Well, that's fucked too, in its own way. I mean, you have a good man, but what if he was like "I'm your government, now." And then there are studies "Why don't women with disabilities report partner violence?" Duh. I guess you wouldn't ask me to give the toast, now, huh?

The Department of Work and Pensions over here is just as impossible to deal with. I've frequently lost the plot with them (fortunately The Girl is usually there to rescue me and tell them to stop giving me a hard time). I'm hearing a lot of stories from claimants about the hell that they live, now that we're campaigning against massive cut-backs to the welfare state, and they're mostly just making me cry.

That man has a giant cock!

Your argument is invalid!

*snerk*

I did get back to sleep, thank you. I will try some of those remedies tonight!

Lord, I tell you what, I am feeling my racial and economic privilege all day every day. One trainee is effectively homeless right now, and may have to move to Charlotte to live with his son's mother. We've got two with ADHD, and one with bipolar, all currently unmedicated and lacking appropriate skills. One has a tooth infection. Two need their wisdom teeth out. Two are working 2nd jobs. All but one have one or two children under the age of four. None are married. Three are on probation or parole, and have court dates and parole meetings and NA meetings to juggle. I'm trying to leverage all of my contacts and skills to help them while maintaining boundaries. As my therapist put it, I'm not teaching framing, I'm running group therapy all day every day, mostly by myself. They've actually come a long way already. I just hope they all make it through.

Cereal: I should mention that I'm having a great time and loving the new job.

I'm so glad for you, smonster. I am so excited for this work you're doing. It's completely important and largely unavailable. I am so proud of you for making the leap and doing it.

Oh, P-C, much ~ma for your mom and hoping that it turns out to be nothing major.

Mom update: she's doing as well as can be expected in the wake of the accident. Broken index finger, fractured wrist, cracked rib, banged up knee (the one that she's supposed to have had surgically repaired yonks ago, but put it off because she didn't want to deal with the surgery and recovery...) and general soreness, especially with neck strain.

She's supposed to be off her feet, with her knee elevated and iced regularly. Is she doing this?

Of course not.

She's also driving my sister batshit, as is to be expected, and venting her spleen on everyone.

Apparently, what happened with the accident was that she was waiting at the drive-through pharmacy window at Walgreens, but being that it's Miami, they were taking forever, so she turned the car off to wait. (Why? I don't know.) When she turned the car back on and put it in gear, the car just took off, before she even depressed the accelerator. (Her car is a newer model where you have to have the brake depressed in order to even shift gears, so it's not like she got the pedals mixed up.) Apparently, the car took off and she basically rode it along the side of the building, hitting the iron pylons deliberately in an effort to slow the car down, since the brakes weren't responding quickly enough.

She had it at the Chrysler dealership a couple of weeks ago for some maintenance and according to her, they took it all apart-- not sure why, but I'm sure that's going to come into play.

Thanks for the ~ma, y'all-- I guess now what we need is patience ~ma for my sister.

Yikes, Barb. Glad she's recuperating okay.

I put my car in park to wait all the time.

I put my car in park to wait all the time.

But do you turn it off completely?

That's freaky, Barb. Glad she's mostly okay, though.

I turn my car off to wait (and so the drive through operator can hear me) all the time. But the worst that's happened is I've forgotten to depress the clutch (you worthless pedal, you'll never amount to anything) when restarting and had the dramatic lurch & sputter.

Yes, I do. If I'm going to be sitting more than a minute or so, I turn it off.