Iām sorry.
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My next pet is going to be a rock, or a bad idea; something that wonāt die.
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Nemeses help. I do think cats are highly complex creatures who think and strategize. It just seemed like a few months after our 15-year-old pit bull was euthanized, our then 17-year-old cat decided he won and he started rapidly aging. So I wouldnāt put it past your kitty thinking, āNot before you, sucka.ā
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Thanks, the support is appreciated. She likes her kidney food and with a dish of tuna zero craps are given when she gets her nightly subcutaneous fluids. Sheās a creaky old lady (nearly 20 by our best estimates) but still as feisty and cranky as ever. Youād be hard pressed to know anything is wrong with her other than old age. Weāre also lucky to have a great vet who is helping us through this.
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Our vet sent us the coolest sympathy card after Molly passed. It has a heart shaped piece of paper with forget me not seeds in it to plant in her memory. We are going to put it over her grave this weekend.
Hope her transition is smoothā¦sheāll be waiting for you on the Rainbow Bridge. Yeah, itās a bit of treacle but not the worst thing to imagine when a friend is on her way out.
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Sheād had a good long life, I guess. I wish Iād been there at the end, though.
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Five hours sitting in the courthouse today for two minutes and maybe ten words in front of the Family Court judge. We now have ātemporary permanent guardianshipā (seriously, thatās what theyāre calling it) of the two kids weāve been guardianing for, while their mom continues in a long-term residential mental health treatment program.
Sort of on the plus side, weāre getting a ton of money from the state for doing this. We got yelled at by the judge for not taking the money CPS wanted to give us, and basically told that we have to take it whether it messes up our tax situation or not. Unfortunately, we canāt use the money to pay the lawyer bills, which is the only cost involved that I really object to.
It sounds like a good problem to have, but it really isnāt. The strings that are attached make the money toxic. If any of you who have ever fostered kids can give me any advice, Iād appreciate it.
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Someone got my name wrong in a contentious argument (here on the BBS), where I was attempting to be respectful. But itās apparently not a big deal, as people decided to pile on - intending to be funny, not hurtful, I know. Maybe itās stupid of me, but it was incredibly hurtful, since Iāve been around here for ages. People donāt have to agree or even like me, but please give me the due respect of not getting my name wrong, please.
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I noticed that, and decided not to say anything because so much ELSE was wrong with that post(er).
Would you have preferred that someone had pointed that out to the poster right away? No question: it is incredibly rude to ārespondā to someone whose name is right in front of you and still get it wrong.
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Youāre writing about yesterdayās āMandyā incident, correct? I almost commented, but that thread and his tone went from zero to 100 so fast that I decided not to because I didnāt want one more thing for him to harp on. I also wondered if it might have been a careless error rather than a slight (one never knows with the internet)? If it was an error, he would have gone ballistic.
For what itās worth, he came across a bit unhinged, while you handled it with grace.
Sorry, Mandy Mindy.
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Youāre asking people to be something they arenāt, and taking their lack of capacity as a personal insult. Let it go; be open to the world; you are everything you need to be (and perhaps more) regardless of what they call you, regardless of whether they are good, bad, or indifferent; regardless of whether they intend insult or are merely differently abled or damaged.
Me, I have a pair of children with two syllable, four letter names. Literally, four letters each, completely 100% phonetically spelled.
People constantly get their names wrong. One of my sonās 3rd grade teachers pronounced his name consistently wrong for an entire school year. Every. Single. Day. She did it while she was talking to us, too, and showed no embarrassment when I corrected her every single time she did it. People spell my daughterās name with all sorts of spurious vowels, or occasionally with missing ones, all the time.
Looking into this, I find that naming is a primary cognitive function, and that itās somewhat entangled with some other areas that are vulnerable to dyslexia and other real neural issues. So I let it go, and just smile, and remember Marcus Aurelius.
But on the flip side, thereās a guy Iām forced to work with occasionally who is consistently openly disrespectful to me and to the Hispanic day laborers he hires and mistreats. So I started calling him āMartinezā which is sort of vaguely like his name, to return the lack of respect. He didnāt care, so now I always call him āFat Bastardā which seems to get the response I was looking for. 
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Thatās a potentially valid response to the original error, but then it turned into amateur night at the comedy club.
I donāt necessarily think it was motivated by animus, but they were unfunny jokes in an already combative context
(also, why the heck would anyone not just use the autofilling @? Itās great @Medievalist)
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My last name is the 80th most common name in the US (according to this convenient list). It is one syllable, 4 letters, one repeated. When I was growing up people (especially teachers) mispronounced it all the damn time. On the other hand, now that I am in their position I have to confess I get names wrong pretty often as well, but not if they are common or just have a syllable or three. I do feel like an ass in front of some of my students from Thailand or the Philippines who have beautiful, mellifluous surnames that Iām too stupid to get right even after being corrected.
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I have CNCP (Chronic Non-Cancer Pain) and I rely on Oxy for pain management because itās the only thing that works for me and doesnāt make me high when I take it nor sick when I donāt. Everything else either makes me high when I take it and/or incredibly sick when I miss a dose. With oxy I can take it when I need it and ignore it when I donāt.
