The weirdness of Allowing.
This is not my story to tell in full, like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern I am on the periphery. Such is a parent's lot.
I struggle with control and anxiety. I know this is shocking. I am getting better and worse. Teenagers do that to you.
I do not get people who do not plan ahead. I was raised by a man who ran the car out of gas in a snowstorm, more than once, and never made a hotel or restaurant reservation in his life. We went to the movies one time and he forgot his wallet. Planning ahead and communication are not my watch words, they are my peace. I am unsettled if I don't know ahead of time what the plan is. I drive G and H bananas as after 19 years of parenting, I am truly a nag. I ask more than once where they are going, what the plan is, did they remember their wallet, do they have gas money, a phone charger....
You hate me now, too, just based on that.
So Genoa vaguely said " a friend from school is going to be in town, can she stay with us for two days or so?" and I said yes, thinking plans were in place. The friend is from school, maybe stopping in Denver en route to Durango...I made it all up in my head. The planning alleviated any anxiety.
However, the friend in question is more of an acquaintance, made through other friends. Her plans to get here were to ride with another friend to Pierce, then G would get her and she'd hang with us.
That vague plan turned into G and H driving for 5 hours trying to locate where the friend was going to be dropped off. They got home at 5 am. From Wyoming. I did not sleep that night.
The timing is bad, I start school next week, and my first response when I found out she was not a "planning person" , that she wasn't a student, was that a dirty hippie was going to wreck my well planned-unplanning. I was embarrassingly flailing my arms while walking with Jim, who interpreted my anxiety as "hide the silverware" when I realized I should just allow.
A 21 year old whose travel depends on the kindness of friends or friends of friends or acquaintances is a brave soul. The fact that she arrived late, and in Wyoming, is not necessarily her fault, she wasn't driving.
I wanted to be kind and supportive. She's a nice kid, a certifiable hippie who lives in Nevada and works construction. Very quiet.
As Rosencrantz ( or am I Guildenstern?)I am unsure of the dynamic of their relationship. but Lack of Communication causes other issues, and hurt feelings, and nobody's sure of anything. Which is a joyful place when you are in an established friendship, and painful and awkward when you barely know one another.
And so I wrote this short piece. Because I allowed. I did not worry about other people's schedules (except when it effected my car), or their lack of communication (until G asked for advice) or try to control any aspect of the visit...and the final words were "Well, the lesson here is communicate, thoroughly, ask questions, be kind but firm, and make a plan. Because as beautiful as the idea of being a hippie is, unless you are staying with other hippies things are going to be weird.
No matter how much you allow.
Wednesday, August 5, 2015
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
So Long Harold, So Many Remember You As "Genoa's Caddy".
Now that Harold is gone....
Harold the White Caddy has moved on to the next phase off his existence. He was my dad's car, then Genoa's car, then Harper's car, then he was donated to Foothills Animal Shelter.
Jim and I felt a brief tug when Harold was towed away, but both girls shrugged "meh". He hasn't been Genoa's car for a year, and Harp has not had good luck with him. His transmission struggles and his power steering is poor, and he was expensive to fix and he was stolen and misused....
But first: When G picked up Harold at my dad's place, he was dent free. A Big, White Whale of a car with room for a pirate crew. She was so excited I thought she would burst. Harp took her place shotgun and off they went, my dad grinning from ear to ear. He loved being able to give the girls that car. Which is why it got hinkey when we needed to either take out a second on the house to keep Harold going or let go and let God. She chose "Pioneer" plates, since our family has been here for over 100 years, and within a week the dents began to emerge. Street signs, grocery cart corrals, cement parking blocks, all would leap out in front of or behind Harold, unannounced. It was never G's fault, always the inanimate object or Harold's massive size. If she could see it, she usually didn't hit it.
She and Harold were once sideswiped on I25 by a drunk driver in daylight. That was impressive, you had to be pretty drunk to not see Harold. He is approximately the size and shape of a tuna boat.
