Get Your Grump on Thursdays - Was (What's chapping my @ss today?)

[bigbill]

Yeah, but it’s a dry heat says the guy with 90% humidity.

Mike

Yesterday it hit 111 degrees but "felt like 105 degrees" because of the 9% humidity. Hot is hot. I was stationed in Orlando in the mid-80s and remember the weather. I was in Charleston, SC for five years, and VA Beach for four years.

[johnmdesigner]

When I was a wee lad I went with my parents to visit my aunt and uncle who lived in Phoenix.
We went to the shopping mall and I jumped out of the back seat onto the asphalt in bare feet.
Never made that mistake again.

[johnmdesigner]

“And the summer came, the New York summer, which is like no summer anywhere. The heat and the noise began their destruction of nerves and sanity and private lives and love affairs. The air was full of baseball scores and bad news and treacly songs; and the streets and the bars were full of hostile people, make more hostile by the heat. It was not possible in this city, as it had been for Eric in Paris, to take a long and peaceful walk at any hour of the day or night, dropping in for a drink at a bistro or flopping one-self down at a sidewalk café — the half-dozen grim parodies of sidewalk café to be found in New York were not made for flopping. It was a city without oases, run entirely, insofar, at least, as human perception could tell, for money; and its citizens seemed to have lost entirely any sense of their right to renew themselves. Whoever, in New York, attempted to cling to this right, lived in New York in exile — in exile from the life around him; and this, paradoxically, had the effect of placing him in perpetual danger of being forever banished from any real sense of himself.”

"Another Country" by James Baldwin

[defspace]

Oh man, it's Thursday already? At least at this rate the first vaccine will be ready before you know it.

Edit: okay, here's a grump. I'd like to know how to manage burnout about emails telling me how to manage burnout.

[NYCfixie]

okay, here's a grump. I'd like to know how to manage burnout about emails telling me how to manage burnout.

1) Create a filter that puts all emails not from your boss, your team, or HR in the trash
2) Create another filter for keyword "burnout" and send to trash
3) Go for a ride

Hope that helps!

[monadnocky]

My mother is close to 80. She lives in Central Connecticut, in a town that is not expected to get power back (thanks to Isaias) until... oh, I'd say about April.
(and this is from a middling tropical storm.... can't wait to see what a small hurricane will do to that state.... Thanks, Eversource!)

Anyway, she checked into a hotel to ride out the next few days. She takes this sh!t seriously, so of course she was wearing a mask. On the elevator ride up, an (older, unmasked) man approached as the doors were closing and stuck his hand in the gap to stop them. My mother stated, politely, that she would prefer to ride alone. Upon hearing this, the man yelled at her to fuck off, then spit into the elevator as the doors closed.

Did I mention that my mother is close to 80? And looks like she is.... well, close to 80?

Edit: maybe everyone is just stressed from the prolonged power outage.

[bigbill]

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I walk before work, usually three miles. I leave before 5 am because it is summer in Arizona. Sunrise is around 5:30 so I'm in the dark with a headlamp and a reflective vest. I don't turn on the headlamp, it's just in case. My route is in my neighborhood and I walk facing traffic. This morning a couple was walking with traffic so I moved out to the middle of the street until I passed them. They berated me for not wearing a mask, you know, while walking by myself in the wee hours of the morning, not expecting any social encounters. I actually had one in my pocket but left it there. I otherwise wear masks anytime I'm in public around people, my morning walks are about solitude.

[bironi]

My only grump today concerns how to show sympathy for those with serious grumps.
The like button is my only choice.
First Forum problem.
A good day in shithole U.S.A.

[Larry]

I haven't posted here in a long time, but I want to scream into the void. I'm so F'ing pissed my daughter got passed up to play varsity. I know first world problems, but it still doesn't take away my frustration.

[johnmdesigner]

Yesterday was our 20th wedding anniversary.
Today I was informed that I have to live to the 40th.
I am cautiously optimistic.

[Tom]

I need the pushups. In the "be careful what you ask for" category:

The house next door has been empty for 4 years because the widow that lived there was in a nursing home and forbade her children to sell it because dammit she was coming back home. Before that, she was not really out and about so it was like nobody was there. She was a really really nice lady and a great gardener, her children all live away but when they came back they tended things well. So, she died and the house is sold. We've been really wanting somebody to live there and have life next door.

Why, when somebody buys a house because they're really excited to come live in this beautiful neighborhood, the first damn thing they do - like the first week - is start cutting down all the trees in the yard? Dad's out there chopping down and ripping out lilacs. I know where Dad lives, I've seen his house. They're not gardeners there. First thing they did was cut down all the mature trees. Admittedly they were cottonwoods but I know his attitude.

