[Pen] trying saying you have COVID (Congenital Objection to Vehicular Ingress by Dams) and say you have to isolate at home.

The dishwasher is broken. All it can manage is a 10 minute rinse. Aaargh.
Eyelid eczema is clearing up - I already had some evil cream but I didn't know if I'd be allowed to use it on my eyelids. Apparently I can use it for a couple of days. Last day today then. Let's see how it goes from here. (If anyone needs a recommendation, I've found that Aveeno oat-based cream is the best for keeping eczema at bay once you've swatted it with steroid creams.)

That oat-based cream puts you at risk of being kissed by a horse, I'm sure.

Yep. Oat-based products were always thought to be a palliative when I were a lad, and I use Aveeno hand cream myself on my hands and in my ears. That said, I also use Mometasome cream and lotion, and on a recent re-occurrence of the odd leg-scurvy, some ointment made of what looks like petroleum jelly mixed with coal tar. I feel like the bloke from Going Postal who had the explosive socks sometimes.

Eeep, I've not been here in a long time! It's crazy. My hurricane lawyer now HAS my funds for repairing my house and how I'll have to take $9000 out to be able to keep staying at this hotel and pay my bills while my house is being repaired, but they are taking FOREVER in getting it to me! I'm definitely not happy with this lawyer. I'm struggling and have pulled some funds together for one more week right now . . . some of which I probably shouldn't have used, but I need to be able to extend and hopefully will have funds back . . . I will NEVER recommend this lawyer to anybody.

(KS) Welcome back

[KagomeShuko] Very welcome back. Was worried!

[KS] You've been having a rough time over the last 2 years also. Will your settlement or other relief funds also pay for all your accommodation costs since the hurricane?

No auroras on Belgium, but a cracking conjunction this evening of Venus and Jupiter.

[Simons Mith] [Bismarck] It's so awful! The settlement will get my house fixed, but I've already been depending on donations to stay the hotel! I told my contractor that I'll need to take out funds to stay. It won't get my house to the way she was going to make it all accessible for me, which isn't great, but I'll have my house back. Hopefully I'll get the last bit of money from a car accident settlement (different lawyer) and maybe that'll pay for my house to be more the way that I want.

Following in the footsteps of Rab, I'm starting my own Project Tiddles.

Phase 1: gotta get a cat flap, or no one will even consider me for entiddlification. That's due for this Thursday.

I had never really considered getting a cat at this address before, because I'm right on a main road and I'm not really willing to accept even a low probability of a poor mog getting squished.

But then I belatedly realised (belated by $%&^$% years) that if I got a cat that was elderly, defective or otherwise unable to go out, then the road wouldn't matter nearly so much. So that's the plan. Find an old slow animal that can't be bothered to move much and spoil it rotten for its retirement

I've laid on Bird TV for it already, so we'll both have something to look at out of the window

[Simons Mith] have you considered taxidermy?

[Radox] That's... not a bad idea except that a taxidermied cat would need at least occasional dusting. I consider that a step backwards from the live versions, which are self-cleaning.

When did "taxidermied" (which MS Edge doesn't even think is a word) replace "stuffed" in the discourse concerning dead, straw-filled roadkill?

I asked this in another forum recently and was assured it was to spare the sensibilities of those who would confuse a once-live but now stuffed animal cadaver with a build-a-bear.

[Stevie] You've just given me the most marvellous business idea.

Mister Flopsy, TriColour Dutch: a rabbit dead as a doornail
Gentlemen we can rebuild him
We have the technology
We have the capability to make the world's first bionic rabbit
Mister Flopsy will be that rabbit
Better than he was before
Better, Smarter, Fluffier

[Stevie] If you can't verb taxidermy, you can't have taxidermiing as a gerund. That alone should be reason enough.

(SM) Good thinking. You can't verb anything because verb is not a verb except when it is. I have now fulfilmentized my role as a member of the grammar and style police (fel aelod yr heddlu gramadeg ac arddull in Welsh BTW FWIW).

I'm half-Welsh, but I'm struggling with how to pronounce Btwfwiw.

(CdM) Try half of it then. The bigger half.