Closing matinee of Legally Blonde I had to send the Student Director to fetch Genoa, as Harold had made it one block before seizing his steering. Completely locked up, G was stuck a block from home (45 minutes from school). This is why actors have early calls and cell phones.
He has no A/C, and the heater only works with a special combination of flipping switches, adjusting temperatures and crossing your fingers. His electrical system was likely state of the art in 1995 when he was built, but the technology is now just annoying as it misfires. The trunk would randomly open, so G had to tie it down. You couldn't manually shut it, it was somehow associated with the electrics. Same with the Gas gauge which only gives you miles remaining in digital numerals, not a readable dial/gauge. And Genoa, suffering from dyslexia, frequently misread the E as a 3.
G was designated driver on a few Troubador gigs, and I know Farrell let out a breath when the 10 people in the caddy arrived. On the way to the Zoo gig they had to stop for anti freeze, as Harold's system couldn't register the presence of any fluid.
Harold was there when G needed to get to the emergency room and I was in rehearsal. She was the SM for the show, but I sent her to the ER and continued with rehearsal. Turns out she had MRSA, which is life threatening, and I have never heard the end of it. The story cemented Genoa as a Bad Ass in LHS Mane Stage Lore, however, so there's that.
When Harp inherited Harold last year, they already had a cantankerous relationship based on the fact that he is not a Lexus. Harp, God Bless her, has very expensive tastes. Where Genoa was just thrilled to have a car, Harp was less than thrilled to have a twice used car that had expensive and sometimes unidentifiable issues. She said frequently she was just going to hit it with a bat.
One time last fall, when Harold failed, my dad gave Harp his car to use---a Town Car very similar to Harold---while he took the Caddy. Harold had failed and made Harper late for school, so dad switched. On the way to school in her grandpa's town car, Harper turned onto Prince street and both tires on the driver's side blew up. Exploded. She pulled into the first parking lot and called me, hysterical, because A) she thought she broke grandpa's car B) she had no idea what to do and C) she needed a ride to the school. I left my class in the care of a teacher with an off period, as none of my seniors with cars had that period off, to go fetch her. My dad then retrieved the town car, fixed the tires ( she had run over something), and returned the town car.
About a week later, Harper was pulling out of the LHS parking lot in the town car when she heard a loud "clunk" from under the hood and the car stopped, literally feet from the LHS parking entrance. Since it was after rehearsal and I was still there, myself and two of the boys from the show looked at what appeared to be the front axl on the ground, directly under the hood, still attached. After rifling through my dad's glove box and trying to call his insurance company, I left a message on his cell phone telling him the car was being towed back into the LHS lot, he could retrieve it there (he still had the caddy in the shop). He did not return soon enough, so two days later it was labeled as abandoned and the police surrounded the car at one point. Harper and I just walked by like we had no idea what was going on.
Once Harold was returned from his latest trip to "a guy a know" (my dad's words), Harp loaned him to her friend D's father. The family doesn't have a car and they do their grocery shopping by bus, so Harp loaned them Harold on Saturday. They asked if they could keep it until Sunday for a few other errands. Then D's brother called and asked if he could use it Monday to go to ACC, he'd leave it in the LHS parking lot by 10.30. Harp said ok.
Monday at 10 am, the AP comes to my room and drags me to the office. "Do you know where the caddy is?"
"Yes, D has it. or her brother does. They were supposed to return it here by 10.30."
The AP shakes his head "no" and asks "Do you know where Harper is?"
"Yes, Swim class."
The AP shakes his head "no" and I am subjected to 15 minutes of pure adrenaline as the AP and RO pull photos of boys I've never seen, and tell me the Caddy, the boys and Harper are at a local park stoned and drunk. I don't believe it, she's in swim class, but they are authority figures. So for a moment, panic takes over and I stop breathing and freaking out. Thankfully logic pounded me back and I said "Prove it. Prove she's at the park."
They called the LPS officer on site and put him on speaker phone.
"I have three boys here with your Cadillac, they say they have permission to have it. There is an empty six pack of alcohol and drug paraphernalia in the car."
"And Harper is there?"
"No ma'am, just the boys."
