This is what the Russian war is doing to the people of Ukraine. There are people alive buried under the rubble in that steel mill and Russia won’t stop the bombing so the Ukrainians can dig them out. It is past time the countries of the world showed that this inhumanity won’t be allowed to continue. Russia hopes the world will lose interest and they can be as cruel and destructive to human life as they please. We cannot let that happen. This could have been a group of kids that got near that landmine. Remember Russia dropped thousands of trip wire triggered bombs from the skies over Ukrainian cities and towns. The idea was to kill and main as many civilians as possible. The idea is to cause terror so the people will beg Russia for peace at any cost or terms. The world cannot let this continue. We have the ability; we just need the will.
Category: Scotties Rants / Blog Information
Space: 1999: Season 1 Episode 1 – Breakaway (Full Episode)
I never got to see these as a kid, for most of my childhood TV was banned for me. But after becoming an adult on my own I fell in love with shows like this one and other sci-fi shows like Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica, those shows that now look so hooky. As a young adult on my own I joined one of those video clubs and bought all the shows I could. I love the shape shifting idea in this one. These shows helped me form an idea of good people trying hard to do go and not giving in to anger, to doing the right thing when it was not to your advantage because it was the right thing, and to championing being different at being OK. I hope you enjoy this.
Let’s talk yesterday
Yesterday started out with me feeling great and fired up and ended up with me in bed at 4PM. So here is the story. I have been trying to stay in bed later in the morning and going to bed later at night. All that seems to do is push everything computer / blog related more into the critical territory of not getting done. If we get up at the same time Ron wants to talk, wants to make plans, and seems to think he and the cat should have priority over the computer time. Some people, right? I on the other hand have a morning routine that involves starting coffee, starting computers if they were shut down, cleaning cat boxes, feeding cat(s), watering cat(s) (why I do that he is already big enough, but they say it is a requirement). By then the coffee is ready, I take a new hot cup of coffee to my desk to begin glancing at headlines and replying to comments. That normally gives me about two hours before Ron gets up and by then I am ready for a break anyway. Odie after eating settles on my desk. It is nice and quiet, and before the door to my office was borrowed and yet to be replaced, it was private time. That has not been happening since we had the idea of us getting up together, which is not working out anyway. So I am going back to getting up when I wake up at 5, or 5:30, or 6 am at the latest. I will let Ron sleep until 7:30, or 8, or 8:30 as he wishes.
I also have been trying to do more around the house to strengthen my muscles and get them used to moving again. No heavy stuff or low bending. But things like cooking meals which I enjoy, trying to do light housework like vacuuming using the Dyson stick vacuum we bought a few years ago because it was light. For example, I made an egg meat scramble with ham, sausage, and bacon for supper for everyone a few nights ago. I was not hungry yesterday morning, but Ron wanted to make deviled eggs, so I boiled 9 eggs and peeled them. I called the dealership and let my inner anger boil over a bit by just not letting the service advisor talk on about things trying to again divert me. I informed her that nothing promised had been given to us, no calls from management, no calls from the sales department, and no preliminary report of assessed damages. She started to say they did not have that yet because the vehicle was not finished. I said I did not ask for the finished one did I. I told her I was getting ready to go out to look at other car manufactures and wanted that information asap. No argument.
Ten minutes later I got a call back from Service Manager Bob. We put Bob on speaker phone and had a long conversation with him. He was more than decent. He had been out with Covid. He did not know we had not been contacted. He did not know our concerns were not addressed, he said the salespeople were told not to contact us as we were at the dealership and told they did not have what we wanted. He told us they had added on to the car wash building and the employee came around the corner not knowing the new addition and hit an aluminum pole. The pole hit the front sweet spot to cause a lot of hood, sensor, fender, cosmetic damage, but no real mechanical damage. Ron peppered him with questions on the front end, drive axles and stuff, and he said none of that was effected, he said the pole crumpled as it was light weight. I asked about the frame. He said their insurance people checked all that to see if they should just total the car out and it was not that badly damaged. He said the delay was getting the parts to fix it, they got the big parts and I guess painted some they had the right color, but the small parts they couldn’t seem to get. I complained about our visit to the sales department because I had been told the service department would work with sales to help us trade with full value if there was a question. He said he was the one that said that (I thought he was out with Covid and just getting back) and he said that that he was going to check into the situation and see what the problem was. Surprisingly about ten minutes later he did call back. He said that the person I talked to over there did not understand the situation, and that me and the salesman we talked to did not hit it off. Someone from the sales department was going to call us about setting us up on the waiting list for a 2023.
