So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

LizzieMaine said:

It's not just a "rude kid" problem, as anyone who has ever worked in the service industry can well attest. The rudest, meanest people in the world are 65-year-old Karens. I find Gen-Z, on the whole, to be far better behaved.

Click to expand...

I could write a book on the subject.

When the COVID shutdown first hit, grocery retailers in the area (including Costco and Trader Joe's) started special "senior hours" so that those of us 65 and older could shop, hopefully, in a less infection prone setting. We stopped availing ourselves to that accommodation after about a week.

Some of the old farts were insufferable! The one old guy whose wife told him not to touch anything in Trader Joe's unless he was going to purchase the item-- who then proceeded to paw and maul anything on the shelves in sight. The old geezer at the same store who refused to wear a face mask, and then refused to leave until he was told that the cops were on their way. Then there was the old hag at Costco who refused to put on a mask and had her very own sit down on the floor protest. (It made YouTube: this was NOT a blow for liberty in the same category as lunch counter sit ins of the 1960's.) And always- always- taking it out on the poor employees who were just trying to do their job in the midst of a pandemic.

I'm an aging (if not aged) Boomer myself, but I have to say that I really dislike being around oldsters who are stuck in their "I'm OLD! Gimmee! Gimmee! Gimmee!" mentality of entitlement like some dinosaur stuck in the ooze of the La Brea Tar Pits. Give me a whiny toddler having a meltdown over their BS, any day of the week.

I am at wits end as to what I can do to stop those blasted replacement mail carriers from walking through our flower beds. (Our usual carrier walks around.) I even put flower pots with sprouting daffodil bulbs in the middle of the path. Sure enough the mail person just stepped over them. I am very tempted to put a bear trap in the path, and if I can't find one big enough, then punji sticks it is!

Replacement mail carriers who toss our packages over the waist-high fence or set it down against the gate out by the street. This has happened a few times as of late. I happened to be correcting schoolwork near the front window and saw it live. I ran outside to ask let them know how I felt about such a delivery. There response was idiotic and followed by an apology, but it makes me wonder how often it happens. It is bad enough dealing with a few lame Amazon and FedEx delivery drivers, but the postal workers too?

Too many other things that I cannot remember at the moment.

Hercule said:

... then punji sticks it is!

Click to expand...

Mister Charles Cong fecal contaminate pins n' needles.

Advised a young lady this afternoon over lunch to pursue a more aggressive retirement portfolio
with enhanced risk due to impending future inflation wrought by the Covid-19 stimulus bill.
She remarked surprise; largely as I assume her favorable view toward further federal spending.
One-third Covid stimuli; two-thirds pure pork-everything except the squeal. Squeal to be heard later.

Inflation can destroy a national currency. And topple a nation with dire consequence. Weimar revisited.

Harp said:

Weimar revisited.

Click to expand...

That was the headline in 2009 too.

But none of this has anything to do with the politics of the moment.

Touchofevil said:

Replacement mail carriers who toss our packages over the waist-high fence or set it down against the gate out by the street. This has happened a few times as of late. I happened to be correcting schoolwork near the front window and saw it live. I ran outside to ask let them know how I felt about such a delivery. There response was idiotic and followed by an apology, but it makes me wonder how often it happens. It is bad enough dealing with a few lame Amazon and FedEx delivery drivers, but the postal workers too?

Click to expand...

Is the civil service test really that easy that those without even a modicum of intelligence, common sense, or moral compass are readily hired by the USPS?

Tiki Tom said:

That was the headline in 2009 too.

Click to expand...

2009 Excess funds:$2.5Trillion; M2 monetary velocity: 1.70

2021 Excess funds:$7.00Trillion-$9.00Trillion....; M2 monetary velocity: 1.129

Fair enough. I’ll buy you a drink if the American economy crashes and burns like Weimar in the next two years. Heaven forbid. After doing a Google news search on “inflation”, the consensus seems to be that, although it is something to keep an eye on (rightly so), it is hardly a DEFCON 1 existential danger at the moment. Nowhere near.

Weimar revisited...

Tiki Tom said:

That was the headline in 2009 too.

Click to expand...

Yeah, visit good old Weimar town, step out of our original 1920's main station and try our nice bus lines!

But none of this has anything to do with the politics of the moment.

Tiki Tom said:

Fair enough. I’ll buy you a drink if the American economy crashes and burns like Weimar in the next two years. Heaven forbid. After doing a Google news search on “inflation”, the consensus seems to be that, although it is something to keep an eye on (rightly so), it is hardly a DEFCON 1 existential danger at the moment. Nowhere near.

Click to expand...

