Useless Conversation

[Signe]

I know how to pronounce it.  My mother pronounced it wrong on purpose.  She was from Italy and HATED the way Norwegian sounded.  Sig-Nee... but she said Seen-Ya.  School was hell.  I'm so glad I don't care what anyone calls me anymore.  Easier.  Some people on my mother's side wouldn't say my name because it wasn't Christian so they called me something all together different.  "That one".

My sister is so smart.  She's always been an artist and knew that would be her vocation even when she was little.  When she was a teen she suddenly became fearful that she might lose her right hand so she started training her left hand to take over just in case.  She's very proficient with both, now.  My left hand is useless.  I can't even sign my name... wrong way or right way.  I couldn't even make an X when they released me from the House of Pain.   

I'm planning my next adventure for this winter.  Ice will be involved.  Hopefully I won't fall off the boat.  Again.  

[Yegolev]

I'm glad you are planning your next adventure.  Do stay in the boat.

[Lantyssa]

Are you sure any vacation involving ice is a good idea?  Unless it's in your drink, then it's okay.

Hospital stays suck.  I don't even like morphine.  Glad you got the really good stuff though.

[HaemishM]

Sorry to hear about the troubles, Signe. Make sure to go out and zombie rampage on someone's brains once you get better!

[Engels]

Jeeze Signe, sounds like you did a House episode reenactment. Hang in there.

[Pennilenko]

At least it wasn't lupus.

[Soln]

I am sending my warmest mental hugs.  Be well Signe.

[Morat20]

After years of passing off my thinning hair as "Fuck it, I'll go bald gracefully" I had it rather crudely pointed out to me that unless I was adopted and also a woman, my hair loss is not exactly normal. My brother, despite being almost done with chemo -- and doing fantastic, BTW. Radiation soon, but the tumor is gone already -- pointed out his hair is thicker than mine, and he's been getting chemo. And is only three years younger than me. I'm almost entirely gray. He's...not.

Also, apparently men rarely thin everywhere. It's not receding it's not balding at the crown. It's just...thinning. (And also ridiculously gray for my age). Which is not terribly usual for men. (Balding doesn't run on either side of my family) So given my family history, off to the doctor to have my thyroid's checked as the most likely culprit. It's that or one of the meds I was on as the most likely culprit (and I just went off that one, for good. Not because of hair. I just didn't need it anymore).

Maybe that's why my jogging is making me gain freakin' weight. Bad thyroid. I've gained almost 10 pounds, despite the fact that I've doubled the length I job and increased the speed by a third over the last six or eight months.

I can hope I'm not just fat and old and that my hair will grow back. :)

[Engels]

Sounds a bit scary Morat. On the plus side, if nothing's wrong with you, you can just say you "Pickarded out" early :)

[Ironwood]

It's that or one of the meds I was on as the most likely culprit

Just to chime in, wife-unit takes pills for some bone problems and it's killed her hair in a similar but not as much manner.  Brittle, breakable and entirely without body.  Also, her hair .  I would imagine it's probably the meds !

[Morat20]

Sounds a bit scary Morat. On the plus side, if nothing's wrong with you, you can just say you "Pickarded out" early :)

Eh, other than cancer -- which I have learned causes every symptom in the world, including possibly "feeling healthy" -- it's probably a thyroid thingy. Those are pretty easy to fix. If it's too active, they kill off a bit of it. Not active enough, you take synthetic whatever-thyroids-make. There's a couple of months as they get the dosage right, but it's nothing big.

Problem is I turn 40 this year, and it's increasingly hard to tell what's "symptom" and what's "getting older".

[Merusk]

It's hearing stories about 40 like that which make me realize I've been genetically blessed and need to stop worrying about non-health things so much.

Hope you're both doing better, Signe and Morat.

