The idiocy of health insurance.

Since like February, I'd been trying to get appointments with an allergist, though for that I'd need an appointment with a general practitioner, and by the time that happened and then I realized that the referral he gave me was out of network, it was already early March.

Then, it was such a b*tch to use the 'convenient' online practitioner finder.

For one, I couldn't use the finder on my smartphone, so I'd have to go use a desktop at the library, where I couldn't make phonecalls, but rather I had to go and write numbers down or print them out so I could make all of the calls later.

Then, when I finally did get around to making the calls, like so many of the listings were wonky - only a few were actually in city limits even though I live in a ginormous city, one wasn't an allergist at all, one was a kid's mobile allergy van from some university health project, and two had bad numbers.

I got frustrated, so I set it aside, only to return a week later and try to find different numbers for those doctors, and right away one went through and I could confirm that that one was in network, so then I had to write my general practitioner and get the referral switched.

Then, it arrived and I went to go make the appointment, and it turns out that that allergist was in network, but he hadn't maintained the city office listed for several years, only stuff way out in far outlying suburbs and even cities a good distance away from the city I live in, so I couldn't use him as a doctor at all.

So, I had to go through finding another doctor, and a different allergist close by me was now listed on the website.

Only, his office couldn't tell me if my insurance was used or not, and said just to get the referral and they'd call me if it wasn't, they regularly checked that, and anyhow they could tell me day of the appointment at the office if it wasn't.

All in all, this wasted like two months of my time, and then it's another month to an appointment, if that pans out, all for maybe getting allergy shots if I can afford them, and that'd be a six month course, which might push up into next year when my expenses reset, for all that I know.

Going through all of this, you really see how health insurance is b*llsh*t and keeps people from care.

And what's up with those inaccurate listings?

It galls me that you can't get money refunded for how much those inaccurate listings dick you around.

And, on top of all this, who knows how much premiums will skyrocket next year, because of all of this coronavirus b*llsh*t.  Between me and what the government chips in, I already pay like FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS a year to my health insurance company, for shit I hardly use and hardly can use.

And, THAT'S THE CHEAPEST STANDARD PLAN IN MY AREA.

Health insurance and healthcare in this country is so f*cking jacked, I swear to G-dd-ss.

Coronavirus habit.

My big coronavirus habit has been doing crosswords and paper puzzles pretty incessantly.

I've subscribed to a puzzle magazine for years, and I go in phases where I do it a lot and then I do it hardly at all.

The last 3 issues I did hardly any at all, and then after coronavirus hit, I realized that doing puzzles was soothing, and so I went back and have been doing a ton of the puzzles in all of the different issues.

If I have downtime at the resthome, I do some there, sometimes, and at other times I do it at home just randomly, because I feel like doing it a lot.

Weird coronavirus energy.

The other week during the early afternoon when I was going into work at my one assisted living client's with disabilities, the subway ride had strange people walking back and forth between cars, to the point where I could see multiple other people in the car looking at them after they'd passed.

Then, I get off at the station by my client's and go to go to my client's, and there's a bunch of police officers outside the small grocery store where I sometimes stop in to pick up some fruit for myself on my way to my client's.

And, I see a (slim) (middle-aged) (white) grocery worker who I recognize stop talking with the policemen and go to go back into the store, so I say hello to him and ask him what happened.

And, he said that some guy was shoplifting and they went to go and stop him and he started fighting, so they called the cops.

"What weird energy," I was like. "Be careful, it's everywhere now, I saw it on the subway today, there was all of these people walking back and forth between cars."

"Yeah," he was like, and then he points to this dingy black sock sitting out on the pavement outside the small self-opening grocery store doors.  "That's his sock right there."

Then, he pursed his lips and he started shaking his head in agreement and was like, "It is weird energy..."

A reflection, on a cat.

The other week I was commenting to the one resthome resident who used to work in advertising that his cat who can be very vocal with me and who likes me to pet her is getting very spoiled.

"Well," he was like, "She deserves it."

Gratefulness from resthome residents.

Gratefulness from resthome residents is very gratifying, at that job.

Like a month or two ago, the one resthome resident who's a retired music professor said that somehow it seems that everything always goes better when I'm around.

And, right around that time, after I had had a few days off, the one resthome resident who I have a running joke with said that she had missed me.

How often have I had that kind of thing happen at other jobs?

Not very much.

The only thing I can think of is thankfulness from a handful of students, 2 art school students who said that my one sex class was their favorite class that they had taken and had meant a lot to them, as one put it, and a freshman writing student who I had bumped into in his senior year who said that something I had taught him then was incredibly useful to him and he had used it on every paper he wrote ever afterwards.

With the teaching, though, beyond the fact that it seems so long ago, is that there was very little stability of work, and there was very little pointed appreciation or even a nice work environment from supervisors or purported "colleagues."

So, that makes the appreciation feel less or stick less, as an impression of those overall jobs.

Reminiscence, of work in the early days of the coronavirus crisis.

At the resthome, my one (Mexican) coworker is quiet most of the time but is actually a pretty hard-assed skeptic, and one time she told me that back in her village where she comes from she used to always get into fights with her mom and her family over stuff like saints and space aliens and whatnot.

Anyhow, in the early days of the coronavirus crisis, we were leaving the office one day after our shift had gotten over and we had both been talking about how nervous everything was making us, so, since she lets me speak Spanish to her sometimes, I was like, "Vaya con dios" ('Go with God") and then after she thanked me, I was like, "O, porque eres un ateista, vaya con nada" ('Or, because you're an atheist, go with nothing').

"Bye," she was like, throwing up her hands.  "You make me crazy."

A comparison from the Arabian Nights...

...in the translation of Husain Haddawy (p. 83):

...breasts like a pair of big pomegranates resembling a rabbit with uplifted ears...

. . .

I just don't get it.