So the Yeti and Nessie walk into a bar….

It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others.
 
I don’t normally write about serious stuff on this blog – I mean I DO, cancer and shit, but other than some rants, I’m generally able to see the humor in things. Because that’s life, right? It throws shit at you, you deal. Laugh, cry, rally to laugh again, as I say. And as I always point out, I have so much bad luck in general, I’m able to quickly adapt to bad news.

This one might be tough though.

So yesterday I went on my first visit to a fertility clinic in Portland, namely Oregon Reproductive Medicine (ORM). Yes, Miss Tasha is attempting via sperm donor to have MiracleBaby, aka PerfectChild. Have I always and forever wanted a child ever since I was an embryo myself? Well no, because if that were my life’s goal I probably would have made sure to have a child when I was in my 30s and not leave things to chance, right? But I have for some time, though The Cancer did kind of derail things for a while there.

I drive into Portland all whistling and happy, me and The Kone, on a gorgeous spring day, excited about finally getting this party started for reals. Then reality came crashing down on me during my appointment with the wonderful Dr. Barbieri at ORM, who was really awesome. But she did tell me some sobering statistics, all revolving around the fact that I’m old as dirt. I was fine with them though, even though they were all along the lines of  “1% chance of such–and-such, and .006% chance of this” etc. Ech, numbers, I’m not so mathy anyway.

Then she pulled out the chart that will be burned in my brain forever, the bar chart that shows how many women they’ve worked with who have gotten pregnant with their own eggs, by age. And she points to the bar for 45-year-old women. And that number?

Zero.

A big fucking zero.

Me, being the eternal sunshiney optimist that I am, at this point start to sound like the guy in the movie who, when being told he has a one in a million chance of dating some woman, says “So you’re saying I’ve got a shot!”

See again: not mathy.

Hence the Yeti and Nessie reference, because those are about my chances. Hey, it could happen! We decide to go full steam ahead anyway, because as I told Dr. Barbieri, go big or go home. More testing, the “clomid challenge” (which to me sounds awesomely like the Battle of the Network Stars, so hell yeah, bring it on – not that I’m competitive or anything), an IUI attempt while working on the IVF stuff, then IVF which will probably cost around $24K. For each attempt.

As I jokingly told my most awesome Cancerchick friends Melinda, Cori, and Adrienne later at home as they were talking me off my tiny ledge, I should get on the fundme bandwagon and set up a page along the lines of “Help Kone achieve the baby of his dreams!” Because Kone LOVES babies. Freaking loves them. He just wants to be near them and kiss them and make sure they and kids in general glom onto him. So I could have things like, say, a gift for $10 donations consisting of a pawtograph from The Kone, and so on. Of course I wouldn’t do this, but it amused me to think of it. Do it for The Kone!

Anyway. This ledge thing.

Because then I started thinking of course about how I fucked up my life. Put stuff off, waited, putzed around, wasted time with idiot guys, didn’t take note of time madly rushing by. Though I did recall this morning that most doctors don’t tell you about fertility options before you start cancer treatment. They don’t mention that even if your ovaries aren’t completely fried afterwards, after you go through and finish everything, you might then be too old to get pregnant anyway. So it’s not ALL on me.

Just most of it.

And while it’s mostly on me, I’m also bitter and resentful while looking at all the people who have kids without any problems – not that I begrudge them, but it’s still painful to see billions of pics of kids on Facebook and everywhere else, knowing that might not be in the cards. I know that’s the case for a LOT of my Cancerchick friends, so it’s not like I’m some special snowflake, but still. It’s tough. It's tough for all of us. Some people get truly lucky with the kid situation, where everything falls into place perfectly, and often they don't appreciate how remarkable that is, but some of us don’t. And it sucks and it’s hard.

The thought that kept drumming through my head when I was talking to Dr. Barbieri was actually from the stupid show Private Practice that I watched maybe 3 times, because I don’t do tv as a general rule, and there was the episode early on where Dr. Addison has just found out that she basically has no egg reserve, or something like that, and her chances of having a baby are zero to none. And she’s in the elevator, stunned, just thinking – “I waited too long.”



 * * * * * * * * *

Well that was just one huge boring fucking pity party, now wasn't it?

The point being, young grasshoppers, don’t be like me. At least not in all ways. Don’t think you have all the time in the world for certain things. I mean I know we should be carpe dieming and all that shit in general, but with some things it really doesn’t pay to wait. Because then you’ll be like me, alone with your thoughts at night, and the main one that keeps running through my head is this:

I waited too fucking long.

