I just got back onto the town RTM (redundency alert - Representative Town Meeting). We had two folks from the R side of the aisle resign from District 5, and since the current iteration of the RTM is based on the old district lines, I'm eligible, so proving that I'm still insane, I volunteered.
The RTM's main purpose is to act as the taxpayers' say on the town and BOE budgets, instead of sending them to referendum as most other towns in the area do.
So instead of being able to just look at the bottom line, say "Holy SHIT!!!, You guys want how much more than last year?!?!? No F-ing way!", we have to spend two or three evenings a week starting in late April going over the budget and voting on it line by line by line.
And every single line has at least one person on the RTM who feels that if that line doesn't at least get level funded it's TEOTWAWKI. I do understand why some members get irritated with the group who've been fighting the increases the hardest because at least one member has a tendency, bless her, to stand up, offer a cut of x%, and the only reason she can give for cutting that line is that taxes are too high. I can see why some members would like to see it a little better thought out, as in, "Yes, item X#R is a great program. But, we have to cut something, and I don't feel that it is as high a priority as program TQX." Personally, I suspect I'm going to piss a lot of people off, because I'm going to go through the budget book over the next week or so, figure out what do I think is most important, which I can tell people right now is public safety and public works, figure out how much we want to cut from the proposed budget, arrange cows in order of priority, and start offering to axe them myself.
But we can't afford the budget the way things are now in town, and Pfizer is about to take about $2M off our tax rolls by tearing down Building 118. And in all likelihood, they'll be completely gone within the next 5 to 10 years anyway. Just look what they did to New London. That $2M is probably around 4%-5% of the town budget which isn't Board of Education. And since the state thinks we are a distressed community because over 30% of our population is below the poverty line (or something like that), we can't cut a penny from the Ed budget. It's for the children, don't you know?
And speaking of "for the children" ....
Our state reps are preparing to vote on new gun laws tomorrow, which as of this morning hadn't even been written yet. And they admit that not a single bit of the proposed legislation, if it had been in effect last year, would have stopped the Sandy Hook shooting from occurring. But they do want to have every law-abiding gun owner who possesses a magazine which holds 10 or more bullets (or maybe it's over 10) register their magazines with the state by Dec 31st or they will be guilty of a Class D Felony, which carries a minimum 1 year of prison and up to $5K of fine. Though one talk radio host pointed out that once you're jailed you can get 5 days off per 30 days of sentence for good behaviour - we just don't have the jail space. That the real felons won't give a damn about this law, and won't be deterred from keeping their high capacity magazines doesn't matter, "It's for the children" and "We have to do something".
Just wait until enough people have 3D printers. I believe that you can already get files for printing disposable magazines.
Papieren Bitte.
Tuesday, April 02, 2013
Frustration
Surprise! Not.
I'm dealing with the public school system. So frustration is the name of the game. I suspect it's written someplace in the union contracts that they have to ignore parents for a minimum amount of time.
Younger daughter is currently pulling Fs in almost all her classes, something to do with having missed about 60 days so far this year with illness. (We have doctor's notes for the vast majority of her absences). And she is now complaining about the letters and numbers on the pages and screens jumping around a lot, especially when she's tired. This was something back when she was in 1st or 2nd grade, but it never interfered with her ability to read and do well in school, and she hasn't mentioned it in years. But of course now she's under a lot of stress, so it's coming out.
Almost two weeks ago, on a Friday, I left her most recent note with the office, as well as a copy of the office visit summary where it showed a diagnosis of possible depression (well you'd be depressed too if you'd been sick for months and it looked like you'd have to repeat the year), and also recommended having the school system test her for dyslexia. The guidance counselor from the magnet high school, who is assuring me that we can set up meetings with the teachers to figure out which classes she has a chance of getting caught up in and passing, and what she will need to do for that to happen, took me over to the main high school to the social worker/school psych's office so we could talk. The woman was out sick, so I was asked to leave my name and phone number and she would get back to me the following week.
That was last week, and I didn't hear from anybody. I did use the email system on the school website to send both women messages, again asking to be called.
So today, Tuesday, 11 calendar and 6 work days after leaving the first message, I called the school psych about getting the dyslexia testing. I did call just before 2, when school gets out, so hopefully, she will call me back tomorrow.
Anyone feel like taking bets on it?
I suspect I'm going to have to take more time off work and plop my physical presence on various doorsteps, being the squeaky wheel, or else nothing will happen. At least the math teacher is being helpful and has changed daughter to "auditing" her Algebra II class, so that next year she can take Geometry on schedule, and then take Algebra II again in 11th. It also looks like she's doing OK in English somehow, but everything else? Not so much, and no one is getting back to us about if and if yes, how, we can fix things.
I need to find out how much it will cost out of pocket to get the kid tested for dyslexia, since otherwise they'll probably manage to drag their feet until well into next school year.
If the child wasn't interested in biomed, I'd consider pulling her out and figuring out some sort of homeschooling, but I'm not up for the science and math at the levels she'll need, and with the way our town taxes look to be going up next year (that a rant for another post, if the RTM can't get things down, and agree to slaughter a few sacred cows, because all budget cows are sacred.., 12% increase in TWO years!?!?!), I can't afford several grand for online classes.
And I've been dealing with a migraine or a stomach bug, or both, since Friday.
Sigh.
I'm dealing with the public school system. So frustration is the name of the game. I suspect it's written someplace in the union contracts that they have to ignore parents for a minimum amount of time.
Younger daughter is currently pulling Fs in almost all her classes, something to do with having missed about 60 days so far this year with illness. (We have doctor's notes for the vast majority of her absences). And she is now complaining about the letters and numbers on the pages and screens jumping around a lot, especially when she's tired. This was something back when she was in 1st or 2nd grade, but it never interfered with her ability to read and do well in school, and she hasn't mentioned it in years. But of course now she's under a lot of stress, so it's coming out.
Almost two weeks ago, on a Friday, I left her most recent note with the office, as well as a copy of the office visit summary where it showed a diagnosis of possible depression (well you'd be depressed too if you'd been sick for months and it looked like you'd have to repeat the year), and also recommended having the school system test her for dyslexia. The guidance counselor from the magnet high school, who is assuring me that we can set up meetings with the teachers to figure out which classes she has a chance of getting caught up in and passing, and what she will need to do for that to happen, took me over to the main high school to the social worker/school psych's office so we could talk. The woman was out sick, so I was asked to leave my name and phone number and she would get back to me the following week.
That was last week, and I didn't hear from anybody. I did use the email system on the school website to send both women messages, again asking to be called.
So today, Tuesday, 11 calendar and 6 work days after leaving the first message, I called the school psych about getting the dyslexia testing. I did call just before 2, when school gets out, so hopefully, she will call me back tomorrow.
Anyone feel like taking bets on it?
I suspect I'm going to have to take more time off work and plop my physical presence on various doorsteps, being the squeaky wheel, or else nothing will happen. At least the math teacher is being helpful and has changed daughter to "auditing" her Algebra II class, so that next year she can take Geometry on schedule, and then take Algebra II again in 11th. It also looks like she's doing OK in English somehow, but everything else? Not so much, and no one is getting back to us about if and if yes, how, we can fix things.
I need to find out how much it will cost out of pocket to get the kid tested for dyslexia, since otherwise they'll probably manage to drag their feet until well into next school year.
If the child wasn't interested in biomed, I'd consider pulling her out and figuring out some sort of homeschooling, but I'm not up for the science and math at the levels she'll need, and with the way our town taxes look to be going up next year (that a rant for another post, if the RTM can't get things down, and agree to slaughter a few sacred cows, because all budget cows are sacred.., 12% increase in TWO years!?!?!), I can't afford several grand for online classes.
And I've been dealing with a migraine or a stomach bug, or both, since Friday.
Sigh.
Saturday, March 23, 2013
School issues. One student down (maybe?) and one to go....
Elder Daughter started in her special program this week. She goes into Central Office for two hours every day to work on a distance learning Biology class, which is also going to give her time to work on her two incompletes from the fall at her other school.
She does seem perkier, though how much of that is the new meds and how much is just having something to do outside the house on a regular basis I'm not sure. I'm also not sure if I care much.
So on to dealing with Younger Daughter's issues.
It doesn't help that she's been genuinely sick most of the time since last November. The school really doesn't want her in if she's running a fever or throwing up. But she's lost over 50 days already, and we're only 3/4 of the way through the year. So now she doesn't want to go to school at all since she's positive (probably correctly) that she'll have to repeat the year, so why bother? Add in that all the classes "are boring except for math which is frustrating", and it's recipe for disaster. She's also depressed. I checked with her and found that she hasn't been in touch with any of her friends in over two weeks. This is the girl who needed to have her cell pried from her hand and thank God I had the unlimited texting plan, or we'd be so past broke. So I've made her an appointment with the therapist who is seeing her sister, but they don't have any new patient slots until May. I've also got a call in to get her in to the psychiatrist, who may have openings sooner, and she'll probably need to see them both anyway.
We're also going to see the regular doctor on Monday, because if we can get a piece of paper with even a tentative official diagnosis on it, the schools will have to do certain things and won't be able to do certain others. And that may make my life easier, since I've already got them threatening me with the truancy officer. I have an unfortunate suspicion that part of the problem is the family tendency to be way off to the far right of the IQ bell curve (Based on my GRE results, I could join the Triple Nine Society, and I'm probably average for my family) which makes a lot of stuff at normal grade level boring because it's too easy, and also by high school makes it much harder to make oneself spend time on things one has no interest in.
I need lots of money so I can find a good private or boarding school which works on interest and ability more than age/grade designations.
I guess I better go off and buy a few of those Powerball tickets for tonight.
She does seem perkier, though how much of that is the new meds and how much is just having something to do outside the house on a regular basis I'm not sure. I'm also not sure if I care much.
So on to dealing with Younger Daughter's issues.
It doesn't help that she's been genuinely sick most of the time since last November. The school really doesn't want her in if she's running a fever or throwing up. But she's lost over 50 days already, and we're only 3/4 of the way through the year. So now she doesn't want to go to school at all since she's positive (probably correctly) that she'll have to repeat the year, so why bother? Add in that all the classes "are boring except for math which is frustrating", and it's recipe for disaster. She's also depressed. I checked with her and found that she hasn't been in touch with any of her friends in over two weeks. This is the girl who needed to have her cell pried from her hand and thank God I had the unlimited texting plan, or we'd be so past broke. So I've made her an appointment with the therapist who is seeing her sister, but they don't have any new patient slots until May. I've also got a call in to get her in to the psychiatrist, who may have openings sooner, and she'll probably need to see them both anyway.
We're also going to see the regular doctor on Monday, because if we can get a piece of paper with even a tentative official diagnosis on it, the schools will have to do certain things and won't be able to do certain others. And that may make my life easier, since I've already got them threatening me with the truancy officer. I have an unfortunate suspicion that part of the problem is the family tendency to be way off to the far right of the IQ bell curve (Based on my GRE results, I could join the Triple Nine Society, and I'm probably average for my family) which makes a lot of stuff at normal grade level boring because it's too easy, and also by high school makes it much harder to make oneself spend time on things one has no interest in.
I need lots of money so I can find a good private or boarding school which works on interest and ability more than age/grade designations.
I guess I better go off and buy a few of those Powerball tickets for tonight.
Saturday, March 16, 2013
Dealing with the schools
My eldest daughter is now officially Special Ed.
It's about time. There have been signs for the last 10 years, but since she's bright enough to be able to learn without studying, and since she wasn't disruptive, no one really cared. And since I was an odd duck through school, I didn't realize things were that bad until very recently.
It took getting her into a school program which put enough stress on her to bring it out, including the behavioural issues. I'm happy that we found all this out before she hit college. I'm not happy that the schools missed it all these years.
I've signed all the papers so the schools can do their psychological testing, and we're also going to try to get to the neuropsychologist that the psychiatrist recommends, but I need to see if our insurance will pay for it. I've had other issues where insurance refused to pay because the school system was supposed to be doing it.
Having not gone to school for over two months, she's starting back on Tuesday in an alternative program, mostly computer but at a school facility with teachers present to help kids when they have questions or problems, and also to work to keep them on task. Not totally surprisingly, she's not totally impressed, though she is happy to have a tentative diagnosis.
She's getting special ed since she meets four of the five criteria for an "Emotional Disorder" (you only need to meet one). But the further testing is because the psychiatrist is considering Asperger's, which may have been exacerbated by several concussions over the years.
Joy.
It's about time. There have been signs for the last 10 years, but since she's bright enough to be able to learn without studying, and since she wasn't disruptive, no one really cared. And since I was an odd duck through school, I didn't realize things were that bad until very recently.
It took getting her into a school program which put enough stress on her to bring it out, including the behavioural issues. I'm happy that we found all this out before she hit college. I'm not happy that the schools missed it all these years.
I've signed all the papers so the schools can do their psychological testing, and we're also going to try to get to the neuropsychologist that the psychiatrist recommends, but I need to see if our insurance will pay for it. I've had other issues where insurance refused to pay because the school system was supposed to be doing it.
Having not gone to school for over two months, she's starting back on Tuesday in an alternative program, mostly computer but at a school facility with teachers present to help kids when they have questions or problems, and also to work to keep them on task. Not totally surprisingly, she's not totally impressed, though she is happy to have a tentative diagnosis.
She's getting special ed since she meets four of the five criteria for an "Emotional Disorder" (you only need to meet one). But the further testing is because the psychiatrist is considering Asperger's, which may have been exacerbated by several concussions over the years.
Joy.
Thursday, March 07, 2013
Oh. My.
Google maps has updated their photos of Isola del Giglio in Italy since last year.
View Larger Map
See where it says Giglio Porto? Look just north of the text at that strange light blob. That's the Costa Concordia.
If I lived on Isola del Giglio, I'd be pretty pissed.
12-12-13: I'm going to try to get a screen cap, as the map this links to is updated. As of today you can still see the Costa Concordia, as well as all the salvage vessels around it. It's still huge.
View Larger Map
See where it says Giglio Porto? Look just north of the text at that strange light blob. That's the Costa Concordia.
If I lived on Isola del Giglio, I'd be pretty pissed.
12-12-13: I'm going to try to get a screen cap, as the map this links to is updated. As of today you can still see the Costa Concordia, as well as all the salvage vessels around it. It's still huge.
And more cute. Because I want cute today.
It's amazing how cats move. You just don't normally get to admire it since we don't watch real life in slow motiion.