After all this it was into the afternoon, after 1 PM. So I started to make goulash. Here are the pictures.
I decided to go with large elbows instead of small ones or shells.
These are the seasonings I used. I also used 3 beef bouillon. I used a bit over a pound of 80 / 20 hamburger. Cook the meat in the tomato sauce as the fats add flavor and more juice. For the base I used 2 large bottles of tomato juice. As you can see below, I like a brothy soup like sauce to add over the pasta in a bowl. If you put the pasta in the sauce the pasta sucks up the liquid. That is why you want to store the pasta wet in a dry container. If your fridge is cold enough the wet will keep it from sticking together but the pasta won’t get soggy like it will if you store it in water.
So it was after 3 when we ate, I had not eaten all day so the sliding scale for insulin was very little. I did not plan to overdo so I did not take extra, which led to the problem that happened. Ron had gone back to painting the new room, and I volunteered to pick stuff up. As I worked in the kitchen I stayed away from the candy cupboard and felt proud of myself. But the jar of peanut butter was sitting right by the toaster. It kept calling to me. Then when I opened the fridge I noticed the grape jam sitting right in front on the top shelf. It was a sign from the sweetness god to have some. So I made a large P and J heavy on the Jam. Then I took a couple of the rolls we had with the goulash and made some jam rolls again heavy on the jam. I finished cleaning up. By 4 PM I was not feeling well. I was so tired, my blood sugar was way too high. I was also struggling with my back. So I told Ron I was going to bed for a couple hours. He knew I had done a lot and did not think anything of it. I did not start to feel well again until 8 PM and then I took my blood sugar and it was 208. More than 4 hours after eating. I failed to tell Ron, it skipped my mind I guess. I stayed in bed.
This morning I did mention in passing to Ron that the peanut butter had jumped right off the counter at me. He wanted to know what I ate, all of what I ate. He got really upset. He chewed my butt saying that that much sugar with so little insulin could have put me in a coma or caused other serious conditions. I will say it was the fastest I have seen him wake up in the morning in years. I doubt I will get away with that for a while, he will watch what I try to sneak, even count the Oreos.
So after I post this I am determined to answer / catch up with all the comments. No posting news until then. I have over 100 open news articles. (divided into four different tabs) Maybe post a video or two as I watch them while answering comments, that will be okay.
And the car saga continues
It is 3:30 PM my time. We stopped on the way home and picked up some wings of assorted flavors and after eating took a nap. Got up at three. I shut down the video computer and unplugged everything, Ron placed it on the table. I opened it all up and took the front off so Ron could clean it all up. Then I am going to replace the hard drive and see what I need to install an SSD drive. I have to replace the hard drive in it as I have an issue developing with it that I need to run a hard drive portioning / repairing program over it. Then I will shut down this one and let Ron clean the insides of it also as this one as the CPU chip is overheating in it. Ron cleaned both of them really well not too long ago but we have a long haired cat whose hair goes every / anywhere. When we took off the fan over the CPU heatsink the cat hair was matted into the fins of that. How I don’t know. I never had these troubles when I had my computers up on shelves. Seems being on floor level they become dirt magnets. I will be having them up off the floor in the new office.
The car saga. Remember we were told first the car was hit and then they couldn’t move it because they were waiting for the police to come and make a police report. Then we were told that an employee had rammed the car into a pole. But that meant they moved the car. It was staged so Ron wouldn’t see what it hit. We figured out why they only wanted one of us to see the car, so we couldn’t back each other up on what we seen. By only Ron saying what he seen, it is a he said they say issue. Then we were not able to find a police report, so we called the police, and the insurance company. The police said they were called there two days prior for an accident on the ground but not for our car ever. The insurance company said they would have been sent the police report automatically and were not.
