Poppy Cedes

I really need to get a job. I’m a very much homebody who will go weeks without leaving my apartment if given the opportunity. Yesterday I admitted to Dawg that I had intended to mail a letter since last week but haven’t felt like leaving our home and his response was to smile and say “ya gotta go out.” So I drank all my milk last night to force myself to have to leave the apartment to go to the grocery store to get milk the next day so that I would have some for filming Cereal Wednesday, and presumably allow me to mail my letter. That worked — I went out today.

Some of you know that during the outing I had an incident with a bottle of malt vinegar. It didn’t survive, but I didn’t cut myself cleaning up the shards that spilled all over the driveway of the next door neighbor. I started getting really, really angry. Angry that it was hot. Angry that I had intended to get that malt vinegar many times before and finally got it only to smash it on the ground. Angry that my groceries were so heavy. Angry that I hate leaving my home and this is EXACTLY WHY.

And then I finally got inside and violently shrugged all the grocery bags out of my hands and started putting groceries away, angrily, furious with myself that I STILL hadn’t mailed my letter yet and now THIS happens, and then the Dove ice cream bars wouldn’t sit correctly on top of the Mystic pizza boxes in the freezer and I started getting PISSED and ramming the boxes in… and then the rational part of me showed up and yelled at me, out loud: “Stef, you need to CALM DOWN, this is NOT worth being angry over, and none of this even MATTERS.”

And then I really had to go mail the letter because it’s actually due to be in Connecticut by tomorrow, not that this will even happen, but keeping it in my possession wasn’t going to get it there any faster. So I went back downstairs to mail the letter. And I walked by a burnt out car parked the wrong way on the one way street where our police precinct resides. And I thought that through. This car burned out. Perhaps starting while people were in it. Hopefully not finishing with people in it. The wheels were still fine but the car had fallen down on itself, perhaps because the axle broke or melted or, I dunno, but it wasn’t good, and all the glass was broken, and I could smell the char as I walked by, and I thought, “hmm, I wonder how that car got parked the wrong way and then burned down” and then I mailed my letter. As I walked back through I let my grown-up mind take over and realized the car burned somewhere else, probably in a parking lot or on the side of a road or on a bridge (why do SO MANY cars here catch fire while they’re on a bridge? I don’t know, but it’s true) and then it was extinguished and the car was brought to my neighborhood because someone in my neighborhood owns that car so a tow truck parked it in the one spot it found, and since the tow truck would be travelling with the one-way traffic it put the burned out car, which was loaded onto the tow truck backwards in the first place, right?, onto the street so that an insurance adjuster and a police officer and the owner could evaluate it and the rest of us could wonder under what circumstances that car caught fire.

And suddenly my bad day just doesn’t seem so bad.

Please go read this post, it helps us put our bad stuff into perspective. My favorite line: “Everything is actually only around 8% as terrible as you think it is. Quote me.”

Things did not end well with me and the ex. I haven’t spoken to him in about two years. We just don’t see eye to eye on life, and he has no interest in being a positive part of my life. This also means that it has been three years since I’ve seen his family. I don’t really think about them much because they’re not mine anymore.

Isn’t that weird? I was in his life for 10 years and yet our inability to resolve our issues results in me losing the status of sister, daughter, cousin, niece, granddaughter to an entire family.

Some days that’s pretty overwhelming, particularly on the days when my boyfriend is invited to family functions by his ex’s family because they are still such good friends and he is still considered important to her family, although his title is Family Friend now instead of stepdad, brother, son, grandson, cousin, nephew.

Most of the time I just push my complete erasure from my ex’s family to the deep, dark, uncharted territories of my mind. And then something unexpected happens and I flash back.

Saturday night Dawg and I wanted to stay in and watch a movie on demand. We looked through the movies together and settled on Dear John. We knew we would cry through it, because it’s a tear-jerker. Minutes into the movie John meets Savannah. Minutes more into the movie the two are at a party together and Savannah introduces John to Allen, an autistic boy who is the son of Tim.

Triggering my flashback.

Allen was the biological four-year-old son of Hay’s aunt. The first time we met we fell in kid love. I loved his spirit, he loved that he could call me his girlfriend. Allen and I played for hours each time we saw each other. Allen looked exactly like the boy in the movie. And so I burst out crying because I realized that I had forgotten Allen ever existed.