Bringing home the stupid

 

Note: this is some stupid shit I do here. As usual. Don’t try this at home.

It started with the bronchitis. Or whooping cough. Or typhoid. One of those. Yes, I did my usual thing of having a hacking cough for months until I went to the doctor – partly because I hadn’t yet found a doctor in the bucolic town of Bedford FallsSilverton, and partly because I’m an idiot that way. Oh, let’s be honest here: total idiocy.

So when I get to the point where the cough is a fiercely burning pain in my chest and it’s keeping me up at night, off to the doc I schlep. Where, of course, he falls under my spell immediately, based on our conversation:

Me: Terrible cough, blah blah blah…
Doctor: Okay, so….

Me (interrupting): Mayhap might it perchance be whooping cough?

Doctor: Whoopin….well, I suppose…

(We discuss our mutual hatred for anti-vaxxers and immediately form a mutual respect society, membership of 2.)

Me: Perchance might I have…..pleurisy?

He looks at me with what I am positive is admiration shining from his eyes.

Doctor: Wow, you’ve really done your research, haven’t you?

Me, modestly: Well, I do like to keep up on all the latest old-timey diseases that a person can be stricken with at any moment.

I’m sure it was just a sign of his efficiency and high demand that he bustled out of there pretty quickly, leaving a little vapor trail. Positive.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah. So. Two days after said diagnosis I was off on a cross-country sojourn to continue my idiotic tale of stupidity, which began a month beforehand when I did the Tinkerbell Half Marathon at DisneyLand in California. Actually, that journey began some months before that, when I let myself be sucked in by the promise of even more shiny medals (to add to the ones sitting in a box somewhere at The Manor) to add to my collection. By doing the half at DisneyLand AND the half at DisneyWorld, I’d get not only a medal for each race, but also a third coast-to-coast medal!

I know exactly what you’re thinking at this point. Namely: what the fuck, Miss Tasha?

Because you see, I don’t train for these things. Oh sure, I have the best of intentions, but, well, let’s look at what happened.

1)    Miss Tasha decides to find her running shoes

2)    Miss Tasha has no freaking idea where they are

3)    But surely they’ll turn up? I just have to sort through hundreds of boxes

4)    Who the hell has time for that? But I’m sure they’ll magically turn up

5)    Two weeks before race day, I decide they’re not going to turn up. I buy the cheapest shoes imaginable.

6)    I break them in through my daily morning walkie with Kone. Tearing after him as he bolts after squirrels and stupid cats counts as running, right?

So you see my usual trajectory. In this case, I decided that instead of actual training, I’d do the smart thing: I’d look for people out there who were as stupid as me.

Here we’ll add a public service message. Now when you google “doing a half marathon without any training” – you may stumble across this blog, where you’ll actually find someone who did NO TRAINING AT ALL.

 

Because I kid you not, EVERY blog I found with people who claimed to do “ no training whatsoever” said something like this:

“Oh I did no training at all! So this was such a hard race even though I took a break after my last marathon a month ago, which was on top of the 6 marathons I had already done this year. But damn this half was hard. I barely made it through running the whole way.”

I kid you not. And the comments were great too. “Oh, I’m so glad I found this blog, as I too have done no training! I mean my longest run was like THREE weeks ago and that was only 10 miles!” Or  “Oh gosh I’m so worried, I’ve only managed to run 2 or 3 times a week and never more than 5 miles.”

News flash: that’s still called training. So again, I repeat: no training here whatsoever. I did mention that I’m an idiot, right?

Anyway, the Tinkerbell half went about how you would expect: I finished. My greatest accomplishment was that I didn’t wind up in jail for homicide. Because really people, if you’re doing the run-walk thing and have to set your watch alarm to beep LOUDLY every 30 seconds – maybe you should just pack it in. Stephanie packed her electric can opener so that she could juice up the night before with beets, and I had my pre-race Mickey-shaped cake pop.

I finally got my shiny medal, hobbled around a bit that day, was fine the next. The usual. No blisters. Yay me. Lots of telling myself how stupid I was and how I’d do at least SOME running before the Princess Half in a month.

Kone and I went running twice. Total. However, this time I did invest in a good pair of running shoes, finally recognizing that wherever my other good shoes were, in some box somewhere, they’d probably stay there until after this race too. I smartly decided to treat these new shoes as I would with race wheels, ie where you keep them in reserve until race day, so that you feel light and speedy in comparison to one’s clunky regular wheelset. That works with running shoes too, right?

