Hope you all are having a lovely day today, whatever this day means to you (or doesn’t). Consider this an open thread, to discuss whatever, from presents to politics to cats to whatever holiday stress you might be feeling.
And here’s some stuff I found on the Twitter.
— David, who is hanging in there
Merry Christmas, everyone! 🎄🎅 pic.twitter.com/YfyTsQ95de
— Maggie Serota (@maggieserota) December 25, 2017
At this time of year, take a few moments to remember who Christmas is truly about… pic.twitter.com/TQ9tSP5EED
— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) December 24, 2017
I haven’t laughed this hard in a while. I needed this. pic.twitter.com/2aQFpugdis
— deray (@deray) December 7, 2017
Brian Eno, Paris, 1973 (with Christmas 2017 augmentation) pic.twitter.com/hRwMDTOUKv
— Brian Eno News (@dark_shark) December 25, 2017
“Fun” pic.twitter.com/tsAdsZeez8
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) December 24, 2017
#MerryChristmas 🎄🤶🏻 pic.twitter.com/IahMZhf5gc
— Melania Trump 45 Archived (@FLOTUS45) December 25, 2017
Same. pic.twitter.com/kcNPdrLy6R
— Adrenalin (@adrenalindenver) May 24, 2017
🎈🐾🐅🎈🐾🐅🎈🐾🐅🎈🐾🐅🎈🐾🐅
All of a sudden …
🐾🐾🐾🐾 pic.twitter.com/fza8NZioI0
— The Cult Cat (@Elverojaguar) December 25, 2017
Human: My cat has an easy life
Me: pic.twitter.com/e8kvlVhUdR— Curious Zelda (@CuriousZelda) December 20, 2017
https://twitter.com/awwcuteness/status/945193410662682624
*sigh*, Wife With a Purpose is back again, this time under the name “Lydia of the Church” (https://twitter.com/historicallydia?lang=en). I reported her, though, and, thankfully, Twitter said that, yes, she was in violation of their policy. If others wouldn’t mind reporting her too, I’d appreciate it.
Who knew Fredrick Pohl’s The Merchant’s of Venus wasn’t satire? Coming soon to your car – adverts whenever you stop.
Re: Wife with a purpose
Well, she does tell you up front she has a purpose – to be annoying as hell as often as possible. Sure she’s not a bored Judgybitch?
Thanks to those who responded about LASIK surgery.
@Sheila Crosby:
I always thought the purpose of this surgery was to improve nearsightedness, also known as myopia – problems with seeing things at a distance. This is what I would like to correct. I’m also farsighted now, due to aging. When I have my myopia-correcting contacts in, I need to wear reading glasses in order to read. When I’m wearing my myopia – correcting glasses, I have to take them off in order to read. And then, I need to hold the book around 5 inches from my nose.
I’d never heard of varifocals before. I did a little research, nothing in-depth, and it seems like they’re a thing in the UK. Maybe they’re also available in the US…
About my husband misplacing his glasses…one would think it was as simple as you suggested. ? That’s been recommended to him more than once. He can’t seem to manage it.
He also has astigmatism, so I don’t know if he would be a good candidate for LASIK.
I reported her, but her accounted is protected, so I get the feeling they won’t take me very seriously, abars.
Shadowplay, nope. Not the same person…is JB even on Twitter anymore? I don’t care to look, lol.
Dormousing it
We’ve had them in Oz for 20+ years. My husband has astigmatism as well as being very myopic. I have worse astigmatism but only mild myopia in one eye.
The first time he put on his multi-focal specs, he just relaxed. He said it was like putting on perfectly fitting gloves. Neither of us would ever go back to ordinary old single or bi-focals.
SFHC,
Anyone who thinks that mansplaining isn’t a real thing and is just feminist buzzword we made up hurt men’s feefees need only look at that headline to be disproven!
In every story I’ve ever been told of parents investigating their children’s online behaviour, the parents have been abusive, trying to isolate their children from contrary viewpoints (for the religious abusers) or rivals for their attention (for the narcissists). These may not be representative, but I can see why floating the idea might ring people’s alarm bells, as would casual dismissals like “it’s for their own good” (the justification used by every authority ever known) and “my children/house/phone, my rules” (as if the fact of the power imbalance between parent and child in itself justifies its own existence).