So we took the loaner Lincoln car which is nice but has an all dark interior and drove to the dealership. As we drove up to the sales area there were two guys out front. I figured this was going to be easy because when we bought the car there they were more than happy to work a deal. Not this time. As I got out, I noticed neither guy walked up to us. As we started to the building one guy called out, “What are you guys looking for”? I said I was interested in the Escape hybrid Titanium with all the options. Guy looked at his phone and said he had an SEL and one other, both I understood to be midrange. I said no I would be ordering one if I were to buy. “No you won’t they have closed orders on 2022 Escape Hybrids” he said. I asked if other dealerships might have what we wanted and he shrugged. We don’t trade cars anymore as no one wants to do that as their own demand is too high, he told us. I was getting really pissed. He lost interest the minute he realized what I wanted, and he did not have it. I was getting angry. Did not even offer to help us into a different vehicle.
We drove further into the lot to the repair area and went in. We waited while they found the service advisor Deborah. Remember I called her three times yesterday and she never called us back. So when she walked up to us the first thing she said was she had a plumbing emergency at home and was not there yesterday, to which I turned to Ron and said they kept telling me she was, and they would deliver the message. Then seeing she was caught she was there in the morning but had to leave early. We understood emergencies but about 30 minutes later I would ask her about the water emergency and the story changed again. So I told her the reason I wanted her was mute because the dealership did not have the car we wanted and was unwilling to help us get one. I explained I wanted that detailed list of damages as I was going to go to other dealerships, even the other manufacturers to see if I could work a deal. Well that sent her into overdrive and she got us sitting down and went to talk to her manager again. When she got back she told us there was a waiting list for the 2022 Escape Hybrids and anyone still on the list was going to get the 2023-year ones automatically. Were we interested? I said yes. So she disappeared again. When she came back she said that she was to call a person named Shelly in the sales department and that she would try to work a deal to get us on the 2022 list to get a 2023 for the 2022 price. But you might not get delivery for 6 months or more she said. I said as long as the numbers are locked in and we either keep our Escape to drive or their Lincoln loaner I did not care. I told her to make me sad, have us drive their loaner Lincoln for 6 months. She laughed. But then I asked her about her water emergency and if there was a lot of damage. Oh no she replied they had an odor issue with their water as many on well water here do, so had new pipes and pump in the well all redone. But the smell was still there so the company was coming to bore out the pipes they had not changed. Which told me she knew she was taking the afternoon off for an appointment and did not have an emergency and just blew us off. She also managed to get away without giving us a detailed list of damage to our car. Seems they really do not want us to have that.
And now to shut off this computer for Ron to clean. Best wishes. Scottie
Comments and posts
So yesterday morning I got off a few posts, we got busy going back and forth with the dealership. Found out what happened to the car on Friday but even though they said they would give it to us they have failed to turn over a detailed list of the damages. Turns out that an employee rammed it into a post. Plus the part of how they couldn’t move it was a lie as they moved it to where they showed it to Ron. We got home yesterday, ate, napped, and when we got up found we had no innerwebs for the rest of the day. Today we will spend checking out the new Ford Hybrid Escape. We will have to have the salespeople deal with the situation if we like the car, because I am too pissed off to be civil about it. So if the innerwebs are working when I get home and I feel halfway up to it, I will try to answer the growing comment list. There is a lot of great news happening including that Finland says they are readying for a Russian attack and the UE is thinking of having an article 5 clause. That would be one way to enter the Ukrainian conflict without being NATO that does it. The problem is the EU has some very sketchy countries in it right now. Until we meet again, best wishes.
Ron is home, and not a minute too soon
Hello all you wonderful Playtime readers / viewers. As some of you may have noticed I started off the beginning of last week doing great with news posting and answering comments. By the end of the week it was sporadic and haphazard.
The reason for that is that Ron had to make a trip to North Carolina to pick up his sister and go to the nursing home where his brother is a resident. His brother is 76 years old (I think 75 or 76) and is in and out of reality. He is doing so much better in the home. There reaches a point where people who are alone need extra help to take care of themselves and their age and health break down. He would have died a couple years ago if Ron and the sister had not taken extreme measures to get him into a nursing home program. The brother is poor, of course we the public mostly are, and nursing home care costs like six grand a month for those that can pay, for those on social security and SSI, your screwed. The brother had physical and mental issues that were getting worse because he was not able to take care of himself both medically and physically such as cook for himself or do what he needed to do health wise. Sorry if that sounds vague but I am trying to respect his brother’s privacy.
