Hi, friends!
Tonight is the season finale of Dancing with the Stars! I’m going to make some dinner and then stream it live and give you a running commentary about it.
Who made it to the finals? Whom do I think will win?
Contestant #1 – Bachelorette person Gaby someone. She’s fine. She comes across as a little bland, but I think she’s just worried about saying something dumb. I don’t dislike her, but I don’t think she’ll win. I think she’ll come in 3rd.
Contestant #2 – Shangela. My favorite! Drag queen, amazing performer. In other seasons, she could have won. I love watching her dance and the dynamic betwen her and her partner, Gleb. Drag only happens for performances, so all the practice sessions it’s DJ dancing with Gleb. Gleb has been chill the whole season about dancing with a man which I don’t know that the other pros would be so comfortable with. Shangela will be ROBBED tonight and come in 4th.
Contestant #3 – Wayne Brady. He’s also great. I would be so happy if he won. He’s going to come in 2nd.
Contestant #4 – Charli the tiktok dance star. Who has like 150 million tiktok followers. Who got famous for doing dances on tiktok after being a competitive dancer (not ballroom, but not like that fucking matters here). Who is like 18 years old with a perfect dancer body. Partnered with Mark Ballas who does really innovative choreography. Listen, nothing about her is bad. She’s not obnoxious, she probably is a nice person. But the deck was stacked in her favor – dance background, age, ridiculous amount of followers. She’s gonna win.
With that lineup, I think you’re right, Brighter, and Charli’s gonna win😕🙃
I just need to vent tonight. I’ve gotten a LOT done so far today, but not nearly enough yet, annnnnnd I frickin’ HATE the stupid health-insurance contractor/company that the school district negotiated our coverage with this year!🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬
The one and ONLY redeeming thing about this company, imo, is that they are absolutely *ACES* at picking kind, patient, caring-seeming customer service reps (seriously, these folks are EXCELLENT, and have the patience of SAINTS!😉😁💖💝💞)…
But the COVERAGE–and particularly the Pharmacy “benefits” we have are a burning trash-fire!😒😡🤬
And the deductible for folks like me literally doubled, so rather than paying $1500 for the year, I’m *automatically* out 3K🙃
3K is MORE than we got for our pay increases, so I’ll end up making less this year, than I did last year, with the added “bonus” of the rise of costs on *everything* because of inflation…
So I’m GOING to talk to the asshats sho negotiated for our district, and let them KNOW how much they’ve fucked over those of us who are Paras & have “difficult to manage” medical conditions… and that they’ve gone from a district that was attracting staff (because we were “paid” less in hourly wages, but HAD great insurance before this!), to one that will *LOSE* experienced staff who have complicated medical conditions, because with things like the way Diabetes meds are covered (the customer doesn’t just have z max of $50.00 per month, like on every OTHER class of meds, we need to pay 40 PERCENT of the cost of each med, if they’re on the “high tier” list!🤬🤬🤬–so if I have *all* my diabetes meds accidentally hit at the same time, it’ll cost up to $752 in *ONE* MONTH🤯🤬😱)
Before we got our raise *this* year?
$752 was more than my take-home pay for a 2-week period😒😒😒
They FUCKED their lowest-paid employees over, BIG TIME, and I don’t think anyone who negotiated that contract even realizes it yet!!!😳😲🥴
Luckily, because I’ve had so many roommates & acquaintances who were in the health insurance industry, I know where to look on the drug manufacturers’ websites, to find the assistance programs–and if worse comes to worst, I’ll go *that* route, because it might be cheaper than any other options…
But whoever negotiated our district’s options ROYALLY screwed this up (none of the clinics at one of the major health-systems in the metro region are “in network” providers…. the biggest *hospitals*–the ones all the folks living *in* the district USE–aren’t “in network” for the health plan the dumbasses chose!!!😑😖😱🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬
I knew back this summer, when they announced the change of plan it was gonna be BAD.
But I waaaaaaay underestimated the LEVELS of awful this screw up of a choice *is.*
Like, I might be “looking for a different district to *WORK FOR* next year, and I KNOW I’m far from the only 5+ year employee who’s going to be weighing that decision for next year”–levels of bad with the costs of this health plan😬😬😬
I can’t believe this was what *some* dumbass who looked over the options thought was “good coverage!”😬😖🥴😱😱😱😱
Oh that fucking blows. I can’t imagine they aren’t aware of the implications for folks not making upper level administrator salaries. Douchebags.
My guess is that since there were lots of negotiations happening last year, the “differential pricing” for diabetic prescriptions magazine have gotten missed when the staff’s negotiatingteam looked over the plans?
They were negotiating our pay contract, *and* once St Paul’s schools went out on strike, it gave our reps a looooot better position to negotiate from… but that changed the *pay* contract (and the rates, lanes, & steps!), at the last minute… so I’m guessing that it’s pretty likely that (being that it’s sooooo far into the “weeds” of the plan details!), the percentage-pricing for the ‘beetus medsjust got missed…
There were LOTS of other changes that would’ve been seen waaaaay before them–and aside from overall cost & *occasional* tweaks to the pharmacy plan, hadn’t *really* changed anything health-plan wise, in all the years I’ve been at the district (and they had our old carrier for years before I’d started!).
So, since there are *mostly* new-ish Reps on the negotiation team, I’m thinking it was simply missed, as opposed to a deliberate thing–since the Admin and EVERYONE employed there has the same plan availability…
Thing is, LOTS of folks nowadays have the ‘beetus, soooo it’s eventually gonna hit a LOT of folks hard, and if we all let the negotiation team know, it’s something that *may* be able to get changed for next year… hopefully.
I hear you and feel your pain. Change in insurance, all for the worse, with incredible insured persons financial responsibilities.
Oh yiiiiikes the first 4 losers dance is painfully bad. You can tell why these 4 got cut first.
Although the only thing that held Cheryl Ladd back is that she’s 71.
Cheryl Ladd! That’s a name I haven’t heard in many years. She must have dabbled in healthy eating/cooking in the 1970s…I feel a Celebrity Sunday Matinee coming on.
As good as she still looks, I would expect some healthy habits. Or the genetic lottery!
Redemption Dance Round!
Shangela did a super fun quickstep that had a great charleston section!
Wayne Brady did a quickstep that just didn’t have the same energy and the footwork didn’t look synched up in places. But that might be because of costuming? He’s got black pants and his partner has a gold dress, so could be a visual thing.
tiktok star Charli did an amazing jive. I’m sure she’ll get all 10s.
Bachelorette Gaby did a chacha that was good.
Freestyle round!!!
Wayne and Witney did a super fun hip hop/latin fusion to a mash up of Bruno Mars and Ciara hits! That was fucking fun to watch!
Freestyle from Charli and Mark – really awesome number!! Derek crying over his bromance with Mark is sweet.
OMG Gabby did a freestyle to the Cellblock Tango song from Chicago with a bunch of half naked men and that was lovely to watch for both the choreography and the *ahem* performance. Turns out her partner – Val – his wife choreographed it. Which makes sense because damn was it good!!!
I DID NOT EXPECT SHANGELA’S FREESTYLE TO INVOLVE PUTTING HER PARTNER INTO DRAG TOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That was something else and I wanted to watch a whole hour of
Side note – Tyra’s second dress of the night looks like what a Vulcan would wear to a wedding and her left boob looks like it wants to escape.
Well I got #2 and #3 swapped but otherwise nailed it for the results!