Going to the dr to get my blood drawn for mono again to see if it’s gone down and I can go to lunch with my best friend and her to kids next week. Her youngest was born 2 months early and hasn’t reached the age yet where’s she’s caught up heath and immune system wise so I really don’t want to get her sick.
@Star2236 I hope you get good news! Mono sucks. I had it years ago. An atypical version that was nastier than the “regular” version. Be aware that you will be immuno compromised big time for a bunch of months after that so be careful. You will catch stuff far more easily. You might want to suffer through wearing decent masks when you are out while there is still a lot of stuff going around.
I was exposed to someone with active Tuberculosis for about 5 minutes (checking her into the ER years ago) and my skin test changed (along with the pregnant doctor who treated her and one of the nurses - sucked for all of us). That was 5 MONTHS after I was over the mono.
@Kidsandliz
I’m already immunocompromised. I just have a shitty immune system from my mom giving me every antibiotic on the planet when I was a kid. And I get trigger point injections all the time which lower my immune system too. I know, it’s not gonna be fun
@Kidsandliz@Star2236
Hmmm I’ve been getting trigger point injections for years and nobody ever mentioned that they’d lower my immune system. Not sure it matters since my immune system is already compromised but it would’ve been nice if I was told. I go again next week so I’ll be sure to ask about it.
I ordered a new little love seat last december. And it’s being delivered tomorrow so I’m somewhat excited. It’s made in norway. It’s all wooden leather and quality craftsmanship. Very Scandinavian design but not Ikea. And me being me the wood is black and the leather is red. It wasn’t supposed to be here until mid to late March but I think they rushed their us orders to avoid tariffs
@Cerridwyn@Kyeh
It sure is! Even though I’m sporting a neutral color scheme I’m always drawn to the bright and happy room decor. I love it but I need to be calm in my surroundings. My sister has me shop online for her, she does bright and colorful decor.
Deal with some end-of-month bills and paperwork. Weather not too bad at temporary home in North Carolina might do some more garden cleanup and pruning.
Then in evening watch President Musk’s test flight of Starship that will bring him and a harem of women to populate Mars.
@pmarin To be clear for anyone who may have been thinking about it — this flight does not carry President Musk, so don’t waste any god points praying for its destruction.
@ironcheftoni My mother at 95 was still driving herself to a casino but it was only a few miles and in good weather; she had a lot of friends there and ways to get there if she didn’t want to drive.
Anyway she passed of a cancer issue we knew she had been working with for several years, but avoided a lengthy period of needing nursing care she would have never wanted.
Now I am getting her tax papers in addition to my own to resolve. But living to an age like that in mostly good condition (even with problems) is about as good as you can do, I suppose.
@ironcheftoni Where is her casino with the crab legs? Years ago we used to drive with my mother to one in Washington that had the buffet with crab legs.
@ironcheftoni My mother’s casinos were in Oregon and Washington state. The close one was Lincoln City Oregon because she had a place she stayed out there.
Funny you mention Drago’s. Drago was my father’s name (full name Dragomir which sounds really ominous). Someday on a trip I will have to check out Bossier City.
@jouest well, mom has dementia. Refuses to move to an assisted living. Out of the 11 tax documents I need to file her taxes, she only had 4 of them. Social security is going to be the toughest one to get. Despite the fact that she used to be a tax preparer in her previous life, she doesn’t understand why I need all this stuff. @Felton10 has been of great assistance. I at least got her to sign the irs poa form.
@ironcheftoni Since you only have 4 of the 11 docs we think you need and getting a hold of someone on the phone might be difficult with all the layoffs you might explore this— https://www.irs.gov/individuals/get-transcript
which might even give you the 2024 docs which the IRS has gotten from outside sources copies-most of which were sent to your mother and you can’t locate.
@Felton10 thank you! After posting the previous, I found all but two. One of her annuity 1099s and dad’s 1099-ssa. She has stuff hidden in every room of the house
@ironcheftoni If you have some of the previous yrs returns, you can check and see if the annuity payments and the amt taxable are the same and use that or I am sure you can go to the company website, create an acct and get the 1099-R info that way.
