jMcJohnson

Here’s a few pics of interesting things I have seen in my neighborhood since the hurricane.

OH SHIT! I’m not sure what the next step is in this situation. I guess you keep your mouth closed as you try to turn it upright.

Okay, so this actually happened a few days before the hurricane, but I’d like to think the barometric pressure had something to do with it. They really taught this dumpster a lesson.

I think hurricane winds blew this back from 1984.

The trauma of having no power makes you do crazy things. Like make signs to beg for it.

Gratuitous nephew shot. As far as I know, he was unaffected by the hurricane.

Ryan is in Salina with the band this week. I really miss his ass. I miss the rest of him, too.

Well, Katrina did some damage in South Florida, but apparently saved her worst for Louisiana and Mississippi. Carrie and Joe still have no power, so I have two new roommates and it’s basically just like Three’s Company since Ryan is still out of town. We only lost power and cable for 24 hours, we were seriously lucky since it looks like C & J may be without power until Friday.

Tomorrow…Hurricane Photo Parade!

In case you haven’t heard, Tropical Storm Katrina is bearing down on the So Fla coast aimed STRAIGHT for Broward County (where I live, duh). If you look out my window, you may think “Gee it’s raining. That sucks.” If you watch the news you’ll know that WE’RE ON THE VERGE OF TOTAL ANARCHY AND IMMINENT ARMAGEDDON. That’s right, time to head to Publix and arm wrestle a gallon of purified water from a little old lady, then elbow her in the gut and run out out door laughing like a maniac (because THERE’S NO TIME TO PAY FOR SHIT!!! NOT WHEN WE’RE ALL ABOUT TO DIE!!!) Television is now round the clock coverage of the COUNTDOWN TO OUR DEMISE (right now, it’s looking like about 8pm EST). No Oprah, No Dr. Phil, just maps and cones of death and the poor rookie newscasters on the beach reporting LIVE on the…drizzle? Mild wind? Don’t get me wrong I love to see a newscaster cling to a light pole for dear life during a Cat 4, I really do, but this is just stupid.

So, friends, this may be my last entry (you can drown in less than two inches of water, you know.) So goodbye for now, please pray for me, and my sanity.

Update on the insurance retardery:
They have to credit our previous insurance to our wait time for pre-existing conditions! And when I called, freaking out about it (internally, of course) they just acted like it’s no big deal, and OF COURSE they would credit me that time. I found out later, in fact, they have to, thanks to the new HIPAA laws. What is HIPAA, you ask? Why, it’s that thing that they make you sign at the Dr.’s office that says that you have read and understand HIPAA laws when in fact, you have done neither.

Umm, Blue Cross? Net time could you NOT send me a letter telling me you won’t cover my medicine and Dr. visits when you don’t really mean it?

Thanks.

Anyone know if HIPAA was Democratic legislation? I hope so. If not, sorry GWB, I hate to blame you for one more thing, you seem to have a lot on your plate right now.

Since I left my unhappy job, it became necessary for Ryan and I to go on his insurance. We filled out the paperwork, set everything up and got our new cards in the mail. Our old coverage ends Aug. 31st, our new coverage begins Sept. 1. No problems, right?

Then I read the back of one of the forms sent from Blue Cross that basically told us that they had decided NOT to cover any pre-existing conditions for ONE YEAR. This is not a big deal for Ryan, but is very bad for me. I am pretty healthy, except for my UC. WHich is treated by medication that I use monthly. On our old insurance, all my medicine was $40 a month. On this new “plan, we pay out of pocket for a year. Which (I checked today) for both of my medications for what is considered my chronic illness comes out to just over $300 a month.

What?!?!

Why even have insurance? If I had none, I could apply and get my meds for FREE through all the great assistance programs out there, but we have insurance so no dice. My Dr. was a jerk about it too. He was like “Yeah, that sucks, I’ll see you in three months.” Not to mention that his office visits are $200. I just can’t understand why drug companies get patents for like, 15 years to trap the general public into paying outrageous prices for drugs that they need to function. Generics would be great, but my meds don’t have any yet. Stupid America and it’s stupid insurance bullshit.

