Thanks, dcp, I will check that out if the social worker doesn’t come through for me.

O'Keeffe's is also awesome for donating 1,000 lip balms for care packages going overseas for an org I work for. We requested a discount; they just donated the full amount. Awesome.

Timelies all!

Just got a call from my dad. He's now in the rehab center with my mom. And they have a charged up cell phone.(Hopefully they will keep it charged up because when I tried to call my mom there yesterday I was told the phone in her room was broken. Sheesh.)

Just got a meeting invite for 3:30 (in person). I'm working from home today & the other guy in my group leaves at 3:00 every day. But as the only non-engineers in the Engineering Dept, who cares whether we're included?

(I sent back a "Tentative" and asked for a webex link, but honestly, why wasn't that already included? Sheesh!)

JenP, that is reason enough for me to give O’Keefe’s a try no matter what! Whatever else: I have always had dry skin.

Well, I tried to go watch the L Word and be social and potentially meet people, but only Sort of succeeded. Half a block from the destination I saw some friends eating outside and they informed me it was canceled! So we sat around and I had a burrito I didn’t super want because we were in the taco place’s patio and I was hungry, but at least I talked to people.

Today is a double Buffista birthday! Happy birthday wishes to Sophia Brooks and smonster! It has been such a disruptive and difficult year for both of you, in different and not-so-different ways. I wish you both joy, laughter, and contentment. But mostly I hope that life returns to something much more normal and easier to manage.

Happy birthday Sophia! Happy birthday smonster!

I'm glad the radiation's done, sumi. Here's hoping the med prices can be reduced.

Hugs and yays as appropriate for a bunch of earlier stuff. I skipped and skimmed a fair bit.

(at a previous - terrible - job, one young man was fired for being insufficiently closeted)

In the mid-90s, a friend was fired from a job at a place I'd recently left after another coworker outed him. Proof that non-profit institutions aren't automatically the good guys.

Happy birthday, Sophia and smonster!

I have a feeling that Oliver and Matilda would get along like a house on fire.

So I went to Indiana last week to take care of my 81 year old dad so my sister could go on vacation. Dad is vaccinated. I'm vaccinated, so I figured it would be safe inside that bubble, right? I spend five days taking care of him (he needs help getting around, bathing, cooking, taking his vitals, getting his meds, etc.) And he falls. A. Lot. Cooked for him, watched baseball, lots of M*A*S*H, Gun Smoke and Bonanza reruns.

The day I left, Dad's blood pressure had been running very low. When I got home, I started feeling ill. Went to work on Friday and Saturday but wasn't sick, exactly--just a headache that I blamed on a stressful, busy week and a long car trip.

Sunday, full blow, stuffy head, chills, aches, cough. Great. I called into work and made an appointment for a COVID test. My niece had to call the EMTs for Dad--he went into the hospital with COVID.

Come to find out my GODDAMNED SISTER who has been WORKING IN HER OFFICE this WHOLE TIME while TAKING CARE OF OUR FATHER WITH COPD DID NOT GET FUCKING VACCINATED. Neither did my niece who also works full time but lives with Dad and helps take care of him.

I started flipping out on the phone and heard my bil say in the background, "it's vaccinate people who are shedding the virus." My sister's response to why she didn't do it--"I haven't been exposed!"

If I were well enough to drive the 7 hours down there, I would do it just to slap them all in their stupid faces.

Dad's getting monoclonal antibodies and is in hospital for at least 5 days. He could fucking die and I will never forgive my sister.