Long story short because of Medicaid rules the brother had to be in a nursing home to qualify to be in a nursing home. Go figure! So to meet that requirement the sister had to pay 5 grand for the first month to get him in and then another time to keep things going another 3 grand. She has more money than most but she is not wealthy. She is 72, was a single mother who held two jobs at the same time and she has a retirement fund she put into all her life that she drew on to do this. Later in life she met a grand guy she married who also worked hard and put money away and supported the sister doing this for her brother.
Under Medicaid / SSi rules (Ron and the sister can tell you all the details, I am only going on what I was told by them) the brother can only have or keep about $30 dollars of his social security income plus he can have only limited if any assets. So no matter what his social security payment is all but $30 dollars is taken and given to the nursing home. The government doesn’t care about a person’s bills or dignity. People that can afford to pay get a private room, the poor like Ron’s brother have to have a roommate that they get no say in having. Ron’s sister (Diane, sorry I got tired of typing the sister and realized I would have to add another sister to the mix) now controls the brother’s finances as Ron controls the medical stuff for the brother. Ron, Diane, and one other sister put a set amount into the brother’s bank account to pay his existing bills and cover his needs. We do not begrudge this even though the other brothers with more funds than we have chosen not to help.
So that is why Ron left for NC on the 11th of April, to fix a situation that had developed, see the brother, and handle paperwork regarding the brother’s care. I got a treatment on that same Monday to help with my back spasms which involved 8 or 10 (I forget the exact number right now but that is around the normal number. It is never less than 8 and rarely more than 16 anymore. The most I had is 21 but I had lost the ability to walk and was in really bad condition when that happened.) I took our second vehicle, a 2007 Toyota van still in good shape, and after the treatment I felt great. The treatment itself is really painful but I have learned a long time ago to shut off / diminish / bear the pain I know is coming.
For those not aware my body is wrecked, and I am limited in what I can do without severe pain. I was built on a Monday by those paid on Thursday who spent the next four days in the bars on a bender and were seriously hung over on Monday when they built me. That and the damage caused by childhood abuse caused my body to deteriorate / deform / decay and by my 30’s I was unable to do things most people enjoy doing without thinking about it that much. Even my last year in the military to try to march caused me a lot of pain in my hips but because I only needed to do that for a couple special occasions, I did not think of it too much. I should have, it would have granted me a military disability pension but I was still sure I was a healthy young person back then. But my husband and love of my life for 32 years has stood by me and as I was able to do less, he simply did more to cover what I couldn’t do. One of those things is the housework. When Ron left James stepped up and tried to take over all the household things Ron normally did. But James is working long hours with lots of overtime and I simply did not want him to come home after working a 16 hour shift to worry about doing things around the house that I felt I could handle for a week. But every day after he got home he would offer to do anything needing to be done and I would send him to bed as he had to get back up and do his job again in less than 8 hours.
Long story short because this is turning into a novel, the first several days I felt great and maybe over did as the steroids coursed through me. But I was handling it I thought. then towards the end of the week I did something really stupid that I knew not to do. Everyone can yell at me for it, I already am paying the price. I went grocery shopping, got the few things that we ran out of while Ron was gone and the two local Publix stores had a bunch of the soda I like for a great price. Now the price is normally over a dollar but they had a get 5 for $5 and most importantly they had the amounts to sell, which normally they only have like three or four. I got 20. Yes twenty 2 litter bottles and I thought I was a king. I got a few other things like a gallon of milk (gods are cows in short supply or something? $5 for a gallon of milk? I am going to need to use water for my breakfast cereal) I was so proud of myself for taking care of the house and getting supplies. Here is where I screwed up.
Before I left I separated and started laundry. I normally do the laundry, but Ron takes it out of the dryer so I don’t stress my back by bending over and we put the stuff on our bed to fold / hang up and Ron helps, or does it himself when my back is hurting too much for me to bend over to do it. Ron was not here and I was about to screw up badly.
I got home with the groceries and the 20 bottles of soda. Ron normally keeps reusable heavy bags in the car for groceries so we don’t use as many plastic bags, and he puts like five bottles of soda in a bag and carries them in. He refuses to let me carry them and I felt I had a chance to now prove to him I could do it also. I was wrong. Boy James was upset when he got up for work. More on that later.
