Updates

So it's been brought to my attention that I often bring up my various crises without ever telling you what happened after. That's because most of the time, everything seems to resolve eventually, and that part's not so funny. But just so I don't leave anyone hanging (I'd hate for you to lose sleep over my oh-so-exciting dramas), here's a bit of an update on my recent life events.

Tucker: STILL stinks but slowly becoming bearable

Mia: Completely unaffected by her swimming incident

Doggies: Still costing us a fortune -- i forgot to list food on that itemization of expenses, for which we pay about $100 per month. On the plus side, Bandit's cone seems to be less stinky now that we let it air out for a few weeks, saving us that 20-something bucks.

Me: No MS just yet, although this week, my back seems to be particularly painful -- possibly degenerative disc disease?

India trip: My passport actually came in a little over a week!! Yay for the US Passport Service. I called to check on the status on a Fri, one week after they received it just to see if there was anything I could do to speed it up. I thought it was a little bit snide of the agent to make me go through a long explanation of why I needed it in a hurry before saying, "I have good news for you. It's already in the mail and should reach you by tomorrow or Mon." Really, did we have to go through the whole rigamarole of when I was travelling, how quickly did I need it, etc?

So now I'm waiting on my Visa. Yes, we need a Visa even though we're just going for 2 weeks. I sent it in. They seem pretty fast about granting it and sending it back. G's already gotten his and it took less than a week! But with mine, apparently, I needed to send them my old passport with my previous Visa in it. Don't ask me why. Maybe to make sure I didn't start a riot or something on my last trip? Do they note those kinds of things on Visas when you leave the country? To give them credit, they might have stated that several times on their site and in the application documents but I missed it somehow. It wasn't an issue for G cuz he's never had an Indian visa before. So then I had to send that in separately, prolonging the process even more. But it all seems good now, and status updates on their website suggest that they've been moving along with processing and should have it by this week. Just in time!

Various medical/dental issues: Hmm, I guess these ended up being a bit more of a pain. For dental, I was trying to figure out if I should sign up for a separate dental plan or not. My medical covers basic cleanings and x-rays twice a year, and does anyone do anything more than that at the dentist? But its weird. My medical coverage offers a dental indemnity plan. So basically, I go to a dentist of my choice. They submit the bills to my medical insurance company, the insurance company pays some allotted amount for the covered services, and I cover the rest. But here was the catch. Well there were several. First of all, no one I initially talked to had heard of an "indemnity plan" for dental care. Dentist offices asked me if I had an HMO or PPO, I said neither, they got confused and told me they didn't cover my plan. THEN my insurance company was also very vague about how much they actually covered for each of the regular dental services. Apparently, it wasn't a 100%. They decided on what was reasonable and that's all they would pay. Which is fine except that apparently what was reasonable was top secret info that they couldn't release without killing me. So how the hell was I supposed to figure out if I needed additional coverage if I couldn't figure out how much out of pocket I'd be with just my indemnity. To make matters worse, I only had 90 days to sign up for a dental plan if I wanted one, and nobody was making it easy for me to make a decision. I finally opted not to sign up for a dental plan, went with my medical to the first dentist that didn't seem confused by the whole situation, and haven't gotten any bills yet. So hopefully that means its all good and everything was covered. But who knows?

With the vision, actually some of you sent me some recommendations. Thanks so much for that! They were much appreciated. But when I went to check them out, they weren't on my Vision Plan's list of accepted providers. I was already kind of tired of dealing with insurance docs by that point, so didn't feel like calling to find out how I go about seeing an out-of-area provider. I ended up keeping the appt I made with the doc in Hollister, and she turned out to be awesome. The last terrible attempt I made to get contacts, the optometrist - this young high schooler from Wisconsin, I'm positive - told me that they couldn't measure me for hard lenses because I wasn't wearing them. And then they couldn't fit me without my most recent prescription. They gave me the run around for 2 pointless visits! This doc told me all that was a bunch of bull and measured me in minutes. And the rest of our visit was spent fine tuning (hard lenses sit right on your cornea so fit is kind of an issue). It was great. What sucks is that they keep normal biz hours, and my contacts arrived 2 weeks ago, and I still haven't had time to go get them because they're always already closed by the time I get back into town. But otherwise, no complaints! Thanks, J., for your general price guidelines too! They stayed right in that ball park, so I know I'm not getting ripped off.