So what can I say about Princess Half race day that hasn’t been said before a million times? Getting up at 3AM for these Disney races sucks. They have too many people out there, to the point where you wind up not drinking anything because you don’t want to wait half an hour in line for the porta-potty. For the Princess Half at DisneyWorld, actual time spent running through the Magic Kingdom was ridiculously short.

My greatest triumph came in my overcoming the corral Nazis. I was trying to find Cori and her daughter, as somehow Disney failed to recognize my athletic ability and running prowess and had placed me in a corral further back than them. Wth? So off I go to look for them. I manage to get past the people checking numbers, but they’re calling after me. “Ma’am!” Ma’am? What’s that horseshit? I ignore them. Surely they won’t come after me, right?

A guy comes after me.

But somehow with my winsome pleading gaze and patented Sad Cancer Face I convince him to let me stay and look for Cori, and gosh, when I don’t find them I’m forced to stay in the corral, figuring I’ll find them when they catch up to me. So the race starts, and I’’m hanging back, off to the side, looking for them, etc. I’m concerned. After all, this is their first race, and without my expert guidance how will they even begin to soldier on?

I start trudging up an Alpian mountain of which there are many on the course (some people call them something called an “overpass” but I don’t understand that term), and I’m still fretting. I need to find Cori and Tori! I keep scanning the crowd looking for them, to impart my coaching and wisdom to the newbies - otherwise how will they even finish? How will they go on? How wil… oh. That was them that just passed me. Well, I’m glad they’re managing to hide their suffering so well, and I can only hope that they don’t crash and burn at mile 8 and wind up in pain at the hotel the rest of the day. Still, if that’s what it takes for them to learn these valuable lessons, so be it.

I dash on, and note that the course is an out and back in which I can see across the way that the first runners (there by virtue of their corral placing only, clearly) are heading back in. I contemplate cutting the course and getting this tomfoolery over with. Of course, that would put my time at around 58 minutes, which might look a TINY bit suspicious. Maybe. Finely honed athlete that I clearly am, it might not. I decide to not risk it, plus I wouldn’t want to take any glory away from people who are actually kind of at the head of the pack – oh sure, I could be there as well, but I might as well let the little people have their day in the sun.

The rest of the race: suck suck suck. Sucks. I finally finish, get my precious medals, and go to find the bus back to the hotel – which literally has a line at least half a mile long, snaking hither and yon. I decide I’ll wait until it goes down a bit, because it’s pretty clear I’ll be waiting at least a few hours.

 

Here of course the hand of Disney comes down to grace us, because somehow they work their magic to get more buses, and by the time I look up from my lawn chair half an hour later, the line is down to people getting on the last couple of buses. Nicely done, Disney. 

In the meantime, I’ve texted Cori to see how she and Tori are managing, the poor dears. Maybe I can bring them something to their hotel room? They must be spent.

Me: How are you guys holding up?

Cori: Hey, can’t talk now, we finished, got back to the hotel to shower, composed a few haikus and odes to Mickey, went for a refreshing swim in the pool, built a replica of the Magic Kingdom out of toothpicks, had a bite to eat, and packed up and are on our way to the airport – chat with you soon!

I’m tempted to warn them about the fact that they’ll surely crash later in a heap of agony….but again, there’s just so much I can tell people from my great stores of wisdom, as some things people have to learn for themselves. Courage.

God bless us, every one

So there I am at the post office today. I know, I know, but I figure, how crowded can it be? Stuff that needs to make it somewhere by Christmas should have been sent out already, right?

Umm, yeah.

I’m standing in the long line with all the other procrastinators, and things are moving along surprisingly quickly, even though there are only 2 mail people. Then along comes Herbie, our bottleneck.

Herbie is an elderly gentleman who decided that today of all days would be a fine and dandy day on which to take care of his mail being transferred to his home in Florida for the winter. Okay, no problem. This seems to be a quick thing. Just hand over the form (that you didn’t bother to get out of your bag until you were at the counter), confirm everything, and be on your way. Ho ho ho!

Umm, no.

Because first he wants the postal woman to explain everything to him in great detail, down to what he should do to his own mailbox back home so they don’t put mail in there. She tells him to just rubber band it shut.

Herbie: What? What do you mean?