So seeing Ron carry five bottles at a time in each arm and James just picks up armfuls of them like whatever amount is there and carries them like nothing. Must be nice to be 30 and have a body that still works. I filled two bags with five each and started into the house. To reach the kitchen the shortest route is through my office from the driveway and then through the open concept living room / kitchen to the actual kitchen area itself. I did not make it through my office. I set one bag down and struggled with the one five bottle bag. I set it down, went and got the second bag of five. Then I went out to get more. This time I took three and only one bag. I was down to one bottle in one bag before I was done. The milk nearly made me burst into tears. I took extra medication. But I still had the laundry to do.
After resting and letting the medications work, morphine is my best friend and I am resisting going to Fentanyl as it scares me what I hear about it, I took the stuff out of the dryer, placed them on the bed, and took care of them. That evening when James got up for work he realized something was wrong, he kept asking me if I was ok. Of course, I told him, I just had a busy day, no problems. That night I got some sleep and the next morning I started doing more laundry. When James got home after a long shift he asked what he could do for me. He wanted to know if any housework needed to be done and he took the trash out to the end of the driveway. No I lied to him, everything is fine, I think later I may do some stuff but all is good. He went to bed. I did several loads of laundry. I am not sure if that is the day I tried to vacuum the floors or not, but whatever the point is I over did. My back gave out. Over the weekend I could hardly walk, I couldn’t sit in my chair at my desk for very long and stopped trying to do any of the normal work like putting dishes in the dishwasher. I was in so much pain at times my back would spasm and it would cause me to catch my breath because it was such a sudden pain. At night I couldn’t sleep even with medication the muscles in my back spasmed and the nerves in my spine where either pinched or pulled causing either sudden shooting pain, constant burning feelings, or my feet to suddenly try to force my toes from my body.
Needless to say I was miserable. I could barely walk and was using my canes in the house something I normally don’t do. James noticed and he was really upset. He took it personally, refusing to understand I thought I could do it myself and just misjudged. He refused to go to bed until he went through the house doing everything he could think of that needed to be done including making several meals up for the day. He kept asking why I had not asked him to bring them in? When I said he was working and I simply should have tried fewer bottles he did not buy it. First he said he wouldn’t have minded getting up to do it and then that they could have stayed in the van until morning when he got home for him then to carry them in. Hard to argue with him on that point, the guy is smart. Needless to say all weekend and today when James woke up, he comes out of his room to see if I needed anything. He has repeatedly told me he is getting me a different desk chair when he can afford to as he thinks the chair is hurting my back. Thinks I need something called a zero gravity gaming chair.
So that is why I have not gotten to the comments nor done my normal posting for a few days. I have been posting things that do not take so much mental effort and been slow on the comments (which I love) because when I am in this much pain even thinking is hard. Even when in bed trying to get my back to release it is hard to concentrate when in this much pain. If I take enough medication to cover the pain more than I normally do, I cannot think due to the medications. To write this I have had to go lay down twice. It is easier to read news on my phone or pad and to watch videos that don’t take a lot of thought than things I normally like to consume and share.
Anyway Ron is home, and when he got in he could hardly walk. It was a long trip even though at my insistence he took an extra day on the way home. As crippled up as he was, he refused to let me carry anything heavy and only let me have a few light things to carry in as he had heard from James what I had done. I am sure that when he gets up I will hear about it. Good thing I made a really good spaghetti red sauce a few days ago. That will put him in a good mood because he loves my cooking. Plus James went to work and won’t be here to tattle on me. Ok my back burns like someone has a blow torch on my spine so I will do a few comments and then go lay down again. Best wishes to everyone. Scottie
The misadventure of my life continues.
I just got home. About 1:40 PM. Let me start this with saying the misadventure of my new eyeglasses is still continuing. The abridged version is that after 6 weeks when they went to adjust the new lenses in the new frames the frames broke. So two new frames and new lenses are ordered, and the second pair will be a midrange blue tinted just for my time at the computer. They asked if I wanted a pair for that when I first ordered my new glasses and I declined as I have so many old frames taking up space around the house. But Randy talked to me and explained how important the blue tint is for people who spend long hours on a computer like I do. So this time I agreed. I only had to pay for the blue tint in the second pair otherwise the doctor’s office is picking up the extra costs for the new frames and lenses other than what I paid for the first pair that went wrong.