He is on speaker phone and I am now back to full capacity, glaring at the AP. I have warned my students to never make me angry. I shoot fire. The AP got it full blast."You go to the pool, now, she's there." The resource officer just shook his head, I assume because he didn't actually ASK if Harper was there when the police reported the car. He just assumed. The AP returned from the pool and nodded his head to indicate she was located, as a second AP arrived, expecting me to be panicked because my daughter has been busted. They had alerted all admin. Without proof. She got fire as well, then I just shook my head and walked past the lot of them.
Turns out D's brother never had the car, but this kid is a friend of the brother and they'd been partying most of the night....
Turns out Harper was in swim class the whole time.
I never got an apology from anyone. Not the resource officer, not the AP. Nobody.
When Harp emerged from class, dripping wet, I intercepted her as the kid who had taken her car was now sitting in the office and I wanted to warn her. I told her what was going on and she, visibly shell shocked, volunteered to walk past the car thief to tell the AP that she had given permission to D's dad and brother. Then we went to the theatre and ate chocolate.
We went to retrieve him from the park. There was an empty 6 pack of Mike's Hard Lemonade, an overflowing ashtray and trash everywhere. I didn't want to be in him at all, we made Jim drive him home. He got out reeking of cigarette smoke.
That weekend we stripped Harold. We pulled the seats out, called Jim's brother who is a cop and asked where to look for any drugs, and pulled everything we found out and threw it away.When we opened the trunk, I found two bags of clothes. Not a body, not drugs. Clothes from the theatre lost and found. Clothes I had given to Genoa two years ago to drop at the ARC. Clothes that were now trash. Harp got a text from an unknown number saying "there's acid in the caddy". Cool.
That was when Harper was done with Harold. It wasn't his fault, but she never really wanted to drive him again. Jim and I completely understood, we didn't even want him parked outside the house.
That was also when I was done with admin. Never did I get any apology or indication that they had screwed up by wrongly accusing Harp, disrupting my class and causing me anxiety. If I wasn't an employee I'd probably make more noise. I hope other parents never have to go through that, it was completely unwarranted and avoidable.
We could not afford to get her a car, so she forced herself to use him to get to school when he would run. In May his steering froze up again, and we just called it. We entertained the idea of trading him in, but...well, it was entertaining because the thought made us laugh.
He sat in front of our house for two months as various acquaintances said they wanted him as a "project car", but none of them came to tow him away.
Harp got excited when a friend of hers wanted him, and he wanted her to run some tests to see if he was worth it. She changed the air filter, checked the oil and crawled under to check his vitals. She was so excited to diagnose him, it was a side of her I've never seen. And a funny final moment with a car she never wanted to take care of.
By borrowing money from my dad and Harp agreeing to make payments, we got her a 2005 Honda Accord. She named her "Mercy". Within two days of ownership Mercy had hail damage. A week later her A/C quit. A week after that, her windshield cracked in the Elitch's parking lot.
Of course it did.
And Harold was towed away by a nice man with a smile. I hope they can get a few hundred for him at auction.
Harold the White Caddy has moved on to the next phase off his existence. He was my dad's car, then Genoa's car, then Harper's car, then he was donated to Foothills Animal Shelter.
Jim and I felt a brief tug when Harold was towed away, but both girls shrugged "meh". He hasn't been Genoa's car for a year, and Harp has not had good luck with him. His transmission struggles and his power steering is poor, and he was expensive to fix and he was stolen and misused....
But first: When G picked up Harold at my dad's place, he was dent free. A Big, White Whale of a car with room for a pirate crew. She was so excited I thought she would burst. Harp took her place shotgun and off they went, my dad grinning from ear to ear. He loved being able to give the girls that car. Which is why it got hinkey when we needed to either take out a second on the house to keep Harold going or let go and let God. She chose "Pioneer" plates, since our family has been here for over 100 years, and within a week the dents began to emerge. Street signs, grocery cart corrals, cement parking blocks, all would leap out in front of or behind Harold, unannounced. It was never G's fault, always the inanimate object or Harold's massive size. If she could see it, she usually didn't hit it.
