Best posts made by Too Old For This

I'm going to be scheduling an appointment for my old man. His last vet refused to accept that he had either broken or dislocated something near his wrist, and for the last couple months I've watched the poor guy limp around with a giant knot just above his paw. It affect his ability to retract the claws on that paw and His Heftiness can't enjoy stepping weight onto it. Got a good vet for him now, and some good pet insurance to help cover the costs... now its time to get him properly taken care of so he can stop limping about.

Edit to add photo

@kestrel I'm sorry, but Frodo is largely a walking husk throughout the movie. He's very much not dynamic or quoted. I won't say he's uninteresting, I don't know that there's an uninteresting character in Tolkien. Even his bit characters tended to have rich backstories. But he's the neutral mask you slip on so that you can be The One.

If you ever sit around with friends and ask each other who wants to be which character, let me know how many will say 'Frodo'. He's the character we know the least about in the entire trilogy. He's meant to be that way.

@kk I am envious of your garden! I live in an apartment, so cannot has. But someday!

@boneghazi

My son has exactly the same symptoms, we've been dealing with it for just over a decade now. These are the biggest tips I can think of to help with ADHD/Autism/any mental or emotional disorder.

1. Contact you school's guidance office (if they have one), or the main office (if they do not have a guidance office). Inform them of your child's diagnosis and that you would like to schedule a meeting with every and anyone that might need to be present. This could include the school psychiatrist, special ed teacher*, your son's current teacher, guidance counselor, member of school administration, and possibly any advocacy representative that your school may have.

2. Advocate, Advocate, Advocate. The school will do nothing if you do not insist on it. Not always because they don't want to, but they may be overwhelmed. Don't let your kid be the one that slips through the cracks. If there are things you know, as his parent, that he will need to be successful in school? Insist on it.

3. Keep in contact. Obviously with your son, but also with his teacher and anyone else that spends a significant amount of time with him at school. Make sure that the accommodations he is getting are actually working. Don't be afraid to ask for things to change, especially as you're first starting out. There's going to be a lot of trial and error to figure out the exact methods and means that work for your child. The best way to determine what works and what doesn't? His teacher. Get their email address, ask for weekly updates. Ask to be called if anything significant happens so it can be addressed immediately.

4. If there is a school psychologist/psychiatrist/counselor, set up appointments for him to talk to them. Sometimes it's hard for a child to properly articulate what they're feeling to their teacher or parent. This person can be a godsend in helping your son be heard and understood. More, if he's having a rough day, the counselor's office can be a quiet, safe space for him to escape to. Give him some time to center and breathe, then make sure he has what he needs to go back out and finish the day.

• Don't be afraid of the special ed. teacher. The stigma of special ed is dumb and needs to go away. So many students would benefit from an IEP, accommodations, additional assistance, smaller classrooms, extra teachers in the room, etc. The special ed department is where most of those things will come from. Not because your child is 'slow' but because this is precisely what they were trained to do.

Oh, as a personal note, if he is sensitive to noise, think about getting him some noise-cancelling earplugs he can use at school. Not all the time, obvs, but when its time to do math or whatever, he can put them in to help block out the ambient noises that so easily distract and pull attention.

@arkandel We were also promised hoverboards! And those WERE promised to one and all! Even small children in a relatively small town of the 'future' had them!

@boneghazi Just as a thought, if you can, you may want to see if his issues with writing and shoelace-tying are fully a focus thing. My youngest still won't get 'lace up' shoes because he has fine motor control issues as part of his suite of diagnoses. When he was younger he would patently refuse to write by hand, and even today his handwriting is considered 'childish'. One of his accommodations is that any sort of essay or writing assignment can by done via computer. He's gotten better about writing by hand (he actually writes short stories these days), but we had to let him do it at his own pace. Obviously, using a computer is not always a possibility, but there are other accommodations that can be made as well.

