I love to wrap presents

AND I'm good at it!

Social justice

Offspring, the other day as we were walking to the park, starting talking about social justice.  Only he didn't know it was social justice.

"If I was in charge of the world, the very first thing that I would do is totally get rid of money.  Money just messes everything up.  But when I told my dad that he said that no one would go to work then, but I think that at least EMS would volunteer.  I mean, they are nice, they save lives and stuff.  So I think that would be ok.  Then I would ban war.  If anyone disagreed, they'd have to settle it by playing rock paper scissors.  And I'd also make it so everyone had to pay the same amount of attention everywhere".

What do you mean by that? I asked.

"You know, like some neighborhoods - like ours - are really REALLY nice with trees and brushes and clean playgrounds, but other places aren't.  Like, they would all have to be the same amount of nice instead it being so unfair.  And then back to that job thing, about money, EMS would volunteer, but everyone else could barter.  Like someone might fix your car if you designed a clinical trial for them mom". 

Well, it was a good idea up to that point ...  I'm not sure I know any mechanics who need a clinical trial designed ... but with a few degrees of separation it might actually work.  He went on with all the other ways that he would change the world, and dammit I can't remember all of them because its been a few days since the conversation but it all boiled down tot essentially leveling the playing field so that everyone has an equal shot at a good life.  That everyone has the same basic slate to start from and that you aren't disadvantaged just because of who you are or where you live or your lack of money, status or immigration status.  I was proud of him - and I'm proud of me for raising a child who has come to believe in social justice.

He may be naive right now about how the world works, but maybe if more of us were a bit more idealistic in our thinking, the world might change for the better.  Just a little at a time.

The good parts of quadriplegia

Good things about being married to a totally paralyzed quad. First, the totally obvious stuff:

• Outstanding parking
• Excellent seating options at events (usually, but if not, I piss and moan until I get my way by threatening public exposure, humilitation and just my general wrath)
• You get lots of attention, nearly always polite and caring.

The not so obvious stuff:

• You never have to go through a turnstile at an event, or metal detector. His chair would sorta make the wands go dingy-dingy-dingy so they just wave us through. All of us. Hmmmmm.
• Small Boy can ride on Wheeler when he's tired of walking.
• He always has a place to sit. I never have to bring a lawn chair for Wheeler.
• His chair reclines, so Small Boy and Wheeler can lay back and study the stars together from the same vantage point.
• You have a place to hang all of your shopping bags, purse, lunch bag, backpack. Just lop it over the top of the headrest and/or hang it off the carabeeners bolted to the back of his chair.
• We have an uber cool bed that goes up, down, reclines, tilts, and changes its own sheets (just kidding about that last one).
• We have an overhead lift in our bedroom to get him in/out of his chair/bed/showerchair that lifts him 6 feet in the air and tracks 15 feet long.  Its WAY cool.  
• You get to weird people out by staring back at them when they stare rudely at Wheeler.
• We are almost always seated immediately at a restaurant, even when there is an hour wait for anyone else. It's the "gimpathy" thing I guess. Or they hope he doesn't drop dead while he's there so get him in and out asap. 
• You get to push those wheelchair door opener things! (even though I could perfectly well open the door and just hold it)
• When you roll into Starbucks, the four people sitting at the single table prominently labeled for disabled customers, all immediately BOLT away and look terribly sheepish (even though there's absolutely nothing wrong with sitting there if there's no disabled person there .... but they seem to get embarrassed anyway, happens every time)
• When something irritating happens due to his disability, I get to holler and yell, shake my finger and say "ADA thing, and ADA that, ADA shigga, ADA ragga, ADA bliggablogga, and DO WHAT I WANT RIGHT NOW". And then, miraculously they do. Ahhhh, power. Yes, it corrupts. (during these episdoes Wheeler shrinks into his chair as if he has never seen this crazy ranting woman in his entire life)
• I am in charge of the fork. If I want the first bite, I get it. 
• Wheeler has a super cool environmental control unit that turns lights and fans and all sorts of things on and off. Dude. 
• He knows absolutely everything trivial thing about everything. Ummm, ok, so that's unrelated to being a quad, it's just Wheeler being Wheeler.

