Rants

The only reason I’ve kept my account there through all the things Facebook has pulled is because its the only contact I have with a bunch of people that I used to be good friends with.  After I moved out of state my contacts with them (partially my fault, partially not) dwindled and disappeared, so I was thrilled to see them on Facebook, where we could occasionally chat at least.

So this latest Facebook update has annoyed me to no end.  Don’t screw with my news feed dammit.  Its how I keep up with some of these folks.

Someone came up with a partial fix. 

1:Log into Facebook, on your homepage, in the top right corner is a down arrow, click on it, click on Account Settings in the box that pops open.  In Account settings click on Notifications, on the notifications page, in the top right hand corner is a box about email frequency, make sure it is NOT checked (default is checked and its a new “feature” so likely its checked).

2: Go back to your home page, if you have “Top Stories” sorted out of your feed by Facebook (seriously, talk about a stupid idea) there are two ways to unmark them as “top stories”, first on the top right hand side of each story is a down arrow, click on that, then click on “unmark as top story”.  the other, on the top left hand side of each story is a blue triangle, click on that (DO NOT DO BOTH, only one or the other).  Do that with ALL the “top stories” (note, apparently Facebook doesn’t ALWAYS sort out “top stories” so if you don’t see any don’t freak, just keep in mind what to do when they DO popup).

3: Now thats not perfect.  Facebook, in its ever so great wisdom, has decided that people’s news feeds were too crowded and thus things needed to be seperated out.  I don’t understand why, or  how they decide what goes in your main news feed or what, but unfortunetly there isn’t a good fix for this, only a really bad partial one (at least so far).  So, on the left hand side of your Facebook home screen is a set of “Lists”, defaults include “Close Friends” and “Aquantiances” among other things.  Now you can also create your own lists, so if you really want to be creative go for it, but that will only complicate things when you’re trying to read  your feed.  All you really need to do is put all your friends into one or two lists.  I sorted everyone by “close friends” (which means you want to see everything they post) and “Aquaintences” (which means you don’t want to see everything, you can change what you want to see on the list screen).  To do this, click on the list you want to add people too, then in the top right hand corner is a “manage list” drop down box, click on it, then click on “add/remove friends”  That will pop up a box with all your friends who have not been put into this list yet.  Click on everyone you want to add to this list, click done.  Now all the news from those people, that doesn’t make it into your regular news feed, you can see by clicking on the name of the list from your home page.  Yes its annoying as heck.

On a plus note to all this, as of 8am this morning viewing Facebook on the default browser on my IPad still shows the originial view, and  I’m hoping it’ll stay that way!  I also like that I can now go to  an individual person’s page and tell Facebook I dont’ want to see Game Updates from that person (you can also do this from the individual list page), as the Game Updates are annoying.  I’d figured out how to get rid of them under the old format, but it ment I had to do it for each game or app, now I can just say “no game updates” and there are no game updates, that IS cool.

Ok, I don’t  have kids, and have no intention of ever having kids, so all this is based on my experiences as a kid rather than any experiences with parenting (I don’t even babysit if I can avoid it).

Hsoi recently posted on  his opinion of a parenting situation he saw in public.  And it brought to mind a conversation Husband and I were having just the other night.  See, with the budget cuts this year the Syracuse school system can’t afford to have cops in their middle schools all the time any more.  Yes, you read that right MIDDLE SCHOOLS, and not just when someone calls 911, but ALL THE TIME.  And everyone is having FITS over it because the first week of school was SO violent cause the COPS WEREN’T there!!!!111111111!!!! 

Ok, so they confiscated a couple pocket knives and a teacher got “pushed around” while breaking up a fight.  Sorry, thats not violent.  Maybe if someone actually knifed another kid with said pocket knife…..but we’re not even talking the high schools, this is the MIDDLE schools.  And oh yah, having had the cops there would NOT have stopped the kids from bringing the knives thank you very much you idiots.

Now I’ll admit that I went to private, religious, schools my entire life cause my parents didn’t think much of the local public school system, but I still can’t recall more than once in my entire school career that we had to have the police called for a violent student (or adult for that matter), and I can’t recall hearing about the police being called to the public schools any more often than that.  So I checked with Husband, after all he’s native to this general area, maybe he can tell me how violent Syracuse schools are…..except he said the same thing I did.  Basically the only time you saw cops in the schools was because it was Jobs day and someone’s cop daddy was there to talk about his job…..if a kid got out of hand they sic’ed the PE teacher on him/her and called the kids parents.  Cops only got called if there was blood involved.