She and Harold were once sideswiped on I25 by a drunk driver in daylight. That was impressive, you had to be pretty drunk to not see Harold. He is approximately the size and shape of a tuna boat.
Closing matinee of Legally Blonde I had to send the Student Director to fetch Genoa, as Harold had made it one block before seizing his steering. Completely locked up, G was stuck a block from home (45 minutes from school). This is why actors have early calls and cell phones.
He has no A/C, and the heater only works with a special combination of flipping switches, adjusting temperatures and crossing your fingers. His electrical system was likely state of the art in 1995 when he was built, but the technology is now just annoying as it misfires. The trunk would randomly open, so G had to tie it down. You couldn't manually shut it, it was somehow associated with the electrics. Same with the Gas gauge which only gives you miles remaining in digital numerals, not a readable dial/gauge. And Genoa, suffering from dyslexia, frequently misread the E as a 3.
G was designated driver on a few Troubador gigs, and I know Farrell let out a breath when the 10 people in the caddy arrived. On the way to the Zoo gig they had to stop for anti freeze, as Harold's system couldn't register the presence of any fluid.
Harold was there when G needed to get to the emergency room and I was in rehearsal. She was the SM for the show, but I sent her to the ER and continued with rehearsal. Turns out she had MRSA, which is life threatening, and I have never heard the end of it. The story cemented Genoa as a Bad Ass in LHS Mane Stage Lore, however, so there's that.
When Harp inherited Harold last year, they already had a cantankerous relationship based on the fact that he is not a Lexus. Harp, God Bless her, has very expensive tastes. Where Genoa was just thrilled to have a car, Harp was less than thrilled to have a twice used car that had expensive and sometimes unidentifiable issues. She said frequently she was just going to hit it with a bat.
One time last fall, when Harold failed, my dad gave Harp his car to use---a Town Car very similar to Harold---while he took the Caddy. Harold had failed and made Harper late for school, so dad switched. On the way to school in her grandpa's town car, Harper turned onto Prince street and both tires on the driver's side blew up. Exploded. She pulled into the first parking lot and called me, hysterical, because A) she thought she broke grandpa's car B) she had no idea what to do and C) she needed a ride to the school. I left my class in the care of a teacher with an off period, as none of my seniors with cars had that period off, to go fetch her. My dad then retrieved the town car, fixed the tires ( she had run over something), and returned the town car.
About a week later, Harper was pulling out of the LHS parking lot in the town car when she heard a loud "clunk" from under the hood and the car stopped, literally feet from the LHS parking entrance. Since it was after rehearsal and I was still there, myself and two of the boys from the show looked at what appeared to be the front axl on the ground, directly under the hood, still attached. After rifling through my dad's glove box and trying to call his insurance company, I left a message on his cell phone telling him the car was being towed back into the LHS lot, he could retrieve it there (he still had the caddy in the shop). He did not return soon enough, so two days later it was labeled as abandoned and the police surrounded the car at one point. Harper and I just walked by like we had no idea what was going on.
Once Harold was returned from his latest trip to "a guy a know" (my dad's words), Harp loaned him to her friend D's father. The family doesn't have a car and they do their grocery shopping by bus, so Harp loaned them Harold on Saturday. They asked if they could keep it until Sunday for a few other errands. Then D's brother called and asked if he could use it Monday to go to ACC, he'd leave it in the LHS parking lot by 10.30. Harp said ok.
Monday at 10 am, the AP comes to my room and drags me to the office. "Do you know where the caddy is?"
"Yes, D has it. or her brother does. They were supposed to return it here by 10.30."
The AP shakes his head "no" and asks "Do you know where Harper is?"
"Yes, Swim class."
The AP shakes his head "no" and I am subjected to 15 minutes of pure adrenaline as the AP and RO pull photos of boys I've never seen, and tell me the Caddy, the boys and Harper are at a local park stoned and drunk. I don't believe it, she's in swim class, but they are authority figures. So for a moment, panic takes over and I stop breathing and freaking out. Thankfully logic pounded me back and I said "Prove it. Prove she's at the park."
