send lawyers guns and money

[the_siobhan]

My dad is in the hospital. His wife brought him in because he was unable to speak. Or rather he could speak, but it came out as nonsense. He woke up the next morning completely fine, but they are keeping him so they can run tests. This is the second such incident.

So that's worrying. At least they are trying to get to the root cause this time, which is an improvement. Last time they just said, eeeeh, he's probably dehydrated and sent him home.

***

Lord Brock had his cardiac consultation. (I should be mad that my cat is able to see a specialist in less than a week, but honestly I'm too tired.) He has thickening of one of the valves and that's causing backwash, hence the heart murmur. It's not immediately life-threatening and it doesn't preclude his dental surgery but it's another thing to keep an eye on.

I am going to rename him Colonel Steve Austin because ouch.

***

I am trying to expand my cooking horizons. It seems ridiculous to spend the amount of money I did on a kitchen and not learn how to cook. And like, in theory cooking your own food is cheaper right? Which will help me pay for the fuck-off expensive kitchen.

I may have logicked myself into a corner here.

Anyway, I bring this up only because I decided to experiment with a West Indian curry tonight. I made a very large error when I estimated the amount of habanera to put in and hooo boy.

Despite the fact that it scorched the eyebrows right off my face it was otherwise delicious. Definitely making this again.

***

I took the last week off work thinking I would use the time for organizing. I think I was fairly productive? As it turned out my timing was good because the lawyer came through and so that sucked up a lot of time.

I am starting to lose my patience with the contractor. I think I've been pretty reasonable up until now about cutting him a lot of slack around health issues and staff issues and every other fucking thing that can go wrong. (And has.) But I gave him a (written!) list of three things that I really need from him.
1. A breakdown of what I have paid for so far, given that the original costing went completely off the rails.
2. A breakdown of the new work with numbers.
3. Dates for when everything that is outstanding is going to get finished. I especially said that I need to know when the stuff around the energy audit is going to happen.

After poking at him about it for the last three weeks he finally dropped off an envelope this week. It has item 2. Only.

OK, look.

I wrote down everything I needed from this guy. On paper. Numbered in order of importance. It took him three fucking weeks to ignore two-thirds of what I asked for?

Buncha texting back and forth happened and in theory he will be here this week where we can talk about it in person. In the meantime I'm hunting for somebody else who can do the weatherproofing needed for the energy audit, because for fuck sake, this has been waiting since July and I'm on my second extension.

I have a bad habit of being the person that gets put on the back-burner because I don't complain. But here's the thing, just because I don't like being an asshole, doesn't mean I'm not perfectly capable of it. And now I'm pissed off.

Comments

[cornerofmadness]

I'm very sorry about your father. I hope they have answers soon and he's on his way to recovery.

God, contractors just seem to be the worst, world wide. I hope you get some satisfaction there too

[the_siobhan]

Thanks! I"m just glad their taking it seriously this time.

[cornerofmadness]

I'm sure because it sounds serious

[dissectionist]

I’m sorry things are going rough with your dad. I hope they’re able to find something useful (meaning, something that can be acted upon) with the testing.

In terms of too-spicy stuff, curries and Thai soups and many southeast Asian dishes can have the spice level reduced by adding a can of coconut cream. The fat binds much of the capsaicin. (Since my mast cells decided they don’t want to tolerate capsaicin anymore, I use this trick often so I can still eat restaurant-made curries or Tom Yam soups.) It’ll affect the flavor on a range from slight (if it’s a dish that already had coconut milk in it, you may well not even notice) to moderate (but it’ll still be tasty because coconut goes beautifully with many southeast Asian dishes).

[the_siobhan]

The recipe already had a full can of coconut milk in it!

The recipe called for half a pepper and I had a bag chopped up in the freezer so I just tossed the whole bag in. In retrospect i was probably two peppers in there.

[dissectionist]

Recipes that like that (that already contain coconut milk) tend to be the recipes where you won’t even notice any flavor change from adding a can of coconut cream. It’ll make it more liquid-y but that’s all. (And increasing the sauce yield is often a good thing.)

That’s definitely a whole lot of habanero!

[the_siobhan]

I will learn from this mistake.

[greylock]

I am unsure about what you mean with peppers (being North Americans), But half habanero or two isn't a lot.

I am also sceptical about using a can of coconut cream, as.... I do that to add the cream. I may be wrong. I've bene told you add youghurt to deal with the spice? I never do.

My stepfather (80M) LOVES chillies and such and can't eat them. Maybe you're heading in that direction?

[the_siobhan]

It really depends on the pepper for me. I find habanera to be pure heat. Jalapenos have zero heat. Cayenne has very little heat. And I find those little Thai chilies to be less hot than habanera, but for most people it's the other way around.

[greylock]

I guess there's some environmental impacts too.

I heard the other day that chillies that grow towards the sun are the hottest. I am sure there's no science behind it.

[jo]

By any chance has your father been prescribed brimonidine eye drops (for glaucoma, I think?)? Because the episodes sound a lot like what my dad experienced back in March. Turns out it was the eye drops he'd been prescribed because, as my brother looked into it, some studies reference it causing Encephalopathy and confusion as well. They changed his drops to something else and he's been fine since. But whatever it is, I hope they get to the bottom of it.

[the_siobhan]

Oh interesting. I'll find out. Thanks for the heads-up.

[the_siobhan]

I checked with his wife, no eye drops.

[greylock]

Last time they just said, eeeeh, he's probably dehydrated and sent him home.
I am not a doctor, but...

I am going to rename him Colonel Steve Austin because ouch.
I assume he makes THAT NOISE when he jumps.

I have a bad habit of being the person that gets put on the back-burner because I don't complain. But here's the thing, just because I don't like being an asshole, doesn't mean I'm not perfectly capable of it. And now I'm pissed off.

Fair enough.
If he can't do it he can punt it on. Ideally to a good friend.

[houseof9cats]

Sorry to hear about your dad, and yeah, contractor has had more than enough leeway at this point. Geeeez. :/

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Send lawyers guns and money.

Send lawyers! Guns and money!

Send lawyers, guns, and money.

Send lawyers guns; and money.

Also sorry I can't resist punctuation jokes.

[gatheringrivers]

I am starting to lose my patience with the contractor. I think I've been pretty reasonable up until now about cutting him a lot of slack around health issues and staff issues and every other fucking thing that can go wrong...

It seems like it's getting to the ridiculous point now, though, isn't it? Time to cut them loose and pursue whatever legal remedies you can regarding any $$ paid to them.

[the_siobhan]

The mitigating factor is that if I do find another contractor there's bound to be a 3-6 month waiting period for them to have time to get to me, and in theory he could be done by then. Contractors have more work than they can do right now.