Cute Overload
I had been working on another post, but it was just me moaning and bitching about life in general, and a few specifics, which, really, no one but me is interested in. And it just makes me feel even more like bitching and moaning.
So for all our amusement lots of cute critters doing cute things. Though I wish I knew what the dog at the very end is saying. Because it really sounds like he's speaking a human language, just not one I know.
Enjoy.
So for all our amusement lots of cute critters doing cute things. Though I wish I knew what the dog at the very end is saying. Because it really sounds like he's speaking a human language, just not one I know.
Enjoy.
Friday, February 15, 2013
Over-reaction
At least that's what I'd call it. We lost another two days of school at the beginning of the week to snow. In that we don't seem to be able to handle a foot of snow as far as plowing and keeping the power on, it wasn't an over-reaction, but it would be nice if they'd figure out that we do get snow now and be prepared for it. We shouldn't need to have the governor declare a state of emergency and get FEMA involved any time we get more snow than will melt in 24 hours of over freezing temps.
So at least two of the local school systems have cut their two-day February break down to just the federal holiday. Which makes sense given that we've already gone through eight weather days between Sandy, Nemo/Charlotte, and whatever the last snow storm was. It will be interesting to see how much later my younger daughter's school system has to go to get in their federally allotted minimum class time for the year.
So at least two of the local school systems have cut their two-day February break down to just the federal holiday. Which makes sense given that we've already gone through eight weather days between Sandy, Nemo/Charlotte, and whatever the last snow storm was. It will be interesting to see how much later my younger daughter's school system has to go to get in their federally allotted minimum class time for the year.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
I've come down with something, and it's supposed to snow again.
In spite of my best efforts, my family has proved that I did a good job teaching them to share. I am sitting hiding in my office at work quickly going through the box of tissues on my desk. Thankfully I have a new box out in the car. If I stick it out much to lunch time, I'm sure I'll have to go out and get it.
And they are threatening us with another one to three inches of snow tonight. My younger daughter's school may be closed again, since a lot of the streets in that town are only just starting to get plowed out today.
I slept very poorly last night. My husband went to bed early, which should have told me he wasn't feeling great, since today is one of his days off. I got up there, read for a few minutes, and as soon as I turned my light off he started snoring. Even on his side. Even after I poked him to get him to move. And when he wasn't snoring, it was because he wasn't breathing. After a few seconds he would start up again with a noise fit to wake the dead. And I was neither dead, nor even asleep. I didn't get to sleep myself until well after 1am, woke up twice during the night, and had to get up at 6.
I'm debating heading home; I have around 4 weeks of vacation time. But I have to schedule knee arthroscopy for later this year, and if it goes like last time, though it shouldn't, I'll be out for at least three weeks. But the knee has started keeping me up or waking me up at night, and it's started buckling for no particular reason again, and it's about half again the size of the other knee. The MRI from last week showed lots of arthritis, possible re-tearing of the medial meniscus (the one that was torn last time), definite tearing of the lateral meniscus, and a 2cm cyst under the patella. I don't think conservative treatment will work very well on this.
And my new computer at work as decided that it has to have an HP pop-up every hour or so asking me if I would like the Software Update to check for updates now. If it were my computer I'd do it, if only to get the damn thing to shut up. But as it is, I have absolutely no admin rights on this thing, and MIS seems to think there is no way to tell it to go away. Grrrr.
And I'm still running an outdated browser, although we are at least up to Windows 7 for the OS (only just replacing XP) and Office '07 from '03. Not that I'm one to talk about Office. My new laptop didn't come with Office or even Office starter with the ads. So I've got Open Office, and for those times when you just need an MS product, I've installed my nice copy of '97. It does what I need it to, and it's not like I'm sharing files so getting a newer version isn't a high financial priority.
I'm going to go back and continue hunting for obscure articles for my patrons, and hope that my nose survives the afternoon.
And they are threatening us with another one to three inches of snow tonight. My younger daughter's school may be closed again, since a lot of the streets in that town are only just starting to get plowed out today.
I slept very poorly last night. My husband went to bed early, which should have told me he wasn't feeling great, since today is one of his days off. I got up there, read for a few minutes, and as soon as I turned my light off he started snoring. Even on his side. Even after I poked him to get him to move. And when he wasn't snoring, it was because he wasn't breathing. After a few seconds he would start up again with a noise fit to wake the dead. And I was neither dead, nor even asleep. I didn't get to sleep myself until well after 1am, woke up twice during the night, and had to get up at 6.
I'm debating heading home; I have around 4 weeks of vacation time. But I have to schedule knee arthroscopy for later this year, and if it goes like last time, though it shouldn't, I'll be out for at least three weeks. But the knee has started keeping me up or waking me up at night, and it's started buckling for no particular reason again, and it's about half again the size of the other knee. The MRI from last week showed lots of arthritis, possible re-tearing of the medial meniscus (the one that was torn last time), definite tearing of the lateral meniscus, and a 2cm cyst under the patella. I don't think conservative treatment will work very well on this.
And my new computer at work as decided that it has to have an HP pop-up every hour or so asking me if I would like the Software Update to check for updates now. If it were my computer I'd do it, if only to get the damn thing to shut up. But as it is, I have absolutely no admin rights on this thing, and MIS seems to think there is no way to tell it to go away. Grrrr.
And I'm still running an outdated browser, although we are at least up to Windows 7 for the OS (only just replacing XP) and Office '07 from '03. Not that I'm one to talk about Office. My new laptop didn't come with Office or even Office starter with the ads. So I've got Open Office, and for those times when you just need an MS product, I've installed my nice copy of '97. It does what I need it to, and it's not like I'm sharing files so getting a newer version isn't a high financial priority.
I'm going to go back and continue hunting for obscure articles for my patrons, and hope that my nose survives the afternoon.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
We survived!
Not that it was hard. We did lose power for about five hours on Friday evening, but not enough for the house to cool down below 60. We had parked the cars one behind the other, rather than side by side, which made clearing out enough drive so my husband could go to work today easy enough. I tried to finish up the little bit behind my car after his left and discovered that the bottom third was more like a hard frozen slushy than snow, so I only got about half of it done before my asthma decided I had done enough for the morning, so I didn't make it to church. The husband and girls have finished clearing that bit out as well as our front walk, so if there is mail delivery tomorrow we will get it. But we do have to find our rubbish bins before Wednesday, since they are where the snow all got pushed (one neighbor has a plowing business, and when he saw my daughter working on the heavy stuff at the end of the drive yesterday, he made a few passes and cleared it off - we have nice neighbors). But away from the drifts we didn't get more than about a foot. However there is no school again tomorrow, probably because so many areas still aren't plowed, and I imagine they are worried about the ice that will form tonight after so much stuff has melted, but had no where to go.
I'll get some of my husband's pictures to post later today, but this is from the local dairy queen at the corner down from our house. My husband took this picture Friday evening around 5pm.
I wonder if that was intentional, since they only opened of Thursday.
I'll get some of my husband's pictures to post later today, but this is from the local dairy queen at the corner down from our house. My husband took this picture Friday evening around 5pm.
I wonder if that was intentional, since they only opened of Thursday.
Thursday, February 07, 2013
"OMG! Is that snow? We're all going to die!"
I wish I could find that picture, supposedly it's a real road sign, not a photoshop, seen in Texas a year or so ago. But it certainly describes how everyone around here acts when they hear the word "SNOW".
The .gov has upgraded the Winter Storm Watch to a Blizzard Watch, telling us "...A POTENTIAL HISTORIC WINTER STORM AND BLIZZARD IS EXPECTED TO DROP 1 TO 2 FEET OF SNOW ACROSS MUCH OF THE REGION FRIDAY INTO SATURDAY..." Of course, "much of the region" probably means a line starting at least a few miles north of our house. But it also means that we'll probably be lucky if the kids even have a half day of school tomorrow. And just as my younger girl is starting to go back to school again after almost 2 months of various illnesses. I really want her to be able to go regularly, and get back into the habit, and we just don't need this.
I should stop and stock up this evening, just to be sure, though we have plenty of TP at home, and I don't eat bread. One friend has always wondered why everyone always buys eggs when it looks like we might have power outages. Either they are planning to hardboil them all in advance, or else they like the idea of having something which they can look at but not eat? Or else they all like making bread pudding after the whole thing is over.
This is New England. Until the last few decades we expected to get lots of snow. We need to get used to it again.
I wonder how short the town's budget for snow removal will be this year. Every year that I've been involved with the budget process, we've ended up doing a 4th quarter transfer to cover a serious shortfall. And every year they keep the budget at the same level as the year before. At some point, they really need to fix this. Maybe ask for the average of the previous 4 years actual expenses?
I should probably ask my boss for a day off tomorrow. I'm a librarian, so while my hospital badge will supposedly allow me to drive on the roads, even if they've been closed, I don't think the Staties would really consider me emergency personnel.
The .gov has upgraded the Winter Storm Watch to a Blizzard Watch, telling us "...A POTENTIAL HISTORIC WINTER STORM AND BLIZZARD IS EXPECTED TO DROP 1 TO 2 FEET OF SNOW ACROSS MUCH OF THE REGION FRIDAY INTO SATURDAY..." Of course, "much of the region" probably means a line starting at least a few miles north of our house. But it also means that we'll probably be lucky if the kids even have a half day of school tomorrow. And just as my younger girl is starting to go back to school again after almost 2 months of various illnesses. I really want her to be able to go regularly, and get back into the habit, and we just don't need this.
I should stop and stock up this evening, just to be sure, though we have plenty of TP at home, and I don't eat bread. One friend has always wondered why everyone always buys eggs when it looks like we might have power outages. Either they are planning to hardboil them all in advance, or else they like the idea of having something which they can look at but not eat? Or else they all like making bread pudding after the whole thing is over.
This is New England. Until the last few decades we expected to get lots of snow. We need to get used to it again.
I wonder how short the town's budget for snow removal will be this year. Every year that I've been involved with the budget process, we've ended up doing a 4th quarter transfer to cover a serious shortfall. And every year they keep the budget at the same level as the year before. At some point, they really need to fix this. Maybe ask for the average of the previous 4 years actual expenses?
I should probably ask my boss for a day off tomorrow. I'm a librarian, so while my hospital badge will supposedly allow me to drive on the roads, even if they've been closed, I don't think the Staties would really consider me emergency personnel.
Tuesday, February 05, 2013
Ah, Bureaucracy!
I'm finally getting around to switching from the local cable company for TV, internet, and phone, to NO TV, Comcast for a higher speed cable internet, and a basic metered land line with ATT. They finally have a package for under $15 a month with tax for a line, but you pay 3.5 cents a minute for all local calls. Since we use our land line for maybe 15 minutes of calls a month, this is still less money than we're paying the cable company or would pay ATT for the next level with free local calling.
Everything was going fine until we came to the address for service.
ATT: "Are you at Unit A or Unit B?"
Me: "There are no units, it's a single family dwelling."
ATT: "But our 911 files show two units."
Me: There is only one unit. There has only ever been one bathroom in this house, so I don't see how it could ever have had a second unit.
ATT: "We have to go by the 911 files."
Me: "?"
ATT: "Maybe there was a second phone line at some point?"
Me: "That would explain the second set of lines coming out of the house on the other side from the ones going to the street, the ones that are no longer hooked up to the street, and which I've been meaning to cut off since they are coiled under the front porch right now."
ATT: "Well, we'll put down no unit number and see what happens, but we may have to call you again."
Me: "OK." /sigh
This is the third time I've been through this with them in two days.
I should call Mike back and ask if there is an e-mail address I can send a copy of the town tax roll and/or GIS info to to show that there is only one physical unit at that address.
Everything was going fine until we came to the address for service.
ATT: "Are you at Unit A or Unit B?"
Me: "There are no units, it's a single family dwelling."
ATT: "But our 911 files show two units."
Me: There is only one unit. There has only ever been one bathroom in this house, so I don't see how it could ever have had a second unit.
ATT: "We have to go by the 911 files."
Me: "?"
ATT: "Maybe there was a second phone line at some point?"
Me: "That would explain the second set of lines coming out of the house on the other side from the ones going to the street, the ones that are no longer hooked up to the street, and which I've been meaning to cut off since they are coiled under the front porch right now."
ATT: "Well, we'll put down no unit number and see what happens, but we may have to call you again."
Me: "OK." /sigh
This is the third time I've been through this with them in two days.
I should call Mike back and ask if there is an e-mail address I can send a copy of the town tax roll and/or GIS info to to show that there is only one physical unit at that address.
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Angst, angst, existential dread!
Well, not quite that bad, and not mine.
My younger daughter is having back and neck issues since she hurt her ribs coughing last month. She is very upset that I am expecting her to go to school since her sister is a piece of glass which we let get away with doing nothing. That her sister has had six vertebrae fused in her lower back, as well as developing an anxiety disorder which leaver her in full blown panic attack mode after a few hours at school has nothing to do with it.
This morning in the car on the way to school we went from tears of pain to "I should just move in with hobos, they'd treat me better", to "I should just kill myself because then I wouldn't be in pain for the rest of my life." I'm not taking the latter to seriously since it was shouted at me in the heat of battle, so to speak. I dropped her off at school, and after very emphatically slamming the car door (hard to do you'd think if her back were really that non-functional), and watched her stump her way angrily to the door, again not showing any signs of back or neck issues. If they were really as bad as she's trying to make out, she wouldn't have been able to do that impressive stumping. I know, having been there. I will admit that she probably has back and neck pain, but it's not the mountain she's trying to make of it.
The title has to do with a housemate back in college. I don't know where the others dredged him up, but he was a philosophy major, and had a tendency when things weren't going his way to start getting all angst-y. The thing is that I'd never seen the word before, and tended to pronounce it American, not German. Another housemate and I were discussing his issues over lunch one day and I used the "hang" version and she corrected me. I thought about it for a moment and then suggested that for this guy, hang was more appropriate than "tong". She thought about that and agreed. From then on, whenever he started getting all serious, in the way only a 19 or 20 year old can, we'd start laughing and saying "Angst, angst, existential dread!". He hated it, and would at least leave and be all angst-y someplace else. It also probably made it easier to kick him out when we found out he was keeping pot in the house which was a) illegal and b) something another housemate was seriously allergic to.
But it gave me a great phrase for dealing with teenage emotional woes. I do have a call in to her doctor about whether we should be making an appointment with ortho. I also need to get her back to the naturopath, and get a refill on her herbal script, because whatever is in that Vitex stuff really seems to help her emotional stability.