Now I didn’t do any research before this post, so maybe Syracuse schools have a more violent reputation now’a’days then we’re aware, but I can’t recall any blood-baths at a school here making the news in the last few years.  And I DO recall several news reports from across the nation of kids getting arrested for nothing more than drawing on desks, so you know what?  Syracuse get over it.  Put 911 on speed dial if you’re that concerned, but maybe its time to tell the parents to actually PARENT their kids instead of coddle them, and stop insisting that being “pushed around” is violence.

I love my folks, I really do.  But there’s a reason why I moved 6hrs away from them.

My parents have been out visiting this week.  The plans almost got canceled by Irene, then almost canceled by Irene’s aftermath (my folks got stuck in a jam from hell when flooding shut down part of I90 a bit unexpectedly), but they made it here a several hours late but fine.  Brought out with them the last of the odds and ends of mine that had been left at their house, along with the canning tools they’re not using.

Usually it takes my mother a good week to piss me off to the point of wanting to scream at her.  She did it in 3 days this time.

Background:  I’ve mentioned before that Janie has some health problems, specifically thyroid and kidney issues.  Since even before she got sick she was VERY PICKY about her litter box I’ve always spent extra on the powered ones that clean themselves.  After she got sick even that wasn’t enough for her, so at some point last fall I added a 3rd (small, regular) litter box, the kind that requires manual scooping.  And I have been OCD about scooping it ever other day to make sure it stays clean.  Well now that she’s finally getting better (she put on a full pound in less than 6 months) I’ve been attempting to wean her off the 3rd litter box.  I’ve been doing this by not cleaning it as regularly so that if she wants a clean box she has to go to the powered ones again (I’m down to cleaning it once a week).  And it seems to be working, at some point shortly I’ll be pulling the 3rd box permanently.

So Tuesday my folks arrive on my doorstep, and my mom spots the un-clean litterbox.  And doesn’t say anything.  Wednesday at some point she apparently went out of her way to check it again (and yes I’d not cleaned it yet).  During conversation Wednesday we ended up in a discussion of Janie’s health problems.

Thursday morning I have an email from my mother (wtf? they’re 20 minutes down the road in a hotel, why is she emailing me??), informing me that “if the cat is having kidney issues a not clean litter box isn’t going to help that and if I was having problems keeping it clean I ought to try a different litter, here’s a link to a great one try this”.  And I think: wtf is she talking about “having trouble keeping the litter boxes clean” I have two powered ones that clean themselves and I KNOW they work cause they make noise when they go off??  But regardless I’ve already spent quite a bit of time and money narrowing down the types of litter my two cats will use and prefer and as a result have to go out of my way to buy it, and the litter she was suggesting was one I’d tried that they didn’t like.  So I emailed back stating I’d tried it and they didn’t like it.  Her response “well you have to change over to the different litter gradually or of course they’ll not use it” to which I again responded (all over email mind you) that I HAD changed it over gradually.  She responded back with yet another link to a different litter to try instead.  At that point I got peeved and sent her an email which basically stated that I didn’t appreciate my mother insulting my intelligence by implying that I was to stupid to figure out that the litter box and litter type might be effecting my cats so drop it.  And I didn’t get an email back.  And it never came up in conversation that day, so I figured that was the end of it.  Except that since I don’t do the litter box till Saturday, it was, of course, still dirty when my parents arrived at the house on Thursday.

Friday morning I have ANOTHER email from my mother:

If you really mean that then why are the cat boxes uncleaned for days

Your poor cats are having to used an un-flushed toilet for days on end
I feel for the poor ladies.

So basically I’m A: to stupid to figure out that how clean the litter box is might affect my cat’s health, B: to stupid to figure out that changing the type litter might help, C: to stupid to figure out HOW to go about changing which litter they’re using (cause obviously that’s the ONLY reason they’d not like the litter she’s suggesting), and now D: I’m horribly neglecting my cats by not changing their litter box….except I AM cause there’s two powered litter boxes in the other room that keep themselves clean so WTF is she talking about??  So I take a deep breath and respond asking WHAT litter box is she talking about.  Sure enough, the one (the 3rd temporary one) in the office “that you’ve not bothered to do ANYTHING with since we got there.”

