marlowe1: (Spinning Tardis)
Note: I just spend all afternoon writing this one because I'm seeing too many gullible idiots on Facebook defending this shithead Cuomo and acting like it's all a Republican plot. Seriously fuckers Google that shit. Letitia James is not a Republican. A Republican won't take office in New York. This is a Democrat state. It's not even a swing state. Letitia James is ALSO investigating Trump so that meme about "the same people who want to lynch (??) Cuomo for kissing also give Trump a pass for pussy grabbing" is fucking bullshit. The same people investigating Cuomo for misdeeds are also after Trump.

Because this is a Democrat state.

The closest we have to a Republican in power is Andrew Fucking Cuomo the fucking idiot.

Enough of those cute Andy talks to Fredo segments on CNN.

So anyhow I'm going to edit it and put it on medium so I don't have to type on the little keypad for Facebook

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The greatest tricks Covid-19 ever pulled was to depict Andrew Cuomo, an oligarch so indebted to his corporate donors that they might as well have had a hand up his butt during those press conferences as the anti-Trump. The governor that stood in the way of rent relief, unemployment benefits, and just for sexual assault survivors sure did have a glorious time in 2020 as the politician who did NOT completely ignore covid-19 in favor of campaign rallies.
Even today, it seems like a betrayal to attack Cuomo for his policy of placing recovering covid-19 patients in nursing homes where they could potentially infect others because that was the Fox News tactic. And underneath that criticism was an implied defense of Republican politicians who didn't even want to do the bare minimum to protect Americans from the greatest plague since the Spanish Flu. Every time Fox News attacked Cuomo for that one policy, the Democrats felt honor bound to defend him because politics is more akin to pro-wrestling than actually helping people. Yes, there was an actual navy ship in the dock and Javits Center for recovering Covid-19 patients. Yes, every covid-19 patient had the potential to infect others no matter how much they seemed to be getting better. Yes, Cuomo was ordering those patients into populations with highly vulnerable populations, but FOX NEWS was pushing that anti-Cuomo narrative and Fox News has made it impossible to agree with them on anything without falling down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories and billionaire agenda.
However, Fox News was suspiciously silent on another front, namely Andrew Cuomo pushing through legislation with his emergency powers that gave all the hospitals and nursing homes immunity from lawsuits. Since giving large corporate donors immunity from lawsuits was something that Mitch McConnell kept trying to attach to relief bills that's not exactly a surprise. However, unlike McConnell, Cuomo actually managed to pass that legislation almost as soon as he closed nursing homes to visitors.
I did not know about the immunity law back in March 2020. I only knew that I had moved Mom into Isabella Geriatric in 2019 because she had lost the ability to walk and I wanted her near me instead of 2000 miles away. I made sure to visit every day not only because my mom was in a strange place and emotionally vulnerable but also because Isabella Geriatric didn't care enough to hire the staff. As long as I could visit, it didn't matter. My mom would have arguments with the staff. I would smooth things over. She didn't want to eat the disgusting food so I would buy sushi. The insurance kept cutting off her OT/PT and I would convince the floor RN to sign her up for more. I would take mom out to the rest of the building and even outside. I would make sure that Mom took part in the activities like arts & crafts. There were about 100 people per floor and approximately 7 staff members to keep track of them all.
Even then there were problems. Mom's hallucinations were becoming more frequent. Around Mother's Day 2018, my mom had a major hallucination where she believed that there were people taking pictures of her and cats running around. At the time we assumed that her pain killer was to blame. She would then have infrequent major hallucinations that would last for 24-48 hours and frequent minor hallucinations where she was certain that there was an extra door in her room. I was learning to refrain from arguing with her and only worry when she had major episodes.
One afternoon when she was supposed to go to her occupational therapy, she soiled herself. I tried to get someone to clean her before she went down but no one was available. The woman who was usually in charge of cleaning my mom was on her lunch break and no one else had the time or inclination. Even as I stood near the front desk constantly asking them to clean up my mom, it still took them almost an hour to get someone to do it.