My younger daughter is having back and neck issues since she hurt her ribs coughing last month. She is very upset that I am expecting her to go to school since her sister is a piece of glass which we let get away with doing nothing. That her sister has had six vertebrae fused in her lower back, as well as developing an anxiety disorder which leaver her in full blown panic attack mode after a few hours at school has nothing to do with it.
This morning in the car on the way to school we went from tears of pain to "I should just move in with hobos, they'd treat me better", to "I should just kill myself because then I wouldn't be in pain for the rest of my life." I'm not taking the latter to seriously since it was shouted at me in the heat of battle, so to speak. I dropped her off at school, and after very emphatically slamming the car door (hard to do you'd think if her back were really that non-functional), and watched her stump her way angrily to the door, again not showing any signs of back or neck issues. If they were really as bad as she's trying to make out, she wouldn't have been able to do that impressive stumping. I know, having been there. I will admit that she probably has back and neck pain, but it's not the mountain she's trying to make of it.
The title has to do with a housemate back in college. I don't know where the others dredged him up, but he was a philosophy major, and had a tendency when things weren't going his way to start getting all angst-y. The thing is that I'd never seen the word before, and tended to pronounce it American, not German. Another housemate and I were discussing his issues over lunch one day and I used the "hang" version and she corrected me. I thought about it for a moment and then suggested that for this guy, hang was more appropriate than "tong". She thought about that and agreed. From then on, whenever he started getting all serious, in the way only a 19 or 20 year old can, we'd start laughing and saying "Angst, angst, existential dread!". He hated it, and would at least leave and be all angst-y someplace else. It also probably made it easier to kick him out when we found out he was keeping pot in the house which was a) illegal and b) something another housemate was seriously allergic to.
But it gave me a great phrase for dealing with teenage emotional woes. I do have a call in to her doctor about whether we should be making an appointment with ortho. I also need to get her back to the naturopath, and get a refill on her herbal script, because whatever is in that Vitex stuff really seems to help her emotional stability.
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Seriously people...
Is it really that hard to drive in 1 inch of wet snow, especially after the plows have been out and thrown sandy salt all over everything?
This morning we woke up to a "snow storm". In our area it meant that we had less than an inch of slush on the porch, cars, and drive, and the stuff that was falling lightly from the sky was already rain. Maybe it's just having spent much of my childhood in Michigan, both Marquette and Ann Arbor, as well as a year in upstate New York, outside Geneva, but I would not qualify that as a storm, never mind a snow storm.
However, here in wimp land, most of the school districts had at best a delayed opening, and several of the more inland ones actually cancelled school. Since elder child's school is in Norwich, even though it is not a Norwich public school, it was cancelled, not that it makes any difference to us, since she won't be attending again until probably at least next week. (The PPT meeting is tomorrow, thank God.)
Younger child attends the magnet high school in New London, which happens to be the only school system in the entire state that is functioning normally today. Since I drive her, she actually got there more or less on time, which means 90 minutes earlier than the other Groton students. The roads were fine.
However.... There are a lot of idiots out there who probably should never have gotten behind the wheel of a car this morning (or maybe any other morning). Just after turning on to the main road from the house I saw a fair few emergency lights, and as I passed them I could see where someone had gone off the road and into a parked mini-van. The van had presumably been parked in someone's driveway, but it was skewed at least 30 degrees off true, and had a dent at least a foot deep in the back passenger side quarter panel. I hate to think how fast the sedan driver had been going to do that much damage. There were reports of accidents all along I-395S; I was going north and we were fine, but the traffic backups on the other side were fairly impressive.
The thing is, that I'm driving a 10 year old front-wheel-drive Santa Fe with generic all-weather tires. This is not the greatest vehicle for bad roads. And I had no problems at all. But then again, I was also driving at a sensible speed and taking turns and lane changes cautiously, something many other drivers in this neck of the wood seem pathologically incapable of doing.
Folks, this may be southern New England, but it's still New England. We DO get snow, and learning how to deal with it without either creeping at 5 miles an hour or blasting along like a sunny summer day would be A Good Thing.
This morning we woke up to a "snow storm". In our area it meant that we had less than an inch of slush on the porch, cars, and drive, and the stuff that was falling lightly from the sky was already rain. Maybe it's just having spent much of my childhood in Michigan, both Marquette and Ann Arbor, as well as a year in upstate New York, outside Geneva, but I would not qualify that as a storm, never mind a snow storm.
However, here in wimp land, most of the school districts had at best a delayed opening, and several of the more inland ones actually cancelled school. Since elder child's school is in Norwich, even though it is not a Norwich public school, it was cancelled, not that it makes any difference to us, since she won't be attending again until probably at least next week. (The PPT meeting is tomorrow, thank God.)
Younger child attends the magnet high school in New London, which happens to be the only school system in the entire state that is functioning normally today. Since I drive her, she actually got there more or less on time, which means 90 minutes earlier than the other Groton students. The roads were fine.
However.... There are a lot of idiots out there who probably should never have gotten behind the wheel of a car this morning (or maybe any other morning). Just after turning on to the main road from the house I saw a fair few emergency lights, and as I passed them I could see where someone had gone off the road and into a parked mini-van. The van had presumably been parked in someone's driveway, but it was skewed at least 30 degrees off true, and had a dent at least a foot deep in the back passenger side quarter panel. I hate to think how fast the sedan driver had been going to do that much damage. There were reports of accidents all along I-395S; I was going north and we were fine, but the traffic backups on the other side were fairly impressive.
The thing is, that I'm driving a 10 year old front-wheel-drive Santa Fe with generic all-weather tires. This is not the greatest vehicle for bad roads. And I had no problems at all. But then again, I was also driving at a sensible speed and taking turns and lane changes cautiously, something many other drivers in this neck of the wood seem pathologically incapable of doing.
Folks, this may be southern New England, but it's still New England. We DO get snow, and learning how to deal with it without either creeping at 5 miles an hour or blasting along like a sunny summer day would be A Good Thing.
Thursday, January 03, 2013
Another New Year
May it be better than the last.
My lack of postage the last month has had several reasons.
First, a certain existential weariness in the aftermath of the November elections. I'm mentally bone tired, if that makes any sense. I know we've got to keep fighting, but right now I need some serious R&R, and failing that, at the least some lengthy down time before I get back into the fray.
Second, I've had the bug that's been going around New England this last month. I think it's the flu, but since I got my shot, I'm just not feeling well, even if I'm not feeling sick. And my children have both had the same thing. Add in younger's foot issue, and then costochondritis from coughing so hard, she's been out of school since early December. At least we're trying her on some naprosyn and starting PT and she's (supposedly) going back tomorrow.
And then there is elder's anxiety/depression/panic issues, which are exacerbating her migraines, as well as a new school with lovely newer light fixtures, which hum at a pitch that irritates her as well as the florescents, which also are a migraine trigger.... We tried two of the older anti-depressants which usually help with migraines, but they didn't help much if at all, and the side effects were too much to deal with. So then her doc tried her on Prozac, and we found that she is one of those folks whom Prozac turns into a ball of weepy despair. She saw her Neuro yesterday, and we're trying gabapentin now, which works for her aunt for depression, and which is also supposed to be good for migraines for at least some. I also need to get her some wrap around sunglasses which aren't too dark to wear indoors to try to block the worst of the florescent light. She has an initial evaluation appointment with an MSW Monday week, and then we have a PPT the Thursday after. Oh joy. At least the kid is bright and if she puts her mind to it, once we get the headaches, anxiety, panic, and depression under control, she shouldn't have any real trouble catching up, since she too hasn't been to school since early December.
Work is work, quite slow right now, but at least they've gone away from having everyone choose two "goals" for the year. Totally pointless, and sometimes counterproductive to actually doing the job you were hired for. I got a whopping 1% raise, but had to drop the health insurance, since they dropped the lower cost plan, and our premiums for the higher plan would have been equivalent to the maximum out of pocket for the year with Tricare. Since we'd still have had co-pays and stuff, it just didn't seem worth it, especially since we didn't know what was happening on the tax front.
And speaking of taxes.... From the point of view of the family fisc, the continuation of all the Evil Bush Tax Cuts which Only Help the Wealthy(tm) has been a good thing; their expiration would have cost us another $30 to $40 a week. I understand the SS tax going back to it's original 6.2%, which I wouldn't mind half as much if I thought I might actually ever see a penny of it coming back to me. However, from the point of view of a concerned citizen, I'm appalled that we've passed $40 of new taxes for every $1 of cuts, with unspecified (and therefore never will happen) cuts to be discussed sometime in the future.
And then last weekend the MacBook died. I opened it up from sleep mode, the screen flashed on for a split second, and then nothing. I turned it off and turned it on again, and the same thing. I don't know if it would work hooked up to another screen, though the drive itself seems OK. Thankfully there were only two or three files on it which I hadn't recently backed up to another device, and while ones I want, they aren't crucial, and I can recreate them. So I went out and spent way too much money on a new ASUS Core i5 laptop with a 15 point something inch screen. I am happy. Now I just have to arrange with ATT to get the landline back at the basic, pay extra for any calls, level, and have the cable company drop the TV and phone, and up our cable internet speed, which should save enough per month and then some to pay for the computer within the 18 months/no interest period.
And now back to do some more before I head out to pick up elder child for her voice lesson.....
My lack of postage the last month has had several reasons.
First, a certain existential weariness in the aftermath of the November elections. I'm mentally bone tired, if that makes any sense. I know we've got to keep fighting, but right now I need some serious R&R, and failing that, at the least some lengthy down time before I get back into the fray.
Second, I've had the bug that's been going around New England this last month. I think it's the flu, but since I got my shot, I'm just not feeling well, even if I'm not feeling sick. And my children have both had the same thing. Add in younger's foot issue, and then costochondritis from coughing so hard, she's been out of school since early December. At least we're trying her on some naprosyn and starting PT and she's (supposedly) going back tomorrow.
And then there is elder's anxiety/depression/panic issues, which are exacerbating her migraines, as well as a new school with lovely newer light fixtures, which hum at a pitch that irritates her as well as the florescents, which also are a migraine trigger.... We tried two of the older anti-depressants which usually help with migraines, but they didn't help much if at all, and the side effects were too much to deal with. So then her doc tried her on Prozac, and we found that she is one of those folks whom Prozac turns into a ball of weepy despair. She saw her Neuro yesterday, and we're trying gabapentin now, which works for her aunt for depression, and which is also supposed to be good for migraines for at least some. I also need to get her some wrap around sunglasses which aren't too dark to wear indoors to try to block the worst of the florescent light. She has an initial evaluation appointment with an MSW Monday week, and then we have a PPT the Thursday after. Oh joy. At least the kid is bright and if she puts her mind to it, once we get the headaches, anxiety, panic, and depression under control, she shouldn't have any real trouble catching up, since she too hasn't been to school since early December.
Work is work, quite slow right now, but at least they've gone away from having everyone choose two "goals" for the year. Totally pointless, and sometimes counterproductive to actually doing the job you were hired for. I got a whopping 1% raise, but had to drop the health insurance, since they dropped the lower cost plan, and our premiums for the higher plan would have been equivalent to the maximum out of pocket for the year with Tricare. Since we'd still have had co-pays and stuff, it just didn't seem worth it, especially since we didn't know what was happening on the tax front.
And speaking of taxes.... From the point of view of the family fisc, the continuation of all the Evil Bush Tax Cuts which Only Help the Wealthy(tm) has been a good thing; their expiration would have cost us another $30 to $40 a week. I understand the SS tax going back to it's original 6.2%, which I wouldn't mind half as much if I thought I might actually ever see a penny of it coming back to me. However, from the point of view of a concerned citizen, I'm appalled that we've passed $40 of new taxes for every $1 of cuts, with unspecified (and therefore never will happen) cuts to be discussed sometime in the future.
And then last weekend the MacBook died. I opened it up from sleep mode, the screen flashed on for a split second, and then nothing. I turned it off and turned it on again, and the same thing. I don't know if it would work hooked up to another screen, though the drive itself seems OK. Thankfully there were only two or three files on it which I hadn't recently backed up to another device, and while ones I want, they aren't crucial, and I can recreate them. So I went out and spent way too much money on a new ASUS Core i5 laptop with a 15 point something inch screen. I am happy. Now I just have to arrange with ATT to get the landline back at the basic, pay extra for any calls, level, and have the cable company drop the TV and phone, and up our cable internet speed, which should save enough per month and then some to pay for the computer within the 18 months/no interest period.
And now back to do some more before I head out to pick up elder child for her voice lesson.....
Friday, December 14, 2012
Dear God....
This is less than a two hour drive from me.
26 Dead at Newtown CT Elementary School
I'll give NBC some credit, they don't seem to be counting the shooter in that number, since other outlets are reporting 27 including the primary shooter, though it seems there is possibly a second one.
And right on cue all the gun haters are out claiming that if we just banned guns this wouldn't have happened. That the UK banned hand guns and hand gun crime has gone up steadily since then would suggest that it might not be too successful.
What would be much more successful is not making target-rich, defense-free environments out of our schools and hospitals.
If there is indeed a second shooter who survived, it will be interesting to see how many folks in state government suddenly have second thoughts on their votes to get rid of the death penalty.
If I'm sounding a little callous, it's just because I'm working my way mentally around the edges of this thing, it being far to horrible to face head on. That and I've never been one for hysterics and "sensibility" in the Jane Austen sense of the word. I also don't personally know anyone involved so it's a little more removed emotionally. I really am not up for contemplating a classroom of dead kindergartners.
26 Dead at Newtown CT Elementary School
I'll give NBC some credit, they don't seem to be counting the shooter in that number, since other outlets are reporting 27 including the primary shooter, though it seems there is possibly a second one.
And right on cue all the gun haters are out claiming that if we just banned guns this wouldn't have happened. That the UK banned hand guns and hand gun crime has gone up steadily since then would suggest that it might not be too successful.
What would be much more successful is not making target-rich, defense-free environments out of our schools and hospitals.
If there is indeed a second shooter who survived, it will be interesting to see how many folks in state government suddenly have second thoughts on their votes to get rid of the death penalty.
If I'm sounding a little callous, it's just because I'm working my way mentally around the edges of this thing, it being far to horrible to face head on. That and I've never been one for hysterics and "sensibility" in the Jane Austen sense of the word. I also don't personally know anyone involved so it's a little more removed emotionally. I really am not up for contemplating a classroom of dead kindergartners.
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Horses
The last few days have been ... long.
I've got an elder daughter who has Generalized Anxiety Disorder, bad enough now that the school is having to put together an IEP. We've tried attending class, but within the first hour or so she breaks down in tears for an hour or more. So she's staying home for now until we can get the PPT meeting set up, probably in early January.
