We have GOT to get some parking guidelines established. That was another thing we had in Minneapolis – snow emergency got declared, and you were hustling to make sure your car was parked on the correct side of the street, because that’s how they got stuff plowed properly. You can see how this works on their website. And I can hear the whining already. WAAAAH I don’t know what day of the Emergency we’re on WAAAAAH which day is odd?!WAAAAHHHH well, call the waaaahmbulance (you can probably meet Crazy Cat Lady, she’ll share a ride) because it works. And yeah, if you ignore it, you get a ticket & can even get towed. But the streets are driveable. And that makes it worth it!
Category: rants (Page 2 of 2)
So, I am terrifically behind. I haven’t blogged our Cancun vacation, I haven’t blogged the garden, I haven’t blogged, I haven’t updated to the latest WordPress version 2.8.2, which sort of works out since I never did a bunch of those earlier versions either. I have the automatic upgrader installed, but it refuses to cooperate. Shrug. SO I am going to check off one of my promises, which was to my former co-worker, good nerdy gal pal Hillary, that I would blog about her wedding!
Dan & Hillary got married on July 3, 2009, at the rooftop garden downtown atop Cosentino’s Market. The views were stunning, the plot of grass and trees amid all the steel and glass just felt idyllic. I admit, I also have a soft spot for twinkle lights. We were on the other end of the building from the much-ballyhooed Jones Pool, and this was the very first event to be held there!
I’ll share my pictures, but I have to warn you: I challenged the hell out of myself and my camera with the night settings, lack-of-tripod, and a sky rapidly approaching dusk. Let’s just go with the fact they captured more the SPIRIT of the event, k?
This was the view from our table:
Her bridesmaids came out first, and then Hillary walked in. Here is a photo of the beaming bride, and it looks like I put her into a 1976 television set:
Dan and Hillary’s children participated in the ceremony – they were precious! It was a little challenging to hear everything, but the great thing about weddings is that things pretty much roll along and you get pronounced married and everybody cheers and the soft-hearted even shed a few tears of joy, because every wedding reminds you of the day you made similar promises.
May I present the just-married couple!
I think what I loved about this wedding was that it captured the couple’s personality, and the fact that they were already married in their hearts and minds long before they made it legal in the eyes of the state. And, not to hijack this post about them TOO much, I have to say, it’s just wrong that we still don’t allow gay people to have those same civil rights. My father used to tell me marriage was just a piece of paper, it was what was in your heart that mattered. Love is love. Gay people, straight people, bi-people, all people, will love each other with or without a piece of paper. With or without the Catholic church, with or without government sanction. What really gets me is the legal fact that without my piece of paper, I could be kept from my husband’s side in the hospital. Without that piece of paper, no matter how great my love, no matter how many years, shared bank accounts or possessions – the legal system says, “Nope.” As do the heretics who fear the ‘sanctity of marriage’ being corrupted by Teh Gayz. Marriage is a ceremony, legal unions are another. If churches want to sanction gay marriage, more power to them. If some churches don’t? Well, sounds like a church that’s probably not worth joining. Legal unions should be available to everyone!
Whew. Sorry Hil. Except I know you’ll understand and agree; this rant has been sitting in me since CA went all prop-8 nuts.
LOVE! It makes the world go ’round. And it’s gorgeous and dizzying on a rooftop.
P.S. – they’re working on a website, but for now, you can just pop over and the page background is an awesome photo of the happy family. Yay!
I’ve got some blog posts written in my head – one will make you laugh – and yet I just have to wait and focus on what’s lived inside my head since Sunday.
I’m absolutely heart-wrenched by the murder of Dr. Tiller. I was sitting at my computer upstairs, waiting for the a/c to cool things down, and up popped a news alert. What hit me in the next moment was shock, anger, tears, grief – all of it. Anyone who’s been around this blog for a while knows my beliefs and my politics. Everywhere I’ve turned this week has reiterated the same things over and over, and I’m tired of reading the bombastic hate speech of those who can barely denounce Tiller’s murder. What Tiller did was – IS – legal. Wrap yourself up in your religion all you like; keep your morality, judgment and legal efforts off of my body. Oh, and isn’t it criminal that I have to even say it? Your bullets.
