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.

Oh, yeah. And I have COVID.

Oh, Cashmere. That is terrible! Best wishes for your father to recover (and for you, of course, but your poor father!). I certainly hope that being vaccinated gives both of you some protection from the worst effects

Echoing the best wishes.

heard my bil say

Wait, is the BiL blaming *you*?

Oh, Cashmere. How maddening.

Oh, Cash. I am BOILING on your behalf. Jesus Christ.

Holy CRAP, Cash, I would be LIVID.

Hope you and Dad (and the viruses you're "shedding" - WTF?) are feeling much better soon.