And as a heads up, my son's 'vibe' was Disney. Still is! He knows more about Disney than any other person I know, including people that work for the company. He's started to branch out from just Disney in the past year or two, but Disney ruled his life from age 6 to 16.

@hedgehog Noooooooooooooooooo! I was JUST talking about him the other day and how he was my favorite character on Friends!

@l-b-heuschkel You are not incorrect. CPS came to visit me once when my youngest was maybe 3-4? A neighbor had seen him in his room crying, the door closed, and assumed that I had just... locked him in there. In reality, his door had a tendency to stick before latching, but he was a fan of closing his door when he was playing in his room. So he closed himself in, then started crying when he couldn't get out. I finished doing the dishes before going to 'free him' because silly me, I assumed 5-10 minutes more of him being in his room wouldn't kill him.

@carma Only 363 days til next Halloween and HOCUS POCUS 2! (Actually I'm pretty sure it will come out prior to Halloween but still!)

@silverfox That one looks like a Sativa to me!

@silverfox LOOKIT THAT FAAAAAAAAAAAAACE! I want that kitten!

@ominous Well... apparently between 1996 and 2016, 43 people have died due to accidents on set. This does NOT include Brandon Lee, who died in 1993. Orrrrrrrrrr the three people the died filming Twilight Zone: The Movie when a helicopter crashed ON them instead of behind them.

I knew about literally none of these 43 deaths.

@roz said in Oh, Humanity:

@aria said in Oh, Humanity:

@roz said in Oh, Humanity:

@aria i've put ranch on cheesesteak in the past and i have no regrets

I mean, you also eat at Sheetz, so.

gtf out of here with your wawa bullshit

Hey now, don't be bangin' on my Wawa!

@ominous I will agree that cedar smells great. I am very much over the pine smell. It's just too antiseptic for my preference.

Tobacco and vanilla are great, provided you get it from a company that does the tobacco scent well. Otherwise it ends up smelling like wet ash and fakey vanilla flavoring.

@ganymede I mean, I wouldn't call being open and friendly during web meetings being an asshole... XD

@arkandel So if there is one thing I've learned... its that I haaaaaaaaaaate ceramic cooktops (about as much as hate the stupid fucking 'smart burners' my complex installed in all the apartments). Time, stress, and wear is all that's needed to crack one of them, but nobody TELLS you that. That crack could have happened just from the surface heating up. There may have been a stress fracture under the surface that finally split wide enough to crack and you just happen to be the unlucky one that was in the apartment when it happened.

The biggest issue is that most complexes never want to have to replace large appliances. So they will literally run them until they fall apart and then try to make it your fault somehow for their breaking down. Never mind that it was probably 15 years old and hadn't been properly serviced at any point during those 15 years.

Glasstop stoves only have a lifespan of 8-12 years (depending on whether its electric or induction), but most of them that are in play have been in play since the late 80's or early 90's. They got SUPER popular around then so everyone started using them as a cheap way to 'upgrade' a kitchen. If you can, I would check your range for a serial number or other identifying mark to determine just how long ago it was made and if its simply run past the end of it's natural lifespan.

@ominous There was a comic that said he wanted a movie where Daniel Radcliffe was the villain. Like, actual Daniel Radcliffe. But played by Elijah Wood. And that Elijah Wood was the minion, but played by Daniel Radcliffe.

@silverfox She wants to foster mama!

Also those kittens are just more gorgeous each time! I would seriously consider adopting one.

I don't have a homemade blend that I use, but I rub my ribs with Twisted Q's Wicked Sweet Bourbon seasoning blend, wrap the whole thing in aluminum foil, then toss the rack into the oven for 4 hours at 275 degrees. Pull the ribs. Flip the oven to broiler setting. Drain the juices, lay down a fresh layer of foil, toss the old. Sauce up your ribs and throw them under the broiler for 5-7 minutes uncovered. Pull and let rest for another 5-7 minutes. Pull apart and serve (they really do pull apart at this point).

@ganymede My chili is much more basic... but I definitely use chorizo.