Younger daughter has a bad cold/flu along with abdominal pain. She's on her eighth day out of school. I think at least part of it is feeling jealous of the attention her sister is getting. But it's getting old, spending tons of time at the doctor's and the hospital, just to be told there is nothing really wrong.
/Sigh.
So I'm thinking about stuff that makes me happy. I've got a piano, though it isn't playable yet; my mother is going to get me a piano tuning/check up for sometime after Christmas, so soon.
The other thing I haven't had in my life for years that makes me happy is horses. I spent most of my childhood trying to convince my parents to get me riding lessons, but my father was quite adamant that "only the children of doctors and lawyers" learned to ride. Which always seemed a bit weird since his father, admittedly the child of a judge, had not only ridden horses, but had worked out in Montana and Wyoming for over 10 years as a cowboy, after attending the Cornell Ag school. My grandmother always said that if Grandpa had been alive I would have probably had my own pony by the time I was six or seven. But he had died when I was only six months old, so no horses for me.
When I was 13 we moved and I only had one music lesson a week, there being no clarinet teachers in the area, the closest stable was walking distance, and the lessons cost the same or even less than the music lesson, and the neighbor who was a builder got his kids lessons there. So I got to ride. A year and a half later we moved to Galway and I took lessons for the next two years until I went off to college. I took lessons for a year in grad school, and then again for a few months about 10 years ago, until I had a fall and cracked my tailbone hard enough that it hurt to stand or sit or move for several months.
At this point I'm creaky enough and fat enough that I'm not sure I want to get back on a horse, but I want to be around them, maybe learn to drive, which has always looked pretty fun. I was never that good a rider, being not the most physically adept person out there, but I always got on well with the animals.
At my second stable we had a large dapple grey hunter, more draft than thoroughbred, named Lord Jim. I remember going into his stall one day to tack him up for the lesson to find him lying on his side, doing a very good impression of dead. I called his name and he flicked an ear and an eyelid at me, so that worry was dispelled. Now I just had to get him up. I called him again and walked up to him. His ear twitched. I poked his rather vast stomach with my boot. The ear twitched again. I poked harder. Same reaction. I gently kicked him, and got the "Oohh!, that's the spot! can you move a little to the right now?" look from him. At this point the instructor came to see what was taking so long. The instant she looked over the door he was on his feet looking guilty. I have been since given to understand that this a sign that Jim liked me and trusted me, but I'd rather have had a little less trust, since it wasn't like I could physically pick the beast up. On the other hand, it did mean that I could get him to do stuff that most of the other students couldn't, much to the instructors' surprise, since I wasn't that good. When they'd ask how I did it, I'd look at them say I just asked Jim nicely. He liked me, so he'd do it.
At my first stable my favorite was an outsize pony (14.3 or so) named Pivot. There were days when he wouldn't do what I asked him to, especially in the beginning. I can remember a frustrating five or ten minutes when I couldn't get him to canter on the correct rein for love nor money, and much to the frustration of the instructor. She finally had me get off him so she could show me how to do it. Pivot crab-stepped the entire way around the ring, and wouldn't even for her. But again, he liked me, especially after that first summer. My second summer there, I was usually in the first group lesson of the day, and I'd get him, because I was one of the few students who could go in to tack him up and not have him play lame.
I also remember one day watching the owner give a "lesson" to a very small child, a toddler really, whose parents just wanted her to have the experience of being on a real horse. Even though the stable did have some real ponies, much smaller than Pivot, he was the owner's choice for this, and watching I could see why. As he was led around the ring with this tiny child on his back, whose feet didn't even go past the saddle leathers, he was walking on glass. He knew what he had on his back, and that he had to take special care of her.
We moved at the end of that second summer. We were visiting two years later and I stopped by the stables to find out that the previous winter someone had been poaching in the state forest the stable abutted, and shot him in the pasture, thinking he was a deer. I still think of him fondly after nearly 40 years.
Well, if they actually do sort out the tax situation and I don't have to come up with an extra $60 to $70 a week in federal taxes next year, maybe now's the time to get started again.
I've got an elder daughter who has Generalized Anxiety Disorder, bad enough now that the school is having to put together an IEP. We've tried attending class, but within the first hour or so she breaks down in tears for an hour or more. So she's staying home for now until we can get the PPT meeting set up, probably in early January.
Younger daughter has a bad cold/flu along with abdominal pain. She's on her eighth day out of school. I think at least part of it is feeling jealous of the attention her sister is getting. But it's getting old, spending tons of time at the doctor's and the hospital, just to be told there is nothing really wrong.
/Sigh.
So I'm thinking about stuff that makes me happy. I've got a piano, though it isn't playable yet; my mother is going to get me a piano tuning/check up for sometime after Christmas, so soon.
The other thing I haven't had in my life for years that makes me happy is horses. I spent most of my childhood trying to convince my parents to get me riding lessons, but my father was quite adamant that "only the children of doctors and lawyers" learned to ride. Which always seemed a bit weird since his father, admittedly the child of a judge, had not only ridden horses, but had worked out in Montana and Wyoming for over 10 years as a cowboy, after attending the Cornell Ag school. My grandmother always said that if Grandpa had been alive I would have probably had my own pony by the time I was six or seven. But he had died when I was only six months old, so no horses for me.
When I was 13 we moved and I only had one music lesson a week, there being no clarinet teachers in the area, the closest stable was walking distance, and the lessons cost the same or even less than the music lesson, and the neighbor who was a builder got his kids lessons there. So I got to ride. A year and a half later we moved to Galway and I took lessons for the next two years until I went off to college. I took lessons for a year in grad school, and then again for a few months about 10 years ago, until I had a fall and cracked my tailbone hard enough that it hurt to stand or sit or move for several months.
At this point I'm creaky enough and fat enough that I'm not sure I want to get back on a horse, but I want to be around them, maybe learn to drive, which has always looked pretty fun. I was never that good a rider, being not the most physically adept person out there, but I always got on well with the animals.
At my second stable we had a large dapple grey hunter, more draft than thoroughbred, named Lord Jim. I remember going into his stall one day to tack him up for the lesson to find him lying on his side, doing a very good impression of dead. I called his name and he flicked an ear and an eyelid at me, so that worry was dispelled. Now I just had to get him up. I called him again and walked up to him. His ear twitched. I poked his rather vast stomach with my boot. The ear twitched again. I poked harder. Same reaction. I gently kicked him, and got the "Oohh!, that's the spot! can you move a little to the right now?" look from him. At this point the instructor came to see what was taking so long. The instant she looked over the door he was on his feet looking guilty. I have been since given to understand that this a sign that Jim liked me and trusted me, but I'd rather have had a little less trust, since it wasn't like I could physically pick the beast up. On the other hand, it did mean that I could get him to do stuff that most of the other students couldn't, much to the instructors' surprise, since I wasn't that good. When they'd ask how I did it, I'd look at them say I just asked Jim nicely. He liked me, so he'd do it.
At my first stable my favorite was an outsize pony (14.3 or so) named Pivot. There were days when he wouldn't do what I asked him to, especially in the beginning. I can remember a frustrating five or ten minutes when I couldn't get him to canter on the correct rein for love nor money, and much to the frustration of the instructor. She finally had me get off him so she could show me how to do it. Pivot crab-stepped the entire way around the ring, and wouldn't even for her. But again, he liked me, especially after that first summer. My second summer there, I was usually in the first group lesson of the day, and I'd get him, because I was one of the few students who could go in to tack him up and not have him play lame.
I also remember one day watching the owner give a "lesson" to a very small child, a toddler really, whose parents just wanted her to have the experience of being on a real horse. Even though the stable did have some real ponies, much smaller than Pivot, he was the owner's choice for this, and watching I could see why. As he was led around the ring with this tiny child on his back, whose feet didn't even go past the saddle leathers, he was walking on glass. He knew what he had on his back, and that he had to take special care of her.
We moved at the end of that second summer. We were visiting two years later and I stopped by the stables to find out that the previous winter someone had been poaching in the state forest the stable abutted, and shot him in the pasture, thinking he was a deer. I still think of him fondly after nearly 40 years.
Well, if they actually do sort out the tax situation and I don't have to come up with an extra $60 to $70 a week in federal taxes next year, maybe now's the time to get started again.
Monday, December 10, 2012
Piano!
As are many others around the blogosphere, I am tired of politics. I'm following it, but just don't have the energy at the moment to get worked up about it. I'm preparing for economic disaster to the family fisc starting January 1st, and after that it's pretty much going to be playing it by ear, since no-one in DC seems to have a clue what is actually going to happen.
So, instead I'm going to be happy because I now have a piano. My husband isn't too sure about it; when I told him a few weeks ago that I would be able to get one if I took care of the moving of it, his first and only question was "Why?". To which the answer was, "I want one, I played for years, and I've missed having one for the last 20, and the girls want one too".
So I spent the last week tidying things up, and taking down the old guinea pig palace since it was in the only sensible spot for the piano. I have a friend who's family could really use the money and gave him $100 (since he'd have to round up at least one other healthy male - uprights are heavy, and possible rent a truck) and said that they could pick up our spare fridge that has been living in the shed since we moved, since their's broke a few weeks back.
So yesterday afternoon, said friend get a U-Haul and a friend, went to my mother's friend's to get the piano which they needed to get rid of (so now those friends are happy), brought it to our place and got it into the back room (so now I'm happy), took the fridge from the shed (so now we're both happy, I can use the space more than an unused fridge), and presumably got it set up in his house, so now he and his wife are happy.
All told not a bad days work all around.
Now I just have to finish cleaning the downstairs for Christmas, and so we can have the piano tuner in. Needless to say the move wasn't kind to the tuning, and since it hasn't really been played in many years, the action is stiff in places, and doesn't always rebound completely. But it's a Beckwith, and even grossly out of tune it sounds pretty decent, especially for something that cost me $100 and a 30+ year old refridgerator.
And then this morning, I got back to work after taking the youngest to the doctor's to find a basket of recorders at my office door. My mother seems to know from whence they came, and since she doesn't need a full consort of Aulos and some other less expensive wood ones, it looks like I may also now have a full set of recorders, only missing a garklein, and a contra-bass. Though it looks like they've been sitting around unloved for quite a while, so they'll all need a thorough cleaning. But again, FREE! The bass and the two tenors alone would set me back about $600 new. There are also two aulos altos, an aulos soprano as well as two wood sopranos and one wood sopranino.
Obviously this is music week.
So, instead I'm going to be happy because I now have a piano. My husband isn't too sure about it; when I told him a few weeks ago that I would be able to get one if I took care of the moving of it, his first and only question was "Why?". To which the answer was, "I want one, I played for years, and I've missed having one for the last 20, and the girls want one too".
So I spent the last week tidying things up, and taking down the old guinea pig palace since it was in the only sensible spot for the piano. I have a friend who's family could really use the money and gave him $100 (since he'd have to round up at least one other healthy male - uprights are heavy, and possible rent a truck) and said that they could pick up our spare fridge that has been living in the shed since we moved, since their's broke a few weeks back.
So yesterday afternoon, said friend get a U-Haul and a friend, went to my mother's friend's to get the piano which they needed to get rid of (so now those friends are happy), brought it to our place and got it into the back room (so now I'm happy), took the fridge from the shed (so now we're both happy, I can use the space more than an unused fridge), and presumably got it set up in his house, so now he and his wife are happy.
All told not a bad days work all around.
Now I just have to finish cleaning the downstairs for Christmas, and so we can have the piano tuner in. Needless to say the move wasn't kind to the tuning, and since it hasn't really been played in many years, the action is stiff in places, and doesn't always rebound completely. But it's a Beckwith, and even grossly out of tune it sounds pretty decent, especially for something that cost me $100 and a 30+ year old refridgerator.
And then this morning, I got back to work after taking the youngest to the doctor's to find a basket of recorders at my office door. My mother seems to know from whence they came, and since she doesn't need a full consort of Aulos and some other less expensive wood ones, it looks like I may also now have a full set of recorders, only missing a garklein, and a contra-bass. Though it looks like they've been sitting around unloved for quite a while, so they'll all need a thorough cleaning. But again, FREE! The bass and the two tenors alone would set me back about $600 new. There are also two aulos altos, an aulos soprano as well as two wood sopranos and one wood sopranino.
Obviously this is music week.
Saturday, December 08, 2012
A Mindless Saturday.
It's finally Saturday. I think I've figured out the meds (had to cut the Toprol dose in half, I was so sleepy), I had good solid, long, sleep last night, I've started picking up the kitchen and living room, and taking apart the old guinea pig pen, and in between, I'm playing stupid facebook games, logic puzzles, and watching really bad SyFy channel horror movies.
I'm always amazed that when something is falling towards someone they back straight up, when two steps sideways and they'd be clear.
So far, we've watched methane causing earthquakes and flash freezing people, a snow globe which makes things happen (with at times rather bad special effects), and later on, they will be showing their new for this year piece of Christmas disaster porn, which seems to have the same girl in it as last year's. But it has Ed Quinn, so at least the eye candy will be good.
And hopefully tomorrow, I'll get my piano.
I'm always amazed that when something is falling towards someone they back straight up, when two steps sideways and they'd be clear.
So far, we've watched methane causing earthquakes and flash freezing people, a snow globe which makes things happen (with at times rather bad special effects), and later on, they will be showing their new for this year piece of Christmas disaster porn, which seems to have the same girl in it as last year's. But it has Ed Quinn, so at least the eye candy will be good.
And hopefully tomorrow, I'll get my piano.
Friday, November 30, 2012
Greece, here we come!
I haven't posted anything for a week because I've been tired. I've also started back on Prozac, so I'm a little calmer about impending doom and don't have to work out as many frustrations in blogs and screams.
It's just so amazing to me, in the horrified fascination sort of way, that so many supposed adults, who call themselves Democrats and Americans, think that a compromise means that the other side does exactly what you want them to.
As a country we're broke, and unlike the average American who upon finding themselves deep in debt starts cutting back, takes a second job, etc, etc., the president and the Congresscritter (D)s think that we can spend out way out of it, by taxing the citizenry, and that we don't have to cut a single thing, except maybe "Later". Like anyone with even half a brain believes that.
It's not like Ø won with anything resembling an "overwhelming mandate". The Dems didn't even get the House back. So why they think that that gives them the right to do whatever they want, and half the country be damned, I understand intellectually, but not on an emotional level. To use standard leftist terminology "It's not FAIR!"