Postal Woman: You know, the clips at the top, just take a rubber band and twist it around them.

Herbie: Oh, so they can’t get it open. Rubber bands. Huh, how about that.

The line is building.

But he seems to be done, so that’s okay.

No.

Herbie: So just to make sure I understand this process, let me explain it back to you.

This is when the lady 3 people behind me starts muttering. “No, let us NOT try to get more understanding about this process. I think we get it. I think there’s a long line here.”

Herbie: The mail leaves here, then it goes to Tennessee, where those machines there do something with it….blah blah blah.

I kid you not. This is where he’s going with this. He keeps going until he has literally gone through the entire thing until his mail winds up in his mailbox in Florida.

Lady keeps muttering, louder. “You have got to be kidding me.”

PW: Right, and then you have your mail!

Yay, we’re done!

No.

Herbie: Wow, that’s fascinating. Tell me, is this a new process? How long ago was this type of service enacted?

I am seriously not making this up.

The woman is going to lose her mind. Herbie. Keeps. Talking. I start laughing. Really, laughing. There is going to be a mutiny. Then word comes in from the street that a car parked in front is going to be crushed by a big mail truck, which also appears to be backing its way directly into the post office building.

In the meantime, the woman in the other line is trying to find some package that a girl is insisting is back there somewhere.

PW #1 to PW#2: Does this look like a 7 or a 2 to you?

PW#2, momentarily taken away from Herbie, who, yes, is still talking: A zero.

Wtf?

PW#1: A zero? Hmm, I guess it could be. I’ll just keep looking in back.

She eventually comes back with something that looks like a postcard. Herbie seems to be winding down, though of course he takes his time packing up his stuff so as to free up the line. I finally head to the counter, and hear poor woman in line comment “All this and all I need is two stamps!” And she holds up her stack of Christmas cards, with 2 bereft, stamp-less denizens.

Stamps?

Suddenly I’m doing my best Mary Bailey imitation, where she holds up a fan of cash in Toddlers & Tiaras style, to avoid the foreclosing of the Crappy Old Bailey Building & Loan.

Me: Stamps! I have stamps!

Irate Woman: Oh no, I couldn’t…….

Me: No really. There’s still a line, and you never know when someone else is going to want to discuss the entire history of the postal system.

IW: Well….

Me: I insist.

IW: I’ll give you a dollar..

Me: Don’t be silly. Here you go.

We exchange our Merry Christmases, and off she goes, happy. Whew, disaster averted!

And that, my friends, is what the true meaning of Christmas is all about.

Christmas tree tips from Miss Tasha

I think we’ve pretty well established that on rare occasion, yours truly gets some pretty damn stupid ideas. Rare to be sure, but it happens. Most recently, this involved my brilliant idea to get a freshly cut Christmas tree, because, you know, Oregon! Trees! Seriously, you can just pull your car over basically anywhere and stumble across a tree farm.

Of course, my scheme revolved around not just getting a freshly cut tree, but cutting it myself. What the what? Yes, this seemed appropriately Christmas-y and lovely and the height of Oregonianness, fa la la and ho ho ho and all that shit. Besides, who knows how fresh the trees at the lots are? They could be days old! And somehow I’m still able to find friends willing to go along with me on my excursions into madness, hence, dear friend Sarah. “Sure, that sounds like a great idea!” Luckily – or not, as the case may be – friends are reluctant to tell me what a total idiot I am, complete with asinine ideas.

So. We set off for a Christmas tree farm that seems to be open on Tuesdays, based on their website, and has both “u cut or we cut” options, based on their handwritten signs dotting highway 213. But hell, even if it’s only  “u cut,” how hard can it be, right? Right. Sarah’s brought her truck, so we’ll just saw that puppy down, pop it in the truck, done!

Our tree farm seems a wee bit deserted, but hey, there are trees! And a couple of puny saws by a little shack, so clearly we can just have at it. I assume. Luckily, the owner of the farm comes out of her house, and gives us a bit more direction.

Tree Farm Lady: So those are the Nobles, and then there are the Grands, which are generally fuller, taller, and more fragrant…

Me: Whee!

TFL:…..but those are down that hill off into that valley way off there.

 

I look off into the yonder, trees stretching as far as the eye can see, and can’t even tell where the Grands start.

Me, to Sarah: Yeah, screw that, we’re not going that far.

