Like a lot of people in the US of A, I am taking a long weekend. Posting may be a little light for a bit. So here’s an open thread for everyone else taking a long weekend. Or not. Use this thread for anything that’s not personal. Like misogyny, politics, kitties, you know the drill. (Though kitties are welcome in all threads, of course.)
I am hoping my long weekend turns out a bit better than that of the people in the Australian movie of that name from 1978, which I keep meaning to see. Apparently their little beach vacation doesn’t go so well, and they are attacked by … nature? At one point, I believe, they face off against an enraged dugong. (No, really.) The movie was recently remade, but apparently the remake wasn’t as good.
Stay tuned for more reviews of movies I haven’t seen and that I’m just giving vague impressions of based on things I’ve heard somewhere.
RE: Argenti
No couch is too cramped! No trailer bed is too tight!
I am tiny! I am a mite! I… am… SMALL MAN!
Love it! 😀
My definition of king size is straight from Goldilocks – not too big, not too small, but juuuuust right. (An inconvenient fact when it comes to him pinching my clothes.)
I’ve often said that my dating history is like playing Goldilocks, but with men instead of porridge. Have to taste multiple flavors to find the one that’s just right! Presumably that’s misandry.
So, friend with cancer is having a terrible time with her insurance company & the issue of getting a wheelchair that actually fits her — the one they gave her doesn’t provide enough support for her back/neck so she can’t sit in it longer than about 10 minutes without severe pain. Also, medical transportation to her appointments is something they are trying to make into a day-long ordeal. This is in the US. Anyone who has any tips about getting US insurance companies to fucking behave like human beings matter is invited to share them here or email me at my ‘nym at gmail.
I’m a little confused about size. Part of is that I don’t have binocular vision and am very bad at estimating size, distance, and volume. The other part is that I’m larger than most of my friends, and smaller than most of my family. In any given situation, I’m either hulking over everyone, or being hulked over. My youngest nephew is about to hit a growth spurt and get taller than me, any second now. And then I’ll be the shortest one in the family again.
Irrational blindspot. I’ve been seeing a lot of that lately, too. A person is perfectly reasonable, until you hit this one topic that they’re unable to be rational about, and then they turn strange. (I do it too, I’ve noticed. I’m trying, but I’m finding that it’s less stressful for me to just avoid that particular topic(s) of conversation.)
The fact that the person is normally rational and reasonable makes the blind spot even worse, because they’re accustomed to having credibility and respect, and then all of a sudden they turn into Homer Simpson, and don’t realize it, and they don’t understand why people’s reactions change.
” Anyone who has any tips about getting US insurance companies to fucking behave like human beings matter is invited to share them here or email me at my ‘nym at gmail.”
Threats of violence generally work. But yeah, morally questionable. Not morally questionable is get a lawyer to deal with it (do we have any lawyers around?!). Hell, combine the two — threaten to get lawyers involved.
If you have the wherewithal to do it — demand a supervisor, and their boss, and theirs, etc, until you get a fucking real solution. Become that person they want to make happy so no one there has to deal with you again!
My mother used to work for benesight => united healthcare claims review, I’ll ask her in the am.
Thanks, Argenti — you were one of the people I hoped might answer.
Complication: I have no standing myself to intervene, so I’m in the place of offering advice to friend’s mother. (Who supports and loves her daughter, but neither of them is exactly assertive.)
I’m finally, under messy and unhappy circumstances, quitting the (sucky temporary part-time) job that I unsuccessfully tried to quit a year ago, leaving the important project only I can salvage in a bad state. There’s a demotivator for this.
katz, I’m not sure whether to say Sorry, or Congratulations. I guess Sorry that it’s under messy/unhappy circumstances, and Congratulations that you’re not having to go to a sucky job any more?
Oh god I’m at work don’t make me laugh like that
Good luck, auggz! I hope the Wellbutrin works for you.
@cloudiah
Sorry to hear about your friend having trouble with insurance 🙁 I don’t have any advice/ experience in it though.
Speaking as a long-term office drone, be a squeaky wheel. Be relentless. Call, and call back, and ask to speak to the supervisor, manager. Keep calling. Copy them on open letters to the editor (I’ve had a few problem customers who got what they wanted, in hopes it would keep them from writing a letter to the editor of the local paper.) Eventually, they’ll give you anything to make you shut up and go away.
And it’s even better if you know exactly what the rules are, and can document that you’re meeting the criteria.
OT for cats, but I was away for the weekend, and I came home and now I have been mauled by my cat (with cuddles) because every time I go away she thinks I’ve left her forever and ever and omg I was never gonna come home and she missed me soooooo much!!! Complete with very vocal complaints about it and her trying to push my laptop off my lap so that she can sit on it and deciding to sit on my chest instead since I won’t let her push my laptop to the ground.
CAT ANGER CONSEQUENCES!!! Good luck!
Also, what unimaginative said — even if your friend’s mother just makes a point of calling at, idk, lunch time, everyday, they’ll get sick of dealing with her soon enough.
My mother suggested getting the ADA involved btw. If nothing else, this is their area of expertise.
We enlisted the help of the RN who visits once a week, and with one phone call she arranged for another wheelchair to be delivered so my friend could try it out — if it works for her, they’ll probably just let her keep it. And we figured out a better way to get her to the doctor, again using the nurse’s experience.
I <3 nurses.
HAPPY DANCE! I just finished getting my front door bolt re-keyed so that neither my father nor my brother can get in. o/ Nothing like feeling safe in your own home.
p.s. Thanks, you guys are wonderful. I’m also arming friend’s mother with some sample “scripts” she can use when she’s stuck in a bureaucratic tangle.
W00t for nurses!
And congrats amandajane5 (did I see that calling you AJ was fine?)
AJ – congrats!
cloudiah – also yay for nurses!
falconer –
He did it to me yesterday with that line. He has NO SHAME.
I’m probably going to suffer the dreaded CAT ANGER CONSEQUENCES! I just lint rolled her — she hates the brush, but will tolerate the lint roller about as long as she’ll tolerate hands and it’s fucking hot, so now she has less stray fur (I’ll probably still suffer for it though, she’s like that)
Popehat thread just keeps getting worse. Now I know why pecunium couldn’t sleep because of people being so very wrong on the internet. I just ran across this little gem of jaw-dropping entitlement.
Yeah, well, being pawed at, lewdly propositioned, and occasionally picked up and carried off out of the blue (still stunned by that one) is a bit outside most women’s comfort zones. But I guess those women will just have to deal – can’t make the guys uncomfortable too, can we?
Wait, “occasionally picked up and carried off out of the blue?” Someone argued that was acceptable?
Why do I still retain the capacity for being surprised?
That’s from one of the many accounts of stuff that happened at cons linked on that thread (to someone who’s now a known author). So far I haven’t seen anyone specifically address that incident at all, but at this stage I wouldn’t be surprised to hear “well, he was just a bit awkward”.
If the female sex as a group were ever to have the tables turned, and expected to inititate romance, they would be horrified. The species would go extinct in a generation. Females can’t deal with it, coddled as they are.