[pxib]

One refrain I've heard from several people when my relationships have fallen apart is "at least you didn't have kids" — both for the kids' own sake, and because "they'd be in another state or country and that would make you miserable".  But I dunno.  I have never been in a relationship in which my partner and I didn't pick out names for our potential future children, which may not be an advisable practice since it makes them feel real.  And instead of being in another state or country, they're now trapped in other timelines.  That doesn't strike me as better.

[Lantyssa]

Problem is I turn 40 this year, and it's increasingly hard to tell what's "symptom" and what's "getting older".

If you're getting older you're not dead yet.  Welcome to 40, old man.

[Morat20]

Problem is I turn 40 this year, and it's increasingly hard to tell what's "symptom" and what's "getting older".

If you're getting older you're not dead yet.  Welcome to 40, old man.

Hey, I got until October. :) I'm thinking Flying Saucer, actually. Beer good....

I just spent the afternoon cleaning up a mess of my own making. Was trying to clean one thing, managed to hook part of the vacuum cleaner on a shelving unit that wasn't really secured to the wall. The end result was dirt, water, broken glass, and a host of other things all over me and the floor. I did manage to get the heck out of the way of the falling shelves.

I really should have secured that to the wall when I put it up, but it's been fine for 10 years....

[Selby]

Problem is I turn 40 this year, and it's increasingly hard to tell what's "symptom" and what's "getting older".

Tell me about it.  I spent most of my teens and 20's with a screwed up chemical imbalance that was finally corrected to where life finally got good in my 30's, but now I'm finding when I wake up sometimes I can't remember how long this thumb has been bothering me, has my right knee really been hurting more than a day or two, why is it taking longer to get up and going in the morning because I'm getting older or is there really something wrong?  Last thing I want to do is waste yet more time at the doctor's office finding out "oh you're just getting old, welcome to the club" vs. "oh shit, you need to get that looked at."

[Signe]

Geez, if you go by this place, forty is the new sixty!   

[rattran]

I'll be 45 in a matter of days, and other than a lingering summer cold my employees gifted me, I'm just fine.

Now get offa my lawn.

[Sky]

40s aren't even old unless you live a shit lifestyle. Eat well, get some exercise and avoid vices.

Looking at my classmates from high school, 40 is the wall. Those who haven't been taking care of themselves really start to look rough at 40. Can't wait to see 50!

Though I'm an outlier because I've always looked a lot younger than I am, if I shave off my beard (which has some white in it now) I look the same as I did when I was 30. In fact, my license from when I was 32 or so looks more like me than my license from when I was 42 or so (because I had long hair and a full on zz top beard going on when I was 42).

[Ironwood]

Eat well, get some exercise and avoid vices.

Good advice if you're anywhere near Joe Pesci.

[Nebu]

I hit 50 this year and it's off to a depressing start.  I've lost two friends to heart attacks in the last month (both in their mid-40's) and another lost most of his brain function to a brain tumor. 

Getting old sucks.

[Engels]

Jeeze. Sorry for your loss Nebu. 40s is too young for that shit.

[Sky]

I've already lost a bunch of my friends, so at least I got over that early? Losing my old best buddy and creative partner kinda numbed me to losing anyone else. Nobody outside family matters as much as he did. *shrug*

Should point out that we used to live an extremely crazy lifestyle when I was younger, so I lost many in the teens and 20s, too. There's a reason I appear so boring now :)

[Merusk]

Yeah, I've been losing classmates since Senior year to random death. (Head injury, car crashes, sudden heart attacks, suicides) I'm pretty prepared for it now.   In my 50s I'll probably freak as it speeds-up.

[Selby]

The first classmate that I know of died of a heart attack about 6 months ago and it was an eye opener to a lot of people. Although we've lost plenty to drinking & drugs already even back in high school. I also dated someone in their 50's and attended funerals for people they knew in high school who had died so I am a bit more prepared than some others from school may be...

And I look much better now than I did in my age 22 and 24 license photos, I look much younger (probably because I'm not fat anymore but also due to chemistry).  Some people I knew from high school have gotten pretty rough... sunscreen isn't their friend.