Off we go, our lumberjack selves, and we soon run into the problem that all intrepid tree-killers face. Namely: trees! Everywhere! How to choose?? They all look pretty damn good, to the point that one has to practically make up flaws. “That one has a few brown needles, so clearly it’s defective.” Stuff like that.

Me to Sarah: It’s exactly like Sophie’s Choice, well, if the trees were children and we were trying to decide which one should die immediately.  Otherwise, same thing.

I really don’t know why Sarah sometimes looks at me so oddly. Nervous tic perhaps?

Anyway.

Luckily I thought to bring a tape measure as well, because I have zero depth perception. Four inches, 6, 12, 2 feet, whatever. Kind of all the same to me. I see a tree that looks like it would work. Yay, my tree! Umm, except that it's 12 feet tall, and I need one that's 9-10ft. Oops. 

And have I mentioned yet that sawing down a tree with a puny saw is really fricking hard? Because it is. In case that wasn’t clear. Or perhaps it IS clear to everyone but me. So for those other two people out there who didn’t know this, consider this a free but important tip from Miss Tasha: never try to saw down your own damn Christmas tree. Leave it to the professionals. There are roving bands of merry tree-cutters for a reason.

We start trying to saw the chosen tree down, and damn, it’s hard. We’re trading off, and in between collapsing on the ground to rest, trying to recall a time when we didn't have hours of sawing to contend with. I blame cancer surgeries – who knew that not having a lat muscle on your sawing side would be such a detriment? WHY was I not WARNED about this???? Hello, Dr. Fine? I have a bone to pick with you! Hmph.

Fast forward about 2 hours later, when we’re still sawing down – and cursing – this damn tree. As we’re almost done, who should come along? Yes, a lumberjack, or as commonly known, a guy with a powersaw.

Guy with powersaw: You ladies need some help?

We just look up at him, mouths agape, gasping, kind of like beached carp breathing our last.

Sarah: Trunk…..even…….

I think she’s trying to ask if he can even out the trunk where we cut it, but somehow, we’ve managed to make it pretty straight. Rock$tars!

Have I mentioned yet that 10-ft tall Noble firs are pretty damn heavy?

Because yes, now we have to carry this sucker to the truck, and get it in the back. As we’re doing this, lumberjack guy comes along, whistling merrily, having powersawed down HIS tree in about 5 seconds. Also at this point, TFL comes out of her house and asks us if we need help. Oh, and informs us that we should come on a weekend next time, when “my husband will have his 4-square (which I assume is an actual powersaw) running!”

Who knew? Apparently the entire population of Oregon other than me, that’s who.

Because we get back to The Manor, drag the tree into the house, and I get a text from Most Excellent Neighbor Laura.

MENLaura:  Tree delivery?

Me: Omg, that was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done! Well, one of. There are so many. Sawing down my own tree – never again!

MENL: What?!?!?!?!?!

Me: Omg, that was freaking hard! I cant’ believe my friends go along with my stupid ideas.

MENL: Are you kidding me?! You and your friends went and cut down trees….by hand??

As should be becoming clear by now, everyone ELSE in Oregon is too smart for this kind of tomfoolery.

Me: Yes. At a tree farm, with a puny saw. Freaking. Hard. More people need to tell me that I’m an idiot when I come up with shit like this.

MENL: You’re an idiot!

MENL: You’re an idiot.

MENL: You, my friend, are an idiot.

Me: NOW you tell me!

I must say, however, it’s a glorious tree: pine-y, fluffy, fragrant. In fact, I’ve already forgotten about what a total pain in the ass this was – maybe because the Tree Farm Lady promised us mulled wine next year.

Hmm, maybe I need another tree for the upstairs of The Manor……

Happy Obamacare Day!

The day I’ve been waiting for is finally here, the day I can go to the Cover Oregon site and, lo and behold, actually shop around for health insurance. Huzzah! This means that I might have a chance of no longer having to pay $780/month for coverage alone, aside from prescriptions, co-pays, all that other crap. Which is really kind of a moot point these days, since I don’t go to the doctor, but that’s another issue.

But what I really want to say today is reserved for all of those so vehemently against Obamacare, including asshat Republicans willing to shut down the government because they haven’t gotten their way. (Hint: the ACA has been signed into law. Done deal. Get that? Done. Fucking. Deal. It’s the fucking law.) To all of you and to those who just don’t get what it’s about and don’t care to find out, because as long as you like what you have, that’s good enough, dadgummit! To you I say – you can all just go fuck off. Really.

