To continue from yesterday...

I called my vet this morning about what happened yesterday. When I didn't get a return phone call within the hour, I knew something was up.

The phone call came this afternoon that I should contact Chica's neurologist, Seizures are happening too close together ( as mentioned) and there is the whole medication issue that I've posted about elsewhere. Chica has blood work done every 6 months to make sure her liver is functioning the way it's supposed to, but because all of her meds are metabolized in the liver, her liver is working overtime, all of the time. Anyway... neurologist has been contacted. I should hear from him sometime Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Jingle has been whining all day. She's doing the "walk and sit" that we saw last year when she was having anal gland issues although we didn't know it was anal gland issues right away. Having learned that lesson, I called my vets office again to see if I could get Jingle in to have her butt checked. That conversation turned into "Techs don't have appointments at the time you need / want" and "No, you can't make a appointment with a Dr".

I'm in a 'I have zero tolerance for BS' kind of mood today, so I thanked the person on the phone and called the vets office we bring bring the pigs to. Long story short, Jingle will be having her butt checked later today. Because the office has never seen her before, it will be a regular visit with a doctor. In the future if we need to, we can make tech appointments so Jingle can have her anal glands expressed.

After this, Chica will be going on to have her yearly physical at the end of the week. Who knows what that will bring. I don't know if her neuro is going to want to see her or not. I'm going with probably (at some point) as it has been almost a year since she saw him last.

Digitalisation is a pita. "You need our app to use our service/scan our QR code to use our services" makes me want to throw my phone away. I don't want to download an app and create an account just because I need your service this one time.
I need to use a service from my health insurance which I used to do via their website, but now it requires I use their app, which for some reason needs me to re-register, for which they have to send me some code per snail mail.

But being halfway stuck between digitalisation and traditional bureaucracy is *some* progress for a country being backwards since the 90's

The doctor said I have to do ABPM. I've done this before. But this device squeezes my arm so hard! The readings aren't that high, there's no need to blow it up over 200 every time

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/ftc-r...ses-in-fortnite

Blech... the gaming industry. It is such a swamp...

I'm starting to believe that weather actively avoids this place. Heavy thunderstorm warnings for this area were bright red and I hoped for a nice lightshow and a cooldown, but noooo. As per usual, I could see everything pass by in the distance, and all we got was cloud cover and a little wind for an hour.
I was also hoping for rain to take care of my plants, but not a single droplet fell.

Ahh, I feel your pain! Here too we've been passed over for refreshing thunderstorms, it's been hot and muggy and the garden's wilting. We had storm warnings and I watched them pass us by on Lightningmaps. It's been a long time since we had decent rain or lightning!

Stumbled out of bed Thursday to find a puddle in the bathroom. I started to yell at the dog, but then I realized my slippers had squelched on the hall carpet and he just doesn't have that capacity. Turns out the water heater needed to be replaced, which took a big chunk out of my savings and made a tremendous mess. To add insult to injury, I am now getting unwanted telephone solicitations for home warranties when I was just getting them for extended car warranties, so I have a sneaking suspicion somebody sold my info.

Bought stawberries that I was very excited to get home and eat. Dropped them outside and they got squashed

Went to another place to buy replacement strawberries (too many witnesses at the other place you know? )

I hate spider and insect/creepy-crawler season (Somewhere from late April to October/November, it seems). There's barely a day I don't see a flying critter or spider in my bedroom. Usually the same spots every time (they like the back corner and the middle of the floor, no idea why).

Saw one of the medium-sized spiders of the type that's been especially annoying lately, was about to go catch it, then saw a micro spider running about in the same area. Don't they have better places to be?

Speaking of bugs, mealy bugs continue to be a PITA. I spent literally 2 hours with a bottle of rubbing alcohol and Q-tips swiping plant leaves on Friday. Yesterday I sprayed the problem plants with Capt Jack's Deadbug. This morning I got up, checked both plants and both of them had new white spots on them. There is no mention of mealy bugs on the list of bugs Capt Jack's kills. The fact that it did not work is not the fault of the product. I tried it because I had it in the house and thought maybe it would help.

