The Current Situation

My 2015 Subaru was running alright, got the recalls fixed and I always keep up on my oild changes. But the odometer had flipped over to 195,000 and it was starting to need stuff- a repair here, replace part there. I put a lot of hard miles on that car and it was starting to show. We had discussed it off and on for the past few months, a lot of people will tell you they believe in driving a car into the ground.. but you know what? The trade in value of a car that has been driven to death is not that great. But what to buy? Back in PA and WV 4 wheel drive is a must, especially if you work on the road, my absolute favorite memory as a visit nurse was a woman giving me directions to her house. She asked if I had 4 wheel drive, paused and then said, Well, you'll probably make it up the drive but you might want to take a running start at it. Here its very different, land is levelocated and weather is fairly mild, we had what's considered a bad snowstorm for this area - 5 inches of snow that lasted 2 days. Four wheel drive is nice, but not necessary. 

David found a 2017 Volt for a very reasonable price - with the trade in, the stimulus check, our money back from taxes this year and an Oregon rebate for going green I got a 4 year old car with 40,000 miles and warrenty on it for less than $6,000. Not bad.  It took a little getting used to it, I've been driving SUVs forever, this is pretty low to the ground but I think I've perfected hoisting myself out in a dignified manner pretty well. David ordered a spare - did you know something like 40% of all new cars don't have a spare? They give you a can of Fix a Flat and a small prayer book. (just kidding, about the prayer book - the FixAFlat is true). It apparently can park itself but I haven't braved that yet. The steering wheel reminds me a bit of the Enterprise and I have not braved it yet. The Blue tooth works great and that I'm enjoying. I have audiobooks from Overdrive so I can listen while I'm driving.  

The plugging it in thing - the Volt is a hybrid which took me a few minutes to get comfortable with. It's gets 43 miles to the charge. I envisioned myself tooling along and running out of juice slowly coasting into a ditch like a stranded turtle. And crying. It charges overnight and when you use the 42 miles it switches by itself (there is not giant red button or anything you need to do) to the gas engine. It gets about 40 or 50 miles to the gallon -after 2 weeks I still have more than half a tank left, most days I don't use any gas at all. Our electric is very low out here so I'm curious what the bill will be next month. David talked to the solar panel people yesterday but the cost of it is prohibative as opposed to what we pay now - our bill would more than double. We put it on the If We Win The Lottery List. Overall, I'm pretty pleased with my new car - smaller than I'm used to but as I've only spent about $10 in two weeks on gas (I topped off the tank when I got it) that more than makes up for the lack of room.

 

A Kaiser Permenente Story - DIY Healthcare

One of the greatest disappointments of moving to the west coast is the health care - say what you want about WV - the one thing I appreciated were my doctors and how great they were. If there was any problem they called me immediately, followed by an appointment and anything else I needed - they were firm believers in preventative healthcare.  My first appointment out here was for a routine check up and to establish care - it took a couple of weeks to get an appointment, but that's everywhere, isn't it? I arrived on time, the nurse came out to get me and said we've been trying to call you - I had not gotten any calls. I asked if they were going to ask for any medical history but got blown off. They had a wrong number that I hadn't given them and that was somehow my fault. Then the PCP came in and told me he didn't take patients. Ok.......We discussed my ongoing issues with my weight - until I hit my mid-50's I was fine, an occasional weight gain but nothing like this. I gained about 60 pounds and nothing I did took it off.  The MD proceeded to order an A1C and told me some wierd meandering story about a chef that liked her own cooking(???) . The A1C came back in the pre-diabetic range - after I read the result myself (no, they don't call you for out of range results)I spoke to a nurse who told me they didn't do anything until I was in the diabetic range. When I told her how worried I was because my family has a history - she told me she didn't believe in that stuff.  Yup.

I joined NOOM, started exercising again, stopped eating bread, high carb, sugar, I did lose 30 pounds - and then stalled. I increased my calories, decreased, stopped exercising, exercised more, intermittent fasting.....nothing. I finally dropped my NOOM coach as her solution was to try and convince me I should focus on NSV (non-scale victories) which I responed that my new victory was high blood pressure and it was NOT ok for me to be overweight given my new health issues . The problem with the NOOM coaches are if you don't fit into thier scripted responses they don't know what to do with you. But in the meantime I was attacked by a raccoon sustaining over a dozen punctures and a lot of soft tissue damage. The ER at Peacehealth Hospital was great -  the follow up at the Kaiser clinic - jesus fucking christ is all I have to say. For the follow up (you have to have a series of injections) the scheduler tried to give me a video visit. At the end of the month. For an injection. Tried to schedule me to discuss it with my provider - the day I needed the injection. Then called me difficult. I had to contact the MD at the ER who got it straightened out .At the first appointment I was there for over two hours - for a shot. The second one I showed up at the correct time- and sat for an hour before going up to the desk to be told that I did have an appointment but they forgot to schedule it with someone. REALLY??

