State of the Self - February 2, 2014

Presidents give state of the Union messages, governors do state of the state.  It's only logical that I come out with a state of the self message.  Here goes:

As of January 26, 2014 and for a man in my condition I'm in great shape.  My weight is almost exactly where it should be although it’s not distributed quite the way I'd like.  My blood pressure, pulse, and most other measurements are with normal limits of normal standards.  I do have sporadic sleep apnea, edema of my left leg, bursitis in my left shoulder, peripheral neuropathy in my feet, receding gums, cluttered vision, stiffness in my fingers, GERD, 20% hearing loss.  Oh, and did I mention I have Parkinsons Disease?  That supposedly explains why I can't walk or stand without assistance, freeze while walking or moving my arms, garble my words or speak so softly that you can't hear me anyway, am impotent and slightly incontinent, and have spells when I fall asleep uncontrollably. 

On the other hand I can still safely drive a car under good weather and traffic conditions,

play the piano for congregational singing, cook a simple meal or bake a batch of cookies, can ride a recumbent tricycle 25 to 30 miles at an average speed of 10 mph, chair a patient support group meeting, maintain a small web site, keep the books for a branch of the Friends of the Sacramento Library, and publish a monthly church newsletter.

My chances of dying are only slightly elevated from an average man my age, the elevation coming from swallowing difficulties associated with Parkinsons. With my poor swallowing ability I could easily aspirate food or water into my lungs and drown within minutes.  They tell me that like most people my age I will live for several more years becoming less and less capable and more and more dependent, that my mental functioning will increasingly limit my ability to interact with and enjoy friends and family.  After I am finally, thoroughly, and obnoxiously dependent I will die, probably timing my death for maximum inconvenience for the family.

I had appointments with my GP and with my throat surgeon last Wednesday so this is about as up to date as it gets.

Let's all have a happy year, okay?

The DMV and Me, Part II

in which the author again learns that being good has its rewards...

The DMV & Me

Part II

I might as well admit it right away – this isn’t strictly about me and the DMV this time.  Unlike my first story about the DMV and Me this one has several more characters a part of the drama.  But it’s still “them agin' me”

It started on one of those dark winter evenings that you can only get in the northern half of the state, when the sun decides it can’t support more than half a day’s work and therefore leaves you in the dark before you’ve even started thinking about going home from your job.  We were running late for dinner and picked what has become too often our one-star restaurant S*M’s Club.  Great food as long as you like pizza and great pizza as long as you like cheese, pepperoni, all meat, or all variety.  I can’t even remember if we bought anything of significance that evening.  In fact, at the time we didn’t know anything of significance had happened that evening.

It wasn’t until two days later that one of my grandchildren called my attention to the little slip of paper under the passenger side windshield wiper.  I could tell immediately it wasn’t a flyer for the local church’s crab fest.  It was a note from the county sheriff’s office, parking division.  We had been ticketed for (and I quote) “Disabled Space Parked in Stall Space.”  Turns out to be code for “parking in a handicap spot without displaying proper handicap identification”.  My first thought was “we finally got caught doing what we shouldn’t .  This slap on the wrist will make us more careful.”  My second thought was “holy Cow:  $407!!!!  $407 is NOT a slap on the wrist. I was so mad, I was sick. I simply filed it away and worked on some mindless chore.   Tomorrow would  be soon enough.

The next day I carefully retrieved the ticket to assess the WPR Worst Possible  Result of this deal.   No matter how I counted it, it looked like $407 was the greatest damage.  This was the minimum penalty and we could pay that and forget the whole affair.  But we had to either pay the fine or appeal the ticket within two weeks of the fine would be doubled.  I also considered the minimum damage:$0.  An appeal cost nothing.  I could file it online so that postage wasn’t even a cost.  But again it had to be done within two weeks.  No problem.  It was still less than a week since we parked so carelessly.

Believing still in bureaucracy, I composed an appeal  letter using the logic that we might have forgotten to hang the placard (and they had good photographic proof of that) but since we had a placard we would have taken the spot anyway so we didn’t displace anyone from his/her parking spot.  Carolyn looked it over and made some helpful changes, and I submitted the appeal.  I verified once again that we to EITHER appeal or pay the fine within 2 weeks.  I was even able to go back into their web site and see that the appeal had been received and booked.

Imagine then our surprise a week later when we got notice that we were delinquent in paying the fine and now had a $407 penalty and miscellaneous charges so our bill was now $823.50.  I sat down at the computer and immediately paid the bill.  Yes, we would definitely appeal that but this shouldn’t even have been a question.  Still, I didn’t want to see the bill double each week we were waiting for an appeal to be heard,  Carolyn patted me on the head and said she’d take care of it.  I believed she’d try if she had time but time is a rare commodity for her.

Over the next few days, I checked the website regularly seeing no change.  Then, we received word that our $800 fund transfer had been reversed.  Carolyn said she had called the office but had talked to no one.   She tried to explain the situations in a voice mail message and asked for a return call but it hadn’t happened yet.  The next day she was a little more persistent and finally got word that indeed they had reviewed our case and had reversed the whole thing.  We owed nothing. 

The reviewing officer asked why we didn’t have handicap license plates and we said we thought we had to choose between placard and plate.  The placards were just more versatile.  No, you can have both, he explained.

The visit to the DMV was almost a non-event.  I made an appointment online which minimized waiting time.  The instructions were clear and easy to follow, I had everything ready including removing the old plates.  I did have to laugh at the instructions posted at the entrance to the DMV.  There were three windows to check in at.  They read as follows:

All visitors without appointments All handicap visitors

All visitors must start here

All visitors with appointments Visitors without handicaps

The woman who checked me in explained that I, with a handicap and appointment, was welcome at any of the windows so I may as well use the one with the shortest line. I did but even the longest wasn’t much longer.   The happy ending is that at least for this vehicle, we should never have to worry about forgetting the placard again.