They called the LPS officer on site and put him on speaker phone.
"I have three boys here with your Cadillac, they say they have permission to have it. There is an empty six pack of alcohol and drug paraphernalia in the car."
"And Harper is there?"
"No ma'am, just the boys."
He is on speaker phone and I am now back to full capacity, glaring at the AP. I have warned my students to never make me angry. I shoot fire. The AP got it full blast."You go to the pool, now, she's there." The resource officer just shook his head, I assume because he didn't actually ASK if Harper was there when the police reported the car. He just assumed. The AP returned from the pool and nodded his head to indicate she was located, as a second AP arrived, expecting me to be panicked because my daughter has been busted. They had alerted all admin. Without proof. She got fire as well, then I just shook my head and walked past the lot of them.
Turns out D's brother never had the car, but this kid is a friend of the brother and they'd been partying most of the night....
Turns out Harper was in swim class the whole time.
I never got an apology from anyone. Not the resource officer, not the AP. Nobody.
When Harp emerged from class, dripping wet, I intercepted her as the kid who had taken her car was now sitting in the office and I wanted to warn her. I told her what was going on and she, visibly shell shocked, volunteered to walk past the car thief to tell the AP that she had given permission to D's dad and brother. Then we went to the theatre and ate chocolate.
We went to retrieve him from the park. There was an empty 6 pack of Mike's Hard Lemonade, an overflowing ashtray and trash everywhere. I didn't want to be in him at all, we made Jim drive him home. He got out reeking of cigarette smoke.
That weekend we stripped Harold. We pulled the seats out, called Jim's brother who is a cop and asked where to look for any drugs, and pulled everything we found out and threw it away.When we opened the trunk, I found two bags of clothes. Not a body, not drugs. Clothes from the theatre lost and found. Clothes I had given to Genoa two years ago to drop at the ARC. Clothes that were now trash. Harp got a text from an unknown number saying "there's acid in the caddy". Cool.
That was when Harper was done with Harold. It wasn't his fault, but she never really wanted to drive him again. Jim and I completely understood, we didn't even want him parked outside the house.
That was also when I was done with admin. Never did I get any apology or indication that they had screwed up by wrongly accusing Harp, disrupting my class and causing me anxiety. If I wasn't an employee I'd probably make more noise. I hope other parents never have to go through that, it was completely unwarranted and avoidable.
We could not afford to get her a car, so she forced herself to use him to get to school when he would run. In May his steering froze up again, and we just called it. We entertained the idea of trading him in, but...well, it was entertaining because the thought made us laugh.
He sat in front of our house for two months as various acquaintances said they wanted him as a "project car", but none of them came to tow him away.
Harp got excited when a friend of hers wanted him, and he wanted her to run some tests to see if he was worth it. She changed the air filter, checked the oil and crawled under to check his vitals. She was so excited to diagnose him, it was a side of her I've never seen. And a funny final moment with a car she never wanted to take care of.
By borrowing money from my dad and Harp agreeing to make payments, we got her a 2005 Honda Accord. She named her "Mercy". Within two days of ownership Mercy had hail damage. A week later her A/C quit. A week after that, her windshield cracked in the Elitch's parking lot.
Of course it did.
And Harold was towed away by a nice man with a smile. I hope they can get a few hundred for him at auction.
Genoa, Harper, Papa Wyckoff and Harold the day she got him.
Thursday, July 23, 2015
Stella's Coffee Haus
23 July 2015.
Harper somewhat hesitantly…involuntarily….grumpily agreed to
come down to Stella’s with me today. G was cleared for take off by the oral surgeon and headed straight to Jose's. Harp needed to get out of the house, her
shoulder hurts and work is not letting her off next week. They let her off this week because she threatened to sue. That's my girl.
I even suggested separate cars so she could
leave when she was bored with me.
We were immediately in for a delightful afternoon when we arrived
and I parked, but Harp kept going, passing up empty street spots.