Clearly Neem Oil and Capt. Jack's isn't going to fix the problem, so I'm trying something else. It is a homemade concoction of:

1 part water
1 part rubbing alcohol ( rubbing alcohol kills the mealy bugs on contact)
1 drop of Dawn dish liquid ( dish liquid makes the water and alcohol stick to the leaves)

I need to use this mixture for at least the next couple of weeks. The first round is to kill of the adults and any larvae. I don't know if the rubbing alcohol kills eggs or not. If it doesn't, I have to wait for any eggs to hatch, then they can be killed, ect. This is much like getting rid of a flea infestation. They have to be killed off for the entire life cycle before the problem goes away. Getting to that point includes vacuuming every day and keep everything super clean to prevent further infestation.



https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/mealybugs

I love my plants, but the thought of sticking them in boxes with free signs has passed through my mind a few times over the past few days whether they have mealy bugs or not.

Not a rant, just a update on the whole Klarna thing. The last time I posted about Klarna they lost 130 million because people refused to pay their bills.

Seems as though the CEO of Klarna has changed his tune. He's gone from spouting his bullshit about helping people out, to becoming chummy with the company that created the FICO score. There is the thing about how starting this fall, anybody that hasn't been paying back their BNPL loans via Klarna or whoever will have a smear on their credit report. The funny part about this is Klarna has already started reporting people as Orlando mentions in his video.

This is going to be embarrassing for some people. Imagine trying to get a job, a car loan or whatever and being denied because they are 120 days overdue with payments for the burrito they bought on Door Dash a few months ago.

The CEO of Klarna was full of shit to begin with but yet people ran with it taking the hook and sinker with them. Using these things don't create good credit and it is no different than a credit card. If people pay off their credit cards every month, there is no interest. Pay a BNPL loan on time, there is no interest, but WTF do I know.

Klarna Wants Its $130 Million Back (Suing Customers Now)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeBFGJXGAq4

Hi to everyone

My day wasn't great, because I'm very sensitive to the weather and have spent today with a severe headache .
It was very humid and very changeable, rain, sun and clouds, typical summer in northern Germany.
So I barely did anything all day; just tidied up a bit, listened to a podcast, went outside for about 20 minutes when the sun came through, and made a small burrito in the afternoon, the podcast made me hungry for a burrito.
Still don't know the difference between a wrap and a burrito, . I should listen to the episode again without a headache.

At least the wrap I used for the burrito closed well and didn't break.
It was just a simple burrito with some lettuce, tomato, red pepper, cucumber and a soy meat alternative that I marinated with some Creole spice mix and herbs, olive oil, and lemon juice.
Unfortunately, it was too spicy, so I had to tone it down with lots of yogurt and some mint.
Breaking burrito happens to me all the time.
It was actually quite tasty, but because of the headache, I couldn't enjoy it as much as I like.

It helped that I lay down afterwards and slept for a few hours.
Unfortunately, we had a visit from my sibling and there family today, which I was actually looking forward to, but I slept through most of it .

The sleep helped and I only have very mild headaches now

Definitely not a good weekend to work... :/ 25+ degrees (celsius) outside, sun has been cooking all day, and I'd rather be inside and relax.
I've been out walking a bit too much the past couple of days, and my feet almost feel like they're burning. Hurts all the way up to my lower back.

But the past couple days have been mostly fine, despite the too hot weather and my aching body.

My return flight from Rome is delayed by 2 3 4 hours indefinitely??. Of course, it's apparently never possible to notice these errors and technical mishaps on time – first, they checked us all out at the gate, made us wait after the gate and before the shuttle bus, for an hour before announcing the delay...

And I have a feeling this is just them blue-balling us before ultimately canceling the flight...

Update: they silently replaced the text at the gate from "est. 17:00" to "est. 18:00," so it's a three-hour departure delay. Yay. It's 17:30 at the time I'm writing this though...

Update 2: it's 20:33. Since my last update, they:
- rescheduled for 19:15,
- someone that's staff actually showed up at the gate,
- they called us again to board the plane,
- the line stopped about 7 people in,
- half an hour later, they informed us that the shuttle bus broke down,
- a big thunderstorm started, delaying nearly all flights at the FCO (all restaurants and stores were full),
- the estimated time of departure of our flight is still 19:15 – no one cares anymore

My boyfriend thought he'll be arriving at 16:00 in Zagreb, but given the circumstances, he's likely to be late for work that's tomorrow morning at 8

Update 3: it's 2 a.m...