But that is not the misadventure I am talking about. First I am just starting to feel well again after over a week of allergy attacks / and or a cold that had my face a swollen red hived cracked skin mess with swollen sinuses and watering eyes. Needless to say I really did not feel well. But I felt pretty good yesterday and today. The universe seems to really wanted to make sure I was up for what was going to happen.
Ron must go to Greensboro, North Carolina again. His brother is in a nursing home up there and has dementia. Ron has taken a trip up there every year, one year twice in that year, to first get his brother into and settled in the nursing home and to do all the legal / medical stuff involved. Plus to see his brother. One of Ron’s sisters has also been very involved. She lives in both Texas and New Hampshire. Normally she either flies into our area and stays with us then drives up to Greensboro with Ron or she flies in to the Charlotte airport. In that case Ron drives up to Charlotte NC and gets a hotel room, next day picks up his sister and they go to Greensboro. Then they come back to Charlotte and stay the night, sister flies out and Ron drives home.
That is the plan this time. Ron is leaving here on the morning of Monday Apr 11th. Not that it matters but I have shots that morning. So Ron called the Ford dealership to get our Ford Escape titanium that has a little over 40,000 on it serviced and the auto Butler detailing and paint coat service we bought extra with the car done. They said bring it in this morning. So we dropped it off around 9 AM and returned home. At 11 AM I got a call on my phone, and when I answered it a very excited woman said “Mr. Miller, Mr. Miller, Where are you?” I laughed and said “North Fort Myers and where are you?” The woman replied “I am at the dealership and you need to be here right way. You need to come back right now.” She was so hyper I got worried. I asked what was going on and she told me I did not want to know. Wrong answer I told her, she called me and now I want to know what Is going on.
On the phone she wouldn’t tell me what happened except that they had damaged our car. Bad enough that it would need to go to the body shop via a flatbed and they had no idea when it would be fixed. She kept saying she did not know when I asked questions. But no worries she said they had a loaner ready for us but needed me ( turns out she thought she was talking to Ron as he checked the car in and did not realize we were a same sex male couple.) to come in right away and sign some papers and take the loaner. I informed her that my spouse was leaving for NC on Monday and if their loaners were not able to do that, we had a serious issue. She got all flustered and said she would talk to her manager who would deal with it for us when we got there.
When we arrived Ron said he wanted me to go in with him. I normally handle these the car things other than dropping the car off as I let him drive the better car to the dealership and I follow him there and I take him back in the van. The van doesn’t have all the nice electronic gadgets and gismos as the car does, which doesn’t bother me. When we found the woman service person Ron had dropped the car off with, she basically tried to ignore me. She told me to wait in the lobby and she would take Ron to see the car. When I informed her it was my car also she seemed confused. But I got a cart with only two seats she said. Ron did not want a scene so I said fine, go take pictures and get all the information and I will wait in the lobby. When Ron came back he was upset. I knew it couldn’t be good. She came back she still seemed to only want to talk with Ron. I informed her that we jointly owned the car and if she checked the paperwork she would see we were a couple and in fact the phone she had called was mine and most likely I would be the one she and the dealership would be dealing with on the matter. That gave her pause. Then she said that their loaners couldn’t go out of state, I said that was her problem and not mine, but they needed to fix the situation. She still kept saying she did not know what happened and wouldn’t tell us what all the damage was other than to say that it was totally covered by them and it needed to go to the body shop via flatbed truck. She kept repeating it happened on the lot and not off the lot which was important because the services the car was there for were on the lot available. There would have been no reason for anyone to take the car off the company grounds. She went to again talk to the manager and when she returned, they had approved of us getting a rental car from a nearby Enterprise rental agency and the dealership was paying for it. When I told her I really wanted to know what happened she said well she thought she heard something about a car carrier flatbed or other large truck but she really couldn’t tell me anything. Remember she had been to talk to the manager several times and over an hour and half had passed between her call to me and now. She knew what happened and the dealership did not want us to know. Below are the three pictures Ron took. I wished he had opened the hood and got pictures from the front but he did not think of it. Before we left the woman asked if we had thought about buying a new vehicle or trading the escort. The story continues after the pictures.
