HOT, it is so hot today...

As I woke from my nap on the ferry going to work, I saw Mount Rainier shining with snow covered slopes reflecting the bright sunlight. So I thought about you, wanted to call you, send you an email, knock on your door and take you up on my motorcycle for a run up the mountain. This day was made for such lovely foolishness.

I didn't get your attention, you didn't ride with me, and I was one of the hard working, law abiding, responsible tax paying citizens - I went to work, finished the addition of the new purchases, got the crew organized for the changes in their jobs for next week, started on the list of recommended purchases for the new budget, and helped some people find information they had to have - I was visited by one Corrections Lieutenant, and then the weekly Friday staff visitor/inspector team - which I hold is a very good way for the lone staff working only with inmates to feel a part of the institution is around and in contact.

Finally, it was time to head back to real life, where I don't have to watch the clock, check email for requests and answer a telephone or two. Home where I will be safe. And I get to ride the Trusty Triumph to get there, one stop at Office Depot for some photopaper for the printer, my wife wants better pictures to send to her family of Keegan and his parents, okay. It is a good day for the motorcycles, one chopper is waiting beside me at a light and he comments on my bike (so much lighter than his) but it is my ride so he doesn't dis it because it isn't a Harley...

After picking up the photopaper, into the backpack, and back on the road being so cool as I ride. I notice at one light a silver CTS behind me, looks kind of like my wife's, but the license plate number isn't right, but the lady does have silver white hair. It couldn't be my wife, unless she stopped at her friend's for a haircut, or the market for Korean food. The light changes and I roar off, okay it is a meeker meow not a real roar, but I am across the intersection and switching into the next turn lane, and the lady is keeping up with me. For a couple more miles that car is stalking me, too much traffic for a real getaway, but I finally take one turn she doesn't and I am looking forward to the smooth S-curve that I would pay for to do twice (and you know how cheap I am). Finally, I am home, and put the motorcycle away in the garage. It was my wife, and she only recognized me because of my bent right turn signal and the airborne wings. I must have really looked cool, so not Earl.

Okay, Government Health Care...

My wife is qualified for Medicare - she and I and all of my working relations and most of the remainder of the United States of America pay a tax based on our income for this service, every paycheck, and have ever since Medicare was passed into law in the 1960's under President Johnson. It was to become a single payer health insurance for the aged (65+).

But her doctor's office has trouble getting Medicare to pay for my wife's treatment, they say there are other insurers that aren't paying FIRST! So they (the single payer government agency) doesn't pay. And for some reason the patient is the one that must make everything correct - not the doctor's office (do you have any idea of how large his staff is?), not the Medicare Agency (do you know how much they cost daily?). So the patient, who must be sick, must correct all the stuff because there isn't enough tax money and insurance premium around to push paperwork properly.

So, you call the 1-800-633-4227 number to get help and assistance - and receive a computer answering device of umpteen million dollars of stupidity. It's second sentence tells one to push two if you want to speak in Spanish (Chinese, French, Hindi and some others have greater population of speakers but not under Medicare?) of course it spoke that in Spanish. Why are they female voices, discriminating or thinking I won't swear at a female machine? Go through the selections and then choose to wait for a hovering in the background human being (doesn't the government know there is an employment crisis out there, hire some help!). No, I don't swear and especially against really stupid computers, but my blood pressure rises and that will kill me and cause more problems.

I did get help, human, female, and she is sending more paperwork my way since my wife expects me to be up on the front against the evil overlords, gangsters and rampant mice, moles and rat populations. The government wants me to be an unpaid agent for my wife in her Medicare issues. What is the world going to do when I am gone?

We did agree that my Health Insurance with my Employer (the State of Washington - still solvent here, California) is a primary payer and for some reason (subcontracting?) what it is called on my cards, Uniform Medical Plan, is known to Medicare as Harrington (the things I don't know), and I was to make sure (like I am an agent for making Medicare's billing properly) that the Doctor's office listed all payments made before asking Medicare for their payment.

Now, I am getting old, and ugly as it seems I will have to participate in a couple of years as my own agent and my wife's --- there is no chance that Universal Medical from the federal government will get my support - they will probably have to ENSLAVE me somehow. Or is that what they have already done, we's working for d'Man!

Pardon me, tax time, I am behind and got to go...

It is interesting comparing the 1040 from 2007 with the 1040 from 2008. Same President for both years, wonder what it will look like for 2009. How will I feel about taxes next year?

Stepping out of character...