I am exploring a few options to see if I can get the waiting period cut down, but I don’t know what’s going to happen. If this was a few years back when I was younger and dumber, I would have said “screw it” and just stopped taking meds altogether, but unpredictable bowels are really no fun for anyone. Maybe I can get drugs from Canada. Maybe I’ll move to Europe.

I blame Bush for all of this, by the way.

…to have this license plate!

When we bought our car,the dealership ordered our tags for us. When I picked them up,I opened the paper wrapper, and there it was…P916AY. Yes, it is a 6 not a G, but it sure looks like GAY to me. I feel like it is certainly instant karma for me, because surely I would laugh my ass off at some other poor idiot who got stuck with those tags. Sometimes I forget that they say what they do, and that I am unknowingly giving many people a big laugh during the day, as they crane their necks to try to look inside my car to see if I really do look GAY (clearly, I do.)

Today is my first weekday not going to the AHA in almost a year. Being a creature of routine, it is a bit odd. Fantastic, but odd. My classes don’t start for a couple more weeks, so I am just trying to busy myself doing all the other stuff I have to catch up on (mainly episodes of Dr.Phil and Starting Over.) Weird as this is sometimes, I never doubt that I have done the right thing. I just couldn’t go on not wanting to get up in the morning, feeling I was wasting days of my life. That sucked. I will, of couse, be making a bit less money now, but I will look forward to waking up in the morning.

This was taken in Bavaria, KS from inside Ryan’s Grandpa’s barn that Mike is building. He has put up this entire thing with his two bare hands, no nail gun, no nothing. There has to be something tremendously satisfying to look out at something and say “I made that. It may very well be here longer than I will.” As fathers-in-law go, Mike is a quiet guy, but he loves to build things, and he’s pretty good at it. He wants to build a log cabin on that land some day. I hope he gets to.

Today is my last day at my current job.

What should I steal?*

*To the IT department of my work that may or may not be monitoring my Internet use: This is a funny joke. Please do not call the police.

A dude with a Rubbermaid tote filled with Chinese calendars just pounded on the door here at the work. When I opened the door, he tried to sell me one (with a marked lack of enthusiasm for his “product,” I might add) and I told him, “Sorry, we aren’t allowed to buy things from Solicitors.” He looked at me like I just spoke the language of his calendars, said “Uhhh…okay” and walked away.

This happens at least once a week, despite our large “No Soliciting” sign on the door, and I never understood why, when it is clearly stated that we are NOT interested.

So, it got me thinking, you know what’s the biggest problem with the “No Soliciting” sign on the door of my workplace?

Soliciters don’t know what the word “Soliciting” means.

Most of them have a sixth-grade education (just like Jethro on The Beverly Hillbillies) and I think that Soliciting is like, an eighth –grade vocabulary word. How can they not do it when they don’t know that it refers to them? I actually have a memory in grade school of going to knock on my elderly neighbor’s door to borrow sugar or something and she had a little handmade sign that said “No Soliciting” on it. I thought it said “No Scolding*,” like, if I ran over her flowers with my bike she wouldn’t yell at me. Later, during eighth-grade, I learned what that word actually meant, and I truly thought back to that day that I saw the sign, and suddenly, that moment made sense. It was actually rather gratifying.

Sadly, the Jethro’s of our world are never allowed that flashbulb vocabulary moment, because they do not finish school, and they become Solicitors.

I think the sign should say something they could understand, like, “If you are selling something, GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE,” or “WE HATE CALENDARS,” or just a picture of a guy carrying a Rubbermaid with a huge red line through it.

Maybe I’ll create that sign tomorrow and become a millionaire.

* Yes, I am aware that Scolding and Soliciting are two completely different words, but I wasn’t aware at that time. Understand that this event occurred around the same time I made a “seat belt” for my bicycle by tying myself to the seat with a rope. Genius!

I found this link on another blog…

Brawny Innocent Escapes

It takes a minute to load but is TOTALLY worth it.