Singin' in the Rain

I love this hat.

No, I wasn’t in a production of Hello, Dolly! (Not that it would be a bad thing. I would practically kill to play Dolly Levi.) I was wearing that giant hat of Flying Nun proportions to go Christmas caroling.

I hear you out there. I know at least one of you is out there hollering “But it’s not even Thanksgiving yet!” I love Thanksgiving as much as the next girl, but I didn’t make the plans here. I just showed up for the fun.

Our town has an annual “Victorian Holidays” celebration. Our Main Street lights up with activity as we try to recreate the feeling of Christmas in a different era. Think life-size “Currier & Ives.” We put on our best Victorian duds and stroll Main Street singing and making a cheery spectacle.

Well, cheery at first, anyway! By the time we were finished, it was probably more of a just plain spectacle. DSguy and I had walked to the meeting point for caroling when it was lightly raining. By the time we were hoofing it home, it was coming down so hard that we should have been wearing waders. We were getting drenched.

Ginormous chapeaus with ostrich feathers don’t do too well in the rain. I looked like I was wearing a drowned rat taking up residence in a big purple cave. Take into consideration the size of the hat in proportion to my head, and I probably looked like a bobble-head wearing a drowned rat in a purple cave. Thankfully, a kind shopkeeper lent us her umbrella. (Thanks, Trudy!)

Despite being wet and cold and needing to defrost my toes, I would do it all over again in a second. I love being part of the atmosphere. I love celebrating Jesus’ birth with anyone who will stop to listen to us sing. I love living in this little town where characters and community abound. Sometimes it’s like living in a storybook—one with vivid colors and a happy ending.

So, as I hang my borrowed hat up to dry, I wish you a Merry Christmas, albeit a bit early. Now would someone please pass the turkey?

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Inspiration

The wallpaper on my desktop is a Jack London quote that I enjoy very much. It says, “You can’t wait for inspiration, you have to go after it with a club.” Ain’t that the truth! I’ve found as a writer that I am much more productive if I sit down to write and beat the no-idea-what-to-write blahs into submission. Getting something on the page is better than getting nothing on the page!

Speaking of which, I need to get cracking on my FW Challenge piece, since it’s due tomorrow morning. If one wants to finish a piece, one must start the piece, right? Where’s my club?

UG! Me kill story!

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Go Suck Hose Water!

Does anyone else find it absurd that the only people who can get health insurance are the ones who don’t really need it? That’s right—those of us with pre-existing conditions, or chronic diseases, or hideous multiplying warts, or a need to sit on a therapist’s couch, or any other of a host of medical scenarios—we are the folks that insurance companies don’t want to touch with a ten foot pole! (And no, those conditions do NOT all apply to me. If I had warts, I probably wouldn’t cop to having them—at least not in print.)

Let me see if I can put my recent experiences in a nutshell.

-         Workplace closes. Lose job. Move back two spaces.

-         Pay into COBRA for umpteen months with government subsidy signed by the president. (Affordable, thankfully!)

-         Pay into COBRA after government subsidy expires. (Not affordable, but I can squeeze by for a few months.)

-         COBRA expires. Offered HIPAA insurance. (Nowhere near affordable.)

-         Looked for options beyond HIPAA and was offered major risk pool insurance. (Costs more than the HIPAA!)

-         Spent half an hour banging my head against the wall.

Meanwhile, the folks at the insurance company, which shall remain nameless, are practicing their evil villain laughs… MWAAAAAHAAAHAAAAHAAA!

Long story short, (too late), now I wait to see if the government will help me out. As a conservative, this is kind of a mixed bag for me. I believe the government needs to spend less, yet the only possible way I will be able to be insured is if they give me a hand. Ah, sweet irony.

So, to sum up, I am willing to pay reasonable premiums, but no one will insure me unless I pay them in body parts. The health insurance industry has basically told me to go suck hose water.

Lousy aftertaste, hose water.

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