That's the way the nursing home acted when I was visiting every day and could stubbornly advocate on behalf of my mother. When the nursing homes closed to visitors, my first thought was what would happen to Mom with the short staffing. I'm not blaming the individuals working the floor. When you have one staff member for every thirty residents there's going to be neglect. Most of them did as well as they could.
When i received the phone call telling me that I would not be allowed to visit Mom after that day, I was upset. I was angry. I asked them if they were going to hire staff members to make up for the shortage of free labor offered by volunteers and loved ones. I was told that they would not. I complained about the neglect and I was told that I could always take Mom out of Isabella Geriatric if I didn't feel like they were doing an adequate job. I knew that wasn't going to happen. The person talking to me knew that wasn't going to happen. I cried a great deal that day and I tried to visit Mom twice to make up for the fact that I would probably never see her alive again.
Meanwhile, Andrew Cuomo signed legislation to give nursing homes like Isabella Geriatric immunity from lawsuits. Without that law, Isabella Geriatric might have realized that they were cutting their residents off from valuable sources of comfort and advocacy. They might have understood that without volunteers and loved ones that the jobs of the woefully understaffed employees would be that much more difficult and taken steps to counteract that. They might have put the needs of their residents over the profit motivations that allowed them to leave their residents neglected for years.
Instead, they operated at their usual level of incompetence and put up signs calling their staff heroes. There's even a sign on the front lawn stating that HEROES WORK HERE as if that makes up for the lack of pay and staffing. In the covid-19 era, calling workers heroes is the equivalent of "thoughts and prayers." It's a meaningless gesture.
In the following months, my mom got worse. No one took her out of her room. No one even bothered to visit her. I was calling her on her cell phone but she wasn't always answering. She was scared and lonely. She felt like the staff was bullying her. She would soil herself and tell me that she had been lying there for hours in her own feces. I would call the front desk to have them clean her but they would often act like I was the enemy.
I would bring food and I would wait downstairs for someone to come pick it up. She was barely eating what they made for her when I was allowed to visit. I would wait in the front lobby for at least an hour before someone came down. I would call up. The security would call up. No one would come down. When they did come down they would look haggard.
By mid-April, my mom's mental state had deteriorated to the point that her hallucinations became her main topic. Mom's hallucinations, which had been mild before the shut down, became frightening. She thought she was running a cat charity. She thought she was floating to the ceiling while the television talked to her. She asked me if I got "the check" and would yell at me when I didn't know what she was talking about. She had entire conversations with her roommate who didn't talk. At one point she told my cousin that I had been stabbed walking around the neighborhood. She also thought that her cat had been stabbed to death as well. She had stopped eating because she was certain that wires were in her food.
In early May, I discovered why I couldn't reach anyone at the front desk whenever I called about Mom. Isabella Geriatric had allowed 96 residents to die under its watch. This made national news as even CNN picked up this death toll. Not only was Isabella Geriatric running with the same low staff as before lockdown, the few staff members that were working the floor were too busy with the dying patients to worry about my mom who was Covid-19 positive by then but not showing the usual symptoms.
At this point, things progressed faster. Isabella Geriatric sent out form letters informing the loved ones that everyone at Isabella Geriatric was elderly and in bad health so they were naturally prone to death. The staff actually started testing the residents for covid-19 so that's how I knew that my mom was positive - a full two months after they locked down. Mom's physical state had deteriorated along with her mental state and the nurse was feeding her intravenously because she outright refused all other foods.