Tahoe dog incident: Sigh, never needed to write an angry letter after all. The guy backed down after my friend sent the city after him, and they found out he was in violation for the deck spacing AND for having a hot tub on the deck, too. She recently sent him another letter pointing out this new piece of evidence, and he asked her to send over the vet bills.

Idiots and climate change: Still exist. Not long after I posted that note, an annoying co-worker happened to announce that he didn't believe in man-made climate change. He likened it to other "mis-representations" in history and made some random comments about the liberal media. What do you want to bet he doesn't believe in the Holocaust either? And now I'm wondering if this issue is just following me around to annoy me.

I think that's a good roundup, don't you? Let me know if there's anything else that has you hanging on the edge of your seat. :)

a somewhat complicated man :)

On Sat, I helped to organize a friend's baby shower. That morning, I was in the kitchen making food for the event (a pasta salad and arancini, these fried rice ball things that are a total pain to make, but that's totally beside the point). Trying to reach something that was in a really high cupboard, I was standing on a stepladder above the stove. This isn't that uncommon of an occurrence. I'm short, so pretty much everything in our kitchen is too high for me.

But that morning, I was struggling. The pan I wanted was all in the way back, and it seemed like every really heavy pot and pan we owned was right in the way of what I needed. What followed was this interaction between me and my lovely husband, who was in our office working throughout the entire thing.

Clash, clutter, clang.

Me: AAAHHHHHH

Him: nothing

Me: Goddammit! *%#!*&$#$@*!!!!

Him: nothing

Further clanging as I struggled to grab the super heavy pressure cooker with one hand before it fell to the floor (while holding another heavy pot with a precarious lid in the other hand. And doing a hand stand).

Him: nothing

Huge thud as something falls from above my head, hits me on the shoulder and lands somewhere on the floor. At this point, I'm practically falling off the stool trying to figure out what it is while still trying to maneuver the pans.

Him: nothing

Turns out that somehow in the course of all this, I had knocked out the clock from the wall kind of near me, and that was what had fallen, hitting me on its way down. It ended up landing, probably to piss me off even more, behind the refrigerator, just farther than I could reach.

Me: more cursing

Him: nothing

Anyway, it all ended finally. And I managed to survive, but just barely, I think. A few minutes later, I head into the office, where my husband is working away, STILL oblivious to the whole thing.

Me: Dude, where were you? I was really struggling over there! I could have died!

Him: Really? What happened?

I explained. And pointed out that I could have fallen from the step ladder and sustained some pretty major injuries. I could have broken my neck. Or my hip. And then where would we be?

Him: Oh, it would have been fine. I was getting hungry actually. I was heading out to the kitchen in a few anyway to grab some cereal. Don't worry. I would have found you.

Wow. Right? This is the man I live with!!!

All right, normally, I would stop there. Let you savor it a while, maybe encourage you to make sure you call up and check on me every so often, make sure I'm still alive. Just to be sure.

But, it was my husband's birthday on Mon, so I feel a little bad leaving it at that. So in all fairness, I thought I'd also share this other little tidbit. Some of you may remember that a while back, he snuck a camera into my purse as a surprise gift. And I promptly dropped it and scratched it up. Like literally within 5 minutes of discovering it (I was drunk). So I had asked him if he could return it and get me a new one just like it, so that I could keep it unscratched for at least a few weeks, which is my typical record.

So one Wed not that long ago, I came home to find this on our little communication center (sorry my cell phone doesn't do it justice -- but the little magnet in the middle says "Wednesday"):

Sitting on the little ledge below, all arranged in a row, were these cute little suckers:

I picked the aquamarine one. :)

Doh, what is it with us and kayaking?

So yesterday, we thought it'd be fun to take out our kayak again for a quick cruise at Elkhorn Slough in Moss Landing. Some of you might remember our last unglorious attempt to take out the new kayak there over a year ago. Its been a while since then, so we figured we should give it another go. We did pay a few hundred dollars for the kayak after all, and while it looks great sitting in its box in our garage, it did seem like it might be about time to give it another try.