So who knew that when I left this post for a fellow mutant with some advice on finding a pain management Dr. Iād be taking my own advice so soon?
Turns out my Dr was arrested in SF week before last and, along with facing civil proceedings stemming from a patients death (who was on a lower daily dose of than I am) is now also also facing criminal charges for allegedly running a āpill millā with the local Ford dealership. Fuck me.
Itās going to be hard enough to find a new Dr alone, but I live in a small town and every Dr here is going to know his name and what he did.
The best part - the absolute best - was a news article I found on this where they note that a bunch of his patients are going to be going through withdrawals. With zero concern paid to any of us that are facing the dire and very real dilemma of a tidal wave of pain so tall it can kill - nope. Who gives a shit about them - theyāre junkies now, not patients!.
Unless you count their passive aggressive advice that heroin isnāt a good alternative to oxy because āyou donāt always know what youāll getā.
I fucking hate this world sometimes.
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Man, thatās horrible. I hope you find some legal recourse before the meds run out.
My mother said the other day that itās bad enough that physicians have created such huge barriers to entering the trade that theyāve only got 15 minutes to spare for each patient, now weāve got politicians and prison owners controlling prescription, and they never help any patients at all.
Edit: find out if youāve got any local acupuncturists or rolfers of good repute and give those a try ASAP. Thereās no telling if either one will work for you, but itās a relatively inexpensive experiment.
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@AcerPlatanoides pointed me here because I was getting cranky in the pothole thread
My ex is a textbook sociopath. The last time I spoke to him was almost 2 years ago, where he accused me of, well, basically being a shit parent because our then-16-year-old daughter said something about watching porn. And he cannot IMAGINE how she could possibly have access to PORN because I guess he doesnāt think 16 year olds can figure out the internet or something.
Monday, out of nowhere, he called me because he āgot this report cardā in the mail and he was āconcernedā about [Daughterās] grades. Now first of all, I donāt know his address and he lives in a different state. So thereās no way I gave the school his information or listed him as someone who should get correspondence from the school. So he didnāt just āhappenā to get the report card, he had to actively solicit this information from the school. Secondly, my daughter has a chronic health issue that has, in the last two years, greatly affected her ability to attend school. All that stuff has been hashed out with the school and her doctors and thereās a plan for her going forward. Not that heād know any of this, since he hasnāt spoken to any of us in two years (and Daughter refuses to talk to him because ā¦ well, heās an asshole.)
I answered the phone because heās changed his number (again) and I thought it was someone I knew. Just hearing his voice throws me off balance. But then I realized that Daughter is almost 19 and ā¦ I donāt actually have to talk to him. So I told him I didnāt want to talk to him and hung up on him. And blocked his new number. 
But now I have the sinking feeling heās going to escalate things. Heās very persuasive and he has āfriendsā in law enforcement and I am afraid heās going to hassle us with the police or something under the guise of a āwellness check.ā I can just see him saying that he hasnāt heard from his daughter and no one will answer the phone and sheās got a chronic illness and can someone please go check on her?
Itās a stress I donāt need, because itās not like heāll do anything to help. Heās supposed to provide health insurance and pay 50% of her medical bills and heās never done either. Mr. Bells has been doing that for the last 13 years. All heās going to do is harass me with his bullshit āconcernsā so he can feel superior. Iām trying to figure out if having Mr. Bells adopt her would cancel out his child support arrears. Because thereās $35,000 that I will probably never see but really hate to give up on. Like I feel like he wins either way: either he gets to keep worming his way in because āIām her faaaather!ā or he gets free of his obligation without further consequences.
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Have you checked into the deadbeat dad laws in the state he is now in? They might be more conducive to resolving the situation.
Good for you, hanging up instead of getting sucked in!
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Oh, heās got evading the authorities on this down to a science. They havenāt been able to successfully garnish a paycheck of his for nearly a decade. He either gets paid under the table or finds a new job when DCSS catches up to him. It can take them 6 months or more to find out where heās working and/or get the garnishment paperwork through, and then he just moves on.
Same thing with jail time or losing his driverās license. When they catch up to him he makes a token payment or files job search paperwork and gets them off his back for another 6 months. Iāve tried to get a contempt order on his so many times but heāll cough up just enough money to basically reset the clock on it. So far, the only real consequences are that his credit is ruined (but his credit was shit when I married him, so thatās no change) and he canāt get a passport or maintain a professional license. Heās sore about the passport, but heās managed to get around the professional license thing with various excuses and lies.
Since our daughter is over 18, she only needs her own consent to be adopted. He wouldnāt allow termination of his parental rights previously. Hell, he wouldnāt even allow her to hyphenate her last name when I got remarried. Itās all about power and control for him, and not ever about what his kid might actually WANT.
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Tried to diagnose and fix a coolant issue in my car. But I ended up discovering that itās probably my water pump and I need to take my car to the mechanic. I donāt have the tools or know-how to get behind the engine. Iām doubly pissed off because the last mechanic I took him to replaced it not nine months ago. I donāt know if I have recourse if the next mechanic tells me the first screwed up, or if I should just take it to the first guy even though Iām not crazy about the work.
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Check the invoice from the previous mechanic; see if it mentions any warranties.
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