Argh American Healthcare

I chipped a tooth, so I needed a dental appointment. Getting one turned out to be surprisingly easy -- I got in a noon today.

Riding that high, I decided to set up an appointment for Dr. Skull with a PCP. 

That turned out to be a nightmare. It took me three hours and calls to several local doctors before I found one who would just make me a damn appointment (which is a month away). Everyone else wanted me to fill out reams of paperwork, so that they could decide whether to accept him as a patient, and warned me that even if they did accept him, the first appointment would be at least a couple months out.

Oddly, I've been told only places with universal health care/single-payer systems have this sort of problem. How strange!

Snow Pix

Snowy tree at sunrise:

 

Sunrise over the snow:

More pictures here

Wedding Rescheduled

The wedding has been rescheduled for this coming Friday -- a week from today.

Fingers crossed the weather gods don't come at us again.

Snow

We got six or seven inches, I'd guess.

This is from the front door:

Sometimes we keep a road out there, but not today.

Another shot off the back porch:

Wedding Cancel Because of Snow

We're now supposed to get seven inches of snow, so the courthouse is closed.

And then next week, classes start, so it's going to be hard to reschedule for that week.

UGH.

Big Snow

So we have a big snow headed our way. Here's the official forecast:

Five inches here by Friday evening. Since in the South even a tenth of an inch of snow is enough to shut down cities, and since the kid is supposed to get married on Friday afternoon, this is a bit concerning.

The same thing happened when he got top surgery -- a huge snowstorm hit that day. (Five inches then too!) It's like the weather gods don't like trans people or something.

(I'm joking.)

Wedding Bells

Well, there probably won't actually be any bells, since it's a courthouse wedding. But the kid and the boyfriend are getting married on Friday. They want to get married ahead of Trump taking office, so it's been kind of a whirlwind arrangement. (The justice of the peace who is marrying them is also trans!)

He says the funniest part was getting the marriage license. He looks male and the boyfriend, who has just started on T, still looks like a woman, so they appeared to be a straight couple, and they were getting all kinds of "jokes" from the cis people at the courthouse -- "Ooo, last day of freedom!" -- that kind of thing.

"And I was like," the kid said, "I want to get married, what do you mean, are you people okay?"

Anyway, if I can get some pictures, I'll share them here!

First Snow in the New House

 Only about a quarter of an inch and it's already melting, but weather guy says about five inches Thursday night/Friday morning.

Cat Pictures

 Junti on the high up:

This is taken from my writing chair, looking into the kitchen. To the left, you can see through my window to a reflection of the right side of the kitchen.

Here We Go Again

Honestly, do we really need another year?

(Image: Comic by Glauco Villas Boas, updated: A group of people are hiding around the corner from a door marked 2025, one of them gingerly poking it open with a long broom handle.)

New Year's Eve

The kid and the boyfriend came over for New Year's Eve and we ordered Chinese from a pretty good place. I had Triple Joy and pork dumplings, which were delicious. Dr. Skull's Kung Pao chicken was too spicy. The boyfriend's beef and broccoli were not as good as the kind he got at the Chinese food place in his hometown, but then, as he says, they never are. 

We ate and lit the candles and talked and wound the whole thing up before six p.m. That's the kind of party animals we are.

Outside, fireworks are starting. Ugh. I'm probably going to spend the evening reading and be in bed before 10:00. All y'all should all have a happy new year!

Farewell to 2024

The last day of 2024 has arrived. It was a mixed year for me. It may be that 2025 will be better for me personally -- I'm living somewhere better, and nearer my kid, and about to retire, and I have enough money -- but for the nation, almost certainly not. Here's hoping that, in the face of bigotry, spite, and hatred, we can be kind to each other, and resist fascism as effectively as possible.

Meanwhile, my top posts from the year:

January:

Snow Day and Agatha Christie

February:

A rant

March:

Death of my father

Also: Comic

April:

I'm in Clarkesworld

My kid is in graduate school

May:

Meditation on Happiness

June:

Visit to New Orleans

July:

Comic

August:

My Kid Does Art

September:

Ruminations on our "Christian" Nation

October:

In case you forgot 

November:

On Trump's (re)Election

December

We buy a house and move into it

Best Books I Read This Year

These are my favorite books which I read this year, regardless of when they were published, in roughly the order in which I read them:

Getting By in Tligolian, by Roppotucha Greenberg -- I reviewed this for Interzone 297. It's a weird, beautiful book, with time-traveling public transit.

Laurie Frankel, Family Family

Jane Gardam, A Long Way from Verona

Natasha Pulley, Mars House

Aubrey Woods, Bang Bang Bodhisattva. Reviewed for Asimov's, it's a near-future novel about the the current generation's response to the collapse of capitalism, among other things.

John Wiswell, Someone You Can Build a Nest in

Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, Father Time -- nonfiction study of how men affect the babies they're around (or not around). The title means time that fathers spent (or don't spend) with babies. Great book.

Richard Powers, Playground

INSOMNIA

So I'm still having that weird insomnia where I fall asleep fairly quickly like at 9:00 or 10:00, but then I wake up three or four hours later and can't get back to sleep.

Last night I went to bed at 10:00 and woke up at 12:30. I lay in bed for two hours, trying to fall back to sleep, and then just went ahead and got up.

This is no way to run a railroad.

 

Cat Pictures

Junti looking out the window of our new house: