The "What's on your mind?" Thread -2017

[tallyollyopia]

 
Oh, I pray for him all the time.  I pray for him to have a heart attack, to OD, to fall off a building . . . I pray for him every damn night.

I called the hospital and of course they couldn't even confirm whether or not she's a patient (but I know she is, so it doesn't matter) and I was told IF she is a patient, the message will be relayed to her doctor.

The numbers @Tallyollyopia  found where for Decatur County, Indiana but they still had a database they could use to get me to the right office.  And they said they can't confirm or deny a case and they can't even talk to me unless I know the name of the case worker.  So they transferred me to the hotline and I made a new report.  That's the best I could do with them.  This is so ridiculous.

It is. I'm sorry the numbers weren't more helpful.

 

[margd]

I know DD doesn't have her own phone right now, but she goes to school. They have phones there.  She should be able to borrow a phone to call these numbers and make her own report.  She should also be able to get the name of her caseworker, which she can pass on to you. 

 

[Alicia88]

Child services doesn't care because they can't make money off her.  If she was a young child or a baby, they'd be all over her.  They want kids they can adopt out and make money off of.  That's not just around here.  It happens in California.  They don't help black or Mexican babies and they don't help babies born to drug addicts because they're too hard to adopt out.

An OB nurse at a hospital in Riverside, CA told me they call child services all the time and they ask the race of the baby and if the baby isn't white, they don't come.  It's sick and wrong.

 

[foxxycat]

talk about racist!!! BUT These people spew hatred to whites that they are racist. Sounds like two faced female dogs to me! So what about the children is their cry for help not worthy just because the skin is white?! This is utterly DISGUSTING!

Honeybee is doing good. She didn't puke anymore. Got her cat food and she munched away happily last night. She came up on my chest earlier than usual-I put a thin pillow between us to keep us from overheating but she moved to my legs-evidently she prefers my body heat?! So my legs were hot but I didn't have the heart to move the fluffball. I accidently put the pillow on top of her some time during the night..and she didn't move! She is my hardcore sleeper..she is like a toddler=once she falls asleep you can pick her up and move her and rearrange her and most times she just goes back to sleep.

We got some stinkin snow this morning..Honeybee went out yesterday for only a minute. As long as the deck has snow on it I doubt she will go out.

 

[Willowy]

Yes, the Midwestern states are very lax when it comes to protecting children (and women). Probably Iowa is similar to SD in that regard. The news just did a series about how lax the SD domestic violence laws are, in one case it led to a woman getting shot by her boyfriend because the cops wouldn't enforce the restraining order. And because the laws are heavily influenced by Evangelical "parents' rights" types, parents are presumed to have the right to physically abuse their children; action is only taken when the child suffers "substantial injury" (bruises don't count).

So, if Iowa laws are similar, figure that they don't care about physical abuse at all. Especially since she's female. But one thing that really seems to get their attention is drug use in the home, and any sexual shananigans, even porn in front of the kids. So focus on that whenever you contact someone. It's utterly horrible that they think porn and drugs are worse for kids than being beaten, but they do. So use that, maybe you'll see more results.

 

[Mamanyt1953]

 
Oh, I pray for him all the time.  I pray for him to have a heart attack, to OD, to fall off a building . . . I pray for him every damn night.

I called the hospital and of course they couldn't even confirm whether or not she's a patient (but I know she is, so it doesn't matter) and I was told IF she is a patient, the message will be relayed to her doctor.

The numbers @Tallyollyopia  found where for Decatur County, Indiana but they still had a database they could use to get me to the right office.  And they said they can't confirm or deny a case and they can't even talk to me unless I know the name of the case worker.  So they transferred me to the hotline and I made a new report.  That's the best I could do with them.  This is so ridiculous.

@Willowy  is right...focus on what pushes their buttons.

And a new report is not the worst thing.  They tend to look at the number of reports as "mounting evidence."  And since reports can be anonymous, sheer numbers can matter.    Try this link...there is a section for family and juvenile.  If nothing else, they can advise what can and can't be done.  http://www.iowalegalaid.org/

 

[foxxycat]

Now that is hilarious..Porn is worse than physical beatings?!! HESUS! Wow, just WOW!

yeah call up and tell em you saw him with a bong of crack or something stupid...They may decide to do something if you call up reporting "drug activity". I don't know what that is exactly but I have heard my neighbors calling the cops when we have a car whip through our park every day and a few every hour to the same house...of course cops don't do nothing...cause they have to actually see the activity being done..crazy!