On the whole though? We'd go with not paralyzed..... 

Me versus the cockroach

Can I just say that cockroaches scare the crap-ze-ola outta me. As in, huge eyes, rapid heartrate, constricted blood flow to the brain, doe in the headlights, screaming banshee SCARED of cockroaches. Maybe it's just disgusted? No, I'm outright scared of them. The mere thought of one touching me, much less crawling on me makes me twitch uncontrollably and brush my self off with my hands. And since Wheeler has that little problem called complete and total paralysis from the shoulders down, I have had to become bug killer extraordinaire. Including cockroaches. THIS WAS NOT IN MY LIFE PLAN!!!!!!!! Bugs. *shudder* 


I have managed to conquer my phobia to bees and other flying insects enough to kill them with chemical, mechanical or aquatic means.  But cockroaches are where I draw the line. I am completely phobic about them. But if I see one and I do not hunt it down like a dog and kill it, then it will be in my house forever.  And it might CRAWL ONTO ME OHMYGOD! So I have no choice but to find it and kill it myself. 


Recently, I have seen a huge cockroach in our master bedroom 2 times now. The first time it got away before I got get a large object to smash it with (there ain't no way on the face of the planet I would squish it with my hands no matter how desperate I got, that baby would get to snuggle up in bed with me before I smushed it with my hands).  But last night, when that sucker made his second appearance, I was prepared. I had shoes and books all over the bathroom ready to pick up and kill from any position at any time.  So when I spied him, I slowly picked up the nearest shoe and I whammed him with all my might. Confident that I'd be writing his (probably lengthy given his size) obituary, I put the shoe down.  


Then that little sucker started to crawl away!!!!!!!! 


I whammed him again - even harder. He STILL kept crawling, so I stood on him (shoes on of course) and ground him into the tile till he was a mushy pulp. But EVEN THEN this bug twitched an antennae when I moved my gazillions times his body mass me off of him, so I scooped him up with toilet paper and flushed him down the toilet. Then I flushed again in case he knew how to swim. Then once more to ensure his safe passage to the sewage system. And then one last time for good measure.

I proceeded to wash my hands and arms with a most vigorous effort even though I hadn't even touched him technically. It just made my skin crawl at the thought. Then I took the shoe outside and it's been sitting there ever since. Do you think incineration would be enough to get the bug juice off of it?

Shudder.

There are gads of advantages to being married to a quad, but that is one DEFINITE downside. Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-yuck.

Sure signs you are the spouse of someone with a spinal cord injury

Sure signs you are an SCI caregiver wife:

• When you know quad doesn't mean the square in the middle of the campus
• When every third person you meet in public says to you in a voice of hushed reverence, with a gentle pat on your arm and an ever so small tear glinting in their eye, that "you are so special to be with him"
• When people ask of you "are you his mother"? or "are you his nurse?"
• When people speak to you instead of your perfectly articulate sci'ed mate
• When you routinely discuss the finer points of bowel movement management at dinner (often in public... without even noticing)
• When you really miss not having hubby with you because you don't have his wheelchair on which to hang your purse or shopping bags
• When your husband says "I think I need to pee", it's you that gets up
• When there is a cockroach, wasp or other horribly scary bug in the house, YOU are the one in charge of killing it.
• When you are really good at fixing wheelchairs, clogged toilets and any manner of small electrical devices
• When you visit someone who is sick in the hospital, and they ask for a drink of water, you start to hold a drink up to their mouth so they can take a sip, and check to make sure they’re properly padded in bed and their heels aren’t touching the mattress.... and then remember: oh crap, they're not paralyzed!
• When you can build a 4 foot section of a chain link fence solely out of zip ties and duct tape
• When you’re flipping the TV channels and you see the SCI-FI channel, and your first thought is that it must be some show on Spinal Cord Injury
• When you holler at your sci'ed hubby to get off his ass and hurry it up, people around you look completely aghast at your horrible treatment of the disabled
• When the phrase "the crips and the bloods" means hemorrhoids in the disabled
• When you are always on top, and related, rather than ask your husband if he's "in the mood", you have to go check
• When you are in complete and total charge of the tv flipper
• When you can diagnose a UTI with one whiff, perform extensive range of motion, percussive quad coughing, change a suprapubic catheter while half asleep and perform brain surgery because its all considered "custodial care" by your insurance company
• When your sci'ed mate is in the hospital, you are quasi-admitted yourself since you can't leave him alone there with a call button he can't operate
• When your dog leaves a dead rabbit on the doorstep, YOU are the one out digging the hole to bury it

