SO THE LATEST IN THE SAGA IS…

…well, I’m still waiting on the call, lol.

Ain’t that life? My whole life revolves around what’s said therefore I’m still…waiting.

Bah.

So summer has hit with a bang here in NC’ville, how about for y’all? This directly affects me because I spend as much time as I can outside. I’m not one to sit around staring at 4 walls… I don’t have a tv (permanently bed-bound, paralyzed roommate does and her sister has it set on the Hallmark love story channel…24 hours a day…guess who despises Hallmark love stories…)

Ennyway, so…outside is best. Its also quieter out here. The screamers, yellers, hollerers, moaners, and groaners stay inside, lol. They go at it, off and on, 24 hours a day. Fun!!! Gaagh.

(It also smells better outside…)

So outside it is.

How about y’all??

No IN the sun, though, cause ouch.

Now, here’s a thing I posted elsewhere that I wanted to share here. Feel free to add to it and/or pass along.

Thinky Thoughts

If you have to place someone you actually like, much less love, in a rest/nursing/rehab home…

First: don’t, unless you ABSOLUTELY MUST. But if so, read on.

Make sure you write or sticky label EVERYTHING they have there. Things have a habit of growing legs and it’s usually not to other inmates.

Ensure they have their own decent shampoo, body wash, deodorant/antiperspirant, toothbrush, toothpaste, dry shampoo, face/body lotion/cream, etc. because the facility will barely (and grudgingly) provide the very cheapest, harshest versions of these things.

Same goes for bandaids, wraps, and other things made by Bandaid, Curad, etc. (The bandaids barely stick 2 hours…)

The food will be generally unpalatable at best. They choose to purchase the very cheapest lots from food supply/delivery warehouses. Plan on bringing your loved one lots of…everything. Often. (I would kill to be able to afford delivery sometimes.)

Same goes for drinks. There is no sort of “beverage center” unless you count vending machines. Here “drinks” are served with the meal – a half cup container of super sweet oj and a half cup of watered down, super sweet cranberry juice, decaf coffee, and milk..lunch has watered down (un for me) sweet tea, decaf coffee, or milk…same for dinner. But you can have all the water you want!! So if your person likes sodas, juice, juice drinks, actual coffee, teas, etc., you will have to provide them plus cash for the machines.

If your person has to use glorified diapers, plan on providing those, too. What they expect inmates to use is of the thinnest and cheapest “quality” imaginable.

Same with the tissues. The boxes are less than half the thickness and a couple inches shorter than Kleenexes. Srsly.

If your person has pets, you now have them.

The end.

I could go on…and on…but I figure you’re tired of reading by now.

All I can say is that people with caring, mobile family are incredibly lucky — they have an “outside” advocate and are treated exponentially better, plus they get KFC and Arby’s when they want, lol. I imagine having someone come visit for an hour would be amazing but I do love getting cards!

And tag – you’re it! If you think of something to add, please do. Your mileage may vary.

☕☕☕☕☕

So my status hasn’t changed. Still broke and legless. Wheee!!!! Not. Sigh.

**waves with a shrug**

Well wishes definitely appreciated. And, honestly, donations, too. Bah. I hate asking.

~Mer

Ubiquitous PayPal link

Remember, I now have absolutely no money at all so what I do have comes directly from donations. Than you from the bottom of my shriveled li’l heart!

So there’s that.

Happy Coffeeying.

Bye again.

✨🌺🌺🌺☕🌺🌺🌺✨

There Are…Issues.

Ok, we all know that I suck at human’ing these days, right? If I can get it wrong, fuck it up, hit it sideways, I for damn sure will. Between COVID, the ensuing Long COVID, the unexpected death of my Dad, the emergency amputation (my second, go me?), fog brain (see Long COVID) which fucks my life up at every opportunity, and the FLM’s, well, flightiness, amongst other issues, things are not going well for me.

For the past 2.5+ years.

To that end, I had recently bitten several (BIG ASS’D) bullets, swigged down several bottles of (totally imaginary) 100-proof rot-gut, girded my mythical loins, and applied – again – for social services assistance.

I was denied the first time around “back when” which made me feel like unwanted one-legged trash. You have no idea how very, very much I despise doing that kind of paperwork especially after last time, how much I despise talking on the phone…it’s all one humongous gooey slimy ball of hide-under-the-bed anxiety for me.

But I got started anyway.

Even though the last time I tried I was denied. (That really hurt, y’all.)

Which increased “this time’s” anxiety x infinity.

So, good news: I am eligible for some food assistance – yay, food is good.

So, bad news: I am NOT eligible for “disability”, which sucks abject ass because that part took SO LONG to jump through the hoops that NOW the power bill, water, phone/internet/cable, credit card, and several others are due and I HAVE NO MONEY TO PAY THEM.

If things had gone the way they’re supposed to, shit would be settled by now and while I would NOT have been “swimmin’ in tha dough”, I could have at least paid the bare-necessity bills and things would have been, well, good-enough.

But nooooooooooo….

If I’d KNOWN I would be denied, I would have spent THAT time applying for SSI (Supplemental Security Income) instead – it’s a different thing from “disability” and bases its decision on a different sort of criteria. I’ve heard from several trustworthy people who know about it that it’s hellishly hard to get, that the hoops they make you jump through are more along the lines of “harassment” than anything, and that I desperately need an “advocate” to help me do it.

So of course I tried for “disability” first. Common sense, right?

*pfft*

SSI takes lots of “running around” to get since it’s based on a person’s inability to work. Running around?? Ha! I don’t HAVE transportation. I do have a car…that doesn’t run…that I can’t physically GET to simply because I can’t WALK that far. I don’t have literally ANY friends who live anywhere near my area anymore. I could maybe hire the lady who (isn’t very dependable) comes by one day a week “3 weeks out of 5” to put my trash into the outside trash can for city pick-up but…that takes moolah. *sigh* Eh, the extended list of tragic little problems that nibble away at my soul is way too long to bore you guys with here.

So, while I *can* eat (a little), within a few days I won’t be able to cook, or see, or be online, flush my toilet, talk on the phone… Why am I even still alive at this point??

I just do not know what to do. Part of it is the brain fog (it really can be a very serious problem), and a whole freakin’ lot of it is INCREDIBLE amounts of anxiety (how could I not me????), and part of it is EXTREME frustration and IRATE-NESS at a whole butt-load of shit BUT ESPECIALLY having wasted very precious time applying for the one assistance that I – unknowingly, but hindsight = 20/20 – would be denied when I could have at least been in the process of applying for the one I’m slightly more likely to be granted…eventually…after jumping through every hoop invented by heartless bureaucrats. Maybe.

Got any handy-dandy thoughts, prayers, good juju, vibes, rich great-uncles hanging around? Send’em my way, please. Feel free to kick my ass, too – I am so, so, SO frustrated at myself for (agreed, unknowingly, but this shit really sucks) wasting so much time on the one application process only to be denied when I could have been spending that time…UGH!!!!! If I had been approved, I could have at least, if nothing else, called up the necessary-for-life companies and TOLD them that “money is expected to be deposited on X date” and worked something out with them.

But noooo…. I’m not allowed to have luck THAT good.

Well, let’s wrap up the pathetic whine’ry. Thank you for coming to my TED Whine??? I’m gonna go cry some more. I feel like such a disappointment, such a loser. I try so, so hard and then shit like this just keeps happening.

~Mer

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