MFA Mama

the job is good and Typepad is GREAT

   The new job is good. It's really nice people working for a nonprofit dedicated to a GREAT cause, and they're busy enough currently to need an administrative temp. I don't think it has long-term potential, which is too bad, but it should last at least a couple of weeks, and that's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick (which is a saying down here in The South, although I've actually been the recipient of such a poke and can say that just about anything up to and including a compound fracture is preferable, so I guess it's not really saying much--THE JOB IS NICE, THE END).

   Typepad? Is GREAT. Those of you who follow me on the Twitter may already be aware, but yesterday I logged into WellsfuckingFargo's website to see if everything had cleared (yes, I still want to dump them--THEY SUCK and have HORRIBLE customer service, and they LIE right on their ATM machines where it says that cash deposits are credited instantly) and was horrified to see a $119 pending chunk out of my meagre balance. Of course I clicked to see what had unexpectedly eaten up 90% of my net worth, and it was my yearly Typepad subscription fee. Did I agree to that? Yes. Last year, however, they deducted it on May 20th, and so I had set a reminder for May 18th. This year apparently they deducted it a little earlier, which probably has something to do with leap years and business days and I DON'T KNOW, I'm sure it makes sense to SOMEone, but that someone is not writing this post.

   I logged into Typepad and clicked around the back end of my account, thinking that maybe if I downgraded to month-to-month billing (the yearly rate is a better deal, although obviously not so much if it causes the next thing to hit your account to generate an overdraft fee) that would fix things. Obviously I was not the first person to panic and have that idea, however, because next to the option to do that was a disclaimer stating that doing so would not cause a refund to be issued, but rather a credit on the account that they would then deduct your monthly fee from until it ran out. CRAP! So I fired off a desperate support ticket explaining that I knew I'd agreed to this being automatically deducted, but thought I had another eight days, was unemployed, etc. and asking if there was ANY way to get the yearly fee refunded and go month-to-month until I was more financially secure again. Since I'd been live-tweeting my freakout, I let my followers know that I'd placed it in Typepad's hands and was just going to hope their customer service folks were as understaning as Amazon.com's are (yeah, Hotter signed up for a free trial of Amazon Prime and forgot to cancel it, and a very nice Amazon.com employee unknowingly SAVED HIS LIFE on Friday by refunding THAT). Best case scenario, I thought I'd maybe get a refund of $119 minus the cost of one month's Typepad Pro service, but realistically I was expecting an admonition to re-read the Terms of Service. I went to bed last night worried as hell, but resigned to waking up to bad news. Instead, while I slept, Typepad was ON IT!

Figure One: Look how friendly!

    I checked my e-mail on my first fifteen-minute break at work, and found an INCREDIBLY nice note from Melanie, a Typepad Community Manager. She explained the date discrepancy in a way that made sense, and that yes, the TOS gave them permission to deduct the money when they did, but went on to say that she understood that life happens, and in light of my longstanding relationship with Typepad they wanted to try and help take the pressure off, so she refunded THE ENTIRE AMOUNT and APPLIED AN EQUAL CREDIT TO MY ACCOUNT. I thanked them profusely, and they were very gracious:

Figure Two: So. Very. Nice.

   You guys. I may have teared up a little in my cube. Of course what Typepad did helped me avoid (another) financial headache, and obviously I'm thrilled with the credit, especially since it's hard to justify paying that kind of money for something that is just for me and can't be eaten or worn to work, given our circumstances. But this was just...well. If you've never been really, really broke, you might not get how huge this was. You get used to hearing "no." To EVERYTHING. Things like sobbing on the phone to your bank, and never picking up a number you don't recognize become part of your daily existence. You come to expect smug annoyance from everyone you do business with, if not outright hostility. It's a relief to even be able to deal with a company via e-mail just so you don't have to hear it out loud, because you already hear it out of your own mouth on a daily basis. No, I can't pay for your eye surgery so you can see better. No, you can't go on that field trip, it costs too much. No, no, NO! The negativity can become overwhelming and start to color your entire outlook. When Typepad not only DIDN'T say no, but went the extra mile and did something nice that I hadn't even asked for, it meant a lot more to me than avoiding an overdraft fee or three and getting to blog for a year for free; it reminded me that there's more to say and hear than no, a lot more to life than relentless negativity. It lifted my entire mood, and helped me put my best foot forward today at the new job. 

   Am I going to stop bitching so much about my life? Probably not. It's not easy, and I'm only human. But I will never do it via any other blogging platform :)

only in America

   This morning I took my last generic Synthroid tablet, and so after today's temp gig I stopped at Kroger prepared to fork over every penny I had to my name to refill that, because my thyroid is a lazy asshole and hypothyroidism is no fun. I've never really gone without medical insurance; I went straight from my parents' policy to a policy through my first "real job" to the XY's policy to an individual one, and from there to The Hotel California's employee plan. I was worried, because even though I know that Synthroid is a cheap drug to fill generically, I figured a doctor or pharmacist's idea of "cheap" and mine would probably be in two entirely different ballparks.

