long live traditions or whatever

Ah, the Glorious 4th! What visions and emotions does this date mean to us?

For so many, just a nod at an “Oh, yeah, country’s birthday.” For so many more, a great reason to get together and grill something – wieners, hamburgers, steaks, seafood, what have you — it’s the HOT holiday with watermelons suddenly deemed to have hit the okay-to-eat ripeness date. Yard parties, paper plates, pool splashing if you have one available, little kids running around and mingling at knee level with the grown-ups.

We do love a holiday, as each has evolved into its own form of celebration-centric traditions or opportunities. Those of us who were part of ‘history’ or were well-drilled in school classes about history might spare some thoughts to the general origin of a holiday, but as marketing and ‘any excuse not to go to work’ takes precedence, these things rise to the top of What It All Means.

This year with the 4th falling on a Saturday, we find that people are taking off Friday before and/or Monday after so the country has hung the “gone fishin’” sign on the collective business doors and headed off for the sunbaking sanction of a national holiday.

Ask Chick, who has been suffering with Dex the horrible heat in the aerie (upstairs bonus room) that has been their lair and place of sleep. The room, which is over the garage, had to have a separate HVAC unit to keep it at ambient temperatures, and about the middle of last week (a week and a half ago) it went ka-blooey. I contacted the property manager who called in a repair order to the company who handles HVAC for them (same one who found the fried dead lizard who had short-circuited the downstairs HVAC some weeks ago and quickly remedied the problem).

It took several days for ‘our turn’ to come up on their list to do. When the guy finally showed up, he grinningly told us, with a pat to his beer belly, that this was his 4th day with the company. He then disappeared upstairs to begin his process, and we would hear his thumping up and down the stairs mutter a few times. We’d initially been told over the phone when the appointment was set up that the problem was most likely a clogged drain – simple fix. Mr. Belly grinningly disabused of us that as he popped up next to me at the computer an hour or so later with some paperwork for me to initial (that he’d been there). “Oh, man, naw, it’s pretty shot, corrosion and stuff and gonna have to get some parts ordered in.” HOW LONG FOR THAT? “Well, hey, now, been with this company only 4 days, so don’t know how that’s gonna work.” Grin. And off he went with a toodle-loo.

Chick went upstairs and found that in the meantime he had made the situation worse by shutting down even the ability to have the fan blowing to move the air around. And as the day went on it grew so horribly hot in that room that even with a ceiling fan and a box fan blowing full out it was totally unbearable.

That night I went up to check the temperature to see if night had brought enough of a cool down so Chick and Dex could sleep up there and I was so surprised with the conditions. It was nice and cool all the way up the stairs and then the moment I stepped on the tiny landing I felt as if I had been hit with a brick of heat. And walking across to her bed, I had to start doing the barefoot-on-hot-pavement hop because the floor  was so hot it was scary. All the heat from the garage below made the floor feel as if it were about to catch fire! (Well, it wasn’t going to, of course, but that was the image that immediately transmitted through my feet.)

We ended up moving Chick and Dex to a sleeping setup in Snowy’s room for the duration, but that’s been a tough solution for Chick. She is tall enough that she can’t sleep in that single bed without her feet hanging off, so we moved the mattress to the floor next to the bed. Still uncomfortable but an improvement. The other thing she is missing besides the size of her upstairs bed is that ITS mattress is made of special foam that makes for the most comfortable sleep — something I had gotten for myself back in the Atlanta days when nice bonuses came routinely so I could indulge in the random ‘good thing’ from time to time. I had given it to her in 2003 when we each moved to T’town and took up residence together and with Snowy, and I wanted her to have something special as she took up her caregiving duties and I no longer could think of a single reason why I needed a queen-sized bed. It’s a wonderful, comforting bed, and she is now SORELY missing it — you don’t realize how great it is until you are sleeping on something else .

SO, back to the tie-in with the ‘celebration’ of the 4th — Chick diligently called the HVAC repair company every other day to check on the status of the parts coming in and converting the HELL of the upstairs back into their bedroom. She was given such a runaround each time, speaking with different people who had a different story for ‘why not’. Finally, Thursday afternoon she was transferred through several people until she actually caught up with the ONE PERSON WHO MUST DO THE NEXT THING, a ‘gal’ with a short and sour attitude, who informed Chick that the parts would have been ordered earlier in the week but the repairman had either written the part numbers down wrong or they couldn’t read his handwriting and so it had taken them several days to get that sorted out and now the next step that needed to happen was that the parts company needed to be called so that they could pull and send the parts.

OH, said Chick, sorta’ happy that this stupidity was resolved but sorta’ unhappy that it had happened and pretty unhappy that more than a week later we didn’t seem any closer to getting things fixed. And has the parts company been called?

NO, I have to do it and I haven’t done it yet.

OH, could you please do that today, now? NO, our company is going to be closed tomorrow and I’m leaving early today and I’m getting ready to walk out the door.

WELL, is there anyone else who could call it in, just this once?

NO, I have to be the one to do it and I’m pretty much already out of here.

(This was mid-afternoon, mind you). WELL, could you give me the information and let ME call it in?

NO, IT HAS TO BE ME, and I’m walking out the door!

