Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.

[Macha]

@too-old-for-this I've already emailed... several people. I don't mean customer service. I mean the director of complaints, the president of financial, etc.

[Aria]

What sort of monster gives students a four hour math exam?

[Ominous]

@darren said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@macha Here where I live, the vacancy rate for rentals (this includes single family homes as well, not just apartments) is 31%. Rather than lower rents, they just raise the cost for existing tenants. It makes no sense whatsoever.

After living in Santa Barbara for a while, I'm leaning towards implementing rather stringent vacancy taxes/fines on both residential and commercial properties. If someone is not living in a residence or a business is not operating in a commercial space for at least 8 months out of the year, the property owner is fined at double the current market rate of the space with half of the fine going to the general fund and the other half divvied up amongst homeless shelters in the area.

[Ganymede]

@ominous

Did I mention somewhere that I thought it a good idea to base taxation on land value rather than income?

Anyhow, yeah, just a thought. You can't hide a house (well).

[Ominous]

@ganymede

That's limited in California by good ol' Prop 13, which I'm pretty sure most Californians hold more sacred than the actual U.S. Constitution.

[Ganymede]

My health plan just rejected my daughter's speech therapist's request for services as "not medically necessary" due to an alleged absence of progress.

My daughter has been seeing the same speech therapy company since she was 3. She is now 7. She is on an IEP with the school district for her speech delay. So, someone's screwed up.

And they will feel my wrath.

[Too Old For This]

@ganymede GET 'EM

Edit: More seriously, as a mother with two sons, one who got speech therapy and one who didn't... speech therapy is critical in the early years. Before they get to middle school and the more advanced social constructs that start showing up. My oldest son needed it but never received it and he still struggles with appropriate communication. My youngest son received it during those critical years through a speech therapist at his school, and while he still struggles with self-confidence and self-advocation, he is able to communicate well with his peers and his teachers. When someone recognizes his flareups, he can verbalize it and get the help he needs to work through it.

[Ganymede]

@too-old-for-this

At a more basic level, I'm an attorney with spare time due to winning a couple of matters on summary judgment.

Bored attorneys are awful ones to deal with.

[Too Old For This]

@ganymede Agreed. Bored attorneys who are also protective parents? Man, I almost feel sorry for them... ALMOST.

[Tinuviel]

Though I usually think of @Ganymede as an amorphous genderless sexless blob of grey ooze. Even I know better than to mess with a mamma bear with a law degree and free time.

[Derp]

So I don't usually like to talk about my personal life, but I need to vent, while we're talking about law and such:

Around the end of September, my mother and nieces ended up needing a place to live because she was divorcing her husband of ten years. My mother and I have had a rocky past, and I was wary of this move, but I also needed to try to save some money, so I figured it would work out for the best if we just went and split a house.

Backstory: My mother used to be really highly addicted to pretty much anything that came in a pill bottle. And just so happens to be a hateful vindictive demon who only cares about herself and her own interests when she's high. To the point where her ex husband beat me with a baseball bat, breaking several of my ribs, and then stabbed me repeatedly with a screwdriver when I was sixteen. She told the police that I was being mean to him, and just took off and left me in this town.

Fast forward twenty years. She's been sober for a decade, went back to college, got her degree, and works as a teacher.

And the first thing she does with her newfound freedom? Hook up with the guy that she cheated with while married to the psycho that tried to kill me. Starts taking pills again. Meanwhile, he's a psycho alcoholic too. Ends up beating the hell out of her, and then showing up at our house to threaten us and my siblings, then pulls a gun just in time for the police to arrive and tackle him to the ground.

And she's been defending this man ever since. Changing her story constantly. Taking more and more drugs. Getting more and more hateful and vindictive. Just like before.

Last week she informs me that he is getting out of jail, and she's had his community corrections approved for the house we share.

I immediately file a restraining order on top of the protective order I already have, so I don't have to do the Dance of the Dueling Orders.

I show up at the hearing. The prosecutor recognizes me, because of course. We've all worked closely together. Informs me that he'll be calling me as a witness, since I am there already. Well. Alright, that works for me.

I get up on the stand. He asks me if they've violated their no contact order. I tell the truth -- that she's been in touch with him pretty much every day since December 26th and tried to get his community corrections moved here.

Prosecutor asks that he be held without bond on a charge of invasion of privacy for breaking the order. Judge agrees.

The mother-demon has been sending me harassing, threatening messages and generally just screaming at me for going on two days now. Hundreds of texts.

My bosses, who are awesome, know that something is up. And this shit is starting to eat up my spoons, so I am less productive than normal, even though I am still productive. I can sense them getting annoyed, though.

I don't want to talk to them about this. It's none of their business that my family is bugnuts crazy, and I don't want this room full of attorneys to use their special attorney magic to go digging into my bugnuts childhood. This isn't a thing that I should have to share with them.

And yet, somehow, I foresee this being a thing that is going to come up before my name and title get dragged through all the media escapades that can come with this. Which I am pretty sure is in our ethics code.

Goddamit.

[Tinuviel]

@derp Though I'm sure that this isn't why you posted it, you did the right thing.

There comes a point where your own needs outweigh those of the people around you, especially when they're adults that refuse to help themselves.

[Ganymede]

@derp

When you say "went and split a house," do you mean "bought a house with my mother so that there would be a place for my nieces to live relatively safely and grow up with in a moderately-healthy environment"?

[Macha]

@derp It's weird. I don't know you. I'm neck deep in my own bullshit. But I seriously want to drag your mother out of the house by her ear, and kick her ass.

[Derp]

@ganymede said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@derp

When you say "went and split a house," do you mean "bought a house with my mother so that there would be a place for my nieces to live relatively safely and grow up with in a moderately-healthy environment"?

Rented a big farmhouse for all those latter reasons, and so that I could save up for a down payment on a mortgage.

Pretty sure at this point I am just going to let her have this place and go find somewhere else, closer to work. Nieces are cared for by their mother again, who got her shit together.

[Ganymede]

@derp

Makes sense.

You know where I'm at. And like any good Midwesterner, I carry.

[Sunny]

@derp

I'm sorry that you're going through this, I don't really have words for how terrible it is. I really hope you manage to come out the other side before things blow up on you further.

[Ominous]

@ganymede said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

You know where I'm at. And like any good Midwesterner, I carry.

The thing I miss most to be honest.

[Cobalt]

screams into the void

[Derp]

The two nearby siblings have both called today to inform me that they have had to kick our mother out of their houses.

Oh, 2021. Just when I thought you couldn't be more crazy than 2020.