Re the 1099-SA if it had been payable to her the last couple of years you can goggle and find out the increase in SS for the last couple of years from the one you have and come pretty close to the actual amount or go to the SS website, create an account get it from there.
Both the above would avoid you having to go to the IRS which might be difficult to get this year. Even if you had to estimate the amount of the two missing items, that would be better than leaving the info off completely and they would bill you for any difference and I am sure if there were any type of penalty involved you could get it abated if you explain the circumstances to them.
@Felton10 i do have last years return. So I hcan figure out the annuity payment from there. I dont have dad’s 1099-ssa. He passed in early March 2024 and they paid the same in Medicare. I think i can pull his check amount from bank statements. They still want their money, even if you are dead. I just did a quick glance of the site last night and hopefully I can look up their information from it. I filed hor her last year on paper because she has never done electronic filing. You have been a tremendous help. I so appreciate it!
@Cerridwyn Well, yes. But I bet can almost get through a month with what I’ve got; eggs last, and I could bake bread, and I have lots of frozen things. I should try it - but I probably won’t.
@Cerridwyn@Kyeh My wife went to Target after we had lunch with a friend (they dropped me off at home before going out to stores). I forgot to say don’t shop today.
honestly don’t think there is anything we can do no matter what.
@Cerridwyn@pmarin It might not but I figured it doesn’t hurt to try. Target dialed back its lgbtq-themed stuff after a conservative backlash.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Trying to desperately download PracticeUpdate articles before the website permanently goes down at the end of today. It has been a really good source of curated information on topics I am interested in (like my cancers and other medical crap I have or others I care about have). Unfortunately I have an eye doctor appointment this morning and the eye drops will make it harder to do that. Been spending a lot of this week pdf’ing my saved links… well when I am not doing nothing due to being sick with pneumonia after a nasty virus.
@Kidsandliz Didn’t know about that site and sorry about your problems. If the info is released to public maybe you or someone with tech resources can keep it available as a public internet archive?
@pmarin They are taking the site down at midnight so nothing any of us can do. I don’t know anyone who can archive 12 years of multiple daily articles. That is likely a huge cloud space worth of stuff.
@Kyeh@pmarin No idea as they didn’t say, I suspect it is because they have a pay site *$699/year) they hope to drive more paying customers to. This one was free.
Finish pruning our orchard. We have 11 fruit trees: 2 Asian pears, 1 anjou pear, 1 mini-bartlett pear, 3 assorted apples, 2 cherries, 1 fig and 1 plum. Plus blueberries and raspberries. Spring is a busy time.
Last week we had snow, but this week there have been a couple of warm sunny days, so we hope to catch up.
@macromeh what region?
I have 4 cherries, 2 apples, 2 pears, some berries, in WA state. Things don’t start happening there till later.
And wild “Himalayan Blackberries” which are invasive and were already there on my and neighbor’s properties. I have to spend a lot of $$ each year to have people cut them. I tried myself but cannot keep up and am getting too old for that on a steep slope. I try to avoid the toxic sprays.
@macromeh@pmarin When I lived in Moscow, ID (3 miles from Pullman, WA) two neighbors had tons of cherry trees between them that they would invite us to pick from once they had enough. It totally spoiled me as cherries are so expensive in the grocery store and we’d eat a ton of them for free. It was the same way with blueberries and blackberries (far fewer raspberries but there were some) that were on my grandmother’s farm in PA.
@pmarin We live in the foothills of the Coast Range in NW Oregon.
The green buds are starting to appear on the ends of the branches of the fruit trees, so time to get to work. Mostly done now, just some finishing touches and cleanup left.
There are lots of wild blackberry vines on our property (in the wooded areas), but we keep them cleared out of the yard and garden areas. It is a never-ending task. I’ve often said that if we went away for a few years, the entire house and yard would be covered in one big mass of blackberry vines.