Oh, but, please could you just do this one thing before you go? I have a 12-week old baby and this is really making him suffer [as Chick says, we will pull out and play what cards we  have when necessary.]

NO, just put the baby in a pamper and nothing else and it’ll be fine.

[Hand over phone, Chick did the best frustrated scream she could manage without blowing all the veins in her head.] Returning to the call, through clenched teeth Chick managed to convey, firmly but not loudly, that that was not going to save our situation and we didn’t have the money to stay at a motel while waiting.

The ‘gal’ got really HUFFY at this already clinging drag to her escape plan, and she said, MAYBE, I’ll think about it but not promising, MAYBE I’ll use my OWN PERSONAL CELL PHONE and think about calling from my car as I’m leaving NOW, but I’m not saying I will.

And she hung up.

Chick and I stared at each other in disbelief as she relayed the side of the phone conversation that I hadn’t heard. In addition to just the “what the hell kind of customer service is this?” first thought, we also don’t know if, in addition to the Friday, it that company (and/or the parts company) taking Monday off for the holiday, too? It is very inconsistent around here as to what businesses are doing. Heck, I’m not even sure what the PO is doing besides not delivering mail today. Don’t they get a “X HOLIDAY OBSERVED” on a nearby Monday or Friday or something? Whatever happened to celebrating the meaning of the day on the day of whatever we’ve decided is a national day to remember whatever?

Which leads me to my lesser but still equally annoyed bit of frustration with the ‘need something’ from a company that takes off on the non-day to ‘celebrate’ the day.

Think I mentioned recently getting something ‘from’ the old company about a change in the insurance plans and an election had to be made by a certain date or you would automatically be put in the shit-version of the plan. I had some questions about the meaning of how the ‘benefits’ were written between 2 of the plans so I could make a better informed choice. (Still dealing with this as a COBRA situation but the COBRA follows the plan of the company.) I never got an answer to my questions so finally flipped a coin and chose a plan and emailed my paperwork on the due date (I had little time between receiving the materials and the drop dead date). I finally heard back that the person, at the company, who was handling and to whom I’d sent my questions, had been out on vacation but that I was “fine” with the timeliness of my election.

Nothing gave me any info as to when the plan change would take effect, or even if it was with a different company. Cut to Thursday (good day for running up into these issues) and my follow up doctor’s appointment and a new Rx which I dropped off on my way between the doctor and a visit with Snowy. When I stopped back by to pick it up on the way home from Snowy’s, I got the shock.

The Rx was ready and the fellow looked at me cautiously, obviously glad to be behind bulletproof glass at the drive through as he said, “And we’ll be putting $342.50 on your card today for this????????” The question marks in his voice made me lean in and say, “What? Thirty-four dollars and what?” UH, he repeated the large number again. Then he asked, do you have your insurance card? Let me recheck that. I gave him first one and then the other (I can’t remember which was the one I had as an ‘employee’ and which as a snake, uh, COBRA — they both have the same numbers on them. He tried each and told me that each came back with the message that the coverage had ended on June 30. WHAT THE ****?!!!!!! He looked very embarrassed for me. I certainly don’t have $342 in my account, maybe the 50 cents, but… I couldn’t pay and sort it out later. I asked him if he would hold the Rx and I would go try to sort things out.

I raced home and immediately began sending messages to the insurance girl at the old company — even if it is a new plan with new numbers or even a whole new insurance company, etc., they usually provide a ‘paper’ version temporary card until the laminated card turns up in the mail. I also contacted the COBRA plan administrators — who were the only ones to respond: they had not heard anything about the plan changing and needed to have that information from the insurance girl. I forwarded this message on to insurance girl with the reminder that I needed to have a card/ info asap as I needed to get the Rx. No reply.

Ah, the company had closed down early on Thursday as a ‘treat’ for the employees and they also got Friday off ‘for the 4th’.  I doubt they will have Monday, too, as the old company was not THAT magnanimous about v-days. But — here I sit, Thursday until ??? when maybe I can get a temp card ???? I’m sure the employees already got theirs, but we trying to make do from where we’ve been flung on the dung heap aren’t always remembered as having some dependency, still, on such things.OY!

So, wonder if all these folks who are so into the early July time off are doing much thinking about and/or remembering what the meaning is of the 4th of July? Of the strong courage and hard works and sacrifice and national fear and determination and hardship our forefathers committed to a couple hundred years ago, and the significance of the date to the proclaiming of the Declaration of Independence, penned in large part by our cousin (through Snowy’s side) Thomas Jefferson (from which line she got her throwback auburn hair)?

We’ll be visiting Snowy in a few minutes, and I don’t know if she will totally remember ALL this day of memorializing that great document and the declaring of our country means, but bet she will know more than so very many! A few years ago Snowy and I watched every episode of the extremely excellent series on PBS called Liberty – about the Revolution that was filled with the details of a frightening, exhilarating, history-making undertaking by the flawed but visionary souls who started this country for us. If you have a chance to catch it, you should give it a look. It means more than firing up the barbeque grill and taking the boat out on the water and getting drunk and shooting off firecrackers.

I love this country. I’m frustrated and depressed about what the country’s situation is challenging ME with at the moment, but I can’t really think I’d want to be anywhere else.

a young Snowy