened

[Phoebe]

That happens here too. Other times you get the message about 5 years later than you were supposed to. I can't figure it out. I just want to be able to order my crates of glitter glue in peace and solitude.

It's almost Friday. What is that song where Sia is always singing about holding on for dear life? Just make it through one more day. I think she's talking about partying but it really applies to the work week.

[Phoebe]

Oh, lolz this morning are found everywhere. I'm sorry for, you know, people's inability to separate their personal issues from their job issues. Sorry for ya. I'm sorry I go on existing as I am. Big inconvenience, whoopsie! Sorry you can't tell the truth, maybe as a life-condition, maybe not even to yourself! But I know the truth about why you do what you do, and you know I know.

Haha not ten minutes passes before we can add apologies both for trying to give someone money and to seek money for someone who deserves it. And then I'm sorry that I'm a bad mother for making you wear a jacket. I am just a problem sort of person; isn't it wonderful? I could never maintain a list like this because it's all I would do. I'm sorry that I have to save all your emails because you have a problem with sticking to what you say, in a way that makes it kind of impossible to do one's job!

[Zen]

[Phoebe]

The first time we discovered this notifications problem it was quite unfortunate. Those who have tablets attached to the account were notified about presents being purchased for them.

Otherwise Thank God It's Friday that's all I can say.

[Phoebe]

If you are indisposed to find women humorous, then you will tend to think men who make small and pleasant jokes during a job interview are very agreeable, whilst women who do the same are dull.

In other news, this has been quite a Friday and it's not even lunchtime.

I find it hilarious that people who do a full Mariah Carey "I don't know her" routine are nevertheless obsessively worried about what other people do and how they live their life. I will just repeat this word: therapy. It can work. Good luck. If someone bothers you that much by just existing in the world, maybe seek help.

[Zen]

So... as I mentioned in , I received a notice in the mail a while back about class action lawsuit against the makers of Provigil, the original drug that I took to fight my chronic fatigue problems from fibromyalgia. The suit had been for price fixing and delaying the release of generics of the drug. In order to get in on the settlement, I had to get the records of my purchases of the drug between 2006 and 2012. That was the rub...

I contacted CVS, which is where I purchase the drug, and they said they don't have records that far back in the store, but that the corporate office can get them. So I called the number they gave me. The guy on the other end knew exactly what I was going to ask about when I mentioned the dates I was interested in. I'm guessing they had other customers calling. They sent me my purchase records for the time period, but... it arrived THE DAY AFTER THE DUE DATE FOR THE LAWSUIT! I was supposed to have mailed the claim form the day before the data I needed for it arrived. It was literally a day short!

I calculated the total and sent it anyway, dating the form the correct date and hoping they would think it was a problem with the post office, but not expecting my submission to be accepted.

Well, today we got home from an extended weekend with our daughter (not for particularly good reasons... but things are fine) and found that we had a check waiting for us for nearly $1000 dollars! The total amount that I had spent on the drug during that time period was somewhere around $1400. That's a pretty good chunk of what I paid!

[Phoebe]

Wooo hooooo! This is like that moment in the game of Life or Monopoly where you get something that says Sudden Windfall, $1000!

[Zen]

Yeah... almost makes up for the two accidents that we're STILL waiting for the repair shop to finish fixing on my wife's Rav4... (two weeks and counting that they've had it... it will only cost us two insurance deductibles, but we've been dealing with life with one car for two freaking weeks! It will SUPPOSEDLY be done on Friday... but it was originally supposed to be done on January 31!)

[Phoebe]

A totally random thing just happened that caused us to drop a grand on tires, and now another 500 on a house repair. So you know... It comes and goes.

[Zen]

Yeah... my wife and I always joke that the house communicates with the bank and knows when there is extra money in the account, then breaks something to take it away. If it doesn't have anything to break, it will pass the information on to one of the cars. "But wait, house! That's for next semester's college fees! STOP!!!!"

[Mike]

We had about 15 years where we ALWAYS owed money to the hospital. We'd make our monthly payments and every time we paid off the last baby or the last emergency room visit or whatever, inevitably it's time for a broken nose or a new cat scan for a mystery ailment or another baby.

Like clockwork.

[Ronster]

When I get any kind of surplus I look around like it's a trap...

[Tahlvin]

[Zen]

Sounds a bit like my grandmother, except she was a generation older and had the Great Depression as an excuse for not wanting to spend money. When my dad was around 11 or 12, he broke his ankle playing football. Her solution was to have him stay in bed until he could walk on it again. Then, over a decade later when he had enlisted in the army, he slid into third base during a baseball game with his army buddies and it ballooned up. He re-broke the ankle. When the army doctor looked at the x-ray he said, "This didn't happen today!" The break had never set correctly. He had to wear an ankle brace whenever he did anything remotely athletic, even bowling, for the rest of his life. Interestingly, it seems that weak ankles runs in the family. When my sister was a senior in high school, she broke the same ankle THREE times. (She has since had a total hip replacement on that side, since it actually decreased the length of her leg enough that is caused a permanent displacement that eventually lead to really nasty hip arthritis. She wore a lift in her shoe for it, but it wasn't enough, evidently...) The same year that she was breaking her ankle, I sprained the same ankle three times. One of the times it was bad enough that it did tendon damage in addition to ligament damage. At this point, I can twist that ankle without any real residual pain. The ligaments and tendons are so freaking stretched out that they don't give a damn if I twist it. There will be a momentary twinge of pain, but no lasting effects...

Sadly my son recently twisted his ankle walking along on the sidewalks on the campus of his college. He said he just stepped wrong, which reminded me of what my sister said about one of the times she broke her ankle... I warned him that he should probably wear a brace for a while and look into some way to strengthen it... It also is bothering him when fronts come through... Gotta love that genetic heritage!

[Eliahad]

Yes. Genetics fucking rule.

[Phoebe]

I'm feeling excited about the whole combination of genetics with probabilities. Under doors number 1 through 3, a very bad outcome! But will it be door number 4? Oh all of this fun we can have with a human body.

[Tahlvin]

[Phoebe]

Noooooooooooooooo! No. Just thinking of the bright someday future.

[Tahlvin]

We bought a sofa and two chairs yesterday. They'll be delivered in 8 weeks. Nothing like picking out fabrics and patterns to see how incompatible my wife and I are when it comes to what we like. That's when the words, "Whatever you want, dear!" are most important in a marriage.

[Tahlvin]

While we were sofa shopping yesterday, the mailman took out our mailbox. He got stuck in a frozen rut from the snowplow and couldn’t stop before hitting it. But the thing was held on by gorilla tape already after being taken out by a snowplow a couple years ago, so no big deal. I can’t replace it right now, because I’ll need to replace the whole post and move it back from the road a few inches, but I can’t do that when there’s a foot of snow and the ground is frozen. So I just put it in position as best as possible with the broken support arm and wrapped a bunch more gorilla tape around it all. It seems to be strong enough that hopefully they’ll continue to deliver our mail.