@ Dormousing it, I heard that you can’t get lasik if you’ve got astigmatism. I heard that some time ago though, and things may have changed.
@ abars 01, “Lydia of the Church” made me think of Lydia Lunch.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lydia_Lunch
Tweeters here may want to inform this woman of this.
@Dormousing_it,
Have you looked into ortho-keratology as a possible alternative or precursor to laser surgery?
My son’s been using Ortho-K lenses for almost a year now. His vision went from severely myopic to crystal clear.
Not cheap, but less than surgery ?
I feel like we could use some cute. <3
http://i.perezhilton.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/red-panda.gif
@ Surplus:
Original 9 3/4, thanks.
I did in fact read HPMOR. I wish it had fulfilled the promise of actually exploring magic through a scientific and rational lens, rather than instead packing in all the author’s ideology as undisputable fact. Nevertheless, although some of it dragged for me, some was very moving, and I enjoyed the resolution of the Dementor / Azkaban situation, which has always vexed me about the Potterverse.
I wouldn’t dismiss it out of hand.
@ kupo: chastisement noted.
Red pandas! My favorite animal other than of course my kitty overlords.
The Orange one has postponed his “fake news awards” to the 17th. Now there’s a surprise.
Some 33 year old arsewipe’s defence for sexually assaulting a 13 year old is “she made a move on me.” My desk has a new hole in it.
In nice news, to amend for that one – school holds a breakfast with Dad event. Asks for 50 volunteers to accompany kids with absent fathers. 600 guys show up.
*puts up a stick with a white flag, then pokes her head in follow-thru*
Hey peeps!
OK I’ll answer @Dormousing_it real quick first — I had LASIK done in 2011, I was pretty badly near-sighted and I had severe astigmatism.
I’m kinda phobic of anything surgery- or medicine-related, and oh man, I would STILL go to LASIK chair once again, no matter what! It has to be done while you’re conscious, because there are instructions of looking this and that way, but… there’s exactly zero pain. The only painful thing was one of the devices hitting my cliff-high cheekbones. And there’s a brief whiff of burning fingernail or hair smell, because it involves lasering keratin.
I will super-duper-gladly encourage checking if it is feasible for you and hubby; I did it in a place that offers warranty to its work (checkout in a year again, if it isn’t correct, all corrections are on them) and has a high reputation.
Ok now everyone else:
I’m now back from the hospital. I got there on 20th of December, as I was sitting in front of computer at 7:45 am…
…and then my right hand kind of “fell asleep” because it suddenly started to bristle and pin like I had been sleeping on it.
“That’s odd, WTF?” thought I, and stood up. At that point, my leg on the same side gave the same vibe, all prickly.
“What.”
I walked around for a moment, then felt the right side go completely like this (moment being about 2 minutes), including face, at what point I made a beeline to the bathroom to check my pupils, mouth etc.
Luckily, Significant Otter returned in a couple of minutes with car, and I explained what was happening. I was in hospital ER in less than 30 minutes, thrown to a hospital bed and set up for both IV and fast-working blood dilutive, with various upcoming scans.
Note: You do not want anti-coagulants on the same day when your period starts. It gets messy. Very, very, very messy. There was a bloodmageddon involved overnight.
CT was a bit mum about what was going on, but MRI revealed a stroke. And, uh, older strokes as well, oh bollocks. According to neurologists, I’ve been basically dodging death on good luck for a while, possibly cheating the odds too.
Also, my blood pressure is amazing! It’s basically amazing that I’m alive! Fun story, though — I’m kind of phobic of it being measured, so the doctors actually have no idea what it really is, considering how badly I was getting stressed in hospital and every time they tried to get a measurement (they had to go and find some of those old-time hand-pumped devices and suddenly nurses had to remember how to use them!) (yea totally no pressure omg why are you trying to kill me let me go let me go im gonna start screaming in a second you got no idea how much im restraining not to claw your face off).
