The weather here is glorious: sun, 70º, and so far the thunderstorms have missed us. This is all fortunate, but it appears that a simple fall and painful knee have many ramifications, not least of which is muzzy-headedness from taking enough meds to keep from screaming. They were just OTC anti-inflammatories but they are cumulative and take a while to clear the bloodstream. As it happens, yesterday was a Kafka-esque roundabout of Big Probs.
The first one was that I ran out of one color on my computer printer, which paralyzed the machine. It's not supposed to and didn't do that before, but the latest "up-date" screwed up the programming. That meant I couldn't send letters by mail because the machine wouldn't print and couldn't make JPG's of photos for a young woman on the Oregon Coast. She just discovered from my blog that we're related and wanted to know all about our connection. She's a romantic creature who believes/hopes she has Indian blood. She hasn't realized yet that the woman who is the link between us was -- let's say -- an unloved stepmother. I ordered by email the necessary color and am probably hours away from getting it via Fed Ex.
I had already visited a new doctor to get my diabetes meds under control -- no new diagnosis, just dealing with aging mostly. I didn't tell him about my later fall, because what could he do? Anyway, I can't drive until my knee heals and he only has office hours in Conrad W-Th-F, which is better than one day a week in Valier for previous doctors.
Nevertheless, I began to get demands and bills from the new doc's bookkeepers and from confused bookkeepers between the two providers, because my new doc is their old doc who is now with a different practice. I had a card for meds, but none for the plan that serves doctors and hospitals (where I had an x-ray). Since they habitually demand and record that card, they just got cross.
So I set out on a telephone adventure, trying to understand. I found out all sorts of things. One is that they can't call me back nor email me because I have a security plan in place. This is not MY security plan but that of the service provider. I guess. Nor is there any way to tell me why I don't get a response -- just an echoing silence.
Everything hinges on a mysterious new card I'm supposed to get in the mail, except that it doesn't come. They say they have a year to get around to it. I'm supposed to apply to "create an account" but I can't because I don't have this powerful card. It's Catch 22 everywhere you go. They want to know my cell phone number, but I don't have a cell phone. We didn't even have a service cell in this small town until a couple of years ago. Half of the "helpers" are using my physical address and half are using my PO box number. None want to change.
Have I said that most of the people I tried to talk to were Deep South or Mexican with strong accents and speak at the speed of teenagers, which to me is unintelligible? I LIKE those people, but on the phone they all sound like blurred announcers on the bad speakers in the Chicago El. I don't even follow the jargon. Plan A is hospital, Plan B is doctors, Plan D is meds -- what the heck is Plan C? And then they want to know whether I have Plan F.
To give myself a bit of a rest, I go to another problem: I got a letter saying I hadn't paid the last part of my county property tax, a little over thirty dollars. I remember paying it. I tried calling the treasurer and the actual physical phone would NOT call that office. Nor can I drive down there. They threaten that they will auction off my house. I called the operator who told me (I think -- she also had an accent) to report the difficulty to another number. It wouldn't work.
My phone company is a co-op run by older rural men. To them, I think, phones are still an innovation and the Internet is just some kid game. The system is in the middle of some kind of upgrade, which costs me ten dollars more per month. But for THEM, it is cheaper because it is electronic. I've insisted on copper landline because it will survive both electricity failure (which is rather frequent) and fallen satellites. This weekend there was a fire not far away and the electronic notifying gizmo would not call the firefighters. Some women with shovels put the fire out.
Today the phone works and the clerk was reached. She's supposed to call me back. So far, no phone call. I called again and got a mysterious code. Called again and got the Treasurer's Office, but she couldn't figure out the problem. I'll just put a second check in the mail so they don't come carry my house away.
Paranoia is strong. A lot of Russians and Chinese read my blog, according to Clustrmaps. Am I suspected of being a foreign spy? Or is it just the usual screwups of the Valier phone system? Or am I only suspecting that the wretched Trump (whom people here think is "great") has me in his sights? The people whom I would have consulted about all this -- or at least discussed and commiserated -- are all dead of old age. The young ones can't understand what I'm talking about or why I would talk about this stuff with anyone. Politics is something on TV -- not real. Dirty, to be avoided. They're all crooks. It's broken and can't be fixed.
The town is eerily quiet. The people across the street are selling -- that's two houses, since they rent out one. The people across the alley have all gone fishing. (They complain a little that the cats visit them often -- which is a problem because their dog kills cats.) Last night there was another outbreak of yelling, smashing, crying somewhere. I don't know where exactly. I didn't go to see.
This is like living back in Portland on NE 15th where the cops at that time always traveled in pairs of officers, sometimes in pairs of squad cars. Yet Valier is considered pretty and safe. Maybe I'll feel more like it is when my needed toner color shows up. Epson is trying to force me to buy a new machine with a better toner supply. These problems are not local.
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