Now my mother KNOWS we have the two powered litter boxes, I went out of my way to SHOW them to her last time we were up cause she was interested in buying one similar to one of them.  She knows I’ve BEEN using powered litter boxes for a while cause I regularly gripe about the cost vs how long they last.  And yet she didn’t bother to even LOOK at those boxes before going off in her own little world where her daughter is stupid and unable to care for her animals properly.  Never mind that if she said something of the sort in-front of the wrong person I could loose all 3 animals and end up having to prove in court that I wasn’t neglecting them to get them back.  Never mind that if she had bothered to ask the simple question FIRST “how often to you clean your boxes” we could have cleared the whole thing up with no fuss or bother.  ARG!!!!

I emailed back stating that the litter box in the office hadn’t been cleaned because I’d added it temporarily while Janie was sickest and was now attempting to wean her off using it, because I have TWO POWERED BOXES THAT SHE DIDN’T BOTHER TO EVEN LOOK AT before informing me how horrid I was. 

No response then or since, and yes I cleaned the litter box yesterday morning on schedule, at the same time that I emptied the containers on the two powered ones.  Yes I’m still peeved.  And now my folks apparently noticed that the housing market out here is ever so much cheaper than Boston so maybe they’ll move out here when she retires…..!  (My husband turned to me after they left and asked where we were going to move to in that case and should he start looking for a job there?)

Ok, so I’ve mentioned before that we bought a house last year.  The process was hell.  I expected it to be stressfull and difficult, but not the level at which it ended up.  By the time we finally were able to move I was so stressed my doctor was trying to medicate me for high blood pressure.

At the time I thought we’d just gotten particularly unlucky.  We ended up with a particularly slimy & swarmy lawyer, the title turned to not be as clear as the seller had thought it was (seriously not his fault, but it took an extra month to fix THAT mess alone), and then there was the bank.  I’d THOUGHT that maybe we just got unlucky enough to have ended up with someone who was new to the process handling our loan.  That had to be it.  Surely no bank would deliberetly treat people like they did us.

Since then I’ve had a few conversations with other Realtors about it, and have come to realize that maybe the way we were treated wasn’t so unusual after all.  But this week one of my co-workers drove it home.  He’s in the process of trying to buy his first house.  Now he does appear to have gotten a better lawyer than we did, and there doesn’t appear to be any problems with the title (yet…..*knocks on wood*), but he’s having the exact same set of problems with the bank we did.  Seriously.

Look, I understand in today’s economy that lending out enough funds to buy a house, even a small, inexpensive house, is a risky business.  I understand that you want to know every piece of my financial background, work history, and what ever else you can come up with.  I get that.  But this is the first time I’ve done this and I know you know that cause you made a point of telling me I qualified for all sorts of “first time homebuyer” credits and discounts and whatnot.  I also cannot read your mind.  If you need specific paperwork by a specific date YOU HAVE TO TELL ME.  Preferably BEFORE 24hrs before the specific date.  Telling me 2hrs before close of the days business that since I’ve not gotten X documents into you today means that the commitment letter is going to be late and we might not be able to close on time…..just pisses me off.  By the time you’ve done it for the 3rd or 4th time my blood pressure headed through the roof.  Especially since I’ve been asking you since day 1 if there was anything else you needed from us.  Again, and Again…..

I realize that the mortgages discussed here aren’t large by anyone’s standards (except mine as I look at the staggering amount of money I and my husband have to pay off in the next 29 years), so you’re not making as much off them as mortgage for a $200k or $300k (or more) house.  But its the buyers like us that CAN buy houses right now.  Our credit is better than average, we’ve been in the same decent paying (not high paying, but decent) stable job for several years, and the housing prices are finally down low enough we can afford a decent house.  Dispite the economy the housing markets damn near perfect for folks like me, my husband and my coworker.

The bank we financed through was one we’d both had bank accounts with for at least a few years.  Once the whole process of buying the house and closing and getting moved was done we moved all accounts except for the bare minimum checking/savings combo out to another bank.  The fact that they neglected to send out our commitment letter when they said they were going to (our paperwork apparently sat on someone’s desk for a week before anyone realized that nothing had happened) was simply the last straw.  If we ever have to refinance we will be doing it through a different bank.

Watching the news tonight and saw this.. Srsly folks?? Ipecac syrup?? Honey, if your daughter is making herself puke to the point of death then there were an awfull lot of signs and symptoms that you, as the ever loving mother, were oblivious too and where you could have stepped in, and didn’t. Stop blaming the rest of the world for your failure.

Edited to add:  If they can charge parents with cruelty and endangerment for refusing medical treatment for a child, how in hell do parents in situations like this avoid charges of at LEAST endangerment?