Chronicling the Dead Keeps my Mind off the Living

I've been doing all things grave-y lately.  A lot of family history stuff, including scanning old family photos and letters.  I've probably said this before, but I'm going to say it again:

Mark your photographs!

Seriously!  We have stacks of unmarked photos that we'll NEVER really know who they were. We've had a little luck comparing them with records on the LDS Family Search site, but most of them are of folks whose identities are lost.  DON'T do that!

Here are a couple examples:

Zero clue, probably taken in Camden or Philly, 1930s, maybe?

Zero clue--we all agree the lady down front right looks like she could be related.

And my husband's side of the family is no better.  Most of them are more easily traced than mine, but they, too, have a crappy habit of not marking photos:

Mormon Missionaries, one of whom is a relative 

So we know where it was taken, but not who it is.

And then there's this amazing gem:

An actual tintype.  It's not in good shape, I had to "fix" her cheek in Photoshop because a chunk is missing.

So I'm saying it again--MARK YOUR PHOTOS SO YOU DON'T LEAVE FOLKS SCRATCHING THEIR HEADS AND WISHING THEY COULD PUT NAME TO FACE!

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In addition to the family history thing, we've been visiting local cemeteries.  Some of the stones, especially the hand carved ones, are really wrenching.  All backward letters and misspelled words and heart.  So much heart.

Plus, I've been cataloguing some English and Welsh cemeteries as I come across the headstones online.  I started in Herefordshire, hoping to come across something related to my husband's family, but got caught up in the history of it.  I now know that the Caroline Spooner was the largest Barque ever built at Aberystwyth.  That's "A-bur-uh-stew-uth."

If only someone would pay me to archive stuff like this.  Because I'm good at it, I love doing it (I do it for FUN), and it's important.  Except most folks don't think it is important.

Sadly.

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Speaking of cemeteries, headstones, and the like, I've been noticing how, even in death, women are marginalized, they're minimized, they're lost to history because, so often, their "maiden" names are not included on the headstone.  So Margaret Griffiths gets married, becomes Margaret Davies, but her headstone only reads "Margaret Davies," or worse "Margaret, wife of Hugh Davies."  

Like she's just an aside, an afterthought.  As though she never was anything but an extension of the man she married.  Descendants run up against brick walls when trying to trace the women in their family's history.  Maybe, if they're lucky, they'll find a church record or census that relays the woman's birth name, but, often as not, that doesn't happen. 

That's got me thinking just how incredibly sexist the whole idea of "maiden name" versus "married name" really is.  Like a woman belongs to her father until some man takes her, renames her, and turns her from "maiden" to "matron." The historic meaning of "maiden" makes this glaringly obvious.  

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A big "I wouldn't piss on your face if your teeth were on fire" shout out to those teabaggers on Capital Hill who have, once again, decided to slash my husband's transit benefit.  That's another 50+ bucks a month gone, though they've INCREASED the parking benefit (which we don't receive).  In other words, they're doing what they can to reduce ridership on mass transit so they can then claim that mass transit, which isn't supposed to "turn a profit" anyway, isn't turning a profit.  So they can slash mass transit funding.  So their buddies in the oil industry make more money off the increased number of cars on the road in an already devastatingly traffic congested area.

And they think we don't know what they're up to.  These are the same guys who squeal about some dead birds at wind farms, while protesting the fines levied against British Petroleum for oil spills that killed millions of birds and fish.

Luckily, they're going to give my husband his first raise in four years.

NOT!

Mmm hmm.  You can torch your damned teeth any ol' time, guys.

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Still wandering around with a temporary crown in my face.  Which has the other side, where I have no molars, raw and sad because that's where I've been chewing.  Scared to death that, despite all the assurances that we have enough credit with the dentist's office to more than cover this, I'm going to go in on the ninth and be told I owe.

We have no money.  Seriously, none.  Which is why I was so careful to confirm, repeatedly, that this would carry no out-of-pocket cost to us.  But I'm scared.  Scared I'm going to utterly explode on them if they try to hold my permanent crown hostage in return for payment they said wouldn't be due.

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I'm going to close with a picture of a tree.  Because we live in a place with great trees.  Trees that dwarf and put to shame those sad, scraggly things in Utah.

It's always something . . . bad.

So, I went to the doc's office today--annual physical.  I was supposed to be fasting, and what did I do?  I popped a damned mint in my mouth while waiting in the examination room!  I spoke to the nurse about it, but, honestly, he seemed sort of . . . dull.  Nice, but only a thin hair shy of "box of rocks" territory.  His name?

Acquilleys.  That's pronounced "Achilles."

I kid you not.

Acquilleys said that the mint wouldn't affect anything, but, looking around online, I see it might.  So I called the office and asked them to make a note that I had screwed up.  That way, if the results are a mess, we'll maybe know why.

The doctor, who seems quite nice, agreed to a "once every six months" visit schedule.  I'm not thrilled about it, but I'm better with that then the "every three months" schedule Madame "There's No Mass/That's Why He's Your Husband and Not Your Gynecologist" tried to force me into.

It'll do.  I'll let you know how the blood work went.

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Next up (in about an hour) is the dentist appointment.  You know what I remember?  I remember the days of my dentist (Dr. Grover Hoopes, and the man ROCKED) looking to save his patients money.  I'd go in, he'd do the x-rays, have his assistant clean my teeth while waiting for the x-rays, and then fill right then if it was only one or two.  These days?  Holy cow, the money grubbing is breathtaking, it's astounding, how broken this system is.  What am I going in for?

I have no idea.  They say they want to see me twice a year.  Except that's for cleaning.  I have to make two more appointments each year for x-rays.  So that's four appointments per year, because they won't clean and do x-rays at the same appointment.  And if I need work?  That's more appointments, and they won't fill more than one cavity a day, so if you have two?  That's two more appointments.  So, for two cavities, they could conceivably have you in for a minimum of four appointments.  

Yes, I "get" what they're doing.  They're trying to maximize the insurance payout by spreading out the billable procedures.  

And it sucks.  It sucks for me, time-wise, nerves-wise, and money-wise, because each visit is a copay.

Universal health care, folks.  Like they do it out there in the civilized world.  And don't give me any of that dippy "I don't want to wait five months for an appointment!"  I had to wait four months for an appointment with the urogynecologist, and I had to wait six for my initial dental appointment here.  And my insurance?  The medical ROCKS (the dental is ehhhh).  Seriously, my husband's employer insures the hell out of us.  Well, there is that pesky 500 bucks a month we have to drop, but the point stands--here, in the U-S-of-A, with grade-A insurance, I had to wait MONTHS for treatment.  FOUR months just to have someone examine an unidentified, growing MASS.  

Yeah, universal health care, baby.  Now.

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So, today's the day I take a day off from the new way of eating.  Not totally losing it, no beef or pork or anything crazy like that.  But Chinese with Chicken (first non-fish meat in over a month) and cupcakes.  What's the bet I feel like utter hell tomorrow?

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So, we were at the Farmer's Market the other day, and found ourselves smack in the middle of a railroading festival.  The usual parking was full of additional booths, and so we hit the nearby parking terrace.  Now, there are very specific rules about parking here--Monday through Friday, the entire terrace is reserved for permit and city-worker parking.  However, on weekends, the top level (level 5) is for non-permit, non-city folks who are hitting the Farmer's Market.  

As we pulled in, we marveled at how crowded the first two levels were--every spot taken.  As we ascended, there were more and more open spots, until we reached level 5, which was almost empty--aside from us, there were, perhaps, a half dozen vehicles.  All bearing hippy-dippy stickers, Obama stickers, "COEXIST" stickers (I'll talk about my problem with those someday), and other nuevo-peacenik-type things.  Noting the stickers, I decided to keep an eye open on the way out, see if there was, perhaps, a trend there, politically-speaking.  We hopped on the ELEVATOR (yes, elevator--so parking illegally downstairs didn't really save any time or walking distance) and hit the market.  And when we got back, laden with our treasures?  Even fewer cars up top, even more on the lower levels.

And the stickers?

Of the ten cars parked closest to the entrance?  The "most illegally" parked, if you will?  One had a Romney-Ryan sticker.  THREE had Cuccinelli stickers.  There were two NRA stickers.  One strongly anti-Obama sticker, and one Tea Party sticker.  And some various sports team stickers.  

Certainly not a scientific sample, but it sure does make you think.  Makes you wonder about the mentality that can't be bothered to park where they're supposed to.  It's clearly marked, it's not like they missed it.  It's not like the free parking up top was full and they had nowhere else to be.  No, this is an oblivious sense of entitlement, a "don't you tell me what to do" kind of bent that I've commonly observed in the bagger/right crowd.  

Maybe there are some research dollars in that, huh?

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And finally, I did good.  First I did bad, but then good.

Friday night, the lice-kid from down the street, the one who pathologically lies?  Showed up after 9 p.m., wanting to do a sleepover.  This kid blew our boy off for months, and even before that, made it clear our kid was a "last resort."  This boy and his brother brought LICE into our home!  Most scarily, this boy has been hanging out with the frightening animal killing/kid beating group.  

Oh, and he's three years younger than our boy.

Anyway, he shows up and wants to overnight.  Wanting to save my boy the discomfort of having to beg off, I sent him upstairs--and it got ugly.  I had no idea why, so when the lice-kid had left, I asked.  And our boy said, "I wouldn't mind if he came over."

Understand, our boy can't stand this kid, which means he must be really desperate for companionship.  

Problem is, I'm not willing to have the kid over here.  When he comes, he's not here for our boy, he's here to walk through our house inventorying our possessions while he makes up stories about his rich grandpa and rich uncles who have stuff that's so much better than ours.  Instead of hanging with our boy, he hangs on the adults, telling whopping, incredibly stupid lies about things like "electroid soundproofing curtains."  The kid proudly proclaims that he's gone over a year without reading ANYTHING, and every time he's come over, it's been followed by a return visit claiming he's lost some expensive bit of electronic equipment over here.  

That's the bad.

What our boy didn't know is that I had scoped out an open house for a local Radio Control Flying club.  See, since we moved here he hasn't been able to fly because the laws are pretty nasty around here on flying in parks and the like.  He's missed it.  Terribly.  In fact, I was reading a writing assignment I gave him recently, and he was describing flying, and then how much he missed it.  So, when he was yelling at me on Friday night, he didn't realize that his Saturday was going to be RC Flying.  We've made arrangements now for him to fly most Saturdays.

That's the good.  I hope I redeemed myself.  Hubby said there were a lot of kids there, and I hope that brings him some joy, too.

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And that's that.  Oh, except we got an email from the landlord, a very vague "The HOA says there's a problem with the fence, fix it."  Yeah.  Some clarification, please.

Oh, and here's something ugly:

And finally, the bad news.  The small cavity in the lower left canine?  Not a problem, 27 bucks to fill.  The crack in the molar on the only side of my mouth I've been able to chew on since I was 13?

Over six hundred.  Over six hundred, and that's if the tooth doesn't break between now and the appointment I have no idea how we're going to afford.

Oh, and that's six hundred-plus AFTER insurance.

And that's my day.