 

[artiemom]

 
talk about racist!!! BUT These people spew hatred to whites that they are racist. Sounds like two faced female dogs to me! So what about the children is their cry for help not worthy just because the skin is white?! This is utterly DISGUSTING!

Honeybee is doing good. She didn't puke anymore. Got her cat food and she munched away happily last night. She came up on my chest earlier than usual-I put a thin pillow between us to keep us from overheating but she moved to my legs-evidently she prefers my body heat?! So my legs were hot but I didn't have the heart to move the fluffball. I accidently put the pillow on top of her some time during the night..and she didn't move! She is my hardcore sleeper..she is like a toddler=once she falls asleep you can pick her up and move her and rearrange her and most times she just goes back to sleep.

We got some stinkin snow this morning..Honeybee went out yesterday for only a minute. As long as the deck has snow on it I doubt she will go out.

Has to be a bunch of Cat vomiting going around.. Artie Vomited this morning..and Hekitty vomited the other day.. wonder what is up with the universe??  could it be some kind of cold/virus going around to our cats???  weird...

 

[Alicia88]

Oh, I told them about DD finding his drugs and his meth pipe and about him yelling at her for losing his drugs.  At the end of the call he said, "Well, I'm sure this will be accepted because of the drugs she found and the bruise on her arm."  So, bashing her head into the wall doesn't count?

 

[Alicia88]

I have an Aunt Patsy.  She's not a blood aunt, but her and my mom grew up together.  Aunt Patsy convinced my mom to sign Danielle over to Kenny's (DD's bf) parents.  This message was from Aunt Patsy to me.

She's going to sign Danielle over to Kenny 's parents. We just had a long conversation & she promised me. I assured her that you would make sure that Danielle will finish school.

She also wants Danielle to call/text every day *for the time being, to finish school, to allow her to be at the baby's birth & to understand she's doing this to build trust between Danielle & her & to make sure Danielle 's safe.

I'm feeling hopeful but scared mom will back out and not actually do it.

 

[artiemom]

 
I have an Aunt Patsy.  She's not a blood aunt, but her and my mom grew up together.  Aunt Patsy convinced my mom to sign Danielle over to Kenny's (DD's bf) parents.  This message was from Aunt Patsy to me.

She's going to sign Danielle over to Kenny 's parents. We just had a long conversation & she promised me. I assured her that you would make sure that Danielle will finish school.

She also wants Danielle to call/text every day *for the time being, to finish school, to allow her to be at the baby's birth & to understand she's doing this to build trust between Danielle & her & to make sure Danielle 's safe.

I'm feeling hopeful but scared mom will back out and not actually do it.

Prayers that this come true....

 

[segelkatt]

 
I have an Aunt Patsy.  She's not a blood aunt, but her and my mom grew up together.  Aunt Patsy convinced my mom to sign Danielle over to Kenny's (DD's bf) parents.  This message was from Aunt Patsy to me.

She's going to sign Danielle over to Kenny 's parents. We just had a long conversation & she promised me. I assured her that you would make sure that Danielle will finish school.

She also wants Danielle to call/text every day *for the time being, to finish school, to allow her to be at the baby's birth & to understand she's doing this to build trust between Danielle & her & to make sure Danielle 's safe.

I'm feeling hopeful but scared mom will back out and not actually do it.

I can understand why you would be sceptical that your mom would really do it considering her history. But here is hoping that it will really happen. Good vibes and thoughts coming your and Danielle's way.           

 

 

[NewYork1303]

 
@Willowy  is right...focus on what pushes their buttons.

And a new report is not the worst thing.  They tend to look at the number of reports as "mounting evidence."  And since reports can be anonymous, sheer numbers can matter.    Try this link...there is a section for family and juvenile.  If nothing else, they can advise what can and can't be done.  http://www.iowalegalaid.org/

The mounting evidence thing is so true. I worked at a daycare and you have to get a lot of reports in to get anyone to pay attention. Here in WA state there doesn't seem to be racism in the system though. A lot of the kids at the daycare were foster kids and most of them were not white. 

 

[segelkatt]

It's raining, so hard that it made the Weather Channel! Two more storms sitting off the coast of Southern California waiting to dump more rain. It's nice that we finally get some real rain but enough already! Flood warnings, mud slide warnings, outages, accidents, flash flood warnings and more storms. Snow in the mountains, that's good, the lakes, rivers, reservoirs and aquifers will get a nice load of the rain but I don't think it will get rid of the 6 year drought with most of this water running into the ocean. Nice and slow is what we need, then it could rain for a week or two and we would not mind.

