My boyfriend reads this forum, too, so I'm being subtle like a punch to the face. But I really want to not break my neck (or really, my foot again) walking across my office's stupidly huge, torn up parking lot that's turned into a nightmare because of the construction.
Look, @insomniac7809 - this is for you!
I put enough cinnmona in this year's apple-cranberry sauce that it pretty much just tastes like a cranberry version of apple pie filling.
This was not the plan. I am still pleased.
@auspice Ugh. There was a cheap one from Sephora's brand I was going to recommend to you that looks like it's been discontinued. It was all different shades of golden-green from very light to almost black, though I never used the darkest one because I'm very pale and inherited the circles my dad has under his eyes. Smokey eye very quickly turns into 'raccoon hooker' on me, but the rest of the palette was very pretty.
Purple actually looks really, really awesome with brown eyes. I'm a fan of shimmery gold olive greens, too.
If you want to try it out without fully committing, go for a neutral, nude-ish shimmer shadow and then pop on something brighter as an eyeliner color. I get a surprising number of compliments when I do that and it also spares me the frustration of feeling like I put a lot of effort into an eye look that I just end up hiding behind my computer glasses.
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck you, 26-page RFI that I worked on until 2am.
@Auspice Yeah, the smudge pots are definitely workable. Ironically, they're what I frequently used BEFORE switching to the Ulta ones because I liked the shades better and had an easier time finding them. We somehow don't have an ELF store here despite being a city of 1.5 million people, and although they carry it in Target and CVS here, it was never, ever in the colors I wanted. Somehow, the stock at the three local Targets I can easily get to always seems to suck.
@Kanye-Qwest Good to know! I've never tried Flower Beauty because I try not to shop at Wal-Mart if I can avoid it, but I also recently discovered they have better quality tank tops than Target does for literally half the price even when they're not on sale. (And I am in no way deluded enough to think Target's clothing suppliers are any less sweatshop-y than Wal-Mart's. It's just that there's only so many morale stances I can integrate into my life as a consumer at one time before I end up having a meltdown at how impossible it is and turning into a crazy lady living off-the-grid and weaving my own cloth from sheep I hug three times a day and feed better than myself.)
These -- the Ulta Color Coat Creme Eyeshadow. My default shades were either "Moonstone" or "Shimmering Topaz", which were both light enough and neutral enough that I could wear them as a sort of sheer, shimmery wash on my eyelid if I wanted an almost 'no makeup' look, could build them up to something more noticeably foiled, could pop just a bit of eyeliner over and look super polished, or wear as a primer for a look that absolutely would not budge without makeup remover.
Ulta discontinued the cream eyeshadow that I wear every single day, whether on its own or as a a base for powdered shadow. And the closest dupes -- the Maybelline Color Tattoo and the Revlon Color Stay pots -- are not cruelty free.
Motherfuckers.
@wizz Gaston is awesome and I love his write-up! However, I already have two alts. If there's something else I can do to help get you settled, give me a nudge on Mia.
@arkandel You're talking to someone whose ideal weather is about 50*F, sunny, and crisp. Summer can go right to hell. Summer is hell.
....How would you feel about a sham marriage for the sake of immigration papers? @insomniac7809 won't mind as long as I can bring him up later, after our amicable divorce. >.>
@arkandel Dude, my company has a Toronto office. I check our job board every week for the sake of my own career path, but seriously. If I ever reach a level in our organization that I can justify a transfer....
<makes grabby hands at Canada in general>
It has also occurred to me that if I had just gone through with it and married my shitty ex, I could have Swedish citizenship and a divorce by a now.
I mean, not that I think either of those countries is perfect. I don't, and I can certainly launch into a very long lecture about Sweden's treatment of its indigenous peoples that tended to very much upset my Swedish friends whenever they started in on one of their tirades about being "the moral compass of the world" (yes, my ex actually said that, like... outloud), but.... seriously. 'Man, I should've married and divorced my deeply emotionally abusive ex so I wouldn't have to live in this shitshow' is not a normal thought for someone to have.
@rnmissionrun said in RL Anger:
It's kind of a crapshoot with insurance, really, but.... that's also kind of the idea behind it? Like, that's how the company makes money? It's a shared pool of funds that only works if most people are paying more into it than they're getting back out of it. That's also why it's a fairly shitty way to manage healthcare because sooner or later, pretty much everyone is going to need to use it for something major. Unlike homeowners insurance, where it's unlikely that everyone's house is going to burn down at some point
They're counting on having enough subscribers that don't actually need the health insurance (ie young, healthy people) to balance out the number of people who do actually need it.
Yes, thank you for explaining.... the thing I just said to me?