We figured we had everything well planned this time around. We knew how to inflate the damn thing, for one. So that's already a huge jump from the previous time. We timed it well too. We took the dogs with us, and ran them around for a while on some off leash hiking trails not too far away. And then the plan was to let the dogs crash in the back of the truck while we kayaked, arriving just in time to catch the sunset. And then grab some Thai food from this great place along the water on our way back. Sounds awesome, right? And it all started off well. It was a hot day, so we were all pooped after hiking around. The dogs seemed perfectly content to sleep in the back of the truck. They seemed only mildly interested while G was getting the kayak ready.

So far, so good. It all seemed to be going exactly as we planned. Until we actually took off.

Sigh, right off the bat, Tucker seemed extremely disturbed by our leaving. He started barking and wouldn't stop. We could hear him even after we were a good few minutes from shore. But whatever, we figured he'd stop as soon as we got out of sight. He's kind of a big baby like that. And anyway, there was hardly anyone at the take off point. He could bark all evening if he wanted for all we cared. But I guess him barking got the other two excited. After another 30 seconds or so, we even heard the other two chiming in every so often.

And then about 30 seconds after that, we heard a splash. And G said, "Oh shit, is that a dog in the water?"

We peered back and sure enough, we could see something splashing around, heading in our direction. Dude, so one of them had jumped out the truck and decided to follow us out!!!

At first we weren't sure which of them it was. Only Tucker was really even capable of jumping out of the truck at all, but he can't swim. Well, I don't know, maybe he can, but he never does. And he doesn't have a tail, so I don't think he'd make it very far. Anyway, it wasn't him. It was my literally lame ass dog Mia who got excited by the barking, decided we were having fun in the water without her (she LOVES the water), and decided to come after us!!!

She didn't catch up to us or anything, but she was still making a pretty strong go of it as we turned around and met up with her on our way back to shore.

Needless to say, the only sunset we caught yesterday was from the parking lot, as we deflated our kayak and prepared to head home.

Actually, we did still grab the Thai food on our way home, and it was excellent. So I guess the day wasn't a total bust.

Around the water cooler

Said to me yesterday by some one who barely knows me and just started working here: mentioning that she used to bank with Citibank but, "no offense to your people, but I hated calling with questions and always getting some one in India who couldn't speak English." Um, ok. No offense to your people but I can't stand going into those Vietnamese salons cuz those ladies always seem to be talking about me behind my back and anyway the last time I went in for a waxing they totally ruined my face. I mean, seriously, right? I'm not easily offended but how would she know that?

After wondering for a week about who's been dipping into my coffee creamer, a co-worker made me a sign for the next one I bring in (seeing as how the last super large one disappeared in about a week). I showed off the sign to my office mates and ranted for a second about people stealing my creamer. No response for a second before one (same girl as above -- no offense to her people or anything, but I hate how Vietnamese people steal stuff, don't you?) chimed in, saying, "Oh, I grabbed some." Then, my other office mate also 'fesses up too and says he might have been guilty a few times also! Dude, those things aren't cheap, I paid almost $5 for that thing and expected it to last a good couple of weeks. And I'm not here to support everyone else's coffee drinking habit. It was all settled amicably though, and one of them went out during lunch and brought in another one. But here's what I don't get, and what G also pointed out when I told him about it last night. The governemnt does not provide anything for free. Not filtered water, not coffee -- people that want any all chip in together and get it. So never mind first of all that my creamer had my initials on it (and as far as I know, neither of these people share them). But seriously, if something's in the fridge and it wasn't something you brought in, why go near it? When there's absolutely no chance of it being communal property or something bought for us by work? Sounds like G's been having the same issues at work for a while now, including some one grabbing his big container of soup one time (you know those big, kinda expensive ones from delis like Nob Hill?) and ate half. Which we also don't get. Why not just finish it and replace it if you're going to take it? When they finally find me my own office, which I guess is supposed to happen one of these days, I'm bringing in a little college fridge so I don't have to deal with the thieves.

Current Case: a 17yo girl weighing 340 pounds. Reading at a 2nd grade level, math at a 3rd grade level. Records show that she showed up at least once to her doctor for a pregnancy test because she's had unprotected sex, going to show of course that there's always some one out there for everyone. Also, she's already been in trouble with the law for carjacking; I'm guessing she got caught because she couldn't get away fast enough. Or she couldn't fit in the seat in order to drive it away. Said her mother repeatedly during the hearing: "She ain't with me when that happened" just in case someone wanted to blame her for it, I suppose. But get this, wanna know why she wasn't with her when it happened? Cuz she'd been incarcerated herself and her kids were in foster care. You know, lady, if I were you, I'd maybe not emphasize the point quite so much, cuz some how it doesn't really exonerate you as a parent. Not in the way I think you think it does.