Then I got the text: I don’t know how to parallel park. I
never learned. I 'll just go home.
I stood in an empty spot until she could turn around, and it
was long enough for her not to need to truly parallel park. I tried to explain
to her how to do it, she grumpily shut me down “It literally does me no good for
you to tell me if I can’t do it.”
I have no idea how the child took Driver’s Ed without having
to parallel park.
A table was empty, which was a nice surprise, and there was shade, even better. We got two green tea arnies and sat quietly until she
started.
Started. Because this has been going on all summer.
“I didn’t even get a summer, I work all the time, I didn’t
get a summer, it’s over and I have to work six days next week and they only
gave me this week off because I threatened to sue. This sucks, I didn’t get a
summer.
Oh, Darlin’, you have no idea what it means to Not Have A
Summer. But I stayed quiet and changed the subject.
When she grew tired of me I acquiesced and said “Do you know
how to get home from here?
“No”.
I pointed west “Broadway’s that way…”
“I’ll figure it out.”
“I’ll figure it out.”
“Take Broadway to I 25 North to 6th….”
“Whatever, I’ll figure it out.
“Text me when you get home.”
“Text me when you get home.”
And she’s gone.
She passed me on her way out. She turned left –east---away
from Broadway.
What’re you gonna do?
I first came here with Mecklenberg the Dog after I moved back to
Denver in 1991. “Seams Like Old Times” was on the Pearl/ Florida corner, The Margarita
Bay Club was on Pearl and Louisiana.
Later I came here and The Sushi Den Took over the empty
corner, The Pearl Street Grill had a neighbor called GREENS, and the Vogue was
temporarily turned into a live theatre.
I did a show there.I worked at the The Pearl Street Grill.
Later I came here with my children, Mecklenberg had moved on proving he could not be trusted around babies, hauling the double
stroller up the stairs, The Sushi Den on the Corner, The Pearl Street Grill now
a place I had formerly worked. Greens was something else and the Vogue had
been turned into apartments. Seams Like
Old Times is a business space now? Or a trendy trendy shop I cannot afford to
go into. It says OTOTO on the glass door. Likely trendy, sounds trendy. Wait.
Is it OTQTO? I just checked my facebook locator, it isn’t identified there so
it can’t be a shop.
Stella’s has remained unchanged. Brick walls, wood patio,
small inside. Room for only the bar and the comfy chairs back in the house. The
left side has been “quiet”, and reserved for meetings and held music and
poetry. Nothing has expanded. There is no where to go but up, which is what
everyone else is doing.
The house next door to Stella’s is now a weirdly trendy restaurant,
they tried to keep the house intact like Stella’s did, but it’s wrong and
weird. They built a huge patio out front and….went up.
I’m here with my youngest, now 17. She was born in the Grant house, so was Genoa. The Pearl Street Grill is gone and it looks like another sushi joint is moving
in—although it may just be a Japanese
Restaurant. They have gone UP and built a second story as well as a deck. Next
door the former GREENS is under the same type of construction. In these old
neighborhoods, unless you can purchase the property next door the only way to
go is up. I wonder if you can sell your unused air space like in NYC? Stella's could make bank, they're only using their one story. Hansen’s is what the sign says instead of Margarita Bay Club.
There was no parking down here 20 years ago when the small houses
were occupied by couples and starter families like ours. Dogs and owners and
strollers ruled the street.
There is still no parking down here 20 years later, and few
of the original houses remain, they have been replaced by cubes of duplexes
intended to look trendy, and in the two hours I have been here I’ve seen no
strollers, several bicycles and men in slacks and button down shirts with one
earbud in while their wingtips hurry them past, or up the stairs for a to go
coffee. The tables are occupied by equally earbudded twenty-somethings with
their laptops open---as I am, albeit not twenty something. Shit, I’m almost
fifty. One gentleman sitting happily alone in his orange sherbet shorts (which annoyingly is not SHERBERT) appears to be about
my age, is glued to his cell phone and his pink and white plaid shirt would
look trendy on a younger kid, but on him he looks like Chevy Chase. The pretty
short haired woman in the halter dress with
the tattoo on her arm smiled at me as I surveyed my compatriots. She is
earbudded and cell phoned, but has two library books in front of
her. I find this oddly comforting even though she has not opened them.