   So you can imagine how relieved I was to find that paying out of pocket for generic Synthroid was entirely within our budget.

   I went from relieved to pissed, however, when I realized that I'd been paying $11 MORE each month for the same medication WITH insurance.

   Only in America.

eyesight

   A couple of you have asked what is up with Hotter's eyes. To which I say: how long do you have to read this crap? Because it took one of the best eye doctors on the Eastern Seaboard over three hours to fully answer that question with all sorts of machines and instruments yesterday.

   The Reader's Digest version is that diabetes is super-bad for the eyesight, and Hotter had many, many laser surgeries to "zap" bleeding vessels that were threatening his vision as a result of what the disease does to the circulatory system. He also developed cataracts at a young age. At some point the eye doctors treating him decided to remove the cataract from the "bad" eye and do a "vitreous fluid exchange" (don't Google that unless you have a strong stomach/aren't afraid of eye things) (I'm serious, it's the stuff of motherfucking nightmares) to restore as much vision as possible without risking the "good" eye. This left Hotter with a new "good" eye and a "bad" eye that wasn't THAT bad. All of this was done nearly a decade ago though, and after additional lasering Hotter has zero peripheral vision, a lot of blurring, "ghost"-type double vision (there are types of this, apparently), and sees everything very, very dimly. 

   So he's pretty much blind, bumps into stuff/falls down a lot, can no longer read standard-size print or menus, and has been getting increasingly frustrated by a visual field that apparently looks like this (copied from the eye doctor's drawing):

Figure One: The green areas represent what he CAN see ("good" eye to the left), although the vision in those areas is...sub-optimal, let's say.

   After over three hours' worth of tests (it'd been a while since Hotter saw an eye doctor, because Medicare doesn't care if you go blind or your teeth fall out--NO VISION OR DENTAL FOR YOU, POOR DISABLED PEOPLE!) subsidized by my employer's excellent medical coverage, the relevant expert said that he wasn't going to push us either way but he *could* remove the second cataract if we wanted to try and improve Hotter's remaining vision. He stressed that this stands a 50% chance of doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING from Hotter's end (although he did say that getting the cataract out of the way would let him see into that eye better to determine whether another vitreous fluid exchange or more lasering was necessary, so that would still improve their ability to safeguard the remaining vision even if it didn't improve any from this surgery itself), about a 10% chance of making things worse due to infection, scarring, "stirring up" the retinopathy from the diabetes (which Hotter may or may not still have as an ongoing thing--there's not a lot of data on former Type-1 diabetics' vision because pancreatic transplants are fairly new), etc. (if you or a loved one have a cataract, your risk of deterioration as a result of surgery is probably MUCH, MUCH LOWER--I am not a doctor and while Hotter's eye doctor is, he was dealing with Hotter's eyes in laying out these odds and probably your/your loved one's eyes are in MUCH BETTER SHAPE), and about a 40% chance of improving the vision anywhere from "it's a teeny bit better" to "DOCTOR, DOCTOR, I CAN SEE!"

   Given that there is so little vision left in the "bad" eye, Hotter and I feel that a 10% chance of losing that vs. a 90% chance of the surgery doing at least SOME good (either immediately or by enabling better long-term care) makes this an easy choice: we've scheduled the procedure for mid-May in order to make sure I can be off work to drive and Transplant can check Hotter out in order to clear him for surgery (nobody will so much as trim Hotter's toenails without their blessing).

   "But MFA Mama, won't that still cost you money you can't afford," I can hear some of you asking. Yes. Yes it will. But a) it's his EYESIGHT and b) what are they going to do if the check for the deductible bounces, repo his vision? I AM NOT SAYING I PLAN TO WRITE A BAD CHECK TO THE EYE HOSPITAL. Please don't think that. I'm going to sign up for all available overtime and do my very best to make sure we can afford this! But...well. It's his EYESIGHT. We have to make this happen somedamnhow.

   And that is what is up with Hotter's eyes.

mishpocheh

8:30 a.m. Eastern Time

Anonymous Friend: I HATE EVERYTHING!
How are YOU?
:P

MFA Mama: I hate quite a bit. Let's bitch.

AF: My SO has been traveling for a week and I have five animals to care for.

MFA Mama: *wince*

AF: I am not an animal person.

MFA Mama: Bahaha.

AF: They're all kind of wacky and demanding animals, too.

MFA Mama: I dislike animals currently as well.

AF: That is really what I hate the most followed closely by my insomnia.

MFA Mama: Word.

