liquids--in and out

Weird. I just found the post (pasted below) in my drafts folder. Not sure how it never made it to primetime, but it was an interesting retrospective in light of current concessions in the public health-care battle.

To update: Jeff is on Medicare. I (and the kids) do have different, cheap, extremely high deductible coverage. It'll do for now. Fortunately the five of us have managed to be reasonably healthy specimens. But I sure have not, in my adult life, been in that corporately well-covered camp from which it's so comfortable to assume that "choice" (?...i.e. the current mess) = decent coverage for all.

...paste...from a couple years ago...

The coffeepot gurgles. Again. Lots of coffeepot gurgling around here because making coffee is what Jeff does.

This morning we went to Labcorp, for fasting blood draws. We both were overdue, but Jeff’s workups for the Alzheimer’s vaccine suggest that an Rx to manage triglycerides and cholesterol might be a good idea after all...it’s just that I hate sitting around a waiting room with 15 other people, waiting to be called. As I waited, with 15 people ahead of us, in a crowded waiting room, for bloodwork farmed out by the primary care office which doesn’t do that type of thing anymore, I read (without missing the irony) an op-ed in Investor’s Business Daily fussing about how “socialist medicine” (his words,) was going to make us have to wait for stuff. Maybe that guy has a medical staff in his pocket, but I don’t.

And in fact, I’m a little bit on edge about my switch to private health insurance this summer. Not that Coventry--our current company--doesn’t suck. They do. But at least I’d hope we’d be covered for catastrophic. Jeff will have Medicare in August, and I will have_________? Let’s hope I don’t turn up with any “pre-existing conditions” between now and then, because my sense is that if they can exclude you they will.

It was a tricky morning. I reminded Jeff throughout the getting up, getting dressed, and feeding treats to the dog process, that he must not consume anything but water. I put a pink post-it on the refrigerator door. I decided that was inadequate and put two more post-its--yellow, star-shaped ones--directly at eye-level. They said “WATER” and “ONLY.” So just as I’m about to hustle us out the door I sense someone in front of the open fridge, and dash into the kitchen just as Jeff is tipping a full 12 oz glass of orange juice toward his gullet. I stopped him in time.

After our Labcorp visit, we hit Grump’s Café and breakfasted to our hearts’ content.

Here’s what I’m hoping--that I’ll find some sort of insurance company that will take me on with a ridiculously high deductible just for long enough that I can switch to the guaranteed program which I hope will be available within the nearish future. For now--college student policies for the girls, and Gabe as an appendage on mine.

Jeff’s glass of o.j. is waiting for him in the fridge. More likely, he will go for coffee.

whoosh.

It’s been a summer of barely stopping. In fact, I’m not sure why I’m taking time to actually write a blog entry. I could be doing plenty of useful things, such as chopping 60 sheets of Concert Association tickets into individual units, vacuuming the dog fluff off the floor, pestering Gabe to finish his summer book reports, or....folding laundry. (nah...forget that.)

But, I am feeling so very unrested as the Fall onslaught looms, that I can only wonder at how it feels for someone who has genuine, immutable obligations about to strike.

There is rumbly thunder outside tonight. This makes Freddi feel obligated to scratch obsessively at the floor, which is bad for the floor.

Hazel is contentedly ensconced in her partially-chewed Converse shoebox, and Jeff is dozing blankly in the kitchen chair. I can hear that Gabe, in the computer room, is watching scenes from "A Very Potter Musical" on Youtube. (check it out if you're curious.) I am looking forward to bed and tomorrow's coffee.

Those guys...I mean THEM!

A²C² canceled our evening section of Japanese 112. Tomorrow I will try to switch into the day section. The bad thing: I will not be taking Japanese with Gabe, who will be busy doing 12th grade during the day. The good thing: I will not be taking Japanese with Gabe.

Today, the third installment in our sequential progression of ant-sizes invaded in the usual spot--through the window sill by the kitchen sink. These ones were the biggest I’ve seen in multiple warm seasons of ant encroachment. Generally we have tiny little things, which--upon discovering my artfully presented Terro™ ant bait on cardboard squares--call about a million of their comrades, and swarm for roughly a day and a half. This year, after the first round of tiny ones, we got a set which was a little longer, and a little bigger. They still liked Terro™. But members of latest incursion are big--almost rice grain big--and they come more slowly and in smaller numbers. But they still like Terro™. The only advantage I can see to this stepping up in ant size, is that when the giant ones from the 1954 horror classic Them! come a’calling, there is little chance they’ll be able to squeeze between the wall outlet plate and the bead-board. They’ll have to settle for waving their antennae at me through the window, at which point I’ll bring out a five-gallon bucket of Terro™, and they’ll still be stuck shlurping one at a time. We aim to please, but I can’t lug a bathtub.