Do not anticipate, Tom. Roll with the changes and compensate. I see Instant Trees in my future... good thing I can do that kind of thing.

[johnmdesigner]

I have been taking the internet a little too seriously these days.
So Monday I deleted everything on my "favorites" page.
Some of those places I had visited for years. But times change and people change.
There was a little withdrawal pain but it passed quickly and I am free of the burden.
I decided to keep 3.

Vsalon
Astor Wine and Spirits
Houses for Sale in Spain.

[72gmc]

I need the pushups. In the "be careful what you ask for" category:

There was a house in our neighborhood that was accompanied by a beautiful old magnolia tree. The house needed to go, but the builder ripped out the tree as well, and now there's just a modern box within a moat of rectangular concrete planting boxes. My wife has to look away every time we walk by. I'm lucky to live in a city with a lot of trees, but I see a lot of people who don't understand their value and can't be bothered to do a little research.

[endo shi]

My bike got stolen from outside the post office. First stolen bike ever and it stings. I feel naive and victimized and stupid for leaving it unlocked for 2 minutes. I'm grieving like I lost a loved one and I hate that I feel this way.

I'm trusting, and I like the fact that I don't take bike security too seriously. I'll leave a bike unattended outside a post office or cafe for a minute or two. I was famous with my co-workers for leaving my bike unlocked outside our office (within eyesight) for a decade. I like to think people are good and they won't steal a bike that they can tell is used in the humble manner that bikes can be used-- commuting, errands, etc.

I spent two afternoons making calls, driving around town, putting up flyers, even searching through the homeless encampment. Nothing. It disappeared into thin air.

I guess we can't have nice things unless they're bolted down every minute we're not in physical contact. What is this world?

There's my grump for Thursday and it was cathartic.

[Octave]

I need the pushups. In the "be careful what you ask for" category:

The first 15 years of my life were spent in a house with a beautiful apple tree taking up most of the front yard. Come season we ate pies, made applesauce, apple chips, and everything else under the sun. The family that bought it from my family tore down the apple tree the same day the deal closed, before they even moved in. Now it's a flat, manicured, green lawn. My heart breaks. Fortunately I don't live nearby enough to see that catastrophe regularly, but now that we're planting our orchard here (and harvesting ~100lb from the current crop), the memory comes flooding back.

[jimcav]

sad story, but also i'm envious. I planted 2 fuji trees on opposite sides of my house last year and this year have ONE nice looking apple between them. My two peach trees have no fruit--one had dozens, which suddenly withered to nothing, the other had 3 but it is a tiny dwarf tree and the fruit was within 12" of the ground and something ate them. my santa rosa plum is a bit over a 18 months from planting and had 3 plums--they were so delicious. based on that I planed another, along with 3 coast redwoods at other end of the yard--saw a great show on pbs about reforestation and it said the redwood was the best tree for carbon removal. We already have 3 coast redwoods taller than our house, which may be the southern-most redwoods in CA.

[Chad]

My daughter wants me to take her to a new apartment near college (Goucher) in Maryland, but as a resident of NY there is a mandatory 14 day self-quarantine if I go there and I guess if I were to go there and stay overnight and come back to my home with my wife in it then she is supposed to do it too and this is not gonna work.

SPP

I think this is BS. If you take all necessary precautions, masks, physical distance, stay they hell away from all people there but your daughter, it doesn't make sense.

If you go there, eat at Ruby Tuesdays and then go to the bar for a few hours, by all means quarantine.

[rec head]

Our apple trees suck. I don't think I've had one really good apple off of them. One year we got quite a few "OK" apples. Mostly they get eaten by bugs and squirrels. The jerk-ass squirrels usually take 2 bites then leave them on the garage roof. Every year I say I'm going to take them down but then think that maybe next year will be the year. Don't worry, we are the ones that planted them, there is no historic value and they don't look very nice.


But that isn't why I came here. We were supposed to be at a friend's house in the south of France riding bikes right now. That's really chapping my ass.

[snotrockets]

I was actually not grumpy Thursday: managed to write some documents I've been procrastinating on, and my employer gave us Friday off to "relax and recharge". Woke up this morning to this:



now I am grumpy.

[bironi]

This one is a day early.
My medical provider is bragging about their great service options while I wait in a voice mail loop forever.
Anybody remember the dysfunction in the movie Brazil?
This is so much that world.
From the unemployed spending weeks on the phone - on hold, to
Those note receiving their checks months later.
Now consider that you grew up in Kenosha with a certain skin tone.
It is very much more than a grump.