I'm so sorry about your uncle, sj. And I hope you've been able to settle some since the MRI.

They canceled school for ltc earlier today.

I took a long nap when we got home as the anxiety drugs I took made me sleep. I'm feeling mostly better now, but still aggravated I can't get people to listen to me.

Several people in my family do not go by their given names, to the point when my great aunt called collect once, my brother and I did recognize the name and didn't accept the charges. The phone rang again and the operator was clearly amused when he said "collect call from Aunt Bootsie."

Im waffling about going home for Christmas. I drive, so it can be a game time decision. Theoretically, it's just a straight shot from my house to my brother's house, so should be safe. But, I'm still not speaking to my mother, and I would think that he and his family would go over there on Christmas morning. I really don't want to deal with that drama.

Vortex I'd say stay home. I think this year, of any years, is the one to just stay home.

I got a cortical steroid injection into my upper spine today, so that was fun. Hopefully this buys me some time with the herniated disc in my neck.

Heard from Gud - he's alive and well.

Separate post: Mark Rober is having the best quarantine (also I'm expecting cadaverine in v4.0)

Hopefully the cortisone will work its magic, ND.

I came *this* close to bringing home a group of teens tonight. When my son is at tae kwon do I hang out at the local Panera and try to get work done. Tonight there was a group of 4 boys about my son's age sitting in one of the booths where they've removed the table for social distancing (the few people in the place were all 20+ feet apart and mostly masked except when eating). I happened to sit at the one place that has an outlet, so one of them came over to ask if he could use it to charge his phone. Something about the whole situation pinged my spidersense so I started eavesdropping on them. They are homeless and were trying to find someplace to spend the night out of the snow, but no one was agreeing because covid. The cousin of one works at that Panera and the mgr. let them stay inside in the warm but they couldn't stay at the cousin's again. When people went to dump their dishes, the kids were asking if they could have the leftovers. Each of them chatted with me a bit as they were re-charging their phones and they were super-nice.

Ultimately they did find someone who said they could stay over. I bought them a couple pizzas. When my son showed up he said hi to the first one I met and later told me he knows him vaguely from school - they are in the same grade and Mal was like "I don't know anything about him except he's nice."

So now I'm going to worry about these kids forever. And this is probably going to get worse as the economy gets worse.

Thank you for the Gud update, Volans. Wow. Those poor kids.

dcp, what a nightmare. I'm glad it worked out, but it's terrible you had to go through that.

Vortex, it is a good year to stay home and stay safe (and not aggravated).

Thanks for checking, Volans.

wow, Volans, those poor kids! Bad enough homeless, then during COVID, and it's snowing?? Yikes.

ND, that sounds painful (both the disc and the injection?)

Glad Gud is ok!

I'm supposed to bring my laptop to the apple store for a covered repair--complaints that the keys get "sticky" on this version of the MacBook. And indeed, my E key is not the same as all the other keys. Am a little nervous about how long they might need to keep it for though--I have it backed up and everything, but would like to have it back soonish?

I'm supposed to bring my laptop to the apple store for a covered repair--complaints that the keys get "sticky" on this version of the MacBook.

I did that a few months ago, and it was fixed very quickly! Like, I had it back in 5 days or less. I did backup all my data on it just to be sure, though.