I'm aware that's what the insurance companies, and yes, the insurance companies who are on the "Obamacare" marketplace, are hoping to get young, healthy people who aren't going to need it much on the insurance plan. Again, that's kind of how insurance works, and the reason behind the mandate/tax penalty for not being insured. That was meant to pool in as many people as possible, including those not inclined to buy insurance because "they don't need it", so as to prevent premiums from skyrocketing as the result of insurance companies now having to cover people they would've outright refused before.
And once again, that's why I think that health insurance -- while necessary for everyone to have because Jesus H. Fucking Christ, the consequences of something going seriously wrong and not having it -- is generally a crappy system for an entire country to depend on. People don't want to pay for it when they think they don't need it, when they do need it they very well might not have it, and even if they do have it, the insurance company exists to generate profit and has a vested interest in refusing to pay for things. Like, that's just not a great system for most of the people involved. And after having gotten sick while I was living in Sweden -- and having to pay out of pocket because I wasn't a legal permanent resident, and thus not in their national healthcare coverage system, which was still cheaper than having the same thing treated here with insurance, and NOT counting my health insurance premiums -- yes. Yes, I agree with @Tinuviel. Y'all need some socialized medicine.
I AM PICKING UP MISS KITTY TONIGHT AND WILL PET HER MAJESTIC EAR TUFTIES.
I'd say I'm sorry for the all caps shouting but I'm not.
@rnmissionrun said in RL Anger:
@iluvgrumpycat said in RL Anger:
I really love how you can go to the marketplace, qualify for a certain amount of help towards a premium. And then STILL be paying over a hundred bucks a month for a single person with a 6000 dollar deductible. Like....isn't it just cheaper to pay out of pocket unless something really, really, really bad happens? 'cause I'll never spend 6k a year for just going to the dr when I get the seasonal crud.
It's cheaper, until something serious does happen, or you require prescription medications that cost hundreds of dollars per month.
^ This. @insomniac7809 used to go to the doctor once a year, maybe twice, if I nagged him. Or tricked him, which I have legit done before. (Fucker had bronchitis. I regret nothing.)
Then last year he had an explosive eye surprise that recurred six times, required he go to a subspecialist for no less than three visits every time, and landed us in the ER of an eye hospital one night at 10pm.
I literally would've had to wipe out our savings accounts, my savings bonds, and my employee stock from my last company to pay his bills were it not for my current company letting me put him on my insurance as an after-tax dependent. Which means I have to the IRS taxes on that as "imputed income", but that's still, like..... $1000 out of my refund annually to get him deeply discounted insurance that actually covers stuff.
This year he had surgery to correct that eye issue and chewed through our entire deductible by March. He's gone to the doctor.... exactly twice since. For post-surgery follow up.
It's kind of a crapshoot with insurance, really, but.... that's also kind of the idea behind it? Like, that's how the company makes money? It's a shared pool of funds that only works if most people are paying more into it than they're getting back out of it. That's also why it's a fairly shitty way to manage healthcare because sooner or later, pretty much everyone is going to need to use it for something major. Unlike homeowners insurance, where it's unlikely that everyone's house is going to burn down at some point
@kanye-qwest I use Wet n Wild's Mega Protein mascara in 'Very Black'. When the tube is fresh and new, you have to be careful about letting it dry entirely before doing anything else, because it has a very wet formula. But once it does? JESUS FUCKING CHRIST. It's not going anywhere. Like, does not budge. Like, scrubbing with my makeup remover wipes at night is great and all, but there's a pretty solid chance I'm still going to end up with some washing off in the shower the next morning. And that's the regular formula, not the waterproof one.
Bonus? It's $1.94 at Target. If you hate it, you're out a whopping $2.
(For using it, the trick I discovered to get thick lashes is letting the first coat mostly dry, then go back over it. If you keep trying to add more while it's still in the super wet stage, it won't work. So I do top lash, bottom lash, other eye, go back, go back to other eye. Flutter them a few times if they're still feeling wet.)
@insomniac7809, my boyfriend. Whose primary hobby is "arguing with dumbfucks on the internet."
ILU, babe. 
The Epic Saga of Miss Kitty continues.
We were not permitted to bring her home last night. The humane law officers needed to make at least one final attempt to contact her owners, despite the fact that 24PetWatch apparently attempts to make contact ten times before they stop trying, and this doesn't include my door knocking, neighborhood post, found pet report with animal control, or the shelter reaching out.
They showed up at the house today and found weeks of mail piled outside. Addressed to someone who isn't her owner.
We're now applying to adopt her, and hoping they don't give us a hard time about our vet records showing all our pets have out of date vaccines, because I use the low cost clinics instead.
Until then, here is another cute picture of one of my cats.
.....we have a lot of cats.
@meg Ohh, man. Mia had some really great, poignant moments with several-Calarians-ago about what they believe in, their dreams for their House and for the Compact, their opinions about the Abandoned. If you want to mine that, give me a poke. If not, cool, cool. It's been, like.... a RL year, so two IC years, so that can easily be ignored, too.