@macromeh@pmarin If you can find a local knowledgeable landscape contractor, you can have a “cut & paint” procedure done for the “Himalayan” berries (also now referred to as “Armenian”, apparently not really from the Himalayas). It involves tracing the canes back to the main root stump, cutting there at ground level and brushing a herbicide solution directly on the fresh cut. Very effective, much less damaging than spraying the entire plant, and with minimal herbicide use and effect on surrounding vegetation. Kills the root system, so no more cutting each year.
@narfcake@yakkoTDI I’m not a fan of Windows at all and especially as it gets more and more intrusive, scooping up more and more personal info. Nevertheless, after having so many (known) issues with Windows 10 Update, I bit the bullet and accepted the free upgrade to Windows 11. My two Windows 11 computers both also have Ubuntu Linux on them. Everything else, mostly my many Raspberry Pis and a Microsoft Surface Go 2 for one-small-bag travel, run Linux of some sort.
@narfcake I tried a bunch of different Linuxes on both the Surface and my ancient (and slooow) Toshiba NB255, but settled on Ubuntu for the Surface because it supported most of its strange hardware. That was good too because I use Ubuntu and Raspbian (Ubuntu/Debian’s Raspberry Pi version) everywhere else.
@ItalianScallion@narfcake For my Raspberry Pi collection I am using a mix of Raspbian, DietPi and OSMC. I have been playing with MX Linux, Manjaro and Ubuntu Mate off and on.
For my regular computers it is just Manjaro right now but I have been thinking about trying another distro or two.
I mainly keep a Win10 machine around for games that will not run on Linux.
My biggest complaint about W11 is that stupid thing they replaced the taskbar with. It is like they looked at the dock in OS X and thought “We can make that a lot worse.”
Plan was work and then baking a pie. I’ve been sick all week, and woke up today feeling like I was hit by a bus AND had no voice!!! So no work and laying on the couch not shopping
@Kyeh@pmarin thanks both!!! Good news is I had negative covid and flu tests. They are treating for sunutitus with some pretty strong antibiotics. Hopefully they kick in soon.
Happy to say Charlie has been super chill today. Although he is not great w me waving my arms to get him to come inside since I cant talk.
Also, didnt notice the nostrils, but now its all I can see. Soooooooo odd
Mostly just tell us if you’re actually going to get anything done on Friday or if there’s anything cool happening.
We need to discuss!
Going to the dr to get my blood drawn for mono again to see if it’s gone down and I can go to lunch with my best friend and her to kids next week. Her youngest was born 2 months early and hasn’t reached the age yet where’s she’s caught up heath and immune system wise so I really don’t want to get her sick.
@Star2236 been there! You go for respecting baby immunity (or lack thereof)
@Star2236 I hope you get good news! Mono sucks. I had it years ago. An atypical version that was nastier than the “regular” version. Be aware that you will be immuno compromised big time for a bunch of months after that so be careful. You will catch stuff far more easily. You might want to suffer through wearing decent masks when you are out while there is still a lot of stuff going around.
I was exposed to someone with active Tuberculosis for about 5 minutes (checking her into the ER years ago) and my skin test changed (along with the pregnant doctor who treated her and one of the nurses - sucked for all of us). That was 5 MONTHS after I was over the mono.
@Kidsandliz
I’m already immunocompromised. I just have a shitty immune system from my mom giving me every antibiotic on the planet when I was a kid. And I get trigger point injections all the time which lower my immune system too. I know, it’s not gonna be fun
@Kidsandliz @Star2236
I’ve been getting trigger point injections for years and nobody ever mentioned that they’d lower my immune system. Not sure it matters since my immune system is already compromised but it would’ve been nice if I was told. 
I go again next week so I’ll be sure to ask about it.
Hmmm
@Kidsandliz @Lynnerizer
Yeah you’re not supposed to get them when your sick or on antibiotic. My dr tells me it ever time.
I ordered a new little love seat last december. And it’s being delivered tomorrow so I’m somewhat excited. It’s made in norway. It’s all wooden leather and quality craftsmanship. Very Scandinavian design but not Ikea. And me being me the wood is black and the leather is red. It wasn’t supposed to be here until mid to late March but I think they rushed their us orders to avoid tariffs
@Cerridwyn living vicariously through you while waiting for my kids to outgrow destroying nice things…
@jouest Grin.