I am still not losing weight so I made a video appointment with my (3rd) new PCP, the turnover is so high I never even met PCP #2 - she started asking questions  but I pointed out so far no one has ever taken my medical history - I've never been asked about past surgeries, diagnosis, my family history - anything in my records are things I've mentioned during visits. So she asked a few questions about my family history and that was that. I told her I had never heard of any medical practice that did no preventative healthcare and I thought it was poor practice to wait until someone became a diabetic before acting on it. She ordered another A1C and it is back down in the normal range - she also signed me up with a health coach. I called and basically was told they can't do anything for me, but make an appointment to speak to another one- who by the way cannot talk to you for another 3 weeks. The PCP reminded me I needed a mammogram which I REALLY had to bite my lip not to ask if I would have to do my own surgery.  And once again I was never called about my lab results, there is no follow up at all, the whole thing is discouraging. But I did email her and will be following up next week - welcome to DIY Healthcare!

 

How's The Weather

So, last night as we were sitting around the fire pit in lawn chairs drinking hard seltzer and eating appetizers I said to Kim I can't believe it's the middle of January. The grass is green. We're wearing hoodies and no shoes. How can it be January. It's not summery by any stretch of the imagination, but stays in the mid 50's most days - and the past few days have had some wonderful sunshine. But the rain! Ugh. This time of year most days  it either looks like it's going to rain, is raining or is sopping wet from all the rain. But, we assure each other, at least it's not snow. It does take some getting used to, this past week I had to keep reminding myself we're still about 2 months away from early spring, that we still have the rest of January and February to get through and it most likely will snow at some point. But even that - did you know my office closes if we get TWO inches of snow?? If I was back east I would be out of the office until April. We are here about 18 months now and my winter coats are still stored up in the attic of the garage, I think I wore the brown one twice last year, maybe twice. David mows the lawn year  round, not a lot in January and February, but he does it.  

The rain has been a lot lately, even for here. All the fields around our house are flooded, the cow pasture across the road is a 10 on the Stinkie-Poo scale when the wind is blowing this direction, everytime they walk to the feeder they churn up the poopy muck - Bee loves it though. She thinks it's ambrosia and sniffs deeply of the Poofume - I shallow breath and walk fast. I've been walking her on our road for the most part without a leash and she's good 70% of the time. The other 30% is us having a standoff in the middle of the road with me saying COME and her inching the other way. She knows what I want - she will stand there staring at me, then take a couple of steps in the other direction, stop when I say her name... but she's obeying more than she's not and she is only 3 months so there is that. And for the most part is pretty well behaved.

Last night we had dinner at Kim and Stephen, we had a pre-birthday celebration as he is turning 60 this week! Then in April I turn 60 - its that kind of year. Due to COVID of course his birthday got toned down, Kim's hoping to do something later in the year but for now it was just us. We bought him super expensive beer - this area is IPA intense and you can actually buy beer that's more expensive than champange. We had a fun dinner and since it was so nice out Steve fired up the fire pit and we stayed outside until dark. Bee had a ball racing around (their backyard is fully enclosed) and being a general pain. She can't play with Piggles too much now, she is 4 times his size but still a puppy and she plays too rough. So her time with him is heavily supervised and short, like a prison visit I suppose. It was so nice to sit outside, a little chilly but so sunny! Hopefully the rest of the winter will pass quickly. 

 

Use It - Or Someone Else Will

I love stuff from the 40's to early 60's - I think it's so neat looking. Designs were often what people thought would be futuristic or there was some other kind of craze - at one point it was anything pastel  (or floral, or my superfavorite Fake Orange Colonial). Anyhoo, I was paging through Facebook market place one day and came across a really beautiful china set. It's Noritake china from 1961 (the year I was born) and it's called Helene, also known as a sputnik design. Sputnik was a russian satellite that was launched in 1957, oribited for 3 weeks and then the batteries died so it just bumbled around for another 2 months before it fell back to earth. Essentially useless but we got a lot of cool cocktail glasses and lighting fixtures out of it based on that design, so win! But I digress - It was 8 full place setting, plus a couple of platters, cream and sugar, serving bowls. So, how much? Well, she was asking $60. 

