Women Are Capable

Image: www.lisajohnsonfitness.com

This is a bit of a rant, brought in part by an interaction I had at work as well as the current climate of our country and world.

Women Are Capable! We can work, we can lead, we can do more than be mothers. We can be mothers and work or stay at home. Every woman is different and NONE of us are lesser than men. No matter how many men think we are lesser.

I work in IT, which has been a man dominated field. But I'm good with computers and I'm good at my job. I never thought of myself as extremely techy until I started working in IT, but from the people I've had to help over the years, I am very good with most things techy.

Doesn't stop people from telling me I don't know what I'm doing. Usually older men who sometimes call me 'honey' and 'sweetie'. Usually these fellows don't know what they are doing, as in the case I had today.

This dude totally was mansplaining me the entire call as well as talking down to me. I had to tell him to do something about five times before he would listen to me and do what I told him to do. In the end, I couldn't help him because of his lack of computer knowledge. Didn't stop him from thinking that he knew it all.

It's 2017 for goodness sakes! Women are strong and capable. Please, treat us like we deserve to be treated, as human beings at least.

Time Outs for Adults

Image: blogs.extension.iastate.edu 

Time outs are a great go to for parents who need to discipline their young children. Emily is a pretty good kid, but sometimes she just needs a time out to calm down when she gets upset or in trouble.

Honestly, I stop myself and take time outs myself when I'm getting really frustrated. Just take a minute, a breath and calm down.

Sadly, I'm beginning to wish that I could put my customers in time out. Make them sit in a time out chair and just chill for five minutes. I work in tech support you see, and most of the people I deal with know little to nothing about computers.

Common courtesy is sadly not so common these days. Since I'm just a faceless voice on the phone, some people think it's ok to verbally abuse me. Luckily, if it gets too bad I can hang up on them. Thankfully that doesn't happen too much.

What does happen all do often are the people who will troubleshoot but it will take twice as long as the person complains bitterly about how much the internet sucks, how much I suck, how they shouldn't have to troubleshoot. It goes on and on.

These people need time outs. You are wasting your time if you are so angry at the situation that you complain and rant the whole time you are on the phone with a tech. Take a time out, get a cookie and a juice box and just calm down.

Why I Hated the How I Met Your Mother Finale

I found How I Met Your Mother a few years after it had started and I loved it. I binged watched my way through all the current episodes available at the time and kept up with the show after that. Even though I think it jumped the shark several seasons ago, I stuck with it. Especially knowing this season was the last.

Like many other people out there, I tuned in for the finale tonight and was horribly disappointed with the end result.

Spoilers from this point on - scroll past the picture to read them. I'm a little hyped up over this so be warned, there is going to be some adult language.

Image: CBS.com

Most of the episode was flash forwards and it was horribly depressing. Robin and Barney got divorced after three years of marriage, which was super annoying since the whole season had been about their wedding!!

Robin pretty much left the group which made Lilly very sad. Now, I've lost friends before and yeah, it's sad, but it's life too. They just seemed over focus so much on the sad parts that I was getting annoyed by the half way part.

Not much was done with the mother, but more focused on the group. Barney backslide for a while until he knocked up a girl and became a father. Lilly and Marshall really didn't do much - they had at least three kids and Marshall became a judge. Finally Ted and the mother got married (after having two kids but that wasn't a big deal - though I dislike Ted for not pissing or getting off the pot). And then all of a sudden, the mother is in the hospital and she fucking died!!!

The whole damn show is How I Met Your Mother - and we finally get to know her and how great she is for stupid Ted. And they kill  her off. 

This may have hit me hard because my own mother is dead and I found a handwritten letter she had sent me in college today, but still pissed me off and make me upset.

Finally it is revealed that Ted is still fucking in love with stupid Robin and the damn series ends with him going to her again.

Such a  horrible ending in my opinion! I hated it so much - which of course is why I'm writing this rant. I hate that Barney backslid so much, I never really liked Robin as a character that much and my least favorite character has always been stupid Ted. 

So it's over and I really doubt that I'll ever watch How I Met Your Mother again. Which is sad because it was a great show.

A Rant - The Cost of Medicines

A very expensive medicine

I have a whole host of diseases and conditions. Most of these I can manage without medicine, but a few I need my meds to be able to function. Thankfully most of my medicine is fairly cheap and doesn't become too much of a burden financially.  But I think the cost of some medicines is insane and it’s price gouging a lot of the time.  I had an experience with this lately with some new eczema medicine.

A little bit of background on my issues with eczema. I've always had dry skin since I was a kid, but I always just though it was dry skin. About six or seven years ago, my skin was so dry that I was scratching it until I bled. I tried some home remedies that didn't work so I ended up at the dermatologist’s office where I was prescribed with very bad eczema.

Many people with eczema will have a patch here or there on their bodies, but I have patches pretty much on my whole body. My upper torso is worse than my bottom. My arms and neck are always hotspots for me, but I can get patches anywhere. The only thing that works is a medicated crème.

Last week, I had to go to my yearly visit to my dermatologist to get my prescription refilled. These visits usually annoy me because the doctor usually is with me for less than five minutes with me just saying that I still have eczema and him refilling my crème. It’s usually an expensive five minutes that can cost me $60 after insurance covers some.

But this year, I saw a new doctor to the practice. He went over my symptoms and checked me out. I liked him a lot better than my normal doctor. He also prescribed me a new medicine called Protopic along with my crème. The nurse gave me some samples of the Protopic along with a $40 off coupon. That made me a little nervous about the cost.

I took my prescriptions to my local pharmacy and picked them up a few days later because the crème can take a while to be ready because it’s a compound. When the lady at the pharmacy looked up my account, she thought I might have an insurance issue because the bill was nearly $200!

After being sent to the drop off window, another pharmacy tech looked up my account and said my insurance was fine. It was just that the Protopic was $180 even after insurance. He also said in a sympathetic voice that it was just the small tube.

While the samples had worked pretty well, I wasn't about to pay $180 for a tube of something that wouldn’t last very long. I opted to get my crème and another prescription that I had refilled. The bill for those came up to $20.

I am just annoyed by the cost of that Protopic. I have to wonder what is in it that makes it so expensive, yet I have probably over $100 in free sample of the stuff. I know that I’m lucky and most of my medicine is pretty cheap but it just seems like such a racket to me.