Of course, that when they get their way the entire country will be damned either hasn't occured to them, or they just don't care.
Sigh.
It's just so amazing to me, in the horrified fascination sort of way, that so many supposed adults, who call themselves Democrats and Americans, think that a compromise means that the other side does exactly what you want them to.
As a country we're broke, and unlike the average American who upon finding themselves deep in debt starts cutting back, takes a second job, etc, etc., the president and the Congresscritter (D)s think that we can spend out way out of it, by taxing the citizenry, and that we don't have to cut a single thing, except maybe "Later". Like anyone with even half a brain believes that.
It's not like Ø won with anything resembling an "overwhelming mandate". The Dems didn't even get the House back. So why they think that that gives them the right to do whatever they want, and half the country be damned, I understand intellectually, but not on an emotional level. To use standard leftist terminology "It's not FAIR!"
Of course, that when they get their way the entire country will be damned either hasn't occured to them, or they just don't care.
Sigh.
Thursday, November 22, 2012
The obligatory Happy Thanksgiving post
And indeed, the sentiment is honest.
I do have much for which to be thankful. I have a good husband, two (usually) good daughters (hey, they're teenagers, some angst is to be expected), a nice house, a job, working (for now) cars. We are all in reasonably good health, and we can afford to put a Thanksgiving dinner on the table.
I hope my few readers will have lists as good or better.
I'll try to put my usual ranting/venting/pessimism on hold for a day. 8)
I do have much for which to be thankful. I have a good husband, two (usually) good daughters (hey, they're teenagers, some angst is to be expected), a nice house, a job, working (for now) cars. We are all in reasonably good health, and we can afford to put a Thanksgiving dinner on the table.
I hope my few readers will have lists as good or better.
I'll try to put my usual ranting/venting/pessimism on hold for a day. 8)
Monday, November 19, 2012
Mind numbing idiocy/willful blindness
My sister who is a doctoral student at Cornell just posted this on her Facebook page:
I was happy to see Cornell students exercising their political voices today, and pleasantly surprised that the pro-Palestine/pro-peace rally dwarfed the Hillel sponsored pro-Israel rally across Ho Plaza. Also impressed to see one of my Coptic students front and center standing against the violence, contra his pro-Zionist family.
I'm wondering why she is surprised, pleasantly or otherwise, that the pro-palestinians would outnumber the pro-Israelis. Likewise why my sister thinks that only the pro-Palestinian protesters are for peace. Her area of study is middle-eastern archaeology, and she knows enough Jews that you would think she would know that there are far fewer Jews who would like to see a full-fledged conflict than there are Palestinians.
I'm actually going to be a good family member and NOT post any response, because it wouldn't do any good anyway.
It just boggles my mind that supposedly intelligent people refuse to see that the Palestinians, or at least their chosen leadership, are intent on destroying Israel and killing every Jew, no matter if it kills every Palestinian in the process. How do these supposed "intellectuals" sleep at night? How can they automatically demonize every Jew, even when they know Jews? I don't demonize every Muslim, though I admit to believing that while there are some, indeed many, good people who are Muslims, they are good people in spite of, not because of, their religion.
Secession?
Glen Reynolds has an interesting little column today, A Solution to Secession Fever -- Federalism. And everything he says in it makes sense.
Except... I don't see our current federal government being willing to give up any of those improperly asserted powers without the application of force. 8(
He is quite right though that the White House probably doesn't give a rat's tuchus about the fact that over one million people have signed secession petitions. What I find more interesting is the response of some progressives which was to start another petition to have the feds strip anyone who signed such a petition of their US citizenship and deport them. I don't recall the folks on the right suggesting that when the progressive left got their knickers twisted after the elections of '00 and '04. We offered to pay for them to leave the country since so many had sworn that that's what they'd do if Bush won, but I don't recall anyone suggesting forcibly removing folks who were unhappy with Bush.
More proof, as if we needed it, that the left has some pretty strong totalitarian tendencies.
Except... I don't see our current federal government being willing to give up any of those improperly asserted powers without the application of force. 8(
He is quite right though that the White House probably doesn't give a rat's tuchus about the fact that over one million people have signed secession petitions. What I find more interesting is the response of some progressives which was to start another petition to have the feds strip anyone who signed such a petition of their US citizenship and deport them. I don't recall the folks on the right suggesting that when the progressive left got their knickers twisted after the elections of '00 and '04. We offered to pay for them to leave the country since so many had sworn that that's what they'd do if Bush won, but I don't recall anyone suggesting forcibly removing folks who were unhappy with Bush.
More proof, as if we needed it, that the left has some pretty strong totalitarian tendencies.
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Girls - bodies or minds?
Just saw the 4everygirl campaign ad. It includes a line to the effect that girls need to know they are valued for more than their bodies.
Yet we had a national party campaign for women's votes almost exclusively on sex. On the ability for these same girls to have free contraception and abortions. This was pushed as the *only* concern for women.
Aren't these two messages working against each other? If girls are valuable for more than just their bodies, it would seem that in politics they should be treated as if they might just possibly have interests and concerns outside the ability to have consequence-less sex. If a major political party thinks that the only thing that will get women to vote is an appeal to their hormones, that party *is* valuing women only for their bodies.
Yet we had a national party campaign for women's votes almost exclusively on sex. On the ability for these same girls to have free contraception and abortions. This was pushed as the *only* concern for women.
Aren't these two messages working against each other? If girls are valuable for more than just their bodies, it would seem that in politics they should be treated as if they might just possibly have interests and concerns outside the ability to have consequence-less sex. If a major political party thinks that the only thing that will get women to vote is an appeal to their hormones, that party *is* valuing women only for their bodies.
Thursday, November 08, 2012
Venting
OK, life sucks right now.
I don’t see Congress getting off its collective asses and fixing
anything tax wise, because the Democrats won’t help working people unless they
are allowed to “stick it to the man”, and Republicans want to see some actual spending
cuts put in place other than gutting the military, one of the few
Constitutionally mandated roles of the federal Government.
So, we’re looking at another $250 or more in federal taxes a
month starting January 1st.
Instead of telling me it won’t happen, do something about it! Don’t tell
me to not worry about it. Don’t tell me
anything which can be interpreted as “Don’t you worry your pretty little head
about it.” I haven’t been down sitting
at Congresscritters offices because *I* have a job I have to go to. It’s a sucky job, with management who seem to
only be interested in cutting costs, no matter what it does to staff
morale. Heck, they’ve rewritten my job
description to require only a Bachelor’s degree. Which isn’t a professional degree in my line
of work, but I’m sure it comes cheaper.
And that’s all they care about.
I’ve got crappy dumb terminals which I have to help people
with and every time they cause issues making folks lose 30 minutes or more of
work, I’m told that there isn’t a problem, it was fixed years ago. Well, guess what? It ain’t fixed now! But replacing those three Citrix terminals
with desktop computers is too expensive.
That those damn terminals have probably cost a few grand in staff time
this year alone doesn’t matter, those costs can’t really be quantified, and the
cost of the boxes can.
They’ve dropped my health insurance plan, you know the one I’ve
had for years that the president promised that if I liked it I could keep
it? Well, thanks to the Democrats and
their PPACA, passed through probably illegal procedural moves and without any
bipartisan support, that plan has gone away.
My options were paying more which I don’t have because of the other tax
increases for a Cadillac plan which a) does more than we need because we have
Tricare Standard too, and b) will be taxed at 40% starting, I believe, in 2014,
or getting a High Deductible Health Insurance plan with an HAS, except that I
can’t do that because of the Tricare. So
now we’re stuck with less money to pay for the expenses which Tricare doesn’t
cover. Thanks folks.
Our NEW car is 10 years old, our other “new” car is 17. I’m dropping cable TV in a few weeks because
we can’t afford that. I don’t know how
we’re going to be able to pay for my daughters’ music lessons next
semester. I guess they’ll both have to
give up something they love. I need to
get them both new pairs of glasses. That
will eat up all our non-assigned reserves for a few weeks. This year I have bought myself ONE new skirt, two or three new tops, and some cheap underthings. My husband hasn’t bought anything other than
work clothes this year. I’ve gotten the
girls some new school clothes, but they need new shoes, and I can’t do that and
get them glasses too, not within a few weeks of each other.
But everyone assures me that now that Obama has been
re-elected, even though the Senate and House are still held by different
parties, and Harry Reid still refuses to even discuss a budget, the economy
will improve, and gas prices will go down, though Obama assures us that they
were so low in 2008 because the economy sucked even worse(?) . Electric prices are going to go up, but that’s
OK, because somehow making electricity and oil cost more will help the economy
and our bosses are all going to give us raises or something?
Tell me how it’s going to get better. Give me specifics. I don’t want any more damn unicorn farts and
skittles. I want numbers. I want to know how repeating things that
failed spectacularly during the last four years is suddenly going to do what
you wish it to now. I want proof. I want to know that I’m not going to have to
give up my TV, and my phone, and keep the lights off, and the heat at 60 all
winter. I want assurances that none of
us are going to lose our jobs as our employers try to keep their lights on and
their doors open. I want assurances that
when it all goes south, as it almost assuredly will, you won’t look stunned,
and WILL be able to help me out. Because
it’s your fault. You didn’t listen, you
didn’t think, you voted based on feelings.
I WILL be saying “told you so” but it will give
me only a little bit of schadenfreude, because I’ll be hurting worse than you.
My wonderful family /sarc
Baby Sis: Oh my god. My feed is filled with angry political posts. Seriously people, STOP. Instead of looking forward 4 years, and trying to get your conservative or liberal parties in shape so you can "WIN" next time, how about worrying about NOW? As if WINNING has anything to do with running a country or helping people?? For the sake of whatever deity or philosophy you happen to hold true, could you all stop your posturing and posing and instead of assuming you're right and smarter than everyone around you, actually try to help the country and help the people in it now?
Younger Sister *(YS): BabyS: Hunh, my feed is *mostly* full of calm, reasoned discussion - some of it disappointed one way or the other, but not angry (and yes I have friends in all sorts of parties, as well as none). Do you have a problem with your friend-mix?
ME: Hmm. YS, You blocked me for "offending" your friends simply because I disagreed with them. I never called them names, I never swore at people, I just used facts to explain my position. You on the other hand, called me "delusional" and "mentally unstable" for not agreeing with you politically, and attacked friends of mine personally on my wall. I'm glad your friends can be "calm" and "reasoned". But I've had way too many people including family call me names and tell me that if I disagree with them in any political area it's because I "hate brown people" or am stupid or evil. I hope this means that you've become less dogmatic and are willing to entertain the notion that those who disagree with you may have something of substance to contribute to the conversation. None of us is ever 100% right, in any sphere of life.
YS: I blocked you for making alarming and outrageous statements. You were claiming that it was better that a family member have died than that women be allowed to make their own healthcare decisions. I found that "beyond the pale". Wishing death on people is outside common decency, and should not be tolerated. And BTW. I only blocked you from certain parts of my list. You then chose to de-friend me entirely, without waiting to discuss it. There you go. You can disagree with me on tax policy, and you can disagree with me on social policy - but when you make statements that cause a reasonable person to question your sanity? Well, remember that I'm a reasonable person. And so are most of my acquaintance. You may not come to my wall, and say things that make nice people I know cry. Bad form, dear. I won't allow it.
ME: You did the same thing, and not only disagreed with people but you called them names. I never said you or your friends were delusion, or insane, or evil, or stupid. You did all of the above. And your blocking meant that I could read everything, where you told all your friends how evil and deluded I was, and I couldn't post anything anyplace.< It also seemed that disagreeing with you on tax policy meant that I was making statements leading "normal" people to question my sanity. The same with disagreeing with you on social policy. I should also add, that thanks to the PPACA, my employer is no longer offering the health insurance plan I've had for years. I can't afford the higher payments for the cadillac plan, especially since it will get a 40% tax in a few years, and the IRS says I can't get a high deductible plan, because I'm covered by my husband's Tricare. And I NEVER said it would have been better for someone to die rather than have a certain medical procedure. And I don't know anyone, including devout Catholics, who wouldn't agree with me on that. You are equating using the procedure for elective purposes with using it for life saving purposes, and that's flat out disingenous. Sandra Fluke claimed that her friend was denied contraception by Georgetown, when in actuality their policy covered birth control for medical reason, just as the Irish Government paid for me to be on the pill when it was prescribed to keep me from throwing up and passing out every month. And if you are going to claim that not paying for someone's birth control is "DENYING THEM MEDICAL CARE" I could claim that other people not paying my mortgage or rent is "denying" me shelter. And now, I'm dropping the subject.
YS: Before dropping the subject, I must tell you that you specifically *agreed* with the extremist position of "no abortions ever, under any circumstances" - a ridiculous position, but one you held forth on with enough vehemence to cause me to receive alarmed private messages from several nice people I know - nice people who have been the victim of sexual assault, nice people who have had to make the terrible kinds of choices that the Republican platform would deny them. You upset them, and made them wonder who on earth you were, and why you were allowed on my wall. You were incredibly rude.
ME: Your friends must have mis-understood me, because I don't believe in abortion myself, except for the life of the mother, (and I don't count gee, a baby would crimp my lifestyle as meeting the "life or mental health" criteria). If I were pregnant, unless it were ectopic, i.e. the baby would die no matter what, I'd have a hard time having an abortion myself, even if I knew there was a chance it would kill me. If someone else wants an abortion, I'm not fine with it, but I'm not going to stop them. But..unless it is to truly save their life I don't want my tax dollars used to pay for them. Nor do I think that a religious organization should be forced to pay for something it finds morally unacceptable. I paid for my own pills for years after coming back to the states, and they are really extremely cheap. You could have contacted me and let me know what was going on, instead of just blocking me, making Eilis wonder what she had done to offend me in that particular thread. I didn't unfriend you for nearly a week.
Younger Sister *(YS): BabyS: Hunh, my feed is *mostly* full of calm, reasoned discussion - some of it disappointed one way or the other, but not angry (and yes I have friends in all sorts of parties, as well as none). Do you have a problem with your friend-mix?
ME: Hmm. YS, You blocked me for "offending" your friends simply because I disagreed with them. I never called them names, I never swore at people, I just used facts to explain my position. You on the other hand, called me "delusional" and "mentally unstable" for not agreeing with you politically, and attacked friends of mine personally on my wall. I'm glad your friends can be "calm" and "reasoned". But I've had way too many people including family call me names and tell me that if I disagree with them in any political area it's because I "hate brown people" or am stupid or evil. I hope this means that you've become less dogmatic and are willing to entertain the notion that those who disagree with you may have something of substance to contribute to the conversation. None of us is ever 100% right, in any sphere of life.