At the same time, Andrew Cuomo started lying about the death toll in the nursing homes. The official "whoopsies, we were just trying to keep Trump from knowing it" story is contradicted by the fact that the immunity law that protected these nursing homes was in danger of repeal due to the high death toll. Cuomo responded to the death toll by calling all the nursing home workers HEROES and he kept saying HERO until critics stopped talking. Then he changed the numbers so that suddenly the nursing home deaths weren't so bad.
Finally, the social worker referred Mom to hospice care which meant that I could finally visit. I still remember the Sunday before I could visit because Mom sounded lucid that day. She was happy that she could finally see me. She was making sense. Then two staff members walked into her room and just threw everything she owned into plastic bags without warning. She began screaming at them. I had to talk to them. They informed me that they were moving her because they were moving everyone. My mom calmed down but she had lost what little mental stability that she had managed to find.
When I finally could visit on the following Wednesday I learned that they were trying to put all the covid-19 patients into one wing. Only Mom's original room was designated as a room for a covid-19 positive patient so they didn't even have to move her. They ruined my mom's last days for no reason except bookkeeping.
The last week and a half of my mom's life was emotionally draining. On Monday and Tuesday my mom called and she didn't even listen to me. She just talked about her hallucinations. I remember a friend sent me a funny meme while Mom was talking and I resented that friend for trying to make me laugh while I was trying to comfort my mom. When I visited her on that Wednesday, she spent hours in her own world. She saw cats running around. She called for her (now dead) roommate to get her the list for the charity. She held onto the bed post in terror because she was certain she was going to fall. When I left she begged me to stay but I couldn't stay. The last thing she said to me was "please don't leave" as she held onto her bed in terror of floating away.
For the next week she was barely awake. Her oxygen levels had sunk. The oxygen machine was replaced with a larger oxygen machine. I held her hand and played music for her. She never woke up. On Tuesday night/Wednesday morning at 2 a.m. she died. I got the call when I was going over to visit again.
I don't know if my mom would be alive today had it not been for Isabella Geriatric's negligence. I know that they stonewalled me when I tried to obtain Mom's medical records. I know that the first lawyer I contacted wanted to take the case but found Cuomo's immunity law too insurmountable. I know that I'm part of a possible class action lawsuit that is also in a holding pattern because of that law. The law was partially repealed in August but only moving forward. The nursing home deaths from March until July are still freebies as far as Andrew Cuomo and his backers are concerned. I know that Isabella Geriatric has forbidden its employees - past and present - from talking to lawyers or investigators for fear of reprisals.
Currently there's a great deal of garbage thinking concerning Andrew Cuomo. Democrats, sore over Al Franken's resignation, have decided to defend Cuomo. Memes comparing Cuomo's "can I kiss you" to Trump's "grab them by the pussy" versions of sexual harassment are floating around Facebook. They even use the term "lynch" as if that's appropriate. Leftwing conspiracy theorists have decided to get in on the fun and accuse Letitia James, Ron Kim and every New York Democrat calling for Cuomo's ouster of being Trump supporters. As far as they are concerned this is all a plot to destroy the New York Trump investigation by installing a Republican in the Albany Governor's mansion.
Letitia James is also investigating Trump. There's not a Republican within spitting distance of the governor's mansion in New York. Like their QAnon counterparts, leftwing conspiracy theorists are woefully ignorant of this amazing site called Google. The closest New York will ever have to a Republican governor is Andrew Cuomo.
I do know that if Andrew Cuomo had not given Isabella Geriatric the greenlight to neglect their patients, my mom might be alive today. Even if she died, she wouldn't have died alone and scared accompanied only by imaginary cats.
If Andrew Cuomo ends up impeached or out of office becuase of his years of sexual harassment, I'm ok with that. It's too late for my mom, but the rest of New York should not have to spend another day with this nasty corporate shill as leader.
marlowe1: (Teddy Bear)
I am still in Facebook jail for mocking white people - or specifically using the phrase "blue eyed white devils" in regards to Game of Thrones. The algorithm did it. The algorithm is a fucking Nazi. Facebook is bullshit and yet I'm addicted. As soon as Tuesday comes I will check every hour to make sure I know when I can go back.