The core thesis of my prior post focused increased federal spending within domestic considerations
attendant Covid and cumulative X at $7-9T against extraordinary low velocity with excess funds level
exceeding historic precedent. I respectfully submit earlier stimulus failed to increase velocity and cannot
be relied concurrent with increase and further deleterious effect. This is factual. And the dollar loses value.
Again, this is a cold hard fact. Banks expect reasonable profit and cannot and will not lend otherwise.
Inflated currency does not improve economic hard fact stricture.

Hercule said:

Is the civil service test really that easy that those without even a modicum of intelligence, common sense, or moral compass are readily hired by the USPS?

Click to expand...

I don’t know. Our regular postal deliverers over the past twenty years at this place have been great. They have been very friendly and efficient. I would almost say that we became friends. Pleasantries have been exchanged and conversations had when we see each other in public. I figure it must be the same as any other profession; each has its share of boneheads.

A GREAT annoyance this evening! - The cat, since she was deathly ill recently, has taken to sleeping in an upstairs linen closet. This afternoon we had to kick her out of it to shut the door so our Roomba could do the upstairs bedrooms, study, music room and lobby. After a while we paused Roomba so my son could video chat and play minecraft with a friend, and in the meantime our friend showed up for dinner. We re-started the Roomba while we ate dinner so it could finish the upstairs. Well another thing that cat has taken to since her illness is pooping outside the box when she's miffed with us (among other excuses- She's old and frail so we cut her a lot of slack where that's concerned). You probably can see where this is going. We didn't even think to check the upstairs, and when Roomba restarted it smeared cat $hit all over the rug in the study and left a trail across the lobby and back to it's home base in the music room. It took us more than an hour to pull the Roomba apart and clean it! And we still have to steam clean the rug tomorrow. Heavy sigh...

^^^^^
It’s a wonderful life.

The lovely missus and I have assumed custody of a neutered male cat of indeterminate age (somewhere between 3 or 4 and 10 or 11, depending on what evidence and whose recollections you might find credible; I’ll ask the vet’s opinion when I take the cat in for a going-over on the 17th).

I didn’t want another cat. I was saddened by our last cat’s departure from this life, going on a year ago. But I didn’t miss the cat box, or the clawing on door trim and upholstered furniture, or the occasional urination outside the box (once is more than enough).

And these days a person is all but commanded to keep the cat indoors, which means I can’t just throw open the doors and let God’s own air-conditioning blow through. The fence that keeps the dogs in the yard is but an irresistible temptation to a cat. And I am torn on which is more inhumane — keeping a cat fat but otherwise healthy (but bored) indoors, or letting it out to do what a cat really wants to do, even if it results in a significantly shortened life.

I had an exceptionally affectionate female cat going back 40 years or more — a short-haired tuxedo, a onetime stray. I would have had no difficulty finding a new home for that cat had circumstances ever called for it. That cat loved people. People loved that cat.

Mister Mittens here (he came with that name), a long-haired tuxedo, is even more affectionate. Wherever the humans are is where he wants to be.

There’s a chance, albeit a small one, that the man from whom we adopted Mister Mittens will again be able to tend to the animal’s needs. I hope that for that fellow. I have no doubt that he loves his cat. He has become increasingly disabled over the past few years, his longtime woman friend up and died on him last year, and now he’s living in what is somewhat euphemistically (or optimistically) called a rehab facility. (I’d bet that few residents there are ever sufficiently rehabilitated to move out of the facility.)

I wish he could have his cat there. His furry little companion would do him good. It could be like those prisons that allow cats. It softens the inmates. It brings at least a small measure of love and affection to a mostly dismal set of circumstances.

There is a white cat in our neighborhood that seems to have a food dish at several houses. Not sure who actually “owns” him. Probably an alien concept, that.

Tiki Tom said:

There is a white cat in our neighborhood that seems to have a food dish at several houses. Not sure who actually “owns” him. Probably an alien concept, that.

Click to expand...

Funny how that works. Since moving in to our new house in suburbia we have noticed 5 cats that regularly come through our property. We are evidently on their circuit. Each is well groomed, plump, and seemingly well fed so they must belong to somebody. We joke that they have a food bowl at each house they pass by, but that surely can't be the case. A dog, maybe. I've heard first hand of such a case. Those cats though each have their own personality and it's fun to take note who goes through the yard and who appears on our Ring camera. One of them likes to come by the sliding door in the family room and peek in. No doubt seeing our cat's toys strewn about and pining for the good life within.

Another thing we've noticed about living in suburbia is that the animals actually play. When we lived on the west side it was distinctly more urban and the animals (squirrels, chipmunks and occasionally a rabbit) seemed to just go about their business foraging and surviving. Where we are now the animals (squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits, and deer among others - an occasional fox, skunks, raccoons and a coyote or two), all seem to play with each other. Not just for amorous purposes and territory, but for apparent amusement. Fun to watch sometimes.