Also said to me this week by one of the whitest boys I've seen (the other coffee thief, by the way): "You know, I don't think of myself as white. I never have. Actually if I considered myself anything, it'd probably be Indian." And then he proceeded to do this weird ass head rolling thing that he claimed proved his Indianness. At best, I can describe as some cross between a head shake and a head roll. I suppose it could have been an Indian person, but maybe a really high Indian Bharatnatyam dancer doing a move. He then proceeded to explain to me how Indian people do this all the time and because he could do it, he was Indian. That and he had gone to India. I won't even go into how annoying I'd found his India trip conversations in the past, except to say that I've been the recipeint of numerous knowing nods and comments indicating our close Indian bond, which of course we now share because he knows everything there is to know about my people. No wait, our people, excuse me.

Who says my job is boring?

Facebook = Big Brother?

OK, I'm officially convinced that Facebook is spying on me. Or stalking me. Or reading every piece of mail I've ever gotten or something. I don't know, they're doing something dammit. Cuz how else would all these people I've never heard of or haven't seen in like 10 years and have never emailed be suddenly friending me?

So I have to admit that I have some friends on my list that I don't know. Like seriously, I have no idea who they are. But that's my own fault. Back when I first joined, I added everyone that added me, even if I didn't know them. I don't know, I just figured I must know them some how but couldn't remember. Like one girl went to my high school, and for the life of me, I haven't been able to remember if I knew her in high school. But my memories of high school peeps are sort of vague anyway, so I figured it must just be my crappy memory and said yes to her friend request. A year later, I still have absolutely no idea who she is, and we've never exchanged a single message, wall post, or anything.

There's also this random girl who apparently went to my undergrad school and was friends with other close friends of mine. No idea who she is, though she does poke me now and again like we're friends or something. I keep waiting for a click of recognition but so far, nothing.
How do I remove these people anyway? And will they know and be offended if I do? Anyway, this isn't Facebook's fault, its mine.

And every now and then, I get some sketchy looking India guy "winking" at me or trying to friend me. Sometimes multiple times, despite me ignoring them each time. I have a good idea of what they're looking for, and I do ignore them. One was a fat guy with a mustache, looking as slimey as all get out. He was wearing a suit, looking off to the side, on his cell phone like he's on some super important business call. I can almost see the cigarette dangling from his mouth. He was from California City -- is that even a real place? Another was a local, more normal looking dude that I tried to pass off on my friend. She politely declined, but then in some weird twist of fate actually happened to meet him in person a few months later and was SO not impressed. These requests aren't Facebook's fault either - seems more like its just guys who have nothing to do with their time but scour through Facebook profiles looking for potential hook ups.

But lately, I've been getting some more random friend requests that I can't explain. People that I'm perfectly happy to see online but don't get how they could have possibly found me. For example, recently an old roommate added me, and while it was nice to add her, I'm confused as to how she found me. For one, my we have no common friends. Absolutely none. We didn't go to school together. We didn't work together. Also, my email on Facebook is an old one that I rarely use except for stuff like Facebook. Its certainly not the email that people mail me at. So the address she would have had in her address book is not the address I have listed with Facebook. And, I'm pretty sure she wouldn't have searched for me specifically. I'm guessing that aside from a few emails, she hasn't really thought about me since we stopped being roommates. I don't know, she was super sweet and nice, but we were just never really friends. A fact that's demonstrated by neither of us having made a single effort yet to actually message each other even after we added each other to our respective friend lists.

So how on earth would she find me? I can think of only one explanation. You know how you can search through your address books for potential friends? And FB tells you they don't keep the addresses? I'm starting to wonder if they do keep them and use them to pop out those friend suggestions they keep sending us.

Either that or they're taking an awful lot of digging into my ancient history, maybe even hired a private investigator.