I don’t like change, and I despise it when it is disguised
as “progress”. This neighborhood is not better than it was, it is worse.
Gone is the tiny used CD shop. Gone is the hair salon that
was my hair salon. Gone are the young
mothers , the strollers. I used to take G---and later both girls---to preschool
in the double stroller, roller blades strapped to my feet, tooling straight down
the middle of the road with no worry of being beeped at by a car, or hit, or
anything. The only traffic between our house and the church preschool was
local, or foot, or stroller/roller blade.
Not to mention that when we first moved down here, to the first "little house" on Lincoln we could walk to Herman's Hideaway and stumble home. Of course we
didn’t have the expendable income to do that too often, but the opportunity was
there, nonetheless. I walked to work at The Pearl Street Grill, and to the show
at the Vogue.
One time I foolishly chose to load the girls into the stroller
and roller blade them across the highway to Wash Park. It was hot, and not a
great choice on a hot day. We primarily spent time at the Decker Library and
Platt Park. The library had air conditioning, our house did not. It was only
half a block away, and it’s a LIBRARY. Reading is good.
Why’d we leave?
Well, they opened a youth shelter on Acoma and the park
became a sex den after dark. On several occasions the girls and I would have to
poke a sleeping teenager from off the sand. Cars started getting broken into,
vandalized. We had one bathroom and four people, and an architect told us we
were not a candidate for a “pop top” due to the poor foundation of our tiny
craftsman home. We had only two bedrooms and two growing kids. The electrician
who renovated our tiny kitchen botched
the tile AND almost burned down our house with faulty wiring. We had one
bathroom. There were reasons at the time.
Damn. I loved that little house.
I loved this little neighborhood.
Wednesday, July 1, 2015
It's What I Do
I posted what I thought was an accurate Cliff's Notes Version yesterday. Then today I thought I'd plump it up a bit with more fun details (in red).
So this will be what I hope is a funny look at my day yesterday. A friend of mine said "I'm sorry you had to go through this". I didn't have to "go through" anything other than sitting on a chair for 7 hours listening to mom repeat herself and teaching myself how to plug and unplug all of the wires she was hooked up to. I actually learned a lot, self diagnosed a current issue I have, and concluded that it wouldn't matter what insurance I am paying through the nose for, it would suck equally. The whole industry is a freaking debacle.
When we were kids, my mom would do something goofy like put the iced tea in the cupboard, and she'd say "I think I've had a stroke."
I would switch insurances if I thought the private option was any better. I used to have it, but switched when Jim was unemployed so he could be on my policy--Kaiser was less expensive than the other choice back then. which has its own issues with "In Network" docs only. I pay over $600 a month for shitty insurance, and I have only two options through school "Shitty Kaiser" or "Shitty Private". Thanks to Obama, I'm now paying even more for worse care.
For those who do not know, Kaiser was forced to take on new customers when Obamacare was passed. No FUNDING to help them handle it, they were just told: you have to do this now. Over night they were overwhelmed with seven thousand new patients they do not have the phone staff to handle or the doctors. They were forced to change their system to accommodate the volume without the money to hire more staff, so people like me who have been a customer for years can't get through at all. These are facts, guys, look them up. Don't yell at me for being Anti-Obama, just look up the facts. The Docs now spend a total of ten minutes with each patient. The Kaiser psychiatrist saw my daughter for fifteen minutes once every month and made psychological and medical and pharmacutical decisions based on those fifteen minutes. We had to pay an outside Pysc $150 an hour to untangle the mess the Kaiser Psych had made. Again, these are facts. And the psych we went to is outside all insurance systems because she was disgusted with them.