- the flight has been canceled at 20:30 (we figured because we got the SMS),
- an attendant showed up at 21:30 to tell us just that,
- it's actually at least three flights (all ULCC RyanAir) that got canceled,
- at 22:00 we checked in with the help desk for RyanAir, they wrote our names down on a piece of paper and said "wait here for the bus, that's all we know,"
- by midnight, there were only passengers at the help desk, no RyanAir representatives,
- at 00:30, an attendant escorted us outside to wait for the bus,
- there's only one bus coming and going and then coming back, picking up (at least) three flights worth of people. It's 2:00 more than half of us are still waiting, lots of people just took a taxi,
- we tried calling a hotel for reservation, but they're asking for a €150 cash-only payment for a two-person room and another €100 for a one-person room (we found a friend at the airport),
- there are now police here too, but only to keep the people off the taxi lanes.

Update 4: it's 3 a.m.
- the ryanair staff had a change of heart: suddenly, a new policy was "sorry guys, there are no buses. Go and book a room yourself! Get a taxi too. We'll reimburse you through the app," as if they couldn't tell us that at 9 p.m. – that's 6 hours ago. Suddenly, they realized that booking a hotel for 700 or so people was "a situation, too much." There are families that they transported earlier to a hotel somewhere, and a fellow passenger got a text that the entire bus of those people are now standing in front of the hotel, somewhere in Rome, because the hotel is overbooked.

We called a random hotel recommended to us by chatgpt. Luckily, they had 2 double bedrooms and checked us in no hassle. Getting a taxi was a bit more complicated; there are dozens of parked cars in front of the airport, but to book them, you need to download an app – which I did – which books you to a random driver; ours happened to be half an hour away from the airport and spoke 0 English. One of our friends we made here does speak Italian, so she managed to explain to the taxi driver that we're at the departures, not arrivals, despite the app saying we need to wait by the departure pickup...

It is now the next morning. Our rebooked flight is nowhere to be found in the app. Let's hope we aren't being tricked or purposefully lied to again...

Update 5: it is 6 p.m.

The flight truly was off-radar (I suppose so that RyanAir has a tactical advantage where it doesn't explicitly say on the website that the flight was canceled or "delayed overnight.™" We boarded the plane and then had to wait for three passengers to show up – they checked their bags in, but they didn't show up (presumably because there is no information on where the flight is other than the word of mouth).

We landed back home, only 26 hours later than originally advertised. Some families were stranded in front of random hotels. It's not a spectacular delay – it's not that we've been stranded in the middle of nowhere for 80 hours or something – but what's collosal is their idiotic company policy where they have to "give their best" to try to accommodate 500 people, and if they fail 6 hours later, only then can they tell them, "oh, go book your own hotels now, sorry!"

Ultimately, the cheap price of the ticket lays in the gatekeeping of knowledge (whereabouts of the hotel, a known outcome of a fiasco attempt to accommodate that many people at once etc.). I had a canceled Croatia Airlines plane in October, and within half an hour, we've just been told to find a hotel ourselves. With RyanAir, the very same outcome was communicated 6 hours after the cancelation of an already 6-hours delayed flight.

Way too hot outside. Would've liked to have stayed at home in a relative cool place, but been at work and dragging along several of the group I/we work with on various activities since friday. My feet hurt like crazy from all the walking/activities, and I'm already done with summer and heat, plus I think the insides of my ears have sores from all the blabbing (from someone who rarely is silent for more than maybe 15 seconds at a time - which isn't an overstatement, by the way)... Good thing I only have a couple days left at work (but a few days off first) until my vacation...

I think my brain has been fried enough now.

Did a day trip to another town with my mum today because she's always like why do we never go there together you always go with your friends.

1.5 stars do not recommend.

More "what's ruining the month" - it's too hot both inside and outside, and it's going to keep being hot for almost another week. GAAAAAAH!!!

Slept through my alarm and woke up with 10 spare minutes before having to leave for work. I've showered twice and I'm still sticky because of this muggy swamp heat with barely breathable air. Being indoors doesn't help either as I'm sweating while typing this.

Weather services warned for heavy rains and thunderstorms and I won't be surprised if were not getting anything of it, again.

And then there is this godforsaken fly which can't sit still and is constantly in my face no matter which room I'm in. I thought these only live for 2 days but this mf is on day 4 now.

The heat wave seems to extend every day. Was nitially supposed to rain today (I think? At least according to the weather rapport a week or so ago), but now the heat doesn't seem to give in until the start of the weekend... GAAH!