The invite

reads "Attire: cocktail."
Do flip-flops count for "cocktail"? They've got rhinestones on them.
Cool, cause I'm wearing them.

on again, off again.

My internet connection is acting like an emotionally unavailable boyfriend.
He's connected! We're working on our communication! I'm getting on a roll, telling him things, and he's relaying them, and then, out of the blue--
Breakup.
He doesn't take my emails, ignores my calls. Just disappears.
I do some work on the relationship, reset our connection, and he decides to reciprocate.
For about fifteen minutes.
I'm starting to doubt us. If he really cared, wouldn't he listen to my cries for help? Wouldn't he answer me? Wouldn't we be able to dance wirelessly around the house?
If he doesn't shape up soon, I'm ending things. Except--
Except I need him.
I really need him.
I looooooove him.
I don't even know how to use a real dictionary anymore. Or look outside for the weather.
Or blog.
I think I can change him. Buy him some things, sweet talk him, plug the router into a more desirable location?
Beg?
In the meantime, I'm going to go eat some Ben and Jerry's and watch TV to drown my connectivity issues.

self-employed

So Dyami's last day at his job was this Wednesday.
So far that has given us two days of self-employment.
It's weird, I would have thought I'd be super stressed out or worried or anxious about him quitting. With the exception of the health-care issues, though, I'm pretty chill.
Who am I, and what have I done with Heather?

I think part of the calm comes from having a source of income. Dyami's software business is doing well. Not enough-to-pay-all-our-bills well, but pretty-darn-good-for-a-new-business-and-slowing-our-burn-rate well.
Also, I'm so much more spiritual now than I was in the past.
Hmmm.

I think the time at my parent's also helped. We have a fallback plan! Hah! No, more that, "worst-case scenarios" don't seem so scary anymore. We have been able to depend on family in the past and it was a blessing. So taking some risks doensn't seem so scary. When D and I watched "The Pursuit of Happyness" together, we couldn't watch it all in one night, so we stopped in the middle, just when Will Smith's character is becoming homeless. I couldn't sleep that night, worrying about us becoming homeless. Doesn't that make sense? But I've realized how far away from the margin we have been living, and how many blessings we have in the people that surround us. It helps me not to be as scared.
Also, I am trying to live more simply, and it seems like doing more with less money is going to help with that. There's no better discipline than necessity, right?
I should also mention that spirituality again. Really, I'm praying right now.

So there you go. Dyami's self-employed, I'm self-aware, and we're eating a lot of beans.
Perfect.

hidden camera

We have trouble with our camera.
No, it works fine, takes great pictures, and is small, easy-to-use, and, well, digital.
The trouble is, we can never find it.
Not just the lost-track-of-it-for-five-minutes kind of lost. No, this is:

• Our camera getting stolen, so we buy a new one, until we find the old one in our suitcase, (because, of course, the theives brought it back).
  
• Then, finding the camera, and having it for about a month, then losing it again in the cabinet where we usually store it, where I look for it at least fifteen times over the course of four months and don't see it even thought it's a very small cabinet.
  
• Then finding it again, taking it out of the house for the very first time to take pictures, and leaving it at our friends' house. Where we forget we left it, and thus spend another week thinking we lost it.
  

I'm starting to think we shouldn't bother taking pictures, or having a camera, or really trying to save anything for posterity. It's been about six months since we've taken any pictures, and I'm completely out of practice.
Just for fun, the other day Dyami tried to take a video of Lucy playing with the cat, using the DVR he also uses for his software business (mostly he "animates" things like Tylenol bottles and his eyebrows). First time we've tried to record her, um, ever, and...
The tape was full.
Naturally.

denied

Can I vent?
Now that Dyami's "retiring" from his job for the short term, we thought it might be good to purchase some health insurance to cover catastrophic events and/or planned or unplanned pregnancies. We've done this before--the last time Dyami got bored at work and decided to strike out into the great unknown of semi-unpaid work. Last time, we bought the high-deductable plan that's crappy but better than no insurance at all. So it was kind of nice, this time, to know what I was doing. No need to reinvent the wheel, right? I just signed up for the same plan we had before, and waited for the company (Blue Shield) to take our money.

Except it turns out they don't want our money.
Why? you might ask.
Well, because I actually used the health insurance we're currently paying for.

When we got company-provided insurance a few years ago (oh, happy day!) we shelled out a bit of extra cash to get some chiropractic coverage. Both of us like our chiropractor, we have a few aches and pains, and it's nice to be able to get them taken care of when they occur, rather than letting the kinks decide they're permanent.
So that was our big mistake: actually using the chiropractor.