A wife with a car and a problem, so I had to dodge and weave and change stride, and take time off to take care of it. So the Library was closed Thursday afternoon, those normal Thursday patrons are going to believe that ever since Thanksgiving the POWERS that BE (ever referred to as 'they') have it in for them. I got to watch the coverage of the splash landing in the Hudson, and think about how cold it was there. I paid the tab, drove the vehicle around, testing it and listening to satellite radio - the Blues show - my kind of music. Stopped at the Tacoma Public Library to see what was new on their shelves and then onward to the home. Normal food for dinner, evening at home with Heinlein and too much coffee. Wake and prepare for today as my wife backs the car out of the garage I hear the Blues, not her kind of music. So, taking my cup of fresh morning coffee, I walk down the drive with her, stop her as she turns, wait until she rolls down the window and reach in and change back to her Korean station. She says 'thanks, you really love me' and I tell her she doesn't know how much. She responds with 'get some shoes on!' Yeah, marriage is like that.

You know, it isn't the Economy that will kill me...

No, I will be fine, no matter who becomes President. What is going to kill me is the America that isn't at war. The America that thinks someone else is going to protect us, heal us and be our heroes. I have a story to tell in November, and it is about a time and a country when people took responsibility and acted. No, I went to the Sandbox and saw what Clara had written and remembered that I wasn't at war, I wasn't following, I wasn't leading and I wasn't doing more than wearing a magnetic We Support the Troops ribbon on my Caravan. You and I aren't paying attention to the cost, too comfortable, but listen. Not enough turmoil in your vision of harmony? Well, this is another way of looking all around you.

Tough talk about shooting last weekend, how hard it is without Internet connections at work, the cable guy that comes late and makes me miss work for a day. I am the absent American, too busy to make sure the right people get into government - elected and hired for that dream that became so selfish. How did I forget? Patriot Guard Riders are out honoring fallen Veterans, current service personnel and past ones. I have been too busy to ride? I am surrounded by serving soldiers and I should talk more with them - don't want them to end up as broken as a young sergeant I remember once was. Well, close the day with a prayer to help all those wounded fighting on out there - especially the ones that really care and need to share their burden and their pain. Good night and sleep well, for your brightest and best are off at their country's behest, and you have diss'd them too much, too often and too long.

Are you carrying, and do I need to ask?

Here is something to munch on, are you carrying? Seems there was a flurry of 'call the family your children are visiting to find out if there are guns in that home" not all that long ago - and I couldn't for the life of me remember any neighbors home that didn't have guns in it where I grew up. And we couldn't touch the guns in another person's home - right up there with the things that would change our lives violently and painfully - and look like a totally ill mannered fool.

Well, I won't carry to work in the prison. But grocery shopping and riding the motorcycle are going to get a little more exciting. Sense of responsibility for law and order, defending the truth and justice in the coming world of change, ride out to right the world's wrongs... the man of la mancha.

First Responders

Citizenship should mean responsibility: to report a fire, an accident and things that threaten life. Why doesn't it happen more often? Is the fact that 'everyone' goes faster than the speed limit mean that no one should report bad driving, speeding or fool racing? Does that fact that a 'little' recreational drug use doesn't make one a key player in the drug empires of the world?

If a Boy Scout understands "Be Prepared" as a duty to have first aid skills to assist in saving lives, to help establish traffic control and flow around a problem, to deliver services and goods to those shut in, to make the world a better place than he found it -- why is it only the area of the government for most of us -- when did watching and waiting and whining take the place of getting involved and fixing the temporary problem? Too much television watching?

Paralyzed by fear, or Prodded to Perform -- same situation different reactions, and only one gets you killed. Victims or Victors, don't see enough of the latter and the media sings the songs of the former. The Death Songs.

Time is moving, and I am dragged along...

I don't want to wake up, waking up I don't want to get out of bed but the alarm calls my attention. It is gray, wet and windy outside and darkness hasn't been broken for days, Hibernation calls, go back to bed, except I can't, my wife's alarm goes off and she is up, I really don't want to go to work. But I have to, I am the Library Keeper, the man with the keys to open up a world beyond the prison, I will go. The inmates bet on really bad weather days about who will show up, I have been there -- always, for snow doesn't phase me, 6.7 earthquakes only make me laugh (although, they turned me around at the gate), anyway, the inmates believe I will be there until I win the Lotto (and they know those odds, too.) At work all the busy stuff and I continue to weed the collection, did you know my Spanish readers check out their Mathematics books more than anything else except business books? Surprised me, but I have been working on increasing the Spanish collection's circulation - I am not buying more American novels intranslation, they don't circulate. I want more paperback books, cheaper to purchase and don't take up as much space on the shelves, but the publishers like hardcovers first and paperback the following year. I find some information and email the other lonely outposts of information and sanity in the other institutions (corrections and mental health) we are all busy closing up the last year in reports and statistics and starting the new one right... or close to that. Back home I find it tax time and download forms and find statements and empty spots to fill in, I could be that slug and go off and sleep, but the day wears on and Responsibility is dragging me, onward ever onward. Should I do something special this year (YES!) when (NOW!) and then I get dragged by Responsibility away from that fine foolishness... the little world of McNeil Island Library and its patrons has my attention, demands better and is never ending in its grip on my reality. How does one get out of this place, I do want a day off.