And the number one sure sign that you're a quad caregiver wife .....

• You found this post funny

This cannot be good.

Offspring is currently, as in right this second, making something with a push pin, baking soda, water, an empty water bottle, vinegar, toilet paper and coins…. hmmmmm.  This cannot be good!


And now he just said "And now we have to fill up the tub".....  


Oh dear.  Wish me luck. 

Seceding from the family

Offspring announced tonight that he was seceding from the family.  I burst into a huge fit of laughter because, well, it was funny.  I asked him why and he said "I don't know, it just seems like a good idea".  I proceeded to tell him that meant he couldn't stay in the house, he'd have to live outside, after which he took a lawn chair, his coat, flashlight and his pack (see previous post) full of gadgets and sat outside in the dark. I came into the bedroom to tell Wheeler about this development and Wheeler promptly said "Well, he can't be on our family property if he secedes from the family" so I went outside and kicked him off our property.  And then I told him there was no trespassing in our neighborhood, so the park just behind us was out too. It was at that point, plus the enticement of dinner, that he came back in and decided not to secede after all.  Turns out they are studying when North Carolina seceded from the Union during the Civil War and he thought freedom sounded pretty darn fun.  Until he realized the full ramifications - like dinner and a bed to sleep in!

This is what three 11 year old boys at an overnight birthday party sound like.  There's no video, its just sound.  Listen and enjoy..... I triple dog dare you not to smile while listening.

Fantastic apple pie

I brought a ton of apples back from Alabama and made a pie this weekend.  It was pretty darn good, but I made another one tonight and although I haven't yet cut into it .... you be the judge:

Here is the recipe:

CRUST: 2 cups of Pamela's gluten free flour + 1/2 cup sugar + 1 tsp salt + 1 tsp cinnamon + 2/3 cup vegetable oil + 1/4 cup half & half (or milk).  Stir together with a fork until well mixed and crumbly.  Press 2/3 of the mixture into a pie pan and reserve the rest out to crumble on the top.  [note: It's sort of an art to press the crust into the pan, you have to make sure its even and consistent across the bottom of the pan and up the sides.  My first effort kinda sucked, but my second I was able to get it right]


FILLING: Peel, core and thinly slice about 14 small apples (e.g. baseball sized), maybe about 6 cups?   I didn't measure, I just cut up enough till it looked like the right amount to generously (heaping) fill up the pie pan.  You can always just eat the extra filling alone if you make too much, so err on making too much rather than not enough. Melt on low one full stick of butter in a large sauté pan, add the apples and 1 cup of sugar. Cook on medium for 10-15 mins, until the apples start to soften and the mixture starts to turn caramel-ish.  Add lots of cinnamon (to taste) and at the very end, stir in about 1/4 to 1/2 cup of Pamela's GF flour to thicken up the filling.

Pour entire filling into the pie crust, cover lightly with foil.  Bake at 400 degrees for 45 minutes.  Remove foil for last 3-5 mins to brown top crust, but watch carefully as the topping burns easily at that temperature.

EAT!

What are the odds of THAT?