Because I’m not allowed to be part of that family anymore. Or that boy’s life. And I never got to say goodbye to him, I just disappeared from his life.

And that was a choice I made, knowing the consequences.

sigh.

Last night we were at the FHVAC awards dinner at which Dawg was sworn back in as captain after two years off from the job. The Steff had mentioned something about seeing me. I said, “well, he wants to stay home” and she said “that doesn’t mean we can’t go out” and I took the careful pause to consider why that statement does or doesn’t make logical sense, and then answered “that’s true.”

Back in mid-2008 I came to NYC a few times before permanently moving here to live happily ever after with Dawg and the kitties. One visit we went to a fund raiser for a friend in need, another time we did a fund raising event for the FHVAC itself. At each event I met Dawg’s World. Remember all those people he used to talk about on his orange blog that were like a soap opera on steroids? Dude, those people are real. And I was meeting them. AND THEY CALLED ME POPPY BECAUSE THEY KNEW WHO I WAS! And then they would look into my eyes, all serious, and softly but firmly state “you break his heart, I’ll break your legs.” Welcome to Queens! Every single time someone said that to me I would start giggling because I knew in my heart how much I loved Dawg then and I am pretty sure not one day has gone by since where the level of love hasn’t maintained or grown more. But how were they to know that from watching a Boo Berry cereal video?

In case you’re newish to my life or just want to reminisce, here is said Boo Berry video from October 2007, when we were just good friends and I was popping his Meeting a Blogger in Person cherry:

Adorable, right?

To bring this back around to full circle and to show you my point of writing this whole entire post: Until now I have quietly considered all of Dawg’s friends my friends, but I haven’t felt like they were mine mine because I don’t hang out with them alone since they were Dawg’s friends first. I have always felt like I’m really only supposed to hang out with my own friends (that’d be Robin and Rachel, and Mena back when I worked at the last job) because to hang out with Dawg’s friends without him was in some way disrespectful.

But they want to hang out with me even if Dawg is busy or tired. It’s happened more and more frequently lately that his friends invite me to stuff even if he can’t come. Dawg encourages me to hang out with them when he can’t, so this mental block is only in my head. So I’m going to stop having a hang-up about whose friends are whose and just accept the kindness and generosity of these people who will still break my legs if I break Dawg’s heart, but who accepted me with open arms, this girl from the Internet who randomly picked up her life and replanted it from the Vermont country roads life to the Big City life just to be with a guy they all respect and admire as much as I do. And I think now that he has met my Vermont friends (we met a bazillion of them last week during our Very Short Visit) I feel even more comfortable that the friend field is now magically leveled… the brain of Poppy at work.

I have no clever, uncorny ending, so I’ll leave you with an awesome photo of your 2010 vollies captain, 1st lieutenant, and 2nd lieutenant:

Dawg, The Steff, and KC

:)

Monday I decided that, in addition to the other items we would bring to DJ, we would bring a cat toy from the girls. Dawg and I selected the toy — a Cosmic catnip laced ball — and I set it on the counter to bring with us. I went to the bedroom to finish getting ready to go and heard a rustling sound. I came back to the kitchen, expecting Dawg to be trying to remove the ball from its package, but instead found Twitter on the floor trying to get the ball she had pulled from the counter out of the package by biting and kicking it. I was horrified that Twitter had touched the ball, but then realized that it’s from the girls, with love, to DJ so it’s actually much more fitting that one of them would break in the toy for him.

So that we could sleep through the night, Dawg and I did a Nyquil shot at bedtime. We never do that, but last night it seemed kinda necessary. I had fought smoking a cigarette all day, but as soon as we discussed the Nyquil shot I didn’t hesitate in going through with that.

And then I woke up at 8:30am on Tuesday, groggy as all hell, fed the girls, vegged in front of the TV in such a haze that Dawg kept asking me if I was ok, ate lunch at right before noon, then went back to bed until almost 6:00pm. Lesson: Nyquil knocks you the fuck out.