So we left the dealership and went down the street to the car rental place. It is a very busy 6 lane road with 2 or more turning lanes. We seen some signs saying entrance and so I went there, parked, and we went inside. Turned out we were at their car sales department and after hearing why we were they tried to sell us a car. I guess in these times I can forgive them, but they did not know my Ron and he was getting more and more upset and I needed to get this wrapped up and everything back to normal. We got to the right building and told the nice young guy behind the desk the story and that we understood the dealership was paying for the car rental. He agreed they were and started to set things up. He asked Ron if he wanted me to be able to drive the car and it would be $25 dollars more a day. Plus did he want their insurance for another $25 dollars a day. As he talked and addressed Ron, I realized we had the same situation happening. I told the guy we were a married couple and our insurance was joint and we preferred it. I have to say I love how he readjusted. It was no big deal but he got to cut out half of the spiel he had to say knowing it now applied to both of us. I understood his position, he had assumed we were just friends and it was part of what he had to go over to gain as much profit for the company and cover them in case of issues. Once he understood we were a married couple things went so much smoother. This is the part of same sex marriage a lot of people cannot understand. Marriage is about a lot of legal rights that are just assumed for male / female couples but must be insisted on and pushed for with same sex couples.
So long story shorter than it was for us. We got home, Ron has to learn about the rental car and its features. He has to get ready for his trip. We had to return to the dealership to get his large maps and papers with notes from his prior trips there even though I offered to print him new ones, he wanted the ones he had his notes on. I did not argue. It has been 32 years of changes and adventures and understanding how we both have developed and aged is part of why we are a happy couple. He is frustrated and upset so I asked him to just sit and chill while watching TV. Everything can be handled in the next few days. James has time off this weekend to teach Ron how to use the map system in the car. It is going to be OK. If car prices and the current issue with hyper inflated costs were not an issue I would simply trade the car. We had planned to do so two years ago. The little car gets crap fuel milage. That is why we bought it and it never got what we thought it would. It is smaller than we really wanted because we thought it would be better on fuel and still have a very strong turbo driven acceleration. I only bought the car because Ron was going on a trip to New Hampshire and he loved the car when we test drove it.
So that is the daily misadventure that continues for us. I thought you would want to know. Now I have to deal with some left over laundry and house chores. Best wishes.
Today and the roundup
There will be no roundup today. I just barely got caught up with the comments. I had a doctor’s appointment in the late morning that meant I never got home until after 1 PM. Ron made us burgers on the grill and fries. After we ate I was wiped out and we went for a nap. I never woke up until after 4 PM and that was far too late to start the roundup. So I worked on the comments. Now Ron wants me to eat something, but I am really tired and just want to go back to bed. I think I have one or two more things to post and then it is it for me. It is 8 PM here where I am. I normally wake up between 4:30 and 5 AM and last night I did not sleep at all and got up at 4 AM. Everyone have a great evening.
Scottie's Playtime 
Personally, I’d like to see child-development science curriculum implemented for secondary high school students, and it could also include racial- and neuro-diversity, albeit not overly complicated. It would be mandatory course material, however, and considerably more detailed than what’s already covered by home economics, etcetera, curriculum: e.g. diaper changing, baby feeding and so forth. I don’t think the latter is anywhere near sufficient (at least not how I experienced it) when it comes to the proper development of a child’s mind.
For one thing, the curriculum could/would make available to students potentially valuable/useful knowledge about their own psyches and why they are the way they are. And besides their own nature, students can also learn about the natures of their peers, which might foster greater tolerance for atypical personalities. If nothing else, the curriculum would offer students an idea/clue as to whether they’re emotionally/mentally compatible with the immense responsibility and strains of parenthood.
Meanwhile, a person can have an unlimited number of children regardless of one’s incapacity to raise them in a healthy manner, let alone according to child-development science. And consequential dysfunctional parenting occurs considerably more often than what is officially known or acknowledged.
Hello Fgsjr. My feeling is that students / children / kids / young people should be given more information not less. All these bills pushed and passed by Republicans are restricting information, restricting knowledge from kids. Why? They seem to be of the idea that if the kids that are not exposed to LGBTQ+ information then won’t be LGBTQ+, and they won’t be supportive of the LGBTQ+ other kids. It is like these people feel that being LGBTQ+ is attractive or better so if kids know it exists, they will do it also. That is silly of course. But I watched the guy who wrote and pushed the Florida “Don’t Say Gay” bill, and he made it clear this is not about keeping little kids from learning about sex, he is a real hard core bigot that hates gays and wants them erased from society. He is bothered by same sex marriage, he hates that gays can be teachers, that gays can adopt, and he feels there are far too many of them. Yes too many of them. I posted that he said he was very upset that kids who came out were accepted as OK and not ostracized and bullied like he felt they should be. He said they were nobodies who were treated like celebrities. So when people start to tell you they are planning to restrict information you have to ask why, what do they want to accomplish.
