The Not Happy Thread

IDK, cause some people like frog legs?
Other than that I am right there with you, WTF?!

 

Wow! Hey, so would you say its dry/desert-ey? (I have not been following the conversation, so forgive me if you mentioned it already)

 

Yeah, that's a good way of putting it. It's a cold semi-arid climate, so reasonably chilly winters and hot, dry summers. I live a little ways east where it's cooler and it rains more. But I love that wide-open country where the sky opens up and the heat comes off the highway and the gas stations are sleazy as hell. Good road trip memories

 

I am in India. Where are you?

 

Western US.

 

Does summer EVER end in India?

 

From oct to january it's pleasant.

 

I provide elder-care for my parents who live on the other side a large field. The whole property is a farm.

As a marriage, the concept of communication for them eroded loooooooong ago for several reasons that started with beer and the most recent of which is my father's refusal to wear the hearing aids he was prescribed. He's nearly stone deaf and is currently deploying every technique known to deaf people trying to hide their deafness for whatever reason. Lots of non-commital, generic answers that could be the answer to basically any question.

Every conversation I have with them is part of a fucked up, parallel universes that only occasionally cross paths, situation. One of them talks to me about a thing. I do the part that's required of me. The other comes to talk to me about the same thing that I've already spoken to the first one about, made plans, and am in the process of executing said plans, but they didn't talk to one another about it and of course no agreement was reached, and now I have to explain to Parent #2 what I'm doing, why I'm doing it, and try my best to sell this information without a healthy helping of "and clearly you weren't told about this at all".

Lather, rinse, repeat, try to not think murderous thoughts.

 

I can wholeheartedly sympathize with you there, @Wreybies , my dad is precisely the same. It's frustrating because you feel that, if you were deaf, you would WANT to wear a hearing aid to hear things. I wouldn't care if it was annoying to wear, look after etc... I would want to hear. Why doesnt he?? And when they keep asking you to repeat yourself each and every time, when you know full well they could be wearing their hearing aid, it really grates on you after a few years. It's like you want to shake them and say "You don't mind wearing glasses, you didn't mind going grey, you didn't mind going bald on top, but hearing is where you draw the line and refuse to accept reality???"
-.-

 

IT is 3 in the night. I am tired. And I don't want to sleep. Something is wrong with me and I don't want to think what it is. Looking away from oneself is so pleasant. I think that was the primary instinct when I started writing.

 

I've got a friend who needs glasses but refuses to admit it. The thing is, they're in front of a computer all day and insist on wearing those blue-blocking lenses that are supposed to help with eyestrain, and when they venture outside it's sunglasses to protect their peepers, so it's not an image/physical discomfort thing, it's just the mental leap of admitting you're getting older.

I got glasses when I was 5 and gradient (no line bifocals) about five years ago, I just don't get it.

 

Progressive lenses? Heck yes

 

Progressive! That's the word! Here they get called "varilux" which is technically a brand name but like Kleenex has been genericized. I can never remember the American term for them.

 

Yep. But it's the double conversations that really make me want to jump off a fucking cliff. Again, their communication is shit, so they communicate through me, and I want to burn the whole world because part of me is like "you're not so clever, the two of you" since I see through their sophomoric psychological game, but the other half of my brain is calling me a dildo because, guess what, it works - for them.

So I get to remind myself that this too is part of elder care, Wrey. You've worked with clients with memory disorders and dementia for several years. You've seen the clever little tricks people cobble together as they get older and the faculties fail them. It's amazing, really, when you think about it. The way they use the part that still works to fill in the part that doesn't... to a point.

And when I try to use the tools I learned doing that job, they both rankle. They feel it when I'm "handling" them. Like many in their generation (not all, but many), they define themselves as Parents™ in all venues, with all comers, at all times.

 

Me, I don't comment on controversial FB threads. Ergo, a lot of the time I feel like a coward.

What I really looovvveee is how FB mostly notifies me of new posts by friends and family with whom I disagree politically. Maybe because these folks are fond of videos and memes, which the algorithm loves? And all too often, the poster will say, "If you don't agree with this video, meme, my opinion Right Down the Line, etc., you're a terrible, mean, vicious, horrible person!!! Tell me so I can unfriend you!!!"

Do I? No. I tiptoe past and confine my (positive) comments to posts about pets and food and scenic vacations.

Coward.

 

I'm not sure my former stepbrother's kid is winning her fight with her brain tumor. Very worried for them. It'll be one of the worst things if she doesn't make it. I'll probably never believe in God again.

 

Fireworks every single night is the new norm I guess.

 

Actually, it's one of the biggest reasons to believe in God. Faith gives hope that this life is not all there is.

 

I disagree but I respect your thoughts. I hope my stepbrother and his wife do find comfort in their faith.

 

And if you're an atheist, death isn't bad for the person who dies*, it's only bad for the survivors who mourn them and feel the loss for a long time, possibly the rest of their lives. Funerals are for the survivors, not the departed.

* Of course, the dying is bad—the pain and suffering leading up to death, but once dead, there's no pain or suffering.

 

Soon, I'll have an app for that.

 

Bored, but also too unmotivated to really do anything, and not tired.

Is this the definition for agitated?