I went to the first home preseason Canes game last Friday, and I went alone because we only had one ticket, and even though I could have gotten ahold of more than one ticket, Wheeler wasn't feeling well from another UTI.  The ticket was on the upper deck and the place was deserted.  It was excruciatingly dull to watch the game alone from that high up, and so I considered leaving after the 1st period.  Instead I decided to upgrade my situation - since it is just preseason, and the place was really empty, the ushers didn't care about people moving down after the 1st.  So I moved down to about 8 rows up off the ice and enjoyed the 2nd period much more. 

Between the 2nd and the 3rd, the little boy seated in front of me turns around and says "Ma'am? Does your son go to (insert my kid's elementary school name here)".  I looked stunned and said "Yes?" and he said "Are you Offspring's mom?", to which I said with surprise "Yes...", to which he replied "I'm Matthew and I'm in his class".

[insert feather]  Me  [insert fallen over]

This arena has almost 18,000 seats people - what are the odds of that?  A kid in my kid's class - and that he recognized me, and that I picked that seat out of all the seats on the lower level to sit in.  And that he was brave enough to speak up and say hello (my kid would have sat in silence and said nothing).  Bizarre.  Life is stranger than fiction sometimes.

The longest mile

On the walk to school today:

Mom, what would you do if Dog pooped on the sidewalk right in front of you?


Mom, what would you do if Deuce pooped so much that the bag wouldn't hold it all? 


Mom, what would you do if Dog had massive diarrhea all over your shoes? 


Mom, what would you do if Dogley barfed up his breakfast right here on the sidewalk? 


Mom, what would you do if ...

Sigh.

It was a very long mile.

I have to fill out this form again WHY?

I took Offspring to the asthma doctor this morning, and the receptionist handed me a form to fill out that was exactly the same as the form at the top of his chart that she was holding.  The form has on it his name, date of birth, address, phone number, insurance, parent's names, etc.  Nothing on the form is about medications or things that or symptoms, just demographics and insurance (which could change, but in our case, hadn't). 

She: please update this form.

Me: <glancing> oh, it's all the same, nothing has changed.</glancing>

She: <snippy> well, you still have to fill it out again.</snippy>

Me: (I take it and look at it more carefully)

Me: <politely> Ma'am, every single thing on this form is exactly the same, not one thing has changed, so there's really no point in me filling it out again.</politely>

She: <not politely=""> You still have to fill it out.  </not>

Me: <annoyed> Well can't I just cross out the date on that one and call it good enough?</annoyed>

She:  <loudly> NO. </loudly>

Me:  <crossly> FINE. </crossly>

Hrumph! How stupid it that?????  It was literally word for word 100% the same.  

And while I'm on the subject, why the hell do I have to HAND COPY down our insurance policy number, group number, address for claims, employer, blahdee blahdee, when they photocopy the damn PRINTED CARD (that you can, say, actually read versus my shitty handwriting) when you walk in?  And they take your photo ID and copy that too (just in case they need someone's ID for the Friday beer run??). 

Hrumph!!!

Me versus the self checkout machine

I hate the self checkout at the grocery store, I really do.  I never, ever use it if I can avoid it.  Even if I have only a few things, I will gladly stand in a long line behind people with a giant cartload of things because I hate self checkouts, and more saliently, they hate me.  They really do, I'm not making that up.  Today I had no choice though; I went to the store and there were no checkers available; I was forced to use the self checkouts with my 12 items.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Me: stare at it with trepidation

Me: take deep breath

It: stares back at me menacingly, taunting me

Me: key in my phone number

It: doesn't recognize it, arches its eyebrows at me

SCORE 0-1, me-it

Me: type in another phone number

It: beeps

SCORE 1-1, me-it

Me: swipe my first item

It: silence

SCORE 1-2, me-it

Me: swipe it again

It: silence

SCORE 1-3, me-it

Me: try again

It: beep

Me: AH-HA!!