YS: I blocked you for making alarming and outrageous statements. You were claiming that it was better that a family member have died than that women be allowed to make their own healthcare decisions. I found that "beyond the pale". Wishing death on people is outside common decency, and should not be tolerated. And BTW. I only blocked you from certain parts of my list. You then chose to de-friend me entirely, without waiting to discuss it. There you go. You can disagree with me on tax policy, and you can disagree with me on social policy - but when you make statements that cause a reasonable person to question your sanity? Well, remember that I'm a reasonable person. And so are most of my acquaintance. You may not come to my wall, and say things that make nice people I know cry. Bad form, dear. I won't allow it.
ME: You did the same thing, and not only disagreed with people but you called them names. I never said you or your friends were delusion, or insane, or evil, or stupid. You did all of the above. And your blocking meant that I could read everything, where you told all your friends how evil and deluded I was, and I couldn't post anything anyplace.< It also seemed that disagreeing with you on tax policy meant that I was making statements leading "normal" people to question my sanity. The same with disagreeing with you on social policy. I should also add, that thanks to the PPACA, my employer is no longer offering the health insurance plan I've had for years. I can't afford the higher payments for the cadillac plan, especially since it will get a 40% tax in a few years, and the IRS says I can't get a high deductible plan, because I'm covered by my husband's Tricare. And I NEVER said it would have been better for someone to die rather than have a certain medical procedure. And I don't know anyone, including devout Catholics, who wouldn't agree with me on that. You are equating using the procedure for elective purposes with using it for life saving purposes, and that's flat out disingenous. Sandra Fluke claimed that her friend was denied contraception by Georgetown, when in actuality their policy covered birth control for medical reason, just as the Irish Government paid for me to be on the pill when it was prescribed to keep me from throwing up and passing out every month. And if you are going to claim that not paying for someone's birth control is "DENYING THEM MEDICAL CARE" I could claim that other people not paying my mortgage or rent is "denying" me shelter. And now, I'm dropping the subject.
YS: Before dropping the subject, I must tell you that you specifically *agreed* with the extremist position of "no abortions ever, under any circumstances" - a ridiculous position, but one you held forth on with enough vehemence to cause me to receive alarmed private messages from several nice people I know - nice people who have been the victim of sexual assault, nice people who have had to make the terrible kinds of choices that the Republican platform would deny them. You upset them, and made them wonder who on earth you were, and why you were allowed on my wall. You were incredibly rude.
ME: Your friends must have mis-understood me, because I don't believe in abortion myself, except for the life of the mother, (and I don't count gee, a baby would crimp my lifestyle as meeting the "life or mental health" criteria). If I were pregnant, unless it were ectopic, i.e. the baby would die no matter what, I'd have a hard time having an abortion myself, even if I knew there was a chance it would kill me. If someone else wants an abortion, I'm not fine with it, but I'm not going to stop them. But..unless it is to truly save their life I don't want my tax dollars used to pay for them. Nor do I think that a religious organization should be forced to pay for something it finds morally unacceptable. I paid for my own pills for years after coming back to the states, and they are really extremely cheap. You could have contacted me and let me know what was going on, instead of just blocking me, making Eilis wonder what she had done to offend me in that particular thread. I didn't unfriend you for nearly a week.
Thursday, November 01, 2012
Bad news, Good news
Well, the insurance company was able to get the adjuster out this morning, and yes, the car is totalled. Having had time to look at the damage without trees sitting on it, yes, it's bad. And there is a strange piece of metal on the lawn which probably came off the car. And it makes a very scary rattle when you turn it on. So, yes, it's dead, Jim.
But then there was the good news. We're not getting Blue Book value, we're getting replacement. Which is a lot better.
I'm going to try to stop over at the local used car place, which we've bought a few cars from over the years. They have another Subaru, a year older, but much lower milage, for just a bit more than we're getting from the insurance company. If nothing else it should last until we've paid off the other car and actually have some money each month for a car payment. It also wouldn't raise the car insurance bill much at all.
They've had the car for a while, so hopefully it won't disappear before I can get there and see if it will work. It's not a sports version so the seats shouldn't be those weird bucket type things, which they are using in the newer Imprezas. I sat in two today, and yes, I need to lose weight, but those things were not designed for normal size women with hips. I could lose every extra pound I own, and they would still have been uncomfortable.
But then there was the good news. We're not getting Blue Book value, we're getting replacement. Which is a lot better.
I'm going to try to stop over at the local used car place, which we've bought a few cars from over the years. They have another Subaru, a year older, but much lower milage, for just a bit more than we're getting from the insurance company. If nothing else it should last until we've paid off the other car and actually have some money each month for a car payment. It also wouldn't raise the car insurance bill much at all.
They've had the car for a while, so hopefully it won't disappear before I can get there and see if it will work. It's not a sports version so the seats shouldn't be those weird bucket type things, which they are using in the newer Imprezas. I sat in two today, and yes, I need to lose weight, but those things were not designed for normal size women with hips. I could lose every extra pound I own, and they would still have been uncomfortable.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Well, that wasn't much fun...
I got to miss the hurricane for the most part, since I left Saturday afternoon for a conference in Woodstock, Vermont. I spent Friday evening and Saturday morning helping the spouse get the yard tidied away, and then headed out. Spouse continued to do some prep work, like shopping for supplies and taking lots of exterior pictures so we'd have something to compare if anything happened.
Sunday wasn't too eventful, anyplace, though I did have some nice CE classes.
Monday, the girls didn't have school, which made spouse happy, since he'd have had to get up more than an hour earlier than usual to drive them. He headed off to work, because I swear that Sears would stay open through anything if they thought a single customer might show up. But the Governor was closing the road to all but emergency vehicles at 1pm, so they let folks go. Husband got home before the bridge was closed and shortly after that they lost power for half an hour or so. It was back for less than an hour when it went out again, this time for good.
I got back to my B&B a bit before 5 so I could change for the dinner at 6. My phone had decided to eat it's battery that morning, so I hadn't been in contact with anyone since noon, when they lost power and internet access. (Facebook is a great way to text when your phone isn't working.) I called home to see how things were going, and spouse says, you know how you've been concerned about the willow?
As far as we can tell the only damage at all from the storm to the house is to one of the railing uprights where it was hit by part of the tree. I have several 2x2s in the shed, so that will be very easy to replace. The privacy fence is pretty much destroyed, except for the panel closest to the road, which happens to be one I had wanted to take down since it makes it hard to see what is coming when you are pulling out of the drive. The drive is past the tree, behind where the car is. In all previous storms with high winds or lots of rain, including Irene, we'd ended up with a lot of that tree in our yard, but it was all the front yard and/or the driveway. So we'd decided to pull the car further towards the back of the yard. If we'd parked it in the usual spot it wouldn't have been touched.
As it is:
Here is a shot from the street:
And from our 2nd floor window:
And lastly a really good shot of the inside of the willow which explains why it came down at 4:15 on Monday, before the winds had even really picked up:
Today, the neighbor and their insurance folks and tree folks came over to assess the damage, and then came back later with a chainsaw and a bolt cutter and excavated the car and the back porch. The car has a pretty massive dent in the roof (on the inside you can see a definite drop and the light is kind of loose), and the back window is broken, probably because of the piece of tree which went through it. However all the other windows are intact, and all the doors open and close just fine. So it's going to the insurance adjuster on Saturday to see whether they think it's worth fixing, which they won't, because it's a 16yo Subaru, however, as long as it's safe to drive, we'll just get the rear window fixed, and plan to replace it next spring after we finish paying off the other car. We've driven another car for over a year after it was supposedly totalled, so keep your fingers crossed that the roof damage is just "cosmetic".
Sunday wasn't too eventful, anyplace, though I did have some nice CE classes.
Monday, the girls didn't have school, which made spouse happy, since he'd have had to get up more than an hour earlier than usual to drive them. He headed off to work, because I swear that Sears would stay open through anything if they thought a single customer might show up. But the Governor was closing the road to all but emergency vehicles at 1pm, so they let folks go. Husband got home before the bridge was closed and shortly after that they lost power for half an hour or so. It was back for less than an hour when it went out again, this time for good.
I got back to my B&B a bit before 5 so I could change for the dinner at 6. My phone had decided to eat it's battery that morning, so I hadn't been in contact with anyone since noon, when they lost power and internet access. (Facebook is a great way to text when your phone isn't working.) I called home to see how things were going, and spouse says, you know how you've been concerned about the willow?
Our house is to the left, you can see the side porch railing. The willow is on the other side of the privacy fence on the neighbor's property.
Me: yeah, what about it? Spouse: You don't have to worry about it any more. Me: Where is it?
From almost the same place, see the railings?
As far as we can tell the only damage at all from the storm to the house is to one of the railing uprights where it was hit by part of the tree. I have several 2x2s in the shed, so that will be very easy to replace. The privacy fence is pretty much destroyed, except for the panel closest to the road, which happens to be one I had wanted to take down since it makes it hard to see what is coming when you are pulling out of the drive. The drive is past the tree, behind where the car is. In all previous storms with high winds or lots of rain, including Irene, we'd ended up with a lot of that tree in our yard, but it was all the front yard and/or the driveway. So we'd decided to pull the car further towards the back of the yard. If we'd parked it in the usual spot it wouldn't have been touched.
As it is:
Here is a shot from the street:
And from our 2nd floor window:
And lastly a really good shot of the inside of the willow which explains why it came down at 4:15 on Monday, before the winds had even really picked up:
Today, the neighbor and their insurance folks and tree folks came over to assess the damage, and then came back later with a chainsaw and a bolt cutter and excavated the car and the back porch. The car has a pretty massive dent in the roof (on the inside you can see a definite drop and the light is kind of loose), and the back window is broken, probably because of the piece of tree which went through it. However all the other windows are intact, and all the doors open and close just fine. So it's going to the insurance adjuster on Saturday to see whether they think it's worth fixing, which they won't, because it's a 16yo Subaru, however, as long as it's safe to drive, we'll just get the rear window fixed, and plan to replace it next spring after we finish paying off the other car. We've driven another car for over a year after it was supposedly totalled, so keep your fingers crossed that the roof damage is just "cosmetic".
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Let's send the bills to Ø, Reid and Pelosi!
In posting a comment over at Buttercup's I had an idea. I don't know if its a good one, but I'm throwing it out there.
A lot of us, contrary to Ø's promises are losing our health insurances. The plans we were promised we could keep if we liked them are not there anymore, or they are too expensive since we're not getting any raises, and the premiums keep going up.
I think starting today, any bill we get which is costing us more than it would have without the PPACA should be forwarded to it's architects, Ø, Reid, and Pelosi with a demand for payment. They assured us this bill would save us money. It isn't, and so they owe us. If nothing else, we need to make them feel the financial pains and insecurities that they have forced on us, perhaps it will beat a little of their hubris out of them, but if nothing else, the eye for an eye does make the first harmed feel a little better.
A lot of us, contrary to Ø's promises are losing our health insurances. The plans we were promised we could keep if we liked them are not there anymore, or they are too expensive since we're not getting any raises, and the premiums keep going up.
I think starting today, any bill we get which is costing us more than it would have without the PPACA should be forwarded to it's architects, Ø, Reid, and Pelosi with a demand for payment. They assured us this bill would save us money. It isn't, and so they owe us. If nothing else, we need to make them feel the financial pains and insecurities that they have forced on us, perhaps it will beat a little of their hubris out of them, but if nothing else, the eye for an eye does make the first harmed feel a little better.
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Thoughts on the debate
The last post was just a very rough sort of minutes of the debate with a few of my own comments.
Thoughts:
the MSM is going to claim this as a glorious win for Ø. He didn't fall apart, and someone actually trained him out of saying "uh" and "um" as every other word. Though he did start "uh"ing a lot when starting his answer on Bengazi and Libya, which suggests to me that he was trying to remember which lie he was supposed to trot out.
He lied, or was at least creative with the facts on a number of occasions. He claimed that the AZ immigration law allowed LEOs to pull people over just to check their papers with only a suspicion that they might be illegal. I seem to recall that it was quite specific that that could NOT take place, the stop had to be for another, legal, reason, such as running a red light. He lied about Romney's tax plan, and kept bringing up the $5T in cuts which wouldn't have anything to make them up, completely ignoring the fact that quite a few outfits, including some not notably conservative friendly have said that's false. He's also ignoring the fact that every other time we've cut taxes, we've seen actual increases in the amount of revenue coming into the Fed.
All told, I think Romney held his own, but Obama managed to not be too petulant, and to speak well, so if you aren't a political junkee, you don't know which bits you shouldn't believe.
I don't know that this will turn things around for him, but they didn't hurt him.
I assume that the next debate must be the foreign policy one, and I hope Mitt can pound him on his failures in the Middle East. He started on it well tonight, but we need more.
We also need to see more and more of the "These policies aren't working" type jabs.
And now I'm going to play a stupid Facebook game for a few minutes, and head off to bed! (I'm sure I'll have more to say on the debate tomorrow, but right now, I'm starting to see double, and it's not from drinking, more's the pity.)
Thoughts:
the MSM is going to claim this as a glorious win for Ø. He didn't fall apart, and someone actually trained him out of saying "uh" and "um" as every other word. Though he did start "uh"ing a lot when starting his answer on Bengazi and Libya, which suggests to me that he was trying to remember which lie he was supposed to trot out.
He lied, or was at least creative with the facts on a number of occasions. He claimed that the AZ immigration law allowed LEOs to pull people over just to check their papers with only a suspicion that they might be illegal. I seem to recall that it was quite specific that that could NOT take place, the stop had to be for another, legal, reason, such as running a red light. He lied about Romney's tax plan, and kept bringing up the $5T in cuts which wouldn't have anything to make them up, completely ignoring the fact that quite a few outfits, including some not notably conservative friendly have said that's false. He's also ignoring the fact that every other time we've cut taxes, we've seen actual increases in the amount of revenue coming into the Fed.
All told, I think Romney held his own, but Obama managed to not be too petulant, and to speak well, so if you aren't a political junkee, you don't know which bits you shouldn't believe.
I don't know that this will turn things around for him, but they didn't hurt him.
I assume that the next debate must be the foreign policy one, and I hope Mitt can pound him on his failures in the Middle East. He started on it well tonight, but we need more.
We also need to see more and more of the "These policies aren't working" type jabs.
