would you be the savior of the broken the beaten and the damned

[the_siobhan]

6 – Start of the British Pie Week!  What is your favourite savoury pie?  How about your favourite sweet pie? Is a pasty lid on top of a casserole really a pie?
7 – Cereal Day: What cereals do you like? If you had cereal for breakfast this morning what was it? What was your favourite as a child?
8 – International Women’s Day (March is also Women’s History Month): This was first celebrated in 1909, have you ever celebrated it?  How do you think women should be honoured on this day?
9 – Professional Pet Sitters Week: Have you ever engaged the services of a professional pet sitter, or do you usually rely on family or friends to take care of your pets when you're away? Have you ever done any pet sitting for anyone? Would pet sit for any type of pet, or would you limit your services to one specific type of animal (e.g. only cats, or only dogs, etc.)?
10 – Middle Name Pride Day: not everyone has one, do you?  Is there a story behind your middle name or why you don’t have one?


Do love a good meatpie, and for sweet pies I'm torn between pecan and key lime. My cereal tends to be granola. I'm not sure what counts as a "celebration" of recognition days, but I don't do anything special about it. I have never used or been a pet sitter in any capacity other than checking in every few days to replenish food and water. My middle name is my mother's.

11 – World Plumbing Day: We take indoor plumbing for granted – until there's a problem with it. Have you ever suffered a major plumbing emergency? Have you ever tried to fix a plumbing issue on your own? Did you succeed?

Hasn't everybody had a plumbing emergency at some point or another? That's kind of the nature of plumbing.

I can do minor repairs like replacing small parts. We once had a friend teach us how to replace one of our toilets since he had done it before. Mostly I avoid anything complicated or where the potential outcome of messing it up is causing a long-term leak. I am much more comfortable with electric repairs.
 
***

Heard from the contractor today. Apparently they had to ask the engineer modify the plans to use different materials or something? Anyway, he'll be back Wednesday to go over the changes with us so we can sign off on them and I'll find out the details then.

***

One of the advantages of working for a bank, I get a deal on buying shares, so I have been doing that and squirreling them away into my retirement savings. As a shareholder I get to vote on proposals that have been presented to the board of directors. The proposals are always things like "divest in oil companies" and "pay our taxes" and come with a recommendation from the board to vote against.

You can probably figure out which way I vote. I know it won't make any difference because the board has more shares than anybody else, but it might be a good temperature check for them if they pay attention to that kind of thing.

***

Gout is a fucking pain in the... well, the knee. It hurts like a motherfucker. Moving the joint is bad, because it causes more damage, but because I've been avoiding bending it for the past couple of days now the muscles all down that leg are cramped up and I'm dealing with some mild - but still annoying - sciatica as well. So fuck it. I'm walking to the gf's place this afternoon which will work out the muscle cramps and I'll just deal with the rest.

Dairy is supposed to be good for reducing purine levels, so I had extra yogourt this morning in my breakfast. And a quick internet search says Vitamin C is supposed to be good too, so I'll hunt around and see if we have any of that on hand.

***

Called the physio for the Old Man and left a message. Making a note here to remind me to follow up if I don't hear back from her.

I got him signed up on WheelTrans so I can get him back and forth to appointments without having to dump three figures on a taxi every time. I got some feedback from people who have needed their service that WheelTrans is kind of shit because you have to book a week ahead. "No problem," says I, "He has to make these appointments months in advance, so that's lots of time."

Only it turns out what people mean when they say a week in advance, is only a week in advance. So even though he has a specialist appointment in April, I can't book him on a trip until one week before the appointment. And if the time slot fills up, too bad.

So yeah, that's pretty crap.

In the summertime I might try just taking him on the streetcar since the new ones have access ramps. If people in this city can just stop stabbing each other for a hot minute.

 

Comments

[cornerofmadness]

gout is nasty. I always felt sorry for my patients with it. The knee sounds even worse than the foot. Hope it resolves soon

[the_siobhan]

Mine is a pretty mild case and I don't get flares often. For which I am very grateful.

[cornerofmadness]

Glad it's not often a literal pain

[houseof9cats]

Wheel Trans is also so late a lot of the time that you miss your appointments. At least 10 years ago. I don't know anyone who actually used it unless they were able to budget an hour or more on either end to wait for it to actually arrive. The Red Cross is cheaper than a taxi and was timely, IME. About half the cost.

https://www.redcross.ca/in-your-community/ontario/nutrition-and-transportation/transportation/toronto-region-branch-transportation

[the_siobhan]

Oh that's useful. Thank you

[greylock]

You can probably figure out which way I vote. I know it won't make any difference because the board has more shares than anybody else, but it might be a good temperature check for them if they pay attention to that kind of thing.

Nah, it doesn't. Sorry. Those are, if like here, put up by groups who get the 0.5% required to put a motion or whatever the floor is. And even if they get a 40% protest vote at the meeting, you're always against the instos.

And something like remuneration, which is non-binding, second strikes are rare.

It's an illusion of democracy. Even "activist" investors have trouble stacking the boards when the funds want something. And Jo/Joe Director actually believes that being a shitcunt is VITAL for society.

But, every journey...




Hasn't everybody had a plumbing emergency at some point or another? That's kind of the nature of plumbing.

Fuuck. So many. The worse is when the sewer backs up in your property, or toilet.

You've got gout? :(

[the_siobhan]

I do. It's genetic.

[greylock]

Damn! I thought it was a lifestyle disease (that said, I don't exactly know what it is, and try not to google medical stuff).

I'm sorry. I know it's quite painful.

[the_siobhan]

I thought it was a lifestyle disease

It can be.

Explanation here, so if you don't want to know stop reading now. :-)

Gout is a type of arthritis. What happens is uric acid accumulates in the blood until it becomes so concentrated that it crystallizes out of solution. Said crystals are really sharp and will get trapped in a joint. Usually that's in the feet because gravity, but I'm weird so it moves around.

The joint hurts and it swells up and sometimes the skin can even go red and peel off. It hurts like a sonofabitch because I literally have shards of glass in the joint slicing me up.

The lifestyle part is that uric acid is a by-product of breaking down purine, which is a protein found in meat. (Some plants too, but all my reading suggests that the body appears not to hold on to purine from plants in the same way.) Fish has the most purine, followed by red meat and then it goes down as you from there. (Turkey has more than chicken, goose has more than duck, etc) Alcohol doesn't have it's own purine but it does make your body hang onto it more. So if you have a red meat rich diet with a lot of liquor you can push yourself into a gout episode.

The genetic component is that my uric acid levels are always high so it doesn't take much to push me over the line. I still eat fish and red meat (and drink occasionally) but I have to make sure I space it out over time so I don't build up the uric acid levels too high. I didn't do anything to cause this specific episode so hopefully it's just a one-off fluke.

[greylock]

This actually answers many half formed questions I had about gout.
And, big plus, whatever the hell is going on with my foot: I can rule out gout.

[kest]

When I first bought stock in things, I was excited about the whole 'voting my shares' thing, but when you have a system where votes are literally bought, yeah, you are pretty much always outnumbered. I also thought I might show up to some shareholder meetings sometime for fun, but didn't ever do that. I do still sometimes register my protest vote, though.