SCORE 2-3, me-it

Me: place thingy in bag

It: objects furiously telling me to take item off weigher area and to wait for assistance

Me: I remove it and wait

Me: I wait

Me: I wait suh mo

Me: No one comes

SCORE 2-4, me-it

Me: Still no one comes

Me: I swipe it again.

It: beep

Me: I put it in the bag

It:  objects furiously telling me to take item off weigher area and to wait for assistance

Me: I remove it and wait

Me: I wait

Me: I wait suh mo

Me: No one comes

SCORE 2-5, me-it

Me: I let out primal ARGHHHHHHH that I'm pretty sure was heard in the meat section in the back.

Me: Swipe item again.

It: beep (apparently scared by my yell)

Me: I place item in bag

It: silence (ahhhh)

SCORE 3-5, me-it

Me: Swipe next item

It: beep

Me: Swipe next item

It: Please place previous item on the weigher

Me: I ALREADY DID YOU PIECE OF SHHHH....

REVISED SCORE: 2-6, me-it


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The end score ended up something around 12-738.

Have I mentioned how much I hate self check out lines?  It took me, no kidding, about 10 minutes to purchase my 12 items.  I'm still not sure that I actually either paid for everything or didn't pay for something twice.  I didn't look at my receipt because I didn't really want to know; perhaps the score was 11-739, or 13 to 737.  Grocery store checker-outer is clearly not in my career future.  

Snakey needs his beauty sleep too

I love this boy.  He makes his bed every single morning and cleans up the upstairs every single night.  This morning when he made up his bed, he carefully placed Snakey in bed:

The dogs days of summer are coming to an end, finally.  I am sitting on my back porch in the shade, there is a breeze, its 84 and the two dogs are laying here by me; in short - perfect.  Yesterday afternoon was just as nice.  Offspring and a friend played in the sand box volleyball court in our neighborhood after taking the dogs for a really long walk.  I left them there to play longer while I brought the dogs home as I had to start dinner.  Offspring's dad happened by while I was at home making dinner and thankfully gave me a heads up (see how I got that cute little volleyball reference in) that Offspring had been buried to his neck - YES HIS NECK - in sand when he got there.  Grrrrrreat.

I decided to scuttle my previous plan of just having him take off his shoes and shirt when he got home. I had already posted a giant sign on the door that said

STOP!  

TAKE OFF CLOTHES  

THEN KNOCK!  

DO NOT COME IN!

I needed instead take more drastic measures.  So I waited on the driveway when his dad said they were coming back. I sent his friend home and directed Offspring round to the front porch where I was watering the flowers with the hose.  That was the cover story anyway.  I told Offspring to take his shirt and pants off - behind all the flowers and rail no one could see him strip down to his skivvies I said, and much to my shock he did not object; he promptly undressed.  The moment he was (mostly) naked, I turned the hose on him full.  He shrieked with shock and then started laughing like a wild youthful* hyena, which made me laugh, which made him laugh even harder.  I'm sure our neighbors must have thought we'd lost our damn minds (note: we had).

It took me a good 3-4 minutes to get the sand mostly off.  It was everywhere, and I mean everywhere in on and around his body, every crevice crack and fold.  After I finished hosing him down,  I sent him straight to our shower downstairs where more and more and more sand continued to come off his body.  I had to wash his hair really well to get it all (mostly all) out, and I had really hosed out his hair outside too.  And now there is this very annoying fine layer of sand all over the house - and it figures, Uncle Air Force had swept the floors just that morning.

I can't fathom how any sand is left at the sand box volleyball court.

* I will admit I don't know what a young vs old hyena sounds like, but his tiny little boy voice cackling and laughing was so darn cute that I had to add 'youthful' to this description

Categories on my IPod

I just discovered my iPhone is also an iPod.  Yeah, I know.  Shuddup.  In addition to albums/artists, I made up these playlists, with an exemplar in parantheses. 