I have another water intrusion, same place as before, the wall is wet again, I have a dehumidifier again making a lot of noise for the next 4 days, running the heat because it's cold and they are draining the water out the window so that's not closed tight. The wind was blowing over 100 MPH through the pass called the Grapevine, north of Los Angeles going towards Bakersfield. Here it blew the curb-high rain water so hard that it looked like surf.

All this dampness makes my shoulder hurt and all this noise in the living room makes it hard to watch TV although I am here at the comp. I think I'll just go to bed, put a heating pad on my shoulder and read a book. Maybe a cat or two will come and snuggle with me.

 

[DreamerRose]

I feel for you, segelkatt. I saw all that on the news. There was a landslide, too, I believe in the San Bernadino Valley. All that cold and damp is going to be murder on your shoulder. Stay warm and take care.

 

[raina21]

It's raining, so hard that it made the Weather Channel! Two more storms sitting off the coast of Southern California waiting to dump more rain. It's nice that we finally get some real rain but enough already! Flood warnings, mud slide warnings, outages, accidents, flash flood warnings and more storms. Snow in the mountains, that's good, the lakes, rivers, reservoirs and aquifers will get a nice load of the rain but I don't think it will get rid of the 6 year drought with most of this water running into the ocean. Nice and slow is what we need, then it could rain for a week or two and we would not mind.

I have another water intrusion, same place as before, the wall is wet again, I have a dehumidifier again making a lot of noise for the next 4 days, running the heat because it's cold and they are draining the water out the window so that's not closed tight. The wind was blowing over 100 MPH through the pass called the Grapevine, north of Los Angeles going towards Bakersfield. Here it blew the curb-high rain water so hard that it looked like surf.
All this dampness makes my shoulder hurt and all this noise in the living room makes it hard to watch TV although I am here at the comp. I think I'll just go to bed, put a heating pad on my shoulder and read a book. Maybe a cat or two will come and snuggle with me.

We are used to rain like this in Indiana in the spring- except sometimes that rain comes with tornados as well [emoji]128552[/emoji]

I'm glad to see California is getting some rain though.

Your posts about the weather there are reminding me of a horrible storm we had here on the night of June 8th 2008. We got nearly 2 feet of rain in a single night. we live at the top of a hill on a fairly busy county road. 2 houses down from the right of us there is a culvert/bridge that goes over a small stream at the bottom of the hill we live on.

I found it on google earth and drew an arrow to show the bridge:

20170218_051055.jpg

• raina21
• Feb 18, 2017

Anyway, ordinarily the stream is no more than 6 inches deep at any given time. And it may not look like it in the google earth photo, but the embankments on the stream are 8 feet deep and the bridge/culvert is raised just over a foot higher than the embankments.

Well, that night we got so much rain that that stream became a raging river. The water was gushing over the bridge by at least a foot and a half! My dad put on his reflective, water resistant jumpsuit/waders + one of those reflective vests construction workers use and stood in the middle of the road in front of the bridge to keep people from trying to drive over it. And people were still attempting to do so!!!! My dad would not let them! At one point there was a group of teenage girls in a VW bug that were trying to get accross the bridge to go to a stupid cheer contest! They got angry when my dad would not let them cross and made them turn around. He said not 20 seconds after they had turned around, he heard a very loud CRACK and the bridge gave way and it was just gone. The ENTIRE thing was washed away! if my dad had not been there keeping people from attempting to cross, quite a few people would have died that night. And that water would have swept away that little VW bug like it weighed nothing at all.

That night my neighbor nearest to the stream's house was almost completely submerged (they got out of their house in time and were able to find shelter). And the neighbor directly to the right of us had 8 feet of water in her basement. Our neighbors who live diagonally to the right across the street had a large plot of land in their front yard which the stream cut through, and by morning it seriously looked like their entire yard was a LAKE!! Thankfully we had no damage at all because we were at the very top of the hill.

I drew an arrow where the bridge is again + blue encircling the approximate amount of flooding by morning.

20170218_055012.jpg

• raina21
• Feb 18, 2017

 

[tallyollyopia]

 
It's raining, so hard that it made the Weather Channel! Two more storms sitting off the coast of Southern California waiting to dump more rain. It's nice that we finally get some real rain but enough already! Flood warnings, mud slide warnings, outages, accidents, flash flood warnings and more storms. Snow in the mountains, that's good, the lakes, rivers, reservoirs and aquifers will get a nice load of the rain but I don't think it will get rid of the 6 year drought with most of this water running into the ocean. Nice and slow is what we need, then it could rain for a week or two and we would not mind.

