Rant: thought I was doing pretty good when we got the hospital bill. Psyche!! That was just the professional services. FML.
Rant: I got woke up by a phone call at midnight last night, one from our automated maintenance call system. A resident had locked her and her family out of their apartment. Somebody didn't pay attention when the lease was explained to her, we don't let people in apartments after normal business hours, call a locksmith and get them out of bed. The woman's tone and words just made me not even give a shit whether she ever gets back in her place or not. No 'please', no 'thanks for your time', just a bitchy "I'ma need you to send somebody to let us in." And her second message had even more attitude after she got my reply that we don't provide lock out services. She's lucky I even replied the first time rather than let her sit there and wonder when I would arrive. I'd had a few beers before going to sleep, I was still a little buzzed when I answered the call, and her attitude just hit me the wrong way.
Rant: So TimeWarner is unifying all of their content under the HBOMax streaming platform, yet they're just abandoning Cinemax? Kill the brand if you want, but put The Knick up on the service you cowards.
RAVE: chores are done, cold beer in hand, floating in the pool reading @walt 's book. I've had worse Sunday's.
Rave: I finally bought another laptop after several years of having a piece of shit that I didn't even want to use and I got a great deal!
Rant: I am the office manager (sort of) at a medical clinic, which basically means I get to work at the junction of healthcare and customer service. It's never GREAT, but right now it's fucking trash. Everyone is crazy and there are two patients who I swear are trying to break me. They are refusing to answer our calls or messages during business hours, not scheduling appointments, but then sending angry pages-long messages after hours about how terrible and unresponsive and cruel we are. When I do manage to get them on the phone they just yell. But I just have to smile and take it because they are just the kind of crazy who would sue us, and while I'm not actually worried that the doc would lose a malpractice suit, it would suck big fat balls to deal with it. Ugh. My poor adrenal system can't deal with another 6 weeks of this shit.
RAVE: Sitting out in the hot humid night and the fireflies are going nuts. Mist be a thousand of them. It would be uncomfortably hot if it weren’t for some watering I’m doing which has a nice cooling effect. All while drinking some good red wine, over ice. Big Yeti tumbler filled with ice holds a bottle of wine, give or take. Little magnetic slide to keep the bugs out, and nice refreshing wine. It’s a great night.
Rant: I'd rather write a book than try and market it. It's three times as much work and scant return. I dropped the ebook price to 99 cents for a short time and figured I'd promote it on Amazon. That's a whole other beast that I can't figure out how to really capitalize on. Trial and error I guess, but the money spent is far more than the return. It's moments like this I just log off and go work on the follow up book. Which leads me to a... Rave: Working on Chapter 4 now. Bonus Rant: Someone texted me yesterday and asked, "Was this supposed to be my book?" So I have to send her another one. I love how USPS says they handle mail with great care. With what, a fucking combine harvester?
Rant: Well, I fucked myself over. Called out of work yesterday because whatever I ate Sunday night gave me the shits. Felt totally fine By the afternoon. I finally have a job where calling out of work won't be met with unending passive aggressive attempts at a guilt trip, so I took advantage of it. Got into work today, did the “wellness check" questionnaire that we're required to do. Passed it, but they asked further questions, and because my "condition" (aka getting the shits from something I ate) isn't a "known medical condition that isn't COVID-19," I was sent home, and have to stay home from work for ten days. They're gonna see if HR can clear me earlier than that, but for now I'm just kind of sitting around at home. I should've just worked through the shits. EDIT: HR says I gotta sit out for ten days, no exception. Fuck.
Rant: post partum hormone dump. Hooooo boy. Enough time had passed that I thought I was in the clear. Haha. No.
Rant: One of our dogs has cancer. That's not the rant. We're going to put her down this weekend. That's the rant. We've known she's had cancer for a while. She also has a heart murmur. Two days ago, she suddenly started getting lethargic. Yesterday, she seemed to have gotten some pep in her step, but this morning, I had to carry her down the stairs to our main floor and outside to the dog run. She's been avoiding her food, but she's been more than happy to clean up whatever my son drops off of his booster seat. This dog has been with my wife longer than I have, so it's going to be an emotionally messy weekend. Rave, kinda: We're going to have someone come to our backyard to administer the drugs to the dog on Saturday. At least she won't have to go through the terror of being at a vet's office.
Rant/rave: At the end of a two week vacation I’ve needed to take for years. A roller coaster of emotions. No news or covid or political threads. Lots of fun fishing catching nothing. Having gone with my brother and taking his car is frustrating as hell dealing with his weirdness with it. Still no movement in my job and going back is a downer.
HUGE RAVE: It's my grandparents 70th wedding anniversary today. A month ago I would've bet a paycheck he never would've made it but he seems to be doing better. I sent them some flowers which made my grandmothers day.
Rant, a gentleman in my office building that t chat with often just found out his mother has Covid. Yep, I am sure I have been in the vicinity of Covid. Now I get to wait.
Rave: Just submitted my application for Fire & Rescue NSW, 10,000 applicants for around 150 spots. Just slightly terrified as it's the first job I've gone for in nearly twenty years.
Rant: Wife, kid or mother-in-law, one of them, locked all the keys in the wife's Honda Element. And Honda did a fine job engineering the Element to be difficult to unlock from the outside. I've never had to call a locksmith in my life, but I just might have to for this one.
Rave: I am working on Book 2, and am on Chapter 4, which is great progress. Lots of more intricate storytelling, more interpersonal and personal struggles for the characters, etc. ( a lot of people have told my the characters seem "real" to them ). Anyway, today I had other stuff to do so no writing. It's kinda funny, but I already know how I'm ending this second book. It'll be an ending that either lets me shut the door on this story or I can keep going with a third book. I have it all worked out. But today while I was mowing I came up with more details for that idea that can either go into Book #3 or be a short story told after ( website, cheap book, whatever ). I had entire conversations between characters going on inside my head and I managed to get them jotted down. So whatever I do with that idea, I know how THAT will end as well. I fucking love writing.
Rave: Looks like crews are stringing wire for the high speed internet build out to our town. We'll be part of the 21st century before we know it. Our house is lucky, as we're one of the few just inside the ATT 4G signal so we can stream tv and all that. But with remote learning, and multiple people needing it at once it's not as strong as we need it to be. This new fiber will be lightning fast by comparison. I intend to pay for the fastest package they have and cannot wait.
HUGE-ASS RAVE: Remember about a month ago, when I told y'all about some dipshit crashing into my gate? Well, it turns out it was a 19 year old girl (crucial plot point). Jungle Julia called a fence/ gate company for an estimate for an upgraded, automatic gate, which came out to $14,000 dollars; we figured we'd scare the insurance company with that number, then they'd settle for about half that (7, or even 5 grand would be much more than the value of the original gate.). Well, it turns out that girl's dad is a wealthy business owner from Mexico, and wanted to keep the accident off of his insurance. HE PAID THE FULL AMOUNT TODAY, NO QUESTIONS ASKED. FOURTEEN THOUSAND SMACKEROOS IN MY BANK ACCOUNT. RANT: Yesterday, I noticed that my water heater is leaking, so some of that money will have to be repurposed for the time being. But we're still getting that upgraded gate.
RAVE: I finally got my right to vote back! RANT: It was reinstated too late for me to vote in this election...