Country Top 40 (Dirt Road Anthem by Jason Aldean)
Dance (Bootylicious by Beyonce .... could anyone else sing a song by that title?)
Fun (Jive Talkin' by Bee Gees)
Loud ( (Supermassive Black Hole by Muse)
Mellow (Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol)
Misc Good Stuff (Bleeding Love by Leona Lewis)
Sad (Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley)

Noteworthy for those on Facebook: the Chicken Dance is under fun. 

Gluten free shmuten free

I am constantly amazed at the variety of creative and effusive expressions used on gluten free packaging to claim that their gluten free product tastes amazingly like the gluten original or even more preposterously, better than the gluten original.  Here are some that jump to mind. 

"So delicious that you won't even notice the difference!" -----> yes, you will

"Tastes just like the real thing!" -----> no, it doesn't

"Flavorful and tasty - just like the real thing!" -----> insert basketball buzzer: ERRRRRRRTTTT

This last one is the one that was on the package Kinnikinnick S'more Style Graham Gluten Free Crackers (try saying that fast even sober) that I used in banana pudding tonight.  They were D-I-S-G-U-S-T-I-N-G. 

"Gluten free has never tasted so good!" ----->  so horrid that even the DOGS wouldn't eat them

We watched part of The Hunt For Red October tonight  A key part of the movie is that the Ramius, played by Sean Connery, posts a letter to the Russian head honchos stating that he intends to defect with the Red October before he sets sail.  It is, as he says, motivation to remain undetected to the Russians chasing him because as a result of the letter the entire Russian fleet have instructions to find him and sync his boat.  

Well, that's the way that Offspring heard it.

But I didn't want a puppy

When contemplating getting another dog recently, I put the big ix nay on getting a puppy.  I refused to even look at a puppy because I knew that if I held a puppy that I would immediately run to the front desk of the shelter, plunk down the money to buy, run home and snuggle it to death.  Then I'd immediately have buyer's remorse when it would pee on my floors, chomp my shoes, woodwork, bark, chase everything in sight, eat anything not nailed down and generally make a pest of itself.  So we "window shopped" online and picked out Blue from the hundreds of NON-puppies at the Wake County animal shelter.  He was estimated to be between 1 and 2 years old.  Good enough for me!

Turns out when we got him though that he was quite sick and was tremendously hurt.  His pelvis was fractured in 4 places, as was his femur, along with a few fractured ribs and a broken jaw thrown in just for fun.  His hip socket was shattered so completely that his bone had formed a pseudojoint, meaning that the head of the hip joint carved out a socket for itself in the spine itself.  Then toss in hepatitis, a case of worms and some sort of upper respiratory infection, and this dog was a basket case.

When the physical rehabilitation vet saw the X-rays, the first thing he said was "how are you alive?".  Yes, he saw not only our regular vet, but also the NC State orthopedic vets and a physical therapist specialist vet too... can we all say expensive?  But he's worth it.....well, maybe.

After all of the treatments, the passage of 6 weeks, and lots and lots of exercise to strength his very badly injured back left leg, he is playful, full of pep, impish and rambunctious now.  He used to be lethargic and rather pathetic to be honest.  I called him my little old man.  He slept ALL the time, he didn't play, and he was just downright tired.  NO MORE.  He is a new dog.He is now a puppy.  Having been a stray and having probably missed his puppy hood having to fend for himself in the wild with a hideous painful injury, he is now all WOOOOO-HOOOOO I GET TO BE A BABY DOG NOW!!!! and he is sure living it up.  In the last week he has: eaten 2 buttons off of one of my favorite pair of shoes (expensive shoes by the way)*, he chewed and made a mess of one shoe of at least 3 pairs of shoes (I think the PTSD made me lose count around 3, so it could be more).  He also chewed and ate 3 different sections of the baseboards/chair rails (poor Wheeler, he could hear Blue chewing at the baseboards but could do nada to make him stop).

Crate training, coming right up!