And now I'm going to play a stupid Facebook game for a few minutes, and head off to bed! (I'm sure I'll have more to say on the debate tomorrow, but right now, I'm starting to see double, and it's not from drinking, more's the pity.)
Presidential debate #2.
These are rough notes from tonight. I'm not going to go back and tidy them up.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Interesting backdrop. An eagle with a ribbon saying "union and constitution forever". Ø would have trouble if he really thought he had to support that.
Jeremy - as a soon to be graduate, can you assure me and my parents that I will be able to get a job?
Romney, finally, knows what it takes to get economy growing. (lots of platitudes to begin with), knows what it takes to get jobs growing, and more jobs
ØØ: "Your future is bright." wants to build on the 5M jobs made in the last 39 months. Jab to R wanting to let Detroit go bankrupt, 0 said no, we need to bet on America. Standard lies. Need to control our own energy, energy of the future, solar, wind, biofuels, reduce deficit in balanced way, wealthy to pay more, use money from wars to fix America
R: fewer people working today than when Ø took office. President's policies have not worked, R has a 5-point plan to help people without jobs, will help to get rising incomes.
Points out that bankruptcy necessary for GM/Chevy to come out stronger. Ø lying. Says R didn't want bankruptcy to have any way for them to stay open. Claiming that Rs policies are why middle class families in trouble.
Is it not the job of the energy department to get lower gas prices? Ø highest oil and natural gas production in years, higher coal production and employment, but also have to look to the furture, why they doubled fuel efficiency standards, why the push for "wind, solar, biofuels", this why lowest oil imports in years. (forgetting that the depression might just have something to do with that). Efficient energy, need to reduce demand.
R: lets look at policies, not rhetoric. Oil production down on federal land, same with gas, because licenses and permits cut in half. Romney uses "renewables". Doesn't need a president keeping us from taking advantage of oil, gas, or coal. R wants to see NA energy independent within 8 years. more drilling, more permits, Keystone pipeline,
Candy: is this $4/gallon the new normal? Is it in the gov't role to bring it down?
Ø: we are using oil more efficiently, says drilling more on federal lands than we did under W.
Claims Romney wrong, Romney stating that production on federal lands down, Ø keeps saying, no we're producing more.
Romney also talking about energy secure.
Candy: if policy working, gas prices would be down? Ø, claims that the reason gas prices are up is because the economy is getting better. Claims that we've built enough pipelines already. Claiming that people creating wind power in co and ia, tax credits.
Candy, actually stopped president.
Romney tax plan, will not reduce share of taxes collected by higher 5%, nor will he raise taxes on the middle.
Ø, philosophy on taxes simple. give the middle a break, has cut taxes for the middle and small businesses. If reducing deficit a moral obligation, has to cut spending, and raise taxes on the higher end.
R: more women in poverty than in 2009.
Candy: Romney just wants to give tax cuts only to middle class OK? Obama, no.
Oh God, big bird.
Romney - math adds up, I've run businesses and made it add up, I ran the olympics and it added up, I ran MA and it added up. I've balanced budgets my entire life.
Young woman wanting to know what president going to do to remove inequalities in the workplace, that women only make 72 cents on the dollar.
Ø touting Lilly Ledbetter.
Romney, points out that women need more flexible schedules, women have lost more jobs than men over this administration.
Oh, god, women's health care. "Romney wants politicians in DC deciding women's health care". Millions of women rely on PP for cancer screenings, for contraception, it's a pocket book issue.
True that not just women's issues, but family issues.
Questioner, worries about return to the Bush years. What difference between R and Bush?
energy independence, wants to curtail trade with china, add more with SA, balanced budget, (brought up .5T deficits outrageous, and now 1T), championing small business over big business.
Ø: First uh of the evening, but almost not there. Digging way out of policies to get the top doing well middle not so well. 5.2M new jobs over last 3 years. Romney last person who will get tough on china. A task force on trade, twice as many cases against unfair trade practices. GB didn't want to turn medicare into a voucher, didn't suggest defunding PP, didn't plan to deport lots of folks. Social policy too extreme.
Black voter asking Ø why should he vote for him again. Says cut taxes, end war in Iraq, focus on al-qaedi OBL dead. Health care reform so can't be jerked around by insurance, toughest wall street reforms since the 30s, saved an auto industry. Reducing deficit in a sensible way, using savings from war to put people back to work. Has kept his commitments, and those he didn't, not for lack of trying, and will do them in his second. Comparing Øcare to Romneycare. think whose promises will be better for you.
R: You know what you will get if you elect Ø. Where is the plan for reforming medicare and SS? Where the immigration plan? Deficit doubled, not halved. Deductions in middle class health insurance premiums going up, not down. President wants to do well, but his policies not doing that. Ø a great speaker, but now we have plans to look at.
What to do with illegal immigrants?
R: wants to make it easier to come here legally, 4M in line waiting, won't grant amnesty, doesn't want magnets for those here illegally, kids of those here illegally, should have a pathway to become a permanent resident. Ø didn't do it, though he promised, and he had a (D) congress.
Ø: second "uh". Have said we need to fix a broken system, done what he can on his own, tried to do stuff with congress. Has made it easier to get here legally. Put more border patrol on, and flow of illegals lowest in 40 years (perhaps because economy bad), need to go after the illegals who are criminals, not students. For young people who have grown up here, need to give a pathway to citizenship, has done it administratively. Lies about AZ law, they can't stop people just because they look illegal.
R explain self-deportation. Says that e-verify a model for the nation, not the whole law. Why hasn't the president explained why he didn't do the law for illegals in his first year that he promised.
Ø, republicans in congress need to get serious about immigration.
Question about who denied extra security in Benghazi?
Ø, not just reps of US, but reps of Obama, so no one more concerned. Lots of uhs.. Beef up security throughout the region, find out what happened, so won't happen again, find out who did it so we could get them. Says he did this while on the phone hearing about the attack as it went on. Attacking Romney for his statement that evening.
R: Standard boiler plate. Found it most troubling that the day after the ambassador assassinated, President flew to fundraiser in Vegas. Stuff that happening suggests that president's policies in the ME not working. Watching President's policies unravelling.
Ø going on about "we're going to hunt down those responsible for this crime". Upset, claims that anyone on his team would play politics with foreign policy is offensive.
Ask of president, what doing to keep assault weapons out of hands of criminals. "Weapons designed for our soldiers in war theaters don't belong on their streets". Admits that most violence in Chicago not assault weapons. That a lot of causes of violence. wants a comprehensive strategy, wants automatic weapons out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill.
R: we need to enforce our current laws, not new ones, and work on the culture of violence.
Families, two parent families increases opportunities for children and lessons odds of poverty. F&F, can't imagine why this put in place, thinks american people would like to see it investigated fully. CC trying to bring question back to question of unbanned weapons. Candy cutting away from F&F.
Ø: R for awban before against it. Against it to get NRA endorsement. More teachers will cut gun voilence.
Outsourcing of jobs, what plans to bring them back?
R: We have made it less attractive to stay than to go. As president, will work to make it more attractive to stay or come back. Trickle down gov't has never worked. Wants us to be the most attractive place for businesses of all sizes. Also need to make sure all countries we trade with need to play fair. China has been a currency manipulator for years, Ø refuses to label them that. R will do so, so can impose tariffs if need be. Key to bringing back jobs, not just punishing others, but make attractive, lower tax rates - Canada 15%, US 35%, where would you rather be? Regulations have quadrupled in last 4 years. Want regulators to encourage not crush business. Øcare a deterrent to hiring.
Ø we need to create jobs, need to lower corporate tax rates, but have different ideas on how to do this.
Claims that we should be taxing any money a company makes overseas here, without that tax people will move jobs out of country.
R we can compete with any country if playing field level, we have to make us more attractive. President's characterization of R's plan false.
Ø, some jobs won't come back, the low wage, low skill. We don't want them, we need best science and research. Claims that if we don't invest in research we won't get the next Apple (did Jobs get any fed money? I don't think so).)R: gov't doesn't create jobs!
What do you believe is the american people's greatest misperception about you as man and candidate?
R: I care about 100% of americans, I want them all to have bright and prosperous future, I care for all our children. I want to help with my business experience. Passion from belief in God and we all God's children. we don't have to settle for what we are going through. Don't have to settle for $4gas, 47M on food stamps, 23M unemployed.
Ø I don't believe that gov't creates jobs. free enterprise greatest job engine, believes in risk takers being rewarded, but everyone needs to have a fair shot, and pay their fair share. We all need to play by the same rules. Fundamental difference in how we need to move this country forward. 47% means Romney talking about veterans and retirees, soldiers, 47% think of themselves os victims? I want to fight for them, and when they succeed we all succeed. All generations need the same opportunities as previous ones.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Interesting backdrop. An eagle with a ribbon saying "union and constitution forever". Ø would have trouble if he really thought he had to support that.
Jeremy - as a soon to be graduate, can you assure me and my parents that I will be able to get a job?
Romney, finally, knows what it takes to get economy growing. (lots of platitudes to begin with), knows what it takes to get jobs growing, and more jobs
ØØ: "Your future is bright." wants to build on the 5M jobs made in the last 39 months. Jab to R wanting to let Detroit go bankrupt, 0 said no, we need to bet on America. Standard lies. Need to control our own energy, energy of the future, solar, wind, biofuels, reduce deficit in balanced way, wealthy to pay more, use money from wars to fix America
R: fewer people working today than when Ø took office. President's policies have not worked, R has a 5-point plan to help people without jobs, will help to get rising incomes.
Points out that bankruptcy necessary for GM/Chevy to come out stronger. Ø lying. Says R didn't want bankruptcy to have any way for them to stay open. Claiming that Rs policies are why middle class families in trouble.
Is it not the job of the energy department to get lower gas prices? Ø highest oil and natural gas production in years, higher coal production and employment, but also have to look to the furture, why they doubled fuel efficiency standards, why the push for "wind, solar, biofuels", this why lowest oil imports in years. (forgetting that the depression might just have something to do with that). Efficient energy, need to reduce demand.
R: lets look at policies, not rhetoric. Oil production down on federal land, same with gas, because licenses and permits cut in half. Romney uses "renewables". Doesn't need a president keeping us from taking advantage of oil, gas, or coal. R wants to see NA energy independent within 8 years. more drilling, more permits, Keystone pipeline,
Candy: is this $4/gallon the new normal? Is it in the gov't role to bring it down?
Ø: we are using oil more efficiently, says drilling more on federal lands than we did under W.
Claims Romney wrong, Romney stating that production on federal lands down, Ø keeps saying, no we're producing more.
Romney also talking about energy secure.
Candy: if policy working, gas prices would be down? Ø, claims that the reason gas prices are up is because the economy is getting better. Claims that we've built enough pipelines already. Claiming that people creating wind power in co and ia, tax credits.
Candy, actually stopped president.
Romney tax plan, will not reduce share of taxes collected by higher 5%, nor will he raise taxes on the middle.
Ø, philosophy on taxes simple. give the middle a break, has cut taxes for the middle and small businesses. If reducing deficit a moral obligation, has to cut spending, and raise taxes on the higher end.
R: more women in poverty than in 2009.
Candy: Romney just wants to give tax cuts only to middle class OK? Obama, no.
Oh God, big bird.
Romney - math adds up, I've run businesses and made it add up, I ran the olympics and it added up, I ran MA and it added up. I've balanced budgets my entire life.
Young woman wanting to know what president going to do to remove inequalities in the workplace, that women only make 72 cents on the dollar.
Ø touting Lilly Ledbetter.
Romney, points out that women need more flexible schedules, women have lost more jobs than men over this administration.
Oh, god, women's health care. "Romney wants politicians in DC deciding women's health care". Millions of women rely on PP for cancer screenings, for contraception, it's a pocket book issue.
True that not just women's issues, but family issues.
Questioner, worries about return to the Bush years. What difference between R and Bush?
energy independence, wants to curtail trade with china, add more with SA, balanced budget, (brought up .5T deficits outrageous, and now 1T), championing small business over big business.
Ø: First uh of the evening, but almost not there. Digging way out of policies to get the top doing well middle not so well. 5.2M new jobs over last 3 years. Romney last person who will get tough on china. A task force on trade, twice as many cases against unfair trade practices. GB didn't want to turn medicare into a voucher, didn't suggest defunding PP, didn't plan to deport lots of folks. Social policy too extreme.
Black voter asking Ø why should he vote for him again. Says cut taxes, end war in Iraq, focus on al-qaedi OBL dead. Health care reform so can't be jerked around by insurance, toughest wall street reforms since the 30s, saved an auto industry. Reducing deficit in a sensible way, using savings from war to put people back to work. Has kept his commitments, and those he didn't, not for lack of trying, and will do them in his second. Comparing Øcare to Romneycare. think whose promises will be better for you.
R: You know what you will get if you elect Ø. Where is the plan for reforming medicare and SS? Where the immigration plan? Deficit doubled, not halved. Deductions in middle class health insurance premiums going up, not down. President wants to do well, but his policies not doing that. Ø a great speaker, but now we have plans to look at.
What to do with illegal immigrants?
R: wants to make it easier to come here legally, 4M in line waiting, won't grant amnesty, doesn't want magnets for those here illegally, kids of those here illegally, should have a pathway to become a permanent resident. Ø didn't do it, though he promised, and he had a (D) congress.
Ø: second "uh". Have said we need to fix a broken system, done what he can on his own, tried to do stuff with congress. Has made it easier to get here legally. Put more border patrol on, and flow of illegals lowest in 40 years (perhaps because economy bad), need to go after the illegals who are criminals, not students. For young people who have grown up here, need to give a pathway to citizenship, has done it administratively. Lies about AZ law, they can't stop people just because they look illegal.
R explain self-deportation. Says that e-verify a model for the nation, not the whole law. Why hasn't the president explained why he didn't do the law for illegals in his first year that he promised.
Ø, republicans in congress need to get serious about immigration.
Question about who denied extra security in Benghazi?
Ø, not just reps of US, but reps of Obama, so no one more concerned. Lots of uhs.. Beef up security throughout the region, find out what happened, so won't happen again, find out who did it so we could get them. Says he did this while on the phone hearing about the attack as it went on. Attacking Romney for his statement that evening.
R: Standard boiler plate. Found it most troubling that the day after the ambassador assassinated, President flew to fundraiser in Vegas. Stuff that happening suggests that president's policies in the ME not working. Watching President's policies unravelling.
Ø going on about "we're going to hunt down those responsible for this crime". Upset, claims that anyone on his team would play politics with foreign policy is offensive.
