I honestly try to be a kind, caring, compassionate person. That kinda goes out the window when there are abusive assholes unloading hate on their fellow humans... I simply cannot be kind, caring, or compassionate towards them... but I honestly try everywhere else.
Which is why even when I'm driving home and am anxious to get out of the heat and relax after a long day at work, I don't climb all over the bumper of somebody going 10 miles under the speed limit (25mph instead of 35mph). Because for all I know...
There could be numerous good reasons they aren't driving the speed limit.
At least I hope there's a good reason.
Because if either you or your vehicle is unable to go the speed limit, then you really shouldn't be driving.
But anyway...
So there I was driving home trying not to crowd the slow, slow car ahead of me, when somebody comes raoring up behind me. And they are right up on me. And it's like... surely they can see that I'm not the problem? So why be an asshole towards me? Then I started worrying they were going to attempt to pass us both on a fairly narrow road. Which might spook the slow driver and lead to disaster. But nope.
Eventually the car turned off and I accellerated to the correct speed.
For a few seconds.
Before the speed limit dropped to be actually 25mph again.
At which point they were all up on me again.
When I got home from work today, I was just... numb. Didn't have the energy to do anything except plop down in front of the television with an ice cream cone. Which sounds more entertaining than it was because I never bothered to actually turn the television on.
Instead I told Siri to put on some music while I caught up on the news.
And the first headline I see? FDA grants full approval to new Alzheimer's drug meant to slow disease.
Now, this is a hell of a long way from an actual cure. It costs $26,500 a year, it has been linked to death, it only slows progression for around five months, and it's more for friends and family than the person with dementia, but it's a step! And, from somebody who's intimately familiar with it... from somebody who would have given anything to have a chance at five more months with my mom where she was still mostly herself... I'd have paid the $26,500 and been grateful if it in any way helped.
And that's the way science goes.
AIDS, some cancers, and many diseases are survivable now, and it all started with a step. A step just like Leqembi is for dementia.
But there will always be those for which the science came too late.
For those left behind, I guess you just cling to the consolation that other people may be spared what you had to go through.
Maybe.
One day.
Remember when hump-day used to be a good thing?
Given the way that politicians and our Supreme Court are taking a huge fucking shit on everything this country was supposed to stand for, I approach this year's Independence Day with more than a little guilt. So much blood spilled to preserve our liberties over the years... and we're throwing it all in the trash.
And so I celebrated this country's 247th birthday the only way that made sense to me.
First I had red-white-and-blue cupcakes in bed for breakfast...
Then I hung out with my friends at a pool drinking alcohol in the blazing sun.
It felt like a good idea at the time.
I'm burnt, y'all.
It was the annual Fabulous Fourth Weekend Float for my friends and I. This year our Summer came early, so the creek and river were lower than usual. This made it a little tough to go through spots, but it was still a fun float in the end.
How it started...
How it ended... Note that I put on two coats of sun screen, but still got royally burnt...
As usual, there were plenty of awesome dogs floating as well. I never get tired of seeing dogs in life preservers...
And there were a lot of duckies out too...
So... yeah! Another great float in the bag. Even though I'm so wiped from being out in the sun that I think I'm good for the year.
Not that it matters much given how low the river is.
The trailer for Dune: Part Two dropped today.
This may very well be the movie that I finally go crawling back to the theater to see. It would be the first in four and a half years.
Because... holy cats...
Today after work I put my living room back together. With all the mass-loaded vinyl, sound-dampening insulation, and vibration pipe clips in there, the sound of my HVAC return line is not nearly as annoying. When I have television or music on it's barely noticeable.
This past weekend I cleaned out my refrigerator because I had another Coke can rupture. Not explode... just a slow leak kinda thing. No idea why this keeps happening. I guess that cans are so thin now that they just don't have any structural integrity?
While I was at it, I consolidated my two cheese drawers into one big drawer...
That freed up a drawer that I can put all my nuts and dried fruits in...
Surprisingly, all my jams and sour creams were still within their expiration date...
All my condiments too...
And even all my salad dressings...
As if that wasn't awesome enough... my breads, pickles, eggs, and sodas were still good to boot...
All clean! Until next month when I have to start all over again.
Or earlier than a month if another Coke leaks all over.
I've started creating my own sauce recipes.
It all started a couple months ago when I made my usual go-to dip for veggie corn dogs... Dutch mayonnaise with honey mustard mixed in. But I didn't make it for veggie corn dogs, I made it for beer-batter onion rings. It lacked zing. I needed something with more kick.
