Good Riddance, I Say

It's still 2012 and we're all still alive.  There was no apocalypse and my crew somehow managed to survive.  It wasn't easy.

I have been struggling with a way to describe this past year.  The title of this post will serve for now.  We have been struggling in general.  This has not been a happy holiday season.

It would seem that there are but a few groups who aren't struggling now.  One of them is Congress; currently busy not struggling with a way to save us money and benefit its constituents.  Instead, the traitorous bastards struggle with ways to get us to pay for their misdeeds and usurp the Bill of Rights.

Another group not struggling is rental car centers, or at very least, the one near us.  We're on week two of our rental, with nary a word on the body work of our car after the deer committed suicide with it.

Deer are another topic entirely.  My friend, the deer hunter, told me he had a clear shot at a deer a few weeks back.  He shifted, the deer heard it and ran.  If their hearing is that good, how does a deer miss a loud 35mph Hyundai at night with lights?  I suspect it was suicidal after all.

Some tell me this is deer season and they're about.  They sure are - they're decorating hoods all over the place.  And trust me, you don't want that kind of hood ornament.  Last weekend we were near the scene of our accident and came upon someone else's fresh accident.

Do we need to aerially spray the neighborhood with Prozac for the deer?  Are they that depressed?  Others speculate that they're just horny.  I'm just horny too but I don't go leaping in front of moving vehicles (unless that vehicle is Eva Longoria).  Some organization or other is talking about deer contraceptives, which brings me to my next point... what in the world is the pope going to say about deer condoms?  He sure as hell doesn't like them for humans.  My only thought here is that since the pope doesn't believe animals have souls, perhaps it's all equal in the end.  Perhaps if we tell the pro-lifers that we're giving abortions to the deer, they'd guard the roadways.  This way we won't actually have to touch the deer and the deer won't be able to get to the roads to leap in front of random cars.  Everybody wins (if we assume the deer aren't depressed in the first place).

HOLIDAYS

Holiday time is supposed to be a happy time.  Supposed to.
It seems that happiness took a few days off during my recent break from work.  It had gotten so bad that I cancelled xmas entirely (for myself).  As for everybody else, depression crashed into bipolar disorder, which sideswiped dream therapy, causing horrible nightmares for children.  Neuroses played table tennis with grief.  Not to be outdone, multiplicity sulked behind the scenes and refused to effectively communicate.

That aside, everything else was fine.


SOMEONE ELSE'S MIRACLE

Bro and Sis-in-law's mom had to go to the hospital for tests.  She walked in, had tests and became half paralyzed.  Brain cancer.  Then full paralysis (I strongly suspect the hospital, not cancer).  Days later, with many diagnoses, she was alert, awake, and oriented.  A transfer to hospice that was a death sentence got commuted to extended care.  My wife (the nurse) proved to a doctor that he had no idea what he was talking about.

So my relatives are celebrating and my wife scored some dignity for a dying woman.


THE WIFE'S MIRACLE

I hate health insurance companies.  This is kind of like saying that we hate Hitler.
My wife has been on the same medication for chronic pain for three years.  Because the insurance company is invested in finding new and better ways not to pay for things, they introduced the review/precertification process.  Once a year, the prescribing physician has to jump through hoops to get the medicine recertified so the insurance will pay for it.  The last time was June.

So what happened when my wife went to pick up her December pain meds?  The insurer decided that one year between reviews was no good and decided on six months instead.  Yes, these thieving bastards required another review so my wife could receive the pain meds she's been on for three years. This was made all the more amusing by the fact that her doctor was on vacation for two weeks with no way to reach him and a full answering machine.

The pharmacist, bless him, sat on the phone for twenty minutes with the insurer and got an override for four days worth of medicine (with the full copay, of course).  We had the option of paying cash for the meds, at ten dollars per pill, which we could not do.

For anyone still following, the insurer decided it was perfectly ok to completely stop a patient's prescribed pain meds due to a precert that could not be reasonably performed in one day.  This would cause not only horrible pain, it would cause the patient to go into detox.  But it's ok - this is how the insurance lobbies got Congress to write insurance law.

My wife put on her asshole hat and called the insurance company.  They were quite sympathetic to her plight but checked all the way up the chain and couldn't do a thing for her.  Her only option was to pay cash for the meds, which they would reimburse after the fact, then tackle the doc when he returns and force him to make the paperwork right.

So we're out about two hundred for meds now.  Combined with weeks of car rental, our mortgage company hopefully has a forgiveness program.

Another slew of imaginary points to the wife for keeping herself out of detox.   Notice that I am not sending kudos for bettering herself - just for scraping to get the bare minimum.   Life should not be about scraping for bare minimum.