Because what I’m realizing as I read more and more coverage is that most people are too stupid to actually try to figure out what the law DOES, so rallying against it is a knee-jerk reaction. Get that gubmint outta my health care! Umm, the government isn’t in your health care.  Let’s sum up a bit.

To those who read that the companies in the exchanges are in some cases limiting the doctors you can see, and are thus screeching about how “we were told we could still see the same doctors we always have!” You’re all idiots, because if you HAVE insurance and have a job, you won’t be getting insurance through the exchanges. Your plan won’t change. Those going through the exchanges are the uninsured or underinsured or those like me, paying ridiculous amounts of money for independent insurance. I guarantee that most of the people in those groups will be happy to have A doctor to see, not necessarily a specific one. Oh, your premium might go up $10 or $20? Boo fucking hoo. Pretty sure that would have happened anyway.

To those who rail against how expensive the plans through the exchanges will be. AGAIN, repeat after me – unless you’re uninsured, etc., it doesn’t matter to you. You already have insurance. For those who need to go through the exchange and find that insurance is still expensive, there are subsidies depending on your income. If your income is too high to get a subsidy, then you don’t need it.

To those who have been on state plans and are bitterly railing against Obamacare because your plans are going away: fuck you all. The only reason your plans existed is because they were high-risk plans for those who were uninsurable on the private market. That will no longer be the case, so the state plans aren’t needed. But what really galls me about this group of people is the “I got mine” mentality. Because most people can’t get on those state plans. The one for Oregon? Yeah, it was full in February and not accepting new applicants. I know people in this group who are concerned and wondering what the new plans will look like, and I get that - but those who want to deny other people the chance to get healthcare because you’ve already got your government-run plan? That’s just selfish.

To those of you right-wingers who follow party lines and are against Obamacare because of stories floating around about ER doctors pointing to blinged-out so-called welfare queens as “what’s really wrong with the healthcare system” – yeah, I hope when you get insurance at a reasonable price through the ACA that you actually admit how wrong you all were. Don’t get me wrong – people who abuse the system clearly ARE a problem, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need serious, major reform to healthcare.

To people of all walks of life who don’t bother with health insurance because you don’t want to “waste” money on it – suck it up. Everyone will get sick or have some kind of ailment at some point in their lives. Everyone. When that’s you, I don’t want to pay for it because you have no insurance and rack up huge bills. And these are not just the stereotypical po’ folks that most people seem to reference in discussions about this. The WSJ has run a number of articles over the years, and one in particular I recall, that wrote about yuppies Bill and Jane, or whatever the hell their names were. They didn’t want to “waste” money on health insurance because they were young and healthy, doncha know, and that was money that could be better spent on their 2^nd Escalade. Idiots.

To those of you who have employer-provided insurance and want to know what’s in it for you, guess what? There’s actual stuff for you too! Here’s a summary, from Slate: “About half of all Americans—about 160 million people—already have private health insurance, mostly bought by employers. If this applies to you, Obamacare matters only if your plan was stingy. Under the law, insurers must now pay for many things that used to be optional, like prescription drugs, having a baby, and mental health care, among other services. The law also blocks any extra charges for routine checkups, cancer screening, and some other stuff. Obamacare also limits your yearly out-of-pocket fees, such as co-pays for going to the hospital. It also forbids insurers from kicking you out if you get sick.”

I could go on, because there are so many people to rant about in all of this, but I’ll start to bore even myself. I won't even go into how the rest of the world thinks we're crazy and selfish for not thinking that everyone should have access to health care. Or the fact that if you don't have insurance, no you do NOT get health care - you get to go to the ER for stop-gap treatment. 

But since everyone else has been looking at the ACA through a lens of “what’s in it for ME?”, I’ll do the same. And since right now healthcare/insurance is THE biggest item in my budget – yes, more than housing or anything else – you can damn well bet I’ll be toasting my man Obama tonight. In spades.

Cheers!

Update: Just went to the BCBSIL site to use their tool to see what new insurance through them would cost, exact same plan using my current stats. It would go from my current $780 to...........wait for it.......$322.  A whopping $322 fucking dollars, without any subsidy from the government. Gee, price-gouging much right now?