Last Thursday

Last Thurs sucked. For one thing, G and I were fighting and being generally snarly with each other. That always sucks. THEN, as we were getting ready for bed - still grumpy - around 10:30 (already getting late for us these days, since we get up before 6 every morning), I sent the dogs out in the backyard for one last potty run. Same old same old. It's usually pretty quick since the guys are almost always passed out somewhere already. But they seem to like the ritual, and go out, do their thing, and then get right back to bed. Except that on Thurs, they went racing out into the yard, barking and excited. Ocassionally, there's been some cat or another out there that freaks out when it sees them, climbs the tree, and then pretty much never comes onto our yard ever again. So I kind of expected it to be that and took a few more seconds than I should have following them out the door.

Well, it wasn't a cat. It was a skunk. And all three dogs were already cornering him against the fence by the time I saw him. Which means the skunk had nothing to do but spray. I called them all back. Mia, who's been skunked twice already in the last year, has finally gotten wise, it seems like, and backed away almost instantly. The other two, not so much. So before we knew it, Tucker was rolling around on the yard, acting totally uncomfortable; and Bandit was STILL running after the stupid skunk. Dude, she's 14 years old, what did she think she could do?

Anyway, the whole yard reeked so badly that we couldn't tell who smelled at first. Our smelly intruder hung around mauling our plants even after the dogs backed off. After awhile, we finally figured out what was what. Tucker got sprayed for sure and still reeks. He hasn't been allowed inside during the day and has been on lock down in the kitchen at night. Bandit got sprayed like crazy, but in a twist of good luck, most of the spray ended up on her cone. Never thought I'd be thankful that she has a skin infection and has to wear a cone to keep herself from chewing herself silly. Unfortunately, the not-so-complimentary cone from the vet . . . trashed.

By the time Tucker got the tomato treatment and we got to bed, it was after midnight. Which definitely did not make us any less grumpy. But we did manage to get some great shots of Tucker looking miserable. He seemed less demoralized than Mia did though. I think what's been harder for him is not being able to come inside. He's pretty much the one dog that follows me everywhere I go, and even sleeps curled up in the crook of my knees. (Believe me, that might sound adorable but its really just super uncomfortable). So for him to be locked out is HUGE. He does though seem to realize he stinks, so he hasn't whined as badly as we had feared he would (well, that could be the Benadryl we've been giving him too).

3 days later, he still reeks. Jumping around in that scummy pond we came across while hiking yesterday didn't help matters any. And the kitchen, where he's been mostly chilling is kind of unbearable.

Call me crazy

So you know how when you start to feel a little sick, you jump online and try to diagnose what you have? You know, list your symptoms on WebMD and recognize that you could maybe have a cold or maybe cancer or possibly the swine flu? I'm actually good at self dianosis. Who isn't in this day and age, right? Er, right? Well, anyway, now that I read a lot of cases about people with disabilities for work, this propensity for self diagnosis has taken a somewhat interesting turn. Reading about other people's various symptoms, suddenly, I start to wonder: is that a pain in my side? OMG, could it be . . . ?

Last week, I was absolutely convinced that I had carpal tunnel. I swear, my wrists actually started to hurt whenever I typed (so I made sure to interrupt my usual work activities with a lot of websurfing just to relieve my wrists a bit, of course). This week, I have the vague suspicion that I might have multiple sclerosis (along with the carpal tunnel). The weird pain in my left leg that I've had for months must be an episode, there's no other way to explain it. And there is that random lower back pain that I get off and on. And then before I know it, I'm thinking about my future life with MS. Would I have kids? What would I do if I needed a wheel chair or had problems speaking?

G is no help. When I mention my MS fear, he says, "So how do they diagnose that?" I tell him, "An MRI." His response: "Maybe you can ask for one when you have your check up this week."

And then I think he might have asked me what they give you for it. At which point, I had to launch into a lengthy explanation of how MS is a debilitating disease with no known cures, that its characterized by lesions in the brain and spinal cord, and pretty much if I have it, both our lives will suck forever. And I mean forever forever, since people with MS typically have normal life spans, just not as nice as every one's else life. I don't know, I'm not convinced that G demonstrated the appropriate level of concern even at that point. I have this vague feeling he might have fallen asleep mid-explanation. Dude, we're talking about a serious neurological condition here!

My boss tells me that they're keeping the fibromyalgia cases away from me.

I'm wondering how people can do this job and not become a hypochondriac.