Edit: just wanna note that once all the nurses at neurologic ward knew about that, they were really nice and did their best and they still failed to get my blood pressure reliably, because, well. Phobic is phobic.
Anyway, I spent there over Christmas, though I was allowed brief visits to in-laws who literally live right behind the hospital, so at least I got some yummy food and had a possibility to open some Lootmas gifts.
On 27th, they decided that “we’ll assign a bucket of various meds and make you go home, write you sick leave and follow-ups for various tests”, on basis that I had lost nothing, other than having prickly feels all over my hand, and that was fading at that point. (Still is — a bit of index finger, thumb and palm are total prickly a-holes right now.)
And that’s how I spent my Christmas. Whew!
@Skiriki
Whew! You’ve been through a whole lot. I’m so glad that you made it through. And it’s nice to have you back at WHTM.
All best wishes for good health in 2018!
skiriki
so scarey! I am so glad you took fast action and went to hospital fast. and it is good you can write messages on here too. you are very lucky I agree! I hope you can recover quickly ?
@Kat
Yeah and a whole lot is still coming, ’cause my kitty is about to give birth in six days! (I charmed all the nurses showing pics of my kitties and the last litter got audible squees.)
Unfortunately, I am not sure how active I can be, since I’ve been told explicitly to not get my blood pressure up and take it easy and rest a lot.
I can tweet from bed, tho, right?
Ha… ha… blood pressure… Cheetolini… um…
F*ck me, 2017 tried to off me, y’all are witnesses, right? 😉
@Valentin
My grandfather had that kind of thing (TIA, IIRC) once, so I kind of knew about what to look for, and be cautious, even if nothing was visible in that brief examination. TBH, when the doctor told us MRI results (Otter happened to be visiting me at the time), it did not come as a too huge surprise to me, since I had suspected something being off for a while.
skiriki
TIA is like mini strokes? I think my grandma also experienced this – I recognise it. she even experienced maybe 3 or 4 before which doctors say like for you ‘have no effect’ but then she experienced little bit more and her arm becomes weak. but lucky her personality and memories all still remained))
skiriki!!! Um, not that I missed you or anything, right? 😛
Glad you’re back. 🙂
Just, don’t do the lottery please? Sounds like you used up your luck for the year there. Take it easy, listen to the quacks and heal well.
Skiriki, I’m glad 2017 didn’t kill you. As for the BP phobia thing, perhaps you could ask for one of those 24-hour tests? You have a cuff and a small device strapped to you, then go about your normal life for a day – or as normal as you can with a box which wakes up once an hour and makes “BRRRRRRRR” noises. It’s a way around the “white coat hypertension” problem.
Who fans: hbomberguy has a new video on the 2017 Doctor Who Christmas special, and Moffat’s run in general. Spoilers, obviously.
@Skiriki,
I saw your nym and got all happy ’cause I’ve missed you, then read your posts – jfc, I’m so sorry! But also very, very glad that you’re ok. I hope things continue to improve. It’s great to hear from you <3
@Moggie,
I'm saving that video for break time tomorrow. I meant to watch it on the way home, but got sidetracked watching ShaunJen eviscerate Cinema Sins. It's a long train journey – don't judge 😀
@Mish
Ooh, will have to hunt that down. I used to like cinema sins back in the day, but somewhere along the line it just seemed like they’d decided that being “clever” was better than being entertaining, though I’d be hard pressed to say exactly when it went wrong for me.
@Skiriki
Seems like there’s a lot of that about. I’ve just done a first aid course, and the instructor was talking about how his dad developed epilepsy in his 50s, and then had a stroke in his 60s and on closer investigation it turned out that an earlier stroke that wasn’t recognised at the time probably caused the first seizure and did that damage that resulted in ongoing epilepsy. He also showed us a pretty chilling video that some lady uploaded to youtube showing all the classic symptoms of a stroke; she’d had a couple of TIAs, but her doctors had brushed it off as panic attacks. The video made it pretty unambiguous, so I suspect they paid attention after that.