Ask of president, what doing to keep assault weapons out of hands of criminals. "Weapons designed for our soldiers in war theaters don't belong on their streets". Admits that most violence in Chicago not assault weapons. That a lot of causes of violence. wants a comprehensive strategy, wants automatic weapons out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill.
R: we need to enforce our current laws, not new ones, and work on the culture of violence.
Families, two parent families increases opportunities for children and lessons odds of poverty. F&F, can't imagine why this put in place, thinks american people would like to see it investigated fully. CC trying to bring question back to question of unbanned weapons. Candy cutting away from F&F.
Ø: R for awban before against it. Against it to get NRA endorsement. More teachers will cut gun voilence.
Outsourcing of jobs, what plans to bring them back?
R: We have made it less attractive to stay than to go. As president, will work to make it more attractive to stay or come back. Trickle down gov't has never worked. Wants us to be the most attractive place for businesses of all sizes. Also need to make sure all countries we trade with need to play fair. China has been a currency manipulator for years, Ø refuses to label them that. R will do so, so can impose tariffs if need be. Key to bringing back jobs, not just punishing others, but make attractive, lower tax rates - Canada 15%, US 35%, where would you rather be? Regulations have quadrupled in last 4 years. Want regulators to encourage not crush business. Øcare a deterrent to hiring.
Ø we need to create jobs, need to lower corporate tax rates, but have different ideas on how to do this.
Claims that we should be taxing any money a company makes overseas here, without that tax people will move jobs out of country.
R we can compete with any country if playing field level, we have to make us more attractive. President's characterization of R's plan false.
Ø, some jobs won't come back, the low wage, low skill. We don't want them, we need best science and research. Claims that if we don't invest in research we won't get the next Apple (did Jobs get any fed money? I don't think so).)R: gov't doesn't create jobs!
What do you believe is the american people's greatest misperception about you as man and candidate?
R: I care about 100% of americans, I want them all to have bright and prosperous future, I care for all our children. I want to help with my business experience. Passion from belief in God and we all God's children. we don't have to settle for what we are going through. Don't have to settle for $4gas, 47M on food stamps, 23M unemployed.
Ø I don't believe that gov't creates jobs. free enterprise greatest job engine, believes in risk takers being rewarded, but everyone needs to have a fair shot, and pay their fair share. We all need to play by the same rules. Fundamental difference in how we need to move this country forward. 47% means Romney talking about veterans and retirees, soldiers, 47% think of themselves os victims? I want to fight for them, and when they succeed we all succeed. All generations need the same opportunities as previous ones.
Sunday, October 14, 2012
It's been a long week.
It's been a long week. Politics is what it is, and while I feel I need to follow it closely, because what is happening now is so crucial for all of us, at the same time, I'm sure that it is a significant (if not the most significant) stressor in my life right now.
The allergy testing is ongoing; I have another round of skin tests, this time food, on Thursday, and then a meeting with the doctor on the 2nd to discuss the whole shebang and what it means. At least it would seem that cats are only a mild problem which is good since we have three.
The girls are having their usual health issues, elder's headaches are still there, so we're hanging on until her follow-up with neuro in a week and a half, to see if there are any meds we haven't tried yet. Younger has a stress injury with her right foot which the fancy orthopedic support brace/boot thingy isn't helping, but she starts with PT this week, so hopefully something good will come of that so that she isn't as cranky as she has been lately.
At least nothing (that I know of ) is going on with the spousal unit. I really can't deal with any more health issues on top of work.
Work... I'm supposed to have someone coming in tomorrow morning to do some air quality testing. Here's hoping they find something; you can't fix things until you know what the problem is. I suspect that if we were to remove the carpet which had the most serious flooding, and replaced the windows so that they could be opened to air the place out on a regular basis, things would improve drastically. I'm not in a patient care building, so we're allowed to open windows, but these are the original, 50+ year old metal frames, and they are rusted shut. Management had a great chance to upgrade things when they remodelled the space six years ago for my department, but they didn't want to spend the money. Heck, I couldn't get them to replace the cracked window panes at that time - it took over three years!
I'm going to try to get to sleep soon, so that I'm working on more than 5 hours sleep tomorrow, though I've gotten 12 hours the last two nights.
Here's hoping the coming week doesn't feel as long as this past one has.
The allergy testing is ongoing; I have another round of skin tests, this time food, on Thursday, and then a meeting with the doctor on the 2nd to discuss the whole shebang and what it means. At least it would seem that cats are only a mild problem which is good since we have three.
The girls are having their usual health issues, elder's headaches are still there, so we're hanging on until her follow-up with neuro in a week and a half, to see if there are any meds we haven't tried yet. Younger has a stress injury with her right foot which the fancy orthopedic support brace/boot thingy isn't helping, but she starts with PT this week, so hopefully something good will come of that so that she isn't as cranky as she has been lately.
At least nothing (that I know of ) is going on with the spousal unit. I really can't deal with any more health issues on top of work.
Work... I'm supposed to have someone coming in tomorrow morning to do some air quality testing. Here's hoping they find something; you can't fix things until you know what the problem is. I suspect that if we were to remove the carpet which had the most serious flooding, and replaced the windows so that they could be opened to air the place out on a regular basis, things would improve drastically. I'm not in a patient care building, so we're allowed to open windows, but these are the original, 50+ year old metal frames, and they are rusted shut. Management had a great chance to upgrade things when they remodelled the space six years ago for my department, but they didn't want to spend the money. Heck, I couldn't get them to replace the cracked window panes at that time - it took over three years!
I'm going to try to get to sleep soon, so that I'm working on more than 5 hours sleep tomorrow, though I've gotten 12 hours the last two nights.
Here's hoping the coming week doesn't feel as long as this past one has.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
A Thousand Burning Nuns
Seriously, I have no intention of ever doing something like this, and certainly not all on my little lonesome, if only because, as Ben Gates in National Treasure says, you can't imagine how much I really, really, don't want to go to jail.
But today I can see how people can feel the need to terminate political figures with extreme prejudice. I can also better understand how you can have a civil war with brother killing brother, neighbor killing neighbor, and former best friends now worst enemies. I loathed Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and all their little sycophantic underlings before today. But until today I did know just how much I could hate. Beginning today, if they are on fire I will not piss on them. Beginning today, if I hear that something evil has befallen them, I will celebrate like the Palestinians on 9/11. Beginning today not a single one of them can claim membership in the same country or even species with me.
I just got the annual benefits enrollment package. And I am going to have to drop my health insurance at work and leave us with just Tricare, the insurance which most doctors would prefer charity cases over.
For the 12 years I have worked at this institution we have had two or three choices, the more expensive ones covering more stuff with lower copays, but all of them available to everyone who wanted them. For the last several years it has been two versions of Aetna, a PPO1 and a PPO2. I have chosen 1 because my share of the premiums for the family plan has been about $43 a week (which is actually less than 10% of the total premium), and since we have Tricare which functions as a secondary insurance, it just didn't make financial sense to pay 50% more for something which wouldn't give us that $1K more of benefits.
This year, HR has decided to give us two offerings, the PPO2 at the same $64 a week, or a High Deductible Insurance with an HSA, at $15 a week. Except that since I am married to a man who gets Tricare I can not, by law, choose the HDI/HSA plan. HDI/HSA primary members cannot be covered by any other health insurance. Their spouses and children can, but not them. So unless I could figure out a way to get off Tricare, which I suspect would require divorcing my husband, and even if it's not that difficult, I'd never be able to get back on, I can't use that plan.
So they say, I can just pay another $20 a week and get the higher plan. Except that over the last four years my raises haven't even covered the increase in the cost of gas to get to and from work. On January 1, 2013 Social Security will go back up from 4.3% to 6.3%, which is almost another $20 a week for me. The child tax credit is being halved, so that's another $10 a week in tax. Add in the return of the marriage penalty and the loss of the 10% tax bracket and that's another $20 a week too. My husband is also going to see the SS/MC increase so that's another $10 or so a week.
So add it up, the tax increases we will see in two months, thanks to the Democrats, will amount to nearly $60 a week. We can't really cut anything other than the SS from my husband's share of the income because pretty much everything he brings in is already spoken for, and anyway, working in retail, his hours haven't always been consistent this past year (surprise). So I'm looking at my take-home dropping $50 a week.
I can tell you right now that I don't have a spare $50 a week. I certainly don't have the spare $70 which I would need if I were to change to the PPO2. I'll be very lucky if I see even a one percent pay raise this year, partly due to some less than stellar job performance on my part due to both health issues and morale issues, and partly due to the organization having recently turned into cheap bastards. They've been around well over 100 years and only had the first successful unionization three years ago. I know that the appearance of the unions hasn't helped management any, but if they hadn't started treating the employees as easily replaceable cogs rather than partners there wouldn't be a union.
I don't mind my job, but I hate my work place. I hate being treated as an idiot and given no say in how my job can be done best. I hate being expected to accept being "dissed" by management at every turn with a smile and a "May I have some more please?" attitude.
I knew when the PPACA was passed that I was going to lose my real health insurance (I don't count Tricare as real), but my family, dyed in the wool Dems that they all are, kept assuring me that I was over-reacting and nothing like that would ever happen. I got to call my mother today and remind her about that.
And the worst of it is, that by dropping my health insurance with the institution, I am saving them over $20K a year, and there is no way they will give me a penny of it. Basically, my reimbursement from work is dropping over 30%.
I worked my ass off to get a good job so I could have real health insurance, and thanks to those &^%$#%^&* assholes in DC I'm working as hard as ever, my taxes are going up almost 50%, all the necessities cost more every day, and I can't even afford insurance better than they give to the folks on welfare (okay, sometimes Tricare is better, but the docs I work with have said that the pay from Medicaid is often better than Tricare).
My standard of living is sinking like a rock, I can't give my children the things they want, and not even some of the things they need, and the folks in Washington, who think they rule me, want me to just suck it up like a good little peon?
Ben Gates: Of all the ideas that became the United States, there's a line here that's at the heart of all others. "But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and provide new Guards for their future security."
Here's hoping that we can overthrow this Government at the ballot box in November. Otherwise at best, we need to stock up on tar and feathers and start a march on DC. If, God forbid, Zero gets another term, we need to start that march on the 7th.
Who's with me?
But today I can see how people can feel the need to terminate political figures with extreme prejudice. I can also better understand how you can have a civil war with brother killing brother, neighbor killing neighbor, and former best friends now worst enemies. I loathed Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and all their little sycophantic underlings before today. But until today I did know just how much I could hate. Beginning today, if they are on fire I will not piss on them. Beginning today, if I hear that something evil has befallen them, I will celebrate like the Palestinians on 9/11. Beginning today not a single one of them can claim membership in the same country or even species with me.
I just got the annual benefits enrollment package. And I am going to have to drop my health insurance at work and leave us with just Tricare, the insurance which most doctors would prefer charity cases over.
For the 12 years I have worked at this institution we have had two or three choices, the more expensive ones covering more stuff with lower copays, but all of them available to everyone who wanted them. For the last several years it has been two versions of Aetna, a PPO1 and a PPO2. I have chosen 1 because my share of the premiums for the family plan has been about $43 a week (which is actually less than 10% of the total premium), and since we have Tricare which functions as a secondary insurance, it just didn't make financial sense to pay 50% more for something which wouldn't give us that $1K more of benefits.
This year, HR has decided to give us two offerings, the PPO2 at the same $64 a week, or a High Deductible Insurance with an HSA, at $15 a week. Except that since I am married to a man who gets Tricare I can not, by law, choose the HDI/HSA plan. HDI/HSA primary members cannot be covered by any other health insurance. Their spouses and children can, but not them. So unless I could figure out a way to get off Tricare, which I suspect would require divorcing my husband, and even if it's not that difficult, I'd never be able to get back on, I can't use that plan.
So they say, I can just pay another $20 a week and get the higher plan. Except that over the last four years my raises haven't even covered the increase in the cost of gas to get to and from work. On January 1, 2013 Social Security will go back up from 4.3% to 6.3%, which is almost another $20 a week for me. The child tax credit is being halved, so that's another $10 a week in tax. Add in the return of the marriage penalty and the loss of the 10% tax bracket and that's another $20 a week too. My husband is also going to see the SS/MC increase so that's another $10 or so a week.
So add it up, the tax increases we will see in two months, thanks to the Democrats, will amount to nearly $60 a week. We can't really cut anything other than the SS from my husband's share of the income because pretty much everything he brings in is already spoken for, and anyway, working in retail, his hours haven't always been consistent this past year (surprise). So I'm looking at my take-home dropping $50 a week.
I can tell you right now that I don't have a spare $50 a week. I certainly don't have the spare $70 which I would need if I were to change to the PPO2. I'll be very lucky if I see even a one percent pay raise this year, partly due to some less than stellar job performance on my part due to both health issues and morale issues, and partly due to the organization having recently turned into cheap bastards. They've been around well over 100 years and only had the first successful unionization three years ago. I know that the appearance of the unions hasn't helped management any, but if they hadn't started treating the employees as easily replaceable cogs rather than partners there wouldn't be a union.
I don't mind my job, but I hate my work place. I hate being treated as an idiot and given no say in how my job can be done best. I hate being expected to accept being "dissed" by management at every turn with a smile and a "May I have some more please?" attitude.
I knew when the PPACA was passed that I was going to lose my real health insurance (I don't count Tricare as real), but my family, dyed in the wool Dems that they all are, kept assuring me that I was over-reacting and nothing like that would ever happen. I got to call my mother today and remind her about that.
And the worst of it is, that by dropping my health insurance with the institution, I am saving them over $20K a year, and there is no way they will give me a penny of it. Basically, my reimbursement from work is dropping over 30%.
I worked my ass off to get a good job so I could have real health insurance, and thanks to those &^%$#%^&* assholes in DC I'm working as hard as ever, my taxes are going up almost 50%, all the necessities cost more every day, and I can't even afford insurance better than they give to the folks on welfare (okay, sometimes Tricare is better, but the docs I work with have said that the pay from Medicaid is often better than Tricare).
My standard of living is sinking like a rock, I can't give my children the things they want, and not even some of the things they need, and the folks in Washington, who think they rule me, want me to just suck it up like a good little peon?
Ben Gates: Of all the ideas that became the United States, there's a line here that's at the heart of all others. "But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and provide new Guards for their future security."
Here's hoping that we can overthrow this Government at the ballot box in November. Otherwise at best, we need to stock up on tar and feathers and start a march on DC. If, God forbid, Zero gets another term, we need to start that march on the 7th.
Who's with me?
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