So the Republicans want to restrict kids from learning about history, diversity, slavery, any US committed wrongs, sexuality, gender, biology, evolution, climate science, and medical science. They are pushing all that under parents’ rights. What I see all these have in common is religion. IMO. US excellence says the US can do no wrong because we are god’s favorite, established by God himself, and all those things I mention are parts of the culture wars that the religious groups are waging and until 2016 were losing. This seems to be part of the Blitz project to return the US to more and more Christian control, more help to fight against the loss of religious privilege. To promote the enforcement of Christian doctrines in the US. What they learned from Russia is if you deny the gay groups a presence and the right to defend themselves then constant attacks on them can change public perception to deep negatives. In Russia gay people were making great advances in rights and acceptance, making the church furious. So they got Putin to make any positive mention of gays where minors could hear or see it illegal on the grounds it corrupted kids. It sexualized kids, it was grooming of kids. It was recruiting kids to be gay. It was denying parents’ rights to teach their kids the morals they wanted them to have, which was gay is wrong and evil. Same basically as being pushed here now by republicans. I wonder if that is why they love Putin? So when the gays went to defend themselves, they got arrested. They couldn’t even show their pride flag. No one could argue against the bill or a pro-gay stance in newspapers, books, TV, online or on any medium a minor could see or hear as that violated the law. It may corrupt that child. Where a minor could see or hear it was intended to be overly broad and vague to mean anything in the public or anything a child could accidently find. It was designed to take the voice way from the marginalized, and it worked. Gay representation in public disappeared. No gay people or programs on TV, none in schools, no support groups or posters at school, no books about gays or gay subjects, no gay people in movies, gays became invisible. No gay internet sites and no gay help sites for gay kids to go to in hopes of understanding themselves. The program worked as far as the church and government was concern, it wiped out the gays from society and returned them to hated status. It did not however stop young people from realizing they were gay. See what these people cannot understand is gays are not recruited, but they are created. But not by other gay monsters. The gay kids are created by straight couples who have kids and some of them will be gay. LGBTQ+, the same sex attraction, the gender ID, and all of it is born within us and formed in the womb. So no matter how hard you deny gay, lesbian, or trans people they will keep being born. But what these groups of bigots do that manage to change the laws to erase the LGBTQ+ from the public like in Russia really accomplish is to make life harder for every gay, lesbian, trans kid / adult that is born. It gives them nowhere to find acceptance, it gives them no medical help, it gives them nowhere to go to understand themselves, and it gives them nowhere to turn when / if they are abused.
The abuse one is not only limited to LGBTQ+ kids but all kids. Recently a religious group blocked a program to prevent child abuse that taught kids their bodies were their own and they had a right to say who touched them and why. The program taught that if their parents were touching them wrong and making them do sexual acts, they should tell another adult as that was wrong. That was the part the religious group demanded to have taken out and replace with “Parents should be trusted and obey at all times”. Doesn’t that set off alarm bells in your head?
So In Russia the public acceptance and presence of the gay people has plummeted. No gay pride flags. No gay pride parades. No gay newspapers, those few left were closed down by the state and the people arrested with long prison terms. The polling shows that gay / lesbian acceptance that was increasing yearly has plummeted. When asked why the people have negative feelings toward gay people the response now is that those people are targeting kids for sex, recruiting them to become gay monsters like they are. That is what these Republican assholes want in the US, and in the red states they are getting it. It really scares me. The state I am living in is returning to the way things were when I was a kid and everyone repeated Anita Bryant’s hateful slander of the gays including the teens and adult males who were raping me.
Fgsjr. Sorry for the rant. This got a lot longer and more emotional than I had intended. I am still having issues from the story I posted the other day. It has nothing to do with you and I thank you for the comment that I could reply to and get these things off my chest. I am going to proofread this, sent it as a reply, and then post it as a post on its own. Your comment was grand. It needs more people to see it. Thanks