I got it for 45.

With the internet you can pretty much find anything these days - you can type in Pink Leopard Cosplay Outfit with An Apron and I'm pretty sure one will pop up. So I typed in Helene5602 and a bunch of other pieces popped up. I found the very cool gravy boat on Ebay which is pictured below - the plate and bowl are one piece -  I ordered it of course. About a month later another person was on FB market place with the same china set, this time asking $150 so I offered her $50. She came back at $80, nope. David finally threw in the towel and bought it for me for Christmas for $75 - 8 more full place settings, more serving stuff AND the fruit bowl. You probably wonder at this point why I need 16 place setting - I don't. But it was odd that someone else was selling this set and now I have one, large set. And in the words of DaffyDuck - 

MineAllMine 

The thing that struck me about all these beautiful dishes - and some of the other high end things I own and bought used - is how new they look. All were carefully wrapped and stored, all of these pieces and not one wear mark, chip or crack. Not one. Because years ago when you had a good set of china you didn't use it. You stored it and only brought it out on very special occasions - I knew some families it didn't even make it out of the china cabinet for that. Because you didn't want to break it or have wear marks on it. You did it to hand down to the next generation or kept it pristine because it would be worth something some day. 

Yeah, no.

I was watching Antiques Roadshow and they explained why china is not worth much - before the internet it was worth money because it was scarce and hard to find. But now - the money is in replacement pieces which is true - but the large sets are very affordable.  Another issue is they are not microwaveable and often need to be handwashed since they tended to have metal based paints on the rim. All of this has contributed to expensive fancy china being sold for less than Corell. Crazy! So I use them - because, well you should. And I probably get far more enjoyment out of it than the original owners ever did, it's so much fun to eat off of super fancy dishes. I have hand embroidered table cloths and napkins to really set it off - same thing, carefully preserved and then sold at an estate sale to a stranger. Obviously if it's something very old and breakable don't use it everyday, but otherwise enjoy it. It's a shame that the person who spent all this time, effort and money probably never got to have the fun of using it, but I'm grateful and very much appreciate that I do. 

 

You Have To Break A Few Eggs

This morning I woke up thinking about the family reunion my family had years ago in Florida - maybe I was dreaming about it? But notice I said that my family had one, not that we did. Because I was not invited. To this day I have no idea why or what it was that I did that allowed them to make a group decision to exclude me entirely - and yes, it still bothers me. A lot. I was humiliated and heartbroken, trust me if you want it brought to your attention that you are not wanted in your family have that happen to you. I can guarentee you it will more than drive that  fact home. And no, I didn't stop speaking to them - I cried a lot but got past it. But it did change my relationship with them - I no longer had the illusion that I am a real part of that family, brutal but freeing. And I think it changed me too, as angry and upset as I was it did not change fact I will always be on the outside looking in. 

But you cannot sit and cry forever. 

It forced me to form new relationships and to strenghten old ones. It made me realize that like my reason not to believe in god - having faith  in yourself and depending on yourself first is not a bad thing and you will rarely let you down. Being free of that obligation makes you braver - I don't know if I would have had the courage to move across the country if that had not happened. And I don't know if it would have been as wonderful had Kim not been waiting for me. We have been best friends since Jr high school and through the years and children, job changes, moves here and there we've never lost contact with each other. In the back of my mind I always knew we would be together again. And we are. We see Kim and Steve every weekend, we've vacationed together - I have a real Emergency Contact now! And I have Brandi and the granddaughters, it is so wonderful being able to see them on a regular basis. They no longer look bigger everytime I see them - it used to be everytime we saw them it was a whole new set of kids. 

We're still mulling over what we are going to do with the houses, etc... but as I laid there this morning I felt like - life is good. A new house, a new state, old friends, a new puppy, David at my side and we still like each other almost 40 years later. So altough some changes have been painful, they don't stay that way, do they? And there are many times in life you don't ever get to know why things happened, you need to just accept that they did and move on. And for the most part I have, haven't I?

Here's to 2021 - and beyond.