What is it with kids these days
/showme get off my lawn
@Cerridwyn
@Cerridwyn Oh, that’s gorgeous!
@Cerridwyn @Kyeh
It sure is! Even though I’m sporting a neutral color scheme I’m always drawn to the bright and happy room decor. I love it but I need to be calm in my surroundings. My sister has me shop online for her, she does bright and colorful decor.
@Cerridwyn @Kyeh @Lynnerizer where from? I really want something like that. But not just because of this.
/image Twin Peaks Red chair sofa
Deal with some end-of-month bills and paperwork. Weather not too bad at temporary home in North Carolina might do some more garden cleanup and pruning.
Then in evening watch President Musk’s test flight of Starship that will bring him and a harem of women to populate Mars.
@pmarin UPDATE Starship test launch now rescheduled to Monday Mar 3. They often move dates like this.
@pmarin To be clear for anyone who may have been thinking about it — this flight does not carry President Musk, so don’t waste any god points praying for its destruction.
Mom’s birthday is friday. 88 years and Sis and I are taking her to the casino. I’m just looking forward to all you can eat crab legs!
The not so fun part. Trying to find all her tax documents so I can go home and do her taxes.
@ironcheftoni My mother at 95 was still driving herself to a casino but it was only a few miles and in good weather; she had a lot of friends there and ways to get there if she didn’t want to drive.
Anyway she passed of a cancer issue we knew she had been working with for several years, but avoided a lengthy period of needing nursing care she would have never wanted.
Now I am getting her tax papers in addition to my own to resolve. But living to an age like that in mostly good condition (even with problems) is about as good as you can do, I suppose.
@ironcheftoni Where is her casino with the crab legs? Years ago we used to drive with my mother to one in Washington that had the buffet with crab legs.
@ironcheftoni @pmarin It most definitely is.
@pmarin margaritaville in Bossier City, La. Drago’s seafood restaurant has crab legs on Friday
@ironcheftoni how old do my kids have to be to make them do my taxes? (Is the answer 11?)
@ironcheftoni My mother’s casinos were in Oregon and Washington state. The close one was Lincoln City Oregon because she had a place she stayed out there.
Funny you mention Drago’s. Drago was my father’s name (full name Dragomir which sounds really ominous). Someday on a trip I will have to check out Bossier City.
@jouest well, mom has dementia. Refuses to move to an assisted living. Out of the 11 tax documents I need to file her taxes, she only had 4 of them. Social security is going to be the toughest one to get. Despite the fact that she used to be a tax preparer in her previous life, she doesn’t understand why I need all this stuff. @Felton10 has been of great assistance. I at least got her to sign the irs poa form.
@pmarin Dragomir is a formidably cool name.
@ironcheftoni Since you only have 4 of the 11 docs we think you need and getting a hold of someone on the phone might be difficult with all the layoffs you might explore this— https://www.irs.gov/individuals/get-transcript
which might even give you the 2024 docs which the IRS has gotten from outside sources copies-most of which were sent to your mother and you can’t locate.
@Felton10 thank you! After posting the previous, I found all but two. One of her annuity 1099s and dad’s 1099-ssa. She has stuff hidden in every room of the house
@ironcheftoni If you have some of the previous yrs returns, you can check and see if the annuity payments and the amt taxable are the same and use that or I am sure you can go to the company website, create an acct and get the 1099-R info that way.
Re the 1099-SA if it had been payable to her the last couple of years you can goggle and find out the increase in SS for the last couple of years from the one you have and come pretty close to the actual amount or go to the SS website, create an account get it from there.
Both the above would avoid you having to go to the IRS which might be difficult to get this year. Even if you had to estimate the amount of the two missing items, that would be better than leaving the info off completely and they would bill you for any difference and I am sure if there were any type of penalty involved you could get it abated if you explain the circumstances to them.