MY MIRACLE

A few days ago I ventured across the building in search of Coca Cola.  There, in the machine, shining out like brown gold, was an actual row of Coke.  In the Coke machine, which is usually filled with Pepsi.  An xmas miracle!

But luck refused to abandon me this week.  The next day, there were two rows of Coke in the Coke machine.  And as if that weren't enough, there was silverware in the silverware drawer.  I was on a roll.  If I played numbers, this was the week to play them.

Finding soda made me feel almost invincible.


AND IN THE END

The kids were upset.  The pets were clingy.  Gifts sat unopened.  No one was happy.

We decided to hold our own xmas, the night after the other one, perhaps sending out our own metaphorical finger to the universe.

The kids got excited.  The pets got in the way.  The Hess chopper was the star of the evening.
I participated, in spite of cancelling xmas, by giving.

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We wish you a very Happy Whatever, dear reader(s).  Strength to those who need it.  Good health for all.  Keep the deer away from us.  Have a safe and happy new year and may 2013 be much less apocalyptic and much more enriching.

Pre-Hollerday Updates and Automatic Weapons

My car, as you might remember, was used by a female deer to commit suicide.  We just found out that the repair bill will be close to four thousand dollars and the insurance will cover it.  So we're just out for the car rental.

Lacking foreknowledge that people and animals would be throwing themselves at my car, I did not get rental insurance.  My wife added it today.  She called me to let me know that I saved us one dollar per month by not having rental.  Don't I feel the fool?

When we get it back, the car will be rebuilt better and stronger.  It will be the Bionic Car.  I have to locate a bumper sticker that says THIS CAR KILLED BAMBI.  And one of those small white deer stickers for the rear window with an X through it.

Merry F-ing Xmas.

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Last night I went shopping for work's Secret Santa Project.  I have known my target for a long time so the only choice was Spencer's Gifts at the mall.  It was brought to my attention that this wasn't exactly the best time in the world to go shopping but I didn't exactly have a lot of choice.  Hey, I just realized that xmas is Tuesday.

The first thing I noticed, besides not being able to find a parking space, is that Spencer's must have a rule that every fifteen to seventeen year-old child in the township must be inside the store, standing about and not moving.  And not moving loudly.  Speaking of loudly, we also need to discuss the decibel level of the (alleged) music, blasting down upon the teens from the specially-enhanced ceiling speakers.

Now before we call me Old Man and have me start yelling "Get off my lawn", I am a musician who plays loud rock and roll through large tube amplifiers.  I love music and I make it loudly.  The music raining down upon us was semi-agreeable but so loud that it prevented things like talking, concentrating and thinking.  Between impaired mental function and wading through Dawn of the Dead, shopping was extremely difficult.  

Oh yeah, I almost forgot the dings.  I guess it was the store's notification or alarm system that kept going DING, DING, DING every five seconds.  This addition to the general din was not a pleasant one.  As I suspected the workers no longer heard the DINGs, as if they were living next to an airport and didn't hear the planes anymore.  I politely offered to kill the DINGer and was encouraged by one of the fellows behind the counter, who was busy trying to launch his printer over the railing, down a few floors of the mall.

Since Spencer's seems to have co-opted several adult novelty stores, there was no shortage of interesting items to purchase.  But since Secret Santa takes place at work, I had to keep it semi-clean.  I found a penis mug and a Fifty Shades blindfold.  Yes, that's semi-clean where I work.

The wife decided to go into Hot Torrent.  This place was playing Rush (no, really) at the threshold of pain.  How one is supposed to discuss how cool their piercings look over that din is unfathomable.  My wife shouted to an employee about changing rooms.  She shouted something back but I couldn't make it out.  Wife tried on some really hot jeans but wasn't comfortable with them only coming up to her nether regions.  We must be old.

Topping off the evening, we ate at Chick Filet, where we established that none of the meat comes from gay chickens.

We Strove for a Stove

I'm almost uncomfortable, now that I think about it, having to admit that I've had a broken oven for the greater part of two years.  We do have a toaster oven and a microwave, not to mention the stove works, so we were generally ok.  I terribly missed my wife's Xmas Cookies of Death but we must do what we must do.  Anyone can make or buy chocolate chip cookies but my wife makes them something special. I make a point of not having nuts in cookies but I don't mind when my wife does it.  They're even better than my mom's cookies, which is saying a lot.

Out of the blue, a stove/oven dropped on us.  Not in the same way the deer dropped on my car; more of a surprise exchange.  Since we knew it was coming, we were able to make plans to get it in the house, make room and see about installation.  Since installation was two hundred and fifty dollars, we opted for the Dad Fix (Dad would come over and do it).

