mister grumpypants and senorita surprised

by popular demand

After repeated requests from family and friends, I finally got around to posting a few (very few) painfully uninspired photos of my apartment on flickr.  We've lived here for about four months now so I guess it's about time.  I do like this apartment quite a bit.  There are many things I miss about our last place, but this one is great in it's own way.  I love the windows, which span one entire side of the place.  I love the kitchen, which lets me do all of the prep with a clear view of the tv (do not underestimate the joy of this, even for someone who doesn't watch a ton of tv). I love the proximity to the trails and parks, and the fact that I live about 2 minutes from the DC line but still see deer feeding in the woods behind our building regularly.  It's nice.

I'm hoping to get a few more photos from recent months up this weekend, but that depends on some outside factors, so ... we shall see.

here we are now entertain us

Rob shared this little gem with me.  This is a surprisingly good mashup of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up".  It's definitely worth geeking out over, and would make a fun backdrop for a sociological study of youth culture/counterculture cross-pollination.



I'm sure no one remembers this, but this is actually not the first cover of this song I've shared here.  The first was last year, when I found a cover of the same song by the Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain(!).  Here, I'll refresh your memory:



And, what the hell, while I'm at it, here's one of my personal favorites: Paul Anka's lounge swing cover.



Have a good weekend.

the personal is political

Anyone who has ever been in my home and has seen the the framed prints on the walls knows that I have a thing for vintage advertising.  The colors, the graphics, the artwork, the hand-drawn lettering - it has always appealed to me.  Bourgeois, perhaps, but that's me. Though most of what is readily commercially available as prints are French and Italian product advertisements, the US has its own home-grown collection, in the WPA posters.  Their subject matter is largely in the realm of public service announcements of all sorts: war-time issues, educational programs, domestic tourism and natural resources, civic concerns, and health.  The health posters are some of the most interesting, in that they send the message that it was every citizen's duty to do everything possible to stay healthy for the good of their country.  America needed healthy citizens in order to prosper.

Yesterday afternoon, I was browsing the shelves at the bookstore, when I found a book of WPA posters.  As I thumbed through it, I saw a poster I had never seen before, and it gave me pause.  It was this:

Lack of funds need not discourage from seeking competent medical care.

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I know a lot of people who have no health insurance - a lot of people that are very dear to me.  There is a member of my family in the hospital at this very moment because he did not go to the doctor when he began to get sick, because since he has been out of work, he has had no health insurance and no financial means to pay out-of-pocket for a doctor visit.  Lack of funds discouraged him from seeking competent medical care.

I have said many times that the primary reason I am working in the job I am, rather than pursuing a line of work I might prefer, is for the health insurance.  I am terrified to let it lapse for so much as a second, lest we be denied coverage again.  Adam had to have a couple of surgeries a few years ago, and I'm a woman, which seems to be only inches away from being its own preexisting condition (we're already charged more). I worry about what we would find in the current private insurance market.  And what if I lose my job?  What then?  There's no way we could afford COBRA payments.  And so I worry.  I live in fear of financial meltdown due to medical bills.

When Adam was sick, we had wonderful insurance, but I still saw the bills.  They were astronomical.  And even though the medical expenses were covered, he was out of work for a couple of months, and I took several weeks off as well.  We tore right through our meager savings and spent the next several years trying to catch back up.  In truth, we never fully have.

And yet, for all of this, we were still so, so much better off than so many.  We had good insurance.  We had jobs that let us take time off and still come back at the end. We had enough credit that we were able to still buy groceries and gas and pay the electric bill, even when the bank accounts had already been depleted.

What of those that do not?  If I live with this worry even while I have a job and insurance, how must those without these things feel? How would they pay for the hospital bills?  How would they continue to pay the rent while they can't work?  We all live on the edge of a knife, just one cough away from personal meltdown.

This is wrong.

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An exchange from a few years ago that has stayed with me:

Me: "I have dental insurance, but I can't really afford the co-pays for some of the services I need to have done."

Person who shall remain nameless: "Well, at least we don't have socialized medicine like in Canada or something.  You'd have to wait three months just to get in the door."

Me: "I had to wait six months for my appointment."

For the record, the appointment was not for a routine cleaning, which are usually six months apart; it was to have cavities examined and possibly filled.  Six months.  Private insurance through my employer only covered one dental office in the entire city, which lends to the long wait time for an appointment, and would only pay for a fraction of what I needed to have done.  The dentist suggested that my best option was to drive 150 miles south to the nearest dental college and have the work done by students, since that was more affordable.

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The poster above was created in 1936.  It was created by and for the generation of Americans that suffered the hardships of the Great Depression, and then gave all of themselves during WWII.  This was the Greatest Generation that we look back to today with respect for their sacrifices, their hard work, and their ideals.  This is the generation that brought us many of the social programs that we benefit from today, and have become so much an integral aspect of our society that many often forget that they are social programs at all. And yet we live now with a health care system that stratifies us based on our ability to pay, while people decry the evils of social programs.

I believe that a government is made of and for its people, and it must always act to protect the rights of those people.  Private insurance companies have a right to make a profit, but not when it infringes upon the right of the people - all of the people; the healthy and the sick, the rich and the poor, the employed and the unemployed - to have ready, complete, affordable, and equal access to health care.  This is not conservative, liberal, moderate, socialist, or any other political category. It is about citizens understanding that we are all stronger when we are all stronger. It is human. It is American.

halloween

Halloween is, by far, my favorite holiday. Unfortunately, it's supposed to rain again tomorrow, and Adam is sick.  My planned excursion sold out weeks ago. I'm suffering from a bit of choice overload, along with the guilt of asking Adam to go out and do anything.  I'm thinking that if it's not raining, we may settle on just a nice walk to check out the decorations in the surrounding neighborhoods.

Bright spot: one of my all-time favorite movies, The Haunting, is on TCM tomorrow morning. (The original, black-and-white from 1963.  Not the 1999 remake; that was horrible.) It's not gory, there are no chainsaws or vampires, but to me, it's a great scary movie. I have a vivid memory of one scene where one of the characters is kind of entranced, and is walking up this spindly, rickety spiral staircase.  To this day, I always think of that scene whenever I have to climb up a sprial staircase, and they still creep me out.  I think I'll DVR it and watch it once we get home from our walk.