Welp, in addition to a school shooting, another gun related incident at a Trump golf course (with no deaths other than the shooter himself), and the continuing eruption in Hawaii, there is also a plane down in Cuba:
Seems like there was something else horrific, too, but I can’t remember.
Fuck today sideways. I’m gonna go make some clam chowder, then drink some wine…
A lake has just appeared outside my front door (and my neighbours front doors). The fire brigade are currently pumping out the water, but if it rains again we’re in trouble.
The doctors would not listen to my mother when she said the knee replacement had stopped getting better and was getting worse. They said she just needed stronger painkillers - she never took any of the painkillers, she grew up on a farm in the depression for chrissakes, she’s tough as nails.
So I went into the hospital and found the surgeon and was quite stroppy with him and made them give her Xrays and take a fluid sample from the knee.
Now, twentyfour hours later, Mom’s just out of hastily scheduled surgery, and they think/hope she will be able to keep the leg. And maybe eventually it’ll work as good as it did just before the knee replacement.
Really? We’re getting some major flooding here in the states too (Maryland, and then in parts of North Carolina).
Hope you’re okay!
Fingers crossed! Hope she gets better and I’m sorry the doctors didn’t listen!
Thank you! So far so good - she’s back up and walking again, after having all the easily replaceable parts of the knee swapped out on Thursday, and the surgeons think they got the infection cleaned out (fingers also crossed).
Good to hear! Thanks for the update. I hope she recovers well!
Here’s a Fuck Today that I’m looking for a little advice on.
First off, there’s an aquaintance…one of the first to order paintings when I began to have money trouble in September. We agreed on 3 small paintings, for $200 each, 1\2 down as deposit. He sent me $300 through PayPal as deposit. Honestly, I was surprised because I had been working for him for about a year prior to this and left because I felt I was being taken advantage of (but did not say it to his face). Incidentally, our fathers know each other. I figured a simple business deal couldn’t get screwed up, right?
Close to Christmas, I’m about 3 weeks behind but the paintings are done and ready to deliver, but I’m lacking the cash to cross the border, so I email him “Do you think you could send the remainder and I’ll drop them off at your store ASAP?” No answer. So I wait.
Finally, in January, I have a need to go to San Diego right near his business. I make a few touch-ups and I take the paintings there and drop them off with my card which has my email addresses. People have been rather patient with me, so I figure I’ll wait for the response. After a month, I start to wonder, but around this time you may remember my cellphone bit the dust, erasing all my contacts and info off the SIM card.
Once I got back to normal after buying a cheap tablet, I try contacting the store, but he doesn’t return my messages. His girlfriend follows my Instagram and Facebook, so I send a polite message, “Did X get my paintings? Were they liked?”
She sends a message back, “Yes, we got them, thank you.”
I write, “Okay. Where should I invoice X for the remainder?” (they have a side account for stuff not directly related to his business). No response.
So here I am, 3 months later, and I really could use the final $300 so I can pay my late rent and send out four paintings that should have been mailed a while ago. I have left my emails both with an employee and the answering service, but still no response. I hate to take the girlfriend route again, because I think that could be held up to scrutiny as harassment. Yet I can’t afford to go into San Diego randomly at $10 a pop just to catch him face-to-face.
Suggestions?
Maybe try sending the invoice to the place where you dropped the paintings off, to his attention?
I’m considering that. I don’t have a way to print it here, so I might have to go there to do it at his office by enlisting a bit of help from a friend who works there. If he has a problem that I invoiced the business, I can always edit my Wave account entry.
From your post, I presume you don’t know where he lives. Could you find out given that your fathers know each other?
If you can, send the invoice there. Alternatively, if you can get his email, you can email the invoice to him. That should be good enough. I hate to suggest it but is he likely to be on Facebook? If so, you might be able to send him the invoice that way.
You arguably don’t even need the invoice unless it was agreed that he would only pay on receipt of an invoice. If the agreement was, you’d do the paintings, he’d pay $200 for each and you’ve done the paintings, that should do. Now that you’ve emailed his girlfriend that you want an address to invoice him, you might be stuck with having to invoice though.
I presume the reality is that if he doesn’t pay, you are not going to sue in any event but if you had to an emailed invoice should suffice.
You will probably need to know where he lives in order to sue, if you were going to (at least down to the county level). If you do have to sue this might help?
If the arrangement was with him personally rather than the business, I’d issue the invoice in his name - you can still send it to the business address if you have to, just make sure the invoice is in his name rather than the business name.
Alternatively to all of the above, you could just assume that he knows he’s got the paintings and should therefore pay you. He knows how to get in touch with you so he is deliberately screwing you over. Is sending him an invoice going to get you any money? Are you going to sue him if he doesn’t pay?
If not, you might as well just write him off as an asshole. Would your father be able to get in touch with his father to put some pressure on the deadbeat acquaintance?
Welcome to the joys of business life. Your friends and acquaintances will often screw you over worse than any stranger. 
Fuck statics. Fuck air bearings. In fact, fuck you physics. I want to move to the happy land where things work the way it seems like they should, not the way that they actually do.
Deer ticks are nuts this year! I have just had to repeat this therapy after getting hammered with a doxycycline megadose.
Man, that sucks. And yet, still better than not having the doxycycline available.
How is your mother’s recovery going?
You are so right! We’re not even sure what the tick gave me, but I had a dime sized necrotic looking pestilence on the bite site, and the doxy cleared it up in two days. Just a fading pink spot now.
She is doing excellently, thank you! I took her in to see the surgeon again this morning (and he spent a whole hour with her, which pleases me greatly, since I hate the modern trend of “15 minute appointments with 13 minutes spent typing into a laptop” that prevails around here.)
For now she’s still on antibiotics, but there’s no sign of the infection recurring, and she’s eating yogurt everyday to help out the gut flora.
Statics is easy. You only need to know three simple things. The sum of all forces in any direction is zero, the sum of all moments about any point is zero, and you can’t push with a string.
Been trying to get back in shape of late.
Should have known better than to work out like I remember doing a few years ago. Decided to bike the 47 miles home from the office today.
35 in my quads started spasming when I was putting power down. Gonna be walking funny tomorrow.
With Bourdain passing…it is definitely my fuck today.
Same here. Was actually thinking of bailing early to go for a walk.
Going to have a cook out in his memory tonight.
Might be some drinking involved.
Fuck suicide. Fuck today.