The spirit of canning

People who are scared of such things (read: Kim) have asked me if my glorious house is haunted. To which I always say, hell yes! Though that could be wishful thinking. After all, what could be wrong about sharing a cup of tea in the morning with Geneva Allen, matriarch of the Allen clan and original owners of The Manor? The Allen clan, or, as I call them, the Clampetts:

 

And I mean that in no bad way, but seriously, just look at that picture! Yes they were the land barons of their time, but you do expect them to load up the truck and head to Beverly Hills at any moment, no?

Anyway. I’m torn between envisioning Geneva as a stern God-fearing woman, or someone who seemed buttoned up but loved her boozy cherries on the side. I’m thinking the latter, because it’s clear that I – me, personally – have been inhabited by the spirit of Geneva Allen herself.

Exhibit A: I’ve never canned a damn thing in my life. Haven’t even cared to. Oh sure, I think there was the one time I tried to put up some tomato juice, but the jars got some weird floaty things in them so I tossed them. It’s like I wasn’t even trying.

But what do we have now? This:

Yes, the Jam Cellar of Terror, thus named because when a friend from (ahem) Wharton came visiting with her family, I thought it would be cute and quaint to get their picture in the Jam Cellar. That is, until the pic turned out to look like something from Silence of the Lambs, with Kate clutching her daughter in hopes of keeping her safe. As if.

I of course decided to embrace this, and have been imprisoning visitors in the Jam Cellar of Terror ever since. I think I’m up to 7 captives by now, which includes Normal Brother and his wife Angela. Sometimes at night while Kone and I are tucked into bed, I imagine I can hear their screams echoing through the walls…..

But I digress. The point being, this canning thing is NOT normal behavior for yours truly, so of course the only explanation has to be spirit possession. And I’m okay with that. I haven’t had any jars exploding on me yet, so Geneva must be giving me some good advice at least, right?

Her assistance means I can focus on other things as well, like being the town curmudgeon when it comes to running a tight ship in our little community. Clearly someone has to.

Next up: Whereupon Miss Tasha takes on the Silverton Police Dept.

Catching up

Okay, so it's been a while. That's why I'm going to sum up everything that's been going on since my last post via pictures. First though, the story:

Bought Manor house, whee! Met Tomato Guy, bought lots of tomato plants. Moving Day at the Manor. Immediate tomato planting. Finding Butters, lost and alone at the dog park in Portland. Butters and Kone guarding The Manor. (I do eventually find Butters' people, lovely people at that.)

Kone's Big Fun Days at the Silverton reservoir. Winning Pancho Corna at the Marion County Fair. Miss Tasha paints! Seabrook and Hossa show up regularly at The Manor to eat the apples, and all the other shrubbery. Happy Hour Pie. Kone discovers the raspberry patch.

THEN, of course, Miss Tasha discovers that Oregon is just one big Fruit Mecca.....and that's when things really get crazy.....


(Next up: whereupon Miss Tasha becomes possessed....)

Making enemies!

I’m a bit inordinately excited about this, as I wasn’t sure it was even possible to have enemies in this town of uber-friendly denizens. So friendly, in fact, that when my own smiley, I mean curmudgeonly, self encounters a disinterested or even brusque clerk, I take that as a personal affront. The nerve! Then I comfort myself with the thought that they must be from Salem.

Anyway.

As I said, this is big stuff here. I think it could be the beginning of a glorious long-standing feud, along the lines of the Hatfields vs the McCoys, with townspeople choosing sides until everything ends in a shootout or hanging in the town square. Well, or something almost exactly like that. Come to think of it, my Most Excellent Neighbor Laura has a bit of a head start on me with this, as she has a good and deserved feud with the Crazy Busybody Lady who lives down the street, and apparently feels it’s appropriate to tell people their property isn’t edged properly.

I kid you not.

But I digress. Up until now I’ve been living in this halcyon haze of Silverton splendidness, though I’ve had moments of thinking this is all a big front of some kind (that’s the Chicagoan in me). That behind this insanely nice façade is a cauldron of simmering malcontent going deep down to the town’s roots. I’ve been blissfully unaware of this seedy underbelly……until yesterday. Oh yes.

 

So yesterday Kone and I are on our new morning routine, which instead of drive-to-dog-park/coffee-shop-coffee-and-scone, now consists of neighborhood walkie. Kone doesn’t seem to miss the scone, which is great because it was getting to be a bit difficult to find the damn things (stash of individually-wrapped madeleines in the freezer, I’m talking to you).