AF: You have a lot more animals to hate, I would imagine.

MFA Mama: Seventeen rabbits, four chickens, two dogs, a cockatiel, a bearded dragon, and two betta-fish, currently.
And ALL of them assholes!

AF: I'm not even sure I know what a bearded dragon IS!

MFA Mama: It's a great stonking lizard. The object of my youngest's affections and the acquisition of his gross little dreams.
Also: an asshole.
It rips its lizard-hammock (Godiva help me that I even know what that IS, much less own one) down daily, tears the bark off its shade-log, requires daily chopped salads from a proscribed list of veggies and twice-weekly live crickets...

AF: Wow.
For the record, having parrots is much the same.

MFA Mama: It takes big bird-like shits and can JUMP.

AF: They scream, they yell, they require frequent water changes because they have delicate immune systems, blah blah blah...

MFA Mama: Oh, and if it's constipated you have to run it a warm bath and let it crap in your tub, then bleach the tub, burn the house down, and move because they carry salmonella.

AF: WHAT OH MY GOD WHY DO PEOPLE KEEP THOSE AS A PET?

MFA Mama: They're charming creatures. Want one?

AF: I do not need any more pets in our tiny abode!

MFA Mama: Clementine's alright, I guess, just needy like every other damn thing alive in these parts.

AF: I share a really small space with these birds.

MFA Mama: The lactating rabbits are thirsty, the chickens smell and also need water, the hound whines early for having to pee, an hour before the middle-school bus because DST, at the correct time too because YAY WHINE, at mealtimes...
the pitbull is a bedhog
The cockatiel's treats are recalled and need to be returned to the store; they're mocking me in their bag. Actually, I think they were contaminated (or possibly contaminated) with salmonella, haaaa!
The 10,000 or so (currently) bees will soon require an expensive thingamajig in which to make honey...

AF: Wow.
I'm going to try to go back to sleep...I have A Thing in three hours, and the birds will need water changes, and UGH.

MFA Mama: Good luck with that. The hound woke me at six, we have a lunch-date, and then later I'm getting stabbed in the arm with a needle for an hour by a big scary dude for fun. I think maybe I am doing Days Off wrong?

AF: Yes, I am doing weekends similarly. 

0.1 lbs

   I just weighed in and I am only 0.1 lbs away from my goal weight for the Dietbet! I started out confident to the point of hubris, then got scared because I plateaued for a few days then actually GAINED, but it turned out that was hormonal (thanks, PMS Buddy!) and now today I feel confident again in saying I GOT THIS (unless I somehow get glutenated in the three days before the final weigh-in, and you had better BELIEVE I'll only be eating things I prepared myself or took from a sealed package during those three days).

   It's a good thing, too, because if I lost that $25 with things being the way they are currently I'd have to lose the rest of this weight all at once off the side of a cliff.

always look on the sunny side of life *whistles*

*   The bills are paid but the checking account is in the red; I never seem to forecast things correctly, fail to wait on what can wait, and it bites me in the ass. Part of this is lousy math skills, part of it is idiotic optimism, part of it is just life. I'm sure the ADD doesn't help. But my next check will cover everything and have a little left over, which is enough for me for the moment.

*    It's not enough for Hotter, who I think has started to see me as a walking dollar sign, with the balance on my forehead dipping disgustingly every time I selfishly buy something that is just for me either because no one else wants it, or because I keep it for my own. I do this for myself occasionally, get me a little treat to make life temporarily enjoyable, and I feel like it's allowed. Thank goodness I've reached a point of not letting someone else's disapproval ruin the scant few pleasures in my existence, because it sucks more than usual right now.

*   I think I had invested too much of myself in my marriage. I guess I was guilty of something I rarely hesitate to poke fun at in others: I started to see Hotter's and my love as somehow greater than what most people shared with another human being, as A Wonderful Story, as something timeless and epic and lots of other Lifetime Movie Channel buzzwords (do you kids still have that channel?). It's not. It's really a very ordinary cleaving together of everyday losers.It's like a pair of work-pants you buy at Goodwill; it serves the purpose but nobody envies you over it. And that's fine. So what if it wasn't such a hot bargain; I have it now and it gets the job done, and at the end of the day I'll wash it and wear it again. Whatever.

*   Food, y'all, I just don't even know. My eczema is flaring and I'm itchy quite often. Honestly I could use a go-round with a competent allergist, but failing the time and money for such a thing, I think I'll have to try going off dairy. Which: noooooo. But hey, I bet I'll lose even MORE weight!

*   Work is still wall-to-wall bullshit. I, however, have ceased to care. I am one of the Little People, and things change very little for us even if there's a shakeup at the top of the food-chain. I have adopted a few lines of Virginia Woolf's Professions For Women as my personal motto at work and in general of late, those having to do with The Angel in The House. Yesterday I got a raise, so I think it's working (yeahhhhh suck it, all of you who still sell your souls for LESS than a $0.20/hr increase!).