If you want to make a difference, here are two organizations I actively support:
Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri
If you are a recent reader and want to understand more about where I’m coming from, read this blog post.
Want some perspective on how vital these services are? Go to Here and Now, and scroll down to listen to ‘Late Term Abortions’. A woman who was a patient of Dr. Tiller’s has broken her silence; her story is heart-wrenching.
If you want to think about the context and label I have for what happened? I leave you with this :
‘In November 2004, a United Nations Security Council report described terrorism as any act “intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants with the purpose of intimidating a population or compelling a government or an international organization to do or abstain from doing any act”.’
If you don’t want to read a rant about healthcare & insurance, then just keep on truckin’. Go look at Cuteness or KrazyKats. (seriously, I’ve had that Cute Overload pug in my bloglines since January, just for the laugh!)
I remember when your pharmacist not only looked at the other drugs you were taking, but thought about things, and gave you a recommendation or consultation whether you asked for it or not. As an aside to this rant, there IS a pharmacist at the Ward Parkway Target, who is flat-out phenomenal, and I want her to move into my house and give me advice all the time. But of course, I do my prescriptions through mail order (so as to save money) and therefore, for all I know, well-trained monkeys who managed to survive medical testing are filling and dispensing my prescriptions. Actually, given my recent experiences, I think I may have just insulted the monkeys.
Two months ago, my doctor phoned in a prescription, and the WHOLE POINT of using mail-order is to get a 90-day supply for the price of 60. Do people use the mail order for just one month’s worth? I didn’t think so, and you would think it might red-flag something, especially on a prescription that had been filled before at the higher quantity. Well, my doctor’s nurse screwed up and only ordered 30 days’ worth. A call to the insurance company put the blame back on the doctor. And my doctor’s office called, multiple times, to ask them to issue the remaining 60 days’ worth of medication, but they told them it was THEIR fault and they dispensed it as ordered, and there was nothing they could do. (See how deftly that works? They are responsible to… no one!) The very fact that my doctor’s office called me three times to apologize and own their part of the mistake, and the fact it’s a generic, made me go, ok, I’m not going to raise holy hell over this, and it’s proving once again that our friends in the insurance industry aren’t really our friends. (Such a life theme to learn!)
But what really gets me is this last Rx. It’s for an acne skin creme, because even as I approach 40, I still get to keep the joyful skin of my 16-year old self. I ran out, and I anxiously awaited the refill – my doctor’s office called me to confirm what I wanted, and the form I usually got it in (jar or pump? Jar, please.) And I waited. And waited. So I logged on and saw the order was in some “suspended” state. I call the insurance company. It went a little like this:
Me: Yes, I’m calling to find out what’s happening with this prescription.
Them: We are waiting for more information from your doctor.
Me: Huh? What do you mean? What information?
Them: Well, they wrote the prescription for “Benzaclin jar 90 day supply.”
Me: Ok…. so what’s the issue.
Them: Well, the pharmacist doesn’t know how many doses are in a jar. They don’t know how many jars to send. This could read as 90 jars.
Me: (Silence. Dumfounded.)
Me: So, usually I get 3 jars, you know, for 3 months. (Imagining myself with 90 jars and restraining laughter at the absurdity of it all.)
Them: (hostile tone) You go through ONE JAR a month? (a jar is… 25 grams. Just under one ounce. This is not a vat of cold cream, people.)
Me: (fuck-you tone) YES.
Them: Well, the pharmacist has to talk to your doctor.
Me: Have you told my doctor this?
Them: They have notified the office they need more information.
(This is a common response – FYI, if an insurance company tells you they have done this? It usually means they haven’t. I’m not kidding when I say that I believe my doctor’s office does everything in their power for their patients, and if I leave a message for ANYone there at any time, I get a call back the same day. If the insurance company tells me they’ve contacted my doctor, that means they gave the note to the rabbits the medical-tested monkeys stole on their way outta dodge, and it was promptly shredded. While someone laughed, maniacally.)