We’re going to Vermont for a few days to visit friends. Back in January during the crazy freak snowstorm I cancelled my visits to any friends and only saw family, since driving anywhere took two to three times longer in order to get places safely, eating up all the time to visit friends. Blah blah blah why am I explaining myself I am an adult and if I wanna see just my friends that’s my prerogative BobbyBROWN k bai. So Dawg will drive us to Cracker Barrel, we will eat and then pay with the gift card Allie gave him for Kitty Dawggy Day, then I will take over driving the rest of the way to Break Boy and Knitting Girl’s house. We’re throwing in a trip to see my brother but otherwise we’re gonna chill with friends, including some people I haven’t seen since high school who I actually want to see. Dawg‘s just tagging along and doing whatever I tell him we’re doing next. He’s such a good doobie, as his mom says. That means he does what his lady tells him to do and that pleases her.

Just want to thank everyone for nice words (to me and) to Dawg over the last few days. You’re awesome.

Do me a favor: Go watch a rerun. And have a great week. :)

This isn’t about cats! (They’re all good.)

For anyone not familiar, COBRA benefits are group medical and dental insurance benefits employers offer to employees terminated by their company, voluntarily or involuntarily. You pay for the benefits, but it’s covered under the company’s group plan so you get pretty awesome insurance that you very likely won’t qualify for or be able to afford on your own. If you are involuntarily terminated you most likely qualify for an extremely reduced rate for COBRA.

Back when I lived in Vermont I made the decision to voluntarily terminate my employment so that I could move to Queens to find a new job and an apartment to live in with the kitties and Dawg. I had tried to find both while still living in Vermont but employers in NYC are skeptical about the intentions of people who don’t live here, and landlords are skeptical about people who don’t have jobs here — a catch-22. At that time I was offered COBRA at 100% of the cost because the termination was my choice, in legalese referred to as “voluntary”.

I paid almost $500 each month for six months for insurance until I became eligible for insurance through my new job (3 months unemployed, then 3 months more from my job start date until I was eligible). 6 months x $500 = $3000 out of pocket. While making no money for the first 3 months. That wasn’t a pleasant monetary situation. But I lived through it, and continued my streak of never, ever having been without health insurance as far as I know. :)

Then in April 2010 I learned that I would be let go on the very last day that my company existed in its prior-to-bankruptcy form, despite the company being bought out and reincarnated into a new company. Because COBRA was not added into the bidding process for my company’s acquisition, anyone let go prior to the company’s reincarnation date was informed that no COBRA benefits would be offered.

That sucked.

I was told just over a week before my termination date that I would be let go on April 23. I was shaken up that the writing on the wall became true, but I was more shaken up that I would have no health insurance coverage because… what if I got hit by a bus and didn’t die?! THAT COSTS A LOT OF MONEY!

I scoured my options online and with the HR department of the company who terminated me but I learned three things: You can only sign up for individual insurance on or before the 15th of the current month to be eligible for the following month, resulting in me having no way of being covered for the following month; my company’s insurance plan is offered in a different state than where I live (Connecticut), so as an individual living where I live I was not eligible for my former employer’s insurance in any way; I make too much money from unemployment to qualify for state assisted insurance. Car-azy.

I was pretty depressed by this, but I was trying to figure out my options for insurance. Through help from Finn I learned that my options available to me were available from an online insurance comparison company so I went through the process of finding a plan that works for me and filling out the online form. I filled it out on the 7th of May. What I didn’t realize was that I would need to be mailed papers, allllllll the way from California, and they wouldn’t arrive to me until May 14. A Friday. In the afternoon. And there would be no way for me to get my paperwork back to California to a human being in time for June coverage. So… no May coverage, no June coverage. GREAT!

Bus? Bus! Anyone seen that bus that wants to cream me but not kill me?

In addition to this lovely fact, my credit card company decided that my purchases were suspicious so they cancelled my card and issued me a new one, but the insurance company had my old card on file and written into the policy they’d sent me. Another strike against me getting this insurance in a timely manner.

Since I wasn’t going to get the insurance for June and I had to take care of activating the new credit card (that took a few days and a few phone calls promising that I was me and that I was calling form my home and that I had authorized the strange-to-them purchases on my card) I held onto the paperwork and didn’t mail it back.