I have another water intrusion, same place as before, the wall is wet again, I have a dehumidifier again making a lot of noise for the next 4 days, running the heat because it's cold and they are draining the water out the window so that's not closed tight. The wind was blowing over 100 MPH through the pass called the Grapevine, north of Los Angeles going towards Bakersfield. Here it blew the curb-high rain water so hard that it looked like surf.

All this dampness makes my shoulder hurt and all this noise in the living room makes it hard to watch TV although I am here at the comp. I think I'll just go to bed, put a heating pad on my shoulder and read a book. Maybe a cat or two will come and snuggle with me.

Oh man, weather related joint pain is the worst. I hope the heating pad helps, and I hope your furkids go to cuddle with you. 

 

[segelkatt]

Thank you all for commiserating with me. I don't like my room warm when I'm sleeping but dampness is another thing. So I dragged out my featherbed which I hardly ever do (being European I sleep UNDER it not on top like Americans do), put the heating pad on my shoulder on low and went to sleep while waiting for a cat to show up. Woke up around midnight with whiskers tickling my cheek, Panthera was checking to see if I was still alive buried under all those covers. I was toasty warm, my shoulder was not aching anymore, I  moved Panthera out of my face and we both happily went back to sleep.  This morning it is not raining but it is overcast and everything is very wet, the dehumidifier is running making a lot of noise and there is more rain in the forecast for Monday and beyond. I will not be spending a lot of time in here. After cleaning the kitchen and taking care of the cats' needs I'll go hide in my bedroom and watch a Netflix movie there. I might even turn on the heat in that room. That should bring all the fur babies to keep me company.

I would like to go to the beach and watch the big surf which is expected to be up to 14 feet high today but with the road still soaked and puddles all over there are probably places where it is flooded,  too many people driving crazy and hydroplaning I'll pass on that, besides that my shoulder probably would not thank me. I'd also like to check my garden but that means driving 1 1/2 miles with the crazies on the road so I will skip that also.

The mountains got as much as 8 inches of snow so this weekend should be really good for the skiers, the news say all the rooms are sold out at Big Bear resorts, I'm sure Mammoth Mountain Resort is full too although it is farther away. Some of the freeways are closed because of mudslides and a sinkhole opened up somewhere swallowing two cars, a woman had to be rescued from one of the cars which was upside down and filling with water, that must have been really horrible. Many trees have come down, some of them crushing cars. 

@Raina  thanks for the pics and the story, that must have been really scary. Where I live it's pretty hilly and there are embankments all over, but those have been planted with trees and bushes and drainage ditches installed for the last 50 years so that there is little chance of those to slide down, they have survived without damage the last huge storm of 6 years ago.

 

[Mamanyt1953]

We get a little worried anytime there is heavy rain in this area for an extended period.  My entire neighborhood is built on "reclaimed" swampland, and I am constantly aware that Mama Nature could decide to take it back again at any moment.  Why do we call land wrested from nature "reclaimed?"  It isn't reclaimed, it's outright snatched.  And we always pay down the road for that sort of thing!

 

[arouetta]

What's on my mind....

I now work part-time at a big box store.  They usually have me answering the phones.  I actually have no problem answering the phones, most of the people in my section hate it.  But lately the calls have been weird.

Last work day a woman called asking about makeup.  She wanted to know about a specific color.  She was looking at our website and mentioned that the container she had bought looked like a different color online.  I told her that it would be best if she came in to view the colors personally.  She burst into tears and told me all about how the plastic surgeon botched her nose job and how she felt ugly.  Yeah at that point I can't really help her with our products and services, but how do you end a call with a person who is crying?  So I told her that everyone is beautiful unless they have an ugly soul, other esteem boosting stuff.  She cheered up and told me that I sounded like a cute person.

Later on that night another woman called about something, don't remember what.  Then she told me that I had the same name as her daughter that just died.  Ummm, what?  So yeah, offering sympathy followed by her saying that my name is beautiful and to always be proud of it.

Today, whatever planetary conjunction that was in effect causing the weird phone calls should be over, right?

A woman called, she wanted to do a return without a receipt for an item paid for in cash.  I told her the process and she asked if she would get cash or a gift card.  It's a gift card, but she wanted cash.  Then she told me that her ex quit paying the bills he was supposed to and her power was going to be turned off and she needed to scrape some money together.  Yeah, not my problem.  But again, what do you do when someone is near tears?  So I told her to contact local churches, most usually have some type of system set up for paying utility bills for needy people.  She hadn't thought of it despite being an active churchgoer, so she was all thankful.

Did I miss the requirement for a social worker degree prior to applying for my job?  I actually prefer the prank phone calls at this point.