Me: Let me alert them to this.
And then they give me the doctor-only phone number, WITH an admonishment that it’s a phone line only for the doctor to use, I could almost hear the unspoken warning, “Don’t you think you can use that line to circumvent our intricate answering machine greeting, little bitch.”
So now it looks like things have been straightened out, and I am pretty sure I’m not getting a freight delivery of 90 jars of Benzaclin, but it’s reinforced – once again – that the only person really looking out for me? Is me.
Boy, it’s been a blur. We saw Avenue Q on Tuesday, and it was fabulous. So, so funny. It was also fun to be out and about & doing something different. Plus, the entire crowd was so diverse. And let’s face it: there’s just nothing like some puppet sex to make your week stand out. (Make that: Tony Award-Winning Puppet Sex!)
Yesterday was busy, and then I had a surprise client meeting, so whoosh! I barely remember what happened. I got everything done & pulled together and everything went well, she’s a great client & all – but I felt my gears starting to slip late in the day, and most of my night was spent zombie-like. Except for when Suzy started to FLIP. OUT. The growling and the low barking and the borderline-alarm was enough to get me out into the breezeway to investigate what was going on.
And well she should be on High Alert: there were THREE cop cars and an ambulance lined up in the street in front of our house. I watched and watched, with a low-growling Suzy by my side. I’m still not clear on what exactly happened (I’m not one of those neighbors who just strolls out and starts asking, “What’s goin’ on?” To me that seems like a great way to get caught in some strange takedown by the po-po, or perhaps, shot.)
I did see one officer eventually make it into the house across the street, and noticed that just like on tv, he did NOT turn the lights on. I could see his flashlight bobbling all around their kitchen area. I have always thought that was nuts, like why do they walk around in the dark with a flashlight, hm? Why wouldn’t you turn on the lights? I’m still pondering that one, though one theory may be someone is waiting for you & would have some level of an advantage while your cop eyeballs adjusted to the light change? I dunno. Someone needs to find this out. I always thought it was movie/tv silliness! Anyway, the whole drama unfolded over about half an hour, and they wheeled a stretcher up to the house & took someone out, though I think she was alive. I felt bad, because this is the woman from the Hose Incident, and her mom died less than a month ago. I think she’s at least a bubble off, and perhaps on some sort of chemical most of the time, so I just don’t know the full story. But she seemed to be yelling (her other favorite thing to do) the whole way into the bambalance, so I trust she’s still alive.
In other news, I was surprised to find my very liberal, pro-union self thinking this whole Hollywood writer’s strike is just stupid. Maybe it’s because I have a really hard time feeling sorry for people who make $200,000 a year. However, I also don’t feel sorry for studio executives who rake it in hand-over-fist, just for bringing brain-sucking dreck to our television sets. (See: Viva Laughlin.) I feel sorry for all the people who make $24,000 a year who depend on those people being employed, and who will suffer because the Rich are picketing against the Super Rich. When do the worker bees get to go on strike because Gary Forsee gets a $54 million SEVERANCE package? See, in the “real world”, the one where going out for sushi is a :treat:, not a lifestyle, when someone doesn’t like your work performance? You get fired. Maybe get a couple weeks in pay and any vacation earned. You worry about paying a mortgage that is the equivalent of these writers’ cars. Or Gary Forsee’s nail clippings. I realize I’m mixing up ye olde issues here, but I just have a hard time believing that someone like a sitcom writer or Gary Forsee are worth millions and millions and millions of dollars, when we have soldiers without proper equipment and armor, fighting a mistaken war, or teachers, who don’t even get paid hazard pay, who have to watch out for Kill Lists, or even police officers, who walk into dark houses and wonder if they’re going to get shot at, or even have to deal with a sopping wet crazy lady who needs to be carted off to the loony bin.
Apparently I’m more than “still kickin'”. I’m kickin’ ass and bitchin’, too.