A smattering of thises and thats. . . .

1. Both of my children and a few of their friends have chosen to move out of Hub advised me to remove the name of the complex and the link as most companies with business practices this slimy are also just the kind that tend to sue when the truth comes out an anonymous apartment complex somewhere in southern Indiana right smack in the middle of the worst hot spell in a million years. I’d be more than happy to email you the name of the complex and the link and a full list of outrageous practices. Guess who is sacrificing her very last week of vacation to drive up there to help? That’s right. Mommy. Because you never stop loving them, and you never stop helping them, and unless you’re a BAD MOMMY, you’ll sweat for them until you’re dead.

Also, I’m hoping to melt off a few pounds.

2. I still haven’t planted my flowers. Most of them are hanging onto life even in those tiny “Plant me quickly or I’ll die” pots from Lowe’s. I guess they’ll stay there till the autumn leaves cover them up. Sigh.

3. I cut the grass, but it’s too hot to trim. And the trim is the THING, and it really, really, really hurts me to see all those untrimmed areas. The mown lawn just makes the untrimmed areas stand out. Solution: stop mowing? Could be. . . .

No, it bothers me far too much to let the lawn go. I don’t want to be THAT homeowner. You know, the inconsiderate one with the neighborhood petition thumbtacked to the front door.

4. How clumsy and uncoordinated am I? I can’t even talk and chew gum without slicing my tongue practically in two with that vampire tooth on the right. And when I showed my rheumatologist, he was horrified and wrote a prescription for a medication to take care of it.

We have health insurance, so I wasn’t worried about paying an arm and a leg for the medication, but when I got to the pharmacy, the price tag on that medicine made me give out a little shriek. Just a little one, but the cashier went back inside the pharmacy and asked the pharmacist about it. I was not happy with the answer.

This medication, without which I will have Voldemort-tongue for the rest of my life, isn’t on the Blue Cross approved list. A 24-year-old kid with an Associate’s Degree had decided I didn’t really need it. If I wanted the meds, I had to pay full price.

How comforting to know that the Power of Life and Death for many people now lies in the hands of the School of Business.

I think the least the insurance companies could do would be to make public the name of the individual who was ultimately responsible for putting the kabosh on a drug or procedure for someone, despite the medical doctor’s prescription or recommendation for it. That way, when the death certificate is filled out, the doctor could write in the ACTUAL CAUSE OF DEATH.

You know, as in, Cause of Death: Muffeigh Geonnipherre Perkins-White, ABA

I’m not kidding.