I have to work today

My current employer is a major retailer, who, like most such, runs major sales on every holiday they can get away with.  Management expects it to be crazy busy too.  Wish me luck……

Before I head out the door though, for today:

 

 

 

 

 


News!

A week ago today I noticed police sirens approaching my house at a fairly high rate of speed.  Glanced out the window in time to see a tan car with out of state plates fly by, taking the 90degree turn just past my driveway at about 50, follow closely by two state police cars, lights and sirens going.  

Less than a minute later a state police SUV followed, also with full lights and sirens.

Shortly behind him was a county sheriff’s car.  Also lit up and loud.

And a minute later an unmarked black SUV also came flying through, hidden lights flashing, sirens going (that was interesting, didn’t know any of the local police had an unmarked black SUV….).

The whole crew made an additional 90degree turn (still doing 50) onto the only street leading off of mine in that direction, and just before they got out of my range of vision I saw one of the original pair of state cops try to pass the tan car.

Chatting on Facebook about it, a friend, who happens to live a couple miles further down that road, commented that they’d all blown by her, still in hot pursuit of the tan car, and that the tan car had narrowly missed t-boning a truck when it blew through the stop sign…..

Not one of the local or semi local news places carried so much as a blurb on it.  

 

For the last 3 days at work I’ve had customers asking me “did they ever get the ducklings out of the storm drain???”.  Turns out that on my day off last week the police and DPW ended up shutting down over half of the (major thoroughfare) lanes of the road that the store is on in order to try to pull up a storm grate to get a bunch of ducklings out of the storm drain.  Right infront of the store.

Not one of the local news places carried so much as a blurb on it.

 

*sigh*  I know that in the over all scheme of things ducklings in a storm drain falls into the “cutsy and stupid” category, but when that many people want to know what happened its probably worth running a few seconds on it on the news that night (especially since it basically shut down a major road for several hours).  And a high speed chase out in the “rural farmlands that aren’t anywhere near the city” (*rolls eyes*) doesn’t really impact city life……but really??  And in the mean time the news media is full of pieces on the midnight closing of the local Toby Keith’s restaurant……


Ow…..

Last year my mother was diagnosed with a particularly nasty form of an immune disorder.  Like, a large portion of people aren’t diagnosed with it till they “end up in a coma in the hospital with their system shutting down” nasty.  Which makes my mother incredibly lucky since she never got anywhere near that bad.  But in retrospect she’d been experiencing symptoms of it for at least a couple years prior, and they’re struggling to get it under control now.

Needless to say, when the doctor informed her that this significantly increased my chances of having an immune related disorder, she added in the fact that I’ve been dealing with arthritis in both of my  hands, and had a bit of a freak out.

I wasn’t nearly as worried, other than my hands and screwed up knees I have essentially zero symptoms that match up with any of the immune related problems I’d looked at.  But when my mom’s youngest sister’s bloodwork came back as “highly likely you have an immune disorder but we can’t figure out which one” I agreed that I probably ought to see a rheumatologist.  After all, if nothing else, at least one could make sure I was coping properly with the achy hands…..

It took 3 months from my doctor sending in the referral to my appointment with the specialist.  I rolled my eyes and thought that it was a good thing I wasn’t actually experiencing any real problems.  But when I actually got into the office I discovered that they are actually just that busy.  Oh, and instead of sending out the questionnaire they want filled out to you ahead of time, you’re required to wait to fill it out till you’re in the office because they use a fancy computerized pen to record your answers so that no one has to data entry it.  Which is cool, except that it’s my HANDS that hurt, which means that holding a pen for extended periods hurts…..*gripe grumble*

Doctor was a nice fellow who’s new to the practice (they need to add at least one more though, to cope with the patient load….), got on my case about never having seen a dermatologist about my adult acne (honestly, unless I’m having a flair up, its rarely more than a few spots, so I’d never really thought about it, though the times my doctor tried to do something about medically the treatments only worked for a short time).  He agreed that based on the bloodwork already done, combined with my lack of symptoms, my chances of having what my mother has are pretty much nill.  Made me flex various joints, asked me if my ankles ever bother me (nope, but I did sprain the hell out of them as a kid).  He put in for a bunch more bloodwork, and some xrays.  Come see me in 6 weeks to discuss the results.  

First available appointment is for EIGHT weeks, yes they’re that busy, and I head down for bloodwork and xrays.  Xrays of my hands, and my kne….ankles??  Wasn’t expecting that.  My ankles never bother me!  But ok, if that’s what he wants…..

A week later I’m starting my new job.  One that once again requires me to be on my feet all day.  Been there, done that, more times than I can count.  I know it takes some time to re-adapt to being on my feet after several months out of work, feet hurt, and knees hurt, and the nerve under where they did the lateral release on my left knee gets irritated, due to swelling from that pain, resulting in what is essentially “diabetic nerve pain” in that leg (one of those “side effects” that they either didn’t tell me about, or that I didn’t understand properly at the time of surgery *sigh*).  Its a pain in the ass (not literally, but close enough).  But once I’m used to being on my feet again it’ll be fine.

Two weeks into the new job and it’s not my knees that are giving me hassle, its my ankles.  Oh, the knees are a bit achy, but not like my ankles are.  And its bad.  Tiger balm doesn’t help at all, and two days off in a row doesn’t help much more….what the fuck??  I swear this had better be all in my head……


New York State–possible dog and animal law change

Bill # S04706 and Bill # A01006

They are essentially identical as far as I can tell.

They are written to prohibit the tieing, tethering, restraining, caging, or penning of “any dog or animal”, whether “working or non-working” during the hours of 7pm to 6am.

There is nothing that says that these restrictions are for outdoors only, so the indoor crating of a destructive dog could be considered illegal under these bills.

There is nothing that defines what those other “animals” are.  So in theory these bills could be applied to horses and livestock.  

In addition to the above these bills also state that “dog or animal” that is penned, caged (etc)….during the day must be housed in an pen or cage that is at least 4 times the height and length of the animal.

There are sections of my house where the ceilings are only 7ft high.  Which means that per that law it could be considered illegal to contain my Tibetan Mastiff INSIDE MY HOUSE.  Nevermind what it would do to housing horses…..

 

ALSO, Bill # A06406

Adds additional restrictions to the tethering of dogs.  While I agree with some of the restrictions I have problems with some of them.

There is no provision for working dogs.

Tethering would be prohibited completely between the hours of 11pm and 6am.

Tethering during the day could only be for a maximum of 3hrs unless you have WRITTEN permission from your local Animal Control AND your veterinarian.  And even then the max length of time the dog could be tethered would be 12hrs.  AND that written permission would have to be renewed every 60 days including having a NEW written statement from your vet.

While I can sympathize with the desire to restrict the length of time a dog is tethered this is NOT the way to go about it…..

 


Garden….

Our “average last frost” date is May 15, with a “frost free date” closer to the end of May.  I usually plant shortly after May 15 and keep the frost protection handy in case of a late frost (which does happen).

According to Weather Underground, this year, our last frost to date was April 28th (we might have had one on the 29th, temps apparently dropped to 33, which is close enough).  And thanks to the tires that make up most of my garden beds the dirt in them is warmer than the ground by quite a bit.

This is our 10-day forecast as of this morning:

forecast

 

I’ve got one more load of dirt/compost coming to fill the new tires/beds.  Which will hopefully be here Thursday.  Once its in I’m going to give in and plant everything thats ready to go.  I’ll keep the frost protection handy, but I really don’t expect to need it at this point……