People Amuse Me

One of my neighbors has been screaming about his income tax bill. It seems he underestimated the amount of money he would make in 2014 when he applied for the tax credit for his healthcare insurance. He admits his underestimate was intentional and now wants to screech that the government took the correct amount back from him via his income tax return. I fail to see what part of the subsidy being based on EXACTLY what he earned didn't alert him to the fact that if he earned more than he claimed his subsidy would be different? OMG OMG OBAMACARE DIDN'T LET ME LIE AND THEY TOOK MY MONEY. This means, of course that Obamacare is a failure. I can't convey to you the epic facepalm moments I have when I hear crap like that. Are the people complaining about having to pay the correct amount for their insurance really that stupid?

I'm very short tempered about things these days. Probably because I am lacking transportation. My Youngest stepson's car needs a new oil pump. It went to hell last Friday. He drove the car here, grabbed my Bravada and has done nothing to fix his problem since. Car still sits here while he runs all over Hells Half Acre driving what I usually drive. With my beloved HUSBAND'S blessing.

My vehicle needs some work done on it. Intake manifold gaskets need replacing. I've been running with it on one of those Miracle In A Bottle quick fixes. Works fine since I don't go that far. The Youngest Idiotic Offspring of My Soon to be Dead Beloved Husband travels hundreds of miles in a day.

Since I have accepted the inevitable I started hunting for another vehicle. I found an Olds Bravada in much better shape and newer than the one I have. Husband is whining that the guy wants too much. Well DUH! Hasn't he heard about dickering? Sooooo, this means WAR!

Yesterday I stuck him with the having to answer the business calls while actually conducting business trick. Of course, do you think people would call so I could share the inconvenience? Noooo, of course not. So, next attempt will be tomorrow since we went for groceries at Aldis and he won't drink their coffee plus they don't have the brand of cat food my cat eats. Since I couldn't get to where I needed to go because my friend wasn't going there and I have no transportation, he's going to have to take me.

As I explained to him, he can go without coffee on Sunday and without canned cat food to keep the cat from pestering him at 5 in the morning or he can cart my butt to the grocery store. I can't drive his pick up since it's manual and I never learned to drive on a manual. He doesn't want to take me out to teach me, nor does he want to kick his son in the butt to make him give me back the vehicle I need.

So, this means he needs to drive me to my doctor's appointment on Wednesday, the hairdresser appointment on Friday. He'll have to make the bank deposits, pick up the vehicle parts, the plumbing supplies, the oil for his pumper from Baums and call a tow truck if he breaks down somewhere since I have no way to help him. In the meantime, his son is using my vehicle to cart his daughter to work and back, let his wife get the groceries and whatever she needs and they get to go to the movies in it while his Passat sits in my driveway for a week now instead of being taken care of.

Funny how I married a man who isn't bright enough to understand why I'm angry. Yep, people do amuse me.

Seasons, Reasons And Lifetimes

This morning saw the property owner at my door to pick up her check for our leasing agreement. She's a mess these days with her Mom in a nursing home. Actually, she's a mess for other reasons going back 8 years now to the death of her husband, but she's dealing with a family issue that is adding more to that mess.

It seems her younger brother took advantage of the impending death of his step-father to grab power of attorney for step-dad and his own Mom. Their mother is an alcoholic with liver disease and with that power of attorney he also acquired her healthcare proxy. His first action was to lock her out of her own bank account so that she didn't have access to money for booze. Secondly he went through her house with a fine tooth comb and cleaned it out of her stash. 

There are long term alcoholics that shouldn't be dried out without medical supervision. She is one of them and she wound up in a locked down mental ward at a local hospital. Her kidneys shut down. As a result of his actions she is no longer considered to be capable of managing her own affairs and he has now transferred her to a nursing home. She needs to be there. I know this sounds harsh, but other than his lack of understanding of just how drying out would affect her, he is doing this for her own good.

His sister is upset. Not because of her impending death. She is upset that her Mom wants to go home to die and her brother won't let her. The doctor has declared this woman can't live alone any more. She falls all the time since all she's done for years is sit on her butt and drink until she passed out. She won't cooperate with the therapy to make her stronger, and there is no room in her apartment for someone else to live in.

There is a solution, but it isn't one my landowner likes. She has a 3 bedroom ranch in which she lives all by herself. It hasn't been cleaned in 8 years and she spends no time in it except to sleep at night because her husband died there, 8 years ago.

He didn't die suddenly, he died from cancer. Prostate cancer because he was a Jehovah's Witness and wouldn't accept the treatments that might place him in need of blood transfusions that were against his religion. She had time to prepare herself and she didn't. I don't know if she was in denial, I don't see how she could have been had she paid any attention to his condition. Then again, her lack of ability to stay home started when he was suffering. Church members spent more time with him than she did.

My Dad died May 4 and her husband died May 20 in 2007. My step-Mom has gone on with her life and she misses him 8 years later, but she lives her life head on. She doesn't run from the pain of loss. She owns it and finds things to do when it's this time of year. At the time, she let go, she didn't try to hang on to him because he was suffering. That's not what my landowner did.

Death hurts. Being left behind to fend for oneself hurts. The only way someone is in our lives for our lifetime is if we die first. That's a fact that can't be gotten around no matter how hard we try. People are in our life for seasons or reasons. For lifetime we have memories. It's up to us what mood those memories give us. We can waste our time wallowing in the hurt or we can use that hurt to do something constructive for someone else. It isn't the hurt or the loss that defines us, it's what we do afterward that will. That's our choice and nobody else's.