Nothing is Ever Easy

Warning: This is a whiny post. I'll toss in a photo of a cute bird or something so you don't feel entirely brought down low, but I'm blogging while cranky so just know, you were warned.

I think it must be late-stage perimenopause, or plots by The Man to make life miserable, or just general frustration at modern life, but really, why does everything have to be so complicated?  Well, one thing in the last 2 weeks has been easy; I went to the dermatologist and got a clean bill of skin health, and I didn't even have to get weighed or lectured on eating too much salt or not getting enough exercise or that dental hygienist look that says "I know you're not flossing".  So I'm grateful for that.

In my e-mail today I received notice that two of the hotel rewards programs I got talked into joining are combining into one, so I needed to login to one account and press a button, and lo and behold, my points would transfer over and then I would be even closer to a free room or free magazines or whatever the rewards were. I'm honestly terrible at keeping up with all these rewards programs, but I didn't want to lose my points, because they were free and I don't want to give up so easily on something that was free, so I logged in and then was asked for the membership number for the other rewards program, which I didn't have, so I had to go find that and then it still didn't work, and after about six minutes of trying to figure out what the hell was going on now, I realized that I was leaving off one digit of the membership number, which was about twenty digits long.  Then the website crashed and I was instructed to try again later.

Medical insurance claims are another thing that always seems to get complicated.  A few months ago I had a thankfully brief emergency room visit after I woke up one morning and it felt like I was about to give birth to a full-grown T-Rex with giant claws and a really bad attitude.  Since there are all kinds of moving parts in the abdomen, who knew what was going on in there?  Appendicitis? Really bad stomach virus? Food poisoning? About the only thing that could be reliably ruled out was a gallbladder attack, since I no longer have a gallbladder. So off to the ER we go, and at some point the ER staff put some anti-nausea meds in the IV or maybe they injected it, I couldn't tell you, but about four months later I have now learned that apparently -at least in this specific instance- I could have all the Zofran my doctor wanted to prescribe in pill form, but when it's injected, it's considered experimental unless you're undergoing chemotherapy and if it's considered experimental then the insurance company balks at paying for it and it takes forever to get the claim processed and meanwhile the hospital is nagging you about paying a bill for a two hour ER visit that about equals a year's tuition, room and board at an in-state university.

Kids, there is a lesson here, and that lesson is this: Much of adult life makes absolutely no logical sense whatsoever.  Also, you should be aware that when seeking health care while in serious pain, you're evidently expected to ask questions like, "Is this substance that you are injecting into my IV covered by my health insurance policy?".

The tire pressure gauge in my car is another source of low-key frustration.  My old car didn't have a tire pressure gauge so you had no idea if there were problems with the tires until one actually went flat.  I rarely thought about the tires unless I started feeling that thunkety-thunkety, then I knew, hey,  I have a problem!  Then I bought a new car that came with the tire pressure warning light, and it goes off seemingly whenever it wants to- usually when it's pouring rain and I'm stuck in traffic.  Then I have to decide, is it just the car being cranky?  Because sometimes that light goes off and then it turns out that one tire just had slightly lower air pressure than the other three tires. However, sometimes that light goes off because there's a nail in the tire and a flat is getting ready to happen. Unfortunately, there's no way to know because the gauge doesn't give you that level of information.  Also, driving with the orange tire pressure light on drives me nuts, because I'm the kind of person who needs all those lights to be off otherwise I'm driving down the freeway envisioning imminent disaster.

I also have life-planning for The Son of Never Stops Eating frustration.  He wants to get a part-time job, which I think is great.  But since we will probably be applying for him to receive disability benefits when he reaches 18, he can't make too much money.  So the question is, how much is too much? When the College Student got her first job, I didn't think about that at all other than "Just make sure to keep the grades up".  The stakes are higher here.  If he makes too much money then he can be disqualified, apparently forever, from certain benefits.  So he can make so much per month, but I have to keep track of his pay periods, because if he gets paid every other week then there are two months of the year that are three paycheck months, and one of those paychecks could drive him over that threshold, and then well, we're pretty much doomed because I messed up and he made $5 more than he's allowed.   So when he does get a job, I'll have to have a conversation with his boss, who will probably be thinking I'm some helicopter mother with all these rules about how much the kid can make and how many hours he can work.  It's not me making this complicated, honestly.  It's The Man. If it were up to me, it would not be this complicated.  A lot of these rules seem to derive from the idea that we don't want people working the system to get more than they should get, but now there are so many rules it's nearly impossible not to screw something up even if your intentions are completely benign and honest.

I bet now you're thinking, hey, enough of these sad stories.  If you were the Grandma of No, you'd point out that at least I'm lucky enough to have a car and health insurance, which is definitely true, and now that I've thought that I feel like a completely ungrateful person and I just need to suck it up, buttercup. Which I will, until the next time I do something that gets complicated when it doesn't need to be, like buying a pair of jeans or figuring out the best way to get TV at the house. So here's the cute bird I promised.

Hermit Thrush

The Marsh Project Week #39

The marsh trail is back!  It was flooded, then closed for repairs, and after a long, agonizing wait, it's open once again!

I was so excited about this that I ventured out on a freezing, drizzling day just to see what was going on. I had low expectations but I didn't care; I needed to be on this trail.  I layered up, crossed my fingers (which are still frozen even though I've been home for over an hour), and got in the car.  As I drove towards my beloved trail, raindrops dotted the windshield.  This was not what I wanted to see; I momentarily considered turning back and spending the afternoon binge-watching The Handmaid's Tale in the warmth of my living room.  After deliberation, however, I decided that the trail was calling and I needed to answer even if I ended up a little damp.

As I made my way to the tall blind, it was obvious that the little birds were completely fine with the cold, dreary weather.  The sparrows and ruby-crowned kinglets were out flying from branch to branch, and the downy woodpeckers were actively pecking away at promising trees.  I tried for some great photos of a tiny ruby-crowned kinglet, but the bird decided that today was not my day and flew off.  The regal great blue herons at the river's edge were willing to stand still, though.  Great blue herons are the Buckingham Palace Queen's Guard of nature- no matter how cold or how annoying the lady with the camera is, they don't even move an eye.

In the distance, I could hear a belted kingfisher chattering.  It was much too cold for snakes and too early in the year for dragonflies or butterflies, so it was me and the birds.  Like the ruby crowned kinglets, the ducks in the ponds flew off as they heard me coming.  I stood at the tall blind for awhile, looking at the remains of last summer's vegetation and thinking that I had seen a few trees beginning to bud out; spring (and the dragonflies) is not that far away.

As I made my way down the trail, I looked down to see two Harris' sparrows hopping around on the ground in front of me, pecking around in the ground cover.  If they knew I was there, they didn't seem to care; they were busy about their own work.  They were constantly moving and that made it harder to get a good photo, but good enough for ID is good enough for me.

On a whim, I decided to walk back to one of the other ponds.  As I walked past it, something on one of the trees caught my eye- was that part of a tree, or was it a critter?  A view through binoculars and the camera confirmed that it was a hairy beast of some kind, but what kind?  I could not easily determine.  I sat for a few minutes watching the mysterious hairy tree blob to see if it would move but of course it did not; finally it was time to go.  Later, looking at the hairy blob on the computer, it was easier to see that it was a raccoon.

After that, it was time to go- my hands were freezing, the battery on the camera was blinking a warning, and the park was about to close.  However, it had been a successful reunion, and I was glad I had ignored the raindrops on the windshield of the car.