So I raided my massive stash of spices and added red chili flakes, paprika, and chili powder. Then I added a dash of onion powder and some berbere spice (an Ethiopian blend that I obsess over almost as much as harissa spice).
It was incredible, and now I make it every time I have onion rings...
Awesome sauce!
Ever since then I've been creating my own oil blends. My own sauces. My own toppings. All using spices I've collected from around the world that get combined to make interesting flavors. It's been a lot of fun. But even better? It breathes new life into things that have grown old. Onion rings. Fries. Grilled breads. Fruit. Vegetables. Cheese dips. The list goes on and on. I'll create sauces for anything and everything.
Tonight I made a chip dip with cream cheese, mayo, lemon juice, and shawarma seasoning. It was so good that I licked the bowl after.
There is a down-side, however. I'm almost certain that I've gained five pounds since I started this madness.
In other news, my drywall guy showed up to patch over the hole in my wall...
Now it dries. Tomorrow he skim-coats and textures. Wednesday he paints.
One repair down, three to go.
It is remarkable how time just keeps blazing by me. Tuesday is wrapping up, tomorrow is hump-day, and then it's a race to the weekend again.
Which would be great, except my weekends are also blazing past me.
The weekend before last I was sick.
This past weekend I worked from morning until night trying to get my home put back together.
I started with my guest bathroom, which had a leak that caused a bunch of damage. As they were putting the bathroom back together, it was found that the leak had not been resolved, so repairs had to be put on hold. I hired an expert who only confirmed that "Yep, you have a leak" but couldn't figure it out. Then, without notice, the leaking stopped. But instead of tearing out the upstairs bathroom and more walls to find out what happened... or seal up the walls and hope it didn't happen again... I decided to build an access hatch in the guest bathroom ceiling...
There's a panel I'm building which will magnetically attach inside the hatch. That way I can put some water leak sensors up there and be alerted to when/if something starts leaking again.
Then there's my new HVAC system. The heat pump outside has a return line to the blower which runs up my living room wall and over to the garage. For whatever reason, the line is noisy as hell. Sometimes when the heat pump is running, the noise gets so ridiculous that I have to turn up the television.
And so... I tore out the wall... installed mass-loaded vinyl panels... secured the line with vibration-dampening clamps... then installed some pricey sound-absorbing insulation on top of it all...
And that was that.
Now all I have to do is wait for my drywall guy to come in and put my walls back together... then wait for my kitchen doors and drawers to arrive... then I'm going to halt home improvement for a while, because I want to live in a home that's not torn apart for a bit.
At least I hope that can happen. Just my luck something else will go wrong the minute I've finished up the current disasters.
Oh yay.
Horrific food poisoning again.
I remember when I was young and traveling the world that I had an iron stomach. I could eat absolutely anything and do just fine. And I ate at some truly dicey food joints because I didn't have the money for anything else.
I couldn't even consider doing that now-a-days.
I bought my mom the Toyota Corolla I'm driving in 2006. It's now 17 years old. I love not having car payments so much that I decided to drive it until it died, and figured I could at least push it to 20 years. I just had the brakes completely re-done last year with this in mind.
Now the clear-coat is peeling off, it needs more work because the muffler is just starting to sound bad, and the engine is getting a little rough. But I figure the cost of having all that done is worth it if I don't have to buy a new car.
And THEN somebody ran into the car in the parking lot of my hotel last night. At least I'm assuming that's what happened because I never noticed the damage before today. I was able to get it popped out, but it's scraped up and a bit cracked. Which means even more money needed to sink into the car.
And so... guess I am ready to cut my losses and buy a new car.
Maybe?
Because I don't really want a new-new car. If I had a new-new car, I'd be paranoid about getting hit in a hotel parking lot way too much. And I'd freak out if anything happened to it. So I want a new-to-me used car. I thought... maybe I can get something relatively recent and decent and certified pre-owned for $15-$16,000. WELP! Even used cars are tragically expensive, yo. IN MANY CASES MORE EXPENSIVE THAN A NEW CAR! And if I can't get certified pre-owned, then there's the idea that something could go wrong with it almost immediately and I'd have to sink even MORE money into it.
Blergh. This blows. Why can't I be a billionaire who doesn't have to worry about things like this?
The Corolla only has 85,000 miles on it. Probably worth just having the work doen and coasting for seven years. At least I know the car was taken care of. I'm tight with the owner.
Atom Entries Feed Comments Feed