So this will be what I hope is a funny look at my day yesterday. A friend of mine said "I'm sorry you had to go through this". I didn't have to "go through" anything other than sitting on a chair for 7 hours listening to mom repeat herself and teaching myself how to plug and unplug all of the wires she was hooked up to. I actually learned a lot, self diagnosed a current issue I have, and concluded that it wouldn't matter what insurance I am paying through the nose for, it would suck equally. The whole industry is a freaking debacle.
When we were kids, my mom would do something goofy like put the iced tea in the cupboard, and she'd say "I think I've had a stroke."
- so she asked "what for" and they said "stroke" and she stuck out her tongue and said "Say a simple sentance" and put her hands over her head and said no thank you, can I not have the MRI i feel better. Mom spent most of our 7 hours repeating herself, and repeating the stroke test which only made me think she'd had a stroke. Except she kept passing the stroke test. She said she did it in the ambulance as well.Along the way she was walked down the halll several times, I had to take a nurse hostage to get her IV unplugged Mom hit her "call" button to no avail. I went into the empty hall which made no sense as every ER room had a patient in it, all elderly women with their husbands. I went to the nurse's station where there were at least 30 people, all clearly deeply immersed in working on charts or on phones dealing with insurance, or on computers, I had to wrench someone away to sheepishly ask if they could unplug mom's IV so she could pee. I had figured out how to unplug everything e baed on past bathroom adventures when nobody answers the call button. I'm not sure why they have it. at one point there were three call lights on in our little hall of four rooms. I almost went in to see what I could do, as nursess were working, doctor's were not present and two administrators just strolled past with their coffee.so she could use the bathroom, Kaiser sent in THEIR Doc because clearly the ER doc at Swedish is a 'tard, We didn't even see a doctor until 1pm. The PA was around-ish, we saw the nurse more than any one, and she was clearly overwhelmed.I learned how to unplug and plug everything back in so she could pee because nobody works at Swedish, she asked the same questions multiple times and told the same stories because her brain was fuzzy.
- Also, I started thinking maybe mom had a small stroke. She was definitely not firing on all cylinders, but I couldn't see what an MRI saying 'Yep, it was a stroke" could prove other than "Yep, it was a stroke". "Was" being the operative tense. Except she passed the repeated stroke tests by sticking out her tongue. Maybe a better test would be to give her a pitcher of iced tea and watch where she puts it.
- The nurse (who looked like a 60 year old Chelsea Handler and was my favorite) said they get all the "neurology" patients at Swedish because that's their strength. So that's cool, as long as you don't have Kaiser, apparently. According to my mom's neighbor, whose daughter is a nurse, Lutheran is known for "being terrible", and from personal experience I know St. Joe's is too small and they boot you out fast to get the bed.
FYI DO NOT GO TO ST ANTHONY'S NO MATTER WHAT YOUR INSURANCE IS IT WON'T MATTER. THEY FUNCTION AS IF THEY ARE A FOR PROFIT BUSINESS. DO NOT GO THERE!!
I would switch insurances if I thought the private option was any better. I used to have it, but switched when Jim was unemployed so he could be on my policy--Kaiser was less expensive than the other choice back then. which has its own issues with "In Network" docs only. I pay over $600 a month for shitty insurance, and I have only two options through school "Shitty Kaiser" or "Shitty Private". Thanks to Obama, I'm now paying even more for worse care.
For those who do not know, Kaiser was forced to take on new customers when Obamacare was passed. No FUNDING to help them handle it, they were just told: you have to do this now. Over night they were overwhelmed with seven thousand new patients they do not have the phone staff to handle or the doctors. They were forced to change their system to accommodate the volume without the money to hire more staff, so people like me who have been a customer for years can't get through at all. These are facts, guys, look them up. Don't yell at me for being Anti-Obama, just look up the facts. The Docs now spend a total of ten minutes with each patient. The Kaiser psychiatrist saw my daughter for fifteen minutes once every month and made psychological and medical and pharmacutical decisions based on those fifteen minutes. We had to pay an outside Pysc $150 an hour to untangle the mess the Kaiser Psych had made. Again, these are facts. And the psych we went to is outside all insurance systems because she was disgusted with them.
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