[Merusk]

Yeah, the leather handbag crowd is the next group I expect to kick the bucket now that the heavy users are off. The 'eternally overweight' crowd has been a steady stream of death, but a lot of the ones I was convinced would be dead by now are still going. Shows how much I know.

[Rasix]

I'm losing the hair battle.  It's sad.  My stylist has stopped thinning the top as part of my regular cut (my hair used to be insanely thick).   Now my hair and scalp feel crappy all the time and every shower is a moment of dismay. 

I haven't lost of a lot of my peers.  Some suicides, but no one I was close with.  One of my dad's best friends just died. Spooked him really bad.  Guy was just playing golf and keeled right the fuck over. But, my dad's old.  He's going to start losing his contemporaries more rapidly, and I feel bad for him. 

[Rendakor]

I haven't lost many classmates either (one to drugs, a suicide and a car accident I think) but at 31 I'm one of the younger f13ers.

[Yegolev]

Too many of my contemporaries yet live.

[WayAbvPar]

So- we have had off and on hornet/wasp problems for the past few years. We have been able to treat/kill them most of the time. About a month ago we noticed some flying into the upper eaves of the house near our master bath, and could even hear them in the ceiling occasionally. Tried to spray, but didn't seem to help. Then last week I could hear them on the other side of the house above the doorway, so we either have a big nest or two medium nests in the attic. I decided to call an exterminator. Found an 'eco-friendly' one with good reviews on Yelp, and they are scheduled to come today.

Fast forward to this morning. My wife was going in early to work, so her alarm went off at 5AM. Mine was set for a leisurely 9AM, since I am working from home today so I can deal with the exterminator. I tried to go back to sleep, but nature was calling, so I got up and hit the head, then chatted with my wife before she left. Crawled back in to bed and tried to get back to sleep (I have a very hard time usually). FINALLY dozed off. Not long after, I feel something on the back of my shoulder/neck (I was on my back), and then a pain. I reach back and feel some sort of critter back there, so I leap out of bed and see a goddamned yellow jacket or wasp or whatever the fuck the little cocksuckers are called on my pillow. I have an in window A/C unit in above me in bed, and there is apparently a small gap. It had crawled in and fallen down between my pillow and I, and then bitten/stung me while I slept.

TL/DR Fuck insects. Fuck infestation. Fuck home ownership. I hope the little fuckers die in extreme pain.

[Rasix]

Just a word of advice, if their quote sounds like bullshit/extortion get a quote from your local not-so-ecofriendly bug guy.  He may be able to just gas the fuckers for far less. 

We got taken for a ride with our bee issues and in the end they did a shitty job and the bees came back.  Our local exterminator gave them enough poison to kill rural farming village and that seemed to do the trick (for a fraction of the price).  And this was with our house already sold, so it was just money being flushed into the ether.

Yah, home ownership can suck.  On the other hand, the landlords in our current rental have taken more than a month to replace a ceiling fan.

[WayAbvPar]

This guy is pretty reasonable (as was mentioned in his Yelp reviews). 1 visit is up to $179, 4 quarterly visits are $99 each. I think I will go quarterly since these things seem to come back every spring somewhere on the property. Our winters aren't cold enough to kill anything off any more 

[Rasix]

That sounds very reasonable.  I wish we had done more research with our bee infestation, but I was more in the mode of "FUCK BEEEEEEESS. AAAAAAACK BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES."  Our mild winter made for a really active bee season.

I wonder if that's why our cicadas are going absolutely fucking crazy this year.  All day it's the lovely "ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ" at the volume of a hair dryer set to high.

[Yegolev]

I cannot be the only one to find out about eco-friendly exterminators and wonder what is the point of that.  I'm interested in being as eco-unfriendly as possible without destroying my own home.

[Viin]

In a related topic, we're getting bee hives to put at the back edge of our property. Bees are awesome. Wasps suck.