After Lucy was born, I had some aches and pains. Ligaments were all stretched out, my old dance aches were irritated, and I slept wrong and got a crick in my neck.
Nothing too catastrophic.
And man, was I glad I had decent coverage! Cause then I could get it taken care of!
Except apparently that was a bad idea! Because it was on the basis of those complaints that Blue Shield decided I was in poor health and a bad risk.
Hmmm. I eat well, don't smoke, don't drink too much, exercise regularly, and have never broken a bone, been hospitalized, or had a major illness. Not only that, but I gave birth to Lucy at home, without anaesthesia.
If I can't get health insurance, who can?

We're working with our chiropractor to contest the denied coverage; I'm hopeful that the result will be good. After all, wouldn't they desire to profit off of our fabulous health?
Bueller?

But it just pisses me off that this is our health care system. That I will now be afraid to go to the doctor or use the coverage I pay for because it might prevent me from getting coverage later. That someone with an entrepreneurial spirit might think twice from starting a business because they can't afford or receive health insurance. That we are forced to fight to pay someone to provide us with bottom-of-the-barrel, only-prevent-bankruptcy coverage. That all this could be avoided if we all ponied up more taxes (probably less than what a lot of people pay for insurance and health-related expenses) and actually supported a health care system that made sense, pooling all of the people in our country of good and bad health.

If this makes you mad, too, here's an organization that's trying to do something about it. Healthcare reform is just one of their platforms, but it's an important one. I'd like to be optimistic our next president will solve everything, but I'm not. Unless we all put more pressure on them. And ditto with California's legislature. How do they know what it's like? The state already provides their insurance.
So I invite you to join me in supporting Moms Rising. Because in this economic climate, it could be you that gets laid off next. And you who is unable to find coverage for you or your loved ones. If you have had problems getting coverage for your kids, share your story here to help our lawmakers understand this crisis.
And pray that Blue Shield decides to take our money.

What's Happening Now!

Ahem.
a) We moved back in!
b) Many things still need finishing (tile! mirror! finding things that were misplaced! Three-foot-high weeds! Kitty neediness!)
c) Dyami quit his job!
d) We applied for health insurance!
e) We were denied for health insurance! (this merits its own post: soon to follow)
f) Moved Lucy into her own room! She's sleeping in her own room, people. Ie, without us. Why aren't you gasping?
g) L using potty on own, asking to go! (Yeah, I know, since we did EC in theory this shouldn't be exciting, but well, it is).
h) Weaning progressing so well I thought we might actually be done nursing a few days ago (we weren't, kind of glad I have a few more times to savor it before we move past this phase).
i) Am I missing something?
h) Oh, yeah. Lucy got her first mole today. Saw it on her arm while she was (um) nursing. It's like watching the stars come out at night.
So that's why I haven't posted for a while. It's been a bit, well, um, new around here.

great idea, but...

So I was all proud of my plan.
Our town has lousy public transportation, like the rest of SoCal, but I did find that there's this call-for-a-ride service that serves the area we live in. So you call the service ahead of time (the night ahead, or a few hours ahead), specify where you want to travel (from some pre-defined stops) and an approximate pickup time. Then they come get you and deliver you to your destination. They picked us up from the front door of our house and delivered us two blocks from the library. Then they picked up from the same location every hour.
Cool, huh? It's the same price as a bus ticket, and it's good for the whole day. I could go to the library, to Target, to a different library, and to the thrift store, all without using my car. Well, in theory. The schlepping of Target items and the baby probably won't work. But some books? I can do that.
So here was my plan, once we moved back to our house: try to use the service to go to the library/thrift, which are a few blocks away in our town's downtown. I go about once a week. Less driving, more public transportation.
Everyone wins!!!

Except when I got on the bus for my first ride, I see a notice posted that they're considering discontinuing the service in August. Completely. Along with many other routes and holiday/weekend service.
Come on, Transit District! I just got my act together to use the system! (Actually, the thing holding me up was the fact that our downtown library was just finished and I wasn't living within the service area for the past few months. Making the service not so usable.)
And the very first time I try it, it's going to be cancelled?

The thing is, this service seems to make so much sense for our area. Some kids got picked up from our local high school and delivered home when I was riding. How much sense does that make? (You'd think there were be school buses, but you'd be wrong.) Some older folks, that might not be driving. It's flexible, it can operate in a way where people might actually use it here, and it doesn't require a bunch of infrastructure.
It's kind of like public transit, with training wheels.
Consider: the closest bus stop to my house is a mile away. The do-gooder in me would love to use public transportation, but I ain't schlepping my baby a mile away and back for the privilege.
I think I'm going to send a comment to the Transit District. I mean, come on, people? Haven't you heard that all the cool people are going environmental? WOuldn't we want to catch the wave and do the same?
Grrr.