*   I really, really, REALLY want another tattoo. But of course it'll have to wait. Which means that I'll be really, really sure when the time comes, so that's all to the good.

*   How are all of YOU? In case you couldn't tell I am desperately unhappy at the moment, but I'm sure it will pass. ONWARD!

yays and boos

*   I used my new meat grinder/pasta maker to grind some chili-meat and it was a-ma-zing! I'm in love. Yay! 

*   There is a major change at work, that has taken the entire building by surprise. Nerves are frayed. Boo :(

*   My dentist is going to replace the mouthguard for free since it snapped where he'd taken off too much material, and while I had heard of dentists doing such a thing, I didn't presume or even dare to hope that MFA Dentist would be able/willing to do this for me. I am so very grateful. Yay!

*   He asked that I pay off our balance with him when I come in for impressions, and that's fair but it'll be my entire next paycheck. Booooo doom.

*   Thanks to the beasts of Squatter Workshop, and the MFA Garden, and plain old savvy, we'll eat and it will even be delicious. Yay.

*   I tripped walking for exercise after dark and banged the hail Columbia out of my right shin, and it is so ouch. Boo :/

*   Hotter is feeling better, MUCH better I think. Yay!

*   We're not speaking at the moment, or he'd probably insist if I consulted him that I am not speaking to him, but whatever. Boo, obviously.

*   My weight is once more headed in the right direction. Yay.

*   I'm getting sick. Boo.

*   We all had the flu shot, and fairly recently, so no worries that it's anything other than a Cold of Filth (tm May). I guess that's something.

*   I want to get drunk and set things on fire, but calories, obviously, and laws, and I'm le tired. I hate SO MUCH, you guys, you don't even know. BOOOOOOO.

 

   And how are all of YOU?

the feast of assumptions

A wise friend has told me not to do that to myself,

that thing where I conclude that I personally was just too happy.

It's tempting to eat blame with both hands, though, when work 

went so smoothly the day before my day off, which was lovely. 

 

Logically, that has nothing to do with my nightguard, shattered, 

and waking up to find my husband on the floor. Happiness

does not lead to the Emergency Room any more than 

dieting does to weightloss (when one's feelings evidently include gluten).

 

I won't extrapolate, won't engage in anorexia of the soul 

and turn big problems into emotional asceticism. Instead I'll drink tea,

make smoothies with leafy greens, engage in defiant little

acts of self-care until this too passes, slow and painful like a stone.

sweetening

   So I was scrolling through the facespace this morning and saw an article a friend shared about gluten-intolerance where the author claimed maltodextrin (an ingredient in my beloved Splenda) contained gluten.

*insert record-scratching sound here*

   Some Googling around revealed that maltodextrin is a broken-down starch that can come from wheat, but that in the US it's generally from potato, rice, or corn (overseas it is generally derived from wheat). Some sources claim that even when it is wheat-derived, the protein portion is removed in processing and therefore it's safe for gluten-intolerant individuals and those with Celiac disease to consume. Others, however, suggest that you Google "Splenda sickness" before trusting the safety of the stuff, so I did, and fell down the rabbit hole of symptoms that look familiar-ish, and now I just don't know.

   So I'm doing a trial separation from Splenda now, and I don't love it. Stevia liquid is okay, but...meh. I'm telling myself that if I feel the need to sweeten it before drinking it (I mostly use sweeteners in coffee and tea) I probably shouldn't go crazy with it to begin with and ought to have a nice healthy glass of water instead, but currently I'm pretty sad about the no-Splenda thing.

   Hopefully when the nectar-flow hits this Spring my bees will provide enough honey that I'll use that to sweeten things instead of Stevia; by that time I should be at my goal weight and won't have to worry as much about the calories in every little thing.

whoops

   So today I had to work for eight (crazy, fraught-with-needless-drama) hours and THEN complete a lengthy computer-based training designed to minimize liability to my employer, and it took an hour and a half, and my eyes glazed over, and then I got in the car and went to pull out of a space in the parking deck and smacked into a concrete pylon and there is...some cosmetic damage to the MFA Beater (I define cosmetic damage anything that does not impede the drivability of the car or cause it to fail a state inspection). I felt pretty dumb about that for a solid hour and then moved on with life, because if my car were human it would have been able to vote in the last Presidential election, so WHO CARES.

   Hotter, that's who.

   Whoops.

 

P.S. He has recanted his momentary disgust and joined me in shrugging it off. This is why I love him. 

P.P.S. It's a BUMPER. Bumping into things is its raison d'etre. After nineteen years of unfulfilled, aimless cruising around I made that poor thing feel NEEDED! That's my story and I'm sticking to it.