Gambit is dead. My other cats are leaving each other alone. Oskar is still shitting in the kitchen. Felix is still taking some grisly shits and not covering them up properly. I apologize for that update but he just did it and I can smell that. Damnit Felix.

I waited for the call for the Fair Hearing only to learn that the New York Burial Fund that denied my claim had sent me a packet ONE WEEK AGO and expected me to have it by now. I actually do have it. It's in my mailbox but I didn't check the mail. I asked for an adjournment. I don't know if I'm going to succeed. They didn't get the paperwork from the Veterans Administration or Isabella Geriatric. I'm going to have to figure out ways to say that it's still ok to pay me. With Isabella I contacted a lawyer for a possible lawsuit and they are stonewalling me for medical records. With the VA, I don't know. It's not my fault that they are not sending in the fucking paperwork.

Besides I didn't even use the VA. The VA would have paid for burial expenses and put Mom in a military cemetery (just like grandmother and grandfather are buried together in Fort Snelling because grandfather Jake was in WWII). Mom wanted to be cremated. So no money from the VA.

Speaking of which I still have Mom's ashes. I really don't know where to put them. I just brought out Gambit and put him in a park next to a tree (only Socrates got a burial because my friend worked at the local church at the time). But Mom was only in New York for the last few months and for a couple weeks in September 2004 when she drove me here (and then flew back). She had a good time then. She really liked TIme's Square. Should I spread Mom's ashes in Times Square.

Also Isabella may say that Mom owes them money because she was supposed to give them her entire Social Security and Pension. She never signed that paperwork. And for fuck's sake I had to use the money to keep her from starving to death with that shitty food. They got about $40,000 a month from the state for her. They didn't need her $1000/month. Anyhow Isabella - the place that killed my mom - may very well stop this. But they are also just not sending in the forms.

So it's my fucking responsibility? Fuck this.

I had the same issue back in September when I tried to apply for rent relief. Not the rent relief that paid HALF of my monthly rent (I'm still five months behind because Cuomo is a master of the empty gesture) but a rent relief that would be a loan. I wanted it to pay off my rent, but I didn't want it as a loan because like other loans it would have just added to my debt.

But I did TRY to get all the forms in. Only the fuckers in the department decided that they needed a SIGNED NOTE from my roommate stating how much he paid a month. My roommate who doesn't fucking talk to me is supposed to sign a note. I got everything else but a fucking note. This is worse than when the people at the humane society hear that I have a roommate and decide that despite years of taking care of cats and having cats in my apartment that they want me to BRING MY ROOMMATE WITH ME to the animal shelter to give over their approval. That was back when I actually had a friendly roommate who might have been convinced to do it. But it was still idiotic.

So I probably won't get money from the state for my mom. I got money from GOFundMe.

Speaking of which here's the gofundme for Gambit's vet bill - https://www.gofundme.com/help-pay-veterinary-bill-for-gambit

I don't think I'm going to get much. I'll find out next week when I can post on Facebook but generally people prefer to help living cats. This is basically me spending $1200 to find out that my cat has cancer a day before he died.

I probably should go to another vet. When Patches died, I only had to pay $700 to find out that she was dying of FLV.

Pretty nothing days. I still have to finish a short story.

I am also trying to help a guy out who is editing an anthology that interests me (I also submitted) and he's trying to get diversity but looking in the wrong places. He thinks that most horror writers are white dudes and hasn't been proactive in testing that assumption. He's also not accepting reprints which is increasingly becoming a pet peeve. If you are editing an anthology and NOT paying pro-rates (or even semi-pro) then fucking accept reprints. I got a few dozen stories that would fit but I published them already. I have friends who would have great stories for the anthologies but they were published already.

Seriously, pro-rate writers are not going to submit to a token payment anthology under the best of conditions. And without accepting reprints there's no way to get them.

My pro-rate sales are few so I don't consider myself a pro-rate writer. I submitted a story because it's very niche - 1918 anarchist werewolves with Yiddish idioms throughout - but had the anthology not been almost made for the story I would have avoided it.

Anyhow, the 1986 anthology is still there.

Last thing, my freezer is filled up. I went to the grocery store and used almost all of my SNAP benefits. They came today. Keyfood is fucking evil in its markups.

Oh yeah, I also have been having too much fun with Dogecoin. Since you can day trade the shit out of that volatile preposterous thing I've been selling it high and buying it low but it looks like it might be crashing finally. I mean a month ago it was less than a penny and then it shot up. It's now going between 6.5 cents and 8 cents a coin. Last week when I started buying these things they were 4 cents a coin.

There's a very really chance that I'm going to lose as it just crashes back to that .0003 a share. But I've never had more than $50 in it. So it sucks but I can consider it an expensive lesson.

Ok. That's it.

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marlowe1: (Default)
Tim Lieder

December 2023

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