@Felton10 i do have last years return. So I hcan figure out the annuity payment from there. I dont have dad’s 1099-ssa. He passed in early March 2024 and they paid the same in Medicare. I think i can pull his check amount from bank statements. They still want their money, even if you are dead.
I just did a quick glance of the site last night and hopefully I can look up their information from it. I filed hor her last year on paper because she has never done electronic filing. You have been a tremendous help. I so appreciate it!
Taking part in the Feb. 28, 2025 Buy Nothing Day. I hope you guys aren’t offering anything I really want.
@Kyeh I checked my refrigerator and went and bought some veggies today so I could stay home tomorrow.
@Cerridwyn
I did some grocery shopping yesterday. It would actually be really good for me to do a buy nothing MONTH.
@Kyeh but one has got to eat. And fresh food tastes better most of the time
@Cerridwyn Well, yes. But I bet can almost get through a month with what I’ve got; eggs last, and I could bake bread, and I have lots of frozen things. I should try it - but I probably won’t.
@Kyeh well, how often do you go? weekly? Biweekly? Add a week on, see how you do.
I have decided not to buy in bulk anymore, for me I enjoy going and getting fresh, but I am at a different stage in my life.
@Cerridwyn It varies; but I was thinking more of non-food purchases, really.
@Cerridwyn @Kyeh My wife went to Target after we had lunch with a friend (they dropped me off at home before going out to stores). I forgot to say don’t shop today.
honestly don’t think there is anything we can do no matter what.
/image sad panda
@Cerridwyn @pmarin It might not but I figured it doesn’t hurt to try. Target dialed back its lgbtq-themed stuff after a conservative backlash.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@shahnm a golden age of cartoons right here
Trying to desperately download PracticeUpdate articles before the website permanently goes down at the end of today. It has been a really good source of curated information on topics I am interested in (like my cancers and other medical crap I have or others I care about have). Unfortunately I have an eye doctor appointment this morning and the eye drops will make it harder to do that. Been spending a lot of this week pdf’ing my saved links… well when I am not doing nothing due to being sick with pneumonia after a nasty virus.
@Kidsandliz Didn’t know about that site and sorry about your problems. If the info is released to public maybe you or someone with tech resources can keep it available as a public internet archive?
@pmarin They are taking the site down at midnight so nothing any of us can do. I don’t know anyone who can archive 12 years of multiple daily articles. That is likely a huge cloud space worth of stuff.
@Kidsandliz @pmarin Is this a result of the DOGE destruction?
@Kyeh @pmarin No it has nothing to do with DOGE. This is a private company that publishes a number of medical journals and textbooks.
@Kidsandliz @pmarin Huh. I wonder why they’re taking down the site?
@Kyeh @pmarin No idea as they didn’t say, I suspect it is because they have a pay site *$699/year) they hope to drive more paying customers to. This one was free.
@Kidsandliz @pmarin
Whoa, that’s steep!
Finish pruning our orchard. We have 11 fruit trees: 2 Asian pears, 1 anjou pear, 1 mini-bartlett pear, 3 assorted apples, 2 cherries, 1 fig and 1 plum. Plus blueberries and raspberries. Spring is a busy time.
Last week we had snow, but this week there have been a couple of warm sunny days, so we hope to catch up.
@macromeh what region?
I have 4 cherries, 2 apples, 2 pears, some berries, in WA state. Things don’t start happening there till later.
And wild “Himalayan Blackberries” which are invasive and were already there on my and neighbor’s properties. I have to spend a lot of $$ each year to have people cut them. I tried myself but cannot keep up and am getting too old for that on a steep slope. I try to avoid the toxic sprays.
@macromeh @pmarin When I lived in Moscow, ID (3 miles from Pullman, WA) two neighbors had tons of cherry trees between them that they would invite us to pick from once they had enough. It totally spoiled me as cherries are so expensive in the grocery store and we’d eat a ton of them for free. It was the same way with blueberries and blackberries (far fewer raspberries but there were some) that were on my grandmother’s farm in PA.
@pmarin We live in the foothills of the Coast Range in NW Oregon.
