Thursday, December 4, 2014

Birds, Bullshit, Sunshine, and Santa

It's a beautiful day full of birds and sunshine here in Pillville. The buffleheads are buffle-ing. the hummingbirds are hummering. My mother's bruises are transforming from purple to green. She's busily pinning out her snowflakes and starching them.

Bufflehead ducks wintering here from the far north
Hummingbird at our kitchen window
The one-armed snowflake maker at work
I see the same look of concentration here in Vermeer's famous painting The Lacemaker
And me? In just a bit the nurse who does the intake for the caregiving agency will arrive. Better than Santa and his eight tiny reindeer, if you ask me. I spent all morning trying to log into my mom's credit union accounts--let's just shorten that story and let me say that experience made big banks look really, really good. It took weeks for one of credit unions to really fess up that the problem was on their end. They had to add my i.p. address so I could log on. Whaaaat? And the other lost the Power of Attorney paperwork and would not speak to me since my mom could not understand the person on the phone who was hell-bent on verifying her identity. Oops. I didn't make the story short, did I? But I feel better now. Thanks.

And I'd like to feel even better, so let me just remind the great Interwebs and everyone out there that here under the GREATEST HEALTHCARE SYSTEM IN THE WORLD (cough, cough)  Medicare does not cover dental work, eye glasses, hearing aids, or custodial care. I feel fabulous now. Thanks.

My antidote to that bullshit is going to be Christmas lights. Everywhere.

3 comments:

37paddington said...

Glad your mom is on the mend. I wish the caregiving realities you report were more surprising.

Ms. Moon said...

That picture of your mother tells me exactly why you are as persistent as you are.
Rage against the machine, Denise. Don't stop.

Allison said...

All financial institutions can just be the spawn of Satan. When my mother in law was alive, we had to take care of all of her money and it was just hell on earth to get anything done. Recently we've learned just how little a POA actually means to a bank, and the federal government will not recognize them at all. Trusts or joint accounts will help a lot.