And then all the stuff with the cats happened and I kinda forgot about myself and worried about my girls. You know all that happened, everything’s pretty good on this side of things, and today was the first day that I put the focus back on myself: I had to go get a prescription today, but without insurance. I didn’t feel like spending $4.50 and going all the way into Manhattan so I figured out how to transfer my prescription back to my local pharmacy. They called to ask me to bring a new insurance card because my current one was declined, so I explained I was working on getting new insurance and that I’d pay cash when I picked up the prescription.

I put my pants on and drove over to the pharmacy. I told the pharmacist my name. She had trouble finding my script so I explained I had been called and told it was ready. She went over to a counter near where she had been filling scripts and looked through the entire pile. She then found my bag and said “you’re the one with no insurance?” Because it’s important for everyone around me to know that I’m uninsured. I said yes and nervously laughed, which I wish I hadn’t because I was annoyed she was putting my business out into the world. And then instead of coming over to give me my script she started filing all the other prescriptions alphabetically by last names into the bins… For, like, several minutes. Because this loser chick doesn’t have insurance so she deserves to be treated like she’s unimportant. I wasn’t that annoyed by this, but… I was definitely more sensitive about the way I was being treated because I was paying full fee for (thankfully a generic) prescription but I was still left feeling like I was inadequate for not having a plastic membership card.

And then I came home, opened my mailbox and found an envelope from my old employer. I thought, “hmmm, what is this thick packet of info and … what good can possibly come of this?” I got upstairs, put all my stuff down, took my pants back off, and opened the letter. To my really pleasant surprise, it was a letter from the HR group letting me know that COBRA benefits were being reinstated retroactively to May 31, 2010. The cost of the benefits? $450 for medical and dental.

Ouch.

BUT, here comes the good part: I was involuntarily terminated so was eligible for benefits at 35% of the original cost, about half of what I would have been paying for lesser insurance if I had submitted my paperwork for the plan I found online.

I read through all the paperwork and called the HR group to verify that I was eligible for the reduced payment, made a check out, put a stamp and the HR to: address and my from: address label on an envelope, put the black ink into my printer, scanned the pages and the envelope and check for my records, then put my pants back on and walked to my local post office to drop my letter into the mailbox that gets picked up at 5pm.

You are now looking at an again medically and dentally insured Popstar as of sometime early next week when the HR group in CT opens my letter from Queens. And now that bus can stay far, far away. :)

The end!

I’ve really got nothing to say. Life is life-like. Still no job, no insurance, no phone, but I’m happy. My neck is really really really sore from (oh, whatever, maybe stress, but maybe just my crazy tomfoolery with cleaning parts of the apartment that included heavy lifting, or bringing groceries upstairs in unreasonable loads). I am enjoying my connections with friends. I am enjoying sleeping in to hours that make everyone jealous. I’m enjoying the extra bonding time with the kitties, especially our new girl. I’m enjoying my boyfriend and all he does purposely or not specifically on purpose to make me a happy and lucky person. I’m enjoying the time to reflect upon what I want to do with my life.

I also enjoyed parallel parking yesterday with wheels to the curb my first shot at it. :)

A lot of things are changing above my head at work. I had so many big plans for my Life this year but trying to hold onto this job means I lose my freedom to go on all the adventures I’d planned to go on. I mentioned TequilaCon already, but not Hadrian’s Walk.

Remember a long time ago I said I would be going to England to participate in a charity event? :( Not gonna happen. I was pretty sad about it when I realized it, and actually worried about it to the point of making myself feel sick (no, I didn’t tell anyone, suffered in silence as usual), but when Dawg and I finally sat down to email Dan that we couldn’t attend I just started sobbing. I hate letting people down, it makes me feel guilty and worthless. But even more than that, I resent so very much that I am choosing to stay at this job out of fear that I won’t get another and so this job is keeping me from physically supporting a cause that is very important. It puts me in the deep, dark, angry place where I want to spin around with my fists out, destroying everything in my path, and then I want to walk out the door of my place of employment and never return.

And you wonder why I think money is stupid.

There’d be a lot less fear in the world without it.

And I really need to figure out how to accept this situation or get off my lazy fucking ass and do something about getting a job where I don’t worry about being let go every day despite giving more than 100% every day.

I wrote this post this morning. While I was writing I decided, “you know what, mama? How about instead of asking if you CAN do it you just fucking get it done and be the champion you know you are?” So, all the stuff that’s crossed out is what I DID do today…

I have to do these things. I’m sitting here not doing them because I don’t feel well, waiting for my DayQuil to kick in. I work well under pressure so we’ll see.

