Peeking into the rock

My echocardiogram was entertaining and lovely (since I went to it fresh from the knowledge that I am NOT RIDDLED WITH CANCER and I can try for an actual CURE), and of course, as I knew, my heart is strong as an ox.

Yes, I knew it. But I also "knew" my biopsy was going to turn up scar tissue from the previous infections, so there you are.

Anyway, soonsoon I'll have lots to say that aren't "oops my health" or "at least my health isn't that bad."

Zluta continues to be a manic darling, and the garden is fantastic at the moment. I'm cooking up all the turnip greens over the next couple days because a friend of mine gave me a Black Krim plant so it's tomato planting time. I really want to find a couple Paul Robesons and maybe a Black fromTula. Detect the pattern? Black tomatoes from Russia do very well in my garden. And my old standbyes, the yellow plum and Roma, don't seem to do so well for me any more.

My kale from last year is starting to go flowers. I do have other batches of kale started so there will be little gap  between productive kale, which is important because both Zack and I depend on it. Right now I am eating the kale flowers, they are delicious, but eventually they'll come to the end and so it goes. My parsley is all bedraggled because most of it has decided to set seed also--also eating those bits to try to slow down the process, which worked for a while but a lot of the parsley is only putting out those weird "I'm going to seed now and you can't stop me" leaves-- there are two kinds, one is a tiny stunted version of the normal leaf and one is entirely different, with narrow leaflets in a fan shape. So I'm finding baby volunteer parsley and moving it to the parsley forest and I'm sowing seeds in the area too. I've been working on increasing the flower real estate in the yard, and that's finally paying off. And of course it's spring, so. I have yellow Louisiana iris and calla lilies for the dramatic, and volunteer(!) sweet peas, and coreopsis and freesias (not many) and roses and cuphea (sort of like fuschias, which are not flowering at the moment, oddly), and a couple kinds of salvias and a few quince blossoms and some pansies and cineraria and bleeding heart and of course the lemons are blooming and the apple tree just finished and the plums are the size of shooter marbles which is apparently my favorite size at which  to notice ripening things.

Manymany thanks to all the well-wishers and most especially to the horse people who answered my questions. Later I may ask you to read the thing over (it will be shortish, about 50K?) and see if I screwed it up. This is the story that gives me an excuse to listen to all the Southern European and Asia Minor music I want to all day long. Especially if the music is a bit ovfer 100 years old. Seriously, you can find that sometimes.

On a less brilliant note, "the computer" is still returning the false information that Blue Shield is my primary provider, so confusion still reigns. It means Central California Health Alliance denied coverage in the first round even though they have already told me on more than one occasion that they know they are my only provider. It will work out but why should everybody have to do everything over again so many times?

well, the 9:05 goose from the north has gone by, so back to work.

Frank had to go to the UK for administrative details linked to getting the right to practise medicine there. So it was just Hana and me for four days, one of which was the Strakonice trip for me. Since then we just kind of hung around, with me writing a lot and Hana working on getting ready to move. We have gone for pleasant walks in Centralni Park (pictures in the future), done grocery shopping, and talked a lot. Yesterday we went to the Botanical Park because we thought Frank wasn't coming home today, but we had to cut our trip short because he did come home.
( creamy and delicious )
On the writing front: finished this new version of The Conduit though I had a flash that I want to alter the ending somewhat, and wrote almost half of the other thing I want to submit before the end of the month (I think I am calling it "Tree-Hugger").  I was having severe doubts about how it was coming together, but I'm feeling somewhat better now. At least the market I'm writing it for is pretty likely to accept it if it is okay. Also figured out the dedication for Outside, which was surprisingly hard ("for the children of my accidental family"--accidental family being a term within the story).

De Bange is the real name of a French cannon designer.

I have actually found the information I need.  Well, a minimal version of it anyway.  At least I know how many strokes Yanek has to beat between firings. And I know what actions the gunners are going through.

Meanwhile, Hana and Frank send me postcards from castles in Central European mountains.  Frank's postcard goes on and on about zombie attacks and has a very disturbing picture on it. Hana's has a pciture of the castle on it.

On the survival front. One of my big worries is the flood insurance is due this month, and the insurance carrier won't do an installment plan.  I was going to barely squeak by with that before I lost my job. So I was frantic, thinking what will happen to my mortgage if I'm not paid up? So I called the credit union, which has my mortgage.  What will happen? Well, see, there's this thing called a "force payment."  It's . . .  an installment plan, stuck on to my mortgage.The insurance company does it.

I had a hard time comprehending this.  The insurance company won't do an installment plan for me when I ask for it, but the punishment for not paying the big lump sum when I'm supposed to is the installment plan I needed to not screw up in the first place? Whatever, I'll take it.

It may not come to that anyway.  The nice man says they don't move on it for a few months, and by that time I may be able to just plain pay it. And he started the modification process, which I was surprised at because it's a little loan to begin with. But lower interest is always nice. Oh, and I was paying extra, so I stopped doing that for now.

There's a moral to this: do your business with a credit union, not a bank.

I decided I couldn't afford to spend seven hundred and fifty dollars a month for a baseline medical care, and I let the COBRA go. It means I do owe the insurance company about that much for what they paid for while I was making up my mind. But this is the really odd thing. I had been paying about a hundred and fifty dollars a month for medications while I was insured. (the COBRA is just under six hundred dollars a month: that and the medicine cost was how I got to the seven-fifty figure)

This time when I bought the medicines without insurance the pharmacist pulled some kind of discount out of the air and it cost me eighty-three dollars.


I really don't understand why the insurance companies charge such high premiums. "Because they can" is the natural answer, but the thing is, they can't. Not with everybody's wages falling and all the support systems falling out, and housing and fuel and food costs not dropping. For example. I have been making about $1,000-$1,400 a month since I got laid off: and now I am an "independent contractor" which means I'm responsible for my own taxes, etc (in other words, this is going to hurt me again next year, even if I do get a real job again). So $600 a month for insurance plus $150 a month for medicine is simply not happening. I could go on about the rest of my expenses -- they are not generally high, compared to other supposedly "middle-class" people -- well, I'm a professional with certifications, doesn't that make me middle-class? Right? -- but you don't need me to break down all my expenses to see that I'm just not going to make it on $400 a month after medical expenses. That's before we get to the fact that I'm actually supporting two households on this money (no, he can't work his way through: it's illegal. No, he can't get grants: they don't give them to students at foreign schools. Yes, we're taking loans out for him. No, we can't take out enough loans to cover it all)

Discounting the kid in school -- though a lot of families are in the same boat, there, since financial aide has been gutted all over the place -- it's still not enough money. And I have a ridiculously low mortgage, and I lack a lot of other expenses that many have. So the picture emerges: the insurance companies raise their rates, and people can't pay them. Sooner or later they'll discover that they just aren't getting the premiums.

I don't understand how the mandatory incurance coverage will work when it kicks in next year. If individual insurance rates remain the way they are, we'll turn into a country of blatant scofflaws overnight. Supposedly you'll have to pay a fine if you don't have medical insurance. But if we don't have the money, we don't have the money. I can hardly imagine they'll garnish my house over it. Would they?

On another front: I kind of lost today and I kept thinking it was Monday, which would have made things even worse.