Things I Learned Today*

1. How to remain cool when navigating the treacherous waters of Verizon customer service, trying to figure out why I am being charged hundreds of dollars a month for a hotspot that I returned in July after my sojourn in Hedgebrook that I thought was taken care of but that I apparently didn't according to the Verizon people and now that I've switched to T-Mobile am being punished with the most incredible round-abouts and garbled technology talk that took hours and hours and is still not resolved even though I had to go to the actual Verizon store as well and take it up with them. 
2. Gratitude that I don't live in a concealed carry state because surely, if I hadn't learned #1, I would have been hard-pressed to not just go ahead and "settle things" Texas-style
3. How to "dab," a dance move that Oliver told me about, demonstrated and then judged harshly with the utmost scorn and mockery when I attempted it (see photo above). Oliver has no idea that I actually do have a sense of rhythm, and while I wouldn't profess to like the music that goes with this dance move (at some point he screamed over the jarring cacophony that whenever the pounding bass line dropped, I was to DAB!), it's not that far removed from the Hustle or the Bump, both of which I excelled at in my day.

Reader, what did you learn today?








*First World Problem Solving

Poetry of the Bureaucracy

Good News

We got the ccs denial
We'll go back to mcal with the denial
So we can get approval
Because mcal deferred the original request
We have only 30 days to respond
To that deferral.
It's past 30 days
We need to submit a whole new request
to mcal
Half-way there
Have a good day.

-- Elizabeth Aquino

via an email from Anna of Bohemia

I went on a walk this morning and listened to poetry the entire way, looked up into the sky and saw those trees you see above and blue. When I got home I opened an email from the people who are managing the wheelchair issue that I've alluded to in previous posts. The woman who wrote it, Anna, has been very helpful, and her last name reminds me of something Bohemian. What she wrote was as illuminating as any poetry which means light through cracks and all that.

Menial tasks, musing and minutia

Sophie qualifies for In Home Supportive Services funding, and as her primary caregiver, I am her provider. I am actually paid for this, and I couldn't be more grateful for it. Recently, though, IHSS changed the way timesheets are submitted, and over the last couple of months, they've sent out approximately 3,456,789 notices regarding the upcoming changes with sample time sheets, and more than 2,134,678 phone calls alerting us to the changes as well. I believe there was also a summit that addressed the change, but I missed it. I believe I've successfully filled out my first new time sheet but was struck by the old-fashioned Cut and Remove Before Mailing instruction. Surely they don't mean with scissors? I thought to myself this morning, looking for a perforation in the form. But, indeed, one must actually find a pair of scissors in one's home and neatly trim off the dotted edges, and while I did so I bowed my head in contemplation of the various skills that have stood me well during the last eighteen, often interminable years. One of them is finger dexterity, the other a careful attention to detail, and a third the ability to be mindful in all tasks and simultaneously struck with the absurdity of all of it. Every last bit.

Applying for SSI, Day One

It's begun. I emailed Sally over at Maggie's World with a plea for advice. She wrote me back with her usual fantastic sense of humor, walked me through it, and so I began. I labored for nearly an hour on the computer, filling out one million boxes and simultaneously waited for nearly fifteen minutes on hold with the Social Security office trying to make an appointment. Given that I was disconnected mysteriously from that call and then felt faint at the prospect of filling out Sophie's various hospitalizations -- do I need to go through the files I have in that white filing cabinet in the kitchen or do I need to contact the miasma that is the administration of UCLA?  -- I've decided to dissociate from the "work" I did and change the sheets on my bed.

Reader, what are you up to?

The Anthem of Woe

On my third try of the week, I finally reached a human being in the grievance department of Anthem Blue Cross. While the new medication that Sophie is on has been approved by the insurance company, it is not on the formulary (spell-check does not recognize this word which leads me to believe that it's bullshit), so we must continue to pay 50% of the cost of the drug. How and why the insurance company decides what drugs go on the formulary (formulaic, formulated, formidable, formatively) is dark territory indeed, and after today's conversation, I am no closer to understanding anything. I remained civil -- in words, not in thoughts -- and impressed upon the agent how important this was to us and that I found the arbitrariness of the decision hard to understand but she only stated over and over I understand your frustration ma'am, but the grievance department can only make these decisions and you can't speak directly to the grievance department but must wait for their decision and they have thirty days but I can tell you that you will not succeed because you can't just put drugs on the formulary.


Remember the movie Brazil?

Terry Gilliam, the creator and director of the movie said I've always had a great distaste for authority and bureaucracy and all the additives that they breed.


I suppose I will continue to find my solace in poetry.