Gotta:

. put the laundry together
. get the laundry to the place to have the laundry done for us
. put all the recycling out so we stop looking like hoarders
. do the dishes
. do the kitty boxes
. give the girls their weekend love
. fix a computer in another time zone
. do some cereal eating
. attempt to make Mikey’s maple pie
. buy containers for Easter candy
. put the Easter candy in said containers
. pay bills
. have Poppy Dawggy time (in whatever form our old bodies will let us)
. have Wrestlemania Easter Sunday at Mama Dawg’s with the NJ crew
. eat, sleep, groom
. kick this fucking cold to the curb

There’s stuff left on that list, but this weekend isn’t over yet, is it? Nope. :)

I got new laundry bags on Monday from Duane Reade. Love Duane Read. Wish you all had Duane Reades. They’re awesomeness. Haven’t used the laundry bags yet, they’re still sealed up, had planned to do laundry on Sunday but it turned into a very lazy day to let Dawg recover from his cold.

I have the cold now. Yaaaaaay. *sneezecoughzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz*

I tried to tell LLA’s parents that my cold would prevent me from getting her birthday gifts to VT on time. I received an email back that her birthday is NEXT month. (PHEW!)

It’s Cereal Wednesday! I did a Marbits on a day when I wasn’t sick. Thank goodness for good planning.

Today is supposably (no I don’t really say that word) Dave2‘s birthday, so I’ll dedicate today’s CW to him. Hope he likes fiber!

I was going to join Ren and Finn‘s Diptych project this week, but laziness and this damn cold makes me need to wait another week.

The number of people who have responded to me about BeerHer is nice and low. I can’t say I’m sad about that, because that means absolutely no planning on my part, we all just show up and have tons o’ fun, but if you do want to to come please mention to me so if we change venues I can make sure tell you.

Ok, bye. :)

OH! PS – Diary of a Wimpy Kid was awesome and so was the Red Robin blackened chicken sandwich!!!! RR always fucks up my burgers (I tell them well done, they give me moo inside) but the chicken is outta this world!!!!!!! Ok, reallybye.

Representatives from Tennessee (my mom and stepdad), Long Island (Dawg’s aunt, uncle, cousin, and cousin’s girlfriend), New Jersey (Dawg’s ex Pudding, Pudding’s Wife [PW], The Wolves, and Gwennie the Sky Terrier), and Queens (me, Dawg, Mama Dawg, Hollywood, Mr. Clean, Soco and Coco the cats) were at the Dawg Family Thanksgiving Dinner. During this momentous occasion Pudding’s Wife kept telling me she was adding my mom as her Facebook friend so she could send her nudie pictures. Of herself or of the lovely Native American woman who wallpapers her phone, I’m not sure, but in any case I started yelling, “I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU ARE GOING TO BE MY MOM’S FRIEND ON FACEBOOK BEFORE YOU ARE MY FRIEND!” (because screaming at Thanksgiving dinner in the Dawg family household is a perfectly acceptable behavior, and I’m not even kidding).

Two days later we were driving my mom and stepdad to our humble abode to see their furry grandchildren when my mom reminded me of this whole Facebook PW adding my mom before she adds me as a friend debacle and I started screaming at my mom “YOU BETTER NOT LET HER SEND YOU NUDIE PICTURES! NO NUDIE PICTURES!” to which she sagely responded, “I cannot help who chooses to send me nudie photos, I can only choose to not look at them.” My mom is so smart.

Tonight when I got home from work I had a Facebook request from PW sitting in my Gmail inbox. I promptly added her as a friend as Dawg was walking into the apartment. I greeted him, gave him a minute, then sat down on the couch and proudly announced, “PW added me as a friend today!” to which he screamed “SHE BETTER NOT SEND YOU NUDIE PICS!” to which I sagely responded “I cannot help who chooses to send me nudie photos, I can only choose to not look at them.” And Dawg, too, had the same epiphany I had in the car on Saturday.

And then I went and suggested my mom as a friend to PW on Facebook. So far no one involved in this story has exchanged any nudie photos, to the best of my knowledge. :)

Photos of my Thanksgiving weekend are here and here. Enjoy!