* Due to the distinct possibility of the buttons causing a traffic jam in important areas between Point A and Point B in Blue's body, I needed to be sure that said button actually made it from Point A to Point B.  Therefore I began to carry plastic gloves with me on my walks with Blue to check all material that emerged from Point B to see if it contained said buttons, until such time as said buttons appeared.  Thankfully, after 4 checks, the two buttons appeared and I no longer needed to suss through his poo.  

 

Life ain't fair

Compare these two Blue Cross Blue Shield plans. 

Type	Wheeler & Me	Offspring (dad)
PCP visit	$30	$20
Specialist visit	$70	$20
PT/OT/etc	$52	$20
Mental health	$92	$20
Urgent care	$87	$10
ER	$233 + 20%	$100
Cost per month	$604	$47
Thoughts:	WTF????	Awesome

Sucks to be us eh?

Me versus the Lab Fee

Today we received a bill in the mail for a lab service for Wheeler's recent uroanalysis.  When we took in the sample last week, we took in his new insurance care (which is now Medicare .... geeeeee lucky us) and made a huge massive giant large point to say that HE HAS NEW INSURANCE AND HERE IS HIS NEW CARD and to PLEASE PLEASE PLEASSSSSSSE BILL THE LAB TO MEDICARE THANKYOUVERYMUCH.  They said of course they would, no problem ma'am. 

I'm sure you know where this is going, right? 

[If you're really dense (say, like the people at the medical office apparently) and don't know where this is going, read line 1 again).] 

So the bill is for $201.86.  For a lousy C&S??  And that was just the C&S, not the $50 in lab handling and mailing charges that were sent separately.  No wonder healthcare costs are spiraling out of control.  That and $47,000 wheelchairs.  I digress.  But I love to bring that up as often as I can for the shock factor.  Yes, his chair actually cost $47,000.  Fer real doods, it totally did. 

Back to the $201.86, which now sounds sorta cheap, but anyway, this was processed without any insurance, so they need to have his Medicare applied to it.  I searched the bill and on the front it says in big print "You can easily and quickly update your insurance information on our website! See back for details".  I duly turned the bill and searched and searched for the website.  I finally found it in the 3rd paragraph of the legal disclaimer section in print so small that even my bifocals were foiled.  Nevertheless, with the address in hand, I went to the website and was confronted with two field for entry - "Account number" and "Zip code" - and two buttons, of which one was to be chosen - "Pay by Bank Account" or "Pay by Credit Card".  Now, knowing that they foiled me with teeeeeeensy tiny fine print to find the website address, I whipped out a microscope and searched the screen to find the &*(@#% section that said "Update my insurance information" but alas, it was not there.  I even filled out the account information and zip code and clicked the two payment options (serially) to see if there was a sneaky poorly designed way to update insurance information there, but there wasn't. 

Grrrrrr. 

So I did what I hate hate hate to do more than most anything else.  I picked up the phone.  I dialed the number listed on the form for "friendly 24 hour a day service". 

Brrrrrrr-ring, brrrrrr-ring....  Hello!  Press 1 for Spanish! Press 2 for silence! Press 3 for Musak!  Press 4 for Pig Latin!  Press 5 for Braille!  For all others, stay on the line.  ... (Musak here) .... To pay your bill by bank account press 1!  To pay your bill by credit card press 2! For all others, please note that we are closed.  Click.

Gee thanks.

It's damn hot out there

Offspring's homework answers

From his homework this week: Would you like to live in the mountains of North Carolina in the late 1800s?  Write a paragraph and explain your thoughts. 

"Yes and no. Yes, because living in a cabin with a fire and home-made furniture and clothes would be fun and cozy.  It would also have no T.V., just real, true fun, like dancing and storytelling.  Also, it would be nice to work together with your neighbors.

No, because I could catch a cold and die from it, or cut myself, get an infection, be miserable for a bit and die.  I would have to leave things behind, and leave friends behind it could be sad. A fire could also kill us all, and I don't get proper education.

But overall, I think I would choose yes."