Making room looked to be the most difficult part of the program.  You'd think it would be a matter of removing the old stove and moving in the new one, but we don't do anything normally.  Suffice it to say that clear floor space is at a premium (which is a nice way of saying that we're just a few square feet of space away from an episode of Hoarders).  Days of cleaning and moving stuff ensued, spearheaded by my ever-moving wife.  Since the kitchen is at the back of the house, we decided the oven would exit and enter by the back door (with the dog and cat).

The fateful day arrived and I took off work.  Dad arrived and took the wife to Lowes, where my wife likes to spend money.  When they returned, we unhooked the old stove and took it out.  And when I say took it out, I mean it wouldn't go through the back door, so we had to put it on a cart, wheel it through the house, out the front door, and around the back of the house because we can't leave it out front.  We have to call the township to remove it.

After much cursing, we got the old unit out then brought the new unit all the way around, up the front steps and through the house to the kitchen.  More cursing.   Then Dad discovered he had purchased the wrong size plumbing: the house had 3/4" gas lines because it was put together by drunken monkeys, piece by piece, over years.  More cursing and another Lowes trip later, we had all we needed.

I learned all about taping threads, shutting off the gas to the house, screwing things on and the liquid that looks for leaks (LLL).  I also learned not to shut off that other valve because that's not gas.  Fortunately I did not learn like I normally do - the hard way.

We turned the gas back on, tested the burners, pushed back the stove and we were off!  For some strange reason everything worked.  Since it was the beginning of winter, we were in a bit of a hurry to restart the water and house heaters.  Water came right back up but the house heater, which is at least as old as me, took longer.  If called upon, I could absolutely not remember how to start either of them.

My dad mused that this one hour job took four, which is about right.  The wife was thrilled that we had a working stove.  It even had a digital display and timer.  It was white, which will no doubt change quickly.  My back was saying nasty things to me in a rather threatening tone, so we all went out for lunch (at 4 o'clock).

An oven is nice but it's an awful shame about the plumbing.

The plumbing?

Yes, the plumbing.  My wife informed me that there was rather a lot of water in the basement sink.  It was going nowhere and apparently was backing up, due to the internal kids flushing paper towels.  No amount of plumber's helpering would clear the mess.  She got out chemicals, which usually work but also failed.

The wife consulted my dad, my brother and the Home Depot Handbook.  We borrowed a snake, which also failed.  Finally she flushed some RidX down the toilet and within hours, we had no water in the sink.

Let's face it - I'm a knowledge worker.  I wasn't built to move boxes or do plumbing.

CAR UPDATE

We took the car to the insurance-approved collision center.  They immediately got upset and said it shouldn't be driven.  We should hear back today on the status.

Venison: it's what's for dinner.

This is Why I Can't Have Nice Things

For my entire life, I have driven very old, very used land yachts.  With many additional exterior modifications and features (by which I mean wrinkles, crinkles and dents).  One day a coworker made a comment about my car being an external mess and it bothered me for the first time.

Keeping a pair of land yachts was becoming very expensive, especially after one quit completely.  We decided it would be cheaper to pay for a new(er) car.  I thought it was the best decision and long overdue.   The Hyundai was new to me, but low mileage.  And it had no external modifications and features.  No longer would my coworkers make fun of my car... it was a great new feeling (in spite of five $200 tires).

I felt like the king of the world.  For at least a few months, until some uninsured piece of Philly dung rammed into it while making an illegal U-turn.  BAM - a door that wouldn't open, complete with external modifications and features.  Then a pair of rear-enders, for good measure.  Note that none of this had anything to do with the drivers of our car.

Tonight was the coup de grace.  A deer committed suicide-by-car, using our car.  It was in a High-Deer Area that we drive through now and then.  I thought I saw movement in the distance, which I apparently did.  All of the sudden there is a deer ten feet in front of the car.  Have you ever had a very large animal appear right in front of your car, as if by magic?  If we had the time, it would have been most disconcerting.  At about thirty-five miles per hour, we didn't have the time.  We hit it and physics took over from there.   I felt sorry for the deer.

When we made it to our destination, we looked at the car.  We had no idea there was so much damage... we couldn't see it from inside.  I immediately stopped feeling sorry for the deer.  A friend who works for an insurance company told us he's working overtime due to [wait for it.......] an incredible number of deer-related claims.

They really are after us.

Our insurer was a pleasure to work with when the uninsured idiot hit us.  I expect the same level of service this time.  Can't remember whether I have rental coverage but it's academic at this point.

THE LARGER PICTURE

I have to keep reminding myself that Life Is Not Fair.  We'd probably all be better off if we remembered this.  But I can't help noticing that we get more than our share of Life's Little Mishaps.  Four accidents in  two years, two of which caused significant damage.  I'm kinda tired of being an asshole magnet.  I even did a little research among friends and relatives; they agree that we get more than most.