Our walk is a lovely jaunt around the neighborhood – or it would be lovely except for one thing: the damn cats. Yes, there are literally billions of free-range cats wandering about, and we generally see at least one on our walkie, at which point Kone goes ballistic and pulls my arm out of its socket trying to go after it, and looks like something out of a cartoon as his legs churn frantically but he’s not moving much because I’m holding him back.

Fun times.

Of course this isn’t his fault – even though he’s basically people, he still has a dog’s instincts, and that instinct is to chase furry things. So needless to say, I direct my rage at the people who own these cats but let them wander around freely, killing billions of songbirds and antagonizing The Kone. INSIDE, people, keep them INSIDE.

It was against that backdrop that we went on our walkie, and stopped to chat with Steve, a nice older guy who lives a street over and has a beautiful pear tree and flowers in front of his house. When I see him I stop to talk, usually waxing eloquent about the greatness of The Kone, and he’ll say something about the deer eating his roses, and then we cheerfully part ways. So yesterday we’re talking, and suddenly Kone yanks my arm out of its socket and I watch in horror as Kona, his leash, and my arm go flying into someone’s front yard after one of those blasted cats. I go after him, and he’s barking up a tree, though it’s not clear where the stupid cat went. Then an older lady comes out of the house, pinched face and all, and at this point I’m still prepared to be nice, even though she’s a Stupid Loose Cat Person.

Me: Oops, I’ll just grab his leash.

SLoCaP: (pinched face, is looking around)

Steve: Imelda, this is a new neighbor – she lives over on Pine!

SLoCaP: (continued pinched face)

Then she speaks, sourly:

“Where’s my cat? Do you see him? Where’d he go?”

I’m about to tell her where she can stuff her cat, when she really says the fateful words:

“Your dog chased my cat! Where’d my cat go?”

Oh.

Well.

Look lady, there are a few incontrovertible rules in life, and chief among them is that we don’t diss The Kone. No one disses The Kone.

Oh wait, I lied. There are no other rules.

Needless to say, this was enough to send me into full-on Mama Bear mode, as the crazy parenting blogs like to call it.

“Well MY dog is on a leash – your cat is just running around willy-nilly. Dogs do chase cats you know,” I tell her, with a baleful glare.

Poor Steve is still trying to do an introduction – “yep, lives over on Pine” – and SLoCaP is still walking around muttering and I’m still glaring at her. I think she’s waiting for an apology, which will occur when the inner bowels of Hell freeze over and start churning out sno-cones for everyone. She finally wanders off – and hasn’t said a single other word during this time other than cat-related muttering – so it’s just me and Steve. I firmly tell him that I am NOT ever going to apologize to someone who lets their cat run loose, and I think my Mama Bear fierceness scares him, though he rallies by bringing up what we all should know, about the billions of birds and other critters killed by cats every year.

So yeah, I didn’t see Steve this morning – I think he’s in hiding. SLoCaP doesn’t show herself either, lucky for her.

To sum, my first sworn enemy in Silverton, only a block away. Score! This is a festering outrage that I’ll nurse over the many years that I’ll live here, escalating it to hatred and “accidentally” dropped bags of dog poop as needed. We’re not there yet, but stay tuned…

Life in Mayberry

The other day The Kone and I went to the Silverton Reservoir for the first time, and much hilarity ensued. Kone went leaping into the lake after a duck, then didn’t know what to do. I stood at the ready to jump in and rescue him, good momma that I am, but luckily he made it the foot to shore. Whew. Then we went along this precarious path along the lake and BOTH almost fell in – until we realized that oh, there must be another normal path somewhere, because this is nuts. Yes there was. Duh.

Anyway. All this fun was a mere $2 for parking, though I discovered that one could buy an annual pass at City Hall. Now, much as I like to be a scofflaw – and these fees are basically on the honor system – I certainly don’t mind paying for park usage and such since I figure the money is going for a good cause, especially when the fees are so miniscule. So off I go to City Hall, with utility bills in hand to make sure I can get the “resident” cost for the parking pass. I fret. Will 2 utility bills be enough? Should I bring something from the title company?

 

Umm, yeah. The clerk didn’t ask, didn’t care. I must look trustworthy? Then I asked her if they had gotten my paperwork to do an automatic deduction for the water bill. Oh yeah – there was the paperwork sitting on her desk.

I skip back to my car, parked right in front, for FREE! No meter, I get free 10 minute parking there.

I’m not quite sure this town really exists, or if I’m in some kind of Truman-esque reality show. Really.

Next up: Boozy goodness in Silverton