The green buds are starting to appear on the ends of the branches of the fruit trees, so time to get to work. Mostly done now, just some finishing touches and cleanup left.
There are lots of wild blackberry vines on our property (in the wooded areas), but we keep them cleared out of the yard and garden areas. It is a never-ending task. I’ve often said that if we went away for a few years, the entire house and yard would be covered in one big mass of blackberry vines.
@macromeh @pmarin If you can find a local knowledgeable landscape contractor, you can have a “cut & paint” procedure done for the “Himalayan” berries (also now referred to as “Armenian”, apparently not really from the Himalayas). It involves tracing the canes back to the main root stump, cutting there at ground level and brushing a herbicide solution directly on the fresh cut. Very effective, much less damaging than spraying the entire plant, and with minimal herbicide use and effect on surrounding vegetation. Kills the root system, so no more cutting each year.
At the office working … or “working”.
Also need to arrange for some software updates that better not involve W11. I don’t like it.
@narfcake Best thing about Windows 11 is that it has forced me to start using Linux a lot more at home while still using Windows 10 where needed.
Sadly I have to use W11 on my work computer.
@narfcake @yakkoTDI I’m not a fan of Windows at all and especially as it gets more and more intrusive, scooping up more and more personal info. Nevertheless, after having so many (known) issues with Windows 10 Update, I bit the bullet and accepted the free upgrade to Windows 11. My two Windows 11 computers both also have Ubuntu Linux on them. Everything else, mostly my many Raspberry Pis and a Microsoft Surface Go 2 for one-small-bag travel, run Linux of some sort.
@ItalianScallion @yakkoTDI Mostly Mint or MX Linux at home here.
@narfcake I tried a bunch of different Linuxes on both the Surface and my ancient (and slooow) Toshiba NB255, but settled on Ubuntu for the Surface because it supported most of its strange hardware. That was good too because I use Ubuntu and Raspbian (Ubuntu/Debian’s Raspberry Pi version) everywhere else.
@ItalianScallion @narfcake For my Raspberry Pi collection I am using a mix of Raspbian, DietPi and OSMC. I have been playing with MX Linux, Manjaro and Ubuntu Mate off and on.
For my regular computers it is just Manjaro right now but I have been thinking about trying another distro or two.
I mainly keep a Win10 machine around for games that will not run on Linux.
My biggest complaint about W11 is that stupid thing they replaced the taskbar with. It is like they looked at the dock in OS X and thought “We can make that a lot worse.”
@ItalianScallion @narfcake @yakkoTDI I have a task bar. And it looks like a taskbar. I think there’s a setting somewhere
@Cerridwyn On the left side of your screen with the Quick Launch area?
Cleaning and gaming, the same thing every weekend.
@Wollyhop live that life
Plan was work and then baking a pie. I’ve been sick all week, and woke up today feeling like I was hit by a bus AND had no voice!!! So no work and laying on the couch not shopping
/giphy bored
@tinamarie1974 Oh, NO! I hope you feel better soon!
@Kyeh @tinamarie1974
Yeah hope you get better soon
/youtube bored in the house
@tinamarie1974 That gif is so odd - her nostrils close when she tosses her head back!
@Kyeh @pmarin thanks both!!! Good news is I had negative covid and flu tests. They are treating for sunutitus with some pretty strong antibiotics. Hopefully they kick in soon.
Happy to say Charlie has been super chill today. Although he is not great w me waving my arms to get him to come inside since I cant talk.
Also, didnt notice the nostrils, but now its all I can see. Soooooooo odd
@tinamarie1974 sounds like you have what I had (no voice either and it is still somewhat hoarse 3 weeks later). I hope you feel better soon.
@tinamarie1974 OHES NOES!!!
Hopefully you can get back into pie mode soon.
@Kyeh @pmarin @tinamarie1974
Welcome to my world (I have a deaf dog). He is pretty good with signs, but sometimes makes a point of not looking my way when it suits him.
Friday’s over
time for the Saturday morning farmer’s market
hmmm, Salmon (yes, we can buy that there, good stuff)