Saying that I'm not exactly an optimist is like saying Hitler wasn't exactly fond of minorities.  Yet I've had to console myself with faux-optimistic nonsense lately because that's all there is.

A deer took out the front of my car tonight.
Well, you're lucky it didn't come through the window and kill you.

I just got paid for playing an xmas gig with the band and all of it went to pay for a new tire.
Hey, at least it was only one tire.

My band played last night and stunk up the place.
But the audience applauded.

Do you see where I'm going here?  I'm tired of having to play an optimist on tv just to get by.  When my wife complains that her fibromyalgia pain is through the roof after the accident, am I supposed to tell her that at least we got home?  Is that the highest level of comfort I can provide?

There really should be something better than this.

A Quick Note on Xubuntu 12.10

I upgraded a number of my Xubuntu 12.04 boxes to 12.10 over the last few weeks.  This was a seamless transition.

I am very happy to say that there are no glitches.  So far, I have discovered a new Settings Manager, complete with all the things that should actually be in there in the first place.  This is a welcome addition.

Since I use Xubuntu, I am not subject to Gnome, KDE or the hideous Unity interface.  Thusly, the changes I experience are few and generally for the better.  No spyware (still), no bloat.

I experienced difficulty with one machine but troubleshooting led me to discover that the install routine found an old install, which caused grief on upgrade.

Thumbs up!   Thanks to the tireless folks at Xubuntu/XFCE/Ubuntu/Canonical.

Hey Hey They're the Monkees

A coworker, who is a rabid Monkees fan, came up with an extra pair of tickets for last week's Monkees concert.  Yes, the Monkees.  It was a time warp for me.  I remember watching the Monkees when I was little and there I was, watching (most of) them onstage.

As you remember, Davey Jones passed away this year.  The band toured without Mike Nesmith, who decided to tour after Davey left us.  Mike hasn't toured with the Monkees in many many years, so this was a real surprise.

The Keswick Theater is a great place to catch anyone.  It's small and intimate and there are no bad seats.  We sat halfway back on the right.  A huge video screen played ancient video clips, including the commercials the boys did for cereal and cologne.

The crowd was an interesting mix, between about 15 and 65.  Of course whenever you're at a concert, there are the requisite Concert Weirdos and of course, one of them was sitting next to my wife.  It's really off-putting, watching a sixty year old woman playing air drums and conducting the music, all the time reaching into the chairs around her and generally disturbing the peace.  As a result, my wife was half in my chair (and grumbling).  That lady had no idea how close she came to ceasing to be.

You could not get close to the merchandise on the way in - it was mad.  I wanted a program, at very least.  Unfortunately it was worse on the way out, to the point of fire hazard.

The boys hit the stage to major fanfare.  The backup band was fantastic.  I have seen a bit of Monkees video and the shows are always first rate.  This was my first live experience and I was not disappointed.  Everything was tight, the sound was phenominal and the video was an added treat: it ran constantly during the set, playing the videos from the songs the boys were doing.

Mike was in fine form and played well with everybody.  He primarily used his Gretsch 12 string electric through a small Fender combo, probably a Deluxe Reverb.  Peter played his red Strat, a red five-string bass, banjo, and a Korg keyboard.  Mickey played a Taylor acoustic guitar, various percussion and a custom drum set, but primarily fronted the group.  The band also had Mickey's sister on vocals and Mike's son Christian on guitar and vocals.

They opened with Last Train to Clarksville and we were off to the races.  All periods were covered, including psychedelic.  Mikes tunes were front and center and everybody got a chance to sing lead.  Mickey has all the energy of Steven Tyler (and none of the scarves).  He hit all the notes, too.

Davey's absence did not go unnoticed.  Whenever Davey appeared on the screen, there was applause.  Finally it came time for Daydream Believer.  They mentioned that they had all sung it before but it just wasn't right, so they asked the audience to sing it.  They pulled some guy onstage, who got to stand next to Mickey and sing the whole song.  The guy did well and was out of his mind, meeting the band. It was a really nice tribute.

My coworker, as I mentioned, is a Monkees maniac.  He probably knows more trivia than the band itself.  He can tell me the names of the episodes I describe.  He knows the character actors who played bit parts.  He knows what was recorded and where they were at any time.  You know how there's one yahoo at every concert?  The guy screaming things out?  This was my buddy.  Everyone was pretty quiet between songs.  This was right up until he started yelling things like "I love you, Mickey" and "NESmith!"  After that, it was bedlam.  He almost singlehandedly whipped the crowd into a frenzy.

The tour is finished.  It's too early to say but my bet is that the band is finished (at least as we know it).  I was really happy that I finally got to see my tv friends at least once.  My wife, already a fan, enjoyed the hell out of the evening.  Strangely enough, all of my musical friends said they would have gone, if they had known.

Hats off, guys.  Thanks from a fan or two.