Written by Ah the ridiculous things people do when they work graveyard.. or in the most boring office ever. I do not miss it. At all.
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A Very Fine Day, Indeed
Last night, we were laying in bed, trying to figure out how we were going to use our first commitment-free Saturday in nearly 7 months. (I normally have band practice but this week, it was earlier.) So, we decided to go out for breakfast and go from there.
We woke up and headed out to Deva’s for breakfast and then wandered over to the Farmer’s Market. We never made the market last summer because I was working all the time so this summer we were determined to make it down there. It never disappoints. We got a huge bag of cherries and a basket of strawberries from our favorite farm. We also managed to find some catnip for Ruca who we affectionately refer to as Courtney Love when she’s under the influence. By day, she’s a princess, after the nip? She’s a drooling, catatonic mess. It’s hysterically funny to watch.
After we got home, we headed out to the nursery for some plants. The front porch has been looking scraggly this spring and all the pots were empty. It was time to replant! So, we were pleasantly suprised to find the nursery having a huge sale and we happily loaded up a cart. Gerber daisies, zinnias, dahlias, hydrangeas for the flower bed under the dining room window, and some basil and rosemary for cooking. Rob scrubbed down the furniture out there and hosed off the porch while I planted.
Tonight, we’re grilling turkery burgers and I’ll wedge some potatoes to season and bake in the oven. We’ll have fresh pineapple to go with the strawberries we bought today. It’s been a goregous day today, a whopping 78F here with a light breeze.
Ernest and Elmer
Eugene and Bernard apparently had another sibling down the bathroom sink. More like twin siblings that we have named Ernest and Elmer. Many moons ago, we wrote about Eugene, the clog of hair we found in our bathroom sink that was so big we named it. A few months later, we met his brother Bernard in the bathtub. Those of you who were here remember them. Or you should because it was nasty.
Well, the sink started misbehaving again and I thought it was the leftovers of the tap replacement, the piece of the sink plunger we never got around to pulling out of the gooseneck. So we called my dad to look at it because we don’t really do plumbing and the all important pipe wrenches live with my dad’s other tools in his handy workshop. My parents came by tonight and instead of finding the missing piece of the stopper for the sink, we encountered Ernest and Elmer (artist rendering as like their older brothers, Ernest and Elmer are afraid of being photographed.)
. 
(Laura, this is where you can go puke. We’ll wait.)
So the bathroom sink has once again been rescued and this time we have no one to blame but ourselves for the clog. My apologies for our lack of updates lately. We’ve been busy working and blogging has fallen off our radar. We also had to close access to all but those who log in for a while but we’re tenatively re-opening.
Other things… The pets are still alive and kicking. The weather has kicked into overdrive and it’s now officially damn hot. We’re slammed with work in mid-June which is really unheard of but we are not complaining. I would so rather be doing this than working in the cannery or trying milk every ounce out of life during summer break. I’m starting to feel a bit of burn out though and I’m anxiously awaiting our planned holidays this summer. We’ll be at the cabin for a while, and we’re going with my extended family to the beach for a week. We haven’t had a proper vacation since our honeymoon and that’ll be 2 years in a few weeks. We have earned the time off this year and it’ll be good to get away.
Health Care
I’m not ashamed to be a Democrat. I voted for Clinton. Twice. I have never voted for a Republican and so help me, I don’t ever plan on it. I’m a church-going Christian who is pro-choice. Where health care is concerned, I AM OVER THE MOON about this bill being passed.
We pay almost $1000 a month for health care using my COBRA benefits from my last job. We are 2 healthy adults but I have pre-existing conditions, namely migraines, which will make it virtually impossible for me to get coverage after our current benefits are up in December.
The anger, the hyperbole, the “they’re cramming this down our throats” rhetoric that can be best traced back to the lackeys of Fox News make me silently seethe. Why? Because people like Glenn Beck don’t have to worry about not having health coverage. He’s got plenty of money from his form of conservative irritainment. And people like me? People who run a business, who scrape by each month, who can’t afford NOT to have insurance, are left stressing about how to pay insanely high premiums and terrified that one trip to the hospital could mean thousands in medical bills that we cannot pay. The stories of people like me don’t anger people the way Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh want. (When is he leaving the country anyway? I can arrange for some free time to help him pack.)
Don’t get me started on those receiving Medicare and how they want the federal government to leave their Medicare alone. Seriously? I don’t know how many people thought in 1965 that Medicare was the beginning of a communist regime in the US but today, it’s amazing how many people have bought into the bullshit propagated by conservative news and talk radio.
The question I’m left with in response to the hyperbolic vitriol? Why don’t we deserve the same access to quality care without being bankrupted in the process? We contribute. We pay our own way. We own a business. We don’t ask for hand-outs and don’t expect them. But come December, without this new bill, we would be left with no option but to go without health insurance, or at least without dental and vision and somehow deal with the ass rape that would be medical (if I could even get covered).
Having lived for 2 years in the UK where I had coverage for simply holding a visa, I paid nothing for a doctor visit and a whopping £6.50 (about $12) for migraine medication that without insurance costs me $150 (£100). For 6 pills. Yes, you read that right. 6 pills. Yes, people bitch about the NHS, and many with good reason but the bottom line is this. You don’t get denied coverage if you are sick, if you get sick, if you are healthier than a horse, if everyone in your family had cancer or you have some wonky blood vessels in your head that you cannot control for love or money. Yes, there are wait lists for procedures and yes, this royally sucks ass. But you also have the option to have private insurance, either that you pay for out of pocket or that your employer provides. Doesn’t make it a perfect system by any stretch of the imagination but when you consider that in the US, we have over 32 million people who are without adequate health coverage and consider ourselves to be the last great superpower in the world? It’s despicable that we would deny care to those who, through no fault of their own, are without.
So enough with the rhetoric. Enough with the hate speech. Enough with the talk of secession from the union and suing the federal government on my behalf. Please don’t. My health depends on it.