Have you ever had one of those days when most of your pet peeves seem to get tripped at one time? It happens, even to those insanely and suspiciously calm people like me. What do you mean that’s funny? I am so super chilled out you wouldn’t even believe it. But even I have my limits. (Stop laughing!)
Those days tend to remind me of other aggravations that tug at my sanity, so I thought I’d share a few, as well as the super great way I got to chill out again after a packed Friday, including one of those trips to Wal-Mart I’d rather forget. Maybe I’ll make some of them funny (and pop myself). Maybe not. We’ll find out, won’t we?
I blame the rapid growth of technology, though it may all be Paris Hilton’s fault. I don’t why, but I just had a Kathy Griffin-esque urge to blame it on Paris. Regardless of whether it’s the doing of that overly blond, overly tall “socialite” or not, I came to the conclusion today that I am officially….THAT age.
I have reached a weird go-between point (a first of many, I’m sure). I can clearly remember times when I honestly thought I knew what I was talking about, but when I hear 18 year olds now say the same things I did then, I think they might be slightly retarded. Not long ago, all the people I liked on television were older than me, something to aspire to (or fantasize about). Now all my favorite wrestlers are in their early 20s…I’m in older sister and aunt territory! And as for the fantasizing, now it just seems kind of dirty. Like I might soon be tempted into entering cougar territory. Yikes.
I just finished taking care of preparing for my father’s birthday in July, and it reminded me of all the times I’ve bustled through airports. So I figured I’d write down a few thoughts and maybe even make a couple people laugh.
I should say first that when it comes to the airport, I’m old hat. I’ve been there, done that, and because of that, I go planning on getting through the crap as quickly as humanly possible. And I assume that the majority of the people there have done this before as well.
Which either means I’m wrong and the majority have never flown before or most airline travelers have memory banks running on almost empty.
When my mother’s ALS progressed to the point where she could barely breathe and she went into hospice, she was terrified that she would die by suffocation. I personally can’t imagine a much more terrible end myself. We called in the doctor and social worker and they explained that if mom wanted them to, they could give her enough drugs to keep her comfortable, and explained what would happen, why it would happen and what she would feel (or not feel) as it happened.
After that conversation she was much more at ease, and was able to focus on spending her last couple of weeks seeing her friends and family instead of shivering in terror 24 hours a day.
That’s kind of like the end of life counseling so many people are slamming. The idea that these visits could be paid for, allowing more people to have access to them, to understand what was happening with their bodies and how to prepare, the idea that this is somehow terrible is baffling to me.
Deaths tend to bring out some really cool people, but they also tend to bring out some really questionable ones. For some, it’s grief – everyone responds to it differently and may end up having regrets later on that don’t need to be enhanced by misplaced judgments from people who were also feeling the grief (and probably had no clue what was really going on). Grief can cause a lack of senses sometimes so you have to keep that in mind with many. There are some however that I’ve termed “Relentless Downsiders.”
What is a Relentless Downsider?
In my definition, a relentless downsider is someone who never has a good thing to say about anybody, unless of course they’re talking directly to someone. If they’re talking to you for instance, you’re so awesome. When you’re out of the room you suddenly become the devil incarnate. Their stories on anything tend to change based on who they’re talking to.
This blog previously told my story of how, when I went to Alltel to disconnect my late mother’s cell phone the week after she died, Alltel charged me a $200 disconnect fee. I and a friend both sent letters to Alltel that were both answered with the more pleasant equivalent of “well, tough ****.” So I wrote a blog titled “Alltel can bite me.” And my friend sent a letter to Alltel management.
So this morning I get a call from Alltel management letting me know they had removed mom’s contract and deleted the $200 disconnect fee and were ever so sorry I had been put through the inconvenience. Perhaps with a situation like mine I should have been able to talk to a manager sooner. Whatever.
Problem solved. Alltel doesn’t have to bite me now. Persistence is awesome.
Posted on July 14, 2008 in Music, Rants | Comments: zero
I attempted to go see Pat Benatar at the AMP in Northwest Arkansas Saturday and got to enjoy some of the storms that the folks at Rocklahoma suffered through earlier in the day. I got to see how AMP management deals with storms and was thoroughly unimpressed.
Local meteorologists had been predicting storms to cover pretty much the entire day. There were dark clouds in the area several hours before the event. The show was supposed to start around 7, with the headliner going on between 7:30 and 8. When we got there, a sign said Pat would be on at 8:15. Fine. I figured since there were still well over 1,000 tickets available for the small venue ten minutes before we left the house that maybe they were stalling for more people, but I couldn’t say.
I was just going along on my merry digital way when I came across this from CBSNews.com:
“The Vatican insisted Friday that it is properly following Christian tradition by excluding females from the priesthood. And it issued a new warning that women taking part in ordinations will be excommunicated.” (Link)
Now maybe I just don’t understand. I just have a hard time figuring out why women would want anything to do with organized Catholic/Christian religions to begin with. A belief system that uses allegory to help people along the way of finding a divine sense within themselves and opening themselves up to understanding that the world is about more than just one person, I can buy that. I totally support it. But a religion organized to strip away the spirituality behind the stories, and that puts immense effort (and takes great delight) in making a hierarchy among human beings to ensure the dominance of only one part of the living spectrum, I don’t see any use in that. As a woman, I have absolutely no desire to have anything to do with a group of men bound and determined to eliminate the female side of the spiritual whole and to subjugate women perpetually.
Posted on March 30, 2008 in Rants | Comments: zero
My ideas on health care fall about where all my other ideas do – somewhere in between what the two sides are usually promoting (but never actually start). But I thought I’d respond to someone (who shall remain nameless because he won’t respond to my emails asking if I can quote him directly) who claims that the reason our current system is the best is because everyone has access to it and we can always go to the emergency room if we can’t pay a doctor’s co-pay. Two personal experiences to counter that idea.
A couple weeks ago my mother suddenly got a shooting pain in her shoulder. Fearing a heart attack and also worried because it was the same arm her PICC line is in, I rushed her to the emergency room. She checked in, crying in pain, and I told the nurse up front about her PICC line and my worries that something may have